My Thoughts

For OUR 2012

2011-12-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

Wish !
You'd look around,
See, that haggard old man
At the traffic lights,
Begging for a cuppa tea,
From the spruced up gent,
Impatient for the green,
On the wheel of the hybrid “Prius”.

Wish !!
You'd look around,
See, that young woman,
Scanty in an old gown,
Pleading for a measly mouthful
To feed the sleeping child
On her bony shoulder,
Not knowing, the bus is moving.

Wish !!!
You'd look around,
See those half dressed bellies,
Street kids, wanting a snack
From a couple in designer slacks
Walking hand in hand
From the “Hot & Spicy”
Happy, the year had fun

Wish !!!!
You'd look around,
See the black prison van,
Packed with young men,
Suspects only, for unending years,
For crimes the men wouldn't know
And mothers and wives, praying,
Hopelessly hoping for freedom.

Wish !!!!!
You'd look around,
See the silent, helpless tears,
Held in pale and uncertain eyes,
Of a mother who'd remember,
She has no grave any more,
For a candle, to flicker her grief
For the son who left, one day,
With unknown men, in shadows.

Wish …..
You'd look around,
See the last day this year,
A waste of bursting crackers,
The noise of men and women,
Blind to see you looking,
Where their tomorrow is,
Different – to yours and mine.
Yours and mine,
Wanting a change, a new tomorrow,
Tomorrow,
Kids, happy and laughing clean,
Mother, no more pleading need,
The old, dignity in their smiles warm,
The young pride, free and dissenting,
A new world for ALL,
Sunny and fair in peace,
Candles lit, for our New Year !

Kusal Perera
31 December, 2011
23.50 hrs.

"That’s fifty cents per acre", Jawagé – wattha

2011-12-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

How old is Jawatte Road? Hundred? Silly is it, to ask that?

Not for me any way. Do read on. Few of you may know but most would not even believe that “Jawagé – wattha” as it was known in early 20th century, was the largest energy source for the transport service that trekked to and from the Colombo port and the Pettah. To the bullock carts that brought in Copra, Rubber sheets, Areca (Puwak) Nut, Plumbago and even vegetables. In a heavy day with good weather, over two hundred bullock carts wound their way into the Fort – Pettah area, almost all with two oxen tied to pull the load. And how much grass would these beasts of burden need when they had no option but to stay over the night?

That’s where the original Jawagé – wattha fitted into the picture of old Colombo. An important supplementary service to keep the commercial economy going. Grass to feed the oxen. But why call it “Jawagé – wattha”? Obviously, the whole grassland area was owned by a man of Malaysian origin. To be more precise, from the Indonesian archipelago. There were many who were brought from those island countries that included Java from the time of the Dutch. The Brits too added more during their early part in this island. Some Javanese even served in the Colonial Police force. Heard of the Police platoon that was sent to capture the benevolent bandit Sardiel in the mountains? That is said to have had many Javanese police constables.

This man, a Javanese perhaps, came to own the grassland that stretched from the vicinity of the Colombo Race Course, haphazardly covering the entire expanse that now includes Summit Flats, to the further end of the little foot road that’s Jayaratne Mawatha today at the Thimbirigasyaya side, where my paternal grand father had his little carpentry shed bordering the grassland. On the East of the grassland stretching towards the present Torrington Avenue, had been patches of slum dwellings and bare land on which the carters spent their nights and the oxen rested with feed.

There was this little road that cut through the lush grassland which was then “Jawagé wattha” and the slum dwellings which connected the slightly bigger Thimbirigasyaya Road to the Buller’s Road. At that end of the connection was the sprawling garden of the famous Dr. R.L. Spittle with his bungalow “The Wycherley” facing the Buller’s Road and opposite the “Pissang – kotuwa”(Lunatic Asylum). This area probably extending up to the present Borella Cemetery, was then called, “Koombi-kelé.

Before the Second World War, with Malaria breaking in as an epidemic, the Incurable Diseases Hospital (IDH) was established in Angoda and the Lunatic Asylum (Pissang-kotuwa) shifted there. No doubt the mentally depressed or ill were never cured then and was considered “incurables”. The “Pissang – kotuwa” thus falling vacant was subsequently used to start and station the “Radio Ceylon” which is now the SLBC (No pun attached).

On the other end, the Thimbirigasyaya Road bordered the Wallace’s Stable, one of the biggest stables with the best bred horses. It covered the larger part between Thimbirigasyaya Road and Fife Road. But how that road came to be known as Fife Road I wouldn’t know. For all horse races that were part of the elite life in Colombo, the best in the Wallace’s stable were marched by “Kudirakarans” to the Race Course through the little road along Jawagé – wattha.

This road that stretched through Jawagé – wattha was not only used by horses. It was used by all others in little townships and settlements that dotted the Kirulapone and Pamankada area to reach the Mariyakadé (Present Symond’s Road side of Maradana) area for small buying like tobacco and betel. So did my father and his elder brother, to go to school. Two of them walked from Jayaratne Mawatha through Jawagé – wattha and passing “Pissang – kotuwa”, one to go to Wesley College and the other to Nalanda Vidyalaya. All the way on foot with just an “isso wade” for quarter of a copper cent bought from a Kochin vendor who lived in Sudu-wélla, from the “One Cent” given to each, as the day's expense.

By the time the Second World War approached, automobiles had come to ply the Colombo roads and the Slave Island, Maradana, Kotahena areas had Tram cars for commuting. Importance of bullock carts were gradually being challenged by noisy, pong – pong horn tooting lorries. Colombo was growing and the road along Jawagé – wattha was also turning into an important connecting route. Then came the World War with Ceylon put under marshal law and food rationed. Nights were dark even under the full moon, with no lights or lamps allowed for fear of aerial bombings. The talk of “Japs” trying to bomb the Colombo port caught on fast and loud in the city.

Panic thus made Colombo a chaotic city with many wanting to leave. Many did leave to their villages. They could not go without money in their hands, for they did not know whether they could come back at all. Even if they did, when? And there were those who did not have a village to go, but still wanted to turn what ever they had accumulated into hard coins. What if the Japs bombed Colombo and left nothing but rubble? Hard money in hand would at least give another start to life, when ever the war ended. So the lands and property went up cheap. The Javanese approached my grand father and offered his grass land for sale.

“Baas unnehé, I’m going back. Want to sell all this land. For you, I will give at fifty cents per acre.” Jawagé – wattha was thus on sale.

“What can I do with those grass man…..don’t even have a cow to feed.” said my grand father who instead thought of going back to his own village, Kalutara.

By the time the war ended, there was no grassland remaining. The baas unnehé down Jayaratne Mawatha was therefore not there to see the Jawagé – wattha getting parcelled into few smaller plots over the years and within a short time, after the war. No Jawagé – wattha any more. Big bungalows had come up with sprawling gardens on Jawagé – wattha and on either side of the little road that by then had become Jawatte Road. One of the most expensive, elite areas in Colombo, for a long time to come.
[Originally written to http://serendibinc.com/Home/Sigiriya/tabid/109/Default.aspx on 2007 March, 09 and is published here, with little editing]

Kusal Perera
2011 December, 23

Scavenging a recycle bin

2011-12-04T09:44:00.000-08:00

This may sound a little ridiculous. Nevertheless this was how I got round to more saner thinking, than there was in me, before.

It was way back in the mid 70's. We were living in that serenely calm hillside of the Nuwara Eliya district, that drizzled more than rained, over 09 months a year. Our house, was a two room, tin roofed house with a large backyard with tea scrubs and a few Kithul trees. A small cottage type, lonely house with a small front garden, fenced with “Andara” and red “Shoe flowers”, had not been occupied for many years for fear of ghosts residing in it.

Located in front of a tiny patch of terraced paddy field, adjoining the public cemetery, the house had two small lanes, one paved with stones in front and the other gravel, by the East side of the quarter acre plot. Both came together and led straight to the “Lower bazaar” and for us, the more busy “Upper bazaar” was through the de touring foot path, commonly used across the cemetery and over a small empty hillock.

Through the “Upper bazaar” ran the road that had buses plying from “Sangilipaalama” to both Watagoda and Thalawakele. From the Upper bazaar was also a bus that went to Nuwara Eliya, through “Dunsinane” a very well maintained, high grown tea plantation that stretched over two miles on either side of that snaking narrow road, leaving a wafting odour of freshly blended tea, in the misty air.

The stone paved lane in front of our house was a long walk of over an hour to another large tea plantation, people called “Meda kumbura”, while the cement slab at the entrance to the estate road, read “Meddacombra Estate”. The mountain range that always had a sombre looking mist wrapped around, stood tall, far away over the cemetery and was called the “Fernland Estate”. The Lower bazaar was adjoined by what Sinhala villagers called the “Choicey watte”.

Locked by these tea plantations, this was one small community where Tamil language dominated, but included over two dozen Sinhala teachers in the Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya, over a dozen at the adjacent Tamil Vidyalaya, a few Sinhala policemen, Sinhala employees, mostly drivers and conductors at the bus depot, also a Sinhalese visiting government apothecary to the weekly out door dispensary and a Sinhala clerk or two travelling daily to the AGA office at Sangilipaalama and one to the Nuwara Eliya education office. Even the Sinhala villagers in scattered little pockets, were conversant in Tamil. I got into the habit of trying out the little Tamil I had learnt during my childhood, in Colombo.

Most grocery stores, mostly in the Upper bazaar, owned by three or four Tamil traders were small and dark within. The only hardware store in the Upper bazaar, with a small whole sale business on coconut, beetle, tobacco and other small necessities, was owned by a second generation, Sinhala Southerner. So was the only pharmacy, a fairly busy place with patients sent by the RMP – a Sinhala, retired medical practitioner. The peripheral unit hospital for these people was a long wait for a bus that came almost every two hours during the day and rattled along the winding tarred road to Sangilipaalama, for over forty minutes.

The co-operative store was of course, multi purpose. We had to buy our weekly rice, sugar, flour, Mysore dhal and powdered milk from the co-operative store. It was a strictly rationed consumer market, that had nothing of them in any of those grocery stores. For the two rice ration books that we owned, we could buy the rarely available quarter pound of dried sprats, if we were at the co-op in time. Allowed for the two ration books were two small tins of imported sardine once every month that was often in short supply and much in demand, up in the hills that was too distant for fish. The eight ounces of Maldive fish though rationed the same way, was not so much of an issue. Tamil workers who were mostly Hindus, would let go of their ration of maldive fish. It was infant milk powder and bread that really kept us over worked through the month, pressed for the minimum possible consumption. Rice was even more scarce, but was available at a price, smuggled in buses by CTB employees who were on a regular route from the Upper bazaar to Medirigiriya every morning, with the another returning every night, from Medirigiriya. This was one bus route that never had a break down, thanks to the driver and conductor.

It was definitely a starving life for the Tamil estate workers. Their daily salaries were low and their minimum number of working days per month, was not fixed. Parcelling out some of the best tea plantation divisions to settle Sinhala villagers, was meanwhile heavily patronised by the ruling political authority, while Tamil labour roamed around, searching for green leaves (Gahala) along running water paths. They hadn't the money to buy vegetables that Nuwara Eliya made profits from, transporting to Colombo.

They came one day to knock on our door. A small boy outside our gate was holding on to a rope with a black, juvenile goat, tied to it. A frail looking man looking ten years older than he was, pulled out a pair of full grown, brown hens from a dirty looking cloth bag. He was on his way to the Upper bazaar to sell them. Perhaps it was hindsight that made him knock on our door. How much was he going to sell them for ?

The sunken look in the man's eyes and the scary, black ringed eyes of the two hens, worked a chilling, resentment within me. I wanted to close the door on him.
“Sir.....paathu thaanga” He said. I was to tell the price after a look at them. I wouldn't and he left, disappointed for sure.

Our house being the last, before the empty cemetery and the Upper bazaar, we often had Tamil workers making a call on us, before going to the Upper bazaar. Men and women came selling their household ware, for anything that would give them food. An elderly man once stood in front of the wooden gate, a brass lamp and a globular glass shade, held in his shivering hands. He wasn't going to tell me the price, he wanted. I just said ten rupees and he said okay. I looked at him for a while. I thought he would bargain. He didn't. I wondered why, but had no answer. We wanted a lamp bright enough for our dining table, but gave him five rupees and told him to sell it elsewhere. He insisted I take the lamp with the glass shade.
“Sir....bazaarka pona.....idika anji ruva thaan tharawen...” So, he felt he wasn't loosing on it, except that he could get rid of it quick and buy something for certain at the bazaar.

My wife next to me, said we should give him at least another two rupees. She was determined, we were not going to have it, dirt cheap. I knew, we had no money to buy it for ten rupees. My salary then as an English teacher was two hundred and forty nine rupees and ninety cents. Ten cents deducted for the blue stamp that I signed on the face of Late S.W.R.D. The man left, probably thinking what he would buy with that seven rupees.

That was a period the estate Tamil labour produced chronically malnourished children. A period they sold what ever they could. A week later an elderly, partly hunched woman knocked on the door again, to remove her heavy gold earrings that pulled her ear lobes down, for just twenty five rupees. It was a difficult decision to say “no” to her. She wanted to take her ailing two year old grand son to Sangilipaalama. We had just enough money to buy two packets of infant milk powder for our first born. I was to leave to Kandy the next morning to buy them in the “black market”. She wiped a tear, turning round to leave. I wiped mine, after she left.

Life was battered by unusually impracticable small rations, abundant scarcity and ruthlessly networked State vigilance through dedicated “people's committees”. All life in all districts had to live with barricades on consumer essentials, that now and then were sold from the rear door of a grocery, news of it getting carried through soft whisper.

I was justifying all of it, in our trade union forums. We were convinced, the market had to be strictly controlled. We were convinced, luxuries were not necessities in life. We were dreaming of an economically flat society that would not allow one to be taller than the rest. We sacrificed our today, for a far from empirically equitable tomorrow and we thought we were right. We therefore did not ask, why we had to buy the infant milk food, under the counter, at undeclared prices. We never asked, why those estate workers went around selling their life long, precious gold belongings, brass ware and even the poultry one after the other, to buy two “chundus” of rice, a small coconut and four ounces of dried chillies to go with some greenery fetched from the banks of a drying out rivulet, for a scrappy meal.

It took me, another decade, to question myself. It took me to form a dissenting stand in the party and get expelled, to think what our politics meant for others. Not that it had much meaning to us, the way we idealised society. That was too utopian to be true. That was too mechanically brutal and far from life, as well. Life by then had opened up. Life was given a choice in the market. We had to earn enough to compete in that market. That was not easy, though. But people seemed to take it better than what we thought is best.

At least for some time, we had no alternative answer. At least till the ecstasy of revelling in a free market, exhausted all life and incomes. Two decades and more later we are back, trying to find an alternative. All of us, the people and us, now need an answer to this breakdown of decency. Beyond this present, to be saner in life.

That for me is the difference for now.

(A tiny sketch from life in Kotmale)

Kusal Perera
03 December, 2011

Its A 'Big Bite', Sam

2011-11-09T00:49:00.001-08:00

(Translated from original Sinhala language)

I'm not sure, how I should start this story. Lets start with my name. Saman. I am Saman Jayasinghe, from Kadawatha. I am a “Lion”, a member of the Lions' association. I was (un)fortunate in getting an opportunity to attend a Lions' Annual Conference in Chicago, with a few others. Stricken with the epileptic of living in the US, I stayed back. I managed a small job there. That was four years ago. I have another valid year left in my visa. Could make a few more dollars and then leave.

My job was in a gas station. That in other words is a petrol shed. A petrol shed would immediately make you visualise a man in kakhi shorts and a shirt, wearing a pair of worn out rubber sandals, with a large betel chew inside the cheek. No, not so in the US. We have a neat uniform and we have to wear tie.

Here, its the driver himself who has to re fuel his vehicle. There are 10 to 12 pumps. With the credit card you can re fuel yourself. Or else they can walk in, give me the number of the pump with cash and I activate the pump. There are also misceleneous stuff from common drugs to condoms in a mini market.

These are quick found small jobs with a small pay. Enough for a single person to exist. Most who work in them are illegal immigrants. I can not open a bank account and nor can I drive a vehicle. The endorsement in my passport says, “Not authorized to work”. If by any means I get caught, its straight deportation.

American English is messy. They have an unusual slant on the letter “a”. So most words get dragged on the “a” with a slant. So my name for them would be like the “salmon” fish. But fortunately they changed my name to “Sam”. I was happy, I was not made into a salmon.

There is a toilet inside the gas station for customer use. That is called the “wash room” or the “rest room”. US is one country that markets itself to the world, while there's nothing for them at home. There may not be this much beggars, any where else in the world. But they are not called beggars. They are all “homeless people”.

I have a pass with distinction for English language and Literature. With another certificate from another institute, I thought I am a grand master at English. But they can not understand what I say, while I can not understand what they say. I was thus given “night duty” with less customer care responsibility.

One day a “homeless man” came in and asked, “May I use your rest room”.

I sent him out saying the “Rest room is only for customers”. He was about the age of my father. I felt sorry, though. His face was different. The complexion, neither dark nor fair. The eyes had a clear, piercing look.

Next morning, after my night shift, I was taking a stroll to my apartment. It was about 7.30 in the morning. A homeless man was seated on a bench, by the road. He was murmuring some thing in a rhythmic style.

Sounded, “Doove...deemot....kaarey...benda”. A familiar voice, it was. It was that man I sent out. I walked close to the man and asked, “hello..are you singing ?”

In very neat English he said, “Cold”, and then asked “Can you buy me a coffee ?” His legs were sore. The purple colour Iodene on the wounds had dried and the wounds oozing. I bought him a coffee then and there and asked “Are you sick ?”

“I am having a cold and fever” he replied.

I had a few Panadol tablets brought from Sri Lanka. I gave him two of them.

“Panadol ? Are you Sri Lankan ?” he asked in surprise.

“My god ! Are you Sri Lankan too ?”

He left a deep, long sigh and wanted to tell something. I was tired and sleepy. I gave him a few dollars from my night pilfering and said we could meet another day.

The sleep was restless, though up the whole night. The morning incident kept gnawing. Any way, the morning sleep is not what we have in the night. After that for some time, I didn't see him.

It was my usual night shift. He suddenly appeared around 12.30 in the night. He stared at me from outside. Through the counter. His hair and the beard was grown and gray. It wasn't a busy night. So I got a coffee cup for him and went out.
“Are you speaking Sinhala ?” He asked me.
“I thought Mr. Sam was a Mexican or an Indian ..... From which part of Sri Lanka ?”

It was I who wanted to know about him. But he was asking my details, instead. Let me now write, what he told me about him. His narration, as told by him, from here.

My name is Cyril Saparamadu. My wife is Padmini. We are from Homagama. How many would have benefited from the lottery Mr. Sam …...I won a lottery too.... a visa lottery. Twenty five years ago, I was a staff officer at the Central Bank. My wife was a teacher. We had a comfortable life there in Sri Lanka. After we received the letter from the US embassy, for one whole week, we didn't cook anything at home.....Mr. Sam......all in our house were bit by the US bug.
…...We have three children....The eldest is a son and the other two are daughters. When we came, the son was seven years and the daughters were six and five. We sold everything we had.....before coming here.
I also worked in a gas station like you. Wife managed a job as a Montessori teacher. It was difficult even with our two salaries. So I did another job. That was really, really tough. Carried through with stubbornness.......but I often fell sick.
Between very many episodes in our lives, time sped through.
The son wasn't much interested in studies. The two daughters did their Masters. They got married to two Americans. They are just name sake marriages. In Las Vegas, there is a “drive through marriage” place, also. The eldest daughter left to a different State. We were not told, where or why.
The son did a course in motor mechanics and joined a car manufacturing company. He is not bad off. But does not save anything. Got into drinking too. No sense of what his future would be.
Five years after the second daughter's confinement, she took us to her residence. We were more or less like “outsiders” there. My wife nevertheless was occupied with the grand daughter, Nicole. The little one had a pair of blue eyes and a very fair skin. Her hair of course, was black. Somewhat.....a little like my wife, I thought. At times she cuddle herself with me and slept. I caressed her hair. She loved it. I taught her the Sinhala song “My milk white Rabbit”
One day, our son in law......Mike Pearson.....asked my daughter, “What the hell is that Old man doing here ?”
“Don't talk like that...he is my Dad...” That was my daughter.
“But this....is MY house.” That was our son in law, Mike.
“OK...I will ask them to leave...You can hire a baby sitter.....for six hundred dollars a week.”
I knew, my stay would effect their marriage.
“Padmini....will you stay here ? You have no problems staying here....I will go to our son”
We have never been apart, ever since our marriage. She looked at me. Her eyes full of tears, she gave me a silent nod. “Remember to take your medicine”.
The son had a single room apartment. He was pleased to have me. But never wanted details. That's his way, always.
My first job there was to clean up the place. He had had his food, out.
“Will you have a beer...Dad ?” He was having a beer, the bottle kept to his mouth. We were different. I have not even sat in front of my father. I cursed myself, silently, for taking a decision without serious thought. There is no relationship between children and parents. Children have turned out like “robots”. Like machines with no sensitivity.
I went to the mall and bought a small rice cooker, some stuff to make tea and a few other things.
“Son don't eat out after this....I will cook something.”

I had to interrupt him. “So...how did you go this bad ?”

“Please....Mr. Sam....don't tell any one about me....its a disgrace to us all....”
First the son was good....alright. But later he became reserved. Answered only what was asked about. I felt his change after a few weeks. He sort of..... resented me.
It was fifteenth June. His birth day. I woke up early and prepared “milk rice” for breakfast. He likes it very much.
“Don't get late today....I will prepare dinner tonight”
I am a good chef. Can cook our meals quite well. I prepared “yellow rice”, chicken, dhal with gravy and made an onion sambol too. He did not come. I stayed awake till late, waiting for him. Then I had my meal and stayed for him. I had fallen asleep on the chair, itself. When he finally came with a few friends, it was past three in the morning. All were drunk. They were smelly too. Like marijuana. The lights were switched on and one fellow asked, “Who the fuck is this ?”
“Are you living with your Dad ?” Another asked.
One day, I thought I would ask him, “Am I a problem to you son ?”
“No...not a problem as such” he said nonchalantly. “But.....I can't even ask a friend to come....I too have a life Dad...” he said.
I guessed the time was up. I could turn out into a big problem. For a few days, I tried to call my wife and the second daughter. Their phone line was disconnected. They probably have left to another place.
The son sold his car, without any notice. Most suddenly. He left to New York with his baggage and laptop. Said, its a two-week training. That was a Sunday. I slept, till a little late. Some one woke me with a loud rap on the door. I went and opened it. He was the apartment manager, Norton Lopez.
“Your son didn’t pay rent. You have to pay or leave the apartment”
” Can’t you wait? He will be back in two weeks”
” No he is not coming back. He moved to New York”

The son had made a complete break with me. He was born at the Jayawardnepura Hospital. When I got the message it was around three in the afternoon. After the Cesarean operation, Padmini was still in a daze. The son was in a cot wailing. I caressed his rosy cheek. He stopped crying. A mother in the adjoining bed said, “See....how the baby recognised the father...” That rang in my ears.

After hearing Saparamadu, I felt I lost all liking to most I thought, I should live for. As soon as I went to my apartment, I called home, to speak to my mother. My father is no more living. My mother answered the ringing phone. A soon as I said “hello” to the mouth piece, she said, “Oooh my son....have you had breakfast ?....What time is it there now ?” I felt like crying. She sensed that, I guess. “Why...whats wrong ? Aren't you well ?” she asked. “That's enough staying there....come now”.

That was a five dollar phone card. I finished it, speaking to my mother. I spoke till I finished it, to say it right. But the weight I felt in me, in my mind, wasn't over.

“Why Uncle....you could have gone to the Buddhist temple....Aren't you Buddhist ? Why didn't you contact the Sinhala association ?”
“They are meant for the elite....They only organise Basket ball tournaments and dinner dances......after completing two jobs every day, I come home, wanting to hit the bed....So, I had no time for friends and company....no time to go the temple. I was not prepared to meet Sri Lankans...may be, that was my inferiority.....I have gone to Lankaramaya Viharaya a few times.....That was during the 'Katina pooja'...to have a good, tasty meal.....now I can't face Jinananda hamuduruwo....”

Those who work with me, have noticed me speaking to a “homeless guy”. They say, he is my “Dad”. I wasn't very much different to Saparamadu. It was like the walking stick being more weak than me. I could only sigh and then try to forget. Once in a way, I gave him a few dollars.

“Uncle..aren't you getting any dole from the State ?”
“I had my social security before. But now I don't have a place, an address. Seldom do I get anything from any one...These fellows give charity on the skin colour....”
“How long have you been this way ?”
“Now its more than five years....Summer is no problem...can sleep in the open. During the winter...they deport us to a camp....”
“Haven't you contacted your wife ?”
“Met her once.....I was lying on a park bench. I saw a familiar figure, coming into the park....pushing a go-cart with a little baby.....That was Padmini....in a pair of slacks...It was difficult.....to recognise her, all at once.”

I was very bad by then. I couldn't yet, avoid her. I walked up to her. She stared at me, with her brows on her forehead. “What happened to you ?....I searched for you....all over.”
“Son....left me....where are you now ?”
“The daughter and family also shifted residence.....I think to Florida....They gave me a letter saying, I have experience in baby sitting....Now I baby sit for a family.....Where are you now ?”
“I don't have a real place. Often I sleep under the freeway.”
“Go.....go to the County hospital and get those wounds dressed.”

Those days, if I fall sick, its Padmini who gets most upset. She forcefully drags me to the doctor. All things have changed now.

“I'm getting late...This baby's mother comes home by five thirty.”

I felt my heart bursting in a hollow nothing. When would we meet again ?

One day, after midnight, Saparamadu came to meet me. He brought a parcel wrapped in a flimsy, polythene sheet.
“Mr. Sam...you should do me a favour.....That's our wedding album....there's some money too inside....You should give that to Padmini....It won't be difficult for you to make her out....Didn't you say...you would go back to Sri Lanka ? Please go....this is no good place.” He wasn't that sound in mind, I thought. “If you don't meet my wife......buy something for your mother....from the money there....when you go”.

Early next morning, a customer told me, a homeless guy is lying near the trash bin. I ran there and found it was Saparamadu Uncle. I called 911 immediately. A little while later the ambulance arrived. I watched through the glass counter. Wrapped in a plain white cloth, Saparamadu's corpse, was taken some where.

He was gone.

[This story, in its original Sinhala language, titled “Rata Giya Ethto” (Those who went abroad) came to me with an e-mail I received from a friend. It had no author, except in how the story is told, or re told. It carried such pathos in it, woven around a disintegrating Sri Lankan family in foreign soil, I thought it should reach a wider readership, for comment and review. Hence my translation of the story, into English]

Kusal Perera
09 November, 2011

Photo courtesy - http://www.squidoo.com/homeless-in-america

Murder NO Deterrent, NO Decency

2011-09-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

(An appeal sent in response to a campaign call for clemency)

17 August, 2011
Colombo – Sri Lanka.

To,
The President of India,
The Prime Minister of India,
The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu,

Your Excellency, Madam President,
Hon. Prime Minister Sir,
Hon. Madam Chief Minister,

Appeal for clemency - prisoners Murugan, Santhan and Arivu alias Perarivalan

I, as a Sri Lankan, have a special compulsion to appeal to you, on the rejected “mercy petition” of the two (02) Sri Lankans, Murugan and Santhan and their Indian
accomplice, Arivu alias Perarivalan, who would now be served with death, for the
murder of Shri Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India on 21 May, 1991 after
their petitions for mercy were rejected by Your Excellency the President, as advised by the government of India.

There is no question, no doubt at all, that the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi,planned
and executed by the “Liberation Tigers of Thamil Eelam” (LTTE) led by Velupillai
Pribhakaran, was “terrorism” of the worst, ruthless order.

Dear Madams and Sir,
I do concede, and concede without any doubt, the fact that no government could and
should avoid legal investigations and judicial trial on offences and crimes committed
on its soil. Allowing for independent investigations on crimes committed and an
equally independent judicial process, is a necessary virtue of democratic living and
assured law and order in our societies.

Yet the peculiarity and the circumstances of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, I
believe, should not be allowed to be treated as another crime, to be dealt only
according to law. I as a Sri Lankan, feel convinced, the Indian government in New
Delhi and the Tamil Nadu State government, together have a moral and a political
responsibility to treat the whole issue of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, aside from legal interpretations and judicial determinations.

Do please consider the undisputed fact that the very creation of the LTTE to its
uncompromising brutality that led to the death of Rajiv Gandhi among thousands
more, was not purely a Sri Lankan phenomenon, but the outcome of a definite political
decision made by the New Delhi government of Late Indira Gandhi, aided and
accommodated by the Tamil Nadu State government, led by the then DMK leader M.G. Ramachandran.

IF this decision in Indian politics to train, arm and finance the LTTE and other such Sri Lankan Tamil armed groups in early 1980's was never made (Please refer to pages 15 and 29 in the book “Assignment Colombo” written by your High Commissioner in Colombo from 1985 to '89, J.N. Dixit), dear Madams and Sir, IF we Sri Lankans were allowed the sovereign right to politically engage with our own militant Tamil groups without illicit interference from your then government, we in Sri Lanka have the explicit right to assume, thousands of deaths of innocent men, women and children among whom the death of Rajiv Gandhi is also listed, could have been avoided. Displacements in thousands could have been avoided and the mass tragedy that we now have to live with, could have been avoided. Perhaps with much less damage, than there is, in your own Maoist conflicts.

Yet most unfortunately and most tragically, that was not the case with Sri Lanka. We had to live with an armed conflict that resorted to “terrorism” in many creative forms and crossed borders, leaving many tragic events that compromised subsequent
decisions. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, certainly is the most saddest and the
highest unwanted price we all had to pay, after the deaths of one thousand plus Indian soldiers of the peace keeping force (IPKF) sent to North – East of Sri Lanka, in addition to our own deaths in many thousands.

This therefore Madams and Sir,
is no criminal issue the Indian government and the Tamil Nadu State government could merely let the judicial process alone, to decide upon. The acts committed by Murugan, Santhan and Arivu alias Perarivalan, are only an emotional product of the larger baggage of terrorism the Indian government is complicit in hatching and creating on either side of the Palk Strait.

Therefore it certainly makes the judicial process a helpless outsourcing of political
indecency, when it has to judge these 03 person accused of a criminal act, ignoring the political decisions of a government that eventually led them to be part of that political criminality.

They on their part for now have paid their price of being a willing prey of this
“terrorism” that has left a tragedy to be cleared by us all. They have already served
long periods in jail, awaiting death, that by itself counts a huge price for a human
being to live with. And I for one, don't accept “death as punishment” for any crime, in this modern, civilised world and therefore wish, India respects human life at all cost.

I am one among the 19 million Sri Lankans, who for over 30 years was living through
this mass tragedy of deaths, displacements, torture, extra judicial killings, abductions, arbitrary arrests, lynching and also political mugging on both Indian and Sri Lankan soils by different governments trying to out do the other. I therefore feel, there is a moral and a political obligation to consider the lives of these 03 people sentenced to death, within the total tragedy created by governments in political power. It is therefore certainly not fair and decent for a democratic government to reject its own responsibility in serving death on 03 men, who are also victims of political decisions made by your government, 30 years ago.

It is my strong conscience that therefore appeals to your powers, to pardon these 03
persons, now in prison for over 11years, considering them also as part of the political tragedy that could have been avoided, if all of us were more concerned and serious about democracy, diplomatic and geo political responsibility and above all, human lives, in our part of the world.
Thanking you,
Yours most sincerely,

Sgd.
Kusal Perera
Journalist – Colombo, Sri Lanka

Cc.
Ms. Sonia Gandhi – Chairperson, Congress Party of India
Chairman, Human Rights Commission, India

OH ! This India and the World's "Largest Democracy" !!!

2011-08-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Afzal Guru ! I read his interview with Vinod K. Jose, a New Delhi based journalist. Afzal is in the death row, in Ward 3 of the most heavily guarded, high security prison in Delhi, the Tihar Central Prison. He was convicted and sentenced to death, for his part in the “terrorist” attack on the Indian parliament on 13 December, 2001.

The judge, delivering his verdict on Afzal that carried capital punishment noted, as the incident shocked the whole nation, the capital punishment determined would satisfy the “collective conscience of society”.

That “collective conscience” of the Indian society, says Afzal in his interview, was created by “The lies the police told (and) was propagated by you in media”. And he posed this to Jose. “I ask you, did I get a chance to tell my story? Do you think justice is done? Would you like to hang a person without giving him a lawyer? Without a fair trial? Without listening to what he had to go through in life? Democracy doesn’t mean all this, does it ?”

Yes, “democracy” in this modern world does not accept any of it and does not accept “capital punishment” either, that the world's largest democracy is still living with, most stubbornly. Most recently, Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, 03 convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination had their “mercy plea” turned down by the Indian government and recommended as such to HE the Indian President, Smt. Prathibha Patil. A fortnight ago, on 10 August, 2011 Afzal Guru had his mercy appeal similarly turned down by the Indian government.

