{"id":46078,"date":"2012-06-23T23:55:30","date_gmt":"2012-06-23T23:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=46078"},"modified":"2012-06-25T17:33:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T17:33:21","slug":"mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/","title":{"rendered":"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Philip Fernando in Los Angeles –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mervyn de Silva, journalist, commentator and literary critic\u2014and his legendary professional career of over four decades–are encapsulated here to commemorate the 13th<\/sup> anniversary of his passing away.\u00a0The underlying themes that sustained Mervyn\u2019s thoughts culled from insights privy to me and a choice sampling of Mervyn\u2019s slick repartee recalled by Thalif Deen are presented here.\u00a0 We were both colleagues of Mervyn in the Daily News <\/em>and the Observer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Enlightened Dissent<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mervyn\u2019s dazzling prose and sharp wit ensured the passageway to eminence and an iconic presence amidst his revered peers.\u00a0 Upholding unfettered expression of ideas propelled him enormously.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mervyn de Silva and wife Lakshmi<\/p><\/div>\n

Mervyn assertively set and defended the boundaries of unimpeded speech, believing that information held closely is damaging to those holding it and detrimental in the quest for good governance: the more the media appears liberal and adversarial, the better for enlightened dissent to emerge.<\/p>\n

Columns, Editorials<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mervyn was easily one of the most readable columnists, one with the pager-turner touch.\u00a0 During his undergraduate days at Peradeniya, he wrote a widely read Saturday political column in the Daily News<\/em> titled “With Malice to None” using the pseudonym “Daedalus”.\u00a0\u00a0Our colleague and close friend of Mervyn, Thalif Deen recalls that perhaps very few outside Lake House knew that Mervyn authored several pseudonymous columns. \u00a0In the Observer<\/em>, he wrote a Sunday gossip column “Mild and Bitter” under the pen name “the Clubman”. He also wrote off and on, the daily “Roundabout” column by “Contact”.<\/p>\n

The editorials he penned during the days of youth unrest and the passing away of Dudley Senanayake were quintessential Mervyn.\u00a0 The choice of words was exact\u2014you may not concur with the sentiments expressed and still savour the syntactic maturity of the prose:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll our greatest leaders have stood for a few essential things, although each one of them may have emphasized one at the expense of the other, although each left the struggle unfinished. Mr. Dudley Senanayake, by the light of his own political vision, stood for the unity of this country, for an open society and for economic emancipation, particularly through agricultural self-sufficiency. No monument to him can possibly be finer or more enduring than our own renewed dedication to these ideals.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sure Self<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Mervyn\u2019s and my generation faced a change of a phenomenal nature in the country\u2019s newspaper ownership.\u00a0 Lake House had shown dominant presence in the areas of readership, circulation, and advertising and overall number of news dealerships. \u00a0The possibility of a changed ownership seemed imminent in the \u201960s as reported by Mervyn during one of his trips accompanying Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike–I believe it was the Non-aligned conference in Cairo \u201864.\u00a0 With the \u2018take-over\u2019 in the \u201970s suddenly a rookie board of directors was saddled with the awesome task of infusing change on a matter of vital national interest.\u00a0 It never achieved the cohesion needed for the delicate operation.<\/p>\n

On Saturday mornings Mervyn would walk in to the Sunday Observer<\/em> editorial office with his usual chirpy and sure self and peruse the news stories awaiting inclusion in the next day\u2019s paper. \u00a0Producing a readable newspaper meant the daunting task of seeing the intimidating sword of Damocles hanging overhead. Picking news was like the balancing act of a trapeze artist.\u00a0 Treading the fine line between news and propaganda seemed a nightmare.<\/p>\n

Mervyn\u2019s nose for news was dauntingly sharp, as good as the awesome news hounds I knew-Clarence Fernando, Manik de Silva, Thalif Deen Harold Peiris, Lionel Fernando and others.\u00a0 It took him only a few seconds and he would pick the lead story and chit chat on the day\u2019s events.\u00a0 Mervyn (slightly senior to Thalif and me) and our generation were witnessing the changing of the guard–a generational transition between two worlds. Insurrection was flourishing.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs<\/strong><\/p>\n

The field of foreign affairs, a pet topic of Mervyn, saw countervailing political forces\u2014India, Pakistan, China and the West–striving for supremacy. While the Conference on the Indo-China dispute held in Colombo was a major milestone, the Non-aligned summit in Cairo was, I remember well, the beginning of a foreign policy incursion which the Sri Lankan leaders and journalists excelled in good measure.<\/p>\n

