Self Censorship

Here i come into the next phase

Propelled by hope and an expectant look

on my face

Here i come running a different race

one in which only winners run

oh what fun

Here i am self censored

here i am mentored

by fearful people

Yet i am grateful

and my sacrifice is powerful

but not as powerful as their love

For their sake, i must fold?

Watchmen

We went to watch a movie yesterday. At least i thought it was a movie. If i wasn't constricted to the norms of reality i would call it something between a lullaby and a sleeping pill. Except for the occasional violent bits consisting of child molestation, falling off of buildings, vetically excecuted cleaving-knife chops to skulls, rape and Jerry trying to descreetly grope people it was pretty uneventful.

There was a huge blue chap. body like Adonis. Thoroughly naked but with a blurry bit where his pelvis should have been. I mean, if you're gonna get electricuted or get caught in the middle of a fusion reactor and get superpowers and all that junk, the least that could be asked for is to have all your organs intact, to take advantage of the perks of the job, so to speak.

But he didnt seem to be totally deprived. There was this latex clad bombshell whom he used to satisfy while also looking at the advanced schematics of a nutron bomb diffuser at the same time, a fact which she didnt seem to appreciate, not that i think it felt any different; she just resented the fact that he could actually think of saving the world from nuclear holocaust when he was 'supposed' to focus his complete attention on her (This type of behavior comes standard with the package when it comes to women, even in movies).

Disaster was averted when she dumped him for a geek with a Batman fetish, who flies around in a crazy contraption that looks like a bulemic bee. He ends up crying like a baby in the end, when his boyfriend dies.

There were snaps of political rhetoric that were obviously meant to be some sort of subtle and darkly witty neo-Marxist critique of the existing social order. There was, to end with, a noble 'message' where the bad guy walks free and the good guy (the blue guy) takes the fall and goes back to Mars to build merrygorounds so that people can live in peace and achieve the much dreamed of status of a 'global hippie community'* for the rest of survival.

*Meaning they would start smoking marijuana and living in the open and permanently give up on baths because they are a call back to 'civilization' which is symbolized by 'industrialization' which harks back to 'competition' which reminds them of 'competing for resources' which obviously means war and if there is one thing a hippie hates it is war.

So they shunned technology and took to idyllic foresty villages and gave up on space exploration (because 'technology' is 'civilization' and so on and so forth) and they all died a few millennia later when the sun went nova. And the Blue guy banged his head repeatedly against Sirius because it was all his fault they turned into hippies and missed out on the chance of colonizing the Milky Way and saving themselves.

That last bit will probably show up on the sequel. Oh wait, crappy movies don't get sequels; that last bit will probably be buried in some unread script in the dusty corridoors of Universal Studios 'til some 'creative type' picks it up fifty years down the line and my grandson later writes a post about it on his blog which would be similar to this one if he had any taste to speak of in entertainment.

Defense report

May as well try an excercise to pull off a bit of a mental thread of meaning from my teeming head
As people die we wax lyrical on blogs but do we even try to stop the killing?
People are DYING and all we do is wax lyrical
lyrics so spherical you cant find an edge to grasp a bit of meaning

why write about things when you writing about it is not going to stop it
why not just ignore the deranged war of blood and flesh flying around faster than shrapnel
for writing about it devoids you of reason and accuses you of treason
woe be tide anyone who is against it

the dead are piling and no one who is on either side can stop it
we are in a place where people dying is a natural phenomenon of the ending of a conflict
they are bombed and they are ripped to shreds as propaganda attempts to weakly restore order
we over here are so eager for peace we don't really give a shit, if there is some 'mild' blood loss and disorder

The UN screams but they dont really seem to want to step in, lest they bury the sovereignity of this island
the EELAMIST bastards they just want a ceasefire to regroup, rethink and restore their battling order
the GOVERNMENT of tricksters, they are money twisters and yes im a critic
the morality we lived by is dead and in this carnage we are losing our soul to the devil, the devil, the devil.

the devil.

Nobody cares about the dead
not us not them not the UN, not really.
they are shelled and lost and struck a terrible revenge
for being at the wrong where, during the wrong when

Nobody really cares about stopping the dying
we are all utopians looking for a future of peace and loving
lets cast a grimace upon our healthy face
so that we can eventually have a hope of peace

Lets all go blogging and lets all write about politicking
the paining the gaining of winning
lets all take the topic and lets grind it and and wind it
now i dont mean to be a cynic but in this blood covered landscape, can we find it?

can we find it in a widow's dream?
can we find it in a mothers scream?
can we find it in the eyes of an orphan boy?
can we find it in the mournful songs of the days gone by?

where can we find it?
how can we find it?
what is peace?
where is it?

