Sunday Times 2
How honourable are honourable men?
The article titled Politicians for Sale written by my school friend, veteran journalist Neville de Silva, appeared in the last Sunday Times 2 Comment section by the side of my article titled ‘People – Power Hijacked.’ Neville’s article raises many points to ponder.
Neville refers to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe (RW) quoting Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, to indirectly allege that journalists could be bought over for a bottle of arrack. He also makes reference to RW’s lineage and own family environment that has politics and journalism in his blood. – The past history has not been too clean.
Nor is the present state of governance clean judging by any standard. Bribing corrupt politicians with cabinet portfolios, appointment of questionable characters to high posts and the Central Bank fiasco topping it all, illustrate the type of governance that the people have got in exchange for one corrupt regime that was got rid of with people-power.
Neville also says, “If the unnamed politicians Mr. Wickremasinghe spoke of, end up holding high office one day, the joke would be on us”. The joke is already on the people.
Neville quotes Shakespeare to describe RW’s comparison of journalists with his own kind (politicians) as, ‘the unkindest cut of all’ and also says that the charge is made by a politician who has the reputation of being Mr. Clean.
In this context it is interesting to compare a parallel Shakespearean character ‘Honourable man’ Marcus Brutus, with our Mr. Clean. Marcus Brutus took great care to portray himself as ‘Honourable man’ by repeatedly claiming to be so, and he was successful. I will however quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Act IV Scene III, 65 – 80 to expose who the real Marcus Brutus was:
“Brutus – You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am arm’d so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;-
For I can raise no money by vile means:
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection; – I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?”
Brutus having condescended to ask money from Cassius, well knowing how the money was collected, was height of hypocrisy on his part to reproach Cassius for raising it by improper means, and to contrast his own ‘Honourable’ conduct.
It appears that hypocrisy is a universal trait in most politicians. The Oxford English Dictionary gives two meanings to the word ‘politician’. (1) A person who is professionally involved in politics, especially a holder of an elected office. (2) A person who acts in a manipulative and devious way, typically to gain advancement. Politicians have earned the second meaning for themselves due to their own conduct. Furthermore, politicians know best who the corrupt journalists are because it is they who corrupt journalists. Now how do we differentiate between the good and the bad politician? I would call the good politician a ‘statesman’, meaning a skilled, experienced, and respected political leader (Oxford Dictionary). It is statesmen that the country is badly in need of today.
We have had them in the past. President Maithripala Sirisena has so far shown statesmanship. The people should rally round him, lest with ‘politicians’ influence, expediency may get the better of him also.