I Know This Is The “Miracle Of Asia, But ….
Emil van der Poorten
To complete the title of this column, let me add “is it also the land where suspension of disbelief is absolute?”
The journalists, in the English media at least, have been uttering platitudes that would justify their inclusion in one of the “Forums” of self-righteousness that seem to be so accepted in middle-class Colombo, Sri Lanka where the word “hypocrisy” appears to have disappeared from the Oxford English dictionary.
What has provoked my outburst? All the discussion and debate, if I might debase those two words in applying them to what has transpired recently in Sri Lanka: the Nonis/Vass Gunawardena brawl and His Excellency, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s, most recent audience with the Pope. The former event leading up to the latter and to be followed by the arrival of Pope Francis.
The behaviour of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church in giving its blessings to the most corrupt and violent government in Sri Lanka’s history is viewed as something of an aberration and deserving of investigation to arrive at the “real truth.”
“Stuff and nonsense” would be the appropriate response that any right-thinking person with even a smattering of historical knowledge would bring to this arrant rubbish.