*yeah a little angst there.. call it a part of that license you're supposed to have when you write, and no offence to anyone writing about the war btw, writing about it is important, you should keep it up. This is mainly about the desperation of the IDPs. When it comes down to it, the situation right now is such that most parties/interest groups involved want it all to somehow finish. The plight of the dying seems to be a secondary concern. These are my sentiments, and i admit to feeling the same myself, which is sort of despicable isnt it?

Put away those tranquilizers

What? is that a little too garish? i think so. Just hope it doesnt take away any sleep for your sake. Anyways iv been thinking how mad the world has been getting lately, iv always known that March was a month that heralded madness. The Cheshire cat led me a to a tea party when i was dating this chick Alice and that mad goat chap sorta told me about it, right before he stole my girlfriend and i woke up. Hell i was only five and i didnt even know what a girlfriend was, but in all truthfullness i did. i was one of those star struck kids, i remember asking a girl to marry me when i was four, of course she died a few years ago. i see no connection between these two totally unrelated incidents.

So yeah March, insane month isnt it? Nibras Bawa and Passionately Patient both entered the blogosphere in March, and together with a lot of input from the usually dormant and 'proper' individuals in the sphere, created mayhem and carnage and had to be forcibly taken down and put out for their own good and the collective good of the world as decided by the powers that be, and alomost every one else.

The war raged on and progressed further than ever before, killing a lot of people and blind fighting on both sides accompanied by protests from all corners brings us to the end of April slightly out of breath and finally easing up on the bombarding. That five kilometre piece of land probably looks like a tsunami hit it just about when it was getting over a 10.5 richter earthquake or something.

"if you keep your head while everyone else is losing theirs..." or something like that. Something to the affect that you shouldnt 'lose your head in troubled times' sort of like when you're a number 4 batsman watching the middle order crumble and seeing Murali walking in with about 70 or so more runs to get in as many balls. Actually by that time you'd probably have completely given up, unless of course you were Murali himself, whose belief that his closing eyes and blindly swinging 'improvised' cricketing shot actually will get him more than a couple of fluke sixes never ceases to amaze people on the occasions where it actually works.

Its nice to see the calibre of politicians havent changed. We seem to revel in the steriotypical fat , greasy mass appealing buggers with eloquent vocabulary with nothing substantial to show for it over and over again. Fucking cunts.

Theres swine flu going on people so watch out, as Dili, who tweeted someone else's tweet said, it cant be as bad as bird flu because 'pigs cant fly'. Lol right man, at the rate things are going prety soon pigs will fly. Nothing is known of this 'semi pandemic' except it seems to target 'young adults' more than anyone else. A vaccine is due in only about six months according to the docs at WHO so stay away from Mehico hombre.. of you know what is good for you.

We seem to think SL is safe from global shocks, which explains the downright ignorance people show for global news, Most of the arrack parties and blog discussions focus on local aspects. Is that only cos there is so much more going on here and people dont really have the time to look outside or is it cos the universe is always a flexible thing and will always contract to contain only the particular area of space that you want it to. Which will explain the amount of people walking around with dazed expressions looking at the stars circling their heads a foot away.

Ok im out. Nice insanity people. Lets see what May brings.

*ok that header's off. a little too much insanity there..

Putting the 'Dirty' In Politics

Casting the vote in Trincomalee courtesy getty images

David Cameron promises to

• Shame overpaid civil servants, with a "people's right to know" scheme
• publish all items of public spending over £25,000 on a website
• publish all public sector salaries over £150,000

If he were to get elected. Just got me thinking what narrow bases most Western democracies have the luxury of basing their political decisions on. Everything seems so organized. At least in comparison with us, where its just who has the more clout and who is bloodthristy enough and unscrupulous enough to get to the top that wins. Corruption is a common denominator so the people disregard it completely when comparing candidates.

Whatever may be said about Western conspiracies and underhanded government and well-organized 'crime' dsguised in socially presentable front operations (like banking policy, begger thy neighbor trade policies, international interventionism etc.) their daily operational politics are decidedly less bloody than ours.

A lot of people getting seats in the provincial councils this time around are known criminals. Rape, murder, drugs, coercion, robbery it's all in a days work for them. As a matter of fact, it is almost hard for you to get anywhere close to politically successful in Colombo if you do not have substantial amounts of gangsta clout. Same goes for any other parts of the country.

So why do we sit and take this shit? Every single time over and over again, we see the same types of openly corrupt people enter into what should be one of the most sacred institutions of our nation, the government. Safe to say we are a nation governed by crooks then and yes you can stop laughing now, i am aware of the absurdity of calling something as sacriligious as the SL government 'sacred'.

People's attitudes play a big role. There is a general consensus that corruption 'cannot be stopped' and therefore the people don't mind leaders who are corrupt as long as they contribute 'at least as much as they steal' to the economy's development. I find this lax attitude to dishonesty rather distubing actually. By accepting corruption as 'normal' we are deeming it acceptable.

