He was
not a mere journalist, but a visionary. Pen was his sword, a fighter belonging
to a league of his own. Four years have lapsed, his words have come true; ‘Then
they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me’.
I met him first when I was 12 during an Old boys meeting at
St. Benedict’s College, Colombo when my father said, “Son, I want you to meet one
of my favourite classmates. He is Lasantha Wickrematunge and he owns the pen
that is feared the most in the country”. Dreamt of being a pilot, but over the
next seven years I didn’t miss his column, he inspired me to take up
journalism.
That fateful morning on the 8th of January 2009,
arguably the most courageous journalist the island has produced was murdered in
cold blood, silencing not only him, but the entire profession. Disagree? Read
and watch how appallingly newspapers and the electronic media are blowing the
government’s trumpet, naked.
Four years ago at his funeral procession crowded by hundreds
of thousands, the ferocious voices of the opposition parliamentarians, civil
leaders and journalism activists swore upon Lasantha’s dead body to lay their
lives to continue his fight and to fast to death until his murderers were
brought to book. Opportunists! Today none of them could be bothered to wake up
half an hour early and attend his memorial mass which only saw the
participation of his close family, four parliamentarians, few staff members of
The Sunday Leader, a handful of Benedictines and barely any journalists.
Entering through the gate to the Borella cemetery an empty,
gloomy and morbid drive-way awaited us (My dad and I), instead of an expected
gathering of thousands. We squinted in the morning sunlight as we looked out
for Lasantha’s grave for there was no sign of a memorial mass of a great human
being. A five hundred metre walk through the long rows of head-boards denoting
the trenches where our dead are buried, got us to the destination where hardly
fifty had gathered; the memorial service of a three wheel driver would have
attracted a greater assembly.
The Chief Justice impeached, opposition scattered, Provincial Councillors assassinated by their own party members, glorious sons becoming
astronauts and lawyers overnight, heart of the capital shut down to hold night
races, central bank investing in Greece; at time when the country dearly misses
his courage, when he should be remembered the most as every element of
democracy is squashed by the power hungry, they’ve abandoned him. They’ve
abandoned his fight, dream and vision living up to what Sri Lankans are known
for, ‘A forgetting nation’.
My dad then explained the stark reality of life while at the
quiet, windswept cemetery, ‘No matter how great, once gone, you are forgotten unless
the living still could benefit from you’.
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- Sunesh Rodrigo
