SRI LANKA: Tougher Laws Proposed for Bolstering Moral Values

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Oct 5 1998 (IPS) - Sri Lankan authorities are canvassing public support for fresh legislation to protect moral values, but independent experts say there are enough laws in the country except they are not implemented properly.

“We don’t need more laws. We have enough legislation but these laws must be properly implemented,” suggested Prof. Siripala Hettige, head of the sociology department at Colombo University.

Last month, the Chandrika Kumaratunga government said it was appointing a committee to establish a policy to control the portrayal of sex and violence in cinema, television and other media which have a “damaging influence on the life of the people.”

Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris will chair the panel that will seek the views of the public before formulating relevant legislation. Already the government is drafting legislation to ban the advertising and promotion of alcohol and tobacco products.

Sri Lanka is not only grappling with a bloody guerrilla war in which more than 50,000 people have died since 1983 but is also seeing an increasing weakening of moral values in the social fabric.

Crime is on the increase, and daily newspapers full of reports of suicides, rape and incest. News reports, according to Prof. Nandadasa Ratnapala, Sri Lanka’s most respected sociologist, depict violence as something unavoidable.

Violence is viewed uncritically and most reports are sensationalised, he says, which is damaging the impressionable minds of the young. “Today in addition to the fact that violence is made available in a positive light to young people, it is also being emphasised as a desirable value in life,” Ratnapala believes.

Films, some experts say, portray sex and violence in a positive light. Most English language movies shown in Sri Lanka in recent years are bordering on pornography.

“Sexual, seduction, steamy love scenes”, screams a cinema poster showing a couple kissing. Another titillating billboard in Colombo advertises the “sexual appetite of one woman who takes on three men in one night.”

Ratnapala’s concern is that there is a gradual breakdown in the socialisation of children. Gratitude, kindness, sincerity, concern for others were values that were emphasised in the past, through books and stories like the ‘Jatakha Katha’ based on Buddhism.

Sociologist Hettige feels that cinemas – in a bid to survive in the age of the small screen – offer sex and erotica-based movies aimed at drawing young urban males from slums and shanties, who may not have access to television.

These movies draw house-full crowds compared to any family movie that was on offer.

“To the young, it is an avenue to get away from the problems of daily life,” Hettige said, adding that a sizable number of Sri Lanka’s male population is also unmarried. “Being sexually inactive, they (males) use the cinema as a way of overcoming their sexual inhibitions,” he said.

Hettige said that youngsters were attracted to the sex and violence in cinemas, as an outlet for their emotions since they had no redress from present-day problems. “No one listens to them. No one takes notice … least of all the politicians,” he feels.

The problems of society are also linked to poverty, war and youth frustrations, say sociologists. The spending patterns of the poor are irrational, like going for a Hindi movie which has a lot of dances and nice girls but little relevance to real life.

Young people are reluctant to stay in villages and work in rice fields, cultivated for generations by their fathers and forefathers. Instead they prefer to work in the Middle East, as housemaids or on construction sites.

Sri Lankan newspapers have also been accused of “too much war reporting”. The lead story day in and day out is about the war and the numbers killed; who is winning and who is losing, unlike many years ago when the top story of the day was a development project, government programme or constitutional crisis.

“If you ask readers what the lead story is today, the chances are that they won’t be able to remember,” said the editor of a weekly newspaper. Non-political stories rarely get prominence, and are relegated to the inside pages.

The government reflects the change in perception of what is important as much as the Sri Lankan media. Recently a gay rights group here called for a 130-year-old law against homosexuality to be scrapped. “We have written to the government and are awaiting a reply,” Sherman de Rose, director of Companions on a Journey, told reporters in August.

When asked at a news conference whether the Kumaratunga government would look into the request of the gay group, Justice Minister Peiris said there were bigger problems facing the Indian Ocean island nation.