By: Chula CumaranatungeMinistry of Defence, Public Security, Law & Order - Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
I am surprised to read the comments made by Erik Solheim, (photo) 54 year old Norwegian politician, who is a member of the socialist left party and Minister for Environment and Development Corporation, on the strength of a video clip aired on a television channel in Britain.
Mr. Solheim who came to Sri Lanka as the peace facilitator seems now to have changed his role and appears to be the facilitator of a long perished LTTE interest. We must not forget the claims made by Karuna in 2007 that Solheim gifted TVs and large sums of money to the LTTE which was also confirmed by Mr. Falk Rune Rovik of a Norwegian organization called "Norwegians against Terrorism". Perhaps it would be better Mr. Solheim who was a Graduate of the University of Oslo in 1980 in History and Political Studies should study his own countries history before going around the world telling how other people should behave in a war and after a war.
Mr. Solheim should concentrate and organize compensation for the human right violations of 12,000 children of Norwegian mothers and German soldier fathers. Compensation law suits running into millions due to the charges of human right violations are still to be settled. These children were called "Kriegsbarna" or "Lebensborna" and were classified as retarded and were shut away in mental institutions due to the bizarre theory that their mothers should be mad to have a child from a German and by this definition the child should be sub-normal. Although recently Norwegian prime minister publically apologized for the way they were treated, their case for compensation is now being heard at European commission of human rights in Strassburg. Anni-Fried "Frida" Lyngstad, one of the female singers of the pop-group "ABBA" is probably one of the most famous of these children born to a German soldier father and a Norwegian mother. To escape the mistreatment in Norway, her grandmother took young Frida and escaped to Sweden. Norway should be ashamed the way the Norwegians treated her own children after the war, before going around telling other countries how to behave in war and after a war.
In my opinion hectoring of western liberal politicians and media stemmed from their sense of cultural superiority and inability to accept that a small country like Sri Lanka could organize itself contrary to their own views to eradicate terrorism from the Island, although most of the Western pundits and their media earlier claimed it was an impossible task to achieve. All the western countries who are having their own share of terrorist problems who believe themselves to be universally superior are now having great difficulty of adjusting themselves to the reality that our armed forces they long despised and dismissed with contempt as decadent, feeble, corrupt and inept, managed to completely destroy terrorism, they themselves have not been able to do so.
In fact these western societies have so long been successful because of a certain geopolitical good fortune and abundance of resources and the availability of capital and technology. It is this sense of cultural superiority which has lead to western media picking on Sri Lanka and beat us up as authoritarian, dictatorial, over-ruled, over-restricted and stifling of human rights. This is all because we have not complied with their ideas of how we should govern ourselves. We should be aware that we cannot ill-afford to let others experiment with our lives in this small island. Western politicians and media have these ideas and theories extracted from their experiences. But they have not been successfully transplanted to any other non Anglo-Saxon society although they have ruled many countries during the colonial era. Even in the western societies there is wide spread poverty, crime and violence. Children kill each other with guns and knives, neighborhoods are insecure, old people feel forgotten and families are falling apart. So-called "free western media" attack the integrity and character of their leaders with impunity, drag down all those in authority and blame everyone but themselves.
All western societies believe media should be allowed to broadcast and publish what they choose, however irresponsible or bias its action might seem. The logic of its case is that whenever the media is completely free the market place of ideas would sort the irresponsible from the responsible and reward the latter. Far from weeding out the irresponsible from the responsible reporting, market place of reporting could cause havoc in a society which is having problems of terrorism and crime. I am reminded that inspite of all the terrorist killings done by Bin Laden and his cohorts, one of the international television channels based in Doha became the mouth piece of Bin Laden by broadcasting unauthenticated tapes of terrorist leaders which was rebroadcasted by all other western media channels. Many years ago the mass media used to report on aeroplane hi jacking and how easy and successful hijacking can be. There would not have been so many hi jacking as the pilot association said, if media would have reported that all high jacking to be failures and block out reporting on all the hijacking successors.
It is obvious western media in their eagerness to fault and check our leaders and our armed forces as well as its drive to boost its viewers and its sales is whipping up a public controversy and political intrigue has again over stepped the acceptable media standards by broadcasting unauthenticated video clips. Such media reporting in Britain with its desire to titillate and satisfy the craving of an ever jaded population have tarnished the British monarchy and have destroyed the family lives of the members of the royal family, degraded the members of her parliament and the ministers with stories of sleaze and sexual peccadillos. They have downgraded their courts and made them look less than fair. They have demoralized their police force, even the church of England no longer has that same aura of authority and wisdom.
Despite western media and politicians barrage against Sri Lanka our country must assert itself the right to be ourselves. We have to chart our own course, regardless of the critizisms and innuendos this might draw from the liberal western politicians, their institutions and their media which sought to fashion our societies in their own image.
Published by Mike Hitchen i On Global Trends, world news, analysis, opinion
Putting principles before profits
Putting principles before profits
