And some tears cannot go uncommented...
A few years ago, when I was associated with the National Movement
Against Terrorism (NMAT), I helped put together a booklet about media
representation of the conflict. The title was 'Some tears are not
newsworthy'. It spoke to inequality and privileging apparent in how the
unfolding events were being portrayed in certain sections of the media,
both local and foreign.
The book focused on the shameless downplaying and even non-mention of
atrocities perpetrated by the LTTE. It was wryly observed that people
generally misname terrorist as rebel if the theatre of operation is in
any country other than one's own. The complicity of certain sections of
the foreign media in the terrorist project was apparent even back then,
i.e. long before Channel 4 became the post-war Voice of Tigers, so to
speak.
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Isaipriya in civil attire (left) and
in Tiger uniform. Picture courtesy: Google |
It was all about who was crying and over what. Reading former
President, Chandrika Kumaratunga's recounting of a phone conversation
with her son Vimukthi, brought it all back to me. Vimukthi is reported
to have wept after watching the Channel 4 production about the last days
of the mission to rid the country of terrorism and to rescue an
unprecedented number (close to 300,000) of people held hostage by the
world's most ruthless terrorist organization, the LTTE. He has
apparently said that he is ashamed to be a Sinhalese. His tears and
words were newsworthy because he's an ex-President's son and of course
because these things can be used to frill the tall stories that the LTTE
rump led by that terrorist in a cassock, S.J. Emmanuel is getting the
likes of Channel 4 to tell the world.
I felt sorry for Vimukthi. Honestly. And I felt sorry for his mother
too.
As I said, 'Killing Fields - Sri Lanka' was a production. A good one
too. There is clever juxtaposition of image, footage, commentary and
music. There is careful editing out of available footage.
Channel 4
For example, the fact that one of the 'stars' of the show, Issipriya,
is portrayed as a heart-and-soul journalist cum musician, even though
Channel 4 has previously aired footage where this 'lady' is described as
one who glorifies suicide bombers and therefore clearly a recruiter of
terrorists. Channel 4 spouts numbers but is crafty enough to keep
context out, making sure that the viewer is left without enough
information to work out the relevant math.
There is use of clearly tainted witnesses who have been caught lying
before and have several axes to grind. There's scandalous glossing over
of the LTTE's considerable curriculum vitae, not just in ethnic
cleansing and other crimes against humanity but mock-up videos, use of
military fatigues robbed from captured and killed members of the Sri
Lankan security forces and other productions designed for the gullible
and of course the complicit.
Average viewer
Every story is a lie and a good liar can tell a good story. Channel 4
is an excellent story teller and I wouldn't blame the average viewer for
believing that Channel 4 had a true story to tell. Vimukthi, though is
not your average ill-informed viewer, absorbing image and claim about a
foreign context he has no clue about. And his mother, as an ex-President
ought to know better than to play sucker to mal-intention.
For all this, I believe Vimukthi's tears are honest. The boy is
ignorant and probably good-hearted. Forgivable. Kumaratunga is no
innocent abroad, though.
She's smart enough to know about media spin. She's supposed to have a
degree in the social sciences and even though it must be several decades
since she last visited a university library or listened to a lecture on
research methodologies, it is hard to believe that she knows zilch about
things like reliability and verification. She's done enough spin in her
day to give Muttiah Muralitharan a run for his money. And she's been
happy witness to mass scale electoral fraud during her tenure to know
that 1 plus 1 adds up to 2 and not 11, as Channel 4 might want us to
believe.
When I think of Kumaratunga, I remember the opening song of the
musical Evita where Ernesto Che Guevara, mocking the pomp, pageantry and
outpouring of grief at Eva Peron's funeral claims, 'She did nothing for
years!' That's only part-memory of the ex-president, though. She did a
lot too and much of it unforgettable in a forgettable kind of way if you
know what I mean. And I am not only talking about the Wayamba Provincial
Council election.
It was during her tenure after all that Eelam-speak was heard
loudest. Indeed among her nearest and dearest were unapologetic
champions of separatism. Her commitment to peace was amply demonstrated
by the amazing twinning of the occasionally visible military offensive
and the round-the-clock vilification of the military and vociferous
chorusing of the line 'the LTTE cannot be militarily defeated'. She
invited Norway to broker an agreement with a terrorist who had vowed to
divide the country. Should I say more?
Tsunami affected people
Vimukthi is a Sinhalese. So too his mother. By name and mother
tongue. Did the Sinhalese, as a community, ever sanction atrocity? By
the same token, has either mother or son ever claimed to be proud to be
a Sinhalese for some random act by some Sinhalese (verifiable and
without a shadow of doubt hanging over it) such as sending food and
medicine to the tsunami affected brethren among the Tamils or
volunteering to help those who had been rescued by the Army in the first
few months of the year 2009? Vimukthi-style embarrassment would make
every single person on this earth ashamed of his/her community for all
communities contain despicable people doing shameless things. Indeed, he
need not have waited for Channel 4 to air its LTTE-spin to be ashamed of
his race.
Vimukthi and his mother are Sinhalese. By name. They don't make me
embarrassed to be a Sinhalese. They only evoke pith. Infinite pity. May
they both be blessed by the Noble Triple Gem and someday be endowed with
the wisdom to navigate the regions of avidya (ignorance or delusion).
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