‘Yahapalanaya’ and ‘cutout palanaya’: Overzealous sycophants reduce ‘Yahapalanaya’ to a mere slogan
When President Maithripala Sirisena on his return from the UN General Assembly was greeted by those numerous cutouts hanging from all available space in the city, touting him as the hero who defeated imperialism, he should have reminded that monkey. (That is subject to the assumption that MS himself did not order the display of that sycophantic affection. That, I guess, is a fair conjecture because in January after he was sworn-in as the President, he ordered the removal of his cutouts that had sprung up around the country).
We are a nation of sycophants. However, the level of sycophancy hit its disturbing zenith under President Sirisena’s predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, though successive Presidents (perhaps with the exception of D.B. Wijethunga, whose tenure was anyway brief), were not far behind.
2015-10-05
In the Buddhist folklore, there was this monkey that a king reared as his trusted companion. The king had full faith in the ape, who accompanied the sovereign anywhere he went. On one fine day, after attending the affairs of the State, the king took a short afternoon nap, leaving his sword with the ape. The monkey sat next to the sleeping royal, ever vigilant to guard his master against undesirable intruders. Seeing a pesky fly buzzing around the king, and worried that it would disturb the royal, the monkey tried to chase it away, but in vein. When the fly kept circling around, the monkey, now enraged at the repeated incursions, grabbed the royal sword, and landed one heavy blow, aiming the fly, perched on the king’s chest. The king was effectively hacked to death.
When President Maithripala Sirisena on his return from the UN General Assembly was greeted by those numerous cutouts hanging from all available space in the city, touting him as the hero who defeated imperialism, he should have reminded that monkey. (That is subject to the assumption that MS himself did not order the display of that sycophantic affection. That, I guess, is a fair conjecture because in January after he was sworn-in as the President, he ordered the removal of his cutouts that had sprung up around the country).We are a nation of sycophants. However, the level of sycophancy hit its disturbing zenith under President Sirisena’s predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, though successive Presidents (perhaps with the exception of D.B. Wijethunga, whose tenure was anyway brief), were not far behind.
