Archive for May, 2010

Sinhala nationalism, civil society organisations and the future

Nationalism in our post-modern era is an extremely suspect concept. It smacks of homogeneity, patriarchy and insularity; all ideas and concepts that our generation has learned with good reason to suspect. Most difficult of all, it has often been anti-minority. My intention in this article is not to defend nationalism but rather to inquire into the particular characteristics of Sinhala nationalism and to interrogate the relationship of Sri Lankan civil society organisations and movements with it. I would also like put forward some ideas regarding ways of engagement as part of civil society in these times of totalitarianism and government supported racism. By civil society organisations and movements I mean those that purport to be an alternative voice to the state. They may also differentiate themselves from regular political parties although most of them will have explicitly political agendas and strategies. As pointed out by many historians, Sri Lanka’s leaders at the time of independence did not lead a mass…

Continue reading »

The Big Stink in Sri Lanka

DSC04086

Every day, we fight several battles – from inflation to traffic to our friendly neighborhood cop. Our battles are many, but our defeat in one particular battle stands out, quite spectacularly.  Sign boards saying “Mehi kunu dameema ballanta pamanai” (Only dogs may dump garbage here) are testimony that we did not go down without a fight, that we tried our best. Whenever I see these signs on people’s walls I’m always intrigued because the garbage issue seems to be problem that never seems to go away, and in true Sri Lankan style, we are always quick to blame the Government or even cite a Western conspiracy. While the blame does partially lie in the hands of the Government, the average Sri Lankan’s attitude towards, or, if you like, solution for, the garbage problem never fails to amaze me. Dumping your trash in front of another person’s house seems to be the common and recommended solution. Live on the 4th floor and have…

Continue reading »

The latest Commission of Inquiry in Sri Lanka: Another Exercise in Deception

Louise Arbour of the International Crisis Group is reported to have  said during an interview in the BBC that the government violated the laws of war by blurring the line between combatants and civilians, and that its killings of civilians were not accidents.   Perhaps in response to this, speaking to the BBC Tamil Service recently,  the Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona is reported to have said that  the commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation  set up  recently by the government is sufficient to investigate the allegations of humanitarian standards and human rights violations  during the war. Let us therefore have a look at some of the commissions of inquiry appointed by the governments in the past to check  how effective they have been to understand the veracity of the statement made by Dr. Kohana with regard to the current commission. It is common knowledge that several commissions of inquiry had been appointed from time…

Continue reading »

Eelam experiments: The transnational versus local realities

‘Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize.’[1] Chimamanda Adichie I was inspired by the above words of Chimamanda Adichie talking about the ¨Danger of a single story’ and I reflected on how true this has been and will be in the case of Sri Lanka and its instrasigient history of political misfortune and human suffering. It’s been a year since the decisive end of the military offensive that had succeeded in re-claiming territorial sovereignity of the Sri Lankan state, but it was a victory that failed in claiming the Tamils as an integral and respected part of it is citizenry. The recently concluded elections in Sri Lanka which registered a low voter turn out in the North & East  draws focus to a deeper political malaise. While procrastinations and empty promises along with an impotent Tamil political representation within the country symbolise a crisis in Tamil political…

Continue reading »

Fighting Windmills? Diaspora and Militarism in Post-Conflict Lanka

“Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.” “What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.”Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.” “Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn…

Continue reading »

FROM NECESSARY WAR TO SUSTAINABLE PEACE IN SRI LANKA

Interestingly of the four best pieces I have read on the first anniversary of the war, three are by Indian analyst/commentators, of whom two are military professionals: Gen Ashok K. Mehta’s Manekshaw paper No 22 for the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (New Delhi) on ‘How Eelam war 4 was Won’ (which cannot be read by any patriot or anti-fascist without a lump in one’s throat or mist in one’s eyes), the piece by Col R Hariharan in The Hindu and by PK Balachandran in the Indian Express. The fourth is by a youthful security researcher Sergei de Silva Ranasinghe writing in the respected Australian periodical, The Diplomat. Within Sri Lanka and among Sri Lankans, the debate on the war may be differentiated into four positions: Those who condemn both the war and the voices that justify it and approve of its results (such as mine), Those who applaud both the war and its aftermath, condemning both the critics of…

Continue reading »

Capturing HOPE in Sri Lanka through photography

Anj.

