SLFP vows Prez won’t succumb to pressure

War crimes

by Shamindra Ferdinando-October 5, 2018, 11:23 pm 

Ports and Shipping Minister and SLFP spokesman Mahinda Samarasinghe Thursday (Oct 4) insisted President Maithripala Sirisena wouldn’t give in to Western pressure under any circumstances.

Samarasinghe, the former human rights envoy of the previous Rajapaksa administration said so at the regular SLFP briefing at its T.B. Jayah Mawatha office when the media sought an explanation as regards the continuing UK intervention in post-war Sri Lanka.

The SLFPer said that President Sirisena wouldn’t allow external interference in accountability issues regardless of various statements. The minister was responding to a statement made by UK Minister for Asia Mark Field as regards post-war Sri Lanka.

The media pointed out that the UK had reiterated its role in Sri Lanka reconciliation process close on the heels of President Sirisena appealing to the international community to allow Sri Lankans to settle their problems.

Samarasinghe reiterated whatever they said President Sirisena wouldn’t accept external interference.

Meanwhile, Minister Field is in Colombo to meet Foreign Affairs Minister Tilak Marapana, Speaker of Parliament Karu Jayasuriya, Minister of Public Administration & Management and Law and Order Ranjith Madduma Bandara, and Minister of Sports and Provincial Councils & Local Government Faiszer Musthapha.

He will also meet Leader of the Opposition R. Sampanthan, members of civil society and Commissioners of the Office on Missing Persons.

The British Commission spokesperson said that Minister Field would discuss a range of issues, including the UK’s continued support for Sri Lanka achieving meaningful and lasting reconciliation in the interests of all Sri Lankans.

Celebrating the links between Sri Lanka and the UK in the area of business, Minister Field would visit the London Stock Exchange Group’s fast growing Colombo operation, which employs several hundred Sri Lankan IT and finance experts.

The HC quoted Minister Field as having said: "My visit this year coincides with that of the England cricket team – a great celebration of our two countries shared love for the sport and everything that it represents. Sport is just one of the links between the people of the UK and Sri Lanka that we can all celebrate. The UK is and always has been a close friend and supporter of Sri Lanka. During my visit I will be encouraging the government of Sri Lanka to fulfill the commitments it has made on reconciliation to the advantage of people in all Sri Lanka communities."

Global Sri Lanka Forum (GSLF) spokesperson Ajantha Premaratne yesterday told The Island that the UK was working overtime to ensure the full implementation of Geneva Resolution 30/1 adopted on Oct 1, 2015. Pointing out that the 47-member Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) had given Sri Lanka time till March 2019 to fully implement the Resolution adopted on unsubstantiated war crimes accusations; Premaratne alleged the government lacked courage to disapprove allegations.

Obviously, Minister Field was in Colombo to intensify pressure on the National Unity Government, the GSLF spokesperson said. The UK certainly owed Sri Lanka an explanation why successive governments suppressed wartime British High Commission dispatches from Colombo which cleared the then government of wild accusations, Premaratne said.

Sri Lanka for nearly a year deliberately refrained from taking up diplomatic dispatches with members of UNHRC, Premaratne said, adding that post-war reconciliation process would receive a massive boost if the Tamil community could be convinced 40,000 civilians didn’t perish on the Vanni front.

Premaratne urged the Foreign Ministry to take up this issue at least now. President Sirisena, in spite of vowing not to allow external intervention had done nothing so far to use British High Commission dispatches in Sri Lanka’s defence.

Responding to a query, Premaratne, who participated in several side events in Geneva where the GSLF made representations on behalf of Sri Lanka, said that the UK would sacrifice Sri Lanka’s interests to appease those British voters of Sri Lanka origin as well as strategic interests of US-led Western bloc.

Premaratne said that if the UK was genuinely interested in human rights it wouldn’t have opposed UN inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The UK recently declared that it wouldn’t support UN probe under any circumstances after Saudi Arabia threatened to review its trade relations with those countries supportive of the UN move, Premaratne said.

Saudi-led coalition is engaged in large scale military action in support of the Yemen leadership for over two years with lethal weapons supplied by Western countries like UK and USA.

Premaratne alleged that the UK never made its own military dispatches available to UN Panel of Experts (PoE) or to a subsequent investigation undertaken by Geneva to hide the truth.

Premaratne said that there had never been a situation similar to the one experienced here. The GSLF spokesman pointed out Sri Lanka’s situation was unique as the leadership here cooperated with external elements to undermine their own.

FILM DEMONS OF PARADISE UNLISTED BECAUSE OF IT PUBLICLY JUSTIFIED GENOCIDE OF TAMILS – JAFFNA PRESS CLUB

Jaffna Press Club statement on Jaffna International Film Festival

06/10/2018

The Jaffna Press Club supports the right of the Jaffna International Film Festival to maintain editorial and organizational control over its schedule and condemns the attempts to create false equivalencies between the decisions made by the organizers, and the violent and insidious censorship which Tamil media and the population at large have lived through, and continue to live,through.

The film that has been removed from the festival is not banned from being screened in Jaffna, or anywhere in Sri Lanka, nor is the director likely to face any violence or worse, over the contents of his film.