This democracy in India is what Afzal's wife, Tabassum Guru is questioning. Here's her own record of it.

A Wife's Appeal For Justice

I am the wife of Mohammad Afzal, the man accused of conspiring to attack the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. Afzal has been condemned to death by the Sessions Court Judge, S N Dhingra and his death sentence has been confirmed by the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi. Now the case has come up before the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India.
All over India people have condemned the attack on Parliament. And I agree that it was a terrorist attack and must be condemned. However, it is also important that the people accused of such a serious crime be given a fair trial and their story be fully heard before they are punished. I believe that no one has heard my husband's story and he has so far never been represented in the court properly.

I appeal to you to hear our story and then decide for yourselves whether justice has been done. Afzal and my story is the story of many young Kashmiri couples. Our story represents the tragedy facing our people.
In 1990 Afzal was attracted to the movement led by the JKLF, like thousands of other youth. He went to Pakistan for training and stayed there for a little while. However, he was disillusioned by the differences between different groups and he did not support pro-Pakistani groups. He stayed there only three months without getting any training. Afzal returned to Kashmir and he went to Delhi to pursue his studies. He always wanted to study and before he joined the movement he was doing his MBBS.
My husband wanted to return to normal life and with that intention he surrendered to the BSF. The BSF Commandant refused to give him his certificate till he had motivated two others to surrender. And Afzal motivated two other militants to surrender. He was given a certificate stating that he was a surrendered militant. You will not perhaps realise that it is very difficult to live as a surrendered militant in Kashmir but he decided to live with his family in Kashmir. In 1997 he started a small business of medicines and surgical instruments in Kashmir. The next year we were married. He was 28 years old and I was 18 years.
Throughout the period that we lived in Kashmir the Indian security forces continuously harassed Afzal and told him to spy on people they suspected of being militants. One Major Ram Mohan Roy of 22 Rashtriya Rifles tortured Afzal and gave him electric shocks in his private parts. He was humiliated and abused.
The Indian security forces used to regularly take Afzal to their camps and torture him. They wanted to extract information from him. One night the Indian security forces came to our home and abused all of us and took away Afzal to their camp; another time he was taken to the STF (State Task Force) camp Palhalan Pattan.
Some days later they took him to the Humhama STF camp. In that camp the officers, DSP Vinay Gupta and DSP Darinder Singh demanded Rs one lakh. We are not a rich family and we had to sell everything, including the little gold I got on my marriage to save Afzal from the torture.
Afzal was kept in freezing water and petrol was put into his anus. One officer Shanti Singh hanged my husband upside down for hours naked and in the cold. They gave electric shocks in his penis and he had to have treatment for days.
You will think that Afzal must be involved in some militant activities that is why the security forces were torturing him to extract information. But you must understand the situation in Kashmir. Every man, woman and child has some information on the movement even if they are not involved. By making people into informers they turn brother against brother, wife against husband and children against parents. Afzal wanted to live quietly with his family but the STF would not allow him.
You should also know that the STF force is notorious in Kashmir for extorting money from the people and they have become so infamous that when Mufti Sayed became the Chief Minister he promised in his election manifesto to disband the entire force. The STF is known for human rights violations including killing people in their custody and brutal, senseless, inhuman torture.
It was under these conditions that forced Afzal to leave his home, family and settle in Delhi. He struggled hard to earn a living and he had decided to bring me and our four-year old son, Ghalib, to Delhi. Like any other family we dreamed of living together peacefully and bringing up our children, giving them a good education and seeing them grow up to be good human beings. That dream was cut short when once again the STF got hold of my husband in Delhi.
The STF told my husband to bring one man Mohammad to Delhi from Kashmir. He met Mohammad and one other man Tariq there at the STF camp. He did not know anything about the men and he had no idea why he was being asked to do the job. He has told all this to the court but the court chose to believe half his statement about bringing Mohammad but not the bit that he was told to do so by the STF.
There was no one to represent Afzal in the lower court. The court appointed a lawyer who never took instructions from Afzal, or cross examined the prosecution witnesses. That lawyer was communal and showed his hatred for my husband. When my husband told Judge Dhingra that he did not want that lawyer the judge ignored him. In fact my husband went totally undefended in the trial court. When ever my husband wished to say something the judge would not hear him out and the judge showed his communal bias in open court.
In the High Court one human rights lawyer offered to represent Afzal and my husband accepted. But instead of defending Afzal the lawyer began by asking the court not to hang Afzal but to kill him by a lethal injection. My husband never expressed any desire to die. He has maintained that he has been entrapped by the STF. My husband was shocked but he had no way of changing his lawyer while being locked up in the high security jail. It was only after the High Court judgement was pronounced he got to know about the way the lawyer had represented him. Afzal refused to accept the same lawyer for his appeal in the Supreme Court. I had no way of getting Afzal a lawyer. I do not know anyone in Delhi. Finally Afzal wrote to the Defence Committee set up for Mr Geelani. I am annexing his letter. And the Defence Committee helped Afzal to get a senior lawyer, Mr Sushil Kumar. However, the Supreme Court cannot go into the evidence and so I do not know what will happen.
I appeal to you to ensure that my husband is not condemned to death and he is ensured a fair trial. Surely your conscience will not allow you to be a party to the death of a fellow human being who has not been represented in the court and who has not had a chance to tell his story? The police have made him falsely confess before the media even before the trial started. They humiliated him, beat him, tortured him and even urinated in his mouth. I feel deep shame to talk about these things in public but circumstances have forced me. It has taken a lot of courage for me to put all this on paper but I do so for the sake of my child who is now six years old.
Will you speak out at the injustice my husband has faced? Will you speak out on my behalf? I am of course fighting for my husband's life, for the life of my son's father. But I also speak as a Kashmiri woman who is losing faith in Indian democracy and its ability to be fair to Kashmiri Muslims.

Tabassum
Srinagar,
September 2004

This article originally appeared in “Kashmir Times” and is carried here verbatim without any editing, for the record.
Kusal Perera
29 August, 2011

For those who have missed out and wants to know humanity

2011-08-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

Book Review

Belated, but worth it. I read through this collection of Sinhala poems by a Sinhala “creative activist” friend, who moves the reader across the large canvass of responsible humanity, very solemnly holding the reader, in a spell of “silent guilt”. She does not talk politics. But she does, in a different tone and spirit. She does not blame the reader straight and hard. Yes she does, in a piercing whisper, right into the conscience. She does not talk of an ethnic conflict. But she does talk of a human tragedy, that tells the reader, there is somewhere a 'divide' that stalks the fate of these people.

This collection of poems, titled by her as “For Ears That Had Not Heard” (No-asu Kan Walata), by itself is a subtle, nuanced allegation against the Sinhala reader, for not being, if not sensitive enough, then observant of the tragedy that unfolded around us during the war. She thus picks up hardly noticed incidents and subtexts of life, from remote corners of the conflict, that yells for dignity and respect in a world of neglect and humiliation. She captures them in rhythmic patterns from within lines she has so structured, with mostly very simple and “folky” language.

In short, 02 years after the war, you have to read it, not alone, but in the company of humanity and read it loud, for the rest of this society to sit back and listen to the story of the “victims of war”.

But let me also warn you. She has over worked herself in creating pages, that some times make you tired. The lay out in some instances are not “reader friendly”. But the prose and the poetry would edge you along to the end. That's indeed, my experience.

Just check the ones below in translation, that was impromptu and rough. But certainly proof of her very creative style of taking the reader to where she believes, justice is being cried for.

The Exodus

Saw tiny tots,
Frail with thirst and hunger,
Drenched with dust and dirt,
Pleading for a haven,
From a scorching hot Sun.

Saw vast numbers,
Amidst raining fiery fire,
Burning with grief and hunger
Searching for affection
In seven rows, of barbed wire.

18 June, 2009

This one below, is just the opening stanza of a long poem. Its a very sensitive and a touching story of a small girl, her pregnant mother and her helpless father, brought to the reader as afterthought of the mother, who gives birth to another little infant daughter. She brings it out in perfect pathos that leaves the reader looking for answers, no “Commission Report” would provide.

Little one left us all in two days, all by herself

Wait my little 'daughtie',
Have the doors open,
Till I hurry back home,
Bringing you “palahaarang”.
Will bring you “kaachchang”
A gunny bag load....
Get on my shoulder,
Will run,
Till you feel tired.
I'll be your “yaanei”
The whole day.
Would never tell you,
“Not now dear”
My little darling,
My love
….......

* palahaarang – sweets ; kaachchang – cashew ; yaanei – elephant

November, 2009

Well for those who now wish to know who she is, the book simply says, she is “Kumari”. For me, she is Kumari Kumaragamage.

Kusal Perera
28 July, 2011

Dance Of A Silent Snarl

2011-07-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

He felt like an astronaut in his début flight, when he, Loganathan, emplaned from the Heathrow airport, to visit his remote hamlet in Sri Lanka, where he was born and reared. He had a twenty five year lapse in his memory. Wasn't even able to make a close guess, as to how his village would look. He was afraid, happy, unsure and felt insecure too. A whole mix of whirling feelings with no clarity in thought. He knew the village he went about, lived and played, was no more there. He knew twenty eight years would change the village most naturally. But this change he knew, was due to the war that turned the land inside out a few times, to make it a different land. He had over the past years seen on TV screens, men and women grabbing things they could carry with them and moving from place to place. It wasn't possible for Loganathan to even pick and fuse his old village, from his memory. Thousands of miles away, the dusty smoke, the tears and all the bloody scenes he'd seen on TV screens have chopped, mauled and amputated his memory, over the past twenty five years. Yet he, at times dreamt about his beautiful village, its Talipot groves, an empty field, an agri well, all, memories of his childhood life. Childhood memories, no devastation of land by any, can make a man forget.

Twelve hours of flight would land Loganathan in his homeland. But, he wasn't sure whom he would first see. Which relative, or which friend, was a question. He, nevertheless was impatient to see his homeland. That made him restless on the comfortable seat. He knew, he would not only miss his mother, father and the elder sister, but also the house in which he grew to be a youth, with all of them around. It was more than twenty years ago, he came to know that all three of them perished with the roof and the walls of the house, caving in. He wasn't aware which of his relatives are still living. But the little bag he carried, was full of gifts, bought in London. His subconscious mind probably asked him, how he could visit his village without gifts and presents, after twenty five years. Who would get to cuddle the blonde hair doll that speaks on battery and would say, "You are lucky. I love you" ?

Bob, his British friend, accompanying him in this trip, was fast asleep in the neighbouring seat. Loganathan knew, he wasn't the type who had that tribal feeling of wanting to see human tragedy. He was a man with a warm heart in a cold, automated society. Used to much air travel, he wasn't excited over foaming white clouds, beneath the belly of the air plane. He would sleep endlessly, till the green canopies of coconut groves visible from air, are shown, thought Loganathan, who couldn't yet sleep. Loganathan looked at the sleeping face of his colleague. This man does not belong to a society that has all its relationships automated, thought Loganathan. He is one who looses anger when confronted with injustice and is never reluctant in hugging with warm affection. Then he wondered, where he, Loganathan belonged to. He still felt alien, after twenty five long years in London. He feels foreign, the moment he steps into a packed tube train. He shivers within when he steps in to a pub once in a way, feeling an "outsider" in him. Feels an outsider, when he goes about in a shopping mall, trying to pick stuff he wants. His feet, now the feet of a British citizen, yet finds unbalance on London streets. He still feels a reluctance to caress a flower or to feel its fragrance in a London garden, how ever attractive they are.

Loganathan was again thoughtful about whom he should first visit, after landing on his homeland. Five years after landing himself in London, he saw the name of the Reverend Father who helped him escape death from his own kith, in a printed list of names, of people gone missing. It pained Loganathan when he remembered, the reverend priest who helped him escape, was one threatened from both sides. He knew the editor who chose to publish his youthful poems, is still under military detention, even after the war was declared over. He then tried to think of relatives who may still be living. He had been flying eleven hours for now, when he suddenly remembered a distant relative, who worked in a jewellery shop in Chetty Street, Pettah. For Loganathan, it was like a dream in the early hours of a cold morning. This person had left his birthplace very young, remembered Loganathan. Had come to Colombo, married and settled in Colombo. But his relatives, all lived there, back in the village. He ought to be an old man past seventy now. That is, if he is still living. To meet this distant relative, Loganathan thought, it would be to Kotahena where he lived in a municipal housing lane and not Chetty Street, that one would have to go. Loganathan de-planed, wanting first to go to Kotahena.

Kotahena wasn't much changed, being where it was. Loganathan was able to locate the place, although he had only been there, just once before when he was young. It was wholly neglected locality and looked unsuitable for human life. He was also able to recognise the old, haggard face of his distant relative, that had stubs of the beard chopped indiscreetly. Yet the old man took time scratching his beard and his head, to recognise his relative who appeared at the door. If the white man next to Loganathan with his pleasant smile and his bags clutched to the stomach wasn't there, it would never have been easy for Loganathan to convince the old man that he wasn't an officer from the police intelligence.

Having recognised them without doubt, the old man invited them in and started talking endlessly. He was a store of information, spanning twenty eight years. His stories included those bombs that exploded in Colombo and killings of those labelled as traitors by their own kith. Stories of fear and death that ran through whole, dark nights. Stories about police raids in late nights that took whole families to police stations for questioning, abductions from white vans and stories about dropping abducted persons somewhere on a roadside, after interrogations. His narratives were endless while his wife stood behind a door curtain trying to stop him with her mimicking by her hands and eyes and by making odd noises, all understood by Bob who wouldn't know a single Tamil word.

"From what I heard, a few old families had returned to the village....our people are still in camps......can you remember Jesudasan ?......who was close to your place ?.....One of his daughters had gone back....with her children..."

"That's his job now.....looking for those news and talking about them.....what use now in searching for them ?" said his wife in an irritating tone, while going into the house, having failed to stop him with all her mimicking and noises. She came back with a broom and started sweeping, ignoring there were visitors.

Bob whispered to his friend, "why does he talk so much ?"

The old relative fell silent. Loganathan eased himself on the chair, closed his eyes and seemed to relax. That information he got was like a gem to a miner, down thirty, forty feet below the surface of the earth. He rolled it in his mind, as if trying to polish it like a gem. He remembered Jesudasan. He remembered Jesudasan as a railway guard and that he had only one daughter. That she was a very good dancer from her childhood, Even from her tiny age of three and her name was Shyama. That was Shyama, who was naughty, talkative and sweetly cuddle some. Shyama who sat on the bonnet of her father's black Morris Minor car to sing pieces of songs. Whom Loganathan had taught during the time he was schooling himself.

Loganathan started the journey to his village in a rented vehicle, his old relative managed to organise. He had no reason to bargain for the hire.

Travelling through war ravaged areas, all the damage and devastation they saw outside their closed shutters in the vehicle, was nothing unusual to both Loganathan and Bob. They had seen most of it in news papers and on TV screens. Even those new stereotype military bunkers that had come up after the war, with new tiled roofs and cleaned up lawns, didn't seem unusual to them.

It wasn't easy to find his birthplace. There were patches of grass in the empty land that had been cleared of debris by bulldozers. The new sign board that said "Paranthan" was just ahead, told them they had passed their turn off to the village by six kilo metres. Loganathan ordered the driver to turn back and drive slow. He was watchful from inside the car. He was able to identify the place where the Tamarind and the Nuga tree was. The trees were no more. It was the short, sawed trunks that told Loganathan the place. He was uncertain and doubtful. Yet was able to locate the cart road that took off from there to his village.

The land of his birth was there. But not his village. He was not surprised. He knew the village would not be there. There were two Mango trees that had survived death and a line of crest fallen Talipot trees. They stared at a cloudless, barren sky. The old, tile roofed houses, white washed with lime, were no more. Where the rubble of those old houses were, are a few half built, clay slammed, partly tin roofed abodes, more closer to the road. Loganathan got off the vehicle and walked towards one of those makeshift shelters. He walked, leaving his baggage in the vehicle. That was more a small, rusty boutique. A few biscuit packets hung on its doorway, had discoloured with a beating sun. On a small table were a few, coloured aerated water bottles. A feeble bunch of plantains, with a few fruits in them half baked by the sun, was hanging from a rafter.

The place had an earthen, dusty floor. Loganathan peeped inside to see if there was any he could speak to and was confronted by two old and gaping suitcases, left on a wooden bench and a few pieces of clothes, hung on a line across the space. A little child was seated on two cement bags, kept one over the other and was staring at the backyard through the door. The little kid was wearing a pair of shorts, dirty and coloured close to his complexion. Another little one was dragging a small pup tied to a string. Trying to take it to the backyard. The little pup, with its throat half strangled, was making a crude noise.

"That dog would die.." Loganathan heard a female voice shouting in Tamil, from the backyard.

"Whose there......in the boutique ?" Asked Loganathan, in Tamil. An emaciated woman wobbled out from the rear of the makeshift shelter, from its side.

A much blotched memory though, but Loganathan was right. “Shyama....?”

The two remained stoned in silence, for a few minutes, staring at each other. And then Loganathan, blurted out the words, “Aren't you Shyama ?”

The woman stared at him, in a dumb stupor. Her eyes spoke nothing. Like staring over the horizon. Her face was empty. She wasn't suspecting anything. Wasn't surprised nor happy, either. Scared ? Not scared too. There was nothing there. Nothing in her face.

“Remember me.....?”

The woman stares at him, in a dumb stupor. Her eyes spoke nothing. Like staring over the horizon. Her face was empty. She wasn't suspecting anything. Wasn't surprised nor happy, either. Scared ? Not scared too. There was nothing there. Nothing in her face.

“ I am Loganathan......Loganathan who escaped to London …..?”

The woman stares at him, in a dumb stupor. Her eyes spoke nothing. Like staring over the horizon. Her face was empty. She wasn't suspecting anything. Wasn't surprised nor happy, either. Scared ? Not scared too. There was nothing there. Nothing in her face.

“I remember ….. you danced so well....when you were a child.” No, Loganathan did not tell her so.

“Where's your husband ?” No, he did not ask that either.

“How are you all managing ?” He didn't ask that question either.

“Can you sell these biscuits....these toffees....these stuff ?” That was also not asked.

Suddenly, something crossed Loganathan's mind and he turned back to go to the vehicle. He saw his friend behind him with the camera and told him stern, “No.....Don't.....don't need photos”.

Inside the vehicle, Loganathan pulled the zip open in his baggage and pulled out denims, coloured T-shirts, one by one, carefully. Carefully, he avoided taking the blonde haired doll, out. He then stayed glued looking at those clothes that scented foreign and put them back in his bag. Getting out of the vehicle, he pulled his purse out. After some thought, he put it back in his trouser pocket.

Then walked back slowly towards that makeshift shelter.

“Must go....” He murmured. “see you....” Shyama may have heard him.

The woman kept staring at him. Her eyes, still spoke nothing. Like staring over the horizon. Her face was empty. She wasn't suspecting anything. Wasn't surprised nor happy, either. Scared ? Not scared too. There was nothing there. Nothing in her face.

* * * * *
The vehicle was pulling its way towards Colombo, over pot holes and humps. After a long drive, Loganathan suddenly realised his British friend was seated next to him. He felt surprised as if he was shaken off a rude dream.

His friend patted him on his shoulder. “Loga.....are you alright ?”

* * * * *
Short Story originally titled as "Are You Alright" by
Jayathilake Kammellaweera
12 April, 2011
Colombo – Sri Lanka

Jayathilake Kammellaweera, is a reputed and an award winning novelist and a short story writer in Sri Lanka. He had been awarded the prestigious D.R. Wijewardne award and the State Literary Award for his creative writing.
Kammellaweera comes from a Trotskyite background, having worked as a full time trade unionist and been a member of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), Central Committee. He quit active politics later in life, over theoretical differences with the NSSP leadership and thereafter earned himself a respected positioning in the Sinhala literary field, for his writing.

Translated by Kusal Perera
28 June, 2011

Opening a public case against the US and its President(s)

2011-05-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

There are many cases pending with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague. There are trials and pre trials on Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan – Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic and also one filed most recently against a Sri Lankan holding Australian citizenship, held responsible for presumptive war crimes committed in Sri Lanka in its war against the Tamil Tigers.

This list is unique in that all countries are from under developed and developing part of the world that grapples with issues of establishing democratic States and have either broken up with ethno-religious wars or have brutally fought to establish new regimes like in Cambodia. They are all bound by the civilised laws of the modern world and who ever is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, is liable to be brought up before the ICC, based on Rome Statutes.

The uniqueness of these laws in this modern world is that more powerful the country, less liable they are to be investigated for crimes they commit, violating international law and sovereignty of other nations. The USA and its Presidents are the most fortunate of all, enjoying immunity of global super power, despite the longest list of violations against smaller, but sovereign nations.

They entered Vietnam and for 20 years from 1956 committed war crimes and crimes against humanity that are on record and have enough proof for any ICC to begin investigations on.
Lyndon B Johnson ordered the invasion of Dominican Republic in 1965 and stayed there for 02 years, but was never challenged in any international forum.
Richard Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia in 1970 to consolidate power over Vietnam on the excuse that Vietcong guerillas were operating from Eastern Cambodia
Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada in October, 1983 to effect a regime change and was condemned by the UN General Assembly for “flagrant violation of international law”.
George Bush Snr ordered the invasion of Panama in December, 1989.
George Bush Snr pioneered the invasion of Kuwait and the first invasion of Southern Iraq in 1991 known as the First Gulf War, after gaining consent from the UN
Afghanistan was invaded in 2001 led by the US, on the orders of President George W. Bush Jnr.
Invasion of Iraq in 2003 known as the “Iraq War” under President George W. Bush Jnr., to neutralise “Weapons of Mass Destruction” now understood as a totally fake claim by Bush and Blair, as heads of two super powers.

The present case against the US and its President begins with the multiple murder of Osama bin-Laden and his inmates, in a little known Pakistani town in the early hours of 02 May, 2011. This killing is preceded by a whole list of war crimes and crimes against humanity, in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Guantanamo bay prisons to begin with, apart from all the allegations of “waterboarding” and other enhanced torture methods, is a prison that violates fundamental rights of human beings, putting them on an isolated patch of land in an island, to circumvent international laws on detention and to hold people without trial.
Guantanamo now has enough evidence, for any independent, international investigation.

Iraq is no better, with Abu Ghraib and other clear accusations of civilian killings. Public leaks and media reporting compelled the US military to hold investigations and Court Martial some of their military personnel. Over 30 such security personnel were punished, while the Commanding Officer of all detention centres in Iraq, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was demoted to the position of Colonel. She denied all allegations saying she was not even allowed into interrogating areas.
The Iraq war by now has over 1.45 million civilian deaths according to “Just Foreign Policy” and “Iraq Body Count”. WikiLeaks had proof of civilian killings.
These simply can not go on with paid State employees in uniform being punished, when the Head of State makes decisions that carry with it the Constitutional and moral responsibility of all violations and crimes committed in war and against humanity.

In Afghanistan, where drone attacks were approved and signed by President Obama within a week from his induction as President of the United States of America, on 20 January, 2009 there are more civilian deaths than actual Taliban guerillas killed in combat. Instances of US and allied forces covering up civilian deaths as “terrorists killed” have also been exposed and there are also incidents where the US military command had to accept civilian deaths. Again WikiLeaks have substantiated other claims of multiple civilian killings.

It is Afghanistan that revolved around Al Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden, after the 2001 World Centre attack in New York, on 09/11. What ever evidence there may be against Al Qaeda and bin-Laden, there is no international law that allows the US and its President to act on their own initiative against people outside their jurisdiction. Pakistani President Zardari and PM Gilani going mum on US violations in their territory, does not legalise or authorise US violations of a sovereign territory.

That President Obama was determined to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan is proved with his own statement that announced the killing of Osama bin-Laden.
“Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done.” said an arrogant President Obama.

No, that can not be done, says former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. “America coming to our territory and taking action is a violation of our sovereignty. Handling and execution of the operation [by US special forces] is not correct.”

Obama could make clear statements, but that gives no mandate or legal and moral right for him to do so. When he does so, he violates international law, like his predecessor George W. Bush Jnr., who should walk ahead of Obama for all the murders and violations of rights and laws, committed during his double tenure as US President.

Handling and execution of the operation that ended with murder in another man's premises needs no more proof. Obama himself is proof.

[quote]Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.[unquote]

"This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law." says UN High Commissioner for HR, Navy Pillay, leaving the discretion to do so with the US and with no commitment on her part to pressure US to declare facts and information related to the murder and violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. There is also nothing complex in this. It is clear and is open as with all international crimes committed by Bush Jnr.

President Obama with Bush Jnr., can now be investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity. While murder anywhere is foul and when numbers don't matter with arrogant, egoistic societies electing Heads of States who believe they can do what they want, Obama only turns out as a “Gulliverian” Rajapaksa and not Rajapaksa, a “Lilliputian” Obama, assured of no investigations.

Barrack Hussein Obama Jnr., has already created history twice. He is the first African American to go to White House and the only person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize within 01 month of being sworn in as US President and the Peace Prize awarded for rhetoric. He could now be the first Nobel Peace laureate to walk to Hague with a bag load of crimes against humanity and war crimes, accompanied by predecessor, also for the same crimes.

That is, if crisis groups and international human rights campaigners live with integrity and a conscience to afford the two gentlemen such exclusive treatment for violations under their hands.

Kusal Perera
Friday 06 May,2011

What are memories, for you and me ?

2011-04-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Dozen fluffy chicken running chirpy-chirpy chirp
Free, as noisy crowing on long and sagging wire,
Above and along the ruler drawn road.
Every body's dog wagging its loopy tail,
With new litter, waiting for night's remnant rice;

Memories all, hung on broken walls
Memories for you and me.
What are they now – for you and me ?

Green and swaying shades far and wide,
Gliding kytes impatient, for scrambling toads,
Giggling kids, their mischief on foot to school,
Little white life with the blush and the shy love,
Freedom to laugh, to hold hands and play bare feet;

Memories all, hung on broken walls
Memories for you and me.
What are they now – for you and me ?

Tying shattered skies with old hair ribbons,
Counting bricks, to lift old smouldering rafts,
Balancing a glassless rim on a wheezy nose,
Beneath unknown stars, in a shaky new night,
Searching lonely dates for tomorrow's dream;

Memories all, hung on broken lives,
Memories for you and me.
What are they now – for you and me ?

Kusal Perera
Easter Sunday - 24 April, 2011
Colombo

The stupid modern “Man” and his hushed “conscience”

2011-04-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Over 04 years ago, on a short visit to the US, I was introduced to an Elementary – Teacher in a public school in Brooklyn, at a private party. The adjective for this American was “White” and that distanced him from the Brooklyn majority. What is important here is not that, though. But wait. That may have some relevance to his ignorance. Why not ? He did not know there is a country called “Sri Lanka” now, and that it was “Ceylon” at the time he was born, in the early 60's. It thus served no purpose to ask this American about Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.* Michael Moore called this ignorant, modern 'white' generation, “Stupid White Men”. And they are, or they have to be.

This generation and those before and after them, are those who elect the man or may be a woman next time, to sit in the Oval Office, at the White House. They elected and re-elected George Walker Bush as the 43rd President of the USA from 2001 to 2009. Then again, Barack Hussein Obama II, as the 44th President, from January 2009, still going loud.

These “modern” White Americans are different to that old generation of American men and women, who took to the streets against the Vietnam war. Different to that of Cassius Clay's generation. Cassius Clay, who in 1967 as Muhammad Ali, refused to be conscripted into the US military to fight the Vietnam war. Arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, Ali “The Greatest” was stripped of his boxing titles and his license suspended. But he stood firm on his conviction, like all other great men and women of the 60's.

“If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what ? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” Ali is quoted in the book, “Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties (1999) by Mike Marqusee.

That certainly was the spirit of the “sixties”. That spirit was electrifying. It wasn't only Muhammad Ali. Listen to John Lennon. Listen to “Imagine” and the Beatles' Album, “Revolution”. And then Lennon wrote “Power to the People”. They were not the present day radicals in peripheral art worlds. They were giant musical icons who moved whole continents of anti war youth. Those like Mick Jagger, who took to the streets in London against the American State, waging war on Vietnamese people. Cities in other European countries couldn't be left empty of anti Vietnam war protests. Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Oslo and Lyon were all having their share of large anti war protests. Very often dominated by college students and artistes.

The US, was obviously into a bigger storm of protests. Joan Baez, her journalist husband David Harris the peace activist, who was later imprisoned for resisting military draft, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Barry McGuire, Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, were not alone among thousands of peace activists, who coaxed the American society to condemn war, discuss and debate civil rights, freedom of expression and even the right to protest, in mid and late 60's, into early 70's. The “counter culture” movement was pricking the conscience of the American society.

It wasn't singers and musicians only, who were coming out on the streets. “Throughout the Vietnam war, artists contributed their works, skills and names to the antiwar movement. Pop artists Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Ed Kienholz made works that referenced the war. Alexander Calder designed a button for the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a national mass protest held in Washington D.C. in 1969. Many African American artists like Cliff Joseph of New York’s Black Emergency Cultural Coalition railed against war.” The “change artist” Mark Vallen reminisced on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the defeat of the US army in Vietnam.

The large protest at the Pentagon and the much larger protest march to the UN office in 1967, radicalised the “Peace Culture” that was brewing as a counter culture movement. In 1969, the network of anti Vietnam war activists, fixed the date October 05th as the day for the “National Vietnam Moratorium”. Jasper Johns, the popular American painter was commissioned by the Leo Castelli Gallery of Los Angeles, to design a poster for the occasion that became the most popular poster of the entire anti Vietnam war period. Anti war sentiments in the US ran so high, the National Vietnam Moratorium turned out a stunning success, with university campuses across the US either cancelling classes or lying paralysed by student strikes. Some 30 million Americans, “Black, White and Latino”, participated in some type of protest against US engagement in Vietnam.

The “Spirit of the Sixties”, the developed world in the West, they had a conscience to live with. When Pete Seeger wrote and sang the song in anti Vietnam war rallies, “If you love your Uncle Sam – bring 'em home, bring 'em home”, the Americans were tired of seeing their sons fighting a war in a land they did not know and had nothing to do. No, it wasn't only about their sons and husbands getting killed. They wanted their sons and men brought home from an unwanted war, that had killed over 1.6 million Vietnamese civilians. That's a conscience to live with.

When the Paris Peace Accord was signed in January, 1973 that brought all American servicemen home, 58,000 American soldiers, their average age 22 years, had died in Vietnam. Over 2.5 million Americans had served in the US army fighting the war in Vietnam, during a 10 year period.

I am now browsing over numbers the modern man of the “developed West” perhaps knows better about. Numbers in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Anti war division of the Randolph Bourne Institute, counts 1.42 million deaths in Iraq, due to US invasion. It says, 448 academics and 348 journalists have been killed too, in Iraq since the US invasion. Since the war began, 4,447 American soldiers have died there. After Barack Obama was inaugurated as President, 219 had died. American soldiers wounded to date, total 33,000, while other estimates lay it at over 100,000.

In Afghanistan, US military casualties account for 1,419 deaths to date. Another 363 British forces personnel have also been killed. The total Coalition forces' deaths total 2,323 up to March, 2011. Reuters in February, in a “fact sheet” report said, “at least” a total of 401 Afghan civilians were killed in hostile attacks. In March 2011, the UN reported 2,777 Afghan civilians killed in the year 2010 alone, but saying most were due to Taliban attacks. A significant number of civilian deaths account for women and children, responsibility being irrelevant in war.

Despite all the news that come much faster and more accurate to their homes, than it did in the 60's and the 70's during the Vietnam war, there are no anti war protests in any city, any university now. No civil movement now says “If you love your Uncle Sam – bring 'em home, bring 'em home”. There are no celebrity names, no academics, no artists on front pages of news papers, on TV Talk shows, condemning the Iraq war, holding the US government and its Allies responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and continuing Drone attacks in Afghanistan. There's blood in the hands of the Western world, but this millennium, the “civilised” West has lost its conscience. Deaths don't matter any more to them.

The Student Non violent Co-ordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, American Writers Against Vietnam War, National Black Anti War Anti Draft Union, Washington Peace Center, Catholic Association for International Peace, Vietnam Day Committee, Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and many, many more were sprawling platforms then in the sixties that brought the conscience of the West into loud and unavoidable public display, but wholly absent today with not one, but two major catastrophes unfolding in Iraq and Afghanistan. Possibly spreading to North Africa.

The spirit of the sixties have had a slow death in de-civilising the modern man in the West and muting his democracy that now allows war to be waged on any one's land. It is this man with a dead soul who now runs the world and its apex bodies, the UN, the EU parliament and most other appellate agencies within the world order.

