Checkpoints - They are just doing their job

I'm back in monsoon-whipped Colombo. After speeding through immigration and customs, both of which were unusually polite and accomodating, I got my first dose of reality at the check points. Three of them. Over the 30 km it is from the airport to my house. All of them were rude, guns pointed and scowling faced affairs. My mum, brother and I had a good laugh at each one. Making jokes about police officers in English is a risky, yet highly amusing game. But I feel bad men.

Three bodyguards recently gave their lives to save an easily replaceable Minister. Every day cops, soldiers, airmen and sailors give their lives or risk them for a nation that by and large appreciates their effort. But Colombo people, the best protected and best fed people in the country, despise the armed forces. They complain about harassment and delays, of unproffesionalism and aggression, of rudeness and sinhala tests. They have the time and the spare concern to feel for the plight of the people in the North and East, and lambast the security forces for lack of restraint. But do they ever once put themselves in the shoes of anyone from the armed forces.

Even taking into account corruption, profiteering and looting, the average income of the security forces personnel hovers around that of a Colombo-employed clerk. Imagine being paid as much as bored and inefficient paper-pusher, to stand in the sun all day checking vehicles that may carry bombs or armed men. Now add the daily humiliation from rich Sinhalese people that vent their day's frustration on the hapless security personnel. Imagine if our hypothetical solider could read, he would read about how his profession is considered barbaric and power-hungry, while the pencil-pushers are "driving the growth of the nation, and forming a sizeable middle class which consumes washing machines, fridges and even computers". This while his wife may one day become a widow or his son grow up without a father. There are no washing machines, fridges in the house of the average soliders. A computer is a faraway dream.

I would ask you to imagine the trials and privations of a combat soldier, and what could drive him to excesses against people who are shooting at him all day. But I assume my readers have a modicum of intelligence, so I will save you the story.

The next time any of us are harassed by security personnel, just grin, bear and bribe if you have to.

The security guy irritating you is just doing his job.