ரோஸ்

நிதானம் தவறாத ஆசிரியர் தலையங்கம். Pro-GOSL editors at The Hintu, Daily Views, Businesslie and Frontlie should read this editorial over and over again.
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So, did you heed the government's call and hang the Lion Flag over your front door last week? If you did, feel free to turn the page. If not, dear worthy, liberal-minded soul, we pray you read on.

Stuck for ideas as their administration becomes increasingly bankrupt, the Rajapakses have taken to asking the Sri Lankan people to dig deep into their collective bosom and come up with some patriotic fervour to help offset the spiralling cost of living, rising unemployment, ubiquitous corruption and that long-forgotten ideal we used to call human rights. The idea of whipping up patriotic passion when in dire straits is not new: it is as old as the hills, and certainly as old as Rome, as told by Julius Caesar himself :

"Beware of the leader," said Caesar, "who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry who, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar."

for more
http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=1999

Labels: Sunday Leader