On tradition and on old experience, we are still looking for their solidarity, their intervention. But the wars painfully bleed through humanity. It bled ruthlessly in Sri Lanka. It is bleeding profusely in Palestine, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

How many more societies are still bleeding ? No matter how, this modern West would not speak out as in the sixties. Its the turn of the non developed man in other parts of the world, now, to take the lead. Its their turn to reignite a new counter culture, write and sing for peace and decency. Its their-our- turn to question,
“Who held the riffle ? Who gave the orders ?
Who planned the campaign to lay waste the land ?
Who manufactured the bullets ? Who paid the taxes ?
Tell me, is that blood upon my hands ?”
[from 'Last train to Nuremberg' by Pete Seeger]

Till, as Pete Seeger sang, “We shall overcome....some day”.

Kusal Perera
15 April, 2011
[after the UN SG's advisory panel report and in view of the 36th anniversary of “Vietnam Day”, just a fortnight away]

This was written for "GroundViews" and is published at - http://groundviews.org/2011/04/17/the-stupid-modern-%E2%80%9Cman%E2%80%9D-and-his-hushed-%E2%80%9Cconscience%E2%80%9D/

THE 'UNACCOUNTED'

2011-01-24T18:50:00.000-08:00

Wonder where they are,

The ticks and the fleas,
The toads and croaking frogs,
All that creepy life, in a trampled world,
Left alone, to go wild and empty.

Wonder where they are,
The lizards and grass hoppers,
The bees and fragile butterflies,
All that lived, in a single, dreamy world
Left behind, to silent insanity.

Wonder how many there are,

The grazing cattle and goats,
The dogs and scavenging crows,
All that lived, in a laboured world,
Left shattered, in smouldering agony.

Wonder who wants them now,
Ill counted life, breathing despair,
With grimacing pieces dragged together,
Bundled firm in spiky iron fences,
Outside their old and torn world,
That counts groaning life, in a dead dream.

“Due clarification should be made regarding what happened to 146,679 people,.....”
Mannar Catholic Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph,
to the LLRC, on 08 January, 2011

Kusal Perera
22 January, 2011

Any takers for this ? South Asia needs some decency and humanity

2010-10-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, an academic from a very prestigious Indian university wanted a “questionnaire” he drafted, whetted, before sending it out. That was for “Indian politicians” and after Delhi put together that “All Party Delegation” for Kashmir. An interesting question in it would have been “Do you believe, Kashmiris need to have their human rights honoured ?”

No. It wasn't included that way.

This year, 07 very eminent Indians – 03 former High Court judges, 02 Professors from the JNU, a lady Principal from a leading Girls' College and a journalist – who did a survey on human rights violations in the Kashmir valley under Indian rule, came out with their findings in a preliminary report, end of February. They noted that, [quote] It cannot be gainsaid that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958, has been in the force for nearly two decades in this state. This Act has been misused and in being misused wherever it is made applicable (Manipur, for example). Therefore, if we take this situation into account, this draconian law has undoubtedly facilitated grave human rights abuses including “disappearances” by the very nature of the power bestowed on the armed forces. [unquote]

They go on to state that the Chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Kashmir, clearly establishes that 8-10,000 persons have disappeared from about 1989. That apart, in agitations for Khalistan in Punjab, a similar number had gone missing within 10 years up to 1994. That a report by the State Human Rights Commission accepts 2,059 bodies had been identified in Amristrar, while another 1,000 or more lie unidentified in the district.

And their preliminary report takes note, [quote] On the other hand, we get an impression that all institutions of the State, the executive, the legislature, the human rights commission, and to a certain extent even the judiciary have failed to do justice to the victims of “disappearances” and other human rights violations. [unquote]

Almost an year ago in November 2009, civil society groups from Jammu and Kashmir and the North East States brutally and ruthlessly affected by militarisation for more than two decades and by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), together with other concerned organisations in solidarity, deliberated on the issues of AFSPA, in New Delhi. They resolved that they are concerned, [quote] over the way the media is reporting incidents of violence in J&K and the North-East by and large ignoring the assault on human rights by the guardians of law and order and broadly endorsing, in the name of 'national security', those policies of the state that militate against democratic norms and humanitarian principles and that this (AFSP) Act has led to gross civil and political rights violations including enforced disappearances, extra-judicial execution, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence against women, arbitrary arrest and detention [unquote] in all these militarised regions.

That is life in the largest mega democracy in this modern civilised world. It would not be any better, any where else.

In Pakistan, caught in a bitter, ruthless tussle for military supremacy, Islamic fundamentalist factionalism and the Afghan war next door directed by the US, NATO and other Coalition forces; since September 2009, when the Pakistani military re-established control over the valley, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has received numerous credible reports of extra judicial executions allegedly committed by soldiers operating in SWAT, or police, acting at the behest of the military. Since February, 238 suspicious killings were listed by local sources and the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

A recent Amnesty International (AI) report says, [quote] Armed groups, including Pakistani Taleban have committed serious human rights abuses, including direct attacks on civilians, abduction and hostage-taking, torture and killings. Women and girls are frequent targets of abuse [unquote] while the Pakistani State has failed in protecting its own citizens.

The Pakistani State instead had been a serious violator of international laws, rights and democracy. [quote] Since 9-11, individuals suspected of having links with “terrorist” organizations have been arbitrarily detained, denied access to lawyers and turned over to U.S. custody or to the custody of their home country in human rights violations occurring in Pakistan. Arbitrary detention, torture, deaths in custody, forced disappearances, and extra judicial execution are rampant.[unquote]
The 130-page AI report, 'As if Hell Fell on Me' says, millions of Pakistanis in the NorthWest tribal areas live in a human rights free zone where they have no legal protection from the government and are subject to abuses by the Taleban.

Pakistan today is often referred to as "a crumbling State" under President Zardari, with the Afghan war dismantling even the porous borders, between the two increasingly and rapidly "Burqanising" States in turmoil, that can not decide their fates, on their own.

On the other side of another porous border that Indian Border SF are often accused of heavy excesses, Bangladesh is running into calamities they are unable to sort out, democratically and humanely.

Grave and growing human rights concerns in Bangladesh include continued gender violence perpetuated by family and community in many parts, within a gradual rise of Islamic extremism that by now record and recognise armed "Mujahideen" groups in operation. There are occasional, but regularly increasing numbers of targeting minorities in especially rural Bangladesh, ill-treatment of Rohingya refugees from Burma and endemic corruption that negatively impacts the poor and dispossessed, in the country.

In recent weeks, media reports acknowledged, police have detained at least 21 garment factory employees and labour rights activists following violent street protests in and around Dhaka. They are at risk of torture and custodial killings, not unknown in Bangladesh. Some workers and activists have gone into hiding. Several others have said that they or their relatives have received death threats from security forces.

Up North in the Himalayan State of Nepal that hibernates, unable to start their new democratic life after the Maoist rebels agreed to enter mainstream politics 04 years ago, thousands who suffered grave human rights abuses committed by both government security forces and Maoist cadres, have had no redress so far, apart from the 13,000 people killed during the 10 year rebellion.

No independent high-level commission has still been empowered to investigate these human rights abuses, occurred during the war. These abuses included widespread arrests without charge or trial, extra judicial killings, abductions, disappearances and widespread torture.

Investigations into the whereabouts of about 1,000 people who remain “disappeared” have made no progress and families still do not know the fates of their loved ones. There have been no prosecutions for other grave crimes such as extra judicial killings, torture, or abductions.

Insecurity and violence continues, especially in the Terai, with armed groups operating largely with impunity. Torture is used by the security forces, and excessive force has been used to break up pro-Tibet rallies.

In the rest of South Asia – Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Afghanistan – there is very little that could be said, apart from large scale human tragedy, displacements, extra judicial killings, abductions, detentions, violations of laws and break down of law and order, unmitigated corruption at every level of governance and administrative inefficiency, among growing rural poverty in fractured societies.

Maldives have not come out right of its recently polarised conflict that left its democratic rule in jeopardy.

This South Asia is never talked about at any of the SAARC Heads of State summits. Yet there are exceptions to every rule and this very rare “exception” is what the South Asian civil societies, human rights campaigners and organisations should have grasped.

[quote] Mr. Chairman, On the issue of democracy and human rights, it is pleasing to note that South Asia is now a region of democracies. However, we all face challenges consolidating democracy and strengthening human rights.
I believe SAARC should consider establishing a regional human rights mechanism, similar to the one being developed for the ASEAN region. This mechanism could help States promote and protect rights and freedoms in their jurisdiction.
It could ensure that international human rights laws are observed and implemented by SAARC members. And such a mechanism could help people in our region develop a common understanding of universal human rights issues and perspectives.[unquote] – President of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed at the 16 SAARC Summit in April, 2010 – Bhutan.

Unfortunately for SA, there are no takers for this, as yet.

Kusal Perera
Colombo – October 18, 2010.

Lest I forget – the gorgeously “inclusive” Gamini

2010-10-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

I was lunching late, after a short workshop, in Badulla. A 'FM' radio station was on with one of their silly “phone in” request programmes. A girlish giggle faded off with a 'beep' that said an hour was up. It was breaking news in 'Sinhala'.

“Sri Lanka’s greatest silver screen idol, Gamini Fonseka, passed off a little while ago. He was 68 years at the time of his death. Funeral arrangements would be notified later, said a family source.” The youthful male voice was replaced with an advertisement on “sizzling fun”.

The DJ took over and teased his female co-DJ. “You could have partnered Gamini Fonseka in 'Getawarayo', had you been out of school in 60’s……but then you’d miss this programme with me….you at 60 years” That let out another round of giggles and some groggy remarks.

A retired school teacher next to me, grumbled. “Nuts…..don’t even know to respect death”.

Gamini Fonseka deserves respect, living or dead. He was one among the few film icons who stood for a secular, plural and an inclusive modern life, despite his flamboyant, robust, romantic and the unchallenged image of a hero, on the Sri Lankan silver screen. He was all that and more, from the 60’s to easily the late 70’s. Popular among young film goers of the 60’s and the 70’s, he was also a very versatile actor, who played serious roles in some of the best ‘arty’ films, Sinhala cinema has seen to date. Nidhanaya, Gamperaliya and Weli kathara, strikes me immediately.

With this extra ordinary film icon and his unbelievably tall ego, I sat many a times over “Scotch on rocks”, in his bungalow at “Araliya Gardens”, Ekala, Ja-ela, thanks to (President) Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was then a very conspicuous opposition politician in parliament. Gamini was then, Deputy Speaker in parliament. He successfully contested the Matara district at the 1989 February elections, from the UNP.

“Couldn’t refuse Premadasa…..he was my good friend for too long…” said Gamini once, when I asked him why he came to open politics.

He was a different UNPer. He lived with his conscience, than with votes. He wouldn't contest the next time he told. Wasn't happy either with Premadasa, a year or two into his Presidency.

“I some times feel.....I still like the man.....but I should have refused Preme......this is not the way to run a country.....” Gamini added, after a long pull on his “555” cigarette.

Turning round, he fed his German Shepherd, “Lissie”, with a thick slice of Kraft Cheese, we had for “bites” with Cream Crackers. Then a calculated, slow sip on his glass and he continued with his monologue, one we had to accommodate when accommodating his late evening hospitality.

“Mahinda....you know 'KG',,,,don't you ?” asked Gamini, his rough and authoritative voice, waiting for no answers.

I could not immediately place these two “capital letters” on a person. I looked at Mahinda, for some explanation. Gamini nevertheless continued.

“You know....this man Gunaratnam.....his contribution was immense....we would not have a Sinhala film industry......if these Tamil gentlemen were not there.”
He had a long list of names. Nayagam, Tampoe, Anandan, Somasekeran, Venkat and Gunaratnam, he said he really respected as a gentleman producer. I was curious to know about his role in “Sarungaley” as Nadarajah, a clerk in a government department. That set him on a long nostalgic path.

“Oh......that was one role I lived.....I had to alter many things in the script......our people don't understand Tamil people......but they want to make films about Tamil people....most dialogue in that film was mine......I told that chap who was directing....I would have my lines....my way....” He stubbed his half smoked cigarette in the ash tray.

“You know......there were people who thought.....my Tamil lines were dubbed.....I know my Tamil quite well.....my friends......my Tamil friends said......'you were more Tamil than Jaffna Tamils'.....” And he had a loud laugh. “You know....they have that pride.....Yarlpanam aal....”

“Nice fellows...” He told himself loud, pouring another round of Scotch. “Okay..... gentlemen ?” There isn't much choice, when he decides to treat you, the way he wants. “Drop one or two.....ice cubes” He left the bottle in front and was reminiscing.
“I tell you two......this Sinhala film industry will not come out of this fall......no way.....for what these Sinhala hooligans did to Gunaratnam....” His voice was serious and bitter. “We don't deserve to have a Sinhala film industry......for what we did to that man” [During 1983 July Tamil pogrom, K.Gunaratnam's entire business was burnt,including cinema halls and buses. He was killed on 09 August, 1989 during the height of JVP insurgency.]

“Have WE eaten,..... on the insane root,....that TAKES the reason,.... prisoner ?” His voice was firm, clear and neatly modulated. The actor he was.
I was taken aback. Didn't know what the answer should be. He wasn't waiting for answers. He has answers too.

“That's from Macbeth.....You see.....we don't see reason.....an insane lot....”
On our way back, Mahinda told me the idea of meeting Gamini in the evening, was to talk about his role in Gamini's next film “Nomiyena Minissu”. That was one thing though, that was never talked about, the whole evening.

[This little piece was prompted by idle talk me and a few friends had last evening......the question was, will there be another Gamini Fonseka, in the Sinhala film world ?]
Saturday, 02 October, 2010.

Development, Buddhism and Sri Lanka's Poverty

2010-08-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is also the Special Adviser on Millennium Development Goals, to United Nations Secretary-General, wrote an article, “Growth in a Buddhist Economy” [www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/1804] after his return from Bhutan.

Presenting Bhutan's economy as self sufficient but poor, Prof Sachs says Bhutan is now modernising its society. What is Bhutan's approach and how will it achieve modernisation ? “What is incredible is the thoughtfulness with which Bhutan is approaching this process of change, and how Buddhist thinking guides that thoughtfulness.” writes Prof Sachs.

In Bhutan, the index of growth is not Gross National Product (GNP), but Gross National Happiness (GNH) says Prof Sachs and adds, “There is no formula, but, befitting the seriousness of the challenge and Bhutan’s deep tradition of Buddhist reflection, there is an active and important process of national deliberation.”

Our majority in Sri Lanka are Buddhists too and take pride in our Buddhist heritage, but act in a wholly different way. Sri Lanka's “Heenayana” (Therevada) Buddhism is any way different. Bhutan is a “Mahayana” Buddhist society very much influenced by the Tibetan Buddhist Sect. They have also assimilated North Indian Hindu beliefs and rituals over the past centuries, fashioning their own Buddhist philosophy that accepts secular living. Present day Mahayana Buddhism is any way a more positive Buddhist ideology on secular life. It is this Mahayana Buddhist influence that Prof Sachs is very much impressed about.

Ours being a Heenayana society that all through history, denied and suppressed the influence of Mahayana Buddhism in our historical evolotuion and still refuse to accept the contribution of Mahayana in our heritage, have remained in the company of two other Heenayana kingdoms in Burma and Thailand. It thus becomes important to glance through our Heenayana Buddhist history to form an idea as to how we have missed out on opportunities for growth and why we live on poverty that is not only about economics, but also about culture as well.

It thus justifies in this present day Buddhist society in Sri Lanka to question how and why a sizeable number of Buddhist monks came together at the BMICH (on Friday 20 August) to request President Rajapaksa to re-establish stripped Mervyn Silva as Deputy Minister and as SLFP organiser for Kelaniya, once again. His track record is nothing but one of social nuisance and political bullying to say the least. Yet these Buddhist monks appreciated very much, the work (sic) of Mervyn Silva in making their appeal on behalf of him.

They were not just ordinary monks. Apart from most being senior Buddhist monks, there were also academics in higher educational institutes like Ven. Patheygama Gnanasiri of the Anuradhapura Bikkhu University and professors like Venerable Kamburugamuwe Vajira thero, among those who led this appeal. What can one say of these Buddhist monks ?

Today, news reports often have stories of monks accused of child abuse, of sexual harassment of women, accused of fraud and cheating and about monks who run businesses. There is also leading monks who own and accumulate property and wealth, dabble openly in present day uncultured, corrupt politics, scheme and deal in such politics for fame, positions and money. Most such monks live a very luxury secular life in every sense, at least within their heavily funded “ashrams”. There is very little Buddhism in any of them.

What is important and has to be stressed is, this Sinhala Buddhist society accepts all of it without grumbling. That these monks are never punished within their own Sangha “Nikayas” too. This clearly means, what this society accepts as Buddhism is not even the Heenayana Sect of Buddhism as of yore. In short, these Buddhist monks are uncompromisingly unfaithful to Buddhism and they represent that period of ill famed “Ganinnanseys” in history.

This drastic decline in Buddhism has its history, though within a different social context. It was then a period around mid 16 Century, when royalty sponsored Buddhism was being deified with South Indian Hindu traditions and rituals, their gods and with local variants too. It was a poor feudal society ruled often by South Indian Nayakkar royalty, rampant with ruling rivalry and often living with external threats.

The Sangha thus had its own interpretations of Buddhism and was taking over Hindu rituals in the name of Buddhism. Buddhism was been adulterated to accommodate a ritualistic form of a religion on which monks could also live a comfortable life. This decline over centuries gave in to personal greed and individuality, allowing even lay life among monks. These monks thus reduced themselves to “Ganinnanseys” donning a yellow piece of cloth, towards 17 Century.

In history, it has always been the royalty that had intervened in cleansing and resurrecting Buddhism and it has often been the Heenayana Sect that had prevailed over royalty for dominance. Similarly, it was again the Heenayana influence on royalty that had two previous attempts (during Kings Vimala Dharma Suriya I and about 05 decades later by Vimala Dharma Suriya II) at cleansing the “rogue” Sangha society. Yet they had little effect in keeping a venerable standard among monks.

It then took a non Sinhala, Madurai born, South Indian Nayakkar Hindu king, Keerthi Sri Rajasinghe, guided by Welivita Saranankara Thera, to clean up the “Ganinnansey” infested Sangha society and establish the higher ordination – the Upasampadha – in 1753, brought from Thailand, then known as “Siam”. Hence the name Siam (nikaya) Sect in Kandy, that immediately came to be owned by nobles of Govigama caste, in Asgiri and Malwathu chapters, denying higher ordination to Low Country and other castes.

This for the first time, prompted traders and wealthy laymen of low country castes to fund Gnanavimala thero, a monk of Salagama origin in Balapitiya, to leave for Burma in 1793 to bring the higher ordination. Gnanavimala thero returned in 1803 to establish the “Amarapura” Nikaya, independent of any royal patronage. Thereafter, Durawa and Karawa castes also encouraged their own into higher ordination and was instrumental in establishing a Sangha society not only based on caste, but also funded by wealthy traders, outside any royal patronage. This subsequently led to the other important Sect called the Ramanna Nikaya, often said to accommodate all castes.

This trader patronised new Sangha Nikayas marked a significant change in Sri Lankan Sangha Society. With the changes in Sangha society coinciding with socio – economic changes that took place with Colonial rule, the wealthy trader community came to patronise the Sangha society, in place of Sinhala and Nayakkar kings, who were no more.

There was apparently no other independent existence for Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Yet for Heenayana Buddhism that “preached” suppression of secular comfort including giving up lay bondages and wealth, to have a trader funded base, left it with a living contradiction. This contradiction was often eased out with “giving away” (Dhana) that always accrued with temples and monks. Thus the new society that evolved with this new Sangha divisions had an inherent dynamic to lead it to degeneration and decline.

That also allowed Heenayana Buddhist monks to fall in line with the new wealthy landed proprietors and the business communities, who were identified as those social segments who stood for an independent Ceylon. Its justification was through historical anecdotes that said the Sangha always advised and guided the royalty, which never explains how the Sangha itself came to be “Ganinnanseys” in ancient Lanka. Nevertheless a new political nexus was found in the call for independence for Buddhist monks and the politically intervening wealthy Sinhala community to come together.

The rest is all simple logic, of how the present day monks have come to equate themselves with those “Ganinnanseys” of ill repute. Sri Lanka did not have a robust economic growth to allow commercial capital to evolve into productive capital as in India. The whole 60 plus year period since independence, saw only a deformed growth and is yet to see holistic capitalist growth. This society is therefore modern in its dress and attire, consumerism in a free market, access to other markets and in its communication facilities. It is colonial in its dependence on foreign powers whilst also opposing them. It is feudal in its land distribution and ownership, its introvert social thinking, value system and attitudes.

The economy is thus dominated by commercial capital that lacks any long term perspective for sustainable development and is only driven by profits, decided by commissions. In such deformed societies, existence of trade and commercial capital is decided by political patronage. The social ideology in such societies has no potential to be futuristic. With Nikayas having their own caste affiliations and through them the link to business communities, monks for sure can not avoid such degeneration and be different to “Ganinnanseys”.

This is what this Sinhala society is and how it lives its individualised, socially irresponsible life. Therefore in the absence of intellectual discourse in society that could enable this society to understand its own socio economic and cultural life, the question “how could economic modernization be combined with cultural robustness and social well-being ?”, is one that does not pose itself, wanting answers. This is a different country with a different Buddhist psyche than what Prof Jeffrey Sachs is impressed with.

Kusal Perera
28 August, 2010

Some insight from Tamil to Sinhala on Vishwa-kula

2010-07-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

Vishwakarma in Hindu mythology, is the creator of the universe. The all accomplishing “creator” and hence the “lord” of all architects and craftsmen. It is also believed Vishwakarma had five sons, Manu who worked with iron, Mãya who worked with wood, Tvastra in brass, copper and alloys, Silpi in stone and the last Vishvãjna, in gold, silver and jewellery.

Vishwa-kula (caste), therefore believe their ancestry is from the 05 five sons of Vishwakarma.

Their origin in ancient Ceylon, dates back to Vijaya's coronation when he was wedded to a Pãndiyan princess. According to Maha-vamsa, the Pãndiyan princess arrived with a large entourage of one thousand families and her father included in the entourage 18 guilds, meaning artisans, versed in all 18 crafts of that Pãndiyan kingdom in South India. It is also mentioned in the Maha-vamsa, King Asoka had sent 08 guild chiefs from the families of artisan guilds to protect the “Bo sapling”. This is also mentioned in the Sinhala Bodhi Vamsaya which notes that 08 Kamburu families, 08 Lokuru families and 08 Svarnakãra families arrived with the Bo sapling, during king Devanampiya Tissa.

Folklore also has it that the Nilavala village in the Kandy district has its beginning with a Brahman, Nila Nãrãyana, who arrived during the reign of king Devanampiya Tissa. Legend has it that 04 Brahmans, known as Nila Nãrãyana, Parama Nãrãyana, Deva Nãrãyana and Thinna Nãrãyana arrived at the time of Arahath Mahinda and settled in Nilavala, Eldeniya, Madawala and Udispattuwa in the Kandy district.

Recorded history shows that initial migrant artisans were from Pãndiyan territory which is part of South India. Korkai, a small village in present Tuticorin (Thoothukudi)district and parts of present Madurai are land in record, of such migration, or rather arrival of artisan persons in ancient Ceylon. It is in record that during the reign of king Parakramabahu, a group of Brahmans and a Silpačãri was brought from Kapilavastu pura to renovate the Munnesvaram kovil (now in Chilaw).

This Silpačãri was so skilled that he not only completed his assignment in time but also completed work on the Pattirippuwa during that same time. The king, pleased with his work conferred on him the title Mutugala Rãjakarunadi Viravardana Viskammandana Ačãri and handed over the villages Karãulla and Udamatiyangane, “until the sun and the moon would last”.

This guild or artisan people from South and East Indian lands have arrived in Ceylon at least up to the 18th Century, according to M.H.F. Jayasuriya who translated the script “Vaijyantatantra” a local hand book in Sanskrit for artisans and handicraftsmen.

Their ancestry as Brahmans, known in early Indian history as Viswa Brahmans, Deva Brahmans or as Deva kammalars and different to the present understanding of Brahmins, but adept in very many crafts, is said to have provided them with noble status in ancient society and had given them access to the royalty of the land. Being of South and East Indian origin, they were also called Āčãriya or Āčãrya, meaning “teacher or master” in Tamil language.

They are also known as “Navandanno”, some times interpreted as those knowing 09 crafts or skills. Yet within the Viswa-kula caste, there are 11 skills identified through history by different historians like Valentijn (a Dutch in 1726), Codrington (1924), D.T. Devendra, Asiff Husein and Jayasuriya. They are, Achariya (Smiths), Badallo (Silver smiths), Wadduwo (Carpenters), Liane Wadduwo (Turners), Ridiyale Ancaro (Engravers of gold and silver) Adatketencaro (Ivory and cabinet makers), Galwadduwo or Galladdo (Stone cutters), Ratneendaracaruwo (Stone polishers), Hie Wadduwo (Spike and shaft makers), Sitteru (Lacquer painters) and finally, Lokuruwo (Copper and brass makers).

The appellation “Navandanno” thus can not be “those skilled in 09 crafts” as some Vishwakula persons wish to define themselves. It is my belief that it could be from the words “Navakam dano” meaning “people doing new work” attributed to them as they create new products with their skills. It would therefore mean “those who turn out novel products”.

Most original names in ancient Vishwakula community had “Narayan” as a suffix or “Deva” as a prefix. Deva-narayan, Wijey-narayan, Deva-surendran, Dantha-narayan, Devasiri-narayan and Deva-nendran (Devendra presently) are some such historically noted names.

They have originally been both Saivites and Vaishnava in faith. It is said Vaishnava faith predominated the community in ancient time and that gave them easy and more space to become Buddhists. Vaishnava belief has Buddha as the ninth or last incarnation of God Vishnu.

Most arrivals of Vishwakula origins have been during the last century before the arrival of British. During the Kandyan era, with almost all Kandyan kings being Nayakkar descendants of Hindu faith, later converted to Buddhism for convenience and necessity of rule, had their queens and concubines brought from mostly Madurai in South India. Along with them came their retinue and skilled craftsmen needed to turn out gold and silver jewellery for them in their traditional designs.

This is borne out in most Kandyan jewellery still turned out in some ancestral Vishwakula villages in Kandy district. Kandyan jewellery like the “koral, kasa gedi and pattan gedi” necklaces and the very rare “botu pettha” pendant, are such jewellery that came from South India.

Anthropologically, all what it means is that through history, those craftsmen who turned out as Vishwakula community in ancient Ceylon are South and East Indian Tamils, who settled in the Southern parts assimilating into Sinhala society through its evolution while those who settled in the Northern parts of the land, assimilated retaining their Tamil identity.

As a community, Sinhala Vishwakula community is majority Buddhists and they are widely spread in both interior and coastal areas. Probably because of their geographical spread within modern electorates and small numbers, they are one caste that has not been assertive in modern politics.

From folklore
The caste flag
The Vishwakula community take the flag of Hanuman(tha) as their caste flag. Here Vishwakarma is depicted as crowned and throned in the Himalayas. Hanuman is depicted holding a magic shrub in the right hand and his left hand held high in the Navandanno tradition, beseeching the God not to intervene for a short space of time till he sets fire to the land of Lankaputra.

The longest ge name
A folk tale in Nilavala village has it that a Kandyan king who was on his routine trip to Hanguranketa, had to break journey in Nilavala in late evening, as his horse was injured in the leg. He then found refuge in a house in a remote area and was offered resting over the night by the woman, with a mat laid in the open space in front of the house, as her husband was not in as yet. The husband who came late, recognised the sleeping king and immediately made a gem set ring, which he carefully placed on king's finger. Next morning, the king having returned to his palace ordered his men to bring this man to him. Pleased as he was, the king conferred on this goldsmith the title, Eldeniya Rajakurana Devasurendran Manuvira Vikrama Sri Karjuna Radala Bhuvanekhabahu Raja Abhisheka Vicitra Citra Nirmita Sakala Silpacarya Sri Dhantadhatu Makaraddaja Pata Savuttari Mudali Davunda Ratnavalli Navaratna Abharana Gedara Abharana Muhandiram.

The descendants use only the part, Ratnavalli Navaratna Abharana Gedara, for convenience, they say.

************
For more – “The Lion and The Sword” by Asiff Hussein, “Jana Kala Silpa” by Sudath Gunasekera, “A short account on Raniswela – The Landesi Kalaya” by F.E. Goonaratne

Kusal Perera
16 July, 2010

Getting “Coorged” by a “Kotagalian”

2010-06-14T01:39:00.000-07:00

It was a Saturday night, right ? And it was the second day of the big FIFA World Cup foot ball tournament rolled out in South Africa with all colour, clamour and gaiety. The night's glamour was in the match between the USA and England to be started right between Saturday midnight and Sunday dawn. The time was marked as 00.00, neither am nor pm. So, we had plenty time to go out for a long and tidy dinner.

“Tell me....what do you like to eat ?” I was asked.

“Anything....Nothing special.....” And added on second thought, “Some thing light ? I don't eat heavy in the nights”

There were plenty suggestions that were shot down. By the same two who suggested them. I had no suggestions of any place, except the vague type of dinner that kept more suggestions coming. Almost by accident, Deena, said we could go to the “Coorg”. 'What ?' I thought, 'was that'.

His very “green” wife who lives with “peace” and sees even the soft face tissues as recyclable, said, “Oh my gosh....I forgot that......he is my friend”. A “matriculous” (matriarch who is meticulous) organiser, few phone calls went round from Nimmi, while I had two shots of RC (Royal Challenger ?) and we were off with Deena at the wheel, at his patient best.

Sorry. Couldn't tell that all this was in that single city, where even an ambulance could not move on city highways, for any “cardiac arrest”. We were held in 'pause' mode for good half hour slots along the way through “Bengaluru” now. After a long one hour, to reach “the only Coorg” in Karnataka down Krishna Temple Road, we climbed a side way flight of stairs to enter a softly lit hall with a few laid out tables, two quietly cuddled families around their tables, enjoying their dinner with pretty soft and romantic music.

I wasn't sure of the food though, but we were greeted by a young (phew!!) gentleman with a rough, pepper and salt beard, with a cooling balmy look straight into the eyes with so much zest, 'well Coorg is extremely warm and spicy with hospitality' I thought. Ilangovan and Imayan, the two humorously soft, youthful products of Deena and Nimmi, were out in a corner table, sipping some dull brown brew from unusually tall tumblers.

Well, this is not about the “Coorg” food, that was gorgeously addictive. That cannot be explained and could only be eaten to be enjoyed. A sure market, any where in any high flying middle class appetite. Well, yet the issue is their irresistible pork dishes. They have pork as a main dish in their life in Coorg. They aren't “Halal” for that beast cannot be turned “halal”.

The “Coorgs” called the “Kodagus” are from the “Kodavu” land in the Ghats. Waite, its rather they are officially “Kodavus” from “Coorg” also called “Kodagu”. Their history is immense and so intricately complicated, it's like Beethovan getting Rapped, backed by Karnatic music, crooned by some eccentric Bruce Springsteen type. They are a different set of Muslims and a different set of Hindus, claiming different ancestries from Alexander the Great's Mesopotamian soldiers to ancient Arabian sailors, even before the 'Chera' dynasty. They are inter “twinkled” with Kerala Mappilas and Tulu Gowdas.

The Coorgs are incidentally the pioneer coffee growers in India, since a few seeds were said to have been brought by Baba Budan, a Muslim pilgrim to Mecca in the 16th century. Kodagu hills are also where Cardamom, Pepper, Honey, Orange, Paddy, Vanilla & Anthurium are popular products.

Well, this is also, not about their history and culture, where dowry for marriage is no issue, where child marriage and honour killings are totally absent, has cricket, hockey and kabadi as very popular sports. This is not about this only community that can possess guns without license in India. This is about getting “Coorged” by a “Kotagalian” at “The Restaurant Coorg” run by a young couple from Kodagu, who serve their soothing hospitality as added value for an exquisite menu.

So, after a hefty, porky dinner when I only wanted something light, I was introduced to the young smiling lady partner of the restaurant as a Sri Lankan, which is true. I told her I was completely stuffed out with their “never say no” meals, they could easily storm the Colombo middle class, if they choose to come.

“Oohhh !!!!! Our 'coook' is from there”, she beamed.

“Really ? Can I speak to him ?” I asked her, with utter surprise.

I was accompanied to their neat and clean, not so large kitchen. There were three working and another middle aged, slim dark man watching them. He was called as “Dasan” by the lady and I immediately jumped on him with my little “Jaffna Thamil” asking him, if he is Sri Lankan.

He has also caught this “Coorg” smiling flu. “Ohm!” he said charmingly and then whisked me off the ground, asking me, which part of Sri Lanka I am from, in better Sinhala than my Thamil. Dasan is from Kotagala, a completely Tamil plantation area in Nuwara Eliya district. Had come to India while a little kid with his parents, over 30 years ago, he told me. He said he has all his kith in Karnataka, but most of his kin still in Nuwara Eliya. Everything told, in “gooood” Sinhala, very much Sri Lankan.

I wondered how he ended up “cheffing” Coorg food so efficiently, the owner couple could proudly call their restaurant the “only Coorg”.

“We were there for a wedding” the lady intervened sweetly. “Last September” she added.