The director and those wishing for the film to be screened are therefore welcome to arrange screenings in Jaffna of their own accord. It is not unreasonable however that organizers such as those of the Jaffna International Film Festival, who have striven to represent and build bridges with the communities, especially after past controversies, would choose not to platform an individual who was perceived as having publicly justified genocide of Tamils.

While Jaffna Press Club appreciates the need for frank discussions and diverse ideas in the Tamil homeland, we note that many films, documentaries etc., especially those that portray the horrors of the genocide, remain censored to us.

Tamil journalists and civil society who do speak on these, or challenge the Sri Lankan status quo continue to be harassed and threatened, with barely a ripple about this outside of the North-East. Until it is genuinely possible for us to safely air and discuss all of our views, it is completely reasonable that an organization purporting to be representative would recognize the dangers of platforming one set of potentially inflammatory and offensive views when there remains no meaningful platform to challenge them.

Meanwhile, we the Jaffna Press Club also deeply concerned and condemn the expressions regard to the issue comes from some of the Journalists Associations and the Movements for Press Rights from South including Free Media Movement since their views are imbalanced and illogical.

 Jaffna Press Club.

06.10.2018

Children Under Post-Traumatic Stress Education 

By Ruwan Laknath Jayakody –OCTOBER 5, 2018

Ruwan Jayakody

It is the week of the Children’s Day celebrations with the accompanying rhetoric on children’s rights, and the adults of Sri Lanka are doing what they do best in the service of that uniquely indigenous enterprise of lobotomizing the nation’s future – our children – through education. 

This week a civil society organization announced the commencement of a month long series of island-wide programmes involving close interactions with children and parents to obtain their views towards formulating a set of proposals to be compiled in the form of a charter to be submitted to the authorities’ for adoption and implementation. A trade unions collective handed over a petition to the United Nations Children’s Fund regarding children not getting a proper meal and safety and related environmental concerns. 

The said proposals include the removal of taxes on school equipment, the continued enforcement of the family background report, helping find schools for children of families that migrate, ensuring the right to education of girls by making the minimum age of marriage 18 under the Muslim Matrimonial Law, the establishment of mental health counseling centres in schools, and juvenile justice system reforms. All highly commendable. However, even if the entirety of the substance of the UN Child Rights Convention is codified into law this would make no difference as exemplified through the most excessive manner in which the follies of the youths atop the Pidurangala Rock were dealt with. Enforcing morality is not justice. 

The ongoing ‘save the children from their childhood’ project is a cause that has drawn the parents, educators and Governmental/State authorities together in an unholy trinity. In this production of transmogrifying ‘happy children to unhappy adults’, a set of circumstances revolving around a fundamental lack of confidence reposed in each group (parents, teachers, Government/ State) and persistent doubts about each parties ability, it is the children who constitute the object of expectations of this triumvirate who are very much at the receiving end of ‘double, double toil and trouble’. 

The concept of vicarious liability arises in law. It is also wholly applicable to the mostly good intentioned actions of parents. Certain parents tend to treat children like chattel and attempt to live vicariously through their offspring’s achievements. Thus, especially during the formative and highly impressionable years of early development, the child’s growth becomes that tabula rasa, upon which to subtly or forcefully indoctrinate the parents’ hopes and dreams, fears and failures. The results are progeny that are caricatures of parents, mirror images, perfect in their imperfection. Children receiving guidance to articulate their own destiny, one that is different from their parents’ plans, is not what is taking place.

It is therefore high time we collectively engage in that simplest of solutions – listening to our children, in particular to the nuanced subtleties that form the complexities of their volatile communications. Conversations of this kind between parents/teachers and children, would yield insights into dealing with the tumults associated with adolescence – body image issues, doomed romances, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, unhealthy competition, bullying, and the sensory overload of the social media and connected cyber-technology age parables. The latter has become a whipping post for the Government to hang its incompetence on, and recently a certain Minister in charge of children’s affairs has expressed a desire to prohibit Facebook for minors. 

Teachers and principals, when they are not boxing the ears of their ‘lords of the flies’ subjects mostly render a thankless service. But they are buckling under the pressure to drill into the students’ minds the accumulated knowledge on various phenomena in the form of syllabi and the requirement, which though unspoken looms large, to produce grades worthy of media coverage. This is not to mention the human and material infrastructure related disparities which worthwhile affirmative action policies such as the ‘nearest school is the best school’ and the diversification of educational options available for students through the introduction of new subjects to the curricula, seek to address. In this context, it is no wonder that education fails in its central tenet – to allow each person to maximize their potential. We are breeding functions instead of individuals, a situation which has now even resulted in institutions of higher learning and research based knowledge production such as State universities being placed under pressure locally to cater to and indulge the job market. 

Read More

A nation of readers and writers Are we there yet?