This should tell us a thing or two about the people's morals. Maybe we are more or less a whole nation of crooks then, always looking for a sly way to make a buck. Maybe we can't really blame fate for the type of leaders we get.

Guminda

Arr Guminda woke up amongst his favourite cuddly pillows. There was Smokey and Pokey and Cherry. He sighed and burrowed himself deeper in-between the covers. This was life.

The provincial council votes would be coming in by now, Chief Minister here i come!

He stretched himself luxuriously

'SOMEY!? where was that butt less moron of a butler?

'Somey!!' dammit, this is what happens when you hire people from your mother's village, damn political obligations, Guminda thought. The twerp doesn't even speak proper English! Doesn't even know what the word 'butler' means even! he felt weighted down by the unfairness of it all.

He looked around his penthouse flat; the place seemed lonely these days. He found his thoughts being dragged to earlier times, happier times.

He missed her, when the nights were lonely. He missed her high pitched voice which always reminded him of his favourite movie, Bride of Chucky. He missed her baby eyes, which could always convince him that she was younger than she appeared, much younger, the way he liked it. But most of all he missed her boobs, those soft cuddly boxing fit boobs, those perky ripe apples of Shakespearean praiseworthiness except that he didn’t know any Shakespeare, he didn't read much really. It wasn’t really required in his particular line of work.

He found himself imagining her lying on the bed right next to him; he found himself imagining what he'd do to her. Oh how he'd crush those boobs between his massive hands. He loved the way they would come out in red welts after they had sex from where his numerous rings would cut into her flesh. He loved the way she squealed when he'd enter her and pound her missionary style letting her breasts bounce around like two demolition balls crashing around against each other in utter chaos. Sometimes, when they were really going at it and his hips were moving back and forth at a quarter of the speed of light, they would move so fast that all he'd see was a blur of motion.

He sighed. It was the boobs really, he'd thought he'd loved the girl, but he'd only really ever loved the boobs. At least, the only emotional attachment he could connect to her centred heavily on her chest area.

He sighed again and tut tutted. Fuck that, chicks with good boobs are a dime a dozen. Of course, now that he was Chief Minister, he could have all the pussy he wanted. He tried to cheer himself up, tried to shrug his shoulders and force that famous Guminda grin that made old ladies swoon in motherly euphoria and kids cry in anticipation of being eaten alive. But he still felt bugged.

Was it possible to fall in love with a pair of boobs? He wondered. He made a mental note to ask Somey about it.

Right, now for the affairs of the state. He thought about his campaign. He was rather proud of it actually. He kind of enjoyed campaigning, he was a born poser and no matter what they say about actual practicing politics, there was nothing like an exciting campaign to really make a guy feel like he's doing something important you know? He'd felt on top of the world these past few weeks. He'd just loved the attention.

Was there anyone who could even come close to his magnafacious brilliance! Ow! He was the only real man in the whole electorate. What was a leader if he didn’t have a body the people could be proud of? What was a leader if he looked as if he could not even defend himself in a fistfight? Arr G was all male, he was the man for the job. He was the silver stammering nimrod, he was batahira sulange yotha balakaaya, he was the bee’s knees and the cat’s meow he was in short the greatest political icon to ever enter the political arena in the world! Yes that’s right! Soon the world would see that a Sri Lankan president could be just as iconic as an American one, he would even show Obama a thing or two about style, he would...

Oops. He’d just thought 'president' hadn't he? Must watch himself. The incumbent doesn't like ambition. And that goddamn brother of his looks like he practices black magic anyway, what if he read his mind or something? No, it was too early. He must keep his ambitions to himself for now. He must wait.

He sniggered maniacally. There was a side to Guminda that the press did not quite see. And he meant to keep it that way.

Arr G sighed, again. Oh well, a city awaited his benevolence. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd sweep the polls clean. He knew he was the dopest most illest gangsta pollsta to ever hit this sunny island and that limping simple wackass ex cricket bat cleaner didnt stand a chance against his awesomeness. He'd even had a song written about himself hadn’t he? He’d been so innovative and just simply marketed himself beyond the competition. The competition wasn't even in his league. In fact there was no competition. There was only him.

He hadn't even bothered to switch on the television. To him, victory was a foregone conclusion.

Ah! now for some tea.

Somey?

Grrr.. thats it, that cross eyed bugger was going back to his village

SOMEY? hukannathuwa mata thei ekak geneng!! (quit fuckin'around and bring me some tea) he yelled.

Sometimes you just gotta make mofockers understand you dig?

Please, Do not vote this 25th.

Do not vote this 25th.

If you absolutely have to, vote for an opposition party.