I asked Dasan, how he got into “Coorg” dishes so well done. Tamil Nadu is where most Tamils from Sri Lanka, usually come and land themselves, whether in refugee camps in Kanyakumari district or otherwise outside camps. Tamil Nadu is where they culturally feel accepted, secure and safe.

Dasan smiled spicily and shrugged his shoulders. A long story as usual ? I was left to philosophise on his tour into Coorg cuisine. He, or probably his father had drifted with his family to Karnataka and pitched life somewhere in Mangalore or Puttur. Dasan growing into his teens, would have thus bumped into a “Byari” essentially and always into business, yet friendly, fun loving, out of the ordinary Muslim people from Kodagu. Dasan perhaps, then had a different break in his life.

Well, end of the day, it's “glocalisation” (localising globalism) in this Indian sub continent, I thought, tasting (sorry, devouring) a milky white, jelly like sweet pudding to crown the Coorg meal. A Coorg desert “cheffed” by Dasan from Kotagala.

Kusal Perera
14 June, 2010
safely back in Colombo

The fractured freedom in 'unknown' Vanni

2010-04-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

It was baking hot inside, despite the air con's effort to cool us on the run. Dusty and dry it was, for straight and long kilo meters, behind and ahead of us. We were waved to a stop by a youthful soldier in a “cama” kit. As the driver pulled up by the specially fortified bunker, another young armed soldier came up to the vehicle. I rolled the shutter down, with a slight smile.

"From where ?" He was right, if he guessed I was a Sinhalese and asked where we are heading to, late in the evening.

To Mannar, I said. After a few pleasantries, I asked him whether there is still checking along the route.

"No....no checking....only very random". So, it was a random stop with a bit of Sinhala and we were off again.

After Adappankulam, we entered the Mannar district, on the A-14 route. The 80 km deviation from Medawachchiya town, that almost 06 months ago, started with a very heavy, armed barricade and a check point, had no clue of any, now. No hint(s) of any elections either.

There were war time army bunkers on both sides of the empty road, almost every 50 metres. They looked deserted now, except for the electric lamp and a clothes line at the rear, never allowed during the long and agonising war.

The “fingerland” which is Mannar, now hooked to the mainland by the “Peace bridge” declared open by President Rajapaksa on 18th last, had more life. Mannar town was dressed up for the coming elections with an abundant display of posters and cut-outs of the all powerful Minister. Now and then there were others too, who claimed they are “a true friend” or “the leader” of the Vanni people. Guess, the people knew these faces, on posters.

North of Mannar town, in Pesalai, fishermen now enjoy their catch, after long years of restrictions. They talk no politics in Pesalai. Yet they had their own strong resentment of Indian trawlers and fishing boats, encroaching their waters.

“Once we caught them and handed to the police. Every week they come.....” said a middle aged fisherman on the beach.

“That was long time ago...” chipped in, another. “Then LTTE warned us not to intervene .... they had deals with Indian boats.” he explained.

The war no more and no LTTE either, the Indian boats are no less. The parish priest said, they often see Indian boats close to the shore, unhindered. There is some business going on in this sea, the fishermen claimed.

The SL Navy now guards the coast. Rt Rev Bishop Dr. Rayappu Joseph had handed over an appeal to the President at the opening of the Mannar bridge, that requested Tamil fishermen the right to stay in Mullikulam, the southern most point of Mannar district, close to Wilpathtu. The navy is taking over the Mullikulam coast line, displacing these villagers, said Bishop Rayappu Joseph.

Meanwhile the IDP resettled Vanni area, that can be travelled through by any, starts with an army security check point at Uylankulam junction. The checking is strict, stern and tidy. The road thereafter had deserted army bunkers now and then. Coloured posters of smiling men and a woman too, decorated some bunkers. In Tamil, they probably promised “prosperity” what ever it means, if voted.

A few kilo metres from there towards Vidaththaltheevu, we met a few elderly people, squatting in front of a half shelled old house. On the opposite side, two houses remain shelled into debris.

“That's my house...” said a faint voice. She meant, one of those totally flattened houses. “We left this area in July or August.” she added. Another added, “in 2008”.

The army from the Thalladi camp had battered the village with heavy artillery, they said. People then started moving interior. Thereafter, for over 09 months, they have been on the “move”, each shifting of location reducing kith and kin, increasing the wounded and the disabled, dragging in more whole villages. A remnant family we met, had 17 displacements during their trek towards Mullaitivu.

In between these long, hazardous and unpredictable “moving”, some had broken off from the growing waves of human flotsam, to creep into thick jungle. Some to escape military shelling and some to escape LTTE atrocities. Most had nevertheless believed the LTTE would at some point stop the military onslaught. So they kept moving East, in growing herds.

“Those God wanted, are still here...” said a slim old gentleman, looking far into the lonely road that stretched towards Adappan, his eyes cold and menacingly silent.

We wanted to meet some government officer in the area. There was none. These areas are still wild. Its survival of the fittest in this land that no candidate would bother even to promise anything. There are no structured government appendages that rule and no organised social life. They did not know whether they are registered voters in this “Democratic Socialist Republic”, or not. Did they bother ?

“If we get some thing proper to start life.....” an elderly gentleman said, looking at me in moist eyes. “...why elections.....for us ?” He wasn't interested in finding out, if he is even a voter.

There is no electricity and no clean water, properly distributed. There are no wayside boutiques that sell the ordinary folk their ordinary consumer stuff, even if a relative could send some money.

Some land at odd intervals were greening with paddy. The army provided a tractor for ploughing said the parish priest, who helped translate the dialogue. Seed paddy and some fertiliser came under a UN scheme. Most families don't have young men to do cultivation, said the elderly person.

They still live on the World Food Programme (WFP) ration of dry food. It includes rice, flour, sugar, dhal and powdered milk, said the only middle aged lady among the crowd. Any supplementary food ?

“In the camp.......some organisations provided.......not now.” She said. “Now, NGOs are not coming......it is difficult now than in the camp.....but we are free....our children are free.....”

Some one asked her, if the ration they get is enough. She tried to smile. Said they can not cook dhal, because there are no spices.

“How to cook dhal with only water ?” she asked.

Did they get all things promised for resettlement ?

“The God gives us what we deserve” said the slim old gentleman. “Not what others promise”.

We moved through Vanni, on the road to Vavuniya. After an hour or so, after passing a sprawling, guarded IDP camp site, we stopped at the Mother Teresa “Missionaries of Charity” centre. They had some left overs of the war under them. The old, the displaced, the orphaned hundreds. Some were mentally depressed.

I asked a 'Sister' about the camps we passed.

“Which one ?” she inquired back. “One for LTTE women ?”

So, there was one camp that held young girls as Tiger “cadres” under strict security. The numbers, they didn't want to guess. A priest is sometimes allowed for service, the Sisters told us. But they spoke little else. “We work inside here”, the Sisters smiled, politely.

We then moved out again. But with an unanswered question. How long will all those displaced families in Vanni take to breath at least this fractured freedom, in their own villages ?

“Not that soon” said the parish priest. “They are mostly from East of A-9 road.....where the war was bitterly concluded.”

With no election promises on quick resettlement, we had to leave heaps of untold stories, that some day would glue the bits and pieces we collected, into the larger tragic story of these Vanni people, in this war.

Kusal Perera
24 March, 2010

Photos by Denzil Fernando

[was published in the Sunday Leader news paper of 04 April, 2010]

Me on a reverse journey

2010-03-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

It was somewhere in mid March, 1989. We were standing in the queue at the Majestic theatre in Bambalapitiya, for the “matinee” show. It was the afternoon 3.30 show. The last show of the day at 9.30 pm that we were used to, was no more. The beastly outbreak of armed violence led by the JVP after the 1987 July Indo-Lanka Accord, had killed off night life completely. Buses seldom ran into ghostly nights frozen still.

Then the Majestic cinema hall was an old, lonely building, behind a short wall with two gates on either side, on the Galle Road front. It had a large empty space for the few cars that come, on the side of Station Road. The few CTB buses that plied to Layard's Broadway on route 104, begins and ends its circuitous run, down Station Road near the railway station.

While Vincent and Pushpa stayed back for the ticket counter to open, I walked towards the pavement kiosk near the station to buy a fag that often had a few bus conductors and drivers. They were talking of the war and the Indian Peace Keeping Force, doing the fighting. It had turned into a national calamity, savagely felt in most part of the Sinhala society too. I lit a fag and walked back to the cinema hall.

There wasn't much of a crowd. The gallery seats right in front, were almost empty. The more popular (rupees) “one – ten” seats were a little full and where we were, there was hardly a dozen, when the lights dimmed out. Wouldn't know how many there were, in the balcony.

The film was one about the Vietnam war, titled “Platoon”. I read a small write up a few days before in the Ceylon Daily News (CDN) and just one line in it, sort of flattered me to see the film. Vincent and Pushpa were cajoled into seeing it by me. The CDN brief on “Platoon” said, some critics thought it better than “Apocalypse Now”, then a Cannes Palme d'Or award winning, Academy Award nominated film on Vietnam war, that I too enjoyed seriously.

Coming out from the hall after 120 minutes, I peeped into some of the “show cards” displayed in the lobby. Pushpa Ramlani asked me what I thought of the film. From her beaming smile, I knew she had loved the film. I told Vincent, I would do a cover story of it. Vincent Kurumbapitiya was then the editor of “"Vivarana"” periodical, a Sinhala socio political monthly magazine. We were around one plus half year old by then and “"Vivarana"” was easily the most popular periodical along with the “Ravaya” magazine. The difference between “"Vivarana"” and the other Sinhala periodicals was that it stood out as a very “anti war” magazine, discussing most things under the sun on a democratic platform.

Pushpa, a mainstay in the editorial as its Deputy, agreed we should write a piece on Platoon and Vincent, an ex JVP, first generation activist of the '71 era, felt there was much to write about it. The decision was thus made while we waited for our return journey, at the bus stop. The decision was on condition, we get a few good photos to go along with the cover story. Or else, we go with the already decided cover story.

I sat through mid night trying to write the “cover story”. It wasn't easy. Not because I did not have a political interpretation to the film, but because I had no information about the Director, about the production, about the cast and the basic information about its release and post release achievements. The question I kept out of my mind during the night was, from where I could snatch a few still photos of the film.

I did a rough sketch for the cover story, scratching out, rewriting, throwing away whole sheets of paper from time to time. Yet I knew it wasn't complete for a “cover story” in "Vivarana", unless I had other information on the film. I had to leave some blanks, to be filled before next evening to meet the print schedule.

I went to sleep in a world that had no frequencies modulated (FM) for radio channels. The SLBC and 02 state owned TV channels beamed out for any diversity and plurality in media. There were no mobile phones either. No desktops, we knew of. That also meant we've not heard of internet, 'hotmails' and 'gmails' and knew nothing about “surfing” or “browsing” the “net”. No “Getty Images” and no “downloads” too. We were plain old world journalists in the print media, with pen in pocket.

Waking up in the morning I knew I had a hectic day, despite a half slept night. My first trip was to the Majestic theatre. There I met its Manager, to convince him of the need to have a few colour “show cards” for my story. He wasn't convinced, but was plainly amused.

“We won't be running this show for long.....it has little attraction.....” He told me with a slight grin and then asked, “What's this magazine ?”

He doesn't look the type that reads, I thought. Yet I played a “leech de nuisance” and he parted with 02 extra copies of 02 show cards and two or three post card sized stills from the film. That was definitely more than what I thought I could scrounge from the film hall.

I was told by Vincent that Pushpa was scouting for some background material from some one she knew. One who collected material on 'Western' films. Meanwhile I went to the British Council library to thumb through some film magazines. I found a small colour piece that made misfortunes of Oliver Stone in filming Platoon, quite interesting to read. Oliver Stone was the Director, but that story had nothing for me to learn about Stone. Instead learnt the film was an Academy Award winner, released on 19 December, 1986.

No buses plying along Duplication Road and as usual, no money for three-wheelers, I walked to “Thummulla Junction” to board a “one-three-eight” bus to Nugegoda. It was late afternoon and Pushpa had arrived with 03 photo copy pages on “Platoon” that provided a “wealth” of information. I wrote a hurried “insert” on Oliver Stone, based on what I could gather from those 03 pages. The insert had 118 words in all. The best was that it had a 2G photo of Stone along with his wife, carrying his new born baby. Obviously they were b & W, being photo copies.

Eight and a half hand written pages trashed during a slow moving night and the cover story written all over again with a better “insight” into the film by next morning, I was happy I beat the deadline too. All the handwritten manuscripts had to go to the printer a week ahead. Vincent had to provide a hand sketched dummy lay out too, for them to have it printed on time. For a magazine that was sold at rupees seven a copy and was content full without commercial ads, four colour web offset printing was beyond a dream.

Almost a week after the 1989 April issue of "Vivarana" hit the paper stands, I ran into the 'goateed', bespectacled trade union leader of the Central Bank, Thulsiri Andradee, a routine Marxist, heading a little Trotskyite faction in Colombo.

“Thank you.....” he told me, with a hearty smile. “ I would have missed 'Platoon'....if not for your review....That was a radical piece in a Sinhala magazine, about a very good English film.....nice one” he explained himself and his pleasure in seeing the film.

A little proud but somewhat surprised too, I asked him whether the film is still running.

“They have extended......your magazine had come just in time......I told our comrades also.....to read your review and see the film” said Andradee.

We then parted, Andradee going for a meeting of trade unions at the “Guru medura” and me ? Where did I go, happy no doubt and proud too ?

Kusal Perera
17 March, 2010.

The absence of plurality in Sri Lankan culture

2010-02-23T21:58:00.000-08:00

I was invited by an Indian colleague to attend the mini conference at the ViBGYOR international film festival in Thissur, Kerala from 15 to 21 February, 2010. Unfortunately for me, an unavoidable commitment here in Sri Lanka that could not be altered on my sole wish, denied me the opportunity of being part of the discussions in Thissur, that I believe would have been contagiously inspirational.

Nevertheless, expecting something positive to happen at least during the last hour, I drafted the paper below as a discussion note on Sri Lankan culture in the context of ethno – linguist polarisation. Denied such opportunity, leaving it here for any comment.

In Sri Lanka, unfortunate indeed, but no media would talk of this Kerala based unique film event that has Sri Lanka in its discussion forum. In Sri Lanka, the talk is of a victorious end to the 30 plus years of ethnic conflict, even at forthcoming elections to its parliament. A victory for the Sri Lankan government that used its state security forces to eliminate the LTTE which led the armed struggle for a Separate “Thamil Eelam” State for the Tamil people, in the North – East of Sri Lanka. These two districts together are considered the homeland of Tamil people in Sri Lanka, that have over centuries emerged as a culturally distinct society, with a language and a religion of its own. It should be stressed that the Hindu religion in Sri Lankan Tamil society has its own distinct social and belief variance to that of Hinduism in India.

The majority Sinhala community with Buddhism borrowed from North India which is no more a significant religion in Indian demography, settled in the Southern parts of Sri Lanka with its own distinct culture, again evolved over centuries. The Sinhala society has during the past decades developed an ideology that makes them feel ethnically superior and behaves politically with a logic that defines them as the historical heirs to the country.

The present conflict in its ethno - linguistic form begins with this ideological polarisation, more after independence in 1948 that eventually led to the savage war, considered and calculated from after the 1983 July pogrom on Tamil people.

This Sinhala supremacist ideology is what left Sinhala culture dormant in its modern life and therefore its aesthetic life mediocre, during the past few decades. It is a historical fact that civilisations flourished, only when their cultures were open and assimilative. All cultures that closed up looking inwards, left civilisations crumbling. The Sinhala cultural life could not surpass this truth.

Ancient Sri Lanka, better known then as Ceylon, was without any worthy tradition(s) of music and song. Culturally, the Theravada Buddhist influence on ancient Sinhala society with its interpretation of human life with attachments on pleasure and greed as sinful, philosophically decried ambitions for secular joy and wealth in living. This turned into a social philosophy with feudal State power, that played negative on any growth of culture, rich in pleasurable pursuits of daily life.

Philosophising a “middle path”, Theravada Buddhist influence on social life promoted mediocrity in culture sans art, music, song and dance forms. Culture was restricted to the creation of statues that venerated Lord Buddha in most. The famous Sigiriya frescoes is considered an accident with the influence of Mahayana Buddhism that established Sigiriya as a monastery during the period AD 477 – 495 and after, contrary to popular lore.
Thus, when then Ceylon looked for cultural inspirations and strength during the British Colonial period, the Sinhala culture had to turn towards India that had a national independence movement against the Britishers, providing strong influence to the more subdued Ceylonese independence “struggle”.

It was therefore no accident when Sinhala society and its culturally awaken activists were drawn more towards Hindustani – Uttara Bharatheeya music traditions, while the Tamilean culture was influenced with Karnataka and Dravidian music and dance traditions.

What was nevertheless conspicuous and also startling in this cultural awakening of the Sinhala society is the absence of Sinhala Buddhist artistes in fostering music and song in the first two decades or so. Pioneering musicians and singers in pre independence Sinhala society were all, either Malays or Moors or Catholic/Christian Sinhalese. These Catholics/Christians smoothed their talents within church choirs and the Malays and Moors were of Indian origin and therefore with a strong musical background.

Famous names of this pre independence Sinhala music world of Ceylon that prove it was nurtured by non Sinhala and non Buddhists were names like Lakshmi Bhai, Mohideen Baig, Daisy Daniel (Rukmani Devi on stage), M.K. Vincent, Ghouse Master, A.M. Raja, George W. Alwis (a Christian who later became Ananda Samarakoon and wrote the national anthem of SL), Don Joseph John (better known as Sunil Shantha), M.K. Rocksamy, Albert Perera (later Pundit Amaradeva), Hugo Master and a few years later, C.T. Fernando, Latha Walpola (maiden name was Rita Jenevi Fernando), Christopher Paul, G.S.B. Rani and many more.

What is also important is, the whole world of Sinhala music and song was designed, moulded and fashioned through independence in 1948, on Uttara Bharatheeya tradition of music, from school sylabii to ranking of artistes in Radio Ceylon. The theoretical and ideological base of Sinhala music and song was thus firmly grounded on Uttara Bharatheeya music, taught in schools and heard over air waves. The mainstream music and song thus created, left out Kaffringa (Baila) traditions of singing introduced through Dutch colonialism, as less aesthetic and Western, though Radio Ceylon had at times given them air space.

Radio Ceylon, the oldest broadcasting station in Asia, aired a special service called the “Hindi Service” on short waves in early 1950's that had a massive listener audience and raked in big money from India for commercial spots. Programmes in Hindi had super popular Indian announcers contracted, in the fame of Gopal Sharma, Vijey Kishore Dubey and Ameen Sayani.

So was the Sinhala film industry, that for a change had a very big influence from South India, perhaps for its proximity for production work. Initial films in fact were South Indian Tamil films that were dubbed into Sinhala and most Sinhala films of that period had Tamil playback singers. A.M. Rajah and his wife Jikki were among the most famous from Tamil playback singers, who sang for Sinhala films.

The first original local Sinhala film was in 1956, produced in Ceylon and directed by a Sri Lankan, the most respected and celebrated director Lester James Pieris, with a totally Sri Lankan caste and a technical team. Yet the Sinhala film industry had a whole list of Tamil producers and directors in M.S. Nayagam, K. Gunaratnam, T. Somasekaran, Robin Tampoe, K. Venkat and a superb cameraman in M.S. Anandan. So were music directors like Rocksamy, Muttusamy and A.E. Manoharan.

What is unfortunate though is that in Sri Lanka, there were no Tamil films to be talked of. There were a few attempts at producing Tamil films, but the market was obviously for the imported South Indian Tamil films. It was M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) the hero in the 50's and early 60's who dominated the Sri Lankan Tamil heart. Thus there was no space for any Sri Lankan Tamil idol to steal his popularity. Definitely, not without a good flow of original local Tamil films.

The last attempt at producing a Tamil film was by a Sinhala, left leaning rebel film director, Dharmasena Pathirajah, who was respected for his contribution to Sinhala cinema since 1970's. His Tamil film “Ponmani” too could not kindle enough interest to provoke the production of another Tamil film.

With such Tamil influence and a massive presence of Tamil talent, why was it not possible to enrich and nurture a Tamil culture and why wasn't the Sinhala society interested in Tamil culture ? Was it market factors that restricted the influence and growth of a Tamil culture ?

It is most importantly the social ideology that was fostered with State patronage that held all such cultural growth with plurality at abeyance. The State had its working ideology from governing politics that played for the majority Sinhala vote bank. Sinhala language made the official language of the country in 1956, gradually turned the whole social and State life in Sri Lanka into thinking in Sinhala. All State planning there after and to date were thought out in Sinhala and acted out in Sinhala areas too. A singular and a very conspicuous example is State planning of development ventures that spread very much in demographically Sinhala areas.

Apart from all other “Sinhalising” of life, the economy that was heavily State run till 1978, but did not change ideologically thereafter too, left very little space for Tamil cultural growth. The famous “Sarasavi Film Festival” first held 46 years ago in 1964, has never had any slot for Tamil films and continues that way to date. So is the Presidential Awards ceremony. The State owned TV media has not provided any patronage for production of Tamil Tele-films (known as Tele drama), while the State owned TV corporation has projects that produced Sinhala Tele-films.

The literary field had no Tamil interaction too with such Sinhalisation of State and society. There was one very healthy but isolated exchange of experience when Parakrama Kodituwakku a poet with many credits to his creative Sinhala poetry translated a collection of Tamil poetry titled “Indu Lanka” in early 1970's. There after the dialogue just fell apart and other reputed and recognised writers like Gamini Viyangoda, with his larger expose on international literature took the Sinhala reader to the world of especially Latino novels with Garci Marquez and Allende among others, introduced in translations.

Such efforts often live a solitary cultural experience, outside social dialogue. The lone attempt by Parakrama Niriella's Jana Karaliya (Makkal Kalari) Mobile Theatre with a multi ethnic group of young performers, acting out award winning Sinhala stage plays in an arena theatre with parallel productions in Tamil, is yet out of mainstream drama, in a very pathetic display of Sinhala stage plays in Sri Lanka.

Such is the Sinhala influence on art and culture, that also decides market demand. There definitely is no market created, when the society does not enjoy plurality. When all what the society understands is linear thinking in its vernacular. Such thinking leaves artistes as political propagandists and sucks the creative world, empty.

If one wants proof of such mediocre cultural life, one has only to list all artistes who now jump the bandwagon of Sinhala politics in Sri Lanka. They are all dead to the larger aesthetic world, that lives and grows through plurality. Its almost a dead end and Sri Lanka would need cultural exchanges like the ViBGYOR experience to lift itself culturally, in an open pluralistic society.

Kusal Perera – Sri Lanka
2010, February 18

Sri Lanka - post presidential polls - Conceptualising “People's Democracy”

2010-01-31T01:05:00.000-08:00

for an alternate path for development & democracy

What is the crisis in Sri Lanka ? Even after electing a President with a massive 58% plus ? Sri Lanka today in its post presidential poll life is threatened and is not democratically secure. The main Opposition candidate is harassed and threatened, the media and journalists are threatened and media institutes are shut down, provincial activists are attacked and there seems no political opposition to any of it.

Its a crisis due to the absence of an intellectual political leadership. Which in turn says, Sri Lanka lacks a political leadership capable of intellectually relating to its socio economic issues and crises in democracy, to bring about solutions within a participatory democracy where, plurality of society would be respected and adhered to.

Today, due to the forced monologue in society that hypes war victories, more serious issues relating to democratic life and development in the whole country, though within a global recession, could still have the comfort of a regional economic growth that could be exploited, have gone a begging. The whole opposition, more so the main opposition, is far too mediocre in meeting this challenge of reaching the people with an alternate voice.

Thus there is a subjective political need to draw up an alternate democratic programme that could provoke a dialogue in society, as an intellectual discourse than as an “opposition” election campaign. Such a campaign if carried through would nevertheless provide space for a campaign that would politically challenge the present regime.

Politics of war for a “Unitary State”

The war against Tamil Tigers concluded in mid May, that was justified by the campaign to save the sovereignty of the “Unitary” State of Sri Lanka, in effect eroded the democratic life of the people, who needs to be sovereign. It eroded the authority of the Constitution and the legislature of elected representatives too. Within such arrogant governance, all public life was fashioned and regimented to follow the dictates of the regime.

The period that moulded the social psyche in the South to go for an all out war against Tamil Tigers with such blatant violations of “rights” with impunity, had two distinct characteristics.
1.This period gradually built a psyche in the South that Tamils are “suspect” Tigers and any damage to the Tamil people though “unfortunate” can not be avoided in a patriotic war waged to save the country, which was implied as the right of the Sinhala people.
2.It was a period that gave the defense establishment an open political presence and thus allowed all overt and covert operations to be carried out in the name of “patriotism” campaigned for and justified by the defense establishment itself.

At the end of the war, we are thus left with a bifurcated society,where Sinhala and Tamil societies had drifted apart, politically.

The Sinhala society, despite its claim that its leadership eliminated Tiger terrorists, live without any development in their own areas and the democratic right to question the government which plunders and loots its economy at will, having agreed to forgo the right to a democratic life to wage war against the Tamil Tigers.

The most unfortunate Tamil society that lived through a 30 year brutal war, loosing its democratic leadership to LTTE ruthlessness and then having lived under the armed dictates of 02 contending forces is now left uprooted and displaced, with all its political and armed representations discredited and eliminated.
Meeting State threats and oppression with politics and people

At the end of the war, both societies are left with no future plans for development and the present regime trying to capitalise on the IDPs to raise funds for its kitty lapping up the luxury of a muted Sinhala society.

Political necessity for the future

This leaves Sri Lanka to explore a new political culture with a democratic commitment and a clear development programme with inclusive economic life. One that would make the South realise that it needs to steer clear of the present “Sinhala” oriented politics for a more open, modern programme of development that provides checks and balances for social justice.

It would also mean that the people have access to political debates and dicsourse in fashioning their future within a demilitarised new society. It also means, law and order is once again given pride of place with an independent judiciery and a police department removed of their borrowed security responsibilities.

The first task at this moment of deranged politics would be to drive home the political necessity of discussing such a programme, even before one gets into a real discussion of the programme,

Politics of the people

This leaves a very broad political arena to be exploited by an intellectual political leadership on a new alternate democratic programme that would draw in both the Sinhala and Tamil oppressed societies.

This would have the uphill task of redefining the long overdue issue of development in the South as one due to the much warped “representative democracy” within a “Unitary” State. The projection should be for a more robust “participatory democracy” within a new Constitution. This “representative” democracy has become a totally alienated procedural system, that need not necessarily represent the will of the people after elections. The present parliament is a case in point, where huge numbers of voters have been simply ignored by their elected members of parliament to cross sides and join the government.

The Sinhala society has to be told that their right to democracy and development have been hijacked by substituting a “Sinhala patriotic” voice that has only kept them burdened with socio economic problems all through the 60 year period after independence.

The Tamil society has to be provided with a leadership that need not necessarily be Tamil in ethnic terms. It would only be Tamil, to the extent that it represents their present, post war aspirations. Thus the issue of IDPs would have to be taken in real political terms, a factor that is not being addressed by the Opposition in the absence of a credible Tamil leadership, strong enough to voice their concerns.

The issue of especially the Eastern Muslim population and their right to undisturbed livelihood in a democratic environment, is one tied to their cultivable land that is in dispute all through the war and even at present.

The total programme thus would have to have a “people's face” with the voices of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim.

That policy framework in brief could be,

1.Democracy for lost development in the South
This would explain that the Unitary State, under all 3 Constitutions – Soulbury, Republican and the Presidential – have failed to deliver an economically viable society to the South. Districts in the South are the most poorest of all districts with 53% of the national wealth accruing in the Western Province with Colombo as its centre. People though electors of legislature, loose their representative power in deciding where their money go and how. A massive majority of migrant labour from the undeveloped rural areas, earn 35.9% of the foreign exchange for this country and still live among over 37% of poverty in the rural areas. It is thus a prime necessity to promote a participatory system of power sharing for the provinces to decide provincial development within a national policy framework. This would also raise the necessity of a new “constitution” with strong devolved power.

2.Call for a “national development plan” with emphasis on rural development, education, health and public transport
The issue of “National Development” has always been limited to budget proposals that never get discussed seriously even in parliament and never have follow up interim discussions, even in parliament. Most other “development” projects are totally outside the budget and are implemented by ministries on their perceived importance and availability of donor assistance. This has led to a situation where the labour market in a regional perspective is never surveyed and the rural economy plays no part in job creation, with education seeing no reason to have any relation to “development”. Thus the necessity to open up a social dialogue on national policy, taking into serious concern the provincial necessity of meeting local needs, for which the 13th Amendment needs to be honoured.

3.Call for a “Road map” for resettlement and rehabilitation of IDPs to be presented in parliament with budget allocations, to make the process responsible to parliament and accountable in terms of public money
The issue of the IDPs is not one of Tamil concern and Sinhala compassion. It is a political issue that has to be settled within democratic politics. The Tamil people have the universal right to freedom of movement and the right to settle where they were, prior to the war or to chose where they wish to settle. Therefore, the government is duty bound and morally responsible to tell the people what its programme is and the time frame for implementation. The government also has a responsibility to tell the public, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, how much money would be disbursed for the purpose as public money is being utilised for all such work. The call therefore should be to present a programme in parliament for resettlement and rehabilitation of IDPs with due allocations of money and responsibility.

4.Call for immediate demilitarisation of society to allow freedom to people's undisturbed daily life and policing of law and order
The issue of maintaining law and order in a non-political environment in society is almost directly linked to the extent the society is left under undue security concerns and how politicised the organs of the State are. Today, with the war declared over, the necessity for people's elected representatives to move about with armed security is wholly unnecessary and leads to their alienation and for arrogance in relating to social issues. Therefore the removal of armed security assigned to elected representatives has to be immediately called for starting with Provincial Council members. The disbanding of para military groups has to be called for immediately to ensure that the legal State security forces are held responsible for social security.
The police should be turned into an independent department under an independent Commission established according to the 17th Amendment to discharge its duties and responsibilities in the manner it is meant for – maintaining law and order in civil terms.

Kusal Perera
31 October, 2010

The novel concept of peace of Obamian economy living on war profits

2010-01-31T00:56:00.000-08:00

Its funny in a way, that the Oslo based Nobel Foundation decided to award the Peace Prize 2009 to a President of a country that lives on profits from military hardware sales and services. Its funny too, for them to think, this President, Barak Obama of USA, is making “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”, when he is heading a State that fuels conflict more than promote freedom.

“For many, war is synonymous with Iraq or Afghanistan, but our research enumerates 25 ongoing conflicts throughout the world. In the last decade, the U.S. has transferred some $8.7 billion in arms and military services to these war zones, $970.5 million in 2003 alone. During that year (the last year for which full data is available) the United States transferred weapons and military hardware into 18 of 25 conflict zones. This is despite the fact that these transfers appear to violate the spirit (if not the letter) of the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act, which bar the transfer of U.S.-origin military equipment into active areas of conflict.”
[U.S. WEAPONS AT WAR 2005: PROMOTING FREEDOM OR FUELING CONFLICT? http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html ]

That is reason why the splendid orator he is, Obama sounds aggressive against Pakistan for not waging war against the Talebans. He is consistent with his cold phrased threats against Pakistan, ignoring that Pakistan is an independent and sovereign, foreign country. He said US must be willing to strike Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, “with or without approval from Pakistan,”(Reuters - 01 August, 2007) even during his campaign for Democratic presidential nominations.

He did so without Pakistani approval, as US President. US drone attacks inside Pakistan began again, just 03 days after Obama took oaths as President of the USA on 20 January, just the way Bush had ordered them. He thereafter signed orders to send 17,000 US army fighting cadres to Afghanistan on 18 February, within 01 month of being President of the US.

"This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction, and resources it urgently requires," Mr. Obama was quoted as having said after he signed the order, by the Christian Science Monitor.

He is marching on for war, with a new brand of oratory that can not in any way camouflage the same old war. Barak Obama is meanwhile awarded the world’s most prestigious peace prize by the Nobel Foundation for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. That too wouldn’t make any difference to the Afghan and Pakistani tribal people, who would have to duck to save their lives from US drone attacks.

The fact is, no US president could do otherwise, with or without a Nobel Peace prize. Obama as all other US Presidents has to continue SOUTHCOM operations, with a 600 million dollar administrative budget, to service Latin American military assistance, that annually tops over USS $ 120 million. That is not what is more important in Obama being awarded the Peace Prize. It’s the US economy and its heavy dependence on military hardware and armaments. This US economy is an economy that is heavily dependent on waging war, to sustain their heavy armament industry.

According to SIPRI Yearbook 2008, of the TOP 10 military and armaments companies, 06 are US companies and their profits for year 2007 totalled US $ 14,702 million. These companies on the other hand have employed 578,200 Americans, a number that can not be allowed to join the laid off lot in a struggling economy. In this recession or even otherwise, no Obama can forget all of them and decide US foreign policy. Foreign policy for US is simply dealing with conflicts any where in the world, for their own advantage and benefit.

