Why Are Political Blackguards So Often Not Prosecuted?
Prof. Kuma David
Though this point has been festering in my mind what kick-started this para was Shyamon Jayasinghe’s (‘
Similarities of Political Culture between Trump and post-war SL’) in Colombo Telegraph, 20 Jan 2021, Jo-Kamala inauguration day. This is not a reply to SJ, his topic is political morality mine is somewhat different, but he is to blame for giving me a push. The similarity that I want to reflect upon is that presidents and prime ministers of Lanka since the 1990s-incumbents have mostly if not entirely been crooked. That is, persons engaged in monetary fraud; in addition nearly all are guilty of other forms of misconduct – violation of the constitution, alleged murder, torture of political opponents or critics, and gross nepotism. I will not stop to quote examples as my paper will run out and my Editor is not kind enough to double by word-count quota. In any case it’s not necessary; most readers are b
Conspiracy Theories Swarm
As you read this, thankfully, an ogre has been ushered out of the White House and the world heaves a sigh of relief – but it may be short-lived. It has been a season of conspiracy theories and one attracting much attention is QANON, a movement with a large following which broadcasts gibberish that Donald Trump is the leader of a war against Satan-worshipping elitist paedophiles in government, business and media hell bent on destroying the great republic. Sure they are loonies but polls indicate there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who believe such bizarre stories. Traffic on social media sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube exploded since these movements surfaced in 2017. There are many nutty groups in America and conflict and commotion will be prolonged for long after noon last Wednesday when old Joe and pretty Kamala were sworn-in. Crushing these loonies is not a problem, inevitably it will happen, but the fear is that as we have often seen
Dec. 24, 2020 10:47 am ET
There is a hole in contemporary fiction that has been noticeable for some time but was especially conspicuous in this year. Novelists are obsessed with the apocalypse and have envisioned countless scenarios for the downfall of civilization. Equally, they are transfixed by grief and repeatedly are drawn to produce meditations on loss and recovery. But they do not like to write about the subtext of these preoccupations, the thing that they are hinting toward or circling around, cautiously evoking yet usually leaving off the page. They do not like to write about death.
How to write about something no one among the living has experienced? In his “Aspects of the Novel,” E.M. Forster observes: “There is scarcely anything that the novelist cannot borrow from ‘daily death’; scarcely anything he may not profitably invent. The doors of that darkness lie open to him and he can even follow his characters through it, provided he is shod with imaginati