{"id":121494,"date":"2021-12-24T17:48:48","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T00:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121494"},"modified":"2021-12-24T17:48:48","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T00:48:48","slug":"cool-debacle-in-the-hands-of-fools-he-laughs-best-who-laughs-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/12\/24\/cool-debacle-in-the-hands-of-fools-he-laughs-best-who-laughs-last\/","title":{"rendered":"COOL debacle in the hands of fools: He laughs best who laughs last!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(An\nopinion offered for critical examination)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing\na gathering of jurists in Sinhala at a function in Colombo, justice minister\nAli Sabry said (December 12): To me as minister for justice, and to us all as\ncitizens of this country, people are the most important factor. It is because\nof them that this (legal) profession exists; judges sit because of them.\nUltimately, the interest of the people must take priority over everything\n(else). I don\u2019t think I will (Ali Sabry chuckled as he said this) seek to go to\nparliament again\u2026. I state this without any fear.. I will revert to my\npreferred occupation, that of supporting the judiciary\u2026. We know that some laws\nof this country have not been updated for over a hundred years. This task (of\nmodernising outdated laws) is our key focus\u2026 Some thirty committees are engaged\nin this work (at present)\u2026.\u201d. Then the minister talked about the perennial\nproblem of law\u2019s delays. He claimed that even the Mahanayake Thera, when he\ncalled on him, asked him to do something about the monks having to visit courts\nfrequently (due to the slowness of court procedures): We\u2019ll introduce a small\nclaims court as found in other countries; cases that involve less than (Rs) 2\nmillion need no prolonged examination of evidence, except in special instances.\nA method for resolving these cases through an affidavit system will be put in\nplace. This is to relieve pressure on the district courts\u201d. (Explanations in\nparentheses are mine. I hope I have interpreted the minister\u2019s meaning\ncorrectly. C.O.O.L in the title is a re-arranged acronym for One Country One\nLaw) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npresent ruling alliance, the SLPP, led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and\nPrime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa sought election on the main platform of One\nCountry One Law. However sincerely both reached out to the Tamil and Muslim minorities,and\nhad never practiced discrimination against them in the past, the level of\nsupport expected from them was not forthcoming.This was due to the influence\nthat certain communalist Tamil and Muslim politicians exercise over those\nminorities.  It was a fact that the two brothers came to power chiefly on\nthe strength of the SLPP-ideology-inspired Sinhala votes. But, as could be\nexpected, they assured the minorities that their interests would not be ignored\nin any way; they invited all of them to participate in nation building with the\nmajority community. Steps were taken to ensure that Tamils and Muslims are\nfully represented in the administration. The key ministry of justice was given\nby the  president to national list MP Ali Sabry. No minister in the\ncabinet has to do more with the implementation of One Country One Law concept\nthan Ali Sabry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly,\nhe is now talking as if he has forgotten that all important (at least\npurportedly so) goal of the government, for which it got the strongest ever\nelectoral mandate. One may think that Ali Sabry is having the last laugh! He\nimplies that even the monks, the most vehement advocates of One Country One\nLaw, are now only complaining about the chronic problem of law\u2019s delays, which,\nof course, is not a political issue! The One Country One Law ideal involves\npolitics, as it is opposed by a minority of communal and religious extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nappointment of a whistleblower Buddhist monk, who had earned a bad reputation\ndue to his own lack of basic self-restraint and discipline (in spite of his\ncause being a genuine justifiable one), as head of a presidential task force is\nas questionable and as irrational as the president\u2019s later appointment of a\ntrade union leader monk as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo;\nbut that is a different matter. Bracketing Ali Sabry with the controversial\nmonk could not be accidental. Though the two are handling closely allied\nsubjects, they are diametrically opposed to each other in their education,\nreligious beliefs, and personal attributes. Probably they were coupled together\nto neutralize each other, or just to make a mockery of the One Country One Law\nproject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nextremists are a vanishing tribe nowadays, for there are signs that indicate\nthat