Sixteen years ago, yesterday, a 440 pound bomb tore through downtown Colombo. It killed 91 people, injured 1,400 and left at least 100 people blind. It also made the city recoil from itself, leaving the city center largely abandoned, only to slowly emerge today. It also made tourism drop by 40%, a figure that is also only now recovering, post war. More than anything, however, it just left people stumbling, bloody and reeling, onto the shattered streets of Colombo.

Gaddafi was weird, but keeping photos of Condoleeza Rice is icing on the nut cake. This seems to be a trend for dictators and terrorists. Near the end, they humiliate you with photography. Before he was killed, the government released photos of the portly Prabhakaran lounging in a swimming pool (juxtaposed with the privations of LTTE cadres). The US government said they discovered porn with Bin Laden. By the time they humiliate you, it means that you are no longer feared but almost (or already) dead.

Every slander against Arab protestors was true of the LTTE. They were violent, sectarian, and foreign influenced. How is/was Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka different from the Arab Spring? I don’t mean federalism (good idea, people deserve to be troubled by a government that at least speaks their language). I mean separatism, the idea of a separate state for the Tamil race in the North and East of the island.

Terrorism often provokes, well, terror and division. Natural disasters, by contrast, usually invoke solidarity. That’s why it’s striking to see… this spreadsheet. It’s a sheet of Mumbaikars and Indians volunteering to help. And it’s not an isolated incident.

Just clocked in and my God, Mumbai has been hit by a terrorist attack. I know what it’s like, the news, the shock and then transport and communications choking in terror and fear. It truly is a media phenomenon and the blast spreads through the airwaves. The Wikipedia page is up and running and reactions are running real time on Twitter (#MumbaiBlasts). Also live TV via India Times. I pray that you and yours are well.

I was reading Adele Balasingham’s autobiography The Will To Freedom, which I randomly found in a used bookshop. The wife of late LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham, she wrote a self-serving and blinkered autobiography, which is nevertheless interesting for her personal access to late LTTE leader Prabhakaran and other assorted terrorists. What I found most interesting was how total psychos tend to be humanized via food. She writes how Prabhakaran’s passion was food and cooking and how he often sent over dishes for her and Anton. She also details his fastidious dress and cleanliness habits and how he despised smoking and drinking. All very admirable and connectable human traits, but she entirely elides incidents like the multiple suicide bombings he ordered, or the hacking to death of border villagers, or the machine gunning of innocent worshipers in Anuradhapura. Instead, the story she wrote is about some pristine liberation struggle where Prabhakaran enters as a friendly neighbor, helping with food and travel arrangements. Interesting personal anecdotes, but not really representative of history. That is, even mass murderers must eat, as humans do. That doesn’t make them humanitarians.

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.

Canada deported the Tamil Nadu actor for making inflammatory pro-LTTE comments in Toronto. I think this is good and appropriate, and I wish that they’d cracked down on the people flying LTTE flags before. Not because Tamil issues are not real or that Tamil nationalism is not intellectually valid. Simply because a global terrorist network like the LTTE is in nobody’s interest.

Apparently Al Qaeda has started sneaking explosives in their bums. They tried to kill the Saudi counter-terrorism guy with exploding ass. He sustained minor injuries. I would say terrifying, but it’s also funny. However, this ass bomb was able to get through airport security and 30 hours with Saudi Security. Presumably he wasn’t eating much. Then they seem to have detonated it via cell phone, causing massive carnage but sparing the intended target. In this context I suppose cavity searches make sense. It is ingenious in a way, but I also think Al Qaeda should pull its head out of its ass.

The week after Tissa was given 20 years for writing, two actual card carrying LTTE spokesmen were released on bail. Hence, being LTTE is pardonable, but being charged with meeting them or writing against the government (from a Tamil perspective) is not. Indeed, the current Chief Minister of the Eastern Province and a Cabinet Minister were high-ranking LTTErs, implicated in (among other things) the slaying of hundreds of police officers.