Quick! Is Aanamaalu Imthiaz an animal, mineral or vegetable? A bit of all, actually. No doubt once a human being (some critics may object: “Barely!”), now supplying chemicals for the soil, and helping to push up the daisies. Not quite your cup of tea on a Sunday morning, eh, gentle reader?

But you must admit that the world of gangsters holds some fascination for law-abiding citizens. It adds a certain pop, snap and crackle to one’s, er, breakfast. So much so that international food companies have modelled their consumer’s favourite brands on infamous Mafiosi. Do you doubt it? Check these out…

Which of the following are breakfast foods and which are members of the Mafia? Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, the Smackin’ Brothers, Toucan Sam, Cliffy the Clown, Loopy, Coco the Monkey, Joe Bananas, Charlie Lucky, Handsome Jack, Tony Ducks, Joey the Clown, Frankie the Spoon? If you’re American, or an avid fan of Reader’s Digest, you would have guessed that the first six are popular cereal mascots; and the latter half-a-dozen the monickers of unpopular cereal (um, serial) killers.

In the meantime, the attempt to make light of serious misdemeanours has not left our own underworld untouched. The late, little-lamented Aanamaalu Imthiaz is the Sri Lankan correspondent of La Cosa Nostra’s Joe Bananas stateside. And there are a plethora of other home-grown hoodlums whose nomenclature brings to mind the garden plot. The Wambotu Gang comes to the fore as an example of local mobsters who have earned their nicknames courtesy the kingdom plantae, although their exploits point to a more suitable classification among animalia.

In more recent times, a plethora of pseudonymous criminals has dominated the police-news headlines. Newsworthy occasions related to each of these denizens of the underworld have been similar – their passage into the larger underworld from which there is no return. In each of these cases, the suspected gang lords were in police custody and were gunned down trying to make good a badly planned escape, huh, in broad daylight.

Unfortunate

Aanamaalu was one such unfortunate who, ahem, went bananas in this manner. ‘Army Roshan’ and ‘Army Chappa’, who introduced a martial element to the noms de guerres of underworld combatants, went west when they too attempted to withdraw or retreat from encircling law-enforcement custody.

‘Pappa’, being regrettably cut down in the prime of life by a reluctant copper’s covering fire, did not have the poor fortune to see his hairs turn grey. Of the fates of Kudu Lal, Kudu Ajit and Kudu Nihal, we shall say nothing – for that which requires comment has been better said elsewhere, by other columnists of this rag. 

Be that as it may, the propensity of the law to shoot first and ask questions later underlines the fact that a new war on terrorism is taking place – this time, under your nose and mine.

And the determination of the powers that be to cleanse the Augean stables in their own backyard can be interpreted as a consummation devoutly to be wished – if one is in a charitable frame of mind. Because it remains to be seen whether this battle will be fought on the same principle as the counterattack against separatism: the Bushism that those who are not for us are against us.

Under suspicion

To put it bluntly, the picking off of a few kingpins will be that much more credible, and commendable, if all the kingpins are caught in the same net, to say nothing of crossfire. Until such time, and unless such an eventuality transpires, not even our Caesars can remain above suspicion.

Which reminds me that Imperial Rome in its heyday ran on pretty much the same principle. Even outstanding republicans such as good old Julius, who gave his name to a panoply of emperors, crucified pirates terrorising the Mediterranean on one hand… while keeping street toughs on Mars Hill close at hand in case of a civil riot in the capital seeking to depose him.

Successive imperators thundered peace and justice in the forum, while their hired assassins ran amok among the magistrates and in the marketplace. Some, like Caligula and Nero, went so berserk that their horses were ceremonially declared consuls, while supposedly disloyal senators were stabbed to death at state banquets.

The perpetrators of such crimes, rather than being indicted for high treason, were lauded by servile lackeys as paragons of virtue and rectitude. The general populace, egged on by the common mob (mobile vulgus) took up the refrain out of ignorance or fear…

In contemporary times, closer home, the rot has seeped out of the corridors of power and flooded the corporate workplace. The worst offenders insofar as bribery and corruption are concerned, for instance, are upheld as being the ‘most respected’. This is not only the secret shame of the powerful elite who prop up commerce in Colombo and the Western Province, but a severe indictment of the hoi polloi in corporate Sri Lanka, who continue to perceive the big guns among the ‘usual suspects’ (multinationals, blue chips, highly diversified conglomerates) as being worthy of honour and felicitation.

The bad habit that is lionising government mandarins and corporate bigwigs alike has taken businesses, schools and even civil society organisations by storm. Hardly a conference, prize giving or passing out, seminar or symposium or sports meet goes by without a chief guest to ‘grace’ the occasion. And never mind if the same person has disgraced himself or herself by dint of being corrupt, a cheat or a cheap corporate trickster turned national-grade swindler.

Old boys network

All that matters is the great virtue of being a personage or a personality – and Bob’s your uncle. In fact, better still if Bob is your uncle – because nothing networks work like the old boys’ work… a bylaw that rules not only the corporate jungle, but also the corridors of power – and now, sadly, civil-society organisations; that last bastion of ethical conduct against the sweeping tide of moral decay, societal decrepitude and leadership erosion.

But all is not lost… there is still hope left… that may perhaps be best exemplified by a recent intra-religious sporting event where to crown the joy, love and peace that passes all understanding when spiritually minded adults work hard at playing hard, the chief guests were three children representing each of our island’s major languages! Now if only the spoiled brats among our politicos (and the fat cats who pontificate on good governance while hypocritically subscribing to the norm that being crooked-and-uncaught is the chief criterion for doing business profitably) could become similarly childlike in their world view…