President, Non Compos Mentis?
It was a moment of ultimate self-exposure. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s reply to Al
Jazeera-interviewer’s question about anti-minority violence revealed a mindset and a worldview which is not quite lucid: “There were incidents. There were attacks; some incidents. What was in the background? Why were they attacked? Now see a girl was raped. Seven years old girl was raped. Then naturally they will go and attack them whether they belong to any community or any religion. The people when they heard about it they were so upset, relations everybody. There were incidents like that. All incidents have some background to that”[i].
“….the paragon of transgressors, the man who holds nothing sacred and who fearlessly assumes every from of hubris”.- René Girad (Violence and the Sacred)
By Tisaranee Gunasekara -October 3, 2013