 2018-10-05

The Big Bad Wolf book fair, held for the first time in Malaysia in 2009, has spread over the years to several other parts of South East Asia. In 2017, Sri Lanka became the first country outside the region to host it. The response, based on conversations I’ve had with those who attended it, was overwhelmingly positive. People of all shades and persuasions patronised it. Books were brought by the dozen, sometimes two or three dozen (this writer can attest to how difficult it was to keep oneself from overspending on them), and more than one visit was made by the same person. Promotions in the form of preview passes and membership discounts, moreover, were eagerly seized. All in all, then, it was a different kind of fair, a different experience altogether.   

And yet, they weren’t just those promotions or discounts. They were the choices that were on offer. There were genres that catered to every possible market, from fiction and non-fiction to children’s fiction and young adult fiction (the difference between which has all but completely been blurred in mainstream book stores here today). For obvious reasons there were stalls which attracted big crowds and stalls which hardly attracted any crowd, but the message even with this was clear: people don’t just look for prices (not that they don’t, particularly considering the plight of the rupee against the dollar and the rising cost of living), they also look for variety. At the end of the day, when it comes to being a nation of readers, and writers, that is what they privilege. And value. Sometimes even more than the cost.   

There were howls against the BBW, I distinctly remember. The source of that anger and despair was patently clear. The BBW was seen as a threat to local publishers and they were protesting the fact that it sold books which were priced sometimes at 10% of their prices. That it was unveiled around the time of the Colombo Book Fair may have worsened matters. In any case, when the BBW returned this year, it was held two or three months back, long before the month of literacy (September), and it had to do with other similarly titled fairs organised locally which sold books at around the same discounts the BBW did.   

All that leads me to the subject of this piece; if we are to become a nation of readers, a point I highlighted in my column in September of last year, what is it, based on book fairs and bookstalls, that we should privilege, or at least try to privilege?   

Scrounging up money 

To become a nation of readers and writers, it is not enough that we have fairs which sell books for half the local price. It is not enough that we attend these fairs no matter how wide the choice offered to the consumer may be. Books, like all other industries, have been turned into a profit-run enterprise. The retail market is no stranger to cost-cutting and profit maximisation. The primary objective, as always, is to scrounge up as much money as is permissible from as many readers as is possible.   

There are two ways of getting around the muddle this has resulted in, here or for that matter elsewhere. The first is to be selective in what one reads. This is what the elders usually say. The second, which is the method I prefer, is to read everything one comes across. Before we get to what the best way may be, it is pertinent to understand how the publishing industry operates, the trends it panders to, and the culture of self-censorship it has embraced over the years.   

To become a nation of readers and writers, it is not enough that we have fairs which sell books for half the local price. It is not enough that we attend these fairs no matter how wide the choice offered 

Publishers are as swayed by ideological persuasions as politicians and this is reflected in what they choose to publish. In that sense, certain genres always sell. In Sri Lanka, these include not just young adult fiction (which anyway, from the time of Karunasena Jayalath, has been a quite a big seller), but also history (smudged by not a few self-serving myths), science fiction (think of Susitha Ruwan’s Rawana Meheyuma cycle of novels), translations (of the Russian classics), detective thrillers (of which there are so many examples), and of course horror (Deeman Ananda).   

For obvious reasons, one cannot expect mainstream publishers to go beyond these safe choices and because of that, every year, we see the same titles, the same themes, the same subtexts, being reworked and promoted over and over again. To become a nation of readers, therefore, it would seem that the second of the two choices I’ve highlighted above (to read everything in one’s way) is the more rational to follow.   

Underlying this is a more serious issue, however. Publishers, like newspaper editors, are wont at certain times to censor themselves or refract myths as truths in a bid to sell more books. I am of course talking about mainstream publishers here, since there was and always will be an underground market of publishers and self-publishers, who give breathing space (in a manner of speaking) to writers who would otherwise never have been able to explore the (controversial) topics they indulge in. What gets missed out and absented here, sadly, is a literature that can be considered as “radical”.   

Radicalism has always been a stimulus for literature and this is true of Sri Lankan literature as well. Just think of the response the author of Budunge Rasthiyaduwa received. This, a title as hyped as Fukuyama’s End of History (which David Brooks once aptly described had little to do with the “end of history” thesis most readers subsequently read into), did not really pique my interest, and yet, it represented a different way of thinking which I welcomed, as a reader and a critic.   

Mainstream publishing

To be sure, Budunge Rasthiyaduwa was not Bawatharanaya just as Bawatharanaya was not the book it was influenced by (Kazantzakis’s The Last Temptation of Christ), but consider that it was published by an outlet (Sanhinda, founded by Upul Shantha Sannasgala) that, though mainstream, has nakedly displayed its preferences to writers and poets who have nowhere else to turn to with their radical, at times controversial, views. My point being, incidentally, that inasmuch as it was hyped and not worthy of the controversy it received (at one level it reminds me of Handagama’s Aksharaya, which incidentally was produced by Sannasgala), it was needed.   

This is precisely the point that those who either lambast or praise the Big Bad Wolf miss out: that inasmuch as it was and is a radical outfit selling all sorts of books, the true worth of an enterprise of that scale can only be measured by how much it does not cave into the culture of self-censorship even the most out-of-the-box book fairs and publishers have led themselves to. It is choice that we should be looking at, yes, but when it comes to reading and writing, what should “choice” actually entail?   