Mervyn\u2019s strong point was international politics. Thalif remembers Mervyn\u2019s passion for the cause of Palestine.\u00a0 Liberal in his politics, he disdained Western wire service reporting. The Vietcong was not our “enemy”, he told his copy editors, nor should Palestinian guerrillas be described as “terrorists\u201d. When he was editor of the Daily News<\/em>, he fired off a memo to copy editors about the political correctness of addressing China by its real name, and not as “Red China\u201d as Western wire services were prone to do in the 1970s. In his memo, he said: \u201cChina is China, and I don’t want 900 million people reduced to a piece of crimson crockery.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Against Officialdom<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a surprise visit to Los Angeles of Mervyn and his wife Lakshmi- a belle from my home town of Moratuwa- there were impassioned exchanges among friends. I noticed that Lakshmi was the anchor that steadied Mervyn.<\/p>\n

Brandishing\u00a0his\u00a0language skills, Mervyn who had picked his topics to suit his whims, was reliving his experiences in that more relaxed setting. \u00a0He relished having taken on the bureaucracy that seemed mired in dysfunction.\u00a0 The fight to abolish the revered CCS and how he faced the wrath of the well-entrenched opposition was quite fresh in his mind, and he believed that he had succeeded in shredding elitism and cronyism of the officialdom, which had been practiced with impunity.<\/p>\n

Thalif recalls that during one of his innumerable visits to New York, Mervyn confessed that he had the distinction of being fired by two adversarial administrations from two different newspaper groups where he had served as editor. He accepted it with journalistic pride. After all, if two competing newspaper groups had kicked him out, under two rival governments, he must have done something right.<\/p>\n

Public duels<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scholarly commentators run the risk of not being anchored to a set of values and tend to fear succumbing to the dark lure of alienation. Mervyn was no apologist for anyone, as seen by the public duels he had with all shades of contenders.\u00a0 Mervyn\u2019s politics was perhaps a little to the right-of-centre, yet he was often attracted by both the Right and the Left.\u00a0 I believe that Mervyn was the product of laissez-faire<\/em> thinking and liberalism. He wouldn\u2019t have had it any other way.<\/p>\n

It was great theatre to watch the battles enacted in the Daily News<\/em> and Sunday Observer<\/em>.\u00a0 Mervyn brought down contrarian views like nine pins in a bowling alley.\u00a0 Yet Mervyn could never be derided\u2014many tried but failed–he would clobber them with his flawless prose. Besides, his grasp was all-encircling.<\/p>\n

Civic Ethos<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mervyn provided core values regarding journalistic norms of full disclosure.\u00a0 For those ready to be seduced by transparency and enjoy its awesome sense of freedom, the right to enlightened dissent seems to be growing exponentially now.\u00a0Mervyn was the prototype for a \u201ccivic ethos\u201d emerging and taking root when most readers could not identify their “generational type”\u2014idealist or reactive, civic or adaptive\u2014and align themselves.\u00a0 Mervyn was a little ahead of his times.<\/p>\n

*Philip Fernando, currently domiciled in California, was the Deputy Editor of the Sunday Observer<\/em> when Mervyn de Silva was the Editor. <fernandophilip@hotmail.com><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":46088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nMervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-23T23:55:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-06-25T17:33:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"448\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"331\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/\",\"name\":\"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-23T23:55:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-06-25T17:33:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg\",\"width\":\"448\",\"height\":\"331\",\"caption\":\"Mervyn de Silva and wife Lakshmi\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\",\"name\":\"Colombo Telegraph\",\"description\":\"In journalism truth is a process\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\",\"name\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent - Colombo Telegraph","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent - Colombo Telegraph","og_description":"[…]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/","og_site_name":"Colombo Telegraph","article_published_time":"2012-06-23T23:55:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-06-25T17:33:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":448,"height":331,"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/","name":"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent - Colombo Telegraph","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg","datePublished":"2012-06-23T23:55:30+00:00","dateModified":"2012-06-25T17:33:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg","width":"448","height":"331","caption":"Mervyn de Silva and wife Lakshmi"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mervyn-de-silva-enlightened-dissent\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mervyn de Silva: Enlightened Dissent"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/","name":"Colombo Telegraph","description":"In journalism truth is a process","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3","name":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH"},"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mervyn-de-Silva-wife-Lakshmi-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46078"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46087,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46078\/revisions\/46087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}