“People who cannot find their way out of history are lost, and so are their nations”.
Elias Canetti (The Human Province)
Elias Canetti (The Human Province)
By Tisaranee Gunasekara
May, according to the government, is the ‘Month of War-Heroes’.May began with a soldier killing another soldier and turning the gun on himself. Days later a navy-man committed suicide after shooting a female colleague. The latest murder-suicide incident is the third in three months.
On Sinhala and Tamil New Year’s Day, in Galle, a soldier on leave assaulted a Tamil youth for not calling him ‘sir’; that incident ended with nine Tamil houses being looted and burnt.
These violent outbursts are indicative of a serious psychological malaise plaguing the armed forces. We can afford to ignore these signs of painful discontent turning into raging despair only at our collective peril.
A deadly gap between hype and reality is a staple of Rajapaksa-governance.
There is the idea of the ‘war-hero’ and there is the reality. The veneration accorded to the abstract notion is in stark contrast to the manner in which the concrete is treated.
