Right To Rebel, Time To Rebel!
Lakmali Hemachandra
“Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace Worse Things kept happening” ― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
Flying Fish, a movie about the monstrosity of war was banned because it was claimed to demoralize the government forces and depicted them in a negative light. Weliweriya proves that we do not need films and literature to understand how cruel, inhuman and destructive wars are, but most of all it proves against whom wars are fought, from Nandikadal to Baghdad. It is interesting that the Army and the government is playing the same tune it did in 2009, the war was grander and the damage was larger, but the response of the government after slaughtering Tamils and the response after killing Sinhalese is eerily and tragically similar. There is a lesson we must learn today, a lesson that we should have learnt long ago and a lesson that some pretend to not know.
The fight in Weliweriya was for clean water, the people of five villages led by a Buddhist monk took to the streets for six days to urge the government to protect their right to clean water claiming that the wells in area was contaminated by the waste disposed by a factory producing rubber gloves. It is a classic battle between people and the corporate, between nature and development, between democracy and neo liberalism. The government’s brutal attack on the innocent civilians in Weliweriya illustrates which side the government is on and it is not yours or mine regardless of whether we are Sinahala or Tamil, it is not of the seventeen year old Akila and nineteen year old Ravishan who died caught up in the military attack on the villagers, it is not of more than 60 people who are injured and it is not of the undisclosed number of innocent people who got death instead of clean water. The massacre at Weliweriya exposes the enemy like it has never been seen before, it makes it painfully clear where this country is heading and it gives hope to people like us who believe that we should continue to dream of justice and equality in spite of the brutal oppression that forbids us to dream.Read More
Principles of central banking 1: Why should people place trust in central banks?
Why Should People Place Trust In Central Banks?
By W.A Wijewardena -August 5, 2013
Dr. W.A. Wijewardena
Principles of central banking 1: Why should people place trust in central banks?
In a recent training workshop for central bank officers of a neighbouring country, a participant raised a very important question: Why should people trust central banks and accept the money which those banks issue to people as something valuable and useful?
When the question was posed to the audience, the answers given were of two types but closely related to each other.
State ownership of central banks does not bring in trust
One answer was that central banks are owned by sovereign governments and therefore the trust which people have in those governments is extended to the central banks as well. But when it was pointed out that South African Reserve Bank or SARB is a private bank owned by some 650 private shareholders, the argument was re-examined.
It was mentioned that at the Annual General Meeting of SARB, its Governor delivers an address covering the economy, monetary policy and the operations of the Bank. He also presents a comprehensive annual report on the Bank for approval by shareholders which is similar to the annual reports presented by state owned central banks to their governments. In addition, central banks in Belgium, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, Greece and the US are jointly owned by the respective governments and private people.
Even Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of Denmark and Bank of England were private central banks until they were nationalised in the first half of the previous century. Hence, the argument was finally modified that state ownership maybe useful but not necessary for a central bank to earn the trust of people.
Legal powers not necessary for making money acceptable
