May be ‘Akon’ can teach politicians lessons on being irresponsible

21 March 2024 12:00 am Views - 569

This regime has ignored the calls for change from protest groups for far too long 

Two appointments for top state positions have been challenged; one in a court of law and the other in Parliament. One is the appointment of Deshabandu Tennakoon as Inspector General of Police (IGP), which is challenged in Supreme Court by the Anti-corruption Unit of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. The other is the appointment of politician Rohitha Abegunawardhana as the Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE) Chairman against which Parliamentarian Lakshman Kiriella has tabled a motion of no confidence to the Speaker, citing that the former’s appointment compromises on the integrity of the rest of the members of the COPE. As of now, as many as seven members of the COPE have tendered their resignations in response to Abegunawardhana’s appointment. Now this is a serious turn of events. 

Generally in Sri Lanka, we rarely see any minister or state official tendering their resignation so easily. But here, it seems obvious that these resignations are coming because some straight thinking state officials are standing up for integrity’s sake. In most countries, if a state official makes a career-ruining mistake or has a brush with the law, the individual has little or no chance of making a comeback to the old profession. But here in Sri Lanka, people who commit mistakes or make right royal blunders can easily make a comeback as if there is no dark past associated with them. We have forgotten the brutalities that took place during the Aragalaya (protest) and the corruption charges against some members in the present Parliament. Also, some recent top state appointments have been made in a very controversial manner and the First Citizen of the country seems to convey a response to public outcry in the form of, ‘So what, I do things my way’. 
This is a predominantly Buddhist country. The Buddha has stressed that non-stealing is a must if an individual is serious about being a practising Buddhist. But the citizens of this country- regardless of race or religion- have complained against stealing by certain lawmakers and state officials. People of this country have demanded that our lawmakers give back to the public their tax monies that were looted. There is so much corruption reported in newspapers regarding the top-most institution that deals with supplying electricity to the nation. It is in this backdrop that Abegunawardhana has been appointed- after a vote taking- as COPE Chairman. 
The act of hoodwinking the people is continuing and the only trump card the government is left with and is playing now is that the economy is steady and that essential goods are freely available in the island. This stability is enough for the shrewd and ambitious businessman to cast his vote in favour of whoever is nominated as the presidential candidate for the next election by the ‘political alliance’ which is calling the shots in the political scene at present. 
But the old ‘brigade’ doesn’t seem to be aware of the Buddhist saying that ‘all good products come with an expiry date’. This is so true when one sees the Sri Lankan political set-up where a good amount of the parliamentarians are past retirement age from the perspective of laws pertaining to employment in the state sector. When a count was taken in the year 2020 (August), the youngest parliamentarian was aged 25 and the oldest was 87. There are also parliamentarians who have served this island for over three decades and contributed nothing to the country. 
The people desperate to hold on to power are spreading the thought that there are some individuals who are attempting to hinder the progress of the country and revert it to the old unstable condition it was once in. There is another school of thought that even if there is a victory for the oppressed people of this country at the next elections, the transition of power to the ‘winners’ won’t be smooth, or in other words, won’t be easy. Parliamentarian and National People’s Power representative Dr. Harini Amarasuriya has been quoted in the media stating that ‘a small group is doing everything within its power to stop change (political change) from happening’. The call to end the ‘era of irresponsibility’ is loud and the people of this country, the security forces and the clergy must heed this call.  
The obstacle standing in the way of change in this county is the majority being ‘uneducated’. The ill-informed and bigoted individuals can still make a person unsuitable for politics and leadership when electing the leader of their ‘community’. People rebelled against the lawmakers who were corrupt and forced a president and prime minister to resign in this country. But sadly those who once rebelled in the past might be short of numbers if they were to rebel against bigoted individuals, who still believe in old family politics, past loyalties and perks that are promised. 

We have twelve poya days in the calendar and religious sermons 24x7, but sadly see no one with a backbone to call the corrupt politician a ‘thief’. Sensitive Sri Lanka once irrupted in anger after seeing an obscene scene in a music video featuring Akon (Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam) because there were glimpses of the Buddha in a section of this artistic creation where there were also semi nude females dancing. His show to Sri Lanka was cancelled as a result. But it’s the same country and its people who tolerate stealing by lawmakers. Award-winning film actress Dilhani Asokamala Ekanayake featuring in a youtube interview has said that people must retire when they are at their peak and when the surrounding is beautiful. The backdrop against the present lawmakers is nowhere near being beautiful. The era of being irresponsible that they ushered in is rotting. If not having brains is bad enough, not having a ‘nose’ can be terrible.