Shot this with my mobile, caught up in a massive traffic jam in Kirulapona. A dangerous & delicious irony here.
“Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness…” from 1984.
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Precisely my sentiments seeing this hoarding as I do on my way to and from work.
I don’t think this government is particularly big brother-esq than any other previous regime in Sri Lanka. It is being tough on terrorist supporters, but it’s not going about it any differently than any other country would.
JustMal,
Reading you on other blogs I think you are not based in Sri Lanka, which is why you think that this government isn’t paranoid about control and centralisation. Your opinion may change if you were to live in Sri Lanka.
The irony, as I see it, is that we are looking at India as Big Brother, when it is for so many of its neighbours a huge headache and a pain in the nether regions (and known for its own Hindutva extremism and many rights violations). We are also looking at Mahinda as Big Brother – apt I think to describe the Stalinist mentality and regime that’s increasingly evident in Sri Lanka.
perceptions of irony aside, isn’t it worrying that our government is looking to India as its big brother? it’s protector and benefactor?
I wish we could hark back to the days when old Sir John scoffed at Nehru’s attempt to muscle him around at the NAM summit.
Well there’s no going anywhere without India I suppose. So better look up, than have those buggers frown down upon us?