Sarath Fonseka posters in Jaffna, 2010.

What’s the lesson here? For me, it’s that politics trumps ethnicity. It’s not that the Rajapaksas are inherently racist. I mean, maybe they are (I don’t think so), but whatever they do is mediated by political pressure – ie, people calling them and asking for or giving them feedback. For the Rajapaksas, a significant minority is Sinhala Nationalist, so they bow to that political reality. Sarath Fonseka, who had hitherto been considered a racist [by some people], suddenly became the minority protector in 2010, as positioned against Mahinda. Which is crazy, right, except it’s not. It’s not like he had a change of heart or even that it mattered. That was his political reality.

IMHO, the biggest problem Tamils have isn’t the Sinhalese, it’s that they’re so divided politically. In fairness, Tamils did exercise significant political pressure after Independence and got little but beatings and pogroms in return. They were once the main opposition, but little good it seemed to do. When Tamils, under the yoke of the LTTE, effectively tried to opt out of the political process altogether, however, things got even worse. When the LTTE ethnically cleansed Muslims and alienated Eastern Tamils, things got even worse. Now it’s a fractured and decimated polity which can’t really swing elections.

Except it could. As Fonseka showed, Tamil speaking people can still form a semi-effective vote base. If the UNP had its shit halfway together they would capture this minority vote, but instead it’s slipped away to smaller, weaker ethnic parties (like the Tamil National Alliance and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress). But that vote base is there, and there is a political reality which can make even the most Sinhala politician (or soldier) get real.

Historically, Sri Lankan leaders have to be very cautious of Generals. They frequently take power, at least in the Mahavamsa. Mahinda was uber-conscious, surrounding Fonseka’s hotel with troops right after the election. It was super dodgy, actually, but Mahinda wasn’t taking any chances. He also saw fit to eliminate him from politics by putting him in jail. I’m not sure if Fonseka even has political rights when he gets out. This has happened to leaders like Srimavo Bandaranaike and they’ve recovered, but Fonseka is not a career politician, and not naturally skilled.

If he does get out, what does it mean?

Fonseka was an MP, but he’s been stripped of that. He was the head of his own party, but that’s frittered away. The next Presidential election isn’t till 2016, unless Mahinda decides to call it earlier. And I’m not sure Fonseka can even run with his conviction. From what I hear a lot of his campaign money was taken to start Ceylon Today (newspapers), so maybe he has a mouthpiece, or maybe he doesn’t. One of his major campaign issues was not having a house, and I think he still doesn’t have one. But it’s better than jail.

It’ll be good if he gets out. He really didn’t do anything except running against Mahinda, which isn’t a crime.

The cover of the first Playboy, from 1953.

You can’t get iPlayboy from the App Store, because Apple bans porn. But Playboy isn’t really porn. An average magazine is like 70% ads, 20% copy and 10% chaste women nude. The modern magazine kinda sucks, but the app is worth it for the back issues. The interviews, fiction and commentary from the 1950s, 60s and 70s are high quality stuff. There are interviews, for example, with Malcolm X. He advocates some pretty racist stuff, before he evolved. And Marshall McCluhan and, more recently, Jon Stewart and Jon Hamm.

There’s also fiction from Arthur C. Clarke and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (in the first issue). The 1953 issue seems to have been put together by Hugh Hefner’s hand in those cut paste days. It has amazing line drawings and really edgy, interesting content.

Trippy line art.

Another interesting feature is that you can see all the old (and new) ads. Some of the copy and art direction from back in the day is amazing, and I’m a big Mad Men fan, so it’s nice seeing what their work was like at the time.

Technically, also, the iPlayboy app is interesting. For one thing, it’s HTML5, so it runs on the browser, tablet or whatever. It’s not really an app (because Apple would ban it), it’s a website that’s built around touch. It also loads really really fast. I don’t know how, but you can flip through high quality pages at a satisfying speed, a far cry from most shitty Flash magazines, or PDF.

So that’s the iPlayboy App (NSFW). It costs $8 a month, or about Rs. 1,000.

