Media Freedom and Public Good According to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, a free and an unrestrained media promote the public good in several ways, including ‘disseminating knowledge and allowing critical scrutiny’ and ‘giving voice to the neglected and the disadvantaged’’[v]. Prof. Sen uses the case of the Bengali famine to demonstrate this nexus. The Bengali famine happened under British Rule, and in the absence of a democratic government and a free press. It was only after the British editor of The Statesman (Calcutta) published graphic accounts of the famine, that colonial rulers were compelled into instituting relief measures. Prof. Sen points out that no major famine has happened in a functioning democracy with a free press and concludes, “The direct penalties of a famine are borne only by the suffering public and not by the ruling government. The rulers never starve…. What makes a famine such a political disaster for a ruling government is the reach of public reasoning which moves and energises a very large proportion of the general public to protest and shout about the ‘uncaring government’ and try to bring it down”[vi]. A government faced with a critical media and a wide-awake public would be more prone to be responsible and accountable than a government with a submissive media and an anesthetised public. According to a recent survey (sponsored by the American Chemical Society) “of 12 countries in four continents, cadmium levels in rice grain were the highest in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka… For Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, there was high weekly intake of cadmium from rice, leading to intakes deemed unsafe by international and national regulators”[vii]. Cadmium is a heavy metal which can have a lethal impact on heart, lungs and kidneys and affect brain-development in children. The Lankan participant in the survey, Dr. Mangala de Silva of the University of Ruhuna, blames the cadmium problem on “substandard phosphate fertilisers….”[viii] Toxic-rice is a greater menace than the halal or Storm Mahasen. Toxic-rice is a real problem and a lethal one. Yet there is no fear, no concern, no public outrage. The silence of the regime is understandable. The issue of toxic-rice, like famines, does not affect the powerful/the rich because organically produced rice is available, at a much higher price. The regime will move in the matter only if forced to do so. If the media – especially the Sinhala media – can be compelled into muteness, there will be no public awareness and no public outcry. Once the media-ethics proposal is enacted, revelations about toxic-rice can be made illegal. The general public can be lulled into happy ignorance, until the plague metastasises its way from rice-producers to rice-consumers. According to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, “Misconceptions regarding Buddhists in Sri Lanka are spread worldwide through websites. Now is the time to change those misconceptions which were being spread for the last 30 years”[ix]. Once the ‘media ethics’ are legalised, it will be illegal to report anything about the ongoing attacks on churches, mosques and kovils. No wonder the BBS wants Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to takeover Sinhala-Buddhism: “….Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara thero told a news conference that the Buddha Sasana Ministry was currently performing a poor service in protecting the Buddha Sasanaya…. Gnanasara Thera said it could be recommended that the Defence Secretary should be given the responsibility of the Buddha Sasana since he was a person the BBS trusted”[x]. Those monks who do not come up to the ‘BBS-standards of Buddhism’ can then be white-vanned; and the media which report/comment on such atrocities legally punished. A citizenry cannot be transformed into subjects without their consent and cooperation. A democracy can be destroyed from outside, without the complicity of its people, but to destroy democracy from within requires the active and passive participation of its citizenry. Vellupillai Pirapaharan did not become transformed from Thambi to Surya Thevan overnight. Such internal transformations need a congenial atmosphere created by citizens, who are willing, individually and collectively, to forego their rights in the name of an abstraction or a mirage, out of disillusionment or fear. A dying democracy needs a majority who are mesmerised by a fantasy and unruffled by reality. Like the proverbial crab in the pre-boiling pot. Are we that people?
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:36:22 +0000