{"id":249592,"date":"2026-10-25T04:40:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T23:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=249592"},"modified":"2026-11-01T04:10:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T22:40:47","slug":"protest-politics-pakistans-field-marshal-remembering-steve-biko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/protest-politics-pakistans-field-marshal-remembering-steve-biko\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest Politics. Pakistan\u2019s Field Marshal. Remembering Steve Biko"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rajan Philips<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Rajan Philips<\/p><\/div>\n

Since last week, protests have turned into riots in Paris, manifesting violent fusions of public service frustrations and economic anxieties, Not only in Paris, but in other French cities, as well as cities in Spain, Albania, Belgium and Portugal. Localized curfews have been imposed in the rioting cities after extensive damages to public and private property. On Friday in a Paris suburb, an Islamophobic racist opened fire on a group of people of colour killing one and injuring five, including a 12-year old girl. The shooter selected his targets by the colour of their skin and the young girl got hit eight times.\u00a0<\/span>President Macron has condemned the shooting as a terrorist act targeting compatriots of a different colour or religion. He called it a turning point and a first for France. Hopefully, his government will make it the last.<\/p>\n

Protest and Counter Protest<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

There is no violence this time in Sri Lanka and the politics of the monk protest is quite simple. After beating the 22nd<\/sup><\/span> Amendment trojan horse to death, the opposition in Sri Lanka has turned to the time honoured tradition of invoking the clergy and the sacred cloth to fire salvos at the government. For its part, the government does not seem to be backing down. While giving all due respect to the Sangha, the government is standing its ground and has made it known to all concerned that everyone is and shall be equal before the law, with or without the sacred saffron cloth.<\/p>\n

The government has also been given a boost by a counter protest march that reportedly outsized the monk and opposition marches. The counter protest had its own message to the government: \u2018Don\u2019t backdown. Those who flout the law, swindle public money,\u00a0 <\/span>or commit fraud should be dealt with as required by law, regardless of their position and status \u2013 secular or sacred.\u2019<\/p>\n

The NPP government has shown a knack for getting some of the things right all the time, all the things some of the time, but never getting all the things right all the time. When it gets substance right, it symbolism fails. It always hits the mark with symbolic presidential oratory, but often times there is no substance to back up. In the matter of the reimprisonment of Bodu Sala Sena (BBS) General Secretary Galagoda Aththa Gnanasara Thera, the government got its substance right but is being faulted for getting the spiritual symbolism of the clerical cloth wrong. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The government appropriately kept its distance from the legal drama involving the reimprisonment of Gnanasara Thera. This was after the Supreme Court revoked his earlier presidential pardon and the Court of Appeal ordered his reimprisonment to serve out the remainder of his original six year sentence. There was no hue and cry then. Protests started after prison officials brought him to court in layman\u2019s clothes and not his religious robes. The action of the officials is not without precedent but it gave an effective cudgel to the NPP\u2019s opponents to go after the government.<\/p>\n

Yet the cry over \u201cSiwurata Yukthiya\u201d <\/i>(Justice for the Robe) turned out to be a ruse for the bigger goal of getting Gnanasara Thera re-pardoned and released immediately. The motivation of the Thera\u2019s close associates in the Sangha to get him out of prison is understandable. Their peer pressure on other monks to join a march to seek justice for the cloth and release for its wearer is also understandable, even though it is inappropriate.<\/p>\n

What is inexcusable is the auto-mobilization of the political forces and other civilian worthies behind this march and its politics. The SJB, the UNP and SLPP were all quick on the draw, with Sajith Premadasa issuing a warning: \u00a0\u201cSivurata Atha Nothabanu\u201d <\/i>(Do Not Lay a Hand on the Robe). \u00a0 <\/span>Unsurprisingly, former Chief Justice Sarath Silva entered the fray, misrepresenting not only the facts but also the law. His prevarications have been exposed but there are still people who take a former CJ at his word. All of this is same old, same old.<\/p>\n

What is new is the determination of a government not to cave in to pressure for special treatment, for special individuals in matters of law and order. Although the case of Gnanasara Thera has its own speciality inasmuch as it involves a Buddhist Monk in a court of law, it is part of the social ethos to find ways and means of getting a friend or a family member out of legal trouble. This attitude went out of control when it infected practically every government this century except the present one.<\/p>\n

The growing accusation against the present government seems to be that it is going overboard and is arresting everyone whom it does not like, or whose police chiefs have some grouse against. There have been many surprise arrests but beyond the surprise there is no real evidence of political interference. From what appears to be the government\u2019s read of the public mood, or \u2018mass mood\u2019 as Philip Gunawardena used to call and was known to be good at smelling it months in advance, the people by and large support the arrests and scoff at the elites who whine about them.<\/p>\n

