Sri Lankan Parables: 3. The Greatest Product Of Our Own Political Laboratory
Basil Fernando
Mr. Thinking Citizen asked the ruler, “Why don’t you make a law against forced disappearances? It is such a terrible and ugly thing.”
The ruler replied, “You Mr. Thinking Citizen, you make me laugh. You cannot understand what a great political laboratory our Sri Lanka has been and you try to undermine the greatest achievement that has come out of that laboratory?”
Mr. Thinking Citizen asked, “What is that achievement?”
The ruler replied, “It’s our own utopia. Not the one you are educated about. In your utopia, reason is the king or queen. But what we have demonstrated to world is that there is a better way to rule. When every mother or father knows in their hearts that their child is not immune to be counted among the disappeared, we have the key to control the young. When we control the young, we can rule forever. See how we control insurgencies since 1972. Who else has been so successful? We have a lesson for the whole world.”
“What is that lesson?” asked Mr. Thinking Citizen.
“It is that the body is all that there is. No soul, no sprit. See this UN and other pundits come and demand inquiries, prosecutions. When there is nothing to found by way of exhumation, what comes of their demands?” The ruler laughed. “There are no souls to come and tell tales. Only the body tells tales. That is the lesson, you fool, that we have found from the experiments in our own laboratory. Fellows like you do not know how to be proud of our own great achievements.”
Pointing his finger at Mr. Thinking Citizen, the ruler said, “I want to be alive so that I can illustrate the contrast between your utopia and mine. So few of you are around. Others have been dispatched or fled to other worlds… Do not worry, I will let you live, so long as I need you… But don’t take too much liberty, my guarantees are conditional.”
Two previous parables can be found here