The dilemma of the Head of State of the USA in saving his country’s recession hit economy does not stop with the 06 companies in the Top 10 military hardware manufacturing group. If one goes down the list to the next Top 10 to make it a total of Top 20 in the military hardware and armament industry in the world, one would find 14 US companies slotted in sharing a massive profit of US $ 45,582 million and an employment figure of 1,435,980 persons.

All of it is not the total share of the US economy in waging war. There are 46 top US companies listed among the Top 100 companies in the world, manufacturing military hardware and armaments. These companies no doubt have a very big chunk in the US economy and any blockade to sale of their war products would hit the US economy far worse than any recession or meltdown. A blockade on their war products would mean any peace initiative to on going armed conflicts any where in the world, that would produce positive results in sustaining a “cease fire” leading to a possible sustainable peace process and not necessarily a permanent end to conflict right now.

What it also means is, the US economy is not an economy that could sustain itself in a conflict free, peaceful world. It needs conflicts and big conflicts too. It also needs to now shift its axis of war from the “war weary” Mid East to some where else, to allow some respite to the Israeli - Pan Arab world. This coalition the Obamian regime would try to foster for a respite in Mid East, leaves out Iran. And it drags in Afghanistan too. Thus the Obamian long term commitment from the presidential campaign times, to shift the war from Iraq to Afghanistan.

What it also means is that South Asia, by default could be the next theatre of war, for US companies to sell their destructive military hardware and armaments. Any escalation of the Afghan war will have Pakistan held responsible for Taleban activism. Talebans, as we know are of very many shades and ideologies. They work with very many fundamentalist armed groups in Pakistan, some covertly supported by the Pakistani ISI as well. Between Pakistani ISI and the Indian RAW is another conflict that exports armed conflicts across borders. Not only across Pak - Indo borders but across Afghan borders into Kabul as well. Such rivalry and ideological battles have made cross border conflicts an inherent feature in inter State dealings in South Asian conflicts.

Thus, all manipulations by Obama to have the Afghan war going despite its public statements in bringing democracy to the Afghan people, would have its extension to Pakistan and then into India. The present Indian regime has any way decided to accelerate its war against Maoists and would be militarising the Indian society. There are 03 Indian manufacturers listed among the Top 100 companies that has gained a listed profit of over 500 million US dollars during the year 2007. They would also need more conflicts to grow on their profits.

We in South Asia are thus heading into the future with economies that live on armed conflicts, with Obama heading the biggest such economy and is awarded the Nobel Peace prize, the money he says would go for charity. Charity after all is a by product of all conflicts.

Kusal Perera
18 October, 2009

THIS IS NO BREAKING NEWS,

2009-11-29T04:30:00.001-08:00

Yet, Abolition of the Executive Presidency is now the major promise of the UNF-JVP loose coalition backing General Fonseka.

This is no new promise, either. BUT,

How many times was this "Abolition of Exec Presidency" promised ?

In October 1994, the JVP got this promise from CBK on condition that she abolishes it before 15 June, 1995 and they withdraw their presidential candidate Galappathty. Both parties agreed to the conditions and the promise was put on paper, signed and delivered to the public.

For December 2001 parliamentary elections, the UNF led by Ranil W. promised a change in presidency, if voted to power and they were voted to power with a slender majority.

At the 2005 November presidential elections, Rajapaksa promised the abolition of Exec Presidency in his now infamous, "Mahinda Chintanaya" programme, the JVP claims is their agreement with President Rajapaksa that President Rajapaksa has to honour.

For 15 years now, still a promise and the People behind this promise were;

- The JVP and its present leadership
- Ranil W. who played to win those pro JVP type votes
- Again the JVP and its present leadership
[On both occasions where the JVP was involved, so was Mangala S. from the SLFP]

IF these political leaders were HONEST, they could have done it many times before –
1. When CBK as president backtracked on the promise, there was no JVP to agitate and demand she honours the promise
2. When the JVP bargained for their "Probationary" government, AGAIN with CBK in 2001 September, their 05 main conditions did not include the abolition of the Exec Presidency.
3. When the JVP bargained for ministerial portfolios AGAIN in the CBK led government in 2004 April after elections, they had NOTHING to do with the "Abolition of the Exec Presidency".

Then, why promise once again what was promised through 15 years and not done ?

The JVP performance in the 08 Provincial Council elections including the Eastern Province, was more than dismal.
The JVP polled ONLY 234,442 votes from all 08 provinces. That is a paltry 2.9 per cent.

· Can they afford to field a presidential candidate with that vote ?
At presidential elections, the possibility is to poll even less.
· Can they afford to boycott presidential elections alone ? That could turn
out into a joke, they know.
· What else can they do ?

They did, what they can best do. Conspire. Scheme. Manipulate. Poor General Fonseka was pushed into a point of "no return".

So now they have a candidate, a loud slogan and a good vote, even if they lose, without an "Elephant" and a UNP for the first time in the 62 year electoral history of this country.

Let's thank the people for their gratitude each time in forgetting the promise. Or else, how would they find another promise ?

Kusal Perera
30 November, 2009

The question of national security and personal safety

2009-09-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death” – James F. Bymes

It was not so in the past. Nor was it two and a half decades ago. My story was in early 1980's. I was once in the morning train that comes on the coast line from Galle. Its a very popular train, the “Ruhunu Kumari” which carries commuters from the South to the metropolitan Colombo every day. There was one old and lanky gentleman in a typical white cotton “national dress” in the compartment that I got into and had to travel standing. He was having a very casual “gossip” type talk with the commuters who were mainly employees in different public and private sector offices. When the train reached Kollupitiya, he got off the train with a neatly rolled black umbrella used as a walking stick and ambled out of the station. Out side the station there was a lonely black car with just an ordinary driver, that carried this gentleman away. He was Dr. W. Dahanayake, Minister of Co-operatives at the time. He perhaps was not aware then, what “security” was for politicians. Nor was there any public talk of “national” security.

The whole issue of “national security” in Sri Lanka emerged as tied to the armed conflict of the North. Every aspect of public life too got “barricaded” with it. With that came the personal security of the present day “politician” who by then had evolved differently to that of Dahanayake type politicians of the past. What really irks and irritates people is not the necessity of highlighting “national security” that can be discussed. But the high level of security that has come to accompany all shades of politicians. The first major armed security allocated for politicians became an accepted necessity, not with armed Tamil groups in the North, but with the armed insurgency in the “South” by the JVP.

With the Indo-Sri Lanka accord in July 1987, the JVP led an armed insurgency against devolution and provincial councils in the most savage way Sri Lanka had ever witnessed till then. The then UNP government of J.R. Jayawardne was thus compelled to provide security to all who politically accepted Provincial Councils (PC), both in and outside parliament. This meant that all those who contested PC's too had to be provided with armed security. Thereafter the targeting the lives of parliament members by the LTTE made armed security a fact of life in Sri Lanka.
That in brief is how SL came to be a country under a “24 x 7 armed guard” and heavy security. With the LTTE targeting high profile personalities like President Premadasa, Minister Kadirgamar, Athulathmudali, Dissanayake and the like, stricter and heavier armed security for politicians came to be socially accepted and as inevitable in unusually generalised terms.

Over the last 02 decades no politician, whether parliament or PC, moved about without armed guard and that became the most convenient show of power, for politicians. There were those who ran about with convoys of armed men with total disrespect to the public they were supposed to represent. There was no criteria or basis the public knew about, in how such armed security was allocated to politicians. Worst was that no one knew whether they were even official State security or not. That too was never questioned. The blanket acceptance of “Tiger threats” to politicians provided such beefing up of armed security for those who wanted to show their political muscle in public display.

While the question of how best security could have been organised for high profile public personalities, remain a question outside public debate, the security that was thrown into political life in the country in such abundance and for so long, has had a devastating effect on the law and order situation of the country and its democratic existence. In a country which lives with politicisation of all its State appendages including the police department, the apparent legality added to security allocated for politicians have especially in the provinces given them unquestionable ability to override policing of the society. Thus a social breed that is not accountable to law as other citizens do, or have to, has emerged with a “beyond legal” immunity that is not easily, or ever challenged.

Thus the habit of politicians moving freely with armed security that in a way suppressed the civil life of the people, has also distanced the “elected representative” from the voter who elect them. Armed security has provided the elected men and women with an acquired arbitrary discretion and an undue advantage of refusing to listen to their own constituents. This has helped develop an attitude of arrogance and of irresponsibility in politics. Despite all those negative and intimidating impact on the voter, this is being defined as “political power” and thus as high attraction even in elections.

The recent provincial council elections held and the one that is now in the running in the South, are ample proof of all that indecent brute armed power. Para military groups allowed to run for elections under political party registrations have added more offensive stink to the already gangrenous wound. Its a rolling mountain that gathers more force with the ruling elite's patronage.

Wijenayake who is still an accuse in an election related murder in Gampaha and promoted a Minister, Labour Minister Silva who goes about with presidential patronage even after his notoriously riotous attacks on media personnel and publicly claiming he could send the Kelaniya PS Chairman to where SL Editor Wickramatunge was sent, two candidates in Galle district at the provincial council elections now being held, making complaints with the police against a third candidate for threats on their lives, the CaFFE claiming law enforcement agencies are not taking adequate action and JVP election offices coming under attacks by armed thugs are all extensions of this “sick” armed security mentality that prevails among politicians.

This is a steady growth of the brute thuggery that was witnessed especially after the infamous Wayamba PC elections and at most elections over the past decades This is an extension of armed brutality that controls and intimidates the civil society, beyond elections. It has allowed not only politicians, but their irresponsible, undisciplined siblings to create chaos even at public places. This therefore calls for an end to militarisation of this society.

What ever promises the politicians make, the Sri Lankan society can never achieve any semblance of democracy, unless the society seriously takes up the issue of politicians running around with armed escorts. As for the more sensitive official positions like the President, Defense establishment heads and may be the PM and the Leader of the Opposition, one could accept continued security. Yet, what ever excuse the other politicians had previously, they don't have the right to have them now. At least the ordinary minsters, MP's and especially the PC members can not say they are threatened by Tiger suicide cadres any more.

Its time therefore to call for these ordinary politicians to be totally stripped of all security they parade with. The PM should be called upon in parliament every month, to provide a list of designations and names of those who are officially eligible for security and to declare on whose recommendations the security is provided for those considered eligible.

The whole security issue that was kept out of the public domain and at a huge public cost during the war, has no reason now to be kept so elusive and confidential. The public who bears the billions spent on security, should have at least the basic information as to who is provided security now and why.

It would in effect remove the issue of para military groups operating, as they are no more threatened by an already eliminated LTTE. The people, especially in the South should now start defining the conclusion of the war as declared by the Rajapaksa regime as one that brings a demilitarised society by default. Its just logical too that the security provided for politicians in the face of LTTE threats have to go off with the government declaring the war over. Not just the war, but the LTTE as well.
It would effectively demilitarise the society to a great extent. At least to the extent that the people would know provincial politicians who move with armed security thereafter, are those who do so illegally. Politicians who could well be called “rogue politicians”. Law enforcement agencies that are not held responsible for such public display of armed security now, could be held responsible for such misuse, thereafter.

While this may not be very palatable for most Opposition party politicians who are also vying to be as powerful or more powerful at their earliest opportunity, it is wise for the public to take up the call for demilitarisation of society, beginning with removal of security of ordinary politicians. Some things are necessary to be named, though at times the society is not ready to do so. But this society should not allow, too many Silvas, Wijanayakes, Muthuhettyges and their likes to go round with arms any more. Monday 21st the International Peace Day could well be the day for this call.

Kusal Perera
21 September, 2009
also published in transcurrents.com
under the title Demilitarisation of Sri Lanka....

East - West and half born Sinhala “Jesu daruwa”

2009-09-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

It was a lazy evening ebbing into a wet Saturday night, after a Friday poya holiday. This was a Sri Lankan evening, down what was better known as “Flower Road” during a “long weekend”. The acoustically elegant but not so modern hall of the Colombo Ladies College, was quietly but hurriedly accommodating the culturally affluent in urban Colombo. This year the crowd was somewhat different though, to that in previous years.

The reason perhaps was that the “Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka” (SOSL) in its 52nd Season was to provide music to two versatile and respected musical personalities of the exclusively Sinhala world. That for the first time too, such an “experimental” blending of Sinhala songs were to be made with chamber music of a large symphony orchestra that has for decades been proud to play classical music of the best celebrity composers in the West.

As Professor Ajith Abeysekera who worked out the chemistry of this new blend of Western orchestral music and the not so classical, popular Sinhala song told a few days before the event, they (SOSL) were “......not really trying to do fusion. That is not the idea. We haven’t done anything to make them sound Western, but we make use of orchestral colour with entirely western instruments. It’s very interesting.”

True to his words, there were no improvisations to melodies and no change of style and pitch in signing. The two artistes, Visharadha Nanda Malini and Sangeethvedi Victor Ratnayake simply stood in front of two mikes and sang 06 of their best songs each, as they had been singing for the last 30 or 40 years. They did well. They sang their best. Yet there was something amiss. Was it the “orchestral colour” that Prof Abeysekera said they were adding that went missing ?

The “orchestral colour” the Symphony orchestra had when they played 02 Western Classical operas, in contrast to their musical backing of the 02 singers, was what missed out in the show. There seemed some restraint in musicians playing their musical score for what was arranged for the songs. The musical mood was “cautious ” in their accompaniment of the two singers.

This feeling of alienation of a sort was clearly audible, in all songs sung, except in the one that had a Church choir influence. Music opened up in its symphonical style for the song “Jesu swamy daruwane...” when Nanda sang her heart out on that. This is one song that broke off from the orthodoxy of the now established Sinhala music form reaching out to a choir style melody. That then made a rare link between the singer and the orchestral players. With all other songs sung that Saturday night, obviously they felt a distance to the style, melody and the quality of voice of these 02 very “Sinhala” singers.

That had to be expected, although most in the audience seemed not to. Yet it was an experience to feel the difference. The Western classical music as we hear and enjoy them now, has a long history of many centuries, evolving from the time of the Greek empire. Shut to public performances during the Roman era, it sustained the group or “large gathering” character of playing many instruments at churches, funerals and at places of religious worth. This form of “concert” music then evolved into philharmonic or symphony music through the European “Renaissance” to the modern world.

Through its evolution, it has gained much with written music for large orchestras with different instrument families. Growing in a liturgical social context that had the advantage of “printing” much before other societies outside Europe, Western classical music flourished in a disciplined design as decided by composers.

Writing music before it is played out, composers searched for very many variations that saw intricately complex relationships between its emotional content and the intellectual means by which it is achieved. This complexity in emotions and intellect is the forte in Western classical music where “soprano” voices have gained a prestigious presence as capable of delivering both emotion and intellect.

The ability to stand up in singing for such musical composing, was what went missing with the two singers who are schooled in a completely different musical tradition. Schooling in the borrowed North Indian “Hindustani” (Utthara Bharatheeya) music here in Sri Lanka is not even a century old. Then “Ceylon” looked towards North Indian classical music as one that was opposed to British rule. The Sinhala elite looked towards a musical tradition that was anti British in colour.

This Hindustani music that satisfied the politics of the pre independence Ceylonese too has a long and strong history of growth, starting as devotional appeals to God Krishna. It had its influence from early Persian folk music and later from the Arabian traditions with the Moghul empire. The long path of evolution of Hindustani music is esoteric and is based on “ragas”, each said to be devoted to a different emotional state.

So is the other South Indian tradition of Carnatic music. That too is very religious from its origin and has very much less influence from Persian and Arabic traditions. Yet these two neighbouring music traditions that Sinhala song and music derives their theoretical base, grew into perfection through rituals and intellectual discourse. They therefore needed extremely devoted and committed learning and training.

Music and art become living cultural traditions through long evolutionary exercises in society and then become part of social life in them. A society that lives with such endemic traditions horning its skills with every generation for centuries and not decades, develops an intellectual component that in art forms takes on high aesthetic values. This is common in both Western classical music and in Indian “raghadhari” music in two different planes of intellectual entertainment.

Yet the Sinhala society in its entire history, greatly influenced by Theravada Buddhism had no such cultural base. The Sinhala culture lacked any music tradition and its folk forms were extremely mediocre and primitive to even assimilate a strong music tradition. There was also no “palace culture” of Sinhala music and dance that could have at least provided a niche for such acceptance and nurturing of Hindustani music. Therefore in Sri Lanka, the modern day Sinhala music begins as purely an intervention from the outside world from the 16 century when with the Portuguese and the Dutch, their “Baila and Kaffringa” entered into coastal social layers and much later in early 20 century the Hindustani music was brought in that then turned into an academic exercise in its later years.

The first singers and musicians therefore came from backgrounds that were not Sinhala and when they were Sinhala, they were from a church training. The first few who ventured out to secure learning and training in Hindustani music too were from such church backgrounds.

That was in late 1940's and they became pioneers who experimented with a new Sinhala musical tradition. That was more in the realm of lyrics as aptly seen in the difference between Saranagupta Amarasignhe – Deva Suriyasena type of songs and Ananda Samarakoon - Sunil Shanta variant. It was their simple Sinhala lyrics that compelled them to try out melodies to carry their lyrics from early 1940's into the 50's.

There were few others too who were also seeking out a Sinhala identity in music and what was tried out by all of them was developing a popular Sinhala song, different to those early Sinhala songs with a Dravidian flavour. What they lacked was not only a strong culture, but also a strong entertainment market that could sustain them. An entertainment industry that was absent in the “welfare State” economy the early Ceylon carried after independence. Except for the old “Radio Ceylon” they only had a cheap fledgling cinema that was not very much open for experimental songs and music. The possibility of training and developing professional Sinhala musicians as classical exponents of that art form, had very little or no scope within post independent Sri Lanka.

This therefore diluted early efforts in establishing “Shanthi-nikethan” type musical schools. Horana “Shripali” that was graced by Rabindranath Tagore at its birth, gradually turned into an ordinary school in the area. The State sponsored “Haywood” as an aesthetic training institute that can boast of popular Sinhala artistes like Victor Ratnayake, Sanath Nandasiri, Amara Ranatunge, late Gunadasa Kapuge to name a few, was not in any way a substitute for classical music teaching of high order. It could mostly turn out Music Teachers for primary and secondary government schools of the day. Very creative classical exponents of the art in the calibre of Pundit Ravi Shankar,Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Ali Akbar, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, wasn't therefore Sri Lanka's pride and fortune.

This has not changed to the better, even after the economy was opened up 03 decades ago. In modern societies that do not promote democracy and thus can not afford a healthy “night life”, the possibility of establishing strong cultures of performing art including music within an entertainment market, is one that does not happen. The absence of “night life” not only deprives an entertainment market, it deprives the society of healthy discourse too. An indispensable necessity in developing critical intellectual interventions that in turn catalyse intellectual growth and development of art and culture.

Sinhala music is one that has therefore not attained the classical perfection of its borrowed musical traditions even after many decades of continued indulgence. This is reason why Sinhala music has not been able to produce Ravi Shankars and Ali Rakkhas who could perform with awe as oriental musical giants alongside Western musicians.

This perhaps was what lacked at the Ladies' College auditorium that night. While a standing ovation accepted the effort of the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, a question that remained glum and dumb was whether a Western classical symphony that had grown with complex relationships between emotional content and intellectual aesthetics could effectively be the musical facilitator for yet to be born Sinhala classics that had stopped with light pop songs. Again the answer would only be theoretical and not practical in a society that has little wherewithal to meet such challenge.

By Kusal Perera
September 06th Sunday, 2009
Colombo

South Asian "National Security" and the Sri Lankan war won

2009-08-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

“Irom Sharmila” a young ordinary woman from Manipur came to my ambit of reading while I was in the company of a pioneering social activist from India, who has very many contacts in the troubled Indian North - East provinces. She is still in an unending fast, moving into its 09th consecutive year, demanding that the Indian State remove the “Armed Forces Special Provisions Act” (AFSPA) enforced in her homeland. It was curious to hear of a person who could go on fasting for that long. She had been arrested and is being force fed through a nasal tube, by the Indian armed forces in Manipur, from the first days she started her fast. Each time she is released from detention, she continues with her fast and with her demand for repeal of the AFSPA from Manipur. Now Irom Sharmila is in prison, force fed and waiting to be tried for attempted murder of herself.

While she is no doubt an iconic power of social motivation in Manipur, while the Indian media drags its feet in highlighting her struggle for freedom and democracy, Irom Sharmila’s struggle manifests the present trend in South Asia of how brutal and maneuvering the States could be in suppressing democratic rights.

The AFSPA against which Irom Sharmila is fasting provides extra ordinary powers for Indian armed forces and para-military forces to “shoot to kill” if they feel it is necessary to do so, in the name of law and order. The Indian State believes it has every right to do so, in eliminating Maoist guerilla groups fighting in most under developed and over corrupt N-E State provinces. These struggles have now come to be talked of as “insurgency” and “terrorism”.

The most recent “Rajnandgaon massacre” of 29 policemen with their District Superintendent of Police, was projected in such language in the Indian media. So was those in Chhattisgarh, Jarkhand, Nandigram, Lalgarh and most other Maoist armed activities that were rolled out as local “terrorism” by the State and the Indian media.

The fact remains, from the perspective of States in how “terrorism” could be addressed, there is presently no different categories of armed struggles and armed liberation struggles accepted any more. There can not be armed liberation movements in this post 9/11 period, like the Mao’s guerillas in pre 1948 China and Fidel’s guerillas in pre 1958 Cuba. Perhaps the last of such liberation armed cadres were the African National Congress “terrorists” of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

Today, all armed groups that take up arms in defiance of State terror and the lack of space for democratic struggle, fall under the general and vague definition of “terrorists like Al-Qaeda”. Therefore all armed groups in South Asia are broadly treated as “terrorist” groups that undertake attacks running across borders like the Mumbai 26/11 LeT militants, Jammu and Kashmir armed Islamic militants, the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans, the Myanmari Rohingya militants in Bangladesh and the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, to think of a few.

All these cross border trafficking of armed conflicts, have provided governments the excuse to militarise States, in the name of “National Security”. Nationalism in this part of the world, could be easily marketed without much questioning. The issue of the “Nation State” is packed with high emotions or could be easily hyped by the majority as “patriotism”. Therefore the media goes hoarse “24x7” questioning governments why they don’t take steps in the name of “National Security”. Media coverage of attacks by terrorist outfits from across borders and with “across border” implications in local “terrorism”, has drawn public interest in curbing “terrorism ” through stronger military means in the name of “saving the nation”.

It was the New York 9/11 terrorist attack that left a human tragedy, with the Bush call for a “global war against terrorism”, that gave all governments this unchallenged legitimacy to eliminate “terrorism” through military means at any cost. The post 9/11 period thus brought about a new culture in “intelligence” gathering that has neither morals nor ethics. It has no legal bindings too. All “Intelligence” agencies now have the privacy and the right to go beyond any foreign policy limitations, to work covertly with any country in collating intelligence on “terrorism”. The mechanisms of “intelligence” gathering have thus become very strong, brutal and an unquestioned, specialised “arms” of repressive States. This in fact was part of the Indian share in fighting the war against Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

It is within this “coming together” of all neighboring States and the international community against “terrorism” that the Sri Lankan war against Tamil Tigers have to be seen. All of them were very apparent and operative in the Sri Lankan war against Tamil Tigers, waged on the same arguments and acceptance on “Global war against terrorism”.

First, the international community at no point, wanted the “war against terrorists” stopped. The LTTE was banned or restricted as a “terrorist organization” in all those major countries. Yes, they nevertheless had a “conscience” issue with heavy “civilian casualties”, being stoic defenders of human rights in the pre 9/11 period. That did not deter them from restricting themselves to statements on and visits to judge the civilian situation. The war continued unabated, until it was declared won by the Rajapaksa regime, with over 300,000 civilians left destitute in barbed wire internment camps and over another 12,000 civilians killed during the last phase of the war. The injured, the maimed, the parentless and the spouseless due to war, going without a count so far.

The role of the other unorthodox international players like China, Russia, Iran and Libya along with the less talked of Israel are now in the open and always easily explained by them as helping another in trouble, whilst the conflicts are not theirs to bother. As for Pakistan and India, they have been competitive in helping the Sri Lankan regime with the war and been settling into demarcated areas of support.

With the war over and the Tamil Tigers accepted as eliminated, including its once elusive and deified leader Prabhakaran, the neighboring governments and States around have plenty to learn from the now projected “success story” from Sri Lanka. Governments of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, all have “terrorist” problems to take a cue or two from this Sri Lankan war won.

The Sri Lankan conflict taken again as a case in point shows that it did not begin with the armed groups that left the LTTE as the most ruthless of all and will not end with the defeat of that LTTE. It is a political conflict that is based on the right of the Tamil people to be part of the national political process in decision making as equals. It is therefore a question of sharing political power and the conflict would continue as long as that political issue remains unsolved.

Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, this struggle for “power sharing” was planted in the present context of “global war against terrorism” and militarization of societies against “terrorism” that totally refused a political answer. The Sri Lankan conflict was thus redefined by the dominant Sinhala majority as one that had to be fought against Tamil “separatism“ to save the country in its “Unitary“ form. Projected as one that challenged the sovereignty of the “nation” State, the international community and regional neighbours accepted it that way to go on with their own militarization programme(s).

What nevertheless should be focused on, is the after effect of this war against global terror” unleashed against Tamil Tigers on the Sri Lankan soil. The Sri Lankan experience though a success story for governments and States to replicate with much military fervour, nevertheless militarised the whole society with no chances of return to normalcy. All democratic life, not only in the North - East of Sri Lanka but in all other parts as well, has been simply flattened in the name of eliminating “Tamil separatist terrorism”.

The media was the first bleeding victim of this State terror. Through out the war, the defence establishment took upon itself the right to decide what should be told to the people and with what amount of “doctored” info. The difference there was between State controlled media and the privately owned media was thrashed into a monologue of State designed campaign for war and against all who wanted to dissent. The result is not only a long list of abductions, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, disappearances and extra judicial killings, but also a media that now lives a controlled and coerced life under a State appointed Press Council, after the war was declared over. The snooze left on free media, on right for information and freedom of expression had come to stay.

With that harsh crack down on the media and with all social dissent and dialogue wiped out, a war machinery was established under the political regime that allowed for para military groups to work in tandem with the State security forces. New unidentified groups were let loose with unrestricted freedom of mobility in a heavily fortified society. Impunity was the order of the day with no investigations into abductions, threats, killings, disappearances seeing positive conclusions and indictments where necessary.

Political decisions became the right of the military establishment headed by the Defence Secretary and the Executive head. The cabinet of ministers and the parliament was thus turned into a “rubber stamp” to give a legitimate façade to all decisions ruling party politicians were expected to defend. The new politico - military regime decided the day to day life of the society. Except for the extension of the Emergency Regulations that had to be done through parliament, all other decisions related to “national security” came to be the power domain of the defence establishment.

This politico-military mechanism which used all overt and covert repressive measures, saw to it that no “opposition” to the warring regime was emerging on any agitational platform. Thus even in the South, no workers’ or student protests were allowed to mobilise a social presence either as a dialogue or on open streets. This turned into a regime that used the slogan of “eliminating terrorism” to not only fight a war with the LTTE, but to eliminate all democratic forms of social life in every part of the country.

In every sense of dictatorial rule, the “war against terrorism” in Sri Lanka has eventually established a politico-military regime that has come to stay, with international and regional support and funds. The most unfortunate fact is that it is the colossal human damage - 300,000 plus IDP’s interned behind barbed wire, wounded thousands packed in under served hospitals, lands infested with mines, devastation to infrastructure - with which Sri Lanka has to live with in the post war era that also generates financial support for the present regime.

Immediately after the war was declared over, India pledged INR 500 Crores for rehabilitation and the US $ 1.9 billion loan from the IMF that was said to be stuck, came increased to $ 2.6 billion. EU and Japanese assistance are also in the pipeline and who knows what and how much more next ?

Is there a lesson to learn from this SL conflict ? What would the people, the society that needs social and political stability with democracy, freedom and respect for human rights, learn from this conflict ?

The most important lesson to learn is that, this “war against terrorism” is one that leads to total suppression of the society with the consent of the larger majority in society, who would also loose its democratic life in the process. That it paves the way for a very repressive regime with a political cabal at its head that would use all the ideological and military power to drain off democracy and the economy too. Also that there would not be an organized civil society left to lead a break from the tyranny that usurps all socio political power with a legitimate face in governance that provides only a procedural form of democracy.

The next important lesson is that finding political answers to socio-political conflicts can not be outsourced to armed “liberation” groups. In their rigidly regimented structured life, trained to suspect every one outside the organisation, they would never understand what democratic life is. Their “liberation” would only mean a transfer of power to an organic ethno-religious armed organisation in captured land that would also run a totalitarian regime.

It was true in the past in China and true in Cuba and Kampuchea too. It would certainly have been equally and savagely true, if the LTTE came to rule the Tamil homeland. This would also hold true to Jammu and Kashmir, to Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and all other conflict ridden States and areas in India that have come under severe repression and legal restrictions over the past years. This was proved the same in the SWAT valley when the Taliban took over rule there.

Therefore time has come for the people and their civil organisations to take on both the oppressive State that would want to militarise the society in the name of “national security” and the armed groups who talk of “liberation” but would resort to the most brutal anti-democratic means in fighting the State. Together they work towards undermining democracy in society, violating human rights and dismantling social structures, irrespective of who gains control of the land under conflict.

Time has thus come for all human rights and civil society forums to push through an agenda for democracy and respect of human rights and accordingly challenge both the State and armed groups for contributing to the single oppressive factor of militarising society.

In a single line, its time to stand up for a democratic South Asian region against all forms of militarization that cross national borders, as State intelligence, professional military expertise and as armed militancy, never mind the label attached to them. All of them contribute to the same evil of robbing the people of their democratic right to rule themselves.

Kusal Perera

05 August, 2009

Perhaps you needed to live and die there….

2009-05-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

He understood, indeed, that something complicated was wrong, but he knew, too, that he wouldn't be there long enough to find out, that perhaps you needed to live and die there, to find out. All she heard over the phone was the voice assuring her, 'Every one's been marvellous…..really marvellous. I just hope I can get back here some day….that is, if they ever let me in again…' [concluding lines in Nadine Gordimer's short story "Open House"]

No. It wasn't over the phone that we talked. It wasn't over the phone that he told us, he would 'love to get back' because every one was marvellous. But he was, rather doubtful, whether he could get back 'some day'.

"You know, I'm on dialysis…..may not have more than a few years more to go about with all this." He said. His slightly bloated face, dyed and trimmed pen line beard with a slightly thicker moustache, small but screwed eyes behind thick, black frame spectacles, did not show him as a sick soul. Nor did his gravel but confident voice.

"I wish we could……agree to honourably conclude these discussions for all of us to have peace…." He sounded quite sentimental and reclusive too.

"We hope so too" said my friend most sincerely and honestly, a well respected colleague in the media.

He looked round at the young cadres who were there to help him. One of them brought us two scotch whiskeys on ice. He was served a fruit drink.

It was a cosy lounge room in a luxury suite in the tallest hotel in the centre of Oslo. It was biting and freezing cold there in December. But not within the heated, spacious room. Within the room, we could not light cigarettes. Not any where in the hotel either. So we simply sipped the whiskey with long lazy spells, in between.

"I was extremely sorry to hear of Sugath's death……you know we were working together ? A nice man that fellow…." He mused.

"Sugath was ill,…..for some time…..before he passed off…." I said.

"Yes, yes. I know……in fact I wanted to write to his wife…..but you know this work…..it doesn't give us that luxury…..some how I couldn't". It was a long pause and a slow breath that shook him out of that melancholic mood.

"You know….those days……Sugath and me…..we used to scoot off to see 'blue films' without telling others …. In Colpetty….I forget the name of that lane now…..Sugath new that joint….." another pause and "Those were wonderful days". His voice was lined with a yearning for that faded past of his, in an otherwise silent room that held some hope for the future.

"We used to have very good discussions and arguments…..he was a very strong believer of himself…..somewhat of a 'Marxist', but I doubt he was a member of the Communist party…." He said, sipping at his fruit drink.

He asked a young cadre to get us some thing to bite at, with our whiskey and added, "I think he was close to the Sama samaja party and you know, he influenced me to study Buddhism."

Sugath he was affectionately talking of was none other than Sugathapala de Silva, the versatile Sinhala playwright, Stage dramatist and author, respected by all as one who stubbornly and most selfishly guarded his high integrity. As one who did not know and did not want to know what compromise is when it came to his conscience. These two men had been good buddies in the 60's when they were both employed at the British High Commission, one doing Tamil and the other Sinhala translations for the diplomats there. His eyes were soft and wet traversing that past, he wanted to live that life again, though he knew his buddy has left us all a few years ago.

"Is that café…..Indo-Ceylon….still there ?....Must be quite different now…" he suddenly asked and answered it himself. "You know…..we used to go for the 9.30 late night show at Liberty and then have 'wadei and plain tea' at Indo-Ceylon….. till the last CTB bus came." He was happy picking out all those lovely things, we were also happy to nibble at.