Why?

Well it’s because of a few simple reasons. The government is powerful enough as it is, some may say even too powerful. They have already swept away any credible opposition and clamped down on freedom of expression. This administration has not been overally better in terms of morality or fairness than any other administration that we have had in this country since the times of JR.

The government "is itching to declare success ahead of an important regional election on April 25th" - The Economist, and we know it is true. Concrete victory in the war before the elections would doubtless ensure them a landslide victory. And this is where we have to remember what happened the last time a government in Sri Lanka won an election like that;

JRs administration had so much power that they simply swept aside any opposition and the much derided 'Executive Presidency' was initiated. This measure has had a lot of opposition over time but could not be brought down because of the fact that it was written in the constitution by a government that the public voted in with an overwhelming majority. And every single president who came into power after him has always gained office through promises to abolish this scourge on the political system but have always avoided doing so, why? Simply because it favours those in power. It allows them to virtually do whatever they wish. Imagine a man unaccountable to the law itself? And is deemed so by nothing less that the law itself? if a person with no political awareness whatsoever heard about this he would say this man would turn out to be the biggest criminal in the whole nation. And reality has shown us that it is far from untrue. Crime becomes effectively written into law, for crimes conducted by one who cannot be held accountable for them are essentially allowed. This was nothing less than a desecration of justice.

JR also abolished the prevalent system of voting. that of smaller 'seat' based voting where citizens voted in candidates who they genuinely felt would serve them in some way and did not vote in candidates who they felt did not do anything worthwhile during their time period in office. Candidates catering to a smaller demographic were thus forced to include some measure of integrity into their activities and were to an extent answerable to the public of their individual seats if they were not.

This system was expanded and people were made to vote for candidates on a district level and on a provincial level. Creating disconnect between the candidates and contestants and leaving their voting decision susceptible to campaigning and promotions rather than their actual personal knowledge of the person being elected. This also pushed out smaller, less financially able candidates due to the vast resources required for a district wide campaign effectively ensuring that only the existing members of parliament through their amassed wealth, and rich individuals with political connections could enter into the fray with a hope of winning. It created barriers for smaller more idealistically motivated candidates to enter the political arena. So not only did they make it impossible for people to vote in individuals who they thought could do some genuine work, as in people they knew more closely, they also effectively made it impossible for such people to contest in the first place, ensuring a cycle of similar minded individuals continuously maintaining control of the political power of the country.

The impacts of JRs administration were vast and many, and not long after he came into power, the country was plunged into chaos and a quarter century of devastating violence befell us.

Now, i understand that people will be grateful to Mahida's government if he wins the war, regardless of the humanitarian atrocities that it enacted during its course. But the same gratefulness and overwhelming support that was extended to JR, if it is extended to Mahinda as well, would end up being abused and used for more consolidation of undemocratic power, more restrictions of the freedoms that we still enjoy.

If you are a blind eyed freak who thinks that the current government is the best thing since heaven, i would not be able to reason with you, because you are disillusioned, and hypnotized. But if you are a rational individual capable of looking at events objectively please, i beg of you think of the balance of power. Don’t let your emotions get the better of you. Make sure that even if you want the government to have a majority, do not let them have too much of a majority because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts more than anything else.

IF you want them to take power let them, current public sentiment may well achieve that. But take no part of it yourself, or you will be blamed for God knows what comes our way afterwards. Voting is power, you are effectively handing it over, thinking of your own preference is not enough, and you need to understand the macro picture. So if you want to vote, vote, but vote for the opposition at least. And ensure that those who are in power do not get too drunk with it.

Racism, Social Divides and Broken English

Am i idling? Now that is a strange question, for what is idling? is it doing nothing? but if it is doing nothing then you're technically still doing something, so you not doing nothing. So I’m not idling. That’s good, cos if i was idling i'd have to start feeling a little guilty.

The question of racism in Sri Lanka is an interesting one. There are the utopians who believe that racial prejudice is dead, i was one of them not so long ago and there are those who firmly belive that nothing has changed since the 80s.

Mahinda Rajapakse was a supporter of the nationalist uprising of the 80s, he is also a Southerner and relied heavily during the past years on the hardcore southern vote (a term from which you will deduce what you will). The voting scandal where the Tamils in the North and East were prevented from voting didn’t help his 'equality credentials' much either. But any underground agreement with the LTTE would have obviously backfired on the latter considering the current onslaught they are at the receiving end of, unless its all a cover up.

I am not calling Mahinda a racist, but i have doubts as to the integrity of the current philosophy of nationalism that is spread around, chiefly because of its slightly condescending and patronizing tone towards the minorities. And the strong Sinhalese tradition strain apparent in government war propaganda.