I know of children who have read Bonda Meedum but have not, for some reason, even once encountered Madol Doowa and Amba Yahaluwo. Consider that these are 17 and 18 years olds (at that age we were supposed to read both Martin Wickramasinghe and T. B. Ilangaratne). Given this state of affairs, isn’t it a sign of our pretentiousness that we denigrate the likes of Prasannarachchi for “corrupting” our youth (the same way that, on television, Deveni Inima is seen to be corrupting them) when he is getting his market to actually read through a book? Isn’t it a sign of our fake notions of literary connoisseurship that we ignore this aspect to the man and concentrate on airing our prejudices towards the genre he and his work caters to?   

In other words, isn’t he doing something, when we are doing nothing?   

Think about it.   

UDAKDEV1@GMAIL.COM     

Issues to assess

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Obviously there are two ways to think of the environment. Firstly the attitude of the poor who is demanding from the surrounding without thinking of the damage done. The other is the civilized with a consciousness about the survival of the environment. This doesn’t mean there’s only one way to divide the attitude of humans to the environment.

There are in fact countless ways of understanding and engaging with the world around us. In the entire history humans, spread throughout the world, many ways humans reacted with the environmental cake, so to speak: according to the ‘needs’ of the moment, envisaged futures, later give rise to cultural habits, practices, philosophical frameworks and theories of being etc.


We need not go into all that here. What needs to be done is to examine the extremism with respect to the environment. We must apply the Buddha’s middle path theory; to speaking there are two kinds of extremism. One could characterize them as follows.

There’s the idealistic school that believe that humans at the centre of creation - sees everything outside the species as dispensable or as having potential to serve human interests. ‘Human’ here needs to be fleshed out a bit; many things are done in the name of entirety but in this class divided society they serve the interests of one or few and usually a particular category of people; in the modern world the international bourgeoisie.

Social and human rights

Theories are constructed to justify carefully, suppressing or footnoting the uncomfortable. For example, the term professionals is used and so too ‘intellectuals’ to cover up exploitation and plunder. Throw those out and we get neat equations giving us the exact happenings within the systems. Sure, pressure from social and human rights critiques have forced such theories to be refined, but they are not fooling too many people.

Justification comes in the form of modernism and high rise development that are aggressively marketed. The slums and dirt of the present are used as shameful crimes and goodies called progress and development are swung like carrots in front of the impoverished. The entire story or the conspiracy is not told. Not all costs are talked about. Displacement, compensation and loss of community are not assessed. Instead we are sold grand plans and mysterious projects. And if anyone dares talk about uncomfortable truths such as global warming or climate change then the entire discourse is shifted to scientific exchange of views from engineers and scientists where those with connections cash and power get to commissions and thereafter everything is resolved by market ‘value-free truths’ supposedly obtained scientifically. It’s all in the name of ‘The People’ and modernist progress. According to the Buddha modernism will accompany the negation conservatism.

 There are those at the other extreme who sometimes operate as though human beings should not disturb the natural process at all.

They protest, of course democracy allow that but without violence and bloodshed. Then they go to courts and get rulings prohibiting actions and they talk of dire consequences. They too, finally agree to development that bring in ‘the future’ but with a plan to preserve the environment.

Human beings have always exploited the world around them. In fact no creature is self-contained. While other creatures are dependent on nature, humans have exploited the environment. The trick is to figure out a mode of engagement that is wholesome, so that humans contain the totality of the planet intact; something that of course detracts by the very fact of engagement but at the same time consciously supports regeneration.
Environmental concerns

There are people who argue, forcefully with commitment, that a certain degree of economic prosperity is necessary before a nation can shift to a green economy. A country like Sri Lanka, even if it retired environmental concerns for the next decade, cannot impact the global environment in any significant way. Let’s ignore for now the story of Maha Parakrama Bahu that he wanted all little drops of water in Lanka to be collected to be used in agricultural projects before let go to sea. On the other hand there are modernist who argue that if development is dumped in favour of environment, the price will have to be paid by the poor and this will invariably transform into environmental costs that are worse. If not at best, expenditure will be pretty much the same. These arguments are articulated in discussions on a wide range of subjects, especially when it comes to energy, waste disposal, industries and agriculture. Costs, benefits, renew-ability and recovery rates feature significantly in the debates.

Lost in all this is an overall framework of what ‘development’ truly means. Where are we heading or rather what kind of destination would we like to walk towards? Can we go to new Parakum Yugaya?

Is that the real green apex? What are the costs we are willing to pay? What kind of benefit-package would we be satisfied with? What are the parameters and who gets to decide and impose them?

There’s no bottom line. Well, there is, but it’s flexible. It has to contain the health of the planet not just the beloved Lanka, the health of the people currently alive and those who are yet to come.

We need to talk about decent, healthy and environment-friendly lifestyles. Above all we need to revisit the discourse of freedom and limitations of the same and integration of nationalities with self determination. We have to recognize the right of the other, which is politics, (and therefore power) is part of the story. We must devise strategies that consider such factors instead of meekly submitting to them or pretending they don’t exist. We have to factor in the reality of corruption. There are loopholes and there’s bulldozing through barricades. We cannot legislate against all these, but we can find different ways of empowering rational, civilized and responsible governance.