these communalists will go out of circulation by the time of the next\nelections, replaced by the emerging progressive younger generation of Tamil and\nMuslim politicians, just as the old guard politicians of the two major national\nparties will be ousted by an alliance of smaller patriotic parties and groups\nled by a refurbished JVP further strengthened by the return to its fold of its\nearlier stalwarts,and also accompanied by a rejuvenation of its leadership. The\nconcluding paragraph of  an article of mine entitled JVP at a crossroads\u201d\npublished in The Island Midweek Review on March 7, 2018 was as follows: The\nJVP must take a long, hard look at its wasteful past and subject itself to\nserious reform as a party. It must get rid of its outdated ideologies and\noutmoded leaders. It must not condemn the voters as idiots for not voting for\nthem. Most important, the JVPers must find political allies with whom they can\ncoexist and serve the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I\nwould now use the term \u2018save\u2019 for \u2018serve\u2019 in the last sentence.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nimagine that such a broad alliance will absorb emerging young political\nactivists of all communities including Uvindu Wijeweera (son of JVP founder\nRohana Wijeweera), Amith Weerasinghe, Dan Priyasad, Arun Siddhartan et al, and\nnon-extremist ordinary young Muslim, and ex-Muslims such as Rishvin Ismath (who\nhas fearlessly appeared on national TV channels, speaking against Islamists,\nrisking his life for the sake of the country). Such a winning alliance must\nhave the last laugh. The One Country One Law ideal must be left for them to\nrealise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nwas a sort of anticipatory digression. Let me return to the Ali Sabry factor\nthat is the subject of this piece. A retrospective survey is necessary at this\npoint. About a year ago,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media\nsecretary Viraj Abeysinghe of the Ministry of Health issued a press statement\nwarning against spreading false information allegedly concocted by certain\npoliticians and websites regarding the subject of whether to bury or burn the\nbodies of persons who had succumbed to the COVID-19 infection\n(lankacnews-Sinhala\/December 28, 2020). It notified that the Ministry was\nturning its attention to some \u2018politically motivated fake news\u2019 stories\nfeaturing powerful politicians connected with the government. The statement\nfurther said that for the time being (daenata<\/em>) cremation alone was done\non the instructions of all the expert reports received by the Ministry until\nthen. Very much the same news was carried in Hiru TV News (9:55 pm\/December 27,\n2020). We felt that this, despite the provisionality expressed by \u2018daenata\u2019,\nwas signalling an end to needlessly prolonged dilly-dallying on the part of the\nauthorities about an issue where evidence-based science ought  to have had\nthe last word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewed\nby two You Tube channels (Hari TV\/Lahiru Mudalige\/December 16 and Konara\nVlogs\/Avishka Konara\/December 23, 2020) Ali Sabry PC, Minister of Justice,\nstressed that his struggle was to build bridges rather than walls between the\ncommunities. For over eight months by then he had been advocating burial of\nbodies of Muslims who had died of Covid-19, ignoring the decree of the\ncompetent authority, the DGHS (Director General of Health Services). The DGHS\nwas acting on the advice of the local experts who knew best what was suitable\nfor our country in the then existing context, i.e., cremation. The reputed\nlawyer was the legal consultant of (current president) Gotabaya Rajapaksa at\nleast for fifteen years from the latter\u2019s defence secretary days; he had\nsuccessfully defended the latter against false charges of various kinds\nfabricated by political opponents. Sabry\u2019s aim of establishing intercommunal\nharmony had been laudable, and he might be sincere in his efforts in that\ndirection, but how sincere was yet to be demonstrated. This was because it was\npuzzling that he repeatedly warned that young Muslims were likely to be pushed\ntowards extremism by what they\u2019d perceive as a denial of their right to freedom\nof religion if the health authorities did not allow the burial of bodies of\nMuslims claimed by Covid-19. His totally nonsensical stand on the sensitive\nissue (that had to be left for science, but not religion, to resolve) was\nlikely to give a fillip to extremists and other miscreants opposed to the\ngovernment to create trouble. M.L.A,M. Hizbullah, State minister and later\nEastern Provincial governor under the previous yahapalanaya, made a similar\nwarning, which was not warranted by the then prevailing ground realities, not\nlong before the 2019 April 21 Easter Sunday terror bombings by Islamists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthe first interview mentioned above, Ali Sabry made the patently false claim\nthat the Aluthgama and Digana