Question is, what are we doing really, to prevent the series of events that culminated in the war from happening again? Are we as a nation really looking at the social, legal, economical, political and other macro and micro environmental factors that contributed to the ethnic conflict that blasted into a full scale war in the mid eighties? Is there a think tank for this? a think tank that is taken seriously by the government and the people in power?

Is racism a symptom of inequality where the deprived masses turn upon the minority community closest to them in hate to channel the anger at being deprived of basic needs and opportunities (as pseudorandom said)? In which case political manipulation should be blamed for turning the people against each other. That wouldn’t be too surprising since the political class of SL has always been consistent of elitist wealth accumulators. That would also explain the total lack of effort at taking the racism issue seriously and the molly-coddling of the people's emotions.

Also, English, one word which speaks volumes. English is encouraged on the surface but nothing has ever been done to promote it in a big way, like promoting English as the language for all educational purposes etc. English knowledge will help bring the masses onto a global platform and get them out of the narrowed frame of mind they seem to be in. It will help them interact with a globalized world more easily and in short they will be more knowledgeable, savvy and aware for it. A common tongue will unite people from different backgrounds a little bit more due to the breakdown of the lingo barrier. It will also improve our competitiveness economically in a global scale. So why is this not happening?

One explanation is that we are a backward population and like to cling to traditions for as long as possible. A squirrel living in a tree for as long as it can, even after its been cut down and the wood is rotting. Another explanation is control. A knowledgeable and empowered people will mean a savvier voter base, which means that a few things will change in the political arena of the future. So maybe the power structure itself is resisting change?

Branding came up as a possible solution. But how much can branding and marketing alone do to promote change in beliefs (i.e. racial differences and prejudices) without some tangible change happening? Actions speak louder than words and branding and media promotions are mere words without action to evidence their validity.

So what do we do? I’m pretty much convinced that if we do nothing and this war does finish, another 'ethnic conflict' will not be too far away, mainly because the root causes have not been addressed and there is still seething anger amongst the people. So while doing nothing may still be doing something, it doesn’t help anyone, and ultimately all of us, who have a responsibility to ensure we do what we can, will be guilty.

Fear of fear itself

As bloggers in Sri Lanka, do we really have the right (or the honor) to be scared of repression yet? Are we such a troublesome blip on the political radar that we warrant white van teams deployed on our doorsteps and the trouble of equipment of torture sharpened in our faces to make us piss in our pants?

The blogosphere is not without its spats and even death threats. I've seen enough hate comments on various political posts around the place to deduce that much. But how much of these comments are really backed up with the capability and willpower to be followed through with hardcore action, and how many of them are just empty mouth-offs by people who disagree strongly enough or are suitably offended to leave abusive comments behind?

It looks like Dinidu has gone and deleted his blog again. That's a pity 'cos there was a post on it that i wanted to link to, with a very interesting comment by David Blacker.

No matter. The gist of it was that Dinidu had written a post on a disturbing incident that had occurred that he postulated was a result of his journalistic mischeivousness, and a very moving poem elaborating his defiance in the face of such threats accompanied it.

David Blacker followed up with a dose of cynical reality (?) and stated in no uncertain terms that SL bloggers should not really flatter themselves with the notion that they are really that important and should realize that they are too insignificant for the powers that be to bother with them.

Also, Indi tells me that Open Mic is getting affected by the same vibe as well because certain individuals have announced fears of repercussions due to the potentially politically volatile, against-the-status-quo nature of the material being read out.

But all this talk and no evidence of actual harm done to any blogger gets me thinking. It first gets me thinking of the nature of the society we live in, about law and order and the fear that people have of exercising their fundamental rights.

We live in a city and a country where the fear of being a victim of thuggery (political or otherwise) takes precedence over the feeling of assurance of back up from the law. In other words people are basically saying; the law? Screw the effing law, the law won't help me here..

But all this fear could just be founded on empty air.

This article i found links to this MSN survey on the Asian blogosphere in general and one striking fact to me was that politicians across the region fared poorly with only 14% shown to be actually reading blogs. This is with countries like China, Korea, India and Burma in the loop mind you so that is a telling statistic.

Assuming it was the same in SL and only 14% of politicians read blogs and presumably 100% read newspapers, the proportion of violence against newspaper journalists that could be directed towards bloggers would be marginally insignificant.

That is however, merely a play on numbers i admit and speaks nothing of the volatility of the country in question or the conniving brutality of its political class. But here's another interesting statistic;

Research has shown that most blogger arrests have occurred 'In countries where the media is restrained from reporting adversarial news' and where 'blogs continued to be the only source of information'.

In other words, what research has shown is that serious repression against bloggers has only occurred when they are bringing something into the media that is heavily blocked from the public by the respective government in question. It's usually only when they are bringing something new into the sphere of public knowledge in terms of cold hard facts that they are taken seriously enough to warrant action against them.