The HOPE in Sri Lanka after war was in 2009 Deborah Philip’s first photo-essay to Groundviews anchored to a novel and compelling idea – to photograph people holding up a sign board titled HOPE. As Deborah notes in her first submission, “Where is the hope?” is a question that the writer encountered quite a few times when she asked people to pose with the HOPE board. The culture of impunity prevalent in post-war Sri Lanka paints a rather depressing picture of a country that has lost the ability to hope. Human rights continue to be violated, there is an upsurge in criminal activity, media freedom is severely restricted and nationalist rhetoric continues to be the theme of those in the highest echelons of power. Hope has been replaced with a sense of hopelessness and apathy that has gripped society. In order for positive change to take place the nation needs to regain their ability to believe in the power of…

Continue reading »

Sithuvili: On war’s end and a year later…

Prelude: The following is a ‘fragmented reflection’, on present-day Sri Lanka, war’s end and related issues. The objective was to capture the thought process of a citizen ‘thinking’ about these issues as realistically as possible, hence the fragmented nature of the rendering, and the frequent passage from one point to an(unrelated)other. A war was thus fought. It all started decades ago, when the colonial alcohol was well-absorbed into her, leading to inevitably sheer tipsiness, and the long-lasting ‘hangover’ was just about to begin. As some said Sinhala should be the national language of independent Ceylon and Buddhism the state religion, some others felt insecure and concerned for their future in the island. Insecurity is a dangerously devastating feeling that’s always better avoided but virtually impossible to avoid, when going through tough times. The rest is largely history. Key events in the storyline include the following, among a trillion others: triumph of one shrewdly intelligent man at a Westminster style general…

Continue reading »
  • 27 May, 2010
  • 4 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Religion and faith

The Priority Vesak Thought for Action: “Care and Compassion for the Most Needy”

In a pre-Vesak address the Prime Minister and Minister of Buddhasasana and Religious Affairs made known his priority to lead Buddhists on a path, through awareness, to enhance their commitment to develop a high state of morality and consciousness in society. Mr. Prime Minister, this initiative should be led by the Buddhist leaders in governance, at its inception by appealing to all in society, to place all resources allocated or reserved for Vesak decorations, lighting up streets and buildings, putting up pandals, celebrations, dansala’s and other similar spends, to be channeled towards helping the disadvantaged and unfortunate citizens who recently suffered from rain water led flooding and physical infrastructure damage, as well as those thousands of brothers and sisters and their children yet languishing in camps as internally displaced persons after the end of the war on terrorism one year ago. Buddhism teaches that wisdom should be developed with compassion. Compassion includes qualities of sharing, readiness to give comfort, sympathy,…

Continue reading »

WINNING THE INVISIBLE CONFLICT: Is Sri Lanka headed for sustainable peace?

Background On Tuesday 19th May 2009 – the day after the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka, declared victory over the Tamil Tigers, bringing to a close 26 years of conflict. With the routing of the LTTE, and the reclamation of all occupied territory, it was announced that the conflict in Sri Lanka had come to an end. The cost of this declared victory was immense. At least 90,000 people were estimated to have been killed, the majority of those innocent civilians; hundreds of thousands were internally displaced, and interned, having lost everything they owned; tens of thousands of families were left without an adult who could earn a livelihood; and over 10 percent of the population were estimated to be suffering from trauma – many of them orphans, widows, and ex-combatants. The cost of conflict was not merely human. For decades Government spending has…

Continue reading »