incidents drove young Muslims to extremism,\nwhereas the truth was the reverse of that, as borne out by evidence. (These\nincidents must be investigated even belatedly to discover the factual situation\nthat then obtained. The disastrous policy of political correctness that led to\nthe submergence of the truth on those occasions then seemed to be at work once\nagain.) Sabry referred to how the UK responded to incidents of Islamic\nextremist violence as a model to follow in dealing with the same problem in Sri\nLanka: the UK government reached out to the mainstream Muslim minority and\nacted to win their confidence and support in order to contain Islamic extremism\nin that country. That was a false analogy. He implied that Sri Lanka had to do\nthe same (as if Sri Lanka has not been doing exactly that for centuries) or \u2018we\nmust kill all Muslims and put them into the sea!\u2019 (The violent imagery in his\nspeech was an indication of the commotion in his own mind resulting from his\nsubliminal awareness of guilt as he felt compelled to lie in that situation for\npolitical expediency within his own community. His persistent advocacy of\nburial against the lawful directives of the DGHS revealed his anxiety to avoid\ndispleasing pious Muslims who insisted on burying their dead as per strict\nMuslim funeral rites.) It was reported that he threatened to resign from his\nministerial post on this issue, but that he was persuaded to stay on, which to\nthe genuinely concerned sounded fishy, no doubt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ali\nSabry had been sounding the warning mentioned above (about possible unrest\namong Muslim youth over the \u2018no burial only cremation\u2019 problem since early\nApril 2020. He apparently believed that he was undergoing a sort of public\ntrial by being blamed by both the Muslim community on the one hand who felt\naggrieved by the compulsory cremation rule imposed on all citizens by the\nhealth authorities for the safe disposal of bodies of Covid-19 victims and the\nnumerically strong nationalist faction on the other led by the monks, who\ninsisted] that the rule should not be relaxed to satisfy the whims of one\nparticular group of people thereby endangering the lives of the whole\npopulation through the possible release of the still inadequately understood\nnovel coronavirus from the interred bodies to the country\u2019s water table, which,\nin many places in Sri Lanka, is not very deep, and lies close to the surface.\nThe controversial Gnanasara Thera (who is now heading the presidential task\nmentioned) was an exception: he spoke up for Muslims who wanted to bury; the\nmonk said that the Muslims\u2019 demand for burial should be allowed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ali\nSabry should  know better than most that there has been no lack of\nreaching out to the mainstream Muslim minority either by the majority community\nor by the successive governments. Muslims as a community are mainly engaged in\nbusiness. Seventy-five per cent of their customer base comprises Sinhalese,\nmaking it possible for Muslim businesses to thrive normally, though there\u2019s\nbeen just condemnation, among the citizenry including the majority Sinhalese,\nof worsening Islamist extremism in recent years. Be that as it may, it is not\nsimply because Sabry had served president Gotabaya in the past as his\nimplicitly trusted personal legal service provider that he was made a national\nlist MP by the SLPP and honoured and empowered with such a very important key\nportfolio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018One\ncountry One law\u2019 was the rallying cry that inspired patriotic Sri Lankans at\nboth the presidential and parliamentary elections to vote for the SLPP, which\nwon with the largest margins. As minister of justice Sabry has been entrusted\nwith the task of supervising the making of a new constitution that is designed\nto achieve that epoch making change (namely, One Country, One Law) among other\nthings. Gotabaya made no bones about the fact that he won the presidency almost\nexclusively on the strength of Sinhalese votes, as already hinted above; most\nMuslims and Tamils chose not to respond positively to his call for support at\nthe presidential election. His bluntness was a reflection of his characteristic\ncandour, which had then not been compromised by the hypocrisy of political\ncorrectness, his older brother\u2019s blunt weapon, that fails more often than it\nsucceeds.  