Comic Books are great, I used to spend my petty cash on them and CDs. And baseball cards. We’d ride out bike down to the strip malls and buy toys for boys. You used to be able to get the old comics or reprints for cheap. So I read the first Spiderman, and some 1970s era Spiderman which had some amazing pants, and the stuff from the 80s, which had amazing hair. This was the Todd McFarlane era, before he created Spawn. That shit was fun, but I kinda grew up.

Ant Man and the Wasp named the Avengers, then disappeared. Perhaps got stepped on, or misfiled.

I was reading the first Avengers comic (which is free on the Marvel app). You know who’s not in the movie? Ant Man. And Wasp Women. Because they’re … I was going to say they’re retarded, but they actually did a lot of the work in the comic book. Oh, and Iron Man is an actual man covered in cylinders. He looks like The Thing in geometric brass.

It’s silly that old businesses can’t make money online. They just have to make awesome stuff, and make it easy to get. Marvel is an old business, and they’re printing money on all fronts. Avengers the movie just made the most money ever. Plus I just read like five Spiderman comics ($1.99 each, which is like Rs. 255) and THEY STILL HAVEN’T CAUGHT CARNAGE. Assholes.

I’ve been using the Marvel comics app for the iPad. It’s pretty good, if expensive. Loads beautiful comic pages fast, lets you zoom panel by panel, pretty sex. Thing is, I can read a single comic in like 15 minutes. An issue costs $1.99, a series is about $8.99. Also, NONE OF THEM EVER END. So can get addictive, if you like comics.

I was bone tired today. And yesterday. My thoughts are largely incoherent. It’s all been broken down to human relation. Recognition, memory, how are you, thank you, good bye. If I try to talk about anything abstract I simply don’t understand. I feel like a fax machine. A modem. 28k. I wish I hadn’t bitten that egg sandwich. I wish I hadn’t used my toothbrush to clean my pants.

My cousin needs to call a Somasiri in ten minutes. He lost an arm, Seeya helped him with a compensation case. Nanda says he’d want to know.

The night watch keeps dozing off in their chairs, heads down as if in prayer. It’s just me and Bon Iver.

…

One of the men dozing in the garden is Seeya’s cousin. His leg is injured such that he can barely walk, but he can apparently bicycle. He came all the way from Malabe, I think twice. Some people are habitually hardcore.

As a young man in the Air Force Uncle got in a bad motorcyle accident, ended up in Negombo Hospital. Achchi and Seeya were in Katunayake and they got word. He still remembers the bup of Marmite they gave him. He says the Marmite saved him. Perhaps coincidental, but still. I know how it feels, those small things, at big moments. You’re helpless in hospital. There are times when you just need someone to show up, when you need someone to carry you for a while.

Uncle has had 30 operations on his leg and it never quite healed. It’s bandaged still. How he bicycled from Malabe to Mount Lavinia is beyond me. And he keeps coming back. Achchi told him he’d said good-bye, to promise not to come back. He said he’d try, but he sometimes breaks his promises.

…

At the most vital moments, it breaks down to this. Showing up. Falling asleep in waiting rooms. Celestial or terrestrial.

I’ve been in jail before. It sucks. You just want someone to show up, but at those moments your Rolodex is mighty thin. Just family really. If you’re lucky. I have a friend in jail right now. Remand.

Seeya used to show up. Tha told me about a journalist he’d gotten out. He’d brought bunice, she said. I saw the case files, of the disappeared, of the war and the forgotten war. That’s what Seeya did, in his retirement, if you’d call it that. He went to law school, after his own son had graduated. He used to sleep in the office, in case somebody called. He used to wait. Through the night I guess.

Seeya’s portrait, as we remember him.

Ainsley Samarajiwa was a teacher, human rights lawyer, Christian, and – fundamentally – a deeply compassionate man. Other people remember different things. I remember parts of myself, suddenly in context, now that he has passed. His love for travel, exploration. His earnest desire to help, the sense that there was no other choice really, and to get on with it. He’s been sick for so long. I remember it now.

Seeya’s body is still warm. We cover him with a sheet and readjust his head. He looks peaceful now. After a long suffering with Alzheimer’s and physical decline, he has passed away. Today is Wednesday, May 9th. Just after Vesak. It was around noon. He was 87 years old.

