Rajpal is afflicted with amnesia or selective memory

by Pearl Thevanayagam

(December 16, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Dear Mr Abeynaike,

I know you are a very seasoned journalist and you have the intellect to discern when someone is telling the truth or not. But when you said, “ A dozen or so journalists may have got beaten up (and some killed) during the war, but the fact remains that there are much deeper-going traditions of freedom of expression in our political culture than in the idolized political culture of the West that is held out to us as example,” my first reaction was that either you were not compos mentis or you had imbibed a bit too much of the season’s cheer.

Over 38 journlists were killed in cold blood since 1990 by the government. No western democracy ever killed their journalists.

Then you proceed with, “It’s all the more reason that we cling to our own long-held traditions of freedom of expression without letting a mob led by some half baked parliamentarians mess with our rights to ideas by enthroning mob rule in parliament and elsewhere.”

I hope you were in jester mode and not at all serious. Remember JVP uprising against the SLFP on April 05, 1971. Those were your brethern from the South; some of them could your blood relatives since you too hailed from the South which bred some of the most respected intellectuals and liberals. Over 50,000 Sinhala youth were murdered for insurgency. Is this what you call democracy and freedom of expression?

Since you are a full-blooded Sinhalese from the South I understand your sentiments but I hope you will take off those sunshades of prejudice and subservience to the Mahinda royalty. It is indeed hard to let go of the only thing that matters to the Sinhalese; that there is only one Sinhalese nation in the whole wide world and you need to preserve your 2,500 year old heritage although you too are a desendent of the Indian maverick prince Viyaja; basically a never-do-well rapist, philanderer and overall criminal whom even his own father could not stand and set him adrift with his fellow criminals afloat on the Indian Ocean to fend for himself.

Tradition dies hard and genes do pass on to generations and the Mahinda dynasty is carrying on the Viyaja tradition of intimidation, looting and carrying on as though parliament and its offices are his personal fiefdom.

But I had hoped that with your soul enlightened and education abroad you would transcend prejudices and exert your journalistic integrity. But alas, you have a grudge against the West. The West in your eyes is everything evil although your own eleoquence and acquirements in the field of journalism is thanks to your stint in the West; mostly US I believe.

I do understand those nationalists who never ventured abroad and who still believe colonisers starting from the Arabs to the British chose to deprive them of their kingdoms and Buddhism and instead propagated Chritianity and Islam with their debauchery of eating animal flesh and drinking alcohol.

SWRD, even though he discarded suits for national garb, still would attend horse races aka the British tradition and his bogus Sinhala Only cry a canard to hoodwink Sinhala votes. An we all know what price he paid by his very own pal Buddha Rakita Thero, a dear friend who according to a departed journalists would make himself comfortable with his saffron robe askew and seated in Sirimavo’s sitting room sofa with a whisky in his hand.

I am straying here. But truly Rajpal, I feel for you. I do not want you to become another Dayan Jayetilleke. You have so much potential and you are still in the prime of life and I do care that journalists like you should not become pawns in the hands of the powers that be.

So could I plead with you to exercise your journalistic integrity (what is left) in your future missives?

Click here to read Rajpal's column on this week.