For those who could not credibly, let alone morally, protest their arrests or those of their political colleagues, the reimprisonment of Gnanasara Thera has opened a door to take put shots at the government. The fact that they are aligning themselves to a cause that is manifestly indefensible exposes their own hypocrisy as in in the case of run-of-the-mill parliamentarians, or depravity as in the case of a retired Chief Justice. The people, who everyone turns for final judgement, can see through and beyond this sociopolitical tomfoolery. It is also remarkable that many commentators have joined the debate to expose the hypocrisy behind the pretence of defending the role, and absurdity behind the real intent to get Gnanasara Thera re-pardoned.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s Field Marshal<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

There have been no counter protests in Europe, except for a rather silly Hindutva counterprotest staged by Modi wallahs in London. The Modi Londoners were protesting against the Cockroach protests in India targeting their BJP Prime Minister in Delhi. They were, as they said, standing up to defend the good name of Modi and Mother India. Something more sinister is happening in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Field Marshal Asim Munir is apparently planning to expand the number Pakistan\u2019s provinces that have been four since its founding to 12 or 15 smaller provinces, or even as many as 160 minuscular units . That will divvy up Punjab, the largest of the four provinces with 128 million people, over half of Pakistan\u2019s population, into little pockets that can be kept in place by a platoon each. Efficient militarization at the expense of civilian freedoms. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It will be concerning to see how far the Field Marshal will go with his designs for Pakistan. No one knows what designs Munir has for Imran Khan. Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did not deserve death by hanging on the orders of\u00a0 <\/span>General Zia-ul-Haq on 4th<\/sup><\/span> April 1979. Nor does Imran Khan. Hopefully, there will be enough good will pressure in Pakistan and in the Commonwealth to force Munir to release Imran Khan, Pakistan\u2019s 1992 Cricket World Cup hero and one of the more magnificent all rounders ever to play the game.<\/p>\n

Internationally, Munir has been hitching his wagon to the Trump star in Washington. It will be intriguing to see how the Pakistani strongman will fare globally as Trump begins to fade in America and already more so everywhere else in the World. Breaking news from the Middle East is that Munir was shown the cold shoulder in Tehran when he reportedly carried a last warning from Trump for Iran to be more flexible on its nuclear programs, or else. \u201cGet back on your plane,\u201d he was reportedly told by one Iranian leader as others insisted that there would be no new talks with the US until Trump accepts Iran\u2019s seven conditions.<\/p>\n

It is not Pakistan\u2019s fault that its\u00a0 <\/span>diplomatic efforts in concert with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey have crash landed in Trump\u2019s wasteland. Trump wholly owns the debacle of the war against Iran and all the failed efforts to bring it to an end. Where the Pakistani government and Munir in particular garner their shame is in their cynically opportunistic canvassing\u00a0 <\/span>for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Trump. As it turned out, Trump may not have been on the short list.<\/p>\n

Remembering Steve Biko<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Nobel Committee, in one of its better decisions over the years in selecting the winner for the Peace Prize, chose South Africa\u2019s Jurist Navi Pillai<\/a><\/span> to award the 2026 Peace Prize. Navi Pillai\u2019s Nobel Prize is also a moment to recall her role in the anti-apartheid movement and to salute one of its daring heroes, Steve Biko. Ms. Pillay is a South African born and bred. She has passionately spoken of her growing in common poverty alongside black African children in segregated Africa. Later, as an accomplished lawyer,\u00a0 <\/span>Ms. Pillay used her forensic skills to fight apartheid Africa. In November 2014, Navi Pillay delivered the 15th<\/sup><\/span> Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in a packed auditorium at the University of Cape Town. She spoke with authority on South Africa\u2019s special role in the world, because of its history in fighting apartheid, to bring a “principled voice” to the cause of human rights and to influence the human rights agenda of the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Stev Biko was universally memorialized by the 1987 epic biopic \u2013 Cry Freedom<\/i>. Next year will be the 50th<\/sup><\/span> anniversary of Biko\u2019s death on 12th<\/sup><\/span> September 1977. He was held naked and shackled and beaten to death by apartheid police in a jail cell. He was 30 years old. Tall, handsome, apparently with the build of a heavyweight boxer, Steve Biko was an intellectual and anti-apartheid activist. He was the moving spirit and the material frame of the Black Consciousness Movement of South Africa. His murder sparked outrage within and outside South Africa. His legacy continues. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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