Americans: Do not care or idiots?

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana-July 5, 2020



From the moment I saw the description on the TV guide, "Attempted assassination of a Sri Lankan freedom fighter", I waited with bated breath to watch the episode "Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Assassin" (Season 7, episode 14), broadcast on the British Freeview channel 5USA on 1st July. Though billed as a new episode, it had been first broadcast in the USA, way back, in June 2008. Surprising that there is such a huge time lag for British TV channels to broadcast some American programmes. But that is another story.

Admittedly, ‘Law & Order’ are terms that have been fading in the memory of Sri Lankans during the ill-fated Yahapalana regime but some semblance seem getting established now. However, what I am referring here is to the hugely successful American, police procedural and legal drama, television series "Law & Order", created by Dick Wolff. The original series, based in New York, depicting how the police and prosecutors work, often based on true stories, started broadcasting in September 1990. Though it ran out of steam, in May 2010, many spin-offs have been produced, not only in the USA, but also in the UK, France and, interestingly, in Russia, as well. One of the spin-offs, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", which deals with crimes considered especially heinous in nature, sexually-based crimes, is the longest TV series, still running from September 1999.

"Law & Order: Criminal Intent", which included this episode titled ‘Assassin’, is centred on the Major Case Squad at the fictionalised version of the New York City Police Department and aired from September 2001 to June 2011.

‘Assassin’ begins with a press conference. A lady, reminiscent of Benazir Bhutto, not only in dress, but also in appearance, is welcomed back in New York and starts speaking, thanking her brother for facilitating her release from house arrest, in Sri Lanka, and states: "I will not rest till the Tamil homeland is established". My jaw dropped, at the incongruity but the worst was yet to come. When she was referred to as Mrs Khan, I was even more confused. I cleaned my ears to hear better. Yes, she was Bela Khan! Maybe, Tamil names are too long for the script writers, I wondered. But, then, some shows have long Indian names. Afterall, the full name of Apu, the owner of the corner shop in Simpsons, is Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

Press conference over, Mrs Khan is taken through the kitchen, probably to her vehicle, when a gunman fires but her close friend takes the fatal bullet. Her bodyguard shoots the assassin dead and, in turn, the bodyguard, on his way to processing, is shot from a rooftop by a sharp-shooter. It transpires that her husband’s elder brother had died earlier in a plane crash and the plane belongs to her husband’s younger brother. Mrs Khan is invited to deliver a lecture at a prestigious university, amidst high security, but thanks to a diversion, a man in a wheelchair is able to shoot but the one who gets killed is Mrs Kha’s Younger B-I-L. Her holding the body of the assassinated young Mr Kahn, the last in the family except her husband, in a blood splattered dress reminding of Jackie Kennedy, is on the front pages of newspapers, the next day. Police suspect Mr Khan to have masterminded, to solely inherit the vast family fortune, but on detailed analysis of the film footage, police work out that the real mastermind behind all the murders was none other than Bela Kahn. Even when she is arrested and taken in handcuffs, she affirms that she will get out and will not stop till Tamil homeland is established!

Leaving aside the morality of glorifying terrorism in Sri Lanka, as it happened to be at the height of its activity that this episode was first aired, in June 2008, many questions arise as to why the writers got the details so wrong. Perhaps, the only thing certain is that Tiger money is not behind this episode. By trying to mix up Sri Lankan problems with Benazir Bhutto and her rich family as well as the assassination of President Kennedy, the writers seem to have got into one holy mess!

Deep beneath, it raises more fundamental issues. Even in fiction, getting a Muslim lady to establish a Tamil homeland, the vice-chancellor of the university she addressed introducing her as the future president of the Tamil homeland, is insulting to both parties. Is this because of American ignorance or because they do not care or because they are idiots?

Americans do not realise that by their condescending attitude they lose so much of goodwill. The diplomat who refused to have a PCR test at BIA displayed absolute arrogance. Even if he is entitled to refuse, he should not have, as there is an epidemic raging. By the way, how the USA handled the epidemic is diametrically opposite to how Sri Lanka handled, so efficiently.

The US displays its arrogance not only to poor countries, like Sri Lanka, but also to countries with ‘special relationships’, too. Anne Sacoolas, a former CIA operative and the wife of Jonathon Sacoolas, a US government employee working at the United States Air Force listening station at RAF Croughton in the UK, was involved in a road traffic accident that killed a 19-years-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn. On the advice of her embassy, she claimed diplomatic immunity, although her entitlement was questionable, and fled to the USA. President Trump attempted to plater things over by attempting to get Harry’s parents to meet her in the White House but they refused, quite rightly and honourably! This is American idiocy at its best!

Of course, we have in our midst the ever-interfering American Ambassador who is trying her utmost to push our government to sign the MCC agreement. She has her henchman Mangala, who works tirelessly and has given many an excuse why it should be signed. Remember Mangala stating that it had to be signed by 19th December last year but that deadline has miraculously slipped! Then he peddled it as the cure for post-Covid economic ills. For him, subservience to USA is the norm.

I do not need to go into more details about the duplicity of American policy as the excellent editorial "Bounties, duplicity and irony’ (The Island, Tuesday 30th June) gives all the details. However, I would be failing in my duty if I do not give a commendation to the American Ambassador for the new democracy she expounded: she stated that the MCC agreement, once signed, could be discussed fully in parliament! No surprise, with this type of warped logic, the Covid-19 epidemic is having a field day in the USA. God bless America!

Surely, it is nothing but American idiocy!