But Gotabaya did not hold any grudge against those who rejected\nhim, for in the same breath president elect Gotabaya said that he was elected\nas president of all the citizens of the country and that he would serve in that\npost without discriminating against any citizen. There is no doubt about the\nfact that he meant what he said. By appointing Ali Sabry to the powerful post\nof Minister of Justice, the president incidentally reassured the Muslims that\nhe would not exclude them from his vision of prosperity and splendour for the\nnation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nAli Sabry  did not budge an inch from his original unqualified opposition\nto the mandatory burning of bodies of Muslim victims of Covid-19 over which he\nexpressed his disappointment in a Facebook post, something mentioned in an Al\nJazeera news report\/April 3, 2020, with the authorities\u2019 decision which, he\nalleged, ignored the WHO guidelines that allow both burial and cremation. Were\nwe to believe that our experts chose to overlook the WHO guidelines without a\nrational explanation? Sabry deliberately ignored the various reservations that\nclearly qualified the WHO guidelines, leaving the authorised specialists of any\nmember country to modify those recommendations as appropriate for local\nconditions and ground realities. The basic assumption that he seemed to be\noperating on, regarding the burial problem, was wrong. For all intents and\npurposes, he pretended to wrongly believe that the health authorities insisted\non making no exception for Muslim dead in this case because that was what the\nmonks wanted.  Ali Sabry was the last person that rational people would\nexpect to demand that Muslims should be allowed to bury their loved ones dead\nfrom the novel coronavirus while cremation was the only safe method ordered by\nthe Director General of Health Services (DGHS). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis not a happy thing to say about arguably the most important and influential\nminister in the cabinet, being the closest companion of the president, next to\nthe prime minister, who is the president\u2019s own brother. It was inconceivable\nhow Ali Sabry was capable of (no doubt unintentionally) justifying the berserk\nbehaviour of some virus-infected Muslims (as seen in their show of\ninsubordination, noncooperation, physical harassment of the health workers\ntrying to help them including spitting at them (with the malicious intention of\nspreading the infection); cases were reported of some Covid-19 positive tested\nindividuals spitting out of the windows of buses carrying them to quarantine\ncentres in vicious attempts to spread dreaded infection). Such demonstration of\nunprovoked anger is based on the false pretext of alleged discrimination\nagainst them by the government in the matter of mandatory cremation of Corona\ndead as prescribed by the responsible health experts to prevent the escape of\nthe deadly virus with many unknowns into the environment. The virus is no\nrespecter of people\u2019s religious sensitivities. If the Director General of\nHealth determined that cremation was the only option for Sri Lanka in the\nprevailing emergency, all citizens were obliged to accept that and act\naccordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\ndidn\u2019t Ali Sabry make an effort to explain to the agitating Muslims and to the\nmisinformed Muslim world in general, who have never been enemies of Sri Lanka,\nthat this blown-out-of-proportion controversy over the burial or cremation\nissue had nothing to do with the monks or the government or the health\nauthorities or the army and police officers (the last mentioned having been\nco-opted into the Covid containment operation only as ancillary personnel\nemployed for a strictly logistical purpose to serve under the DGHS, the\ngovernment appointed competent authority, who gives leadership to the whole\nenterprise, which involves every single citizen of the country). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncremation imperative was not an arbitrary decision taken by the government to\nspite the Muslim minority under pressure from the monks as misleadingly\nsuggested by the hostile foreign NGO elements, Islamists, a handful of\nmisguided Muslims, and the irresponsible SJB-led opposition. The DGHS was not\nacting capriciously either; his recommendations were based on a scientific\nrationale collectively defined by a group of experts belonging to a number of\ndifferent but relevant fields of study in the best interest of all resident Sri\nLankans and foreign visitors. Ali Sabry seemed to be more concerned about\nremaining in the good books of the handful of Islamists and their sympathisers\nthan about the feelings of the ninety-five per cent of the population who are\nagainst them. Was he in the thrall of the five percent? The fate of the goal of\nOne Country One Law under Ali Sabry as Minister of Justice is not difficult to\nguess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Note\nto Lankaweb<\/em> readers: The latter two thirds of this article a timely\nrehash of a previous article of mine published here: Even you, Minister Ali\nSabry?\u201d. Readers, please bear with me for repeating myself.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala (An opinion offered for critical examination) Addressing a gathering of jurists in Sinhala at a function in Colombo, justice minister Ali Sabry said (December 12): To me as minister for justice, and to us all as citizens of this country, people are the most important factor. It is because of them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}