by Lucien Rajakarunanayake

October is the Month of Days. There are almost too few days in the month to set apart for various important issues from the Reading Habit to the Aged; Productivity, the White Cane and World Animals. On some days the topics overlap showing the abundance of issues that deserve to be remembered, supplements published - much to the delight of sections of the media (not that most are read, though), messages issued and celebrations held with a great deal of platitudes uttered by people, who generally have no idea of what they are talking about.

I write this on the Day for the Washing of Hands – the first time I knew there was an entire day set apart for this important act of hygiene, a good and very sensible habit to have, which was drilled into us while in school, many, many years ago.

It just struck me that there is more to the Washing of Hands than this aspect of hygiene that it is always associated with. Christians will no doubt recall how Herod tried to wash his hands off what must have been his guilt at having condemned Christ to be crucified; which must have been the origin of the phrase of washing one’s hands off something that is not acceptable or is not the "done thing".

Just now, after the recent All Party Conference in Tamil Nadu, some politicians there are trying to make a show of bringing pressure on the Government in New Delhi on behalf of the LTTE, in a clear attempt to wash their hands off the fact that it was in India, particularly in the South, that the LTTE had its training in terror; leading to it being one of the biggest organization of terror in the world today, and is also banned in India. I’m sure there must be a great deal of hand washing to be done by Karunanidhi & Co to come clean of the contagion of terror they have clasped in pre-election desperation.

Over here, I am told there are many bureaucrats from the UDA, BOI and the Low Lying Areas Development Board driving up in their tax free limousines to the dip their hands in the Diyawanna Oya and wash them clean, if that is ever possible, of all the dirt and slime that is stuck on them from their acts of commission and omission over the golf course at Water’s Edge.

Many years ago, in a spirited debate in Parliament, the late CP de Silva, for many years the Minister of Irrigation, told a critic of his who was raking a lot of mud in his speech, that all the water in all of Sri Lanka’s irrigation works would not be able to wash off the mud that the member was wallowing in. That seems like an apt comment to make to those making a vain effort to wash their hands clean of all the dirt that has surfaced at Water’s Edge and brought into focus by the Supreme Court.

While children are told the importance of washing their hands regularly for reasons of hygiene and health, it is obvious that as people grow up they give much more meaning and purpose to the washing of hands. How else can our politicians be always at the ready to wash their hands off any responsibility for all the corruption that surrounds us in every aspect of public life today?

There must be special giant basins set apart for all the water that is needed to serve the needs of local government, provincial and parliamentary politicians seeking to wash their hands off the ever growing problem of dirt and garbage in the cities and urban areas of what once was a truly beautiful isle.

Not even the force of water coming from a fire-brigade hose will be able to wash off, not just the dirt, but the blood too, from the hands of private bus owners who are responsible for so many deaths on our roads; through their determination to use buses that are not roadworthy, persist in employing drivers who believe they have a license to kill, and conductors who are bereft of the rudiments of courtesy to passengers.

The Public Health authorities in Colombo, and all our other municipalities, urban and town councils must be in the regular habit of washing their hands clean of all the filth that is found in our eateries, "hotels" and "restaurants" licensed to serve food to the people; and do so under the dirtiest of conditions. It is a poor effort at keeping one’s hands clean when the Chief Medical Officer of the CMC decides to grade city eateries on cleanliness, and hits upon the great idea of giving the dirtiest offenders just a rap on the knuckles, till they get their act cleaner and hygienic for the public. Such offenders need a painful scrubbing of their entire bodies through the cleansing agents of the law.

The Minister for Consumer Affairs, with all his experience in private tuition, gives the impression of having mastered the art or skill of hand washing, when one listens to him treating the public as being utterly gullible when he abandons all responsibility for the price of LP gas or the many notches that were once marked in the price of milk powder.

Wherever the practice originated, hand washing is today the special skill of politicians, going together with their commensurate skill in deceit and falsehood. Not only do they wash their hands off all the problems faced by the people that are largely politico-made; they add insult to injury when they even wash their dirty hands on to heads of the people, as if it is a right conferred on them by birth or natural selection.