A new trend or ethos is insidiously creeping in, in addition to others like blatant sycophancy and only politicians acknowledging praise when others have sweated their guts out to get a project completed. This newest trend must be nipped in the bud, along with the other infections caused by politicians’ hubris. However this is no easy matter; not possible the pessimist would say, since it comes down from pinnacles of political power. The dangerous trend I have uppermost in mind this morning is exemplified by the saying: "If you are not with me, you are against me." This gives no space to the neutral, to the independent, who prefers to stay distant from extremes.

Everyone applauded the President’s address to the nation no sooner the LTTE leadership was wiped out when he said there were no racial barriers and divisions. Almost all Sri Lankans breathed a sigh of gigantic relief that the war was over; that the powers that be were magnanimous in victory. The President was a true statesman when he decreed there would be no discrimination and the devastated North would be rehabilitated and the Tamils given their due place. But certain of my friends had cold shivers running down their spines when he said there were two lots of people: those who love the country and those who do not; the latter identifiable as traitors. I was blase` about it until I thought deeper. It did sound ominous if misrepresented by the ultra nationalist.

This fear is proven justifiable in the controversy that is on-going. I refer to a letter to the Editor of the Island of Wednesday 22 July where a person who signs himself as "Prolanka" titles his letter as More on Australia’s ‘Concentration Camps’. He is in agreement with Tissa Devendra who objected to the opinion expressed by Anne Abayasekara in a letter to the Editor in which she "commended the ordinary citizens of Australia who opposed their Government’s policies towards illegal immigrants and who went the extra mile in making them feel welcome and accepted." She also surmises "whether the sentiments that offended TD were those emphasizing the Australians who criticized their Govt, and opposed it, were NOT called ‘traitors’ nor were they in danger of assault, disappearance and death from unknown forces taking the law into their own hands with impunity." Now this last is another new trend, physical this time, not mental or emotional: - people taking the law into their hands and meting out extra-judicial punishment with impunity.

I am joining the controversy since Prolanka seems to be a person who subscribes to a further interpretation of the new societal dictum: If you are not with me you are against me; namely that if you see something good in a foreign country, you are against your own country – Sri Lanka. That exemplifies the intolerance and misinterpretation that is gaining ground nowadays.

He starts his long letter by saying "Mr. Tissa Devendra is rightly saddened ‘at the readiness by two ladies (Anne Abayasekara and Marie) to believe the worst about their homeland Sri Lanka, and amused at their naïve enthusiasm for Australia’s decency.’"

He continues thus: "TD must reconcile himself to some facts as regards the Sri Lankan middle and upper middle classes and the members of our NGO/INGO Cocktail Club and Social Circuits generally." He conveniently leaves out the upper class. Does he believe the likes of our Prez and his family belong there and so never to be faulted? He goes on to add Shanie and Tisaranee of the Island Group and most of the ‘S/Leader’ Group, also the UNP to his list. "These people have eyes only for alleged lapses in and by their own country." I won’t labour the point. That is quite enough to show how lopsided his views are; how prejudiced; and how he leaps to conclusions. The idea that grew in my mind as I read his letter was that he is an ultra nationalist fox who failed to get the grapes. I needs must further quote him. He disdainfully pushes away all those who travel to western countries or who have lived in these countries as indulging in "vituperative comparison with their poor ole Sri Lanka." How did Sri Lanka become poor and ole? He should be using the epithet Paradise.

Then he descends to the vulgar. Difficult to even quote him further but I have to, to prove how biased he is. "One whiff of foreign air is sufficient for them to defecate on their own country." He is, in addition to being the fox who longs for grapes and does not get them (read foreign trips), a frog in the well with a penchant for you-know-what body function.

I’ve spent much print space on ‘Prolanka’ since he upholds and represents a biased, misguided nationalism which is dangerous and cannot be pushed aside as a mere fad. Neither can he be ignored as a non-representative member of Sri Lankan society. There are many more Prolankas amidst us, more dangerous than this one with his prejudiced pen. Think of those who shout against the teaching of English (a JVPer does this and probably sends his children to an international school).

Anne Abayasekara explained herself further in a letter to the Island Editor on 29 July. She praised an aspect of Australian society, and did not speak at all disparagingly of Sri Lanka. In fact she made no comparison. To Prolanka, and probably to Tissa Devendra too, praising a country means running down one’s own.

It is good to compare ourselves with other countries; measure ourselves; note our warts and try to correct ourselves. But to Prolanka it must only be praise for our country and of course the practice of the new malady, sycophancy to the leaders of the country and through them, lopsided loyalty to SL.

Cannot these Prolankas see the filth that is ubiquitous in Sri Lanka? Do they close their noses and eyes to the garbage piling up, the eternally littered roads with saliva and worse all over? Do they close their minds to the obvious corruption all through the land and the way some (mostly politicians) make laws and break the accepted laws themselves? Abduction has descended to the animal world. Consider the crime committed by Minister of State Lokuge and the Diyawadana Nilame in tearing apart nursing elephants from their mothers just to have more elephants in an already too long Perahera. They just swept aside protest and the stricture that baby elephants are weaned only at age five.

I can go on and on but must not overstate the obvious.

I have observed a family on holiday in which the parents earn and live very well in the State of New York. They love Sri Lanka but deplore its demerits and despair for it ever being able to overcome its shortcomings, big and small. The younger son of the family I speak of says: "Papa and I are rearing to go back to New York." To the question why, he unabashedly says in the full wisdom of his six years: "I do not like the smell on the roads of Colombo. I do not like the cars and buses all coming at me, I do not like the horns tooting all the time. I hate mosquitoes." But he and his father loved it outstation. The wife and elder boy close their eyes to the demerits and concentrate on the positives like the sincere warmth of relatives and friends. The wife revels in meeting friends who talk on subjects of interest and not mere gossip of the ‘she-told-me-you-said-this, but-please-don’t-tell-her’ kind. I agree with her totally since, yes, when we meet we have so much good to say that running down people is not given any place. Gossip we do, with a dash of malice and much pleasure, but we have gone beyond the urge to do better than the other materially; to be envious and gripey.