This is my Achchi – grandmother:

“Ainsley Samarajiwa, as a boy, went to St. John’s. He then got a scholarship to Prince of Wales for two years and did his Inter-Arts because he was too young to go to University. Then he went to University at the age of 17.”

This is my father:

“Most people are identified by the last government job he had, very few people think of him as the Deputy Commissioner of Exams. Most people think of him as a lawyer, or a teacher. So the two official posts he had, I rarely hear people talk about.

Those days there was no dispute about appearing for Tamil prisoners, but there was about appearing for JVP prisoners. Seeya had been adamant that people should appear for all. He had appeared for JVP and people from various Tamil political parties.

He used to go to Boosa so often. He used to go in the bus. He became a lawyer only when he was about 60. He started law school when he was 55. He retired the earliest possible from government service. He was junior to me, I had finished law school.

He never took any money. Any payment whatsoever. I used to have endless arguments with him, but he never took any money.

There was a very important committee he was on, that looked at all the people who were forgotten, stuck in prison. He was the lawyer member. They went all over the country in planes, trains…”

and herein the narrative is interrupted to chase down long lost names of judges and contacts.

“The UNP had been in power for like 17 years and all these people had been stuck in prison from ’88, Tamil people, Sinhalese people.”

I saw the files in the house. Terrible stuff. Page after page of names, designations, and time spent, reports of torture. Like distant, impotent cries.

My father is on the phone.

Memory, in context.

When I heard Seeya had passed I rushed over. I still owe the trishaw driver Rs. 210. He had passed. He was there, peaceful. There was a Bible on Seeya’s pillow, opened to Kings. Achchi had been reading it, about King Solomon. At that point God seemed more concerned with getting people to acknowledge Him than them being necessarily righteous. I flip through to the New Testament. There’s a passage bookmarked in Luke, 46-56.

And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm,
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.

I sit and thumb through the old, old Bible. It was a gift. The note says something like [from] Lowe and May Grundy, Chester-le-Street, April 1958. “To our sincere friend and brother in Christ Jesus. Praying that God will bless you always.” At the top it says A.P. Samarajiwa. As I’m sitting by his body, I’m thankful that it’s here.

Seeya’s suitcase is on top of the cupboard. Kinda plaid. Kinda Mad Men. Must be from the same era. Achchi says he’s been everywhere with that suitcase, Russia, Czechoslovakia, even Africa. I ask where in Africa, she says Nigeria, for a Methodist meeting. My grandfather was a Christian. In the best sense of the word.

I chose Buddhism when I was about 19, but I am thankful for the Christian values that my paternal grandparents lived and passed on. My father has returned.

“I remember the mundane things. He was a school principal in a village school. This was a kinda area where people were majority Christian, so they considered the school their own. They also liked their liquor. So on weekends they would take their liquor and play a game called Elle. The school had a playground and they would come to play Elle. Then some ruling came down from the authorities that on Sundays you couldn’t have this school ground used for these activities, because it was a Christian school and they needed the Sabbath respected. These fellows were not about to respect that, we’re talking about a large school. You could fit two soccer grounds. One day these fellows had come, had jumped the gate, they were going to play Elle whether the Principal liked it or not. And this scrawny man went against about a hundred guys. And he yells at them and they leave.”

And yet my father was not a Christian.

“When I was 13 and said I no longer wanted to go to church. Achchi brought Seeya along to have this serious conversation. And then he says ‘he’s got his reasons’ and that was the end of the conversation.”

Achichi has returned, so to chronology.

“He graduated from the Colombo University and till the results came he worked at Carey College. He gave it up and he applied to Kingswood College. He was about 20 years old at that time. That was 1944. Then he worked in Kingswood then of course we married in 49. Both of us were working, I was even senior to your Seeya by one term. And I left, because Lilani was born in 50, in February. I stayed at home without teaching for 15 years.”

“Whereas Seeya did his diploma in Education at the Colombo University in 51, and he was second in the list. In 58 he got a scholarship to go to England for his MA. And he went to Kent, nah, Bristol. Aaahh, Kumara.”