Vanni in the year after war: Tears of despair and fear

2

About six months after the end of the war, in November 2009, the government of Sri Lanka relaxed restrictions on travel to the Vanni[1] and started to allow some of the displaced people to go back to their villages. Although the government still maintains some restrictions on travel, I managed to visit these areas many times. My visits including overnight stay in Vanni without beds, attached bathrooms, running water, electricity, helped me to better experience and understand life there after the war. It also increased my admiration for some of my friends, Catholic priests and sisters, who warmly welcomed and hosted me and my friends every time we visited, despite the very basic and difficult life they had opted to live. My visits took me to interior villages deep inside the Vanni. From Paranthan on the A9 road to Ponneryn, and then further south on the A32 road, down to Vidathalthivu, visiting villages such as Mulangavil, Thevanpiddy. We also visited…

Continue reading »

Post-war Sri Lanka: Challenges and opportunities

This Government, as it commences to address the many challenges facing post – war Sri Lanka, stands today at a watershed of major, unprecedented and possibly never to be replicated, opportunity. Wherever one is located in the Sri Lankan political firmament that obvious and pre eminent condition would have to be admitted. The sense of overall stability about the new Government  pervades all thinking, writing and action, both local and foreign. How valid is this assumption of political, economic and societal stability that the Government so bountifully enjoys today – the first anniversary of the defeat of the LTTE, or of ‘separatist terrorism’, as the government calls it and would like it to be known? The elements of that apparent stability which both local and foreign observers prefer to comment on are well known. They are broadly the massive majorities obtained by the President and his Party at the recently concluded elections. The arguments of the many who contest the…

Continue reading »

Will ‘Peace’ Arrive Before Death?

It was, unfortunately, a necessary war, for terrorism had to be defeated, eliminated. After some thirty long years, on or around the 19th of May 2009, Sri Lanka gained liberation; liberation from the clutches of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), from the clutches of terrorism (May, 2010: The Prime Minister states in Parliament that a new military wing of the LTTE is being formed, is getting ready to raise its ugly head). ‘Terrorism’, however, was only one facet of the problem. The moment that ugly facet becomes non-existent, the moment there is an absence of a violent armed conflict, problems which remained unresolved, problems which could not be resolved through the use of force, re-emerge, re-surface. Political developments which soon followed the defeat of the LTTE proved this, to some extent. An acrimonious debate ensued concerning the 13th Amendment (Did not, for a brief moment in our history, the 13th Amendment become something like the 6th Amendment, like…

Continue reading »

The Drivers and Scenarios in Post-War Sri Lanka

My focus in this essay is not what happened in the past but what can be envisioned in the near future particularly with regard to the national question in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan security forces comprehensively defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) one year ago. However, the transformation of peace writ small that was achieved in May 2009 to peace writ large has yet to be achieved and the steps taken in that direction are, in my opinion, inadequate. Although the simultaneous operation of so many variables in complex situations makes predictions almost impossible in social science, it is possible to identify possible future scenarios through the analysis of key drivers that undergird future changes. Here I identify four key drivers and four scenarios, though one is a very remote possibility. Context and Drivers (1)  Vacuum in Tamil nationalist politics: Comprehensive military defeat of the LTTE and the decimation of its entire leadership have created almost an…

Continue reading »

THE SECOND PHASE OF A WAR WITHOUT END

One year after the end of the war there is optimism in the country, particularly amongst sections of the business community. The government has taken the position that rapid economic development can be a panacea to the problems that afflict the country, including the long festering ethnic one.  South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hongkong, and more recently Malaysia and China, all point the success of tight political control coupled with the centralisation of power that yielded positive economic dividends.  There are predictions that the country’s growth rate can even reach rates of 10 percent like China and India depending on how effective the government is in tackling the economic challenges it faces. Following the Presidential and General elections held earlier this year there is every reason to believe that the government will be in power for another six years.  Due to the central role of the government in the affairs of the country it is important to come to terms…

Continue reading »
Page 1 of 512345

About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

cezarneaga.eu
canakkale canakkale canakkale balik tutma search canakkale vergi mevzuati bagimsiz denetim vergi mevzuati ozurlu engelliler