It was a short late evening that dragged us all into a long, common history. One that was totally unknown, perhaps unbelievable too, to the young cadres who moved around us, serving, and perhaps keeping watch on us. They were unable to understand what we talked, though. The language too, I presumed.

Here was a man who was bridging generations. One who was playing tutor to the new generation that knew only Tamil and wanted to be only Tamil. To a generation that took over the responsibility of finding answers for them as Tamils.

That he knew had bled too much on both sides of the divide for too long. He also knew, this new generation of Tamil youth had justifiable reasons to continue through bloody struggle though with devastation. He therefore was one who tried to find a way out of this bleeding conflict, wanting to get to his past.

"It took me many years to convince 'Thambi' …..we could compromise on 'internal self determination'…… that's how we came to agree on a 'federal framework' as a solution."

That sort of surprised us.

"Have you agreed on a federal solution?" my colleague asked him.

"Yes…. We would agree tomorrow to pursue a final solution within a federal frame work….But don't let it out…..till we sign tomorrow.…. We'll then hold a media briefing"

We walked out unusually happy though into the freezing snowy cold. Happy we would once again live together as a democratic nation.

We also knew he was not supposed to tell that to any one. But he had to. He was so impatient to live his old life again. He stole a glimpse of it, telling it to us.

He is no more since December 14, 2006. He has thus left a void that would not be filled again with such trust and authority within the armed Tamil Tiger movement. He is no more there to stitch together two generations that have two differing experiences over the same issue. The Tamil political aspirations. The conflict we failed to resolve and left him no chance to mull over his past all over again.

He was Anthony Stanislaus Balasingham, Better known as Anton and Bala. Born in Batticoloa to a Hindu father and a Christian mother, he left to London after his stint at the British High Commission in Colombo. Was never an armed cadre, yet was the undisputed political guru and theoretician of the LTTE. Probably the only person who could call the LTTE Supremo, "Thambi". Perhaps the only one among them, who had lived a past to know what democracy is, in human life.

Kusal Perera

December 20, 2006

Colombo

[Though written to be published in a mainstream news paper, this remained unpublished. No reason known, but that's what happened - kp]

Will this international community actually help ?

2009-05-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

The international community, the UN Security Council, The Commonwealth Member Countries, the SAARC are all organizations and forums at different levels that could prevail on Sri Lanka over the human carnage that's most nakedly unfolding, at the expense of innocent civilians, who are caught in the bloody conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers. This catastrophe has been unfolding in a very savage manner especially from January this year, after Tamil Tigers accepted defeat by leaving Killinochchi and retreating to their acclaimed stronghold, the Mullaitivu.

Even before that, there were calls going out to the international community, to the EU, to the UN and to most other humanitarian agencies, asking them to intervene in this conflict on the basis there is an imminent humanitarian crisis that needs independent intervention. This call for independent intervention from the outside world went out louder when the GoSL systematically closed all access to international and national aid organizations, humanitarian organizations and to the media in reaching the war affected areas and the people caught in the war. A war behind iron curtains can never be within humanitarian limits and decency.

Yet in a typically bureaucratic manner, all international organizations from the UN Security Council to the EU and the SL Aid Group, including all humanitarian agencies, worked hard to find protocols, international charters and covenants that could lay the blame square on both the GoSL and the Tamil Tigers equally and request for adherence to international law. It is not that they did not know such statements from distant cities would provide the government with time and space to continue with its military offensives how ever ruthless they could be.

This isn't the first time these international organizations and associations have been into this business of allowing armed conflicts to grow savage at the expense of human life. The Rwandan conflict is one classic example of how the UN Security Council and the international community played on their own agenda at the expense of innocent human lives. In less than 100 days, over 01 million Tutsi civilians were hacked, butchered and cut to death in one of the most callous neglects in world diplomacy, while the UN Security Council members were arguing on who is right and who is wrong and whether it is right to intervene and how. They went into long discussions and debates over coffee and tea, for they had all the time in the world in their plush offices. But not those Tutsi men, women and children, the young and the old who were dying at the hands of Hutu power on the roads, in their homes, at workplaces and in hide outs they thought they would be safe.

The US Secretary of State under the Clinton administration, Madam Madeleine Albright writing her autobiography in her retirement says, [quote] As I look back at the records of the meetings held that first week, I am struck by the lack of information about the killing that had begun against unarmed Rwandan civilians, as opposed to the fighting between Hutu and Tutsi militias. Many Western embassies had been evacuated, including our own (US), so official reporting was curtailed. Dallaire (head of the UN Peace keeping force) was making dire reports to the UN headquarters, but the oral summaries provided to the Security Council lacked detail and failed to convey the full dimensions of the disaster. As a result, the Council hoped unrealistically that each new day would bring a cease fire.[unquote] – (Madam Secretary / page 188; emphasis and explanations within brackets added)

That is simply how these big powers play their role as international leaders. After all that massacre, after 01 million innocent lives had been unnecessarily hacked to death, Albright says, [unquote] My deepest regret from years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt those crimes. President Clinton later apologized for our lack of action, as did I. [unquote] – (ibid – p/185; emphasis added)

Its easy for them to tender apologies and lay the chapter of mass killings aside. So is it with all the other conflicts she lists in her memoirs. Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, Sudan, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Tajikistan were all extreme cases of conflict that had received priority over Rwanda according to Albright. It was 1993 and 16 years ago that she lists all these conflict ridden countries. Israel and the Gaza, is not there though. That's despite the UN Security Council adopting 131 Resolutions on the Israel – Palestinian conflict, but has never invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Israel is thus given freedom to behave the way it wants. Burma and Aung Saan Sukyi wasn't even listed. The Military Junta carries on regardless.

How many has the UN Security Council and the international community solved or at least positively intervened in paving a way out of the conflicts, from this list in Madam Secretary's memoirs ? None for sure. In fact the list is longer and broader now. There is Iraq, Iran and North Korea on a different plateau. Afghanistan has now turned the conflict into an Afghanistan – Pakistan – India conflict. Robert Mugabe continues with his Zimbabwe reeling with armed conflicts while enjoying inflation at over 2,000 per cent. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan is indicted in the ICC while the international community allows Darfur to turn into a playing field for human catastrophe.

The list is definitely long and bloody.

Can the Sri Lankan conflict receive from these cumbersome agencies any treatment that would be different to what they have always been doling out ? In all these international agencies, from the UN to IMF and World Bank, the US dollar has big interests in how they act. All international agencies have to accede to super power interests and that is no secret. Who are they ? They are all big time arms manufacturers and dealers. The US between the years 2000 – 2007 has been leading the military hardware market with US $ 134.84 billion which was 37% of the market share. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the US, UK, France, Russia, and China together in 2002 shared 88% of the reported sales in conventional arms.

Imagine this planet earth in soothing peace ? No armed conflicts any where, only dialogue and negotiations in managing conflicts. Can these five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council afford to lose US $ 273.5 billion ? As former US President Jimmy Carter said during his presidential campaign in 1976, [quote] We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.[unquote]

They would rather say "sorry" again after everything is over. If Sri Lanka could on its own finish the conflict what ever the human carnage, as in Serbia, they would still issue a statement, ambiguous in tone but thanking the government of SL for finishing off "terrorism". For they wouldn't lose this tiny arms market immediately and there are other conflicts they moderate on their own agenda, any way.

Its ridiculous to expect international big time players including the UN to help stop human tragedies. They wouldn't.

Kusal Perera
May 01, 2009

For details on world armament market visit - http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-tradeis-
big-business#GlobalArmsSalesBySupplierNations

Digging my past for 'Sudath'

2009-04-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

I have been out of this blog for two moons. Not for nothing though. Most of my political musings were published in more public domains for better access. This I kept for some time as I thought this is too personal. But as some one later told me, "politics is personal", or the other way round, is it ? Any way, I thought I would share it with those who would want to know.

It was a hot afternoon and I was tired. Mentally fatigued. Sitting on the up stair balcony on the side of the main hall which is used by Sudath for scribbling story boards for his commercial advertisements, I lit a cigarette. Sudath came with a warm cup of tea without milk and left it in front of me. He sat dragging a canvas chair and agreed it was a gruelling morning. We slid into disjointed tales from the past, unknowingly and most willingly. His and mine too. Then he asked me something that I had never thought about before. It was about a patch in my past, seldom talked of and less seldom thought of. It seemed, a film world personality, an award winning director, Sudath Mahaadivulweva was trying to capture me in close up with his probing lens of curiosity.

His question was unusually contextualised and surprised me. Why did I work with Mahinda instead of Mangala in organizing the "paada yathra" during President Premadasa's era ?

I toyed around with many aspects of the same answer. One, that would satisfy me first, before Sudath. One, that had to be dug out from my past, which I knew was Mahinda's too. A past that was two decades old.

I was then in the editorial of a Sinhala periodical "Vivarana", that licked politics into every aspect of social life. We decided to cover the growing crack down on the JVP that had then gone underground for the second time. The year was 1987 and it was late November. There were reports trickling to Colombo of a nasty repression silently let loose in the South against a slowly emerging insurgency led by the JVP. In June that year, it was rumoured 22 suspected JVP cadres were arrested at Hungama, Hambantota district, while in a closed door meeting. An assistant lecturer of the Ruhunu University, Sathyapala Wannigama had been abducted and gone missing, a fortnight before.

I was to resurrect my contact with Mahinda Rajapaksa to collect information on the crackdown in the South by the J.R. Jayawardne government. The assignment was for a cover story for the January, 1988 issue of the magazine. I made two trips one after another to Tangalle and the feature article appeared in January with the title "The South on fire too ". The North had already caught fire from early 1980's. My visits to "Carlton" Tangalle to meet Mahinda, helped me cultivate new information sources and a new insight too into the repression in Hambantota that was then handled by the famous SSP Udugampola, sitting in a fortified wing of the Tangalle Rest House by the beach.

Mahinda was a practicing lawyer, married with three lovely sons, the last still a tiny toddler then. His wife Shiranthi a one time beauty queen of Sri Lanka, was a popular Montessori teacher, in charge of her "Carlton Montessori" the only English Montessori in whole of Hambantota. The baby of the parliament in 1970, Mahinda was the SLFP organiser of his parental electorate, Beliatte, but had lost it twice over, once at the 1977 general elections and then again at the by-elections held in 1984. Yet he had a clout in local politics, hailing from an influential family in Giruwa-pattuwa that was into politics from the State Council era.

With Mahinda, I had access to many leading personalities in the city of Colombo and to Rosemead Place. An easy going, homely person, he had an enormous appetite to digest a wide array of personalities as friends. With Mahinda, I sat through evenings with many SLFP stalwarts of the time that had little serious politics but had big plates of city gossip. And with Mahinda, I had occasion to try my own brand of politics too.

Before that, I had cut my teeth in political activities working for the Ceylon Teachers Union, while an English teacher in the remote hinterlands of Uva. My first posting was in an unknown village called Karagaha-ulpotha, off Welimada on the slopes of the North – East mountain range of Hakgala. With teachers' union work, I gained calculated patience and a sharpened edge in sitting at political debates. All trade unions in Sri Lanka are politically affiliated or politically motivated. Then into party politics, I turned into a strong Trotskyite "Marxist" mainly due to the influence I had from my parental home, where my father was a hardened "Samasamajist" of the old school.

They were interesting days, when looking back. I had served, or rather was posted to 11 schools in the district of Nuwara Eliya alone, on 13 "immediate" transfers, in a short spell of 08 years. Stopping at the same school twice. No ruling party MP in any electorate in the Nuwara Eliya education district ever wanted me, considered a "militant trouble maker". The vernacular politicians did not know the word 'terrorist' then, I presume. My teaching career ended up in a political career, me taking up full time work as a Central Committee member of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and getting its first weekly news paper going. Thus cutting my teeth unconsciously, as a journalist.

Political debate and theoretical divisions in "left" political parties' world over, lead to factional struggles and breaking up into smaller and smaller groups. In a few years, I ended up a "loner", but still a hard line Marxist, on my own definition, working for the "Vivarana" magazine. This gave me the opportunity to dabble in politics that I thought was right.

In Mahinda I thus found a very easy friend, who agreed often and rarely disagreed. In fact he never disagreed, possibly for his own convenience. He just dragged those issues he wasn't comfortable with into other seemingly innocent and simple issues. He wasn't politically a strong mind, though a strong willed fighter. He wasn't a cunning politician, but a pleasant and simple tactician in local politics. One who knew a dumb and a dependent constituency like Hambantota is better than a politically mobilised, opinionated one. The best in him was his pleasing personality that yearned for higher political aspirations with minimum effort.

It was this blend in Mahinda that gave me space to work with him in human rights work in late 80's with my visit for the "Vivarana" assignment. It was HR activism that propelled Mahinda into the lime light of Colombo politics from the hinterlands of Southern local politics. It was my spade work in networking and documentation that gave Mahinda the strength to campaign. It was these campaigns that made me understand Mahinda better each day.

I learnt, he could grasp things fast in straight dialogue, though he was not a keen listener in long discussions and debates. I learnt he was a fine assimilator of ideas and could throw them out in his own words, with a tinge of emotional rhetoric. He wasn't the type who could speak for long with a serious political thread, but one who could thrash out short, provocative speeches with a gutty voice. I therefore took time out with Mahinda to discuss politics while driving to and from Tangalle and when we did evening rounds in Colombo.

By then we had become two close political allies picking up democratic issues that gave him his place within the SLFP and me my right to be outside the SLFP, but both on a political journey that challenged the Premadasa rule. It was all of it and his casual self that takes decisions without bothering himself too much that brought about the "paada yathra" a long, 15 day trek from Colombo to Kataragama in 1992 March. A "paada yathra" that proved a sea of people with commitment and out on the streets, could change the political landscape in a country.

Yet, how that came on the streets with 04 months of full time work for me, is yet another long story with many anecdotes and bitter experiences, better left for another day. For now, I think I have answered Sudath's question, to the best of my satisfaction.

Kusal Perera
06th February, 2009

Demise of the Opposition and Sinhala future in nation building

2009-02-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

What should eventually happen, did happen. The UNP finally curled up meekly to make an official statement on 27th January which said, "The United National Party salutes the Sri Lankan armed forces for its military victories in the North" adding that the UNP acknowledges it was "the President, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers who were responsible for overseeing the conduct of these military operations". Although the then acting PM and FM of India, Pranab Mukherjee is not known to have met Wickramainghe during his hurried visit, the pre-written statement of the UNP was read out to the media by Ranil Wickramasinghe personally, few hours after Mukherjee met with President Rajapaksa in Colombo. Wickramasinghe sealed the UNP position on the war, erasing all ambiguity there was in the past year. Accused by the JHU, the JVP and Weerawansa of allowing the LTTE to control land, Wickramasinghe admitted by allusion, he gave the LTTE armed control of areas in the North when he says in his statement, "Key towns that have been under the armed control of the LTTE have been re-taken after a lapse of many years." He then hastens to add, "The sovereignty of our nation has been protected and the country's territorial integrity restored." His statement in fact should have best suited the President to address the nation, after Mullaitivu fell. He now confirms, what ever he had been saying all these years has to be trashed as those said by some one who had mixed up Mullaitivu and Mulleriyawa.

Wickramasinghe's attempts at saving himself with a Sinhala face are also mediocre. "We remind the government that there are formidable hurdles to be crossed. A genuine political solution to bring long lasting peace, is one such hurdle." says this Opposition Leader. He's forgotten that President Rajapaksa keeps saying he would not stop with defeating Tiger terrorism militarily, what ever his brother Defence Secretary's and the Army Commander's plans are. President Rajapaksa has repeatedly told the international community and India, he would work out a consensus on the solution to the Tamil problem through his APRC, which the UNP opted to avoid. This political leadership at the helm of the Executive has also proved it would only project such solutions when opportune to its survival and withdraw same there after. This regime is based on the ideological power of establishing a "Unitary" Sinhala State that others are expected to tolerate, what ever else it may feel profitable to say. What then is this reminder by the UNP ?

This is a reminder the UNP is no more the responsible Opposition it ought to be. It reminds that within the Sinhala society, there would be no alternate platform to facilitate a discussion on the next phase of the military outcome. It reminds finally, that in general, the Sinhala political parties are all chauvinists, playing for Sinhala votes to gain political power without a programme and leaves the society without any opposition to the politico military programme of the Rajapaksa regime.

It comes when all non State actors who were bidding for a negotiated solution to the ethnic conflict has also either gone the "Wickramasinghe" way, or have opted to mark time, expecting the LTTE to turn up with something that could change the picture. There are different reasons to this "peace confusion". Wickramasinghe is caught in his own trap of scheming and manipulating within the party to remain its leader, instead of working to be a leader of the people, the party would not part with. The non State actors have lost track of what they had learnt in conflict resolution. The military had removed the important armed contender who was a formidable and a necessary partner at the negotiating table. Without that LTTE, what negotiations now ?

All these years, why past governments stayed within the process of negotiations in working out a solution were because, no government could avoid or eliminate the LTTE in Tamil politics. With their armed ability to strike any where and very hard, no government could ignore the LTTE in working out any solution to the ethnic conflict. With their armed power, the LTTE had convinced themselves they could push Sri Lankan governments to accept their stand of "self determination" in their homeland. The fact that they never compromised on that issue and was able to hold the SL army at bay with expanding land areas, convinced the SL Tamil Diaspora also that one day, the LTTE would succeed in its project of establishing a separate Tamil State, or one, almost as good within a single country.

Such a broad promise with expectation of "liberating" the Tamil polity on one side gave the LTTE as an organisation immense power and authority over Tamil politics, marginalising other political parties and groups, who either compromised with the LTTE to survive, or with the GoSL, also to survive. Such unchallenged power, perhaps made Prabhakaran to believe he could change the face of SL politics on his own conditions, as he did before. Hence Prabhakaran's decision that allowed Mahinda Rajapaksa to be elected as President with only Sinhala voter participation. A decision that now proves fatally wrong. His calculation on how the Rajapaksa government would intervene in the conflict was a gross under estimation of the capacity of a Sinhala government to mobilise the Sinhala society on its ideology. His calculation on how he could bend the international community too was a miscalculation.

Contrary to LTTE estimations, this Rajapaksa regime proved itself as ruthless as the LTTE in meeting them on the battle field. Accusations on HR violations were not issues the Rajapaksa government were taking seriously; from what ever quarter they come. Civilian casualties in battle are all what this government would leave for the LTTE to answer. All Tamils who die in the war were made into "terrorists" and all who speak against this dastardly war are "terrorists", "terrorist informants" or at the least "unpatriotic" elements against whom death in any form is justifiable. The biggest human tragedy that's evolving is not what the Sinhala South would protest about now, when they are told the government is fighting a "patriotic war" in saving the country from a ruthless "terrorist".

For the first time, the LTTE was hitting its head against a government that thinks the same way as the Tel Aviv regimes. A government that raised the Sinhala cry for blood, in saving the Sinhala nation. For the first time, the LTTE was up against a government that wasn't bothered about international protests and condemnations, for they had other foreign allies in Iran, Pakistan, China and even Russia, who wouldn't bother about HR violations. For the first time the LTTE was made to realise India would negotiate Tamil politics in Chennai to support a SL government that proves it could defeat the LTTE, no matter what pain the Tamil people go through and how violent TN would become.

All that, no doubt at a very high human cost not worth it though, has left the UNP bewildered and sulking. It has peace campaigners left without alternate strategy. It has created an equation that has only one side of the equation, the opposite cumulative unit to be decided by the military strategists themselves. Will it have space for peace lobbyists and what would the path be, for any final compromise on the long standing Tamil aspirations?

When President Rajapaksa says, "let us extend the co-operation of the entire nation to the people of the North and the East who suffered under the grip of separatist terror for many years, to once again step towards satisfaction and freedom in life. Let us come forward both in word and deed to bestow upon them the kindness, friendship and prosperity they deserve." should have to be taken in the context that his brother also the Secretary Defense Gotabhaya and the Army Commander who all these years were publicly promulgating policy on how the government fights the LTTE, were never denied that right by the Rajapaksa presidency and they continue to do so. Gotabhaya thus went on record saying no media would be allowed "dissent" as dissent, according to his definition only means "giving another breath" to the Tiger terrorists who are cornered in Mullaitivu.

Such political context in which any solution the government offers and the Indians would market as "solutions" to the Tamil people, would restrict discussions without 'dissent' to suit the needs of the ruling regime. Instead, those Tamil groups working with the SL military establishment and individuals like Sangaree who play for a niche in the political power structure would be brought in to discuss government proposals. They, in any case have no other choice, lurking in the shades of the military for their own survival. Douglas, Karuna and Sangaree would be the type who would be made to sit at APRC negotiations, to fill the vacant Tamil slot. The peace lobbyists would then agree such is reality; the only option is to ask for a full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

The Rajapaksa regime has already put together a vociferous bloc against any further devolution through Champika, Weerawansa and Karuna. India would again be left to choose between their own baby the 13th Amendment as it is implemented now, with a puppet Northern PC similar to the one in the East and supporting a Rajapaksa regime that dismantled the military power of the LTTE at the cost of hurting TN votes. That any way would have to be taken care of by the next Delhi government and Mukherjee would be shuttling between Colombo and Delhi to see how many of those disgruntled TN votes could be lured by his shuttling for a Congress victory.

If the post 2009 February period turns out that way, the South would have to learn for the second time that political aspirations of a people who are held together on a culture of their own can not be militarily wiped off, like wiping off an organization. The two are not the same though they walk alongside each other. Yet it would take time for the South to realize they have been taken to where they were, when the Jaffna Public Library was burnt and the DDC elections in the Jaffna peninsula were put under Sinhala goon attacks. The post 2009 February period would thus gradually turn out as a period with space for the emergence of a new and more youthful brutality to take charge of Tamil aspirations that would still be crying and bleeding, left stranded by the LTTE after all the sacrifices the ordinary people were forced to live through. Another long wait in establishing a nation State that accepts and respects plurality on this soil.

Kusal Perera
08th February, 2009

Winning the war and losing the future for the Sinhala South

2009-01-29T01:06:00.000-08:00

"Wars, conflict, it's all a business.

One murder makes a villain.

Millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify."
- Charlie Chaplin

It's all now a talk of living in a country free of "terrorism". The Separatist Tigers are almost eliminated. Driven to the forests of Mullaitivu and restricted to lick their wounds, till they are completely annihilated as promised by the Defence head. Ruthless and merciless as no other armed organization on this planet earth, the LTTE had to be cornered, tamed and eliminated politically, long before. That not done in a pragmatic manner, we are told "a full scale war" is the only option "within our unitary State". The hard and rigid position of claiming a non-compromising unitary State in a Sinhala dominated country, perhaps left no other option but a war for the majority psyche that believes it owns this plot of marooned land.

Yet, at what cost ? In rupees and cents, the total is huge. It was 130 billion rupees in 2007 plus a supplementary budget that enhanced the defence allocation by another 15 per cent, half way through the year. In 2008 it was 166 billion plus another supplementary budget allocation of 28 billion, making it a staggering 194 billion rupees for the war, with 177 billion budgeted for 2009, for now. Cost of war is not only the allocated annual defence budgets. It is also the cost of rebuilding and replacing the massive destruction caused to buildings, roads, bridges, rail tracks, electricity pylons and other infrastructure, after the war. How many billions more would we need for that ? That in rupees or dollars is not the total lost in this war. Add the productive cost of a society, how ever meagre that may be, that was and is being lost over the years due to war.

A very educated professional considered a friend by me, told me, "War has its own cost any where. It takes lives and there is no point in counting them. Its so in Iraq. Its so in Gaza." Whilst Iraq and Gaza does not justify a weeping and bleeding Vanni, but only makes it two plus one in human tragedy, he and his family are fortunately living in a very secure urban residency in Colombo, 450 km away from all the innocent people who speak a different language to his, who are dying, left destitute and in hunger and pain. With broken and shattered families, politically and ideologically distanced from the Sinhala polity. That cost of war tragedy has no assessment in rupees and cents in a modern civilised world.

Is that all ? No. Count the number of Sinhala youth who are permanently limping around you. Those who have their adult life maimed. Count the number of young widows who are staring blank into the future, with a fatherless infant on her lap. Count the little children who are often used as "exhibits", standing in rows for politicians to grin at them, the children of "war heroes". Make a note of all those teenage village girls who frequent the Anuradhapura town for a living, waiting to be picked up by vacationing young soldiers. They are looked after by organised mafia and the underworld is infested with army deserters in large numbers. Some allegedly used by powerful politicians.

Is that all ? Sorry. There are more. More that goes unaccounted and unaudited socially. The Sinhala society that supports the full scale war has also come under a sledge hammer of a rigidly regimented defence establishment that by now has become an indispensable factor in political decision making. The organised social fabric that defines and decides democratic functioning of the society is shredded. The media had been openly coerced into compromising and to live as told, through threats direct and indirect. With gunmen on motor bikes and white vans. The Sinhala society accepts with glee, the political explanations wrapped in military priorities doled out by this defence establishment in defending all that suppression and also how the democratic structures should behave in its day to day life. The judiciary has been ignored by the Executive to maintain its own indemnified power. The political regime uses all those regimentations in society to live an unchallenged, unquestioned life seeped in corruption, nepotism and political arrogance. Protests are allowed at the expense of protest leaders running the risk of meeting masked armed men on motor bikes and white vans there after, who would never be tracked down. Any dissent in society, any deviation in perceptions thus comes under brutal suppression.

The Sinhala society has been herded into this subordination and this subjugation on the twin slogan of "patriotism against Tiger terrorists" and "supporting the war heroes". What has now emerged is a totalitarian regime on the strength of crushing the LTTE terrorism and accepted and given the honour to be just that by a citizenry that for now wish to live with that euphoria. Like it or not, that's where we have come to in accepting a full scale war against Tiger terrorism and that's from where we would have to wake up, to see what the future holds for us amongst all this debris and human carnage left.

Right now, it's India and the international community that talk loud. The international community that lived to see a bloody human tragedy evolve, issuing diplomatically phrased statements blaming all sides and asking for respect of international law protecting civilian life, from a government they themselves accused of impunity in violating basic human rights, has now hurried to assess the possible rehabilitation of the devastated areas. Yasushi Akashi was around and in Trincomalee, meeting the Eastern Province Chief Minister too, in his 17^th visit as a peace envoy to talk about humanity and development, even before the SL military entered Mullaitivu.

India that blundered at a heavy cost trying idiotically to manipulate in teaching the Jayawardne government a lesson by training and teething the armed groups, rushed Pranab Mukherjee, acting PM and Minister for External Affairs, to Colombo when the government was being accused in Tamil Nadu of targeting thousands of displaced and stranded civilians trapped in cross fire, with government forces pushing hard towards Mullaitivu. Indian strategy was always clear with Delhi only worried of Pakistani presence. Given the annihilation of LTTE and Prabhakaran, the armed menace they nurtured and promoted for a long time, Delhi would try to placate Tamil sentiment to the extent it would not embarrass the Rajapaksa government.

What more would you expect from a selfish world ? Till the next phase of armed Tamil politics gather its own strength and justification to fight on for yet to be honoured dignity as equal citizens in a shared country, the Rajapaksa government and its extensions would be showered with soft loans and grants for "rehabilitation and reconstruction of devastated life". It would now have the right to continue as it did through war. The carpet of savage suppression doesn't have to be rolled back. The South agreed to have it spread out all these years. Why roll it back now ? All indications are, that "patriotically bloodied" repressive carpet would now be legalised and strengthened for political arrogance to walk on. All indications are, with such change, the military would continue in politics. "Winning the war does not mean I have finished my job." said the Army Commander to the Daily Mirror a fortnight ago. "I have other work. I have to strengthen the army." he said.

It’s a big price the South would have ended up paying to live without Tamil separatism. Without a decent and a sane Opposition that does not know it's in the Opposition to challenge an overstepping government. It's the price of living without its own democratic life for the South.

Bob Dylon's definition of "peace" - the moment when you reload your rifle

Kusal Perera

29th January, 2009

Defeating SL ‘Tamil Nationalism’ into a broader Indian dimension

2009-01-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

Kilinochchi was captured fuelling stronger hopes in the Sinhala polity of defeating the LTTE completely and “separatism” for good. ‘Separatism’, as the JVP hastened to explain after the Kilinochchi occupation on January 02nd, is the ideological base on which the LTTE works and interprets the concept of a “separate Tamil State” in the land of Eelam. Although the JVP vowed to defeat this Tamil separatism, the concept of separatism and the emotional binding of the major Tamil political process to this separate Tamil State, the “Eelam”, is the ultimate growth of Tamil nationalism within Sri Lankan Tamil politics. This was democratically sealed and projected as the mandate of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, at the 1977 general elections. The Waddukodai Resolution in 1974, which adopted an “Eelam State” as a legitimate political necessity of the Tamil people, was interpreted as having been passed unanimously by the Tamil society which voted the TULF en masse in July 1977 leaving absolutely no doubt, the Tamil polity was firmly behind the slogan.

The separate State slogan was firmly backed by armed groups of the day. These nascent armed Tamil politics had two divergent outlooks from the beginnings. One led by the PLOTE and the other by the LTTE. Though opposing each other, they did have one binding logic within them. The Eelam State which they took up arms to establish would need external assistance and support. The PLOTE theorised that the “Sinhala South” should have a “Left” led government that would accept a Tamil neighbour and thus tried to link up with a few break away “Left” grouplets. Prabhakaran worked the other way round. The Tigers worked on a strong Tamil heritage which they found in the Chola Empire and provided historical bindings to Tamil Nadu. That was an aggressively founded, culturally rich Tamil history which provided Prabhakaran with his ruthless determination to establish an ‘Eelam’ for the Tamil people.

It is this historical strength that brought Prabhakaran and the LTTE all this far, while all other groups that took arms for a separate State compromised, splintered and turned into paid voices. Prabhakaran survived to successfully instil in the Tamil youth a “superior cult” psyche on “Cholaism” stronger and prouder than DMK’s “Dravidianism” of the 1950’s. The Chola rule was the golden age of Tamil-speaking South India. Music and dance, poetry and drama, arts, sculpture and painting, jewellery-making and architecture, philosophy and religious thought reached new heights, with the temple as the centre of all activity, the effervescent base of the present Tamil identity.

While that proud Tamil history gave the LTTE a binding foothold they needed in Tamil Nadu, within the LTTE the Chola concept of martial art and its ritualistic reverence, helped resurrect the “Tamil Martyr”. The Tamil Martyr, decorated with “Maha veer” episodes enacted every where in Tamil society, became the flagship brand of the Tigers every one feared, but with a respect. All of it not only gave the LTTE the “snarling Tiger” of Chola supremacy, the organisation’s hallmark logo, it also provided the aggressive ideology to develop one of the most intricately structured and organised armed outfits in the world. The LTTE became ideologically so well motivated with “Cholaism”, it allowed Prabhakaran to be a ‘Rajaraja’ who dictated terms within the Tamil Diaspora though holed up somewhere in a Mullaitivu forest.

This unusually extra ordinary organisational might with a fiercely publicised and hyped Chola ideology, established the LTTE as the only Tamil organisation that could challenge the Sinhala State. That settled the LTTE as the only Tamil organisation, without whose consent no solution could be agreed upon to end the conflict at any level. It is not simply clandestine work of LTTE ‘moles’ that had its impact beyond the Palk Straits within the Dravidian separatist splinter groups. It was the aura, the Tamil national pride that was gradually built around the non compromising LTTE that helped resurrect a 3G Tamil separatist sentiment in TN. According to Vinoj Kumar in “Tehelka.com”, there are at least 10 such groups active in TN. Most formed after the outbreak of the ethnic war in Sri Lanka in the 1980s.

The growth of this new generation Tamil separatism is what the LTTE is banking on now, with its military defeats at the hands of the SL government’s security forces. These splinter groups that still revere the Dravidian icon Periyar who founded the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), the DMK’s fore runner and the first to espouse a separate Indian Tamil Nation in 1938, have now been more ideologically influenced by the ‘Greater Tamil Nadu’ concept which includes “Eelam”, the Tamil homeland claimed by all Tamil groups in Sri Lanka, a concept argued by Adithanar, the founder of the Tamil daily, Thina Thanthi. These groups now have a presence in almost all parts of the TN state, claims Vinoj Kumar. While public names like Vaiko, Nedumaran, Karunanidhi, Veeramani and Thirumavalavan perhaps carried the media glitz, it was militant groups who worked steadfastly in bringing together the broad coalitions in TN which agitated for the SL Tamil people during the past months. It would be them who would provide the nexus for the next phase of the LTTE campaign.