Kumara has come, to help move things, clean things, get the house ready for the funeral. A lot to do.

“Ethakota putha, he studied at Bristol, he came back after 14 months, he came back in 59, really December 58. One year he worked at Kingswood, he was warden of the hostel there. In 60 he was appointed as principal of Katunayake High School. That was a training for him to go to one of the Methodist schools, Kingswood, Wesley. But in 1960, no no, ’62 schools takeover by the government. ['61 maybe].”

“After that he was not full principal, he was class 2 principal. He was not eligible because of the government takeover, only the Buddhist people got placed. Richmond only a Buddhist, Kingswood also. Wesley College was the only place.”

One thing was Seeya supported the takeover – my mother

“He applied out, he applied to Examination Department. He got selected as an Assistant Superintendent. He worked there for 15 years. He finished up as Deputy Commissioner.”

But to return to the government takeover, despite it ending his career prospects, my grandfather supported the move.

“He was very happy about that. He was stoned, they threw rocks at the house.”

“He admitted Buddhist children into the school, Ainsley admitted all. He took a Buddhist teacher onto the staff. He was all open like that. There were a lot of people against but he didn’t care.”

“We moved to Kotte [after joining the Exams Department], and people said now that Seeya was in government he could get his children into good schools. We sent him [my father] to the Kotte boys school, Lilani to the girls school. Then the man topped the examination list and Ananda College he got in. Then said religion not provided for and threw him out. Then Royal College, they said underage and they threw him out. Then Seeya got excited and said where is this boy to go to school. Nalanda nah, Thurstan College vitharai. Poor relative. Seeya kuwa, kamak nah. ‘That boy if he studies at Royal College or Thurstan College, he’ll study, he’ll do well’.”

[as a note Thurstan is considered a second-tier school, not guaranteed 'class' like Royal or St. Thomas. Poor relative as my Achchi refers to it. There's a joke that goes something like - "Where are all the buses? Parked, all the bus drivers are watching their kids at the Thurstan/Isipathana match". One huge exception is that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is also a Thurstanite, but for reasons of his own. That's another story.]

“He did his A/Levels there. He didn’t have proper masters, boys went for group studies. But the last term, Ainsley was getting a little worried about Chemistry or something, he put you on to a friend of his… a Muslim man.”

‘no, that was a Physics man in Pita Kotte. Talk about Seeya will you.’ (my father)

“I’m telling you that Seeya did not pressurize him. Though he got into Engineering, though he wanted to change [my father changed majors in University, which is another story].”

“Then on his 14th year or so Seeya got interdicted. We were in Dehiwela at the time. The interdiction was… western music paper, the third question had come from the previous syllabus. Seeya was in charge of the whole exam and each of these subjects had various groups… to correct any mistakes. And these people had not. And those who did western music were very influential people. So there was a big row.”

“And at that time, Seeya had gone on leave, he was in Bandarawela at a local preachers seminar. He didn’t even know. When we were at Dehiwela, four five Exams Commission people came home. They told me. So when he came back of course he got the news then, what do you think, the UNP trade union, Exams Department, went forward and fought for Seeya. They knew he was not in their camp, Ainsley was on the left side no? The UNP Trade Union went and said he’s a very fine officer, he’s not in our camp, but we’re speaking on his behalf. Then he was called and said you can go back to work.”

“But, after that, they decided that he was not going to do, he went on to Inquiries [department] and worked there for a couple years, he was of course Assistant Commissioner at that time. It was there that he got interested in law. He had to refer to law books because of the cases of cheating.”

Father – “He was in charge of the Confidential Branch. Major military operation to get all the exam papers out on the same day, he would be out with the lorries. During his day there were no leakages, I remember he actually arrested people.”

Achchi – “At age 55 he gave up exams. Following day he was at the Law College.”

Happiest time? [My father asks what their happiest times were].

“We were always happy.”

Then she thinks about it some more.

