Mr. President; Give Me Back My Country

| by NILANTHA ILANGAMUWA

( April 17, 2014, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) When human beings refuse to be malignant, cunning, ulterior, reprehensible, sinister, vicious and felonious we can achieve great things together. We fought for years to find those assumptions on the ground. We articulated ideology to adopt and changed the attitudes that we have been living with for years. The concepts are the result of the origins of imagination and experience. That is how the normative and universal struggle began. To some extent we won the battle, but the old evil remained to shatter our dreams. The origins of the state, and the system of good governance were given some sort of hope to breathe for those who fought for the hard won freedom.

We ran out through the blood bath to achieve the norms of humanity. Everybody needs respects and dignity, all need freedom. Freedom to work, walk and talk. All folks were born in a same manner though the external conditions can be difference. They all had mothers, with or without a legal father. We were all born under the same sky. We all started our life with a cry when we came out of the womb. In this commonality, the land we belong is ours. All have desires to have equal access to public resources. What of the idea that the state cannot, fulfill these realities? What if a single man caused the deterioration of all norms of the state?

Who is going to strengthen this very idea of freedom for mankind? Who is going to find the real robber of the land? Who is going to punish that robber in a genuine criminal justice procedure? Which judge has the spine to take out the real ogre? Is there no shame in accepting orders that you know better than anyone else, are the devastative orders you have been asked to implement? How many times have you been ordered to put innocents behind bars while the actual perpetrators are robbing citizens of the little humanity they have left? Is this justice? Is this the idea of state? How many of you have courage to stand up against your nihilistic decisions you made and correct them, at least from now onwards?

What is tragic about life today is our tendency to avoid the really painful political behaviour, and our loss of collectiveness against inhibition. We are able to see what we must do. However, by failing to do so we are engaging in activities that can be boomerang on us tomorrow.

Mr. President, you have seen all this throughout the history of the country. It did not start the day you killed unarmed civilians to win the election in your constituency, but even when you were a kid you experienced the unjustness your forefathers were engaged in; isn’t that so? Rather than correcting injustices when you were able you feloniously avoided doing so as the status quo suited your own special needs.

I was taught that when a robber engages in his first robbery his conscience is pumping and urging him to stop. But for those who do not listen to the voice of conscience reach that inhuman stage so that the second time your innocence has evaporated and been replaced with the courage to rob. You well understand this thematic cultural behaviour and therefore you learn how to rob well. Then it becomes second nature to continue until the entire country is being robbed by one or another of your clan.

You must be very much happy by seeing hundreds of your clan playing with a power which places them above the law. But perhaps your happiness is equal to your real fear because of the curse that has befallen tyrants like yourself in the past. Now you have not only stolen but also paralyzed the very idea of the state by installing puppets who are happy even to lick your dirty shoes. You changed the law in order to your will. You spread lies in order to support your personnel desires; you order the killing of men, women and children in order to justify your animalistic behaviour. And during all of this mayhem you claim to be a Buddhist. This is not a matter for laughter but a dangerous precedent in our society.

Mr. President, not only are you disastrous for the land, you are the man who must be held responsible for all the sins of the cowards, the cowards who were fooled into electing you as president. When a man attains well-deserved power his or her well behaviour matters. But neither you nor anyone else in this country, behave as human being. Once you killed people in the name of the crackdown on terrorism, then you and your clan ordered the killing of people who protested for their right to natural drinking water. This is the country and those are the very people who installed you at the top, and made your family the so-called, “first family”, in the country.

Mr. President, it is time for you to give me back my country. You can either continue to make fools of the people who elected a tyrant like you or let the country rise phoenix-like from the ashes. You are the man who is robbed the nation of its humanity. You have no right to remain, and you are cursed by the natural laws. Mr. President; give me back my country. Allow people to have their humanity. If you do not do this, history will never absolve you!

Writer’s email : ilangamuwa@gmail.com