The LTTE now on its own have very little chances of realising their Eelam dream, during Prabhakaran’s active life. They made a serious mistake in paving the way for a Rajapaksa regime. Their calculations went berserk when the Rajapaksa regime went beyond the expected rhetoric of opposing a negotiated settlement on the basis of power sharing in a united but a single Sri Lanka. Their calculations the Rajapaksa regime’s Sinhala rhetoric would lead to the international community supporting the LTTE’s claim for a separate State, wasn’t what came about. The Rajapaksa regime went out of the Western oriented international community, to have its own foreign alliance with Chinese, Russians, Iranians and Malaysians that accommodated Pakistan on a different equation. HR violations weren’t their plate of rice for this new alliance and the Rajapaksa government managed enough funds to survive. With that new foreign alliance, the Rajapaksa government compelled the Indians to come after it, to bargain a stop to Pakistani influence in SL politics. That gave Rajapaksa a mileage the LTTE never bargained for. It gave a free enough hand to savagely oppress the whole of the Tamil society, in squeezing out the LTTE and crushing it militarily.

Proved beyond doubt that the LTTE can not hold on to large tracts of land, although they could intermittently shift to conventional battle mode, Prabhakaran is now compelled to reinterpret his Eelam dream. Politically the LTTE stands valid as the Rajapaksa regime would assume power devolution would now be on its own terms with no necessity to negotiate. The LTTE would make themselves more valid to a grumbling and complaining TN with their perspective of an Eelam extended to accommodate the “Greater Tamil Nadu” idea as well.

There is more than their initial baptism with Cholaism to give the LTTE a lead. During the Indira Gandhi period when SL Tamil militants were officially nurtured in TN, the Delhi regime had to contract the support and participation of the TN State machinery. That changed perceptions all round and allowed Tamil militants to have their support bases within the State’s administration. The LTTE kept nursing those worthy contacts through out their Eelam wars. With such inroads into the State apparatus, the recent broad anti Sri Lankan protests with artistes, trade unions and exceptionally large student participation is a clear indication of the growth of militant groups cutting their teeth in TN soil beneath that of Karunanidhi and Jeyalalitha. They could well turn out to be Amirthalingams and Anandasangarees of TN.

All indications are, the battle for an Eelam State is shifting to a battle for a Tamil Nation State. The LTTE network in the Diaspora providing a new life line to the hitherto isolated separatist militants within South Indian Dravidian politics. If that Cholaism catches up fast enough in TN, the next phase would have both sides of the Palk Strait facing the same conflict for a third but more than feudal new Chola dynasty to be established. But for Prof Venkatachalapthy of the MIDS, formation of a Tamil nation will remain a dream, but such dreams spur and spawn militancy.

Kusal Perera
January 05th 2009

Khemadasa – Subaltern Musician and a Revolting “Obamian”

2008-10-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa of late and Khemadasa ‘Master” of all times, will live into our future with many trying to define him in many different tones and colours. He certainly lived his long musical life with many facets and many shades. At times contradicting himself, but never afraid to do so. At times reaching to the past, but never losing the grip on the future. Picking what he wanted from the North Indian tradition, yet never wanting to stop there. He, Khemadasa was in fact a curious musical traveller, who couldn’t simply stop travelling. And for me, therefore, he was not just another great musician. Not just a creative composer. He was the musical expression of post independent Sri Lanka that grappled to find its future direction, and to date is still struggling. He was therefore the “Obamian” Sri Lankan musician who wanted a futuristic change and believed in it.

Khemadasa finds his foot hold in the Sinhala musical world, or rather, Khemadasa is taken note of in the Sinhala musical world in early 60’s, when others before him were trying to identify and develop a musical genre for the Sinhala society, that was understood as developing “our own national musical identity”. Ananda Samarakoon perhaps pioneered the voyage in searching for a musical soul in ordinary Sinhala language, when he a baptised Christian, George W. Alwis, became a converted Buddhist by the name of Ananda Samarakoon. His lyrics were simple and ordinary as in “Podimal ethano” and “Wiley malak pipila”. Sunil Shantha, another Catholic was a contemporary of Samarakoon who went further with his Sinhala lyrics and the pace was set to make a difference in song from that which ‘Ceylon’ in its pre-independence, listened and sang. Munidasa Kumaratunge was a strong influence with his “Hela” language during that period and is very evident in Sunil Shantha’s genre of songs.

But that was ‘songs’ and not music. Music had to be brought in from somewhere. During the pre independence period the most inspiring experience for music came from India that fought the British stronger and louder than we Ceylonese. Reaching out for the Western classical music was “imperialistic”. Our musical base thus became North Indian Hindustani and less Dravidian. Samarakoons and Sunil Shanthas had their first grooming in North Indian musical tradition with Sunil Shantha taking a special fancy towards Bengali folk. W. D. Albert Perera leaves Ceylon to learn music in India and comes back as “Visharada” Amaradeva. Sinhala musical culture thus gets institutionalised on what came to be known as “Uttara-bharatheeya” music. Songs for Radio Ceylon was rated on their relationship with that tradition. Music in schools had their syllabi based on that same tradition. Sinhala music per se was what based itself on Uttara-bharatheeya music. “Baila” the popular culture in coastal areas coming down from the Dutch – Portuguese influence was not taken for any consideration in creating a Sinhala musical identity. To that extent, the Sinhala society was able to identify itself separately from the Tamil society which had its musical life born out of Karnataka and other Dravidian musical influences.

The ordinary life in society meanwhile had a different experience through popular South Indian Tamil film and its influence on post independent Sinhala cinema in the 50’s. It was then that Makuloluwa and Kulatilake experimented to be different through Sinhala folk poems that had a very simple melody and a soft rhythm. Although their efforts provided a collection of some 3,500 folk ‘songs’ those folk traditions did not have a strong musical language to develop a new musical tradition of “our own”. Therefore even at the end of the decade of 50 and early 60 with the ’56 Sinhala resurrection of Bandaranayake energising the Sinhalisation process, it was only the Sinhala song that started developing with new genres of lyrics with different metres, but not Sinhala music. Sinhala music was nothing more than North Indian Hindustani tradition.

It is within this lost effort of developing a musical tradition with a Sinhala face, that Khemadasa emerges without any serious musical roots or tradition. He had learnt music formally for a short while, but wasn’t a hardened traditionalist. Therefore his instinct and yearning to learn music on his own, left him outside all others. And left him on a voyage of learning and de-learning to learn more. Being one without a tradition gave him the privilege to seek all traditions. He thus roamed the classical world of Western music that for the Sinhala musicians was almost taboo. While the Sinhala society was moving in search of its past glory, while the Sinhala society was politically positioned against the developed West and refused to get influenced by the Western culture, Khemadasa was moving in the opposite trajectory. He was talking of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. He indulged and marvelled in the vastness of their musical compositions and tried to understand how they had interpreted the world around them through musical arrangements. He then wanted to experiment in interpreting our own experiences through their form of music.

The 70’s gave him an added advantage too. With our politics heavily layered with Soviet values and thinking, there were lots of traffic between Socialist East bloc countries and Colombo. The advantage was in cultural exchanges. That was the era when Russian authors became the only known international literary heroes to the Sinhala reader. That period gave Khemadasa an opportunity to be acquainted with post Soviet music at its best. And he grew to be a musician in search of new landscapes in music and without tradition.

This Khemadasa was thus revolting against his own musical learning, trying to give his creative self another platform that went beyond writing music for songs. That he found in film music. The greatness of Khemadasa comes to life in film music that was neither background nor filler. There he had a larger canvas than in writing music for songs to experiment and create his own style. While “Bambaru awith” could be the popular Khemadasa, the Maestro was in “Nidhanaya” that is internationally ranked as one among the Best 100 films in the world with Khemadasa’s musical score.

Khemadasa definitely was too large a character to sit along with classical traditionalists. He wasn’t a formal musician. He was one who wanted to feel the sweat of the toiling men and women, to breathe the salty pathos of the women on the rough sea edge and one who wanted to caress the love and agony of all mothers. And he Khemadasa, was one who struck the most emotional chord for them all in the realms of sophisticated musical emotions. One who could not live for today but searched the rhythm of tomorrow’s life. The “Obamian” musician of Sri Lanka.
Kusal Perera

27th October, 2008
[A felicitation to Khemadasa Master at his demise]

Tragedy of the Sinhala Buddhist Citizen

2008-09-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

If one talks of this country – which in reality is the areas under government control – the question is, who rules the country now ? After a slow but gradual shift in the past, this responsibility of ruling the country has taken a phenomenal shift towards the judiciary during the past year or two. Now the Sinhala Buddhist citizen has to seek the support of the judiciary to sort out his/her daily issues. During the previous week (starting from 15th September) alone, the Supreme Court took up quite a number of Fundamental Rights petitions on social issues. From the use of loud speakers to admission of children to grade one, marking of answer scripts, residing in Colombo, privatising of public enterprises, deciding on retirement age of public employees, price hikes in LP gas, fuel prices, environmental taxes are all issues the Supreme Court is now required to sort out.

Unfortunately, what is being taken for discussion on this, is the role of the Chief Justice, which is irrelevant. What needs to be discussed is this new trend of going to the Supreme Court with FR petitions. Why has the Sinhala Buddhist citizen got to petition the Supreme Court on his/her daily social issues that the government should decide and the State should implement ? Isn’t it a serious political concern that more and more have to seek redress for their issues in daily life from the judiciary ?

This clearly highlights the treatment meted out to the Sinhala Buddhist citizen from his/her own Sinhala State. This citizen, unfortunately, is not accomodated by the State, any more. This Sinhala State does not function any more as a system that serves the needs of the Sinhala society. This in fact is a State safeguarded in Unitary form at a heavy cost, but has degenrated to an extent that it can not even serve its own Sinhala Buddhist citizen. In plain language what it all means is, the Sinhala Buddhist citizen has been totally left out of his/her own Unitary State as a result of his/her own Sinhala Buddhist politics.

Today, this government in charge of this Unitary State has no answers for the problems that burden the Sinhala society. This government does not have the capacity or the will to solve those problems. It does not have a semblance of an idea as to what direction the national development of this country should take. This government that is under public oath to defeat Tamil separatism in the name of a Sinhala Unitary State, does not know how it could kindle any growth in rural and backward districts like Moneragala, Hambantota, Polonnaruwa, Nuwara Eliya, Puttlam or Badulla. Of the total 440,000 plus pupils who sit G.C.E O/L exam each year, even the innocent Sinhala rural pupils that roughly accounts for about 68 – 70 per cent or 300,000 have absolutely no future within their rural econommy. The rural econmy they live in, can not absorb them into any economically viable livelihood.

Day to day living is also not that easy any more. What ever the Central Bank boss who qualified himself politically to hold that high office may say on national development, there is a defnite crunch on the cashflow in rural and semi urban societies. Despite the numbers and figures doled out by the Central Bank, retailing in the rural society indicates a drop in consumption. That sector had hit upon a thinning of cash flow. Most consumer products distributors would say their sales have dropped by about 30 per cent in those areas.

It is the war that generates employment for this government. If those young soldiers sent to war after a brief training, do not bring their salaries to the rural economy and if the memebers of the civil defense force that’s heavily financed, do not bring their incomes to the rural economy, the rural economy would freeze hard. It’s the war money that keeps the cash flowing even at a minimum in those rural areas.

It’s a weird growth on which no citizen could live on. Thus the Sinhala Buddhist citizen is being driven with the hope that this war, which was never winnable for 25 years, will certainly be won under the Rajapaksa regime. The war had been hyped to make the Sinhala Buddhist citizen live on an ethnically fueled patriotism. Yet, if that patriotism is not used to mute the Sinhala society, any noisy revolt asking for a better social life could turn out to challenge the Rajapaksa regime.

This nevertheless does not stop at merely doping the Sinhala Buddhist citizen. That Sinhala ideology for war also requires a war psychology instilled in society. The Rajapaksa regime has been at it in many ways and brutally so. All dissenting voices in society were systematically compromised with or silenced. So was the media, as it is not only the non-Sinhalese and the non-Buddhist who would venture to question the social cost and the viability of the war. The Sinhala State was thus turned into a new and brutal mechanism that serves the war and the sustenance of the Rajapaksa regime, instead of the Sinhala Buddhist citizen.

Such a State teethed to keep all anti government protests at bay, takes a heavy toll on human rights, with its militarisation of society. Abductions, involuntary disappearances, extra judicial killings, long and arbitrary arrests, all become part of the life of the society, with which the Sinhala Buddhist citizen has to compromise. Evolving of this new State, though still dressed in the familiar Sinhala Buddhist garb, accomodates other appendages that intially has no real link or shape within the State machinery, but gradually becomes an accepted part. Complaints about “white vans” frequesnting at will and para military forces operating with tacit support from State security forces are all part of this new change over. What this Sinhala Buddhist citizen did not realise when compromising with such a brutality is that, he/she also looses the right to question the government, the Rajapaksa regime, even on his/her own socio-economic issues that relates to day to day life.

At this point, it should be stressed that all States have and work on their own ideology. A State is no dry machinery. The ideolgy of the Sri Lankan State was a Sinhala ideology that entrenched all work of the State with a bias towards the Sinhala society. That was the only reason why the SL State was termed a Sinhala State and not only becasue it was governed by the majority Sinhala political leaderships. That provides the logic which underlines the change in ideology in the now evolving State. The new ideology now goes beyond that of the Sinhala Buddhist ideology and over the past few years, has shifted in taking over an autocratic responsibility of servicing the Rajapaksa regime. It thus becomes an idoeology that looks Sinhala Buddhist in appearance for now, but talks in a different brutal autocratic language, alienated from the Sinhala society.

That alienation is yet to be understood by the Sinhala Buddhist citizen, who still takes this State to be the old Sinhala State that was his/hers. This State only works on Sinhala patriotism for its own brutal autocratic existence now. Although this is new and not as yet understood by the Sinhala Buddhist citizen, the Tamil citizen was faced with alienation from the Sinhala State long before. The Tamil citizen therefore wanted a restructuring of the State to accommodate him/her self with a share in political power. This request for sharing of power with restructuring of the State, was totally rejected by the Sinhala Buddhist citizen, who thought he/she had a right to live within a Unitary Sinhala State. The then moderate Tamil citizen knew that total alienation one day would leave Tamil politics with the only option of working towards a separate State. Such apprehensions are now voiced by the Muslim moderates too, but not taken seriously as at now. Leaving all and sundry in peril, the stubborn choice of the Sinhala Buddhist citizen in rejecting all efforts in sharing power in a restructured State and insisting in keeping a Unitary State, has finally left him/her outside the very State that once was thought to be his/hers.

There in lies the confusion within the UNP leadership. They live in the myth of generalising this Sinhala patriotism to be that of the Sinhala people and thus keep a blind eye on all other savage and autocratic changes in the Sinhala State. The UNP therefore is trying to restrict itself to other issues that are only extensions and outgrowths of the hyped war. They are afraid to take on the actual cause, the war, to all this brutal change. If they ever want to learn a lesson at least now, it’s the JVP’s mistake they would have to turn to. If there is no opposition to the war, then there is no alternative to the Rajapaksa regime. When the JVP chose not to oppose the war, they became a secondary force that tagged behind the Rajapaksa regime. War is truly a Rajapaksa project and no one could at this point compete for its ownership or a share in it. The JVP proved that clearly at the recently concluded PC elections, if the UNP wants to learn anything from it.

If the main opposition does not want to accept that the Sinhala Buddhist citizen who strove to safe guard this Sinhala State and was eventually thrown out of it, has little reason now to rally round prices and corruption, fraud and inefficiency, then those Sinhala Buddhists who would be less disciplined and more hasty than those who seek judicial interventions may revolt and rebel against the State. Who could then blame whom for the tragedy of a whole nation ?

Kusal Perera

26th September, 2008

Thamil separatism survives on the strength of Sinhala nationalism

2008-08-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

With SAARC on the cards, reminiscing “Black July” is almost over. There were plenty of articles in most of our print media and in web portals with differing points of view on “Black July”. In some, Black July was even discussed in a South Asian context. What ever the route taken to reach July 1983, the point of convergence in most was that it helped an accelerated growth of armed groups to establish their case for a separate “Thamil” State. There were also readings about the South, about the Sinhala psyche, that said the South should reach a broad consensus on the ethnic conflict. Some wanting such Southern consensus to negotiate a viable and justifiable solution and others to crush separatism militarily. A Southern consensus, nevertheless.

Yet what was missing in most of that discussion was a reading about the LTTE psyche, 25 years after the Black July. Does the LTTE work towards achieving any justification or sympathy from the South for their struggle, liberation or separatist war or what ever label one may wish to stick on it in the South? This is the single most important question the South needs to ask itself, if the South is serious about concluding this war in any way they wish to have it concluded.

In plain black and white, the LTTE is clearly committed and working towards a separate Thamil Eelam State, never mind its size and the geographical area to begin with, while holding onto the Thimpu concept of a Thamil Homeland. From the very beginning of the conflict, Southern political leaderships had opposed this Thamil homeland concept and stood for a Unitary State. All governments since 1977, except the Ranil Wickramasinghe government (Dec 2001) have fought a war to defeat this separatist movement. Madam Chandrika Kumaratunge who in 1994 braved a racist campaign against her to win both the Parliamentary and the Presidential elections on a platform of conciliatory politics, also went to war within 06 months of assuming power as President. Under her, the heavily fought and much emphasised “Jaya Sikurui” military campaign that lasted 18 months and drained off billions of rupees to capture some parts of Northern territory, failed to dislodge the LTTE from their Wanni base. Much hyped “Jaya Sikurui” military victory was turned into a national event. On 06th of December, 1998, President Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaratunge addressed the nation to announce the victorious conclusion of “Jaya Sikurui” military campaign and opened her statement thus.

“I wish to tell you that the second phase of the peace offensive launched by the government of Sri Lanka against terrorism and separatism was victoriously concluded last morning, the 05th of December.
A moment ago, the Army Commander, Commanding Officers of the armed forces and the Police Chief, informed me about that news.
We are proud to accept this historical and noble news and we remain humble too.
From this day, with the dawn of this new era, we have opened up a path for peace and prosperity for every citizen living in our country and to be able to live in a free society with equal rights……”(translated from her Sinhala speech)

The government’s euphoria over that victory couldn’t last long. The LTTE launched their most vicious onslaught ever called the “Unceasing Waves III” in 1999 November and within a fortnight had even run over the heavily fortified Elephant Pass military base. Ever since then, the LTTE assembled their State structures, in areas under their control. They organised their administrative and police apparatus in those areas. With their police in action, they needed a judicial system, which they brought into place complete with a Law College. To run them as civil systems, the LTTE needed money from society and they have imposed taxes, the percentages and totals not very important right now, except for the fact that they have an Inland Revenue collecting system of their own. Close upon 10 years for now, all these have evolved into more systematic structures and have gained currency among those living under their undeclared State. A State, yet to be accepted internationally as an independent State.

This is what the LTTE leadership is grappling with, now. Their concern is no more the necessity of immediately gaining ground. Their concern is the ability to guard the area they have now brought under their administration. What they therefore pursue now is recognition as a State and the opening for such legitimacy. Do they need a Southern approval or a Southern justification for that ? They simply don’t and they also know they wouldn’t get such Southern accreditation, although minor “Left” groupings would say the Tamil people have a right for self determination and therefore a right to secede. But the “Left” taken together is a non-entity in Southern politics.

Unfortunately, over decades the South has been moulded into a “patriotic” mindset that takes national pride in crushing the Tamil voice. It has been moulded to think that the majority Sinhala society has a right to offer and the minority Tamils would have to accept what is offered under a unitary system. Any rejection of what is offered gives way for oppression and that had been our history in settling the issue. With every attempt at negotiating answers to justifiable Tamil aspirations given a dud coin by the Sinhala leaderships, emergence of a Tamil psyche that opted for a separate Tamil State was unavoidable. For that Tamil psyche to justify taking arms was logical too. The heir to such armed struggle and the emergence of the ultimate leader of that armed Tamil politics is no different to the Palestinian armed struggle. Yasser Arafat’s Al-fatah, Dr. George Habash’s PFLP, Nayef Hawatmeh’s PDFLP, Abu Abbas’s PLF are all major components in the PLO. But it would be one single decisive armed force that would eventually decide the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, either way.

The LTTE emerged as the decisive force within Tamil politics in Sri Lanka from among many others. For the LTTE to pursue their Separate Thamil State for which they have sacrificed thousands of lives, they would not wait for the Left or the moderates in the South to flag them off. They prefer the hard line Sinhala Buddhists to engage them militarily to establish the Sinhala “Unitary” State, the corollary of their Eelam State. More ruthless and fanatical the Southern approach is in forcing a Unitary State, bigger their space would be in arguing that the Sinhala leadership is not prepared to share power with the Tamils and the minorities. Therefore, what the hard line Sinhala platform in the South does, is all what the LTTE would want them to do. In short, the LTTE wouldn’t waste time placating the South over the right of the Tamil society to co-exist either together or separately with the Sinhala South. The South as a polity is no priority in their agenda.

Yet if the South needs to live in a united country with a single constitution, that is possible too. But for that the South needs to reach a broad consensus to re-structure its old, inefficient and corrupt State that is exclusively a Sinhala State. A State that has for 60 years since independence not given even the Sinhala people a space to better their lives. A State, against which even the Sinhala youth waged war, twice within the past 35 years. A State that has pauperised this society and burdened the people with international debt, underdevelopment and continued conflicts with increasing crimes and break down of law and order.

If the South wants to live a decent modern life, the South should accept that the people in this island has evolved over centuries with two modern standard languages, Sinhala and Tamil. These two languages have also helped two distinct cultures. These two cultural identities with language as their main and dividing factor also carry with them distinct geographical areas where Sinhala and Tamil societies are historically very conspicuous. Using one of them (Sinhala) to secure a basis for nationalism in establishing a nation-state over the whole of Sri Lanka, provides a dialectically opposing (Tamil) nationalism for another state. The ensuing nationalistic desire to establish a nation state based on one (Sinhala) language gives way for political coercion over both societies. One, to achieve its nationalistic ambition and the other (Tamil), to resist and overcome its opposite. The logic behind the “Separate Tamil State” is the failure of the Sinhala society to understand this simple, civilised necessity of pluralism in modern day nationalism. Understanding and accommodating that pluralism within a new democratic State structured to be inclusive, provides the only possible answer in defeating separatism, which the South refuses to accept and thus provides for the LTTE to exist and fight for their ideal separate State.

By
Kusal Perera
03rd August, 2008

The present TU strike, the JVP and our future - Part I

2008-07-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

Politics of this token strike

So, it is done and over. The JVP declared and the UNP touted, July 10th token strike came to a deflated end by evening the same day. The government claimed it was a total failure. The JVP claimed it was a success. So did the UNP. Talking in percentages, the self appointed spokesman for the token strike, the JVP trade union boss Lal Kantha said it was 70 % successful. Out on the streets in Colombo, the strike wasn’t felt at all by the ordinary citizen. It was a case of searching for news about the strike during the day and then in the evening, talking in terms of segmented sectors and patches where “some had struck work”.

What in fact is left to talk about this token strike now ? The government accused this was a politically planned strike to support the Tigers. Yes, it was a politically decided strike, and what is not ? War is politics, peace is politics, cost of living is politics and in this country now, very existence of life is politics. Therefore this is all about politics of this strike and the roll and fate of trade unions in this country.

Let’s begin by accepting that this strike was certainly a failure. Numbers and percentages don’t matter in a strike. What matters is the impact the strike could make on society. This strike had little impact on society. In fact in Sri Lanka today, no strike can make an impact on society, unless the CEB and the transport sector could be totally paralysed. That today is no easy task for any trade union centre. For there is plenty of politics involved that obstructs such joint action. That was very evident in the party politics that decided this strike.

This was decided by the JVP and JVP alone, although the UNP jumped the gun thinking it could also rake in some “profits”. The JVP had its political reason to take the strike decision. It was the major political player in forming this government in 2004 April and then in installing the government’s candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President in 2005 November. Four years after establishing this government and two and a half years after seating Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President, the JVP can not defend this Rajapaksa regime any more. All the high profile promises given to the people on better and affordable living standards, good and responsible governance, improved democracy and an honourable peace, are in shambles.

Having brought the UPFA to power, the JVP can not this day talk of an affordable consumer life, with inflation racing past 30 per cent and bank interests on borrowing topping 22 per cent. Prices of all essential food items have gone up by at least 200 per cent. Transport and fuel costs are far worse. Disposable income in families has shrunk by more than half and keeps shrinking. The economy is in a crying chaos.

Although the JVP promised a clean and efficient government with the UPFA in power and Mahinda Rajapaksa as President, they themselves were forced to talk of massive corruptions and waste, under this Rajapaksa regime to once again distance themselves. They had to accuse the government of nepotism and a family monopoly in governance that has led to total inefficiency in the administration. The JVP had to condemn the mega auditorium of ministers and their luxury life styles to show the JVP innocence in establishing such a ruthlessly incapable regime in power.

The JVP was thus forced to distance themselves from this government under President Rajapaksa. They struck their name out from the cover of the “Mahinda Chinthanaya” booklet, while the contents talked about their authorship. University student pickets, farmer agitations, pickets against cost of living and their usually loud rhetoric were ploys to make the people forget the JVP is responsible for the chaos that is setting in.

But where they had emotionally entangled themselves in and was caught with a stupid grin, was where the government talked of a winning patriotic war. It was the JVP that hyped the government’s anti-LTTE slogan for a unitary State. It was the JVP that stood with the government for a war to end Tamil separatism. It was the JVP that helped the government to label all arbitrary arrests, abductions, extortions and disappearances as necessary anti-terrorist work. It was the JVP that shouted the loudest against those who called for negotiations and peace, as LTTE supporters. It was the JVP that went mum on media attacks in the name of a patriotic war. They created this Sinhala Buddhist ideology against any negotiations and peace efforts that provides the government with a licence to wage this present war. They can not now dismiss and disown the war as easily as they dismiss and disown the economic blunders of this government.

This led to a very hard and biting debate that grew within the JVP on their political future. They had voted in parliament for the emergency as a necessary tool to wage war and still continue to vote for the emergency. They voted for all the budgets brought by this government that accounts for all the economic chaos, just to continue with the government and the war. Should they now leave economics and support the war as first thought by Nandana Gunathilake and then by Weerawansa, or should they leave the war to itself and take the government to task on economic issues, as argued by Anura Kumara and Tilvin ? This debate paved the way for the rift and the break away. Of course, the two contending groups by themselves were not as clean as they projected themselves and allowed other vested interests to manipulate the rift. Therefore when they actually broke up, it had a disgusting flavour and a nauseating fragrance. All damage controlling by the JVP added more piss to the already messy pit.

By now, the two groups, NFF and the JVP, have clearly positioned themselves on their previously argued political platforms. NFF has taken up the war cry with a louder call for “patriotism” what ever that means for them. The JVP is taking their slogan on economic woes with a tasteless militancy to re-emerge as an independent political entity. This was all the politics behind the July 10th token strike. Politics the JVP also thought, would prove they have the total party machinery with them despite the Weerawansa break away.

The political extension of it required the JVP to have the totality of the July 10th token strike under their party banner. For this plain reason, the July 10th token strike was stingily restricted to a makeshift outfit unlike the broad trade union front that was forged to lead the 1980 July strike. That JTUAC in ’80 had recognised and accepted TU leaders like Panditha, Tampoe (who subsequently dissociated on tactical issues), Oswin, U.E Perera, Mahanama, Moulana and many others from different political party affiliations as well as independent leaders, although the JVP opposed the strike supporting the Jayawardne regime. But this present out fit projected by the JVP as the National Trade Union Confederation, differed completely in that it was a lone Lal Kantha and no body else who owned it. Who are the other TU leaders in this collective that boasted of 366 trade unions ? No Tampoe, no Muruttettuwe Ananda, no Kumudesh, no Rathnapriya, no Anton Marcus, no Joseph Stalin, none.

But the reason why the UNP jumped on this very sectarian move by the JVP was also political. Fundamentally, the UNP does not know what trade unions are. They don’t even have timid figures in the calibre of Moulana and Devendra after decades of JSS presence to line up at a press conference to support the strike. For the UNP this was a political project to pursue a tie up with the JVP against the Rajapaksa government. With no perspective to challenge this government, the UNP could not even assess the impact of the JVP declared strike. Their blind declaration of support could not add any muscle to the already limping strike.

The outcome ? President Rajapaksa and the government was given yet another endorsement. The working class did not oppose this government because they want the government to move on with the war, as immediately assumed by the President for his advantage. There are two clear assumptions that could be drawn from this. One, politics played out on petty sectarian agendas, without addressing the core issue openly and clearly has once again publicly strengthened the government. Two, the trade unions need to draw up their own agenda within this crisis for which they need to thrash out their immediate and future programme, outside party politics.

Kusal Perera

17th July, 2008

Part II is the next post below

The present TU strike, the JVP and our future - Part II

2008-07-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

The archaic politics of trade unions

In early 1980’s, after the beating the trade unions got from the ’80 July strike, there ensued a discussion within “left politics” of a truly independent trade union centre. A new phenomenon that was looked upon as a viable alternative was the Indian Datta Samanth’s emergence into trade union activity. A dentist by profession, he was able to bag in a very sizeable section of the Mumbai working class into a politically independent trade union that was strictly out of party politics. Challenging huge figures like George Fernandez and Bal Thackery of Shiv Sena, Dutta Samanth emerged as an icon of trade unionism even beyond Maharashtra with his style of militant trade union activity that gave the workers very much more democracy in decision making than in any other “left” affiliated traditional trade union. His role in the famous year long Mumbai textile strike in 1982 that involved over 200,000 mill workers, gave way to a new tradition in that sector after he allowed the workers to decide on continuing the strike with a secret ballot. A democracy, trade union leaderships in this part of the world would never ever allow its membership.

Despite the failure of this strike that led to relocation of large textile mills outside Mumbai and thousands of worker lay offs, Samanth had created a new working class phenomenon that was independent of political party affiliations. It was this concept of independent trade unionism that was discussed here among some leftists. But the disintegration of structured traditional worker unions after the ’80 July strike that delivered a crushing blow to the whole trade union “movement” in Sri Lanka left very little space for such a discourse within the trade union movement.

The ’80 July strike was essentially a public sector strike in a society that was shifting from a decades old State centred economy to a free market economy. The importance of the public sector in delivery of services and commodities was gradually played down and privatisation of commuter bus transport, textile and steel, marked this new change in a big way. Free Trade Zones with migrant rural labour changed the political demography of the private sector work force as well. Within these changes the public sector unions like the clerical, teachers and railway, lost the best militants at work place level with the ’80 July strike.

All these changes were taking place while the “traditional left” was being devalued and dissipated, both politically and organisationally. They were no more attractive and could not reach out to the new youth who gradually entered the work force. Large segments of young rural labour that entered the work force, brought with them their own brand of confused political thinking very much close to the noisy JVP which entered mainstream politics during the early ‘80s. Therefore in these new enclaves in free trade zones and in some public sector services including banks and the medical profession, the JVP was able to have their organisational foot in or influence institutional thinking. But not so in the plantation sector where the ’80 July strike was never an issue with the traditional union structures still left firm and strong. So was it in large established companies where “collective agreements” dictated worker decisions and behaviour.

Politically, the JVP hold in the rural society extended its thinking into work places and moulded the new generation of trade union leaders. That thinking is a very narrow, mediocre thinking, far behind that of the “left” in the ‘50s and the ‘60s. Then the trade union leaders negotiated on the strength of their membership. Today the membership is driven politically by trade unions that does not allow internal democracy even among their own political cadres. Therefore the present trade union thinking would not allow D.G. Williams, Bala Tampoes and the like to develop within trade unions. The bottom line therefore is that trade unions would not and can not cope with the new modern market world. Can not cope with even democracy.

Trade Unions are bogged down with old, redundant thinking and are never ready to change their attitudes on trade unionism. What should be the ultimate purpose of these trade unions ? Can they not help plan better management systems and demand better human resource development for their membership ? How best could they intervene in working out better quality working environments for their membership ? The quality of working life in the CGR is archaic and has not improved over decades, although new technology and management systems are available. How old is the ticketing system in the CGR ? Hundred years ? Clerical and teacher unions have failed to take up issues that would necessitate a modern working culture with better management systems to benefit their own membership. Such is not the attitude in our trade unions.

If in Sri Lanka, telecommunication was not privatised ignoring trade union objections, the trade unions would have allowed the old gloomy working environment and the employee status to remain, while agitating for pay hikes. The change and improvement brought with privatisation in the telecommunication sector the trade unions usually oppose as privatisation, is a huge positive change in the quality of the workers’ life and that of the ordinary consumer. Imagine the fate of today’s consumer if he had to linger for years in long waiting lists to have a telephone connected ? There was a time the consumer had to stand with a medical certificate in hand to request a priority order for the telephone connection.

Trade unions too have to change their attitudes in working out their own visions and missions. They have to now work with a global mindset. They have not only to demand pay hikes, but also negotiate cost effective and modern management practices that would benefit their membership. This thinking is not possible unless the trade unions break off from their mediocre political leaderships. Unless they think in terms of a new trade union movement that could put to right the mistakes of the Datta Samanth experience. He thought he could live with uncompromising demands ratified by his membership. While his practice was democratic, his thinking was too old to live through a modern world.

