A Presidency Under Threat – Information Gaps
By Rajiva Wijesinha -October 28, 2014
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP
In my student days I had a great friend who simplified Wittgenstein into the theory that people simply created their own mythology. That was a satirical idea, used about the more obsessive amongst us, but I fear it is the most suitable image for what is now happening in government. And the saddest aspect of such personal mythologies is that those who create them begin to believe them, and become enthralled by their own vision of the world, even if it has no connection with reality.
This phenomenon seems to lie behind some of the confusion that has beset the country in the last few weeks. And it is compounded by what seems the sheer ignorance of government about the information revolution that has taken place in recent times. A simple understanding of the world, as it actually is, would have prevented the efforts to give a positive spin to the President’s meetings with other leaders, while he was in New York. But there were immensely optimistic pronouncements, which came an absolute cropper. This was not only because of the immediate response of the American Government, but also because several news outlets that Sri Lankans read with ease today cited that response.
The manner in which the Americans corrected the spin ‘government sources’ had tried to put on the meeting the President had with John Kerry was pretty shaming. Their spokesman said, about the report that had appeared in a Sri Lankan paper, to the effect that the American position was softening, that ‘The only thing that was right was that the Secretary did speak with the Sri Lankan President on the margins of the UN General Assembly. He did so with the express purpose of conveying that US policy with regard to Sri Lanka has not changed’. In effect, she made it clear that the report had got everything else wrong, so that she was able to assert clearly the opposition of the American Government to what is going on in Sri Lanka. Had we not tried to lie about that, it would not have become known so widely. Read More