“He was happy working in Kaliyapullawatte. They started that project from, they worked for a time at Summitpura, off Dematagoda, where all these people who they threw out for a government summit. That is called Summitpura. It was a swampy area where the river waters came, they got the land development people to put lorry loads of soil there. They moved to Dematagoda, that was a real success.”

“You know there were rackety old buildings and all, they used to put canvas underneath. These were harbor laborers, vendors, carrying loku bags to market, had no place to live. They used to find takarang and plastic and cardboard, little places they’d hitch up. No proper road, no toilets, no bathing, no nothing.”

“So, CSR (Center For Society And Religion). They did a very fine job at Kaliyapullawatte. They organized, they worked for years on that. They started with trying to get the children… they had no toilets. Women would get up early morning with a tin of water, go further down do their business and come. Later on they had lovely toilets done. They had to be educated also. All those slum areas the children had no schools. Seeya had a lot of influence with education people. They went out and said “Appo, muduku lamay appe gan nah” [my bad transcription, essentially we won't take slum kids].”

“They opened a small shed. I used to work on a mat, teaching the small children letters. Most of them didn’t have birth certificates, first of all got the children their birth certificates. ”

Tha – “there’s a film, the ‘People Trade: Leftovers’ – ‘while community worker Ainsley Samarajiwa meets people looking for work in one of Colombo’s shanty towns.’”

“Kaliyapullawatte was a real success. They empowered the people themselves. Charlie was a man who pushed the garbage lorry, he was President of the society they had. They had a committee, they had meetings, they had film shows. Then the children, I want to tell you, they got birth certificates, their education level was nil. They opened a small school, they were taught to read and write. As soon as they were little competent, they were taken to schools. They managed to get the children in. After they come to school, four five teachers, all went there and helped the children. Some of them are doing very well today.”

“On the women’s side, they got the girls into sewing classes. Gave them a machine, they started sewing, so they were able to fend for themselves. Artificial flowers they were making, they had sales points. For a number of years they worked there. Once we went for another ceremony later. They had a nursery school they opened out. The girl who used to work rang me up the other day also, she’s in Ireland now. Ramani Gunasekera and others helped a lot.”

“Final thing was they went in delegation to the Municipal Councils and asked for land. Then there was a garbage dump, they got them to bring lorry loads of soil and cover it up. They took a census of all the people in the slums, each of them were given ownership of three perches of land. They cut roads, built toilets, water. They had a lovely picture of Ainsley standing in his national, the first tap they got into the compound. The film has been lost. So those were nice days.”

I’m not sure where this fits chronologically. The interesting thing is that my grandfather became a lawyer after retirement, after my father. And thus began what was in many ways the most productive and remembered part of his career. He worked at the CSR until he literally could not work any more.

“Seeya used to set the English paper for the law entrance. The moment he went into Law College, somebody else had done it and he had to sit the exam. In Law College he finished up his three years, but he came down in one subject. Accounts. So Ainsley went to a friends husband and taught him accounts. He got through.”

Achchi has gone to see Seeya’s body. Thatha passed me this Daily News link. He’s been Googling Seeya, to see what the digital record is. This is an old article by Upali Cooray.

“I know Mahinda Rajapakse only because in 1989, as a member of the Committee for Democracy and Justice in Sri Lanka (CDJ), I helped to organise a delegation of members from the European Parliament (MEP’s) and European lawyers to visit Sri Lanka.

They were sent to investigate the 60,000 odd persons that “disappeared” during the 1988-89 period. Without the assistance of Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, Mr. Ainsley Samarajeeva, Mr. Mangala Samaraweera and others this delegation would never have been able to fulfil the important role they played in curbing the worst excesses of State terrorism. That year, Ms. Christine Oddy, MEP, presented the data that Mr. Mahinda Rjapakse and others so courageously and painstakingly collected to the UN sub-committee on human rights.”

I shan’t comment on that. I don’t think Seeya thought of his work in a political context, not in that sense. I mean, he was always political, don’t get that confused, to a degree we all were. But the human rights stuff was simply human rights. He was simply helping out humans who’d been forgotten in a very dark place. Achchi came back for a moment, before someone from Panadura arrived. Ah, he’s in Ratmalana now. We’re still moving up the coast.