We have an old undemocratic tradition buckled down with old thinking. With that trade union psyche the next workers’ agitation led by the JVP may push the government to accede to part of the demands, but would not lift the trade unions to a better quality movement. But here in Sri Lanka, we don’t even have a Datta Samanth to experiment.

Kusal Perera
17th July, 2008

“Shanmugalingam – Three plays”

2008-06-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

Trekking the Tamil mindset through Tamil drama

It’s been a long time since I sat in an audience to watch a stage drama. The last time was when I sat in the audience at Elphinstone Theatre, a half year ago. That was to watch the “Janakaraliya” production of “Charandas”. An adaptation of Indian dramatist Habib Tanvir’s “Charandas Chor”, the Janakaraliya production was based on the versatility of dramatist cum teledrama and film director Parakrama Niriella, who had given his own interpretation to the Indian drama in terms of the present Sri Lankan context. Since then, there was no other stage play that compelled me to set aside a few evening hours. The era of intellectually creative drama that was pioneered by Prof. Sarachchandra followed by playwrights like Dayananda Gunawardne, Henry Jayasena, Sugathapala de Silva and R.R. Samarakoon in the 60’s and the 70’s had fizzled off. Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Asoka Handagama and a few others who lived through into the 80’s and after, have not brought anything new on stage for over two decades. We don’t have creative productions on stage any more that could at least stand in par with those in the 60’s and the 70’s. What needs to be stressed here about Sinhala stage drama is that it depended very much on adaptations than on originals.

We are most unfortunately talking of Sinhala stage drama only. Talking of Sinhala drama as a national fact that ignores Tamil drama altogether. Do we in the South know about Tamil stage drama ? I honestly doubt, we do. We know of popular adoptations from Bertold Brecht, Henrik Ibsen, Jean Paul Satre and Dario Fo to name those from the developed proscenium theatre. Brecht of them all is better known than any local Tamil playwright. I for one came to know of Tamil dramatist Prof. Maunaguru and his production “Ravanesan” more through writings than through stage. There is definitely something amiss. We do not have any conscious interactions with Tamil stage drama and their dramatists.

There are two basic reasons for this. One, there had been very little Tamil stage drama in the first decades after independence that stood its own ground, in comparison to the new development of Sinhala stage drama that evolved with Prof Sarachchandra from mid 1950’s. Development of Sinhala stage drama also had the advantage of being projected as a national effort with the advent of Sinhala politics in the South from mid 50’s. Heavy emphasis on Sinhala art and culture was part of this emerging Sinhala politics. Two, Tamil stage drama perhaps stymied by being pushed into provincial status in social acceptance, also because of the hype given to Sinhala rejuvenation from the 50’s was not an important cultural participation in the South. This therefore did not help develop a Tamil stage drama loving audience in Colombo that could sustain it, even with difficulty. Out of Colombo, they are no national events.

Within this broad cultural parameters in the South, the Sinhala dramatists did not look towards Tamil stage productions or literature for any discourse. Within our literary discourse, we did not have comparisons with or intrusions from Tamil literature. Way back in the 70’s Dharmasena Pathirajah tried his hand on a Tamil film called “Ponmani” and then Parakrama Kodituwakku came with a collection of Tamil poems translated into Sinhala titled “Indu saha Lanka”. They were the two most significant interactions between Sinhala and Tamil creative art. If there were anything else, they were insignificant in a society that was trying to come to grips with social aspirations divided and divergent as Sinhala and Tamil.

Political divisions on either side of the divide getting ethnically radicalised, the chances of moving together, in learning together in all forms of performing arts, also fell between extremism. They had moved away to such an extent that almost none knew Prof. Sarachchandra had borrowed from the Tamil “Koottu” dance traditions in producing his own “miracle” on Sinhala stage. For the Sinhala society, they were its own tradition brought down from the past. The Sinhala hegemonic politics in the South weren’t prepared to accept anything as Tamil even if they were.

This break down of literary dialogue among the Sinhala and Tamil artistes was the result of political antipathy. During the 1980’s and more conspicuously after the 1983 July pogrom, the escalation of the war closed all doors and paved the way for a new trend in Tamil political drama in the North, unknown to the South. That Tamil drama which struggled to establish itself in the Northern Tamil society, had a distinct difficulty in performing publicly as we do at the Lionel Wendt or at the Elphinstone theatre. They grew in an atmosphere of increasing political suppression trying to find expression among nonconventional audiences. This new Tamil stage drama produced a pioneering and committed playwright in the name of M. Shanmugalingam, better known as ‘Kuzhanthai’ Shanmugalingam, who wrote his own plays from what he saw, felt and lived in his own Tamil society. He was thus an organic product of the Tamil society in the North that struggled to express itself through drama.

Three of Kuzhanthai’s plays had been translated into English by a well known Tamil poet, S. Pathmanathan, also known as ‘Sopa’. The three plays have a cover title, “Shanmugalingam – Three plays” printed and published by Kumaran Book Home. It is wholly unfair to stand on judgement of plays that had been produced and staged in a very oppressive context, by a mere reading of their script. Yet it is worth the read, to get a glimpse of the mind set in Jaffna, as it grew over two decades from early 1980’s through armed conflict.

The three stage plays included in this book “Maņ Sumantha Méniyar (With sweat and dust on their shoulders), Enţayum Tāyum (The land of our parents) and Veļvithee(The sacrificial fire)” cover a period from early 1985 to late 1993. Politically this covers the period begun after the 83 July pogrom and run till the end of the Premadasa era, through the IPKF presence and the Indo – Lanka Accord. Obviously, for a dramatist who struggled to have his foot hold in society, all these would have surely had their engravings with due stress.

These are all plays that have within them the echoes of the ordinary man in Jaffna. They are quite different to the armed cadres we generally see as Tamil life. The struggle of the innocent farmer in Maņ Sumantha Méniyar is brought out with the hardened hope he cherishes within a crumbling society. This play had first been staged in February 1985 and thereafter had become popular with youth groups that staged it in many parts of the peninsula. It was the period youth in Jaffna emerged with a loud bang to challenge the democratic presence of the traditional Tamil leadership. Enţayum Tāyum produced and staged in 1992, first in an inner courtyard of a house in Nallur, came at a time when Jaffna was in grips with itself. The famous Vadamarachchi attack by the security forces had left thousands displaced and homeless. The IPKF the Jaffna society thought would liberate them, had also left bitter memories. It was a period the older generation in Jaffna was struggling with a fractured conscience. This play portrays this elderly forlon life in Jaffna that tries to come to grips with the absent child sent off to seek safer and a greener future. What Kuzhanthai Shanmugalingam does best in the play Veļvithee is using the old traditions of marraige in a contemporary society that rocks all traditions, not due to change of life by itself, but due to a hostile break down of normal life. He uses old stanzas as songs to drive his characters to contradiction and pitches them against Shakespeare’s Othelo and Desdamona too, in testing love and attachment in the burning world around him where even sacrifices aren’t enough.

They are not mere reportage of Jaffna life on stage. They are all about human relationships and aspirations within a turbulent society. About life that nevertheless screams, wanting to live. Its life we are not familiar with and wouldn’t see in the perspective of the victim. Finally, they represent a culture that has over the past decades distanced itself with a vengeance due to broken promises, but does not seem so distant in human terms. Sopa Pathmanathan with his lucid translations of these stage plays provides a rare chance for the South to reach out to the Jaffna mindset through Shanmugalingam’s drama that otherwise would not be possible in this war ridden, politically divided and culturally diverging Lanka.

Kusal Perera
08th June, 2008

WHAT'S THIS D.S ERA ?

2008-04-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

I am reproducing below an email chain that originated after I responded via e-mail to the following text message that came to my mobile phone on 2nd April, 2008.

[quote sms –txt message] Well done UNP ! For making wining outfit for the Eastern Pro elections without sacrificing the elephant symbol. Now Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people can rally round with UNP like under D.S. era [unquote]

The sms-txt message prompted me to send the e-mail reproduced below, titled –

What’s this D.S. era ?

Some (probably in the UNP) try to project themselves as political intellectuals by sending mobile text messages saying the 'UNP could take Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people to a DS era' with the Eastern province elections. They feel pretty confident and proud that the DS era is a magnificent era for national unity.

They better learn their political alphabet before embarking on egoistic political flights of fantasy.

Who is DS ? As a human being, well, he could be honest and cultured. I don't know and wouldn't bother about that any way. But as a political leader, he is the 'father of racist politics who pioneered nepotism' in this country. He is the one who paved the way for his son to be the Prime Minister after his demise. One who legitimized family politics.. That did not come up publicly as a corrupt practice then, as Dudley himself was considered a gentleman politician. Nevertheless, that is the beginning of nepotism ('using your power or influence to obtain good jobs or unfair advantages for members of your own family' - Cambridge International English Dictionary) in our politics.

Leaving that aside, D.S. Senanayake can never be pardoned or forgiven for his racist role in politics from his very first day as the first PM in independent Ceylon. Whose government was it that brought the Ceylon Citizenship Act No.18 of 1948, which made over a million Tamils of Indian origin, aliens in this country ? It was the government of DS as PM that brought this first racist Act and passed it in parliament. Read below, what Senator Nadesan had to say about this Act.

[NB - Details of photo above

The first Cabinet under the parliamentrary system of government in Sri Lanka. (From left) C. Suntharalingam, George E. de Silva, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, T. B. Jayah, Governor-General Sir Henry Monk Mason Moore, Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake, Sir Oliver Goonetilleka, Chief Justice Sir John Howard, Dudley Senanayake, J. L. Kotelawela, J. R. Jayewardene, A. Ratnayake and L. A. Rajapakse. C. Sittampalam & R. S. S. Gunawardena are not in the picture.]

'...Just a word at this juncture, Mr. President, on the unqualified statement made that Ceylon has the right, as every other country, to determine the composition of its population. When Germany under Hitler, started to de-citizenise the Jews, every civilised country in the world condemned it. Hitler said that he has absolute power to determine the composition of the population of Germany; and he did determine that to his own satisfaction. The question that arises is whether, by deciding upon the composition of the population of this country, in the manner proposed in this Bill, are we doing the right thing, the fair thing, the honourable thing? That is the question that one has to pay due regard to....' (Speech made by Senator.S. Nadesan winding up the Debate on the Ceylon Citizenship Bill on 15 September 1948 in the Ceylon Senate - Session: 1948-49 - Senate Hansard Pages 1096-1127)

What was the consequence of this ? It wasn't that the Tamils of Indian origin were made 'illegal residents' leaving an issue that took over five decades to be solved by giving them back the citizenship right, but it also broke the ACTC the only Tamil political party in 1950. It thus paved the way for SJV and C. Sunthralingam to form the ITAK, popularly known as the Federal Party. It was the FP that took over Tamil politics thereafter. Rest is history.

DS played a more sinister role in changing the demographic pattern of the Eastern Province too. He is instrumental in colonization of Tamil districts in the East to change the ethnic and political character of Tamil areas. In particular, Sinhalese population in the Trincomalee District increased from 3.8% to 33.6% of the total population by 1981 given the start by DS who is considered the 'father of colonization schemes', with Gal Oya scheme touted as a model colonization scheme of his. Tamil population therefore decreased from 56.8% to 33.7% in the district. In the Amparai District, the Sinhalese population increased from 7.0% to 38%, while the Tamil population declined from 37.0% to 20.0% during that same period. This rapid increase in the number of Sinhalese settlers in the Eastern Province led to the creation of the Sinhalese electorates of Seruvila and Amparai in 1976.

It's DS who paved for the mess that's there in the East now. Isn't it a far cry to think of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim unity through a DS era ?

DS is responsible in no less terms than SWRD and his SLFP for the savage, racist history that ensued after independence. He and his UNP therefore has to pay dearly for the more than 70,000 dead, for more than 50,000 maimed and handicapped youth, for all the young widows who have lost their husbands in the war, for all the children who have lost their fathers in the war, for all the infrastructure and material devastations and also for all the bloody pain this country is going through.

So why get back to a DS era again ?

Now Lakthilake defends DS

The sms – txt message was owned by Shiral Lakthilake, a UNP activist and an Attorney at Law, who responded as follows through e-mail. I refrained from editing it in any form, to give this response his own colour and voice.

Dear Kusal,
I respectfully disagree with your assertion that 'DS is responsible in no less terms than SWRD and his SLFP for the savage, racist history that ensued after independence'. To say so I have my own way of reading of the role that DS played in the clonial and post colonial era. To explain my position I am attached herewith a monologue that I wrote about the role of DS (in Sinhala) for your information. Problem our country's people is they always try to be pandits, like to give absolute picture on verious phenomenons. Especially retaired clasical maxists like you.

Rgds
shiral

[Sorry, I can not technically add the attachment sent by Shiral in Sinhala which is not in Unicode Sinhala fonts. Apart from that, the attachment sent ran into 16 full pages. In short, the attachment included quotes from ‘Dinamina’ Sinhala news paper that carried a news report about DS making a speech on ‘national unity’ and again a long quote from H.A.J Hulugalle’s biography on ‘First PM of Sri Lanka – Don Stephen Senanayake’ that hypes DS as a true patriot. This e-mail was responded to by me, as follows, as it was two others who forwarded it to me.]

IF NOT RACISM, WHAT’S IT ?

Thanks Keerthi and Mano for forwarding this response from Shiral.

I DO ACCEPT SHIRAL HAS ALL THE RIGHT TO DISAGREE WITH ME OR OPPOSE ME. That can be important too. But what's more important is that Shiral has taken plenty of pain to attach another voice in his defence and still proves that politically he has plenty to learn to answer my simple arguments on DS and his racism.

The issue is not what others have written about DS and the Tamil problem, from their own individual perspectives. The issue is, very plainly -

01. DID NOT THE GOVERNMENT OF D.S. SENANAYAKE IN THE 1ST PARLIAMENT ITSELF, DE-FRANCHISE AND MAKE OVER ONE MILLION PLANTATION SECTOR TAMIL PEOPLE "PARAYAS' OF THIS COUNTRY ?

02. IS HE NOT RESPONSIBLE AS THE PM FOR THE CEYLON CITIZENSHIP ACT THAT DE-FRANCHISED THOSE TAMIL PEOPLE UNDER HIS GOVT ?

IF THIS IS NOT RACISM, WHAT IS IT ?

About colonising too, Shiral tries to hide behind what others have interpreted on. The facts are very straight. I have given the population figures as to how the demographic pattern had been drastically changed in the East, begining with DS.. Its not a question of rice harvests going up. Its a question of altering the democratic representation of the Tamil people in the East, to the advantage of the Sinhala majority. THAT'S WHAT I SAY IS RACIST AND HOLD DS ACCOUNTABLE FOR.

Shiral sadly lacks analytical power in polemics. He has lifted a piece from some one to make parallels between Lee Kuan's housing in Singapore and DS's colonising in rural SL. What a pity !

One should know the basics before sending these around. Singapore is a small CITY STATE. Therefore Lee Kuan had no agrarian issue as we have in an under developed economy to solve. There was no issue of tenancy and ownership of land in farming that had to be solved in terms of productivity. There were no issues of labour that had to be educated and maintained within a rural economy. In short, Lee Kuan did not have the major problems that we were burdened with and are still struggling to find answers for. Take my word, if Lee Kuan Yew had to govern this country with this huge agrarian sector, he would have been a failure too like Kotalawala.

One should also know that there could be a marked difference between words and deeds, especially in our Sinhala country. When President MR promises he would even negotiate with Prabhakaran, that does not mean anything when he continues with the war.Therefore, what DS had said about national unity is not relevant, in the face of what he had done for national "disunity". So sorry, Shiral can not understand even this simple logic.

All that still leaves my statement firm and correct. DS is totally responsible for defranchising over one million Tamil people in the plantation sector to provide for Sinhala representation especially in the up country, Uva and Sabaragamuwa areas and he started colonising the East with Sinhala people and led the political change that undermined the Tamil rpresentation in the East too.

What is DS, if not a racist ? How could he be different to SWRD ?

Thanks.
Kusal
--------------

Kusal Perera
05th April, 2008

END OF A DYNASTY AND A NOVEL DEMOCRACY

2008-03-21T01:33:00.000-07:00

Twenty years after I met him, he passed off this Sunday the 16th bringing the end to the Bandaranayake dynasty. Twenty years ago in February 1988 when I met him at 65B, Rosemead Place, he was the Leader of the Opposition in the absence of his mother Madam Bandaranayake in parliament. That year during our meeting, he was requested by Mahinda Rajapaksa, then out of parliamentary politics after his defeats at 1977 general elections and again at the 1984 by-elections for Beliatte, to table a list of forced disappearances in the South. Anura Bandaranayake MP for Attanagalla was thus creating history when he tabled in parliament the first list of 62 persons who went missing after they were abducted or arbitrary arrested at the height of the Southern insurgency. I met him frequently there after till he left the SLFP to join the UNP in late 1993 to swear in as the Minister of Higher Education under Wijetunge’s Presidency. Anura was a proud politician then, but a very mild person in friendship. A voracious reader, a superb debater in parliament who drafted his own speeches on an old Remington typewriter and a very interesting person who enjoyed practical jokes on his closest friends, was nevertheless controversial and very unlucky I thought, in politics.

Batticoloa was most wilfully misinterpreted as the East when local government elections were held in the Batticoloa district last week and Pillayan was turned into a novel democrat carrying arms. His boss Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Kolitha Gunawardne, alias Karuna Amman, languishing in a London prison and still the TMVP leader, would now miss being the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province unless Pillayan for some odd reason wants to deputise for him as CM. The province and the post obviously earmarked for the TMVP at PC elections. Given the green light to sit at APRC meetings too while living a para military life, TMVP is now a registered political party, an elected political party for local administration and a national representative sitting with parliamentary power blocs.

What if the JVP too were able to achieve such acceptance while carrying their “Gal-katas” and the hand grenade, asked a friend, an ex-71 insurgent. Then it would be Pillayan in the East, Weerawansa in the South, Prabhakaran in the Wanni and Mervyn in the West, he said. The most freaky democracy in the world it would be, with an elected President sitting above them with media freedom.

Excerpted from the web site www.serendibinc.com

Note – About media freedom and freedom of expression, continued threats and attacks on media personnel are personal issues outside the responsibility of the government, according to President Rajapaksa. Therefore the threats thrown at the Sirasa News First group that covered the Kelaniya fly over bridge event, again by Minister Dr. Mervyn just 03 days after the President met media Union representatives and the visit by CID officers to the Samanala Graphic Printers over a public poster printed officially by the UNP, just 04 days after the President assured those media representatives there would be no curbing of media freedom and freedom of expression, should be very personal issues.

Kusal Perera
21st March, 2008

SOUTH Needs Federalism for Democracy & Development

2008-02-12T22:19:00.000-08:00

With the President once again making it clear in the Indian media, he would not give into terrorism but would devolve power extensively within a “unitary” State, the issue of “federalism” was discarded by the President himself as one that is suspect and connotes separatism. Unfortunately, this political discourse is not in the government’s agenda and what’s in it is scheming and manoeuvring to hijack opposition politicians into government ranks.

This therefore needs to be said clearly and precisely. Every cross over negates the core essence of representative democracy in a proportional representative system where the voters have to first elect the party. With that said, it should now be stressed, although the President talks about devolution, cross-overs and jump-overs in the present parliament only denote a power struggle between two contending power blocs in the South, relevant to the South and affecting the South within centralised power. These political manoeuvrings may have their impact on Tamil politics in deciding how soon a “separate state” would finally evolve and only on that. The TNA is basically left out of all this political jugglery, perhaps wondering how they are still in the same parliament with these Southern politicians.

The attempts at crossing over and proposals for coalescing “nationally” do not in any way discuss, nor do they ever take into consideration the issue of “DEVELOPMENT” in a democratic South at least, if not in the whole country. All through almost six decades of centralised political power since independence, the issue of “development”, to put that in terms of Tamil politics, the right to decide the fate of our people had never been a serious issue in the South. This most important aspect of politics is being pushed into an unholy compromise as a war with those who kept asking for their right to develop their own area. This war is thus projected as a patriotic war. In all these years of centralised power with the war, “development rhetoric” delivered absolutely no results despite the colossal amounts pilfered and wasted.

Take a look at what has been left in the South with such centralisation of power in the hands of our patriotic politicians over the past decades. According to the Department of Census and Statistics that released the survey, Poverty In Sri Lanka - Issues And Options / Year 2006, [quote]“….with all the governmental interventions to reduce poverty, analysis of surveys conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) shows that substantial poverty and under nutrition among children still remains, though there is gradual reduction. With all the welfare programmes that have been implemented during the last few decades by the successive governments, Sri Lanka could have done better.” (page / 06) [unquote] There is more that needs to be added from the same source. [quote] “…..in certain Districts, outside the Western province, such as Hambantota, Badulla, Monaragala, Ratnapura and Kegalle the percentage of population below poverty has remained more than 30 percent during the 12 year period covered by the three surveys.” (page / 14) [unquote] Which means there has been no development during the last 12 years. Not that there had been any before.

The quality of education and the benefits derived by the population through education is very clearly written into this quote in the same survey by the DCS as follows. [quote] “In-depth analysis shows that in the poorest Divisional Secretary Divisions, around 75 percent of the Heads of Households are engaged in own account work, mainly in agriculture or related activities and around 90 percent of Heads of Households in these Divisions have not reached even G.C.E.(O/L) education.” (page / 27) [unquote] It also says inadequacy of water and more so drinking water is a major problem in the dry zone areas.

On the other hand, if one calculates the amount of money that is spent by these politicians annually, it is staggering. Take for instance the district of Hambantota where the people elect 07 MPs at every election. Each of them spends Rs.05 million every year from the Decentralised Budget, supposedly for development. Which means in Hambantota district every year, Rs. 35 million is disbursed for supposed development work. From year 2002, they have spent Rs.210 million. Let’s not forget that there are other allocations too for a district through State institutes and also through other special development projects funded by agencies like ADB, UNDP, JAICA, GTZ, USAID etc. How many billions would have been spent during these past 06 years alone in Hambantota district, not counting the Tsunami rehabilitation work ? How many billions more would have gone down the drains or to some unknown bank accounts, where 25 MPs in the 03 Southern districts spent Rs. 125 million every year over the past 06 years ?

One should not forget that this centralised system carried through foreign funded Integrated Rural Development Programmes (IRDP) from 1974 July onwards in 19 districts that left out the North and definitely swallowed up hundreds of billions of rupees. What rural development they achieved is more a tragedy than a joke. The worst is, this centralised system does not even have the capacity to utilise funds allocated and in all IRDP’s the funds utilised have not exceeded 31% from the committed total.

With all that and for all those reasons, there is substantial poverty and malnutrition among children. Poverty remains more than 37 percent. In the poorest Divisional Secretary Divisions, around 75 percent of the Heads of Households are engaged in own account work and around 90 percent of Heads of Households in these Divisions have not reached even G.C.E.(O/L) education. Water is scarce.

Is it not better therefore, for the South to leave this centralised governing system, a failure in every sense and ask for a federal system of governance within which the Southern polity could have a say over development planning and finances in their own poverty ridden areas ? A system that would make governance more participatory instead of this failed representative democracy ? Our representative democracy is a proven farce in this society. Once a political representative is elected, people loose the right to question his or her role there after and the very meaning of representation is lost. That is what the present parliament is all about. A parliament sans the sovereignty of the people.

The opportunity to have political power in close quarters with a participatory system was created for the South by the Tamil people when they campaigned for power sharing rejecting centralised power. If the South was willing to be part of that discussion to design a new system of governance in a single country where power could be provincially utilised for provincial development, Rs 125 million that is spent through the decentralised budget every year in the South would be enough money to raise many worthy development projects along with all other allocations that also go waste.

Unfortunately for the poverty ridden South, they opt to fight the very people who provide an opportunity for them to plan and design their own development. So, may the triple gem bless them patriots.

Kusal Perera

P.S

This is an edited version of an article of mine that was previously published in the Daily Mirror and was very recently published in the web site www.lankadissent.com in its column "Tin Drum"

Dear Friends…..

2008-01-16T04:42:00.000-08:00

Today, 16th of January, 2008, marks the end of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Thamil Eelam (LTTE) signed on 22nd of February, 2002. This day today stands highlighted with the savage attack on a commuter bus in Weli ara, Buttala that carried even school children. In that attack 26 are feared dead with many more critically injured from among 60 passengers. A little while later in the same area an army vehicle was targeted injuring 03 soldiers. Again in the same district, innocent chena farmers had been attacked with 04 hacked to death. So the schools in this Uva Province stand closed, indefinitely from today, till the authorities decide its safe to allow children to travel in buses.

What could be anticipated from now on ? The guess is any body’s. But Today, the day the CFA was officially abrogated, the massacres were unbearable.

If that is proof of a brutal war, what then is the life in the Jaffna peninsula ? That, most in the South don’t even want to know and they don’t know.

For those who would wish to know, here is a picture that came through an e-mail. I don’t know who this author is, but it is not anonymous, I believe. And what is in it, calls for sanity and humanity. I therefore thought this should go at least on my blog, for one day, it would be “partition literature” as in India.

So, those who wish, do read on.

Kusal Perera

16th January, 2008

Dear Friends,

I set out to Jaffna last week hoping to report on the situation there. I got back yesterday but am still unable to put down anything on paper as I don't know where to start.

Do I start with the little boy I met who saved his baby brother's life by scooping his intestines back into his torn belly and holding him till he was given medical attention? Or do I start with the little girl who saw a man on his knees begging for his life before having his brains blown out on the road in the middle of the morning? Or again should I start with the cousin of the Priest who was abducted, tortured and killed for daring to stand up to authority pleading for medical help for his parishioners? Or better still the wife and five children of the brave young man who shared the same plight as the priest?

Or maybe I should begin with the girl whose brother went missing earlier this year and who tried in vain to get a letter across to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights? Can I begin with the plight of people in the people held in the prisons? The hundreds cramped into a tiny space with no proper sanitation facilities sharing their living space with their 49 cell mates who have contracted chicken-pox? Or the little children who are in lock up with their mothers, unable to play in the sunshine? Or the young girl whose parents were abducted and who was assaulted by the abductors the night before she appeared for the Ordinary Level examination with a bruised and battered body?

Maybe I should start with my meeting of the young soldier of the Sri Lankan army who had bought two mangoes and was eagerly waiting for his shift to change so he could go back to camp and write a letter to his family to inform them he would not be able to visit them this new year? Or the plight of the other who was beaten and imprisoned for disobedience when he refused to accept that his leave was not approved? Or the sorrow of the women who send their men to war and who are unable to even give them a decent burial because their bodies have been burnt on the battlefield to downplay the casualties?

Or better still should I start with my own dismay when the Representative of the Government of Japan on Peace Building says that he cannot interfere in the internal affairs of my country? How am I able to tell women and children that they should report instances of abuse despite their traditional belief that outsiders cannot interfere in the affairs of the family when the very person who gives aid to my country tells me he cannot leverage on his standing as a donor to see that those who receive this aid do not abuse their authority?

Where do I start? How do I manage to fit in all these cases? Will I miss anyone out? Should I have taken proper notes? But how do I whip out my notepad and pen when they sit by me and cry while they relive their horror?I can't write. I can only hold their hands and cry with them.

Until the Guns are silent
(Inspired by the children I met in Jaffna. Follows after the poem Until it Snows)

I love the quiet. I love the pure, white finish
of funeral shrouds.
My world is troubled and noisy.
My world is dusty, dirty and very dull
since the guns began to fire.
It leaves me longing for the silence of death.
Until it the guns are silent.

I long for the peace that death brings.
The thought of it helps me think about peaceful things.
Like the way we used to laugh and play.
My world is not peaceful.
Until it the guns are silent.

I loath the memories the guns bring to mind.
I cannot see the joy of Christmas
in the things falling from the sky.
I cannot hear the songs
for my crying drowns it out.
I cannot see the beauty
in the piling up of dead.
My world needs joy and laughter.
It lacks so much.
Until it the guns are silent.

I see the contrast blood brings.
We are bathed in it,
bombarded from all sides
with flashing, brilliant, sparkling lights.
Black, white, brown, grey and blood red limit us.
My world is overwhelming.
Until it the guns are silent.

I love the "slow" that death brings.
My life is harried, rushed and moving too fast
through check points and queues
outside the grocery store,behind the barbed wire and the bars.
Until it the guns are silent.

I take nothing for granted.
I have no hope of losing myself
in having too many choices.
I only want another day of life in peace.
I only want not to be afraid.
I only want to be able to smile.
I want to know my father and mother.
But I can't
Until it the guns are silent.

Please help silence the guns so that these children can look forward to a normal life.
Sincerely,
Angelica Chandrasekeran

SHOULD I COPY THE OLD NEW YEAR WISH FOR YOU ?

2007-12-31T07:56:00.000-08:00

It's only a few hours more to reach new year - 2008, here in Sri Lanka. This is year too, we wish each other a peaceful, happy, prosperous, joyous and everything nice 'New Year'. On that, we are very generous.

Though there were less greeting cards this year, I've already recieved quite a lot of e-mail greetings, e-cards and text messages on the mobile, with lovely, warm greetings. Thank you all for all that.

This year there is this new breed, singular monks who run bungalows converted to ashrams conducting special poojas with speakers blaring pirith, disturbing the peace in neighbourhoods they have encroached into. This year we have more Buddhists going to temple, just like Christians who go to church on 31st night. Buddhists in the past when we were kids, never copied this spiritual obligation that was Christian.

Yet we all know, this country would be at war. We would be counting the dead, the injured and the displaced, almost every day from tomorrow. We would live with the fear of our beloved being caught in some cross fire, being arrested, detained, abducted or threatened by some unidentified group.

We are going to enter a new year that would have prices of all consummer goods sky rocketing. Some have already had price hikes and would keep going up too. Its a very bleak future for all, with all wishes just getting blown out with all the fire crackers and sky rockets that would burn year 2007 into year 2008.

What meaning would all these New Year wishes and greetings have there after, for Sri Lanka ? I see no meaing in them, other than tradition or habit.

Can I therefore just wind off without any sweet wish for year 2008 ?

Kusal Perera
31st December, 2007

WE WERE KIDS THEN & WISHED A HAPPY CHRISTMAS

2007-12-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

The roads were almost empty. Even the skies were that. The Christmas skies in the nights when we were kids, used to burst bright and with colourful sparkle lighting up our world with childish ecstasy. Fun and laughter was all over. Front verandas of houses down the lane that had lots of colour added on with crapes and balloons, we knew had decorated Christmas trees and many types of sweets and cakes for us. We could simply walk through the front door, have some sweets, eat a big piece of “breudher”, drink a glass of home made ginger beer and walk through the back door if we wished, to play “hora police” or marbles. Never mind whose house it was. Who cares ? They didn’t and nor did we.

We were kids accepted and loved in the neighbourhood. We were there to be petted and spoiled. It was mums and dads who had to roll us into refined and cultured youth when we grow. Till then, we were given Christmas presents by every house we walked into. A little parcel we would huddle to our chests and make a brisk walk home, after wishing “Happy Christmas”. They often had a little tin made car or bus that would wobble its way when pushed along on a cemented floor, a packet of coloured clay with which we made thin long snakes, goofy ducks and piggies on little pegs. And invariably, a few rubber balloons we usually blew with all our might and till they burst.

We were kids who enjoyed Christmas every year without fail though our parents weren’t Christians or Catholics. When we became grown up kids we enjoyed going for the mid night Mass though on Sundays we had to go for our “Daham Pāsala” at the temple across Galle road and beyond the Dehiwala – Mt Lavinia Urban Council then. The night we waited for Christmas to come, we often stayed on the sprawling steps outside watching the road and counting cars that drove into the church yard. Most walked to the church exhibiting their new gowns and suits. We loved the new dresses and the spirituality that wafted around, though we knew not what to do during the Mass.

We were kids who stayed late to see the young girls and boys march down the lane singing carols, strumming guitars, shaking maracas and an elderly uncle playing a piano accordion. There was at times a Burgher boy who blew a mouth-organ with a puffed cheek. We felt proud to call one or two of them in the group with their first names. And, grew up with no one asking what are names are or who we are. We were all kids in the same neighbourhood who grew up with equal acceptance, what ever our names were. Who ever our parents were and what ever their faiths were, or, what ever language they spoke at home.

We just mingled with Christmas, counted the greeting cards the khaki clad postal peon brought on a bicycle with a bulging bag hung on the handle of his bicycle. We at times helped the peon to deliver the greeting cards taking them with pride to the aunty who stood at the door way to take them from us.

It was Christmas for all and to wish all a “Happy and Joyous” season. Christmas that brought many little things with happy days too. Christmas that was every one’s Christmas and left an impregnable memory with nostalgic feelings.

Not any more. Nor are we kids any more. Nor is Christmas the same any more. I read that difference in the message of Archbishop of Colombo, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Oswald Gomis, that said, “Once again we celebrate Christmas at the time when the dark clouds of war are enveloping our country.”

The roads were obviously empty. So were the skies. This Christmas, I avoided wishing a “Happy Christmas”.

Kusal Perera

26th December, 2007

Note - Photo of road with soldier, courtsey www.sangam.org