It irks me that the intelligentsia of Colombo seem sated by media representations of reality, sharing news stories with commentary, when the said news story is already tainted by subjectivity. If they really wanted to change something, they could do so by, perhaps, removing this middle man in the processing of data into information, and take it into their own hands. The RTI bill does not have public hype surrounding it, though it is one of the few changes that could really be useful to the general public. Does the general public really want to engage?
For the sake of provocation, I took to the Parliament website and acquired the Hansard of April, 20, 2015, and created this:
The purpose is not to dishonour parliamentarians, but to demonstrate that I, too, can take a very real instance and present my own version of it in a form the reader is used to associating with a point of authority, be it the parliament or the media. I want my RTI. I want to see more Sri Lankan engaging with the power they actually do have in their hands, and not just their smartphones. And if it has to be via smartphone, I want to see an app that will help us understand how our system works and just how we work our power through it.