“These slum areas, Seeya used to go to Netherlands, Germany, he met these groups. He brought them, these people came, they spent money and they bought those drains like that and fitted it. The whole Kaliyapulawatte was beautifully drained off by these Germans.”

There are more motions about. I turn back to the Bible. There’s another passage bookmarked, with a faded brown leaf.

“When men fall, do they not rise again?
If one turns away, does he not return?
Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding?
They hold fast to deceit,
they refuse to return.”

Not quite sure what that means, it’s from Jeremiah. Through the rest of the passage God seems rather… stern.

There are things to do. My cousin returns with the death certificate. It’s about booking cremation slots. Decisions. We start clearing off the mantlepiece for the funeral. Where on earth do these bric-a-bracs come from, and how do they persist. I walk past Seeya’s room. He looks more peaceful than I’ve seen in years.

Achchi – “Tha Tha was a local preacher. He was Vice President of the Methodist Church.”

I think there’s to be a service at Church.

Seeya’s last years – following a stroke and Alzheimer’s – were of progressive decline. He hasn’t recognized me or anyone for years. The body lost weight, huddled and declined – but remained. The mind was gone I’m afraid to say. For a man who lived by his mind, by words, by deeds, that volition was gone.

Over Avurudu I carried him out of bed in the mornings. It was like holding a heavy child, a body, in reverse. He struggled to breathe, to eat. Today is the first time I’ve seen him at peace in years. This is the first time I’m remembering him, as a man, beyond his present condition.

This is not an obituary. It leaves out so much of his work, as a human rights lawyer, as a father, grandfather and as a refuge for countless more. Perhaps this is part one, but I don’t want to trouble my Achchi too much, not today.

Their 63rd wedding anniversary was just weeks ago. In all things they were together. It’s difficult to say that I learned this from Seeya and not from Achchi, or from other sources as well. But I did imbibe something deep from them. A sense of Christian charity, of duty, of honor if you will. I’m not him, God knows, but if I have done anything compassionate in this life, it is only by their example. If I have any kindness, it was born of them. He was a good man, and he was my Seeya. He held me as a child and I held his head today, felt the warmth passing from his body. I feel he is at peace.

The funeral will be Friday the 11th of May, cortage leaving at 3:45 from the house. The house is 80/16 Templars Road, this is actually a bit off Templars, science college turn. It will proceed to the Mount Lavinia cemetary at five. In lieu of flowers, I don’t know, do something randomly nice.

Mr Pawan Goenka of Mahindra and Mahindra, launching the hydrogen-powered three-wheeler ‘HyAlfa’ in New Delhi.

Trishaws are actually fairly fuel-efficient as is, at least compared to cars and, like, Prados. Well maintained they’re not that noxious, but they can be. A ‘green’ trishaw, however, is an obvious improvement. This isn’t a commercial model, but Mahindra has said “The price of HyAlfa could be Rs.20,000-25,000 more than a CNG three-wheeler, which costs around Rs.2-lakh, in case of its mass production”. So that’s about 5.5 lakhs in Sri Lanka. Thing is, a normal trishaw costs about 3.5 plus, and these numbers are highly affected by taxes, making Sri Lanka a fertile testing ground. As with hybrids, not taxing the eco option can lead to much higher uptake.

Hydrogen, however, also requires infrastructure, but for contained places like Galle, Colombo and Kandy this wouldn’t be insanely difficult. If all the pieces come together, I think we should cut down car traffic to certain areas, or at certain times – like, say, around the Beira Lake during Vesak. As a fleet of normal city buses and better trishaws come online, this is looking more and more appealing.

Regarding layered web video, to a degree (sometimes an annoying degree) it’s happening on YouTube, but obviously not up to its potential. The best example I’ve seen is Hunter and Bear’s 2012 birthday party. I link rather than embed because you need to be in YouTube to really experience it. It’s sorta a choose-your-own-adventure (interactive YouTube) with a twist, at the end you can plugin almost any year and see some funny video. Very well done. It’s an ad for Tipex btw.