Like Woeser for instance, 'Tibet's most famous writer and blogger' who was put behind bars for the crime of taking pictures of Chinese military installations. This may seem like a trivial thing maybe. But how many of us actually go to the extent of performing some real investigative journalism and going through dangerous shit to get some pics or information to put up on our blogs?

Not many of us. Most of us (including me) merely harp about what we see and hear in the news, receive in e-mails etc . As a community of bloggers we are mainly reactive, and not very proactive.

The big fish are the guys who actually go out there and get the kind of information that gets people worried. And they are the ones that we usually talk about. So it makes sense to repress them first and cut off the sources of information we usually use to blog. Any old fool can voice dissent in terms of opinion, but it takes a real crazy sonofabitch to actually go out looking for the facts in order to bring them to light.

And i may not be all that political in my blogs (you can hardly call posts about tea ladies and peeping toms political) but i'v got eyes and ears. So what do you think? is there any real danger? or are we just flattering ourselves a wee little bit more than we should be?

Where have all the terrorists gone?

Ok now here’s a question for all you people out there who think Prabahakaran’s a terrorist. Does he not wank at night before goes to sleep? If you prick him does he not bleed? If you stole his lunch and beat him up, would he not cry? Is he but a man like you and me? Or is he really a woman inside like Boy George or Mervin Silva? Or is he, like many believe him to be, the illegitimate, discarded son of the devil himself? Illegitimate because the devil in a drunken stupor landed in Jaffna thinking it was LA and did it with a bush lizard of some type thinking it was Celine Dion or Donald Trump? And even though you might say all the devil’s children, like George Bush, are illegitimate since after all the devil leads by example, discarded because a bush lizard is still a bush lizard and even the devil has his standards?

Yes, yes it is very brave of me to sit safe in my room in an undisclosed location in the greater Colombo area and smugly type away vicious insults to the grand old boy of Sri Lankan terrorism I know. But that’s okay, I am not asking for any medals, just doing my civic duty as a roadblock loving Sri Lankan citizen who would think nothing of sacrificing about 15 minutes of the first part of his crucial CIM exams so that some power loving money hungry white shirt wearing deranged komodo dragon of a politician can wait for his wife to leave (through a different route, eliciting the services of other patriots and honourable citizens such as I) so that he can get his servant to suck him off in the kitchen and still get his nice round ass to parliament for the next power hungry bastard with something to gain to kiss in 15 minutes flat. Oh yes, I am all for efficient governance.

While retracting my rather tasteless comments about the devil and his dirty deeds above, for after all a lady is still a lady even though she may have been unfortunate enough to have a son like Prabhakaran, I am forced to ask, who is the real terrorist here?

One, gets people to die for him without even meeting them in the name of an ancient cause that frankly no one even knows anything about anymore. The other, revels in the war effort and uses it to consolidate his power by scaring the people making them bend over double and give him all their money. Probably half of which he uses to buy weapons netting a handy commission out of the whole deal. Some might call it a lost cause. But no one really knows anymore.

It’s like when Mr Perera snapped at Mrs Soyza’s dog and Mrs Soyza called Mrs Perera a drunken whorebag because Mr. Soyza who drinks every night, can’t resist looking over the wall to get a peek at Mrs. Perera’s extra large green cotton panties hanging on the washing line. And so begins a long drawn out battle between the Pererá’s and Soyza’s and including, among it’s many casualties, a cut down thambili tree for daring to drop its produce on the wrong side of the parapet wall, a surprised bas unnahey who chose the wrong side of the border to keep his foot on during some construction, a harangued local police officer sick and tired of dealing with petty complaints and who ultimately suffered a stroke, and even more harassed looking neighbours unable to sleep due to noisy arguments from both sides all through the night, and who went out and didn’t contribute positively to the workforce and spread the insomnia throughout their acquaintances and throughout over ever widening circles causing car accidents, bus accidents, moral degeneracy and a serious economic down turn preceded by a financial crisis in the US where the Perera’s stressed and vacation deprived son was working at Bear Sterns as an investment banker looking for a new high return, risk insurable investment opportunity.

Ultimately, the Soyza’s dog died from a heart attack and Mrs. Perera stopped wearing extra large green cotton panties due to having lost so much weight by fighting all day and through having developed an allergy to cotton that brought her out in itches and boils that her doctor said was due to stress and from not being able to stand the colour green anymore because it gave her traumatic nightmares about how it all started. And Mr. Soyza stopped drinking after a bout of extreme depression when Mrs Perera stopped wearing extra large green cotton panties and stayed sober in order to better focus on the fight at hand and trounce the opponent even though he hadn’t the faintest what it was all about, having been drinking at the time it all started. And Mrs Soyza wouldn’t stop fighting till Mr Perera stopped and Mr. Perera didn’t see why he should stop until Mrs. Soyza backed off and apologized despite the pleadings of the harangued police officer and his insistence that there was nothing left to fight over anymore.

