When freedom replaced “patriotism”

| by Nilantha Ilangamuwa

( December 1, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The truth has been placed before us that the passing of laws does not mean people will benefit from them without proper implementation through the criminal justice system in the particular country. In the words of the great poet Rabindranath Tagore, “facts are many, but the truth is one.”

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Sri Lanka: Political Rein

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Courtesy: www.scoop.co.nz  

The power of a community depends not only upon its numbers and its economic resources and its technical capacity, but also upon its beliefs. (Bertrand Russell – Power – P. 99)

The problem is not rising from outside but rather from within themselves. As long as the world about them does not change, the regime will remain content with their way of life and indeed, feel superior to other people around them as they can ignore them. The trouble is that the world is changing as it happened in the past. This ironically points to the need that we all have to understand, not only what the regime is doing, but also what other organizations are doing as well. However, the present regime is still able to manage the ground situation in the country while continuing their vulgarism as political ideology. Under these circumstances, the regime is still lucky to enjoy their ultimate power.

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Crime and criminals

Let me reproduce a very important point raised by Winston Churchill1 in his address to parliament on July 20, 1910,

“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. A calm dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused, and even of the convicted criminal, against the State-a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment-a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry those who have paid their due in the hard coinage of punishment: tireless efforts towards discovery of curative and regenerative processes: unfailing faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man. These are the symbols, which, in the treatment of crime and criminal, mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”

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