Still not the type of interactive video CODOC is talking about though. That seems pretty sophisticated and more focused, rather than hacking existing capabilities of YouTube. I’d be very interested to see the working prototype, as I suppose would Sir Branson. So anyways, check it out and vote for them.

Almost capacity.

While there are hilarious times to pile everyone you’re with into a trishaw, it’s obviously unsafe. If you crash it’s just a compressed ball of humanity with a few metal girders like so much twine. And people do die.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said this would help minimise road accidents. He said between April 1 and May 7 there had been 27 accidents involving three-wheelers leaving 34 people killed. (Daily Mirror)

Seriously, a toppled trishaw is the most pathetic thing. Like a flipped-over turtle. So I guess this rule is a good thing. Obviously. To be fair, however, you can fit four comfortable abreast in a Piaggio, those noisy shit machines. But I suppose the vertical stacking has to stop.

Flowers at a Hindu hall

As I discussed around the Jeyaraj article, Sri Lankan Tamils are broadly divided into those of extremely late (ancient) and colonial Indian origin (estate workers). Sinhalese are also of Indian origin via Vijaya, if you mythologically want to go there. Biologically we are all mixed and largely indistinguishable. Anyways, the one page news article view of Sri Lanka describes a nation of Sinhalese and Tamils, but this obscures the fact that Muslims may now be the biggest minority, and that Tamils are not a coherent group.

Broadly there’s the split between Estate Tamils and North Eastern Tamils. Then there’s the split between north and east. Then there’s the estimated 50% of Tamils who live in the south. Plus Christian Tamils, etc. And this doesn’t even begin to mention further sub-divisions based on class. It really isn’t a coherent race, and I personally don’t think race is the best way to understand or change Sri Lanka.

So, is Tamil just a language? Well, sorta. The thing is that Muslims and Tamils all over the island speak Tamil, among other languages. If they got together they’d be a formidable force (already a majority in Colombo), but they don’t. Tamil is a language, but not necessarily an identity. Which I think is true. This is why I think a broader civil rights movement is the only way out of the ‘ethnic conflict’ because the lines and sides in that conflict aren’t really clear. It’s too vague to actually be resolved whereas civil rights is something that appeals to all races and religions, etc. To all Sri Lankans essentially. In a world of shifting identity, the only one that makes sense to me is this island. There’s ocean all around, and if we don’t live together we don’t really have anywhere to go. So we should live together in peace.

Anyways, Radhakrishnan has the best report on the recent visit by Indian MPs to Sri Lanka. Worth a read.

Mahinda’s Tamil avatar.

If you look at the 2001 Census data (PDF) this is undoubtably true, but that was during the war years and excludes most of the north from the counting. According to that measure the population is 82% Sinhalese, 7.9% Muslim, 5.1% Indian Tamil and 4.3% Sri Lankan Tamil. But, as mentioned this excludes the places where perhaps half of Sri Lankan Tamils live, or at least one would think.

Prabha Ganesan cites this number to say that Indian Tamils outnumber Sri Lankan Tamils. While this may be true, I don’t think we’ll really know until this years census results are out, covering the whole island. Therefore, I’m not sure that Sri Lankan Tamils are the fourth largest ethnicity in Sri Lanka, but they could very well be the third or fourth. Which is surprising. DBS had some more to say on the demography:

The worst impact has been on demography. Tamils have left the country in very large numbers. Equally large numbers have moved to areas outside the north and east. Only 42% of Sri Lankan Tamils are said to be living in the north east now.

Some years ago at a seminar in Colombo , retired Indian Judge V. Krishna Iyer stated that Tamils be given full autonomy. Former Central Bank Governor N.U. Jayewardena wrote to the newspapers in response

N.U. made three observations. Firstly, he said the Sri Lankan population would stabilise to zero growth in 2025. Secondly, he said that the high rates of Tamils leaving the country indicated that the Tamils would only be 1.9 % in 2025. Thirdly, he said that 1. 9% was a “manageable minority that need not be given autonomy.”

Thanks to comparatively higher educational standards and social problems like dowry, late marriages, aversion to female children, etc., the Tamil birth rate has been on the decline even before 1983.