This is the only planet we have. This is the only life each of us has. Life would include concerns and aspirations, not just for yourself but for friends, families, nationalities and larger collectives we identify with. All this is part of the story.

Developing Poverty

By Dr. Ranil Senanayake-October 4, 2018, 8:54 pm 

The national psyche seems to have been summarized well by a past national ‘leader’ whose words of advice to aspiring young politician was " R…., you must understand, the people are nothing but cattle , I lead they follow !". Though repugnant, there must have been some truth to the statement as today, in a bovine manner, we follow backward ‘leaders’, whose sole understanding of economic development has been a unidirectional push towards increased consumption and the growth of financial transactions. More often than not, these transactions are based on a high value being placed in the consumption of fossil energy. Concomitantly there is a very low value placed on social, health or biological cost of such consumption, the result has been a dramatic decline in primary productivity, an increase in the state of dependency, a loss of sustainability and of human health. But we are told ‘This is development’ and prostituting the future for loans to pay yesterday’s debt and todays greed, becomes the political imperative.

 Usually, one finds that this destructive model of development is promoted by persons with vested interests in either amassing personal fortunes or getting a nation into debt as a part of their ‘official’ work. The level of consumption marked as ‘progress’.  Consumptive development or ‘idiot development’ is marked by the importation of anything as long as the market demands it and by injecting money as loans into the local economy and spending it through massive projects.  The construction of roads that the majority of the population can never use, big expensive building projects, usually white elephants whose only purpose is to enrich the ‘developers’ and to place a nation in debt. The falling rupee being daily evidence of this folly.

 This type of ‘development’ encourages both urban sprawl and the growth of resource and energy dependent cities. The mad rush at constructing cities worldwide, has led to a call for new visions in urban consumption, waste, and space management. 

Cities have always grown on the capacity of the natural system to support them. Often, in human history these capacities have been exceeded and the loss of that city follows. The examples from the Middle East, Central China and Middle America bear testimony to that fact. Our headlong rush to create Mega Cities is evidence of this stupid hubris.  

Planning for urban growth without considering the limits of the environment to supply the basic needs of its inhabitants is indeed shortsighted and irresponsible by the future inhabitants, both urban and rural.  This ‘misdirected growth’ is often promoted to enrich the people with power or capital and creates a class of ‘super rich’ which rapidly widens the inequality gap between rich and poor.  This widening of the gap should be a reason for national concern. The reason why we should all be vigilant to the phenomenon of a widening inequality gap between the rich and the poor is very lucidly explained in a very informative and eye opening book ‘The Spirit Level’ (www.amazon.com/The-Spirit-Level-Equality-Societies) by two Epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.  A review in the Guardian states:

 The authors point out that ‘the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's resources. With the result that everyone suffers – even the most well off.’ Inequality in their view isn’t just bad for the poor; it’s also bad for the rich.

Analyzing data primarily from 21 developed countries and also the different American states, they present evidence of a correlation between the level of inequality in each country (or state) and a range of outcomes: levels of trust, mental illness, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, children’s educational performance, number of teenage births, murders, imprisonment rates and social mobility. More inequality goes with lower trust, more mental illness, higher murder rates and so on. It has nothing to do with total wealth or even the average per-capita income. On almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a country's level of economic inequality and its social outcomes.

What has all this to do with where Sri Lanka is heading?

 We have gone back to the old ‘formula of ‘borrow as much money as you want for very large projects, the commissions are very attractive and the feasibility of the project is not very important’. It began with the Mahaweli and the current path of progress and development that we are moving towards today seems to be exactly what the big lenders always wanted. John Perkins (www.johnperkins.org) in his book ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’ states that His job was "to convince countries that are strategically important to the United States to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to U.S. corporations". He further states that economic hit men as "highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign ‘aid' organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources.

 Knowing the degree of education and experience with mega projects that is required to launch such projects and when we compare it with what we have, it is obvious that there is no one with any smarts to develop even anything close to a credible project from within either regime, then where do these grandiose ideas and schemes come from ? who prepares the studies and financial projections to the satisfaction of the international lenders ?

 Are there a bunch of shadowy ‘hit men’ of various colours in this town, abetted by a bunch of the greedy locals, leading us like a bunch of ignoramuses to a debt ridden future marked by social inequity and financial slavery?

 This is the process gives rise to ‘Crony Capitalism’. Using Italy as an example Dr. Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago points out that  "Even emergency room doctors gain promotions on the basis of political affiliations. Instead of being told to study, young people are urged to ‘carry the bag’ for powerful people in the hope of winning favours. Mothers push their daughters into the arms of the rich and powerful seeing it as the only avenue of social promotion. The nations talent-selection process is broken : one routinely finds highly intelligent people employed in menial jobs while mediocre people hold distinguished positions

 The worst consequence of crony capitalism is political. The more a system is dominated by cronies, the more it generates resentment. To maintain consensus, the insiders must distribute privileges and subsidies - and the more they dole out, the greater the demand becomes "

 In order to ‘dole it out’, massive projects are mooted so that the politicians and their cronies take out their commissions and move their lesser cronies into management, ensuring that the project can never be a success.

