Truth and Dialogue as Theatre: Some Reflections on the Frontline Club Panel on Sri Lanka
I watched the Frontline Club panel on Sri Lanka, belatedly and reluctantly. I am skeptical about such public enquiries and debates into complex matters, which threaten to reduce the dialogue and truth into performance. In my view, the problem with these ‘events’, for that is what they are, is that the truth is reduced to a many-sided thing; the more one counts the sides the more fragmented the truth itself becomes. But of course you never get ‘all sides’ of the story. So, for example, someone keeping a count of the sides could say the Muslim question or the gender dimension figured not at all. In fact, Stephen Sackur set the tone for an evening of performance with his opening line: “First thing to say is that it is fantastic to see such a great audience.” The panelists inevitably came with their own scripts—prepared remarks, notes, papers (Mr. Wijesinha had loads of them), computers etc. Then there were the self-appointed…
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