HIGHWAYS AND SIGHS
Yesterday's lead story about two highways racing to a finish
is the kind of newspaper lead we'd like to see, in place of what
used to be the anguished headlines about a terror attack - or
even some kind of constitutional issue, forced no doubt by
circumstances. But there is a habit in the journalistic world
which says that if there are no tear-jerker stories - you create
them.
The latest trend is to pretend that there is a Prabhakaran
lurking somewhere. Either they say 'Prabhakarans are in the
making' or they say 'This government's rule is akin to
Prabhakaran's rule.' It is the surest sign that the whinge-fringe
is missing the bombs and the guns sorely, because there is
nothing substantial these days to attack the regime with.
But the whinge-fringe is quickly losing steam. It can be seen
in the way they regularly exaggerate - for example one website
fringe artiste who says that the lives of certain prominent
people may be under threat, is unable to name anybody whose
lives were in fact under threat recently. Being unable to name
names, these people rely exclusively on the power of the slogan.
Those who gain public sympathy by being perceived as anti-regime
are particularly under threat by the Defence establishment, say
the commentators who are unable to go beyond the fulmination and
finger-pointing to substantiate by adducing facts and figures,
or naming names.
In short, if you cannot give a list of the names of persons
that have been harmed recently - there goes your contention up
in smoke, that there are threats to the lives of people due to
the actions of the Defence establishment, aimed at people 'who
have won public sympathy'.
All that can be said in review is that the media at large
seems to have been almost mortally wounded. The mortal wound
inflicted on the press and the broadcasters was to take away the
one issue around which the regular practitioners of hyperbole
could weave their doomsday scenarios. This of course was the
problem of terror and violence.
There is no such terror to speak of now, so the wounded media
staggers around, looking to terrorize the public with
fly-swatter stories disguised as T 56 tales. Those who are
sympathetic to the government fear for their lives, they say.
And the nominees are - in this category - exactly who? Sunila
Abeysekera? Paikiasothjy Sarvanamuttu? Jehan Perera?
Wickramabahu Karunaratne? But then, all these people who are
allegedly 'fearing for their lives'(!) can be seen either on
Colombo's thoroughfares or the social whirl, gadding about in
gay abandon. Not a cat, as they say around these parts, want to
raise a finger against them.
So that's a fly-swatter story. But, it can be made into a
'T56 story' by sloganizing and putting things in the scariest of
terms such as "This has been the practice of the defence
establishment - to terrorize anti regime activists who won the
sympathy of the people.'' It's in fact these people's wish that
such a thing happens, so that they can begin to whinge about it
with conviction.
Meanwhile, there is a race to complete highways, and there
are programmes for poverty alleviation that double as
development efforts. None of this is grist to the mill of the
pundits, the eggheads and the commentariat in general.
It may be true to some extent that development news does not
have the media 'sex-appeal' of crime, disaster and plain
gun-toting terror. But that does not mean that things at least
cannot be put into something that approximates a proper
perspective. Instead of which, we have a relentless campaign to
vilify slander and blacken, while the fact that those such as
the HSBC's best financial handlers say that Sri Lanka's economic
performance is phenomenal, does not so much as get a look in.
This is ridiculous. In no other country does the cream of the
literate few go to such lengths to obliterate the gains that are
being made as a nation, thereby shooting themselves collectively
in the foot. This is a totally Sri Lankan proclivity.
It's reminiscent of the hoary old yarn about there being
nobody to guard the Sri Lankan quarter in the deep recesses of
hell, because if any individual tries to get out - - the others
will collectively pull him under! But this time, somewhere in
the collective gut the people will not stand for any more of
this arrant nonsense. Optimism will prevail over the negativity
of the whinging horde - and from this newspaper, that is a
promise.
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