Stone throwing from glasshouses
Editorial-November 18, 2013, 8:18 pm
Friday’s meeting between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who came here vowing to beard the lion in his den, is said to have ended quite ill-humouredly. That outcome came as no surprise as the two leaders had been at daggers drawn for weeks, if not months.
One is reminded of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s meeting with Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa way back in 2009, which, too, led to bad blood between him and the Rajapaksas. Miliband was accompanied by the then French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on an abortive mission to save Prabhakaran trapped in the Vanni. The rest is history.
President Rajapaksa, obviously smarting from PM Cameron’s call for a war crimes probe and threat that non-compliance will be met with a UN investigation, has told a post-CHOGM media briefing that those who live in glasshouses should not throw stones. He has, no doubt, got the idiom right and driven his point home, but, we are afraid, the reality is otherwise and his advice is not likely to be heeded. This pithy saying, our readers familiar with Chaucer’s works may recall, has a very long history; it basically refers, as is obvious, to the vulnerability of those who attack others.
But, gone are the days when unbreakable glass was unheard of. Today, glass is of different strengths. So, stone throwers don’t have to worry about the consequences of their action if their houses are made of the right kind of glass!
Unfortunately for weak nations, the world leaders casting stones occupy houses made of impact-resistant glass and their victims have no way of paying back in the same coin (or stone?). They are capable of doing anything to further their interests and getting away with it thanks to their military might and economic prowess. They could forge intelligence reports to fabricate casus belli for invading other countries, kill thousands of civilians, use deadly chemicals and depleted uranium in war, abduct and torture suspects and deny them justice, forcibly evict thousands of people in foreign countries to build military bases and unleash hell from heaven on civilians with drones. All this, they do paying no heed to international opinion while pontificating about accountability and calling for war crimes probes against others. Might, in their book, is right.
No amount of warning or pleading is going to stop the self-righteous western leaders from throwing stones at their weak counterparts who, they know, cannot fight back. They will continue to cast stones on some pretext or other so as to overcome challenges to their global supremacy. Therefore, we think, it would have been more appropriate if President Rajapaksa had urged his tormentors not to undress in glasshouses with lights on. The British government’s reluctance to release the Chilcot Report on Tony Blair’s involvement in the Iraq war has served as a 1,000 watt flash light and Cameron has cut a pathetic figure inside his glasshouse. If he thinks he could use his anti-war crimes campaign elsewhere as a fig leaf, he is mistaken. He stands exposed.
Rhetoric, however, provides none with any defence against stone attacks by powerful hypocrites. The beleaguered leaders of small nations should know better than to give those worthies opportunities to target them. They had better clean up their act without further delay. Or, in the alternative, they could choose the path of least resistance and pledge their allegiance to the persecutors if they do not scruple to compromise themselves. There is no other way out.
