My name is Bond, James Bond!
Who is James Bond?
He is an intelligence officer attached to the British Secret Intelligence Service commonly known as MI 6. Bond, known by his code number 007, is the creation of the famous English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming. He is a spy, always on the right side of the law, and also protects his motherland – Britain – from the despicable, ruthless and powerful desperados trying to control the world by hook or by crook.
James Bond, handsome, suave and well dressed ( in full suit), goes after these criminals driving a silver-grey Aston Martin DBS and armed with a Walther PPK handgun – he also has a licence to kill.
We in Sri Lanka, too, have at present our own set of Bonds. Like James, are handsome, suave and they wear full suits. They ride in expensive cars, maybe carrying sophisticated weapons. Like James, they operate with such coolness that no one will ever know whether they are following the normal procedure or stealing, and mind you, if there is no procedure they will create one to look as if it had been there for donkey’s years. For, unlike James, they are not acting as protectors but rather as scammers, indulging in various criminal activities to steal the valuable assets of our country. Unlike James they’re always on the wrong side of the law, and their full suits are part of their gentlemanly masks. .
These scamming Bonds seem to be going on a shopping spree, buying powerful "weaponry" to control, influence and exploit the public; turning public opinion towards them as well as their Big Bosses. If James Bond who had been able to catch powerful criminal masterminds, were assigned to investigate the abominable criminal situation here, he would be in a quandary. What is there to investigate, he will ask, since every thing seems to be going on smoothly? And, in a way, it is very true: everything regarding the major scam seems to be going on smoothly, and the cover-up strategy is well in place.
In the Indian classic Mahabharata, the master ambidextrous archer Arjuna has to face a moral dilemma over killing his kith and kin before the start of the great battle between the two royal branches. In the bond scam drama, or shall we say the right royal battle, no one seems to face any kind of moral dilemma over the great bank robbery - which has destructively affected the economy of our motherland. It must be stressed that the social, economical as well as the political environment has been caught in a tail spin due to this unbecoming Bond scam!
Will some James Bond, or maybe a team of James Bonds, come forward to investigate the loss created by this massive robbery? Will these James Bonds probing this criminal issue be bought over with the same ill-gotten monies? Or will it turn out to be a damp squib?
Every one seem to be in a kind of uncertainty due to the delays that seem to be happening in the investigative process. Will there be “kekille” judgement, to let loose the actual desperados and find some scapegoat in order to fill in the blanks and save the Big Bosses who were using the illegal strings to manipulate the “ambidextrous archers” as puppets to achieve their targeted end?
The result will be anybody’s guess!
By Vijaya Ariyarathne
