{"id":117561,"date":"2013-12-29T00:10:51","date_gmt":"2013-12-28T18:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=117561"},"modified":"2014-01-04T00:11:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T18:41:10","slug":"rural-perspectives-the-disappearance-of-the-very-concepts-of-accountability-and-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/rural-perspectives-the-disappearance-of-the-very-concepts-of-accountability-and-responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural Perspectives: The Disappearance Of The Very Concepts Of Accountability And Responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emil van der Poorten<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Emil<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

A reader would certainly be justified in asking what is particularly \u201crural\u201d about the title of this column.<\/p>\n

Let me try to explain, even if the preamble proves a tad tedious!<\/p>\n

The recent kerfuffle over the accountability\/responsibility of the Prime Minister, D. M. Jayaratne,<\/span><\/a> in the matter of one of his immediate minions being directly involved in the smuggling of heroin in truly historic proportions, brings a couple of things to public attention (again!)<\/p>\n

The first of these is the prevailing \u201cshape\u201d culture that enables anyone to do anything they please as long as they don\u2019t displease any member of the Rajapaksa family. Does one have to quote chapter and verse with regard to the obscenities parading as decisions by an oligarchy parading as a \u201csocialist, democratic goverment\u201d in this country or would simply referring to the most recent event under cover of this very larger-than-life heroin bust suffice?\u00a0 That event was the dropping of charges of a capital crime against Cabinet Minister Punchinilame.\u00a0 In any country with pretensions to being a democracy with media uncontrolled by the government, this event would have provoked screaming front page headlines.\u00a0 Not in Sri Lanka, I\u2019m afraid where it appeared tucked away in a corner of a web edition of one<\/b> English language newspaper!<\/p>\n

But, as significant as the timing of the Punchinilame exoneration was, the shenanigans around the heroin bust exposed the complete disappearance of the very concepts of accountability and responsibility in so-called \u201cdemocratic governance\u201d in The Debacle of Asia!\u00a0 In any<\/b> country with even pretensions to democratic practice, the fact that a senior functionary in the office of the Prime Minister had issued instructions for a waiver of duty and immunity from inspection of a shipment of almost half a metric tonne of heroin <\/b>would not simply have made the headlines of all the media but would have resulted in not only the immediate resignation of said Prime Minister but a criminal investigation of his conduct and that of all those responsible for this train of events.<\/p>\n

Instead, what we have had is a bunch of apologists, inclusive of Opposition <\/b>spokespersons muttering soothing platitudes about how totally unlikely it was that said Prime Minister would be within a million miles of any such wrong-doing!<\/p>\n

To describe this as \u201ctheatre of the absurd\u201d would be understating the case quite dramatically except that the current state of affairs is further \u201cabsurdized\u201d by the contention that any comment about all of this is \u201cSub Judice\u201d by virtue of this whole sorry mess being potentially <\/b>the subject of some sort of judicial investigation!\u00a0 As the those less given to polite expression would ask, \u201cWhere the hell does all of this lead?\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know \u201cWhere the hell it all of it leads,\u201d but I see that all of it certainly should lead to a realization, even at this late date, that these cornerstones of democratic practice have disappeared from the public discourse practiced in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

While this code of conduct is described in quite dramatic terms by the punditocracy serving the middle-class intelligentsia of urban Sri Lanka where all the real decisions are made and the course of this country is set, its impact on the great unwashed of rural Sri Lanka is nothing short of devastating given their total lack of input into what is happening, leave alone even the tiniest bit of influence, in our Land Like No Other.<\/p>\n

Already, no one in authority or in a decision-making position in our neck of the woods seems to accept responsibility or accountability for anything even vaguely resembling a shortcoming, leave alone admit to a major screw-up in the provision of service to those of us living in the boondocks.<\/p>\n

Stage one is a lame excuse.\u00a0 If it is a power outage – and there are several <\/b>each day where I live requiring that one carries a flashlight\/torch in one\u2019s pocket after sunset to stave off the perils of being stranded in some part of the house or garden in unexpected pitch blackness.\u00a0 The conversation proceeds as follows:\u00a0 Initially, one can\u2019t get through to the \u201ccomplaints desk\u201d because the phone rings \u201cbusy\u201d because it has been taken off the hook.\u00a0 Then, when one finally gets through by dint of exceptional persistence, your report is met with incredulity!\u00a0 \u201cThat is not possible.\u201d\u00a0 If you are able to surmount that initial hurdle, you are asked for your address, name, rank and serial number and then informed that inclement weather is the cause of this interruption if there is even a light drizzle.\u00a0 Interestingly, we look down upon two<\/b> CEB jurisdictions from where we live and, consistently, when this happens, that serving us is in total darkness and the adjacent one seems to have every light in every house switched on (and operating!)\u00a0 If one continues complaining, the sequence of explanations (lies, really) slides into the realm of events completely outside the control of the Ceylon Electricity Board.\u00a0 If one goes up the ladder of authority the next day, during \u201cworking\u201d hours, \u00a0the chances are that the head honcho is \u201caway\u201d somewhere and his cellphone number cannot be released to one of those their institution claims to serve.\u00a0 If the second-in-command can be corralled at this point, he\/she slides very soon into the response that the boss is not available and the person answering the phone, even though the second-in-command, cannot accept responsibility for whatever\u2019s gone wrong. If one has the temerity to insist that the complaint is not directed, personally, at the person being spoken to but about the institution and the (lack of) service it is (supposed to be) providing, the response invariably is that \u201cI have been here only a day\/week\/month\/year and therefore cannot accept any responsibility for this failure.\u201d\u00a0 The business of passing the buck to a departed or deceased predecessor is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) in this and every other government office, with only the details varying.\u00a0 Should one be surprised at what rural Sri Lankans endure in this regard when that standard of evasion of responsibility and accountability is set by the highest in the land who are paid immeasurably more in cash and kind?<\/p>\n

When the ambulatory cadaver that has been passing as our Prime Minister for the last little while refuses to accept responsibility for the highest and most important functionaries under his command who are there only because they were his \u201cchosen,\u201d should it be any surprise that the lower ranks of government \u201cservants\u201d selected to their positions at the whim (or worse) of some two-bit local politician follow the example set by their \u201cbetters?\u201d<\/p>\n

The one example I have quoted in the matter of electrical supply barely breaks the surface of this sea of incompetence and I would need something as extensive as the Oxford English Dictionary or the Bible to document a small selection of what we put up with out here.\u00a0 The implications of this kind of disarray are nothing less than massive and it is transparently evident that rural Sri Lankans bear the brunt of it to a significantly greater extent than their generic \u201cColombian\u201d brethren living in urban Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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