Cyberbullying and the bond boondoggle

Tuesday, 14 November 2017

This essay is about cyberbullying or cyber defaming that President Maithripala

Sirisena recently alluded to at the memorial event for Venerable Maduluwaee
Sobhitha Thero.

The picture, with its insightful text, is a cultural production of our current social,
political spheres. The writer received it on something called WhatsApp installed
on the tab by a daughter determined to expose her father to digital literacy and
feel and touch technology. A technology that has made a new world where earlier
values are no longer taken for granted.

This picture is an eloquent expression of our present popular zeitgeist. President

Maithripala Sirisena, at the second death anniversary of venerable Maduluwawe
Sobhitha Thero, informed us that a small faction within the Government has
unleashed a campaign of cyberspace calumny against him. This miniscule faction
is enraged over the appointing of the Presidential Commission probing the bond
scam in the Central Bank.

Additionally, the President said something significant. It has not received the
accent and emphasis it deserves. In his indignant exasperation he said that this
bond atrocity was committed within the first three months of his swearing-in as
the new President at the Independence Square.

Therein hangs the tale of a miserable journey of three years. A convoluted

crossing that did not approach even a semblance of a disposition towards a just
society or good governance.

This picture was sent to this writer by a CEO of a listed public company. The writer
was suitably impressed that the Sinhala idiom had registered with that otherwise
dense mind indifferent to what is called the pulse of the people. By forwarding
the picture he was mocking this writers pronounced partiality to this dull-witted
consensual coalition that replaced the Mahinda monolith.

President Sirisena must realise that the 6,217,162 votes he polled had two
principal components. Those who seriously wanted a just society and good
governance and those who wanted Mahinda Rajapaksa evicted for them to
bundle the boodle.

President Sirisena cannot do what the Sinhala Sangha seems to be doing with
great lan running with the spiritual hare and hunting with the political hound.
They are successful because they promise to deliver in the next world.
Deliver here and now

You, Mr. President, are in a different ball game. You cannot run with the good
governance hare while hunting with the pack of wolves who ravaged and hocked
the land in cahoots with the Rajapaksas.

Take Susil Premajayanth. His heart is with Mahinda. His derrire is glued to his
seat in the Cabinet. His brainpan is in New Jersey. We have forgotten the rotten
petrol that ruined vehicles during his watch. Thanks to Ranils bond boondoggle,
he waxes eloquent on process integrity in governance. W.D.J Seneviratne under
whose watch as Minister of Justice court records evaporated is another ditto.

Mr. President, you are expected to deliver here and now and in the next two
years. You were elected to unite the country and not to unite the SLFP. Uniting
the SLFP under your leadership is desirable. Yet, it is not the top priority in the
next two years.

Your Prime Minister is damaged beyond repair. He has lost believability the
imperative of political leadership. He may or may not have been wise to the bond
boondoggle. The term boondoggle is the appropriate term an unnecessary,
wasteful, fraudulent project. [Oxford Concise 10th edition]

That said, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe singlehandedly and unilaterally

installed Arjun Mahendran as Governor of the Central Bank. At the first whiff of
scandal, he put a process in place to bury it and bury it deep.

What it did achieve however is different. It demonstrated the resilience of an

involved, unfettered civil society and the ingrained decency of a core cadre of
professionals in the Central Bank, who helped lift the shroud the Prime Ministers
three-member lawyers committee attempted to cover it with.

Professor Sarath Wijesuriya now leads the Movement for a Just Society to keep
the Sobhitha Idea alive. At the recent second anniversary of the passing of the
monk and saintly savant, he informed the President that the Minister of Law and
Order impeded investigations and protected wrongdoers. The President agreed.
He assured the good professor, who now leads the movement to keep the
Sobhitha Idea of a just society afloat, that he would raise both hands in support
of his proposition.

That raises a consequential dubiety a state of doubt. The President has agreed
with the good Professors opinion of the Minister of Law and Order. It also
happens to be the popular perception of those privy to the doings in Temple
Trees.

Surely, the President should know that the Minister of Law and Order
is also the Chief of Staff of the Prime Ministers Office. Why blame the monkey?
The organ grinder is obvious to any dumbo who can spell Royal College.

Surely, the President should know how the Prime Minister has made it comfy for
the politically-tarnished former Minister of Finance. Before the President can say
bond, he can now hop from his penthouse to his office in Temple Trees!

We need a new constitution. That said, political horse trading will not produce a
principled constitution. Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai tried in Zimbabwe.
This is Mahavamsa land, not bush country.

The only positive seems to be that our James Jayampathi Madison has got
himself a duty free four-wheel drive which he is alleged to have disposed. This
writer can only wish Godspeed to him to ride with his boodle, in to what Leon
Trotsky described as that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will
become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the
boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!

A long way since

those dark days

The President must not listen to advisors who may tell him that the internet can
be contained. Gotabaya tried it and failed. We have now come a long way since
those dark days.

A website has been blocked. It is also reported that the measure has been taken
on a court order. Unless the Government sets up an office of the internet as in
China, it cannot be done. China is a one-party state. Xi Jinping has been
consecrated as Chinas most powerful leader since Mao. His political thoughts and
his name have been incorporated in the Chinese Communist partys constitution.

We rejected the Mahinda Chinthanaya which was our de-facto constitution for
10 years, thanks to two people Velupillai Prabhkaran and Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Mahinda now rides bicycles. In power he was riding many things desirable but not
on two wheels. He is not a deliberate villain. He relied on his brothers for villainy.
Give the man a break.

This is not about right and wrong in reporting news, making commentaries or
expressing opinions. This is about exponential changes that have turned the world
topsy-turvy making the virtual and real indistinguishable. There is an irony in this.
Politicians in the past hid the real and got away with the virtual. It is now their
turn to be paid in the same coin.

Cyber humour and social media

The choice of a lorry that is kota uda is either an elitist aberration or an

authentic satirical device. It conveys a powerful message. Can the President
deliver? The President promised good governance and a path to a just society.
The Prime Minister promised a million jobs to the youth and has given jobs to
young Paskeralingam, a younger Charitha Ratwatte, and hip-hop young pony-
tailed Saman Athauda whose ITN TV did not telecast the full proceedings of the
event that brought the Yahapalana regime to a vital crossroad.

Director of the Institute of Behavioural Science and Professor of Psychology of

Singapore Management University David Chan explains why cyber humour is
infectious. Cyber jokes go viral because they are incredibly creative, incisively
sarcastic and people are amused with something funny. The first impulse then, is
tap the machine and forward it to another.

Popular humour should not be dismissed as an irritant. It should be regarded for

what it is a signal emanating from the people, a sharp expression of public
sentiment.

The innate strength of social media is its strong connectivity among users. With
social media, it is easier than ever to share news, focus on social issue, and
exchange opinions in real time to with a massive audience. Internet anonymity
should be discouraged by ignoring it. Banning, brings it to focus, driving the
curious to reach for proxy servers. Social media does not circumvent censorship.
Social media subverts censorship.
Posted by Thavam