Patriotism and national pride redefined - EDITORIAL

31 December 2014 04:38 am - 0 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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any Sri Lankan politicians seem to suffer from a conspiracy phobia and view everything against them or not in line with their thinking as a conspiracy. This malady surfaces especially during elections.

Before former Health Minister and SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena joined the Opposition to contest the presidential election it was highly rumoured that Opposition United National Party (UNP) Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would be the Opposition’s choice for the presidential race and the ruling party accordingly put forward a conspiracy theory. They alleged that in October the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck down anti-terrorism sanctions imposed on the LTTE by the European Union after the recent visit by Wickremesinghe to Europe where he is purported to have met the Tamil diaspora.

This is a serious allegation because if proved true it is tantamount to a crime. But these so-called patriots in the ruling coalition were so serious about their own allegation that they forgot about it within days. When Maithripala Sirisena announced his presidential candidature on November 21, the ruling UPFA lost no time to announce their second conspiracy theory. On the very next day they convened a media conference to say that they had discovered that the Opposition fielding Maithripala as the common opposition candidate was a conspiracy and interestingly this time it was a Western conspiracy.

This allegation too is of a serious nature when taking into account the regime changes carried out by the West in countries which do not sell their national assets such as land and oil to Western investors. But ludicrously or pathetically the ruling coalition soon forgot that allegation as well.

The third conspiracy theory that had anything to do with the presidential election was put forward by none other than the former UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake while announcing the reasons for his crossover to the ruling coalition on December 8. Attanayake, who represented a party that had been repeatedly accused of having conspired with the LTTE, said he relinquish his erstwhile party because of a secret pact, a conspiracy between the common opposition candidate and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

That theory too was forgotten within days despite its seriousness. Then the ruling coalition picked up a fourth conspiracy and this time too it was presented as a disclosure by Attanayake. He said there is an agreement between Maithripala and Ranil to pull out half of the troops stationed in the North and that the high security zones in the North would be dismantled, a war crime probe would be allowed and about other highly sensitive matters. He could have said that these terms had been included in the purported agreement between Maithripala and the TNA and not in the one between him and Wickremesinghe
The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe agreement, which Attanayake presented with “documentary proof”, should be so serious, if acceptable, to the media that all newspapers on the next day should have carried it as their front page lead story. But even some mainstream state media did not carry it the next day even in their inside pages. Only three out of some more than fifteen newspapers in all three national languages in the country had thought it fit to carry it in their front page. That theory has also been consigned to the trash bin.

Thus the significance and the solemnity given to these conspiracy theories speak volumes not only of the authenticity of these theories but also of the genuineness of the values such as patriotism proclaimed by the movers. It is now clear that these conspiracy theorists are using or misusing the values such as patriotism and national pride for electoral gains which should be condemned.

The apparent hollowness of these utterances of patriotism and national pride by politicians, the shabby treatment meted out to those real war heroes who are not in one’s political fold and the rapidity of crossovers by politicians to either side without the least consideration of what they had told about the other side thus far would compel the people to redefine the terms like patriotism and national pride afresh.

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Patriotism and national pride redefined - EDITORIAL

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