And so they bred the same hate and ignorance within all their children who in turn proudly presented it to their children as a part of the great heritage of their respective families and the Perera’s and the Soyza’s continue to fight to this day and no one really remembers or cares that it all started over a long dead dog and a pair of extra large green cotton panties.

So who’s the real terrorist here I ask you again. If you were to ask me, I would say neither. There are no terrorists here at all, only angry people with weapons (and a possibly inherited fetish for alcohol and extra large green cotton panties), who have forgotten why they got angry in the first place.

And as for terrorism itself, well we are all unknowingly embroiled in it. It is an aura surrounding us that we can't shake off.



Disclaimer -The selection of these two esteemed Sri Lankan last names was purely random, and may have been triggered by the memory of two families in my former neighborhood that were constantly at loggerheads with each other. No offense meant to any individual bearing the names of Soyza or Perera, nor to anyone fond of green cotton undergarments of any size, and i sincerely hope no offense was taken!

Religion Bashing

Calling religion ‘bullshit’ because of the actions of those who practice it is somewhat akin to denouncing democracy after taking one look at, for e.g. the Sri Lankan parliament. How many wars have been fought in the name of religion? Quite a few, yes. How many have been fought in the name of country and empire? Lots more. So why don’t we just abolish the existing world governance system and just stop believing it will work? Why don’t we let the world slip into anarchy and see where we end up?

We can’t do that. We won’t do that because in essence, we know, democracy is a good thing. Its fundamental concept, its basic idea, makes sense; The majority gets together and decides who should take care of the tedious job of ruling the land. That’s what it’s supposed to be. But factor in self centered power hungry individuals, vast legal infrastructure that is easily manipulated, unconcerned masses, and years and years of ‘doing the same thing’ and you get the melting pot of world politics that we still believe we can ‘fix’ without calling ‘democracy’ itself ‘stupid’.

We are living in a world where it’s cool to diss religion but for e.g. it is not cool to diss one’s right to an abortion. It is also not cool to diss the government, not very loudly at least, lest you get ‘white-vanned’, but it’s cool to turn a blind eye on hundreds upon hundreds of civilians being killed in the name of ‘fighting terror’. After all it’s the Americans and most of the Western world that are doing it, and they are not fighting in the name of religion are they? They are apparently, fighting in the name of democracy and sovereignty. Look at Vietnam, Iraq, Palestine/ Israel, Panama, Georgia etc. etc. etc the list is endless.

So does that mean we can call ‘democracy’ ‘stupid’? No I believe, and I believe that you believe it’s only certain practitioners of it that make it so and it would be extremely shallow and simply wrong to group everyone who advocates democracy (which includes us voters) and call them stupid too.

‘I’ve always said that God has been the leading cause of human death’ says fellow blogger Dinidu de Alwis. He, to put it simply, is plain wrong or has simply not thought out his statement properly. The leading cause of human death would obviously be natural causes. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, old age, disease etc. through the ages of human history. Blame it on lack of technology or knowledge, but to blame it on God would mean accepting He exists, and for a self declared atheist that would be unthinkable.

But in case he was talking simply about conflict. And God being the cause of human death as a result if fuelling religious extremism, then I’d like to have a look at his statistics sheet. For like I said, enough wars have been fought in the name of empire building alone to dwarf any other type of conflict in the history of the human race. World War II/I, The Roman Empire building spree (before Constantinople), Colonialization/ Invasion and I can go on. Sure, religion would have been used as an excuse in certain cases, but to brand these cases under the label of ‘religious warfare’ would be quite erroneous.

The collective human psyche is a complex thing. Wars and conflicts start when people get carried away with generalizations and when reason gives way to fear and anger. War (and as a consequence; death) happens, in most cases, when people stop thinking straight and start becoming, for the lack of a more diplomatic term, ‘Stupid’.

The Cost

Quiet. Sshh!
Riot!
Liars and Robots
Flyers and pennants
Kill!
Power!
Blood!
Murder!

Quiet! Ssshhh!
The baby sleeps
A mother weeps
Revolution!
Havoc!
A father tries to feed
His mistake;
To breed.

Shout!!
Loud!
The world is too proud!
Bizarre!
Kill!
Beware!
Happiness is dark
Tinged with blood

Useless!!
The screams.
keep going!
hope!
Never fades
The race
Suffers.
Ideals lost
What we forgot
The cost?
Is too great

SPECIAL REPORT: Why Mervin Should Not Be Arrested

So the Supreme Court has released an arrest warrant for the notorious gangster Mervin Silva. Now we all know the gangster side of him. The side we’ve come to love and admire; friend of the poor, protector of the masses etc. But little did we know that he is actually the reincarnation of the great magician from Camelot, here to advise our very own version of King Arthur. Yes, his real name is MERLIN people, not Mervin. You read it first on The Whackster’s Lair.

