The impact is huge when good clashes with the bad - EDITORIAL

The present government has been tested to the brim these days. The Hulftsdorp Court shooting posed enough questions about security in this country. And much of those questions become ‘provocative’ ones when security is linked with the government and comparisons are made with past regimes. 

This shooting inside a courtroom is also a reality check for the present government. Not very long ago we saw the newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake mingling with people in crowds at book fares and other social gatherings. Now all that has to stop. The president has to stop going and meeting crowds of people; largely from the perspective of security of the people. An average citizen, for his/her bad luck, has to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and he or she could pay with his or her life. This is how England viewed the consequences of an attack on a VVIP like Prince Harry, when the latter was posted in Afghanistan as a part of his military training. When the word leaked out through the media that Harry was in Afghanistan, the security authorities quickly whisked him out, because of the destructive activities of the Taliban. The explanation given by the authorities was ‘we didn’t want to risk the other soldiers by keeping them along with Prince Harry’. This government must also harbor similar thoughts. Civilian lives are precious and unarmed civilians can be so vulnerable when caught in a crossfire or if they are in the thick of an explosion.  

So life hasn’t returned to normalcy even after the conclusion of the civil war and the defeat of the Rajapaksas. Guns are fired at regular intervals and people die in this country despite a fresh start promised by an NPP regime. Given the history of this country, which has suffered invasions, battles and a civil war, the memories made of death and doom cannot be easily erased. Some of the recent happenings in this island underscore the fact that disruptions in civilian lives don’t have a wow factor anymore. 

This is a nation which is ignorant enough to understand that violence in society has a trickledown effect. Enough children of this nation would have seen television footage of the killer, in a lawyer’s attire, set about the crime he committed. This incident gives the message to children that a respected man such as a lawyer, who is dressed in his official attire, might not be a lawyer after all! Children might in the future, not believe every person in uniform. Also adults might not have faith in national security. 

People aren’t foolish enough to run to some of our powerless lawmakers, with a notorious past, and bring them to power again to give a boost to a fragile security. We remember the series of churches that were bombed where some are of the view that this incident immensely helped Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a person with a military background, to become president. But this present shooting incident-despite producing just one casualty- has infused the same doubts in the minds of civilians about the capacity of the present regime in handling security issues of this country. 

The question arises whether we have to accept the religious theory of ‘good’ residing alongside ‘bad’. At one period in a time slot in history, one of these qualities in people will more prominently tower above the other. But good has to defeat or prevail over bad eventually. Dutugemunu defeated Elara, Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated the LTTE tiger rebels and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake defeated several people in that presidential election line-up who can be termed as representatives of ‘evil’. But now the evil forces are staring at Dissanayake. 

There is a problem in our thinking. Most Sri Lankans fancy political leaders with a thug like mentality. We still talk about the heroics of Sir John Kothalawela. Ravana kidnapped the wife of another prince, but we still adore the former despite him being an abductor of women. A country surrounded by the sea cannot have a leader lesser than that of an individual with a warrior like mentality. President Dissanayake is a peaceful and cultured man. He cannot reverse roles and pose as a sheep in wearing a wolf’s clothing. He represents good and he must find a way to defeat the bad.