By Sarath de Alwis –

Sarath de Alwis

We live in times of moral complexity. Whose deed is more pernicious? Burglar raiding the vault or the Cop who wipes off the burglar’s finger prints? 

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will, appear before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry today. The Leader of the House Minister of Higher Education, High ways who knows his way around in these matters insists that the Prime minister’s appearance is at his own volition. 

The Commission, according to a news report, has summoned Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya to lead the evidence of the Prime minster.

“The reason they have summoned me is due to the respect of protocol for the Prime Minister, who is the second citizen of the country. I will be leading the evidence on behalf of the Commission,” the AG has explained.

Invited or summoned, our Prime minster will give evidence under oath. We the people, await breathless, to hear his evidence.

They believe that the law, in its ‘majesty of equality forbids the rich and the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and to steal bread.’      

Earlier two ministers, Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrama appeared before the commission. When asked if the UNP had received any funds from Perpetual Treasuries, both under oath said no. Since they were not subject to cross examination, it is difficult to surmise the weight of their denial. Their ‘No’ could have oscillated between an emphatic no and a simple non-injurious no. 

Ministers, these days, say things that are later amended, reframed or entirely revised and reframed. The Economic Strategy Maestro Minster Malik Samarawickrama recently performed an impressive romp on his credibility trapeze. It was about an additional allocation of land for the Shangri-La project. He suggested that it was a measure proposed by the President. That was not quite accurate and was subsequently corrected by government spokesman Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara .

Readers of the Sunday Times which published the explanation of Minister Malik a week earlier were treated to a boxed recapitulation of the bamboozle under its widely read political column this Sunday.         

On an scale of 10 for a ‘Scandal Armageddon’ a phrase borrowed from Dan Rather – the American TV anchor, the ‘bond boondoggle, easily earns a good 9^th place.

The Watergate Scandal, in the United Sates, the Profumo Scandal in the UK and Spectrum Scandal in India impacted and radically altered the systemic structures of their respective justice systems and media coverage.

In the digital age, transparency in Sri Lanka is yet a demanding enterprise.

The Bond business was probed by two parliamentary committees. The first got aborted. The second produced a report with footnotes.

The detailed inquiry by a presidential commission is now at its tail end. The cascading intensity of the affair reaches its climax when the Prime minister appears before the commission today.

No matter how his encounter with the commission turns out, its final outcome will be monumental and transformational as Watergate was in Washington, Profumo in London and Spectrum in New Delhi.

It will have an equal or a more far-reaching influence on our ‘Sri Lankan ‘gemeinschaft’.

The writer seeks the reader’s pardon and tolerance. The use of the German word is no flaunt of punditry. It is only the absence of a precise English equivalent.

The German sociologist Max Weber explains gemeinschaft. It is the form of the social order resulting from “rational agreement by mutual consent,” meaning members of society agree to participate and abide the given rules, norms, and practices because rationality tells them that they benefit by doing so.

Richard Nixon faced impeachment and was subsequently  pressured to resign, not because he ordered the burglary in the Watergate building. He did not even know about it. He faced impeachment and suffered disgrace for its cover up. 

The relentless Watergate investigation untied the mind of Richard Nixon. The Profumo probe bared the mind of Prime Minster Harold McMillan. The ‘Spectrum’ scandal untangled the turbaned cerebral elegance of Prime Minster Man Mohan Sing.

His predicament is closer to ours. He was compelled to confess why he compromised his demonstrated integrity. He did not remove a corrupt minister. He did not order the investigation is warranted. He explained political accommodation of corruption as a ‘coalition dharma’.

The country awaits the Attorney General reconnoitering the mind of Prime minster Ranil Wickremesinghe. He will, it is hoped will find out why it was necessary to uproot the successful investment banker from his home in Singapore – the far eastern ‘Shangri-La of speculative capital. A Shangri-La just opened its business here only last Saturday.

A friend living in the miracle mile between the whiff of Cinnamon and the breeze of Shangri-La, informs this writer that the gala event was a fabulous melting pot. The e ‘Yaha Palana’ political class ‘Accessed’ the islands oligarchy celebrating the opening of the glittering edifice and epitome of heavenly hospitality of east Asia.

If the oligarchs succeeded before 8^th January 2015 they are now flourishing said the friend who described the hugs and ‘thoththus’ exchanged among the powerful, the greedy and the showy.    

Doubtless, the Attorney General will explore the mind of Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on relative merits and demerits of private placements and auctions. 

The tale of the two Arjuns has the complexity and the sublime paradoxes of the original Arjuna centric philosophical classic the ‘Bhagavad-Gita’.

The Gita offers a central premise. Act decisively. Do not get mired in over- analysis. Especially when you are knowledgeable. We are usually prone to draw comfort in talking and analyzing than acting upon knowledge.

“The immature think that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same. “

Post script. Justice Hugo Black writing in the in 6-3 Majority opinion of the US Supreme Court permitting publication of Pentagon Papers wrote “In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.”