They Are Coming To America…

By Ravi Perera

Far, we’ve been travelling far, without a home, but not without a star,
Free, only want to be free, we huddle close, hang on to a dream,
On the boats, on the planes, they are coming to America
Never looking back again, they are coming to America,
Home, to a new shiny place, making our bed, we’ll say grace,
Freedoms light burning warm, Freedoms light burning warm
Everywhere around the world, they are coming to America, every time the flag’s unfurled
They are coming to America…’— Neil Diamond
It is well known that Gotabaya Rajapaksa our Secretary of Defense, although a public servant, does not hesitate to speak his mind. Recently, at a public meeting he drew our attention to the fact that many people in this country take complaints to the American Embassy, which ordinarily should have been referred to the local police.
The things demanded of America by the rest of the world, often conflicting and contradictory, never ceases to amaze one. America must be firm but then kind too, it must be incredibly  rich but humble at the same time, it consumes too much of the world’s resources but its consumers must keep pulling the producing economies along with them, It has to bomb some places to near oblivion and then spend billions trying to build up that place again.
Now according to Mr. Rajapaksa, in this small South Asian country, America has to even look into matters which should really be referred to the local police.
Neil Diamond’s triumphant song was on the immigrants to whom, for two centuries now, America has been a land of glittering hope. The vast majority of these immigrants    went there to escape the poverty, injustices and hopelessness of life in countries of their birth. To almost every one of them, America has kept its promise, providing them with a quality of life, unthinkable back in their home countries.
Apart from the prosperity   it   bestows,  America most times imparts a certain attitude to the immigrants which is discernible. Confidence, open mindedness, a cerebral approach, respect for opposing opinions, a spirit of generosity often anonymous  and  the  readiness to  give a battler a chance in life, are some of the things  we notice in these immigrants when they come home on occasional visits. It is almost like they have become different people.
On the other hand, is there something dark and sinister about   our systems that those affected feel compelled to go to foreign agencies like the American Embassy for justice?  Of course this question   can be answered either way, depending on one’s views and attitudes.  Which ever way, it is answered, we cannot ignore the essential fact that people do go to foreign embassies and agencies for protection and justice. We do not know whether people from other countries would by choice select our judicial system or diplomatic services for protection. But in this country, many, not only Tamils, have invoked the protection of international bodies and countries. Particularly during the second JVP insurrection  a few years back, several Sinhalese persons and organizations  sought the intervention of foreign agencies in this country. They were doubtful that they would   get  either protection or justice from the local establishments.
Why is it that our systems, which are more or less replications of models developed by European intellectual schools, do not win the confidence of the stakeholders leave alone the foreigners?
Obviously the answer is complex and should not be even attempted in a short essay. But we can make observations which maybe relevant to our search for answers to this question.
It is obvious that in any undertaking, a good model does not guarantee the desired results unless the surrounding culture is supportive.
For instance, let us take our Police force which was originally based more or less on the British constabulary. Their mission was to up hold law and order and to protect persons and property. In carrying out their duties they are bound only by the law and the various rules pertaining to the police force. But what happened in this country was that through the years their independence was broken and spirit destroyed by successive governments until they were reduced to the level of a pliant instrument in the control of which ever politician was in power.
The resulting   decay can be observed even in the way a traffic policeman goes about his duties. He is so used to the idea that the rules depend on the individual concerned that there is no consistency in his conduct whatsoever. For example we can understand if he stops the normal flow of traffic for exalted persons who are apparently under some kind of threat and move about in those maniacally driven convoys. But today traffic policemen abruptly stop moving traffic to enable even visitors to police stations, government ministries etc., to break into the line of vehicles. In the normal course a driver wanting to join a moving line of vehicles has to wait for a break in the line before merging with it. But here a person who drives out of such an institution is of a higher status and is given priority, by traffic policemen, over all other vehicles going along the road. The idea of various social stratifications is so deeply embedded in the minds of policemen today that an ordinary law abiding driver seems to exist only so that he could be given parking tickets.
In bigger issues, like crime and other investigations, it will seem to the outsider that those who oppose the government in this country are of criminal tendencies deserving of hours of interrogation and worse, while those in the government are of a near saintly status.
We remember the famous case of Monica Lewinsky, where Bill Clinton the President of the United States staring the media in the face declared “I did not have sex with that woman”. Apparently the only item of evidence which could give the lie to that presidential statement was a semen stained dress in the hands of the FBI. It did not occur to anyone in the US establishment to either destroy/tamper with the dress or intimidate Ms. Lewinsky in order to protect the most powerful man in the world. Obviously that system has integrity. Even attempting such a thing would have been unacceptable to the American people, who expect high standards from their institutions.
Most of us are aware of the famous Miranda Case where the American Supreme court overturned the conviction of an admitted rapist because he had not been adequately cautioned on his constitutional right to remain silent and also the right to legal counsel. Although these   principles have now found their way to several Constitutions, the spirit that gave rise to them in the first place is absent in many of these countries.  Recently, I heard that a leading figure of one arm of the government was boasting that a very prominent politician spent more than an hour at his daughter’s wedding.  It is hard to imagine   the   fine legal principles that we have adopted through the years having much meaning to persons who measure their own ‘status’ from the number of minutes that a politician allocates to a family wedding.
For those who live in the real world the fact that a person or persons invoke the protection of the embassy of a country like the United States would not come as a surprise.  In different ways, very many people here have benefitted from the bounteousness of that country, both materially and otherwise. As Neil Diamond would say, they are (only) coming to America…