Writing Down Our Own Narrative
Lakmali Hemachandra
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” ― George
Orwell, 1984
Sanjeewa Bnadara, the convener of the Inter University Students’ Federation was remanded for the grave crime of participating in an unlawful gathering. Some comments posted as responses to a news report, in an online edition of a leading English newspaper, on the remanding of Sanjeewa Bandara, called for him being remanded forever, applauded the government for controlling the unruly students, chastised him on wasting public money and ruining the future of the students and reminded him that his job is to study not to lead student agitations against the government education policy. One comment even warned him not to take the country back into the terror days of 1989, the year I was born in. During a TV interview one of the questions that were posed at the remanded student leader was whether the next step of the student movement is to take up arms against the government.
I will not question the double standards of the Rajapaksa regime that arrests a student leader who conducts a protest march but not the monks of the Sinhala Ravaya who burn down shops in Tangalle, for the truth that is known to all of us is that we live under a law that persecutes us when it pleases, when we displease the puppet masters. However, it is important that I tell my story; share my experience as a student of free education that Sanjeewa Bandara is trying to protect from the privatization policy of the state. It is important that I tell the people who are listening because information, real information would help us to make better decisions, information will dwell in our conscience and demand that we take actions, but most of all information will break through the lies that bind us to the myths, created by the propaganda machine of the state.
