Lost. That is what I am. Lost for words, lost in my dreams that render everything else insignificant, there is a despicable atmosphere of over marketed victory in the country. People individually are not the problem. But people collectively are.
The media is equally to blame. The nationalistic commentary on some media is positively vomit inducing. The government has obviously got to be behind it. Such corny fervor would not arise from any human brain other than one hell bent on control and a bullshit whitewash.
The new definitions of ‘race’; that of lovers of the nation and those that hate, are ambiguous and smell to me a like a harbinger of more oppression. Someone once said ‘dissent is the greatest form of patriotism’ and if not the greatest form, it is still a part and parcel of being a good patriot.
The greatest need for a ‘free nation’ is a free media. But the media here are cowed. They bow down to the will of the government; they are too scared to do their duty. There are rules and regulations preventing the broadcasting of certain events. That should actually be unconstitutional, these should actually be condemned, yet nothing is done. The justice system must be incapable of ensuring the rights of a free media movement, so does that mean the problem lies there?
These restrictions, whether spoken or unspoken, covert or otherwise, defy the essential values of the media movement, and therefore the media in the nation sadly does not amount to much.
Better to be deaf, than to have to listen to the hogwash in the media.
Blog Archive
Followers
About Me
the other blog
**Procastinate Here**
*ze creatives*
Blogumulus by Halik Azeez and Halik Azeez
Thanks for the visit!
6 Comments:
so.... all that's happening in this country is bad at the moment?
yeah it might not be close to perfect, but it seems really really bad is it?
which is the better evil? Leaders who do nothing for the country and are corrupt, or leaders who actually do something whilst being corrupt?
And is Lasantha W's wife correct when she said that there are concentration camps here? is this what the media is afraif of reporting?
There seems to be a lot of disdain in some quaters at this time, but my question is give me constructively why it should be so?? is it really that bad... compared to say 10 years ago....
Criticism is good, but what i'd like to see in a well constructed point form report/post detailing all that is wrong in this country at the moment and we can discuss this..... discuss if there has been some sort of improvment or if we have actually gone back even more....
I respect ur posts man, and i understand that there is a lack of media freedom in this country.... which is not good, but don't u think ur painting too much of a grim picture?
I think it's too soon to judge so swiftly.
Media's oppressed and speaking freely gets them shot, that's an old story.
The rest of it, I think everyone's just caught up in the moment. Too caught up, some might say, because there's so much of resettlement work to be done. But still think there's yet time to see how things go from here before we go ahead and decide that all of this has been hogwash.
MP - hey i have respect for the president just as much as you man. And obviously we are rid of the war and that probably puts us in a better position than before. but still, thigs are far from ideal, and im sure you will agree that better off does not really mean, best off. plus this was more aimed at the media as an institution mostly succumbing to be a tool. but one single ideal like a free media in a non ideal society wouldn't work either i suppose.
Maks - maybe it is a result of getting carried away, maybe not. but you've got to admit that propaganda still plays a strong role, and will continue to do so when the govt controls the majority of the media. we need voices of calm and even dissent, to temper some reality and perspective.
well...what is free and fair media anyway? I mean one of my frieds recently showed me some clips off Sirasa TV which is now running songs of praise about the President. For an ordinary sri lankan its quite a surprise because MTV Networks are well known for their critical position of the government.
I doubt there was ever free media in this country for us to even start arguing about it. Everyone's in it for thier own sake, commercial media thrives on their viewership/readership so when they figure they are loosing out they are even prepared to change their earlier political values.
A good example is the media war between the private and state media during the 2005 (Parliamentary Elections) and the situation now.
These days everyone's jumping in on the patriotic band wagon since the whole country is hooked up in the military victory.
So its just a matter of time till some people grow a bit bored of the current state of affairs so that the media could again venture into a new market segment.
well yeah your right, any media will be biased in some way, that can't be helped.
But by free media i mean that any media should be allowed to express their views, instead of them beinmg suppressed and only the views of one side being allowed to be brought out.
So instead of one biased perspective, we then have several opposing perspectives. This balances it out more.
i hasten to add a comment here, i was pretty impressed with your blog a week back 'come to SL, see our war crimes', which was unimaginably funny. but must say quite disappointed with the current one. i for one, has always been FOR a media which is free, fair an unbiased, whether that is possible in reality is questionable. maybe mine is a minority view here, contemplating on the success of the war, i strongly feel, one reason we did not have the international community on our backyard, was that the media was LEFT OUT of whole picture. And i praise the government for that. i;m not just talking about the local media here, but the int;l media, who are notarious for switching sides when it does matter. prime example being al jazeera: a few days before (saturday) night broadcast when the army on the verge of military victory was within a few kilometres, Al Jazeera brought in Palitha Kohona and bombarded him with one sided questions which followed by the interview with some Jan woman a UK parlimentary candiate representing the UK Tamils, who spoke on behalf of the LTTE. The very next day and i mean the next day itself after the army captured the last sliver of land from the tigers, Al Jazeera was singing a different tune and was all praise for SL, even going to the extent of highlighting the atrocities of the tigers. Disapointment cast its net around me, and i realised that this too was another station milking the situation of a country - for a story line.
i do not intend to advocate against the need for a free media. but this was just one instant where keeping the media out of the picture really helped us win a more important and just cause. In other words for the greater good!
Post a Comment