 These types of massive infrastructure based development projects, that brings in no return and no possibilities of payback, is a prime factor creating the woes due to economic inequality that Wilkinson and Pickett described. In Sri Lanka today the widening inequality gap between the rich and the poor is obvious to any observer. This type of crony capitalism, may create a fortunate future for a few, but it will produce a dismal future for the rest of us and our children.

The free media: but no such beast

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREECH: In the old days, the maxim among defenders of the Fourth Estate was: “We shall defend to the death your right to be wrong!” Today with the trifecta of politico, publisher and pressman contesting the same space for accuracy and completeness, ‘publish and be damned’ has been rendered a hollow rallying cry for a generation of journalists (to say nothing of their respective readerships) who would rather be entertained than educated, informed than edified, titillated than taught. So in such a milieu, the free media remain a chimerical monster more amenable to myth and legend – ground realities often dictating that owners and operators collaborate in enterprises planked by not so much principle as pragmatism – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Friday, 5 October 2018

I think we liberals are quite a bit mistaken about the so-called free media. Or at least are naïve or idealistic about it. We value the honesty, integrity and outspokenness of the Fourth Estate. Up to the very heart-stopping gut-wrenching moment when a journalist, an editor, or a writer turns the big guns’ tattoo or spotlight’s glare on our own little bullpen, sacred cows or bond scam-driven bear markets. I like better the truthfulness of the traditional press baron who proudly and disdainfully says: “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you!”

As a readership, we make two equal and opposite errors. On one hand, we tend to believe almost everything we hear in the media as gospel truth. On the other, we tend to dismiss almost everything as tainted propaganda. The naïve and sentimental still trust the printed word as much as mother’s milk or their own wristwatches. The cynical and sceptical abhor it like political platform watchwords or old wives’ tales in adulthood. Machiavellian politicos as much as pragmatic media magnates looking to sell their papers are equally pleased to see us fall off the saddle on either side of these extreme horses.

This is part of the reason why I feel a recent ‘special educational session’ by the CEO and Director of the Ethical Journalism Network would have done better, really, to steer his pony in the middle of our murky pond. A ‘veteran who has a wealth of experience and accolades in the field of journalism’ via a 40-year stint, he was out of his depth in trying to teach his audience – senior press people as much as new media tyros – how to suck on the egg of sustainable journalism.

Sorry, Chris Elliott; there’s no gainsaying that the highfaluting principles you no doubt espoused in a long and illustrious career – and propounded to an audience partly breathless with anticipation and partly politely yawning after an anticlimax – are true. But in a badly muddied field, ‘What is the truth?’ as Pontius Pilate (probably the first editor: “What I have written stays written”) pontificated two millennia ago. And “there’s a sucker born every minute.” – P. T. Barnum. Sorry, ‘good to know the truth.’

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as interested in hot button topics such as self-regulation of the media, shaping and sharpening media law, fact-checking as one safeguard against fake news, etc. As much as arcane subjects like freedom of the press under democratic-republicans who delight in being vilified so they can boast that the beast of media freedom exists. Or the cold hard truth about who killed Lasantha? What happened to Prageeth? Where is Keith now? Sorry, old hat – perhaps; however, always a new issue. Until or unless the powers that be grow a pair even at this late stage in their effete administration. But I draw the line at being told to “do my job” and that all will be well. If wishes were winged horses, I’d look lot less like a spavined charger out to pasture.

Now while lawyers are usually briefed never to put a question to which they don’t know the answer in advance, investigative reporters are generally primed to pose the issue precisely because everyone’s as much in the dark as they are. In hindsight, “I am a journalist – I know nothing” (G. K. Chesterton) turns out to be a good place to start but a sad hole to end up in. So let me take a leaf out of that great philosopher’s copybook and ask some questions of my own. This is what’s on my mind since that not so seminal workshop – ‘Let’s Get Serious about Ethical Journalism’ – earlier this week…

• Why was it necessary to invite an albeit distinguished British practitioner to address a Sri Lankan audience on ‘ethical journalism’? (I know at least two stalwart natives – Nalaka Gunawardene and Nishan de Mel – who could have done a sterling job of this, sustainability in media matters being their bailiwick).
• Was it sufficient to so tenuously link the seminar – a 45-minute speech followed by one, just one! question – with the ostensible launch of “Sri Lanka’s newest Ethical News reporting platforms”? (It was evident only by the multimedia presentation at the start which showcased the two papers. Or ostensible in the first edition of the newspaper being left out at a soiree that followed.)
• Do we need convincing about the ethicality of a new press house – with old hands in media and marketing ostensibly on one side of the political divide (I use the term artificially, being fully aware that ‘bipartisan politics’ is a beast of the past); and younger go-getters or rising stars (evidently, once professional backers of a cleaner leaner greener party) now turned ‘pro’ in every sense? 
• Is it possible to persuade the people, practitioners as much as readers, that perhaps this ‘ethical news-reporting platform’ will be a creature with a difference? Or will it be as chimerical as its many predecessors in the littered field of the island’s media history and be relegated to the dustbin of contemporaneity, or to wrap fish?)

