Thanking Mahinda
There are tanks on Galle Face Green. This either means we’re attacking Africa, or it’s interdependence day. That is, the anniversary of the end of war. I was reading an article on Groundviews by Kusal Perera hopelessly disparaging the current ‘regime’ and saying that the core issue has been unsolved this past year. It was a bit long and I skimmed, but I don’t agree. It makes it sound like everything’s a mess and it’s not. I think Mahinda Rajapaksa has solved the major issue in Sri Lanka and I thank him for it. The war is over and for this I give him due props.
War
All my life this war has been such a drain on Sri Lanka physically and emotionally. It went on long after the 1970s era revolutionary reasons died, fueled into some giant military-industrial beast. Whereas the government largely evolved from its riot-sponsoring blood on the streets days, the LTTE never was anything else and they never stopped blowing up buses, humans, and for lack of an apoliticized term – terrorism. Something like half of all suicide bombings since 1980 have been LTTE. This is including Palestine, Iraq, etc. And we’re a small country. This has sucked.
They blew up the President, the Airport, the Central Bank, and, inexplicably, Inland Revenue. They shattered windows on schools, hotels, and generally ran amuk, crippling the country into a grinding endless war that we thought would never end.
You can also say that the government did a bunch of shafty things, but on the scale of the world’s biggest suicide bombers? Not so much. I realize this in a few paragraphs glosses over a litany of sins and countersins but, with all due respect, I’m tired of it.
What To Do
We’ve been reciting this story for years and concluding each time with a resigned ‘what to do’. In his own bloody and ruthless way Mahinda Rajapaksa did something and he ended this war. Groundviews et al continue about democracy and pluralist society and stuff, but most people I’ve talked to around Sri Lanka don’t understand or care about those words. Not because they are stupid, but perhaps because they are smart. We asked some (Muslim) IDPs around Mannar if they cared about democracy and they said literally ‘no’. They wanted a road and they wanted stuff. I have roads and stuff so fair enough.
People do understand that the war is over. Colombians do understand that they can send their kids to school without fear. Jaffna people do understand that petrol doesn’t cost Rs. 3000 a liter anymore. Former IDPs in Vavuniya do understand that they’re not in camps anymore or in ditches, pissing in plastic bottles to avoid getting conscripted outside. Are people happy? Fuck no. I called people from all these places yesterday and they’ve got any number of problems. Jobs, dignity, getting the kid to school. But these are normal problems. Which is new.
Normal Levels Of Suck
For the first time Sri Lankans are free to have normal problems. For the first time my friend in Colombo is able to stay out past 6PM without freaking out. But he still can’t find a girl. For the first time people in Jaffna are not under economic blockade and they can buy torch batteries and go to Point Pedro beach at night. But they’re still getting undercut by Muslim and southern traders and have to compete. For the first time parents in the East and the Wanni can send their kids to school without fearing they’ll get recruited into a suicidal army rather than a job. But they still can’t find jobs.
I called people from all these places yesterday and they weren’t generally happy, but they at least had the war off their shoulders. They were operating and had a fucked up yet somewhat stable environment within which to deal with their issues. That is, things weren’t blowing up on the streets and the kids weren’t disappearing. Which is damn nice, in the sense that not getting punched in the head constantly makes drowning easier.
Cost And Crow
God knows these are big things, but only inhumane ignorance would deny the cost. Thousands of innocent people died, thousands of soldiers sacrificed and we bombed and blockaded the living shit out of a part of our land that was trying to break away. But they didn’t. The country didn’t split, it didn’t remain in terrorist limbo, the war was fought ruthlessly and to an end. Mahinda Rajapaksa ended the war. And things are getting better. Things have got better. So I thank him for that.
Today on the 
Janith has updated 
This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like 
Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
“Groundviews et al continue about democracy and pluralist society and stuff, but most people I’ve talked to around Sri Lanka don’t understand or care about those words.”
I think this is very true. These concepts are subtle and only a very few understand them properly. Indeed, I would say that it was never properly understood here anyway, which is why it was possible to do away with it so easily.
@Jack Point,
Heard of Macaulay’s “Minute on Indian Education” written in 1835?
“It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”
The plan seems to have worked, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay,_1st_Baron_Macaulay
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html
Wouldn’t this class be India’s ever growing middle class?
kusal perera is a ltte sympathizer who used to booze with tamilnet editor. idiots like kusal have lost there source of income with the defeat of the ltte. no wonder he is angry with rajapaksha clan.
It is good to know that U are a Artist, photographer with a taste.
But you do, don’t you, Jack? Wow, it’s great that someone so discerning, wise and omniscient as yourself could deign to write a mere comment on a lowly blog. This kind of condescension is why the UNP and the UNPers lost – the people have their priorities and their gratitude and they have shown both.
But, regardless of what Groundviews thinks, MR has brought the conditions for democracy and pluralism to flourish, both in the north and the rest of the country.
Do you think that Velupillai – that fascist totalitarian who could’ve given Stalin lessons in double talking: “no, I’m here to help you Tamil people. Really while I’m killing you for thinking differently, keeping your medicine from you because you won’t let me recruit your children, etc, I really love you guys” – would have let democracy and pluralism bloom in the North? Even during the peace accord, he was killing Tamil politicians.
And, as for the rest of the country, continuous war brutalises a country and its people and they learn – as the Americans did, as the British did – to sacrifice liberty for security.
Remember that VP has only been dead less than a year – a damn good, happy year – and society takes time to heal itself. Without war, the people will get the chance to learn what democracy and pluralism really means. And then, it will happen. Not because the NGOs want it or the blogosphere wants it but because the people do.
And for that possibility, for that potential, I too am grateful to MR.
Lets say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, eh?
it IS true.. we ARE free to have normal problems! one WOULD rather drown without the added pain of being kicked repeatedly in head. love your metaphor :P
jack point certainly has the finger on the pulse of the common man
I thank him too
Dear Indi,
Has Mahinda made things better for the Tamil people of the Northeast? That is the question that needs to be asked? Not how you in the safety of your ivory tower and foreign citizenship feels!!!!!
1. people in colombo stayed out until the wee hours of the morning during war time. It’s called CLUBing!
2. The GoSL killed, maimed, gang raped, tortured, starved people and used medicine and food as weapons of war. Your main focus on LTTE shows that the GoSL propaganda is working with you, sadly!
3. You don’t agree with Kusal Perera, you don’t agree with UTHR report, you don’t agree with ICG report. Then who do you agree with??? Looks like, Mahinda and sinhala chauvinists are the only ones left to agree with!
4. What about the lives of the most vulnerable people (Tamil people of Northeast)?? Do they agree with Mahinda?
5. I agree with you on, people in Northeast don’t have to worry about recruitment and forced taxation. But Sinhala army occupying land, houses, checking and continuous harassment are still problems. Tamil people are living in anxiety and fear.
Are you Tamils still whining and moaning and griping? Be happy that your people aren’t dying like flies.