Astrologers have been working on the mystery of Mervin for quite some time now and have no other explanation for his amazing deeds. Never before has such an exceptional level of thuggery been seen in this country, not even from the experts at the art that we usually get in the mob house honorable institution we lovingly refer to as the ‘parliament’. Such is the class of Mervin that he openly engages in public violence and gets away with it scot free. And never, not since medieval times has such blatant disregard for law and order by an official, meant to uphold the very values and ethics he breaks, been welcomed with so much ardor and love from his fellow goons members of the mob house parliament.

However, to get off the sarcastic tone and onto a more serious one, the very same astrologers have made a startling discovery in the process of their studies. They have discovered that the soul of Merlin the magician, originally full of virtue and goodness, had grown contemptuous and bitter after long years stuck wandering the cosmos, from sheer impatience out of waiting for the prophesied time to come. Merlin, only meaning to do good to the world and help the masses, had grown into a seething mass of hate and bitterness, out for the kill you could say.

For mystics speak of a prophesy, a prophesy whispered to Merlin on his deathbed so many years ago, by a mysterious sha-man from the Arctic. And as he lay there dying, he was told that his soul must wait till there was someone born who will be worthy enough to accept him into his body. A noble individual whose nobility was beyond comparison. So Merlin was destined to wait.

Centuries, no, millennia had to pass before the prophesied little boy was born with the bodily infrastructure suitable enough for the great soul of Merlin. And there, born out of wedlock to a cattle breeder, little Mervin Silva screamed his first note of defiance into the backside of a brooding cow, which promptly peed on him.

Such were his roots. But the corrupted soul of Merlin the magician took over our poor hero, who was meant to save us from oppression, and turned him to something dark. Very dark. I will not stress on what happened next. His meteoric rise to glory among the retarded political class. His open love for violence, his equally corrupt offspring etc.I am confident that you are aware of them. But a growing body of evidence is being discovered through various secret underground experiments carried out by famous astrologers working non-stop on the problem, that Mervin can actually be reformed, that the corrupt soul of Merlin can actually be exorcised from the body of this poor man; and made good once again.

In accordance with this, the astrologers and the powerful sponsors of these studies are ready to secretly provide concrete evidence to the Supreme Court that arresting Mervin Silva will only antagonize the soul of Merlin. It will only heap upon us destruction and oppression of previously untold proportions. The only way, the evidence strongly suggests, is to appease the soul of Merlin, to let him express his hate and release all the frustration pent up through millennia a little more, until he sees the good side of things, or is made to see it. Therefore, it is the belief of many that Mervin’s arrest should be vehemently avoided for his own good and the good of his countrymen.

So Sri Lankans are advised (chiefly by the anti-propagandist left wing media organizations) to be a bit more patient. A little less selfish. Who are we to mess with matters well beyond our intellectual capacity? Do not clamor for the arrest of Mervin, for that will only bring about more suffering upon you. Let our ignoble leadership handle him. They've done a splendid job so far. Put your faith in them just a little bit more.

They say that I am a centrist; What are you?

Take the World's Smallest Political Quiz and find out! I learned about it from Kasun's blog.

The quiz asks you a few questions based on general political and economic policy issues and then maps you. Like so.

Well it's a nice way of passing a few seconds cos thats all it takes. and in my case, i would say it is fairly accurate. I could'nt describe myself as 100% liberal and pro-free trade because i think capitalism needs ceratin controls. Open economies can be harmful for local industry especially in developing countries. Generally, I do believe that a government should be responsible for the countries security and soveriegnity and all things military. Also, call me a conservative prick but moral constraints should be apart of governance in my opinion. I am no communist either but i look at the effects of capitalism on the world (the rich-poor divide, vast pollution, destruction of natural resources to name a few) and wonder if it is the come all and be all of human ahievement aferall. Milton Friedman's ideas (open economy, government simply responsible for security/protection) are great in theory but in practical application i think it is limited by the world's natural tendency towards moral degeneracy. So freedom within control. Thats my idealogue right now. because we'd just tear ourselves to shreds of everybody was 100% liberal.

The quiz though, IMHO as a third worlder, is a bit more relevant to citizens in developed countries and may not be directly relevant to third world concerns. Meaning that some of the general political issues might take a backseat to some of our main ones, and the economic ones a bit ahead in the future for us in terms of direct application, but are still relevant enough to us as global citizens

Have a look and see if you agree with the test. I'd love to hear your feedback.