Thursday, January 08, 2009

Evil: Time to take a stand against Sri Lankan fascist regimes

'All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing'.

Today is a sad day in Sri Lankan history. It is an important day in its history. We have had many an important days in our history however on hindsight, I can only see bad choices, greed, power hungry morons and their decisions that have led us to today. The Sri Lankan Media Ministry was taken under the 'wings' of our President on the 1st of January 2009.

Since then, (a mere 8 days) a gang of 20 armed militants have entered the premises of one of the major independent television networks and set it on fire with the ambition of silencing them. A mere two days after this attack whilst the criticism was still pouring in, one of the key journalists in this country have been gunned down in broad daylight by a gang of 8 bikers. 

What is their common thread? They say things as it is. They report to the people what others fear to do. Lasantha Wickramatunga has time and time again put his life in danger to bring to us what the rest of the media institutions tried to hide. He has built one of the finest investigative journalism units in the country. True, he too has faltered during his career, sometimes bordering on slander and stepping on many a toe, however, it is the fundamental right of a citizen of a democracy to be able to express their views. It is a fundamental right for the truth to be told. 

Lasantha was murdered for allowing us this right. 

The current situation in the country is unacceptable. 

'All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing'. 

We see evil, we see its face, we see its siblings, we see its actions yet we are too afraid to speak up. But we must. Evil throughout the ages has always been brought down by brave people, courageous people time and time again standing up for what is right and what they believe in. This country has gone through turbulent times however we had hope. We had people we could look to as alternative leaders. We had Gamini Dissanayake, we had Lalith Athulathmudali, Ossi Abeygunasekera, Vijay Kumaratunga, R. Premadasa, J.R. Jayawardena, Chandrika Bandaranaike and countless others.

The last three proved to be tyrants themselves however when they reached power they brought with them that glimmer of hope. They had fought against injustices. Who do we have at this moment who will fight against the injustice that is a corrupt government terrorising its own people under the veil of a war? 

Kilinochchi is time and time again utilised as a veil to deflect the sentiments of an emotional public. A reason to commit atrocities that noone can stand upto. We are definitely on the path that Zimbabwe was on aa while back. There is only one way to ensure we do not end up in the same place.

We must stop being apathetic. We MUST take a stand. We must fight.

Postnote: I wasn't going to publish this. It scares me to publish this. But that would mean Lasantha Wickramatunga and countless others would have died in vain. And we cannot have that. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's good at least you posted it. Every one is living their happy lives ignoring the hard reality because it is easy to live that way.

Scrumps said...

I think it's an excellent post. One of the best I've seen on the SL blogosphere (IMHO). You should write more often!

Rine said...

Thanks both! Unfortunately I seem to only get inspired to write at these terrifying junctures. :(

Anonymous said...

Thank you for writing what many feel. You have captured it in a nutshell - good people must act - apathy aids the evil. Injustice can be corrected if every good individual take responsible action with care.