Again, don’t misunderstand me. I’m sufficiently independent as a journalist, editor, writer, who’s been around the block to admit that there is no such thing as the free media. Bizarre, says Dharisha! We all have our vested interests – be they political, philosophical, plutocratic. Or simply personal. But my question – one, just one! – is ‘Why can’t we nail our colours to the mast? And be hanged by our own petards? Not parade our false patina of exalted freedom or thin veneer of hallowed liberty until we’re exposed as fakes, shams, or worse?” (Okay, that’s three Qs. But take the point.)
Which reminds me that bursting the bubble of blessed sanctity and sanctimoniousness is perhaps best essayed in the form of a laugh. Irony is lost, and satire and parody played straight in readers’ strained brains – I patronise you not! Thus, my own adaptation from BBC’s ‘Yes Minister’ of the state of play in matters media magnate-ish in Sri Lanka today:
“The Daily News is read by people who think they run the country. The Sunday Island is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Sunday Observer is read by the people who actually do run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Daily Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Colombo Telegraph is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Colombo Gazette is read by people who think it is. The Sunday Leader used to be read by people who didn’t care who ran the country as long as it was them…”

Feel free to substitute ‘runs’ for ‘reads’ above. Fun times.

But seriously, folks! And significantly for all of us undiscerning consumers of news and fake news and facetious satire as much as straight farce in one smörgåsbord of a media goulash? It’s time to ask the tougher questions of both the Fourth Estate and the faceless nameless folks who know that while true power may lie in anonymity, to get there requires a Trojan horse media house in place in the first place. Good morning to readers (to say nought of those responsible for their consumptive material) who just woke up – grow up! Good to know the truth, even if it kills you; as far too many complicit editors and critically engaged cartoonists have found out the hard way!

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)

Shame On You: Colombo International School 

By Chamindra Weerawardhana –OCTOBER 4, 2018

Dr. Chamindra Weerawardhana

The Colombo International School and its Acting Principal have been practicing daylight discrimination against a pupil in the most shameless and despicable way. The pupil’s fault? Wanting to include a rainbow flag in a fashion show outfit. When the Acting Principal, a cis white British woman, did not give permission, the child complied, and instead found more creative ways of including the rainbow flag in her routine, by covering her school bag in a rainbow flag. The Acting Principal, Sarah Philipps, then ruthlessly imposed punishments on the child, with “five negative marks and a subsequent detention, plus exclusion from attendance and participation in all extra-curricular activities including School Anniversary events and fashion show.”

This is an extremely despicable situation, in a school founded by the veteran educator Elizabeth Moir. 

The letter sent to the pupil’s parents by the Acting Principal is problematic on a number of fronts. 

Uniform Policy: Tom Brown’s Schooldays are long gone, Dear Sarah!

Firstly, Sarah Philipps states that the pupil in question has been wearing trousers for school “although it was pointed out to her that this was not the school uniform applicable to girls”. The Acting Principal seems to be visibly disturbed by a pupil breaking, if not going against the colonially imposed gender binary in school uniforms. In the Acting Principal’s own country, the United Kingdom, schools and education authorities are increasingly developing policies for the inclusion of children within the LGBT+ spectrum, altering strict uniform policies of yesteryear, and in an effort to make schools friendly, protective and caring places for LGBT+ children. 

Letter of Shame sent by Sarah Philipps, Acting Principal at Colombo International School, to the pupil’s parents. Image: Colombo Telegraph

This Acting Principal, however, seems to be completely oblivious to such crucial developments in the enhancement of fundamental rights in education. How come this British woman was clueless about documentation produced in the UK such as the Stonewall guide “An Introduction to supporting LGBT young people: A Guide for Schools”, is an important question. 

Several private citizens and LGBT+ rights-focused social media campaigns were highly critical of the Acting Principal. 

Read More

President between the devil and the deep blue sea

 PATRIOTISM GOING TO BE THE TRUMP CARD AT THE FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS

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• Call to allow SL to look after its own affairs contradicts government’s claim that SL is in good terms with int’l community  
   
• There is no logical basis that Yahapalanaya Government saved MR from ‘Electric Chair’
   
•  No direct threat to implicate former President Mahinda Rajapaksa or Gotabaya by the UNHRC or any major country

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 2018-10-05

On the eve of President Maithripala Sirisena’s visit last month to New York to attend the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), it was reported that he was to make a special statement, at the world summit on the war crimes allegations against the Sri Lankan armed forces.   

However, the statement he made on the matter was not in any way a special or new. Rather it was the same statement former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his ministers and the Foreign Ministry officials have been making for several years.   

The gist of President Sirisena’s statement on the Human Rights violations/war crimes issue was a request made to the international community or in clear terms to the Western powers to allow Sri Lanka to solve its problems independently, without the interference of the outside forces.   

The statement had been welcomed both by the United National Party (UNP) and the loyalists of the former President. 

President Sirisena and the leaders of the UNP have always been telling the country that it was this government that saved the former President from the electric chair, meaning it was due to the government’s positive engagements with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that the pressure by the international community on Sri Lanka over Human Rights issues has been eased.   

Despite this being true, it also contradicts the President’s call on the international community to allow Sri Lanka to look after its own affairs. 

There was no logical basis for the argument that the so-called Yahapalana Government saved Rajapaksa from the electric chair, as there has never been any direct threat to implicate former President Mahinda Rajapaksa or his brother, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa by the UNHRC or any major country for alleged Human Rights violations or war crimes. 

They have been travelling to so many countries even after these allegations were levelled against Sri Lanka, in spite of some senior military officers have met with diplomatic hurdles over the same allegations. 

Yet, there were speculations that they would be implicated, as they were on the top of the chain of command in the State Military mechanism, during the war against the LTTE.   

And Mahinda Rajapaksa and some of the top leaders of his group blow it up and without an iota of evidence, created a notion that Rajapaksa is going to be hauled up before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to be penalized as Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia.   

Milosevic was produced before the special court, International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. 

They created this fear among the Sinhalese in order to strengthen their support base among the majority community. And the electric chair was their version of punishment by the ICC. 

There has never been any direct threat to implicate former President Mahinda Rajapaksa or his brother, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa by the UNHRC or any major country for alleged Human Rights violations or war crimes

In the wake of Maithripala Sirisena assuming office after the 2015 January 8 Presidential Election, the new Government followed a different approach towards the issues of Human Rights, reconciliation, ethnic problems and democracy. 

The proscriptions on so many organizations - most of them were Tamil entities - and on several websites were lifted.   

Roadblocks and checkpoints on many major highways were removed.

Threats of abductions, attacks on media personnel, institutions and demonstrators became things of the past. Most importantly, the new Government positively engaged with the UNHRC. 

UNHRC had adopted three resolutions on Sri Lanka consecutively each year since 2012 and under one of them, an investigation into the alleged violations of Human Rights and humanitarian laws by both State Armed forces and the LTTE had been conducted.   

The Rajapaksa Government, while rejecting those resolutions attempted to implement the recommendations of those resolutions.   

For instance, the Government had submitted a national action plan in line with the 2012 resolution, in the UNHRC.

They have been travelling to so many countries even after these allegations were levelled against Sri Lanka, in spite of some senior military officers have met with diplomatic hurdles over the same allegations 

It was amidst this conflict between the UNHRC and the Rajapaksa Government, that the Maithri-Ranil Government assumed office.   

They chose to cooperate with the international community and the then Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera requested the world Human Rights body not to judge us by “broken promises, experiences and U-turns of the past.”   

Thus the government co-sponsored the 2015 Resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC. The resolution recommended a ‘local mechanism’ including the judges, lawyers and prosecutors from the Commonwealth countries to deal with the accountability process.   

The UNP leaders said that this was the only way to protect the security forces from the allegation of war crimes.

This was highly praised by the leaders of the Western powers and this along with the government’s new approach towards reconciliation and democracy eased the pressure on Sri Lanka by the international community, in respect of Human Rights.   

Thus, no country wanted a resolution on Sri Lanka adopted in 2016. The electric chair story was forgotten even by its authors.   

This was how the leaders of this Government saved Mahinda Rajapaksa from the electric chair. 

President Sirisena exploited the situation in spite of him attempting to dissociate from the main recommendation of the 2015 resolution later.   

He was well-recognized at the international fora and he said that it was due to his government’s commitment to upholding the Human Rights in the country that the country was being recognized.   

When he returned from the UNGA in 2015 his supporters had put up posters with slogans ‘Welcome the President who protected the dignity of the armed forces,” which conformed with the UNP leaders’ argument.   

However, soon he felt the heat of the resolution within the country after a group of former commanders of the army, navy and air force and those who were field commanders during the war against the LTTE met him at the end of 2015.   

He, while getting the credit from the international community for the 2015 resolution that was co-sponsored by his own government and telling the local audience that he rescued Mahinda Rajapaksa from the electric chair, told BBC in January 2016 that he would “never agree to international involvement.”   

With Mahinda Rajapaksa increasingly playing the patriotic card and the cases against the former and serving military officers and personnel over various crimes and fraud progressing, President Sirisena further distanced himself from the resolution. 

His outburst in October 2016 over the hauling-up of the former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and three former navy commanders before the courts resulted in the resignation of the Director General of Bribery Commission, Dilrukshi Wikramasinghe. 

On the eve of his UNGA speech this year he hurriedly summoned a special Cabinet meeting and criticized the move to arrest high profile military officers such as Chief of Defence Staff Ravindra Wijegunaratne.   

Yet, the 2015 resolution was a commitment by the government. Backing down from it would be another broken promise or a U-turn in Mangala Samaraweera’s words and would invite conflicts with the international community, especially the UNHRC.   

On the other hand, carrying out the commitment is dangerous in the face of the so-called patriotism going to be the trump card at the forthcoming elections
as well. 

It is like getting caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.