Aberrations of a few and the credibility of many

"From the late nineteen nineties, when the independence of Sri Lanka’s judiciary came increasingly under attack, this was not perceived to be of much concern, as has been repeatedly referred to in these column spaces. When a middle aged teacher of English was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment by Sri Lanka’s former Chief Justice SN Silva for speaking loudly in court when pursuing relief in his application in a mundane employment matter, not a single voice of protest was issued from Colombo."

by Kishali Pinto Jayawardene

(April 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Newspapers and non-governmental institutions, among others, run largely on their own credibility. Where newspapers are concerned, it is well understood that matter presented as a question of fact in the news pages is viewed quite differently from what is published as opinion or comment, such as in a column. Comments and opinion jostle each other in the ‘marketplace of ideas’, as has been famously said. The public is thereby presented with a variety of opinions with which they may disagree or agree.

Blurring the line between news and comment

The law itself, whether in terms of defamation, contempt or otherwise, reacts very differently to comment as contrasted to what is presented as fact. In the practical sphere of the journalistic world too, good editorial control is assessed by the extent to which differing opinions are allowed to, amicably and with elegant civility, share the same space between the pages of one newspaper. This is what characterizes rational thought, after all. Civility may be a vastly overrated term as a friend remarked recently in quite a different context but one cannot deny that this marks the essential difference between barbarism and a thinking society.

The problem lies however when the lines between fact and comment are deliberately blurred for the purpose of propaganda by the newspapers themselves. So, for example, (and not purely hypothetically in the Sri Lankan context) we could have partisan comment misleadingly packaged as news on the front page of a newspaper.

Or we could have excerpts from partisan submissions of counsel appearing for army or police officers before a Commission of Inquiry, published misleadingly as excerpts from the Commission of Inquiry report while the report itself remains conveniently unpublished. Hence, unenviable dilemmas arise in the public mind as to what manner of information is being ‘packaged’ in the form of news or ‘facts’ as the case may be.

Propaganda and counter propaganda

At yet another level, journalistic invective against individuals perceived to be ‘unpopular’ with the government may be due to the breathtakingly commonsensical fact that a journalist is, in fact, ‘embedded’ or paid by a government to engage in propaganda in the private media. This is quite understandable after all given the fact that the state media demonstrably lacks the basic linguistic skills needed for such a task. And then again we have scurrilous invective of others due to genuinely held albeit clearly racist ideologies combined with a monumental if not sadly lamentable lack of control over the use of language in denigrating others.

In some instances, propaganda attacks are successful. In others they fail miserably due to spirited counter-attacks which expose the true nature of such thinly disguised propaganda. Yet, with each such attempt, whether successful or not, it is the overall credibility of the media that is cast in issue, thereby lessening public support for an independent ‘media’.

Non-governmental organizations then and now

On the other side of the divide, credibility is not an issue limited to the media or journalists alone. In the nineteen eighties and early nineties, non-governmental organizations in Sri Lanka were part of an activist movement that partnered with the media and with academics in improving the quality of society.

Politicians such as Mahinda Rajapaksa and Mangala Samaraweera infiltrated activist organizations such as the Mothers Front of Sri Lanka (a grouping of mothers of disappeared children initially in the South and then, later in the North) precisely for the reason that these organisations had public legitimacy. Assuredly, they would not have wasted their time otherwise.

Later, in the early and mid nineteen nineties, non-governmental organizations continued to be perceived as being well intentioned in pushing for reforms of the country’s democratic processes. Many of them were in the forefront of cases filed in the Supreme Court, which resulted in the Court advancing the frontiers of rights protections in many cases which now form part of this country’s jurisprudence. These precedents have been cited by judges in other Commonwealth countries in support for their views.

Yet, can the same be said of non-governmental organizations now? It must be clearly said that the loss of public relevancy of the non-governmental sector in Sri Lanka today is not due only to the excesses of a zealous government intent on crushing all opposition. Neither is it due to the unseemly ranting and raving of their propaganda hounds, in the state or private media. It is also due to the transformation of the non-governmental sector, (indeed with distasteful speed within the past decade), from being public spirited peoples’ movements to commercialized ventures occupied more in hosting conferences in five star hotels and in the English language on topics as diverse as torture to poverty alleviation and the Rule of Law than for actual involvement with peoples’ issues.

Moral accountability to the people

The question of moral accountability to the people in terms of the work done and the interventions made is quite different to financial accountability to the donors who were funding projects and programmes. And there is no gainsaying the fact that the post 2002 ceasefire period was characterized by a distinct reluctance on the part of some non-governmental organizations to castigate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the intimidation, extortion and worse of the Tamil people under their control in the North and East.

From the late nineteen nineties, when the independence of Sri Lanka’s judiciary came increasingly under attack, this was not perceived to be of much concern, as has been repeatedly referred to in these column spaces. When a middle aged teacher of English was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment by Sri Lanka’s former Chief Justice SN Silva for speaking loudly in court when pursuing relief in his application in a mundane employment matter, not a single voice of protest was issued from Colombo.

The attacks on the 17th Amendment and the undermining of the Constitutional Council from the year 2004 onwards were not resisted with much force either, until valuable time had lapsed. Unbelievable but true, lines appeared to be drawn between Rule of Law issues (not seen as being of much relevance) and humanitarian concerns specifically in issue in the North and East (which were perceived to be most relevant).

The obvious interlinking of the two categories of concern appeared to be bypassed. It seemed as if the non-governmental sector was willingly preparing itself for its dismemberment by the government which in fact, came to be the case, not shortly thereafter.

Ultimate loss to the country

That the government is wrong in selecting non-governmental organizations for selective investigation by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on the basis of the purportedly massive funds that they have received and pursuant to a well oiled propaganda campaign, is obvious and needs no further discussion. If any financial propriety is involved, these inquiries should be handled by the relevant Ministry to which non-governmental organizations report to. Financial probity must surely also be applied to the government itself and CID investigations should also then commence as to how certain roads in the country are literally paved with gold, given the amount of money that has parted company for a few klometres of surface. The legal framework must be improved and implemented properly not only by good bribery and corruption laws but also by a Right to Information Act (RTI) which applies to the government as well as the non-governmental sector.

However, quite apart from the misdeeds of the government, the credibility of the media as well as nongovernmental organizations needs to be secured by its own actions. In the alternative, the aberrations of a few will only rebound adversely on the silent and deserving efforts of many others, to the ultimate loss of the country.