Census figures of 1963, 1971 and 1981 show gradual decrease percentage wise. If a proper census is taken now, the Tamil population percentage would be much less. It may not be 1.9 % as N.U. said, but it could certainly be less than 5%.

How Did This Happen?

One explanation is that this is part of a coordinated genocide by the Sri Lankan state against Sri Lankan Tamils. Which I don’t think is true, and neither it seems does Jeyaraj. He seems to lay the blame on the scorched earth policy of the LTTE, willing to sacrifice the Tamil people for the ‘Tamil cause’. Writing four years ago, while the LTTE still existed, he said:

In short, the LTTE’s growth in the past 25 years has been phenomenal. It is perhaps the only enterprise run ‘for, of and by’ the Tamil people in Sri Lanka that has registered a ‘success’ of this magnitude after July 1983.

This successful growth has come at immense cost to the Tamil people of Sri Lanka . Vertically the LTTE may have gone up, but horizontally the Sri Lankan Tamils have gone down. This is the unpleasant and inconvenient truth that the LTTE and acolytes often deny and do not like to hear…

The Tamils may have proved a point by taking up arms against the state dominated by the numerically larger Sinhala people. But ultimately, demography would defeat the Tamils.

If the prolonged armed struggle for Tamil Eelam is leading to a gradual decline of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka , then the ultimate losers will be the Tamils themselves.

The Sri Lankan state certainly hasn’t been helpful, but the LTTE took effective control of the North and East and essential gambled on Eelam or bust – with other peoples lives. I’ve argued that the same unemployed youth population wasn’t there to support an insurrection in the 2000s, but it also seems that there wasn’t enough population at all. Demography is often destiny, it seems.

What Are Sri Lankan And Indian Tamils?

One thing to be noted here is that Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils are separate categories, and why. Tamils have been on this island at least as long as the Sinhalese, what with it being a difficult swimming distance from India. Tamils that have been here for yonks and settled in the North, East AND South are called Sri Lankan Tamil. Tamils that were brought down more recently by the British to work on the plantations (cause they couldn’t get the natives to do shit) are called Indian Tamil. And many were shamefully disenfranchised post-Independence. But they’re Sri Lankan now, and I personally prefer the term Estate Tamil.

The more relevant question is why they and Sri Lankan Tamils aren’t grouped together. Largely because there isn’t a coherent Tamil identity like that. I think that most Jaffna Tamils wouldn’t group themselves with the up-country Tamils and, indeed, any liberation movement under the LTTE didn’t include Hatton. When Estate Tamils were disenfranchised, Sri Lankan Tamil politicians also played along.

Are Muslims Number Two?

Another interesting issue is that the decline of Sri Lankan Tamils makes mostly Tamil speaking Muslims the second largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka. They are ignored in more analyses of Sri Lanka, but recent events like the shameful shuttering of a Dambulla mosque have drawn Muslim relations to the forefront of public attention.

It’s obviously not a contest, and I think that the 2012 census will show Sri Lankan Tamils as the number three ethnicity and not number four, but it’s still a sad and heady decline, and quite contrary to the general perception we have of the country. If you asked me I’d guess that Tamils were like 17%, but if you look at the numbers it’s more like 4%, and if you assume double in the uncounted north it’s still only 8%. Which is crazy. Read DBS for some more background and insight, but that’s just some food for thought.

Actually, I’d like to close this another way. However it happened, this is really sad. I’m no stickler for demographic consistency, but that so many Sri Lankans had to leave their country or died is just terribly sad.

Blackface is guaranteed racist in America, as it began at a racist time. Brownface is more ambivalent. I mean, Gandhi was played by Ben Kingsley. Mike Myers devoted a whole (execrable) movie to prancing around in brownface (The Love Guru). I am honestly more offended by the constant use of white people to play Indians or Arabs more than anything else. Like Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Of Persia? Really? I also find the consistent transmogrification of black singers (starting from Lil Kim) into blondes horrifying (ie, Rihanna). But Ashton Kutcher doing an Indian imitation? I don’t find it racist at all and don’t get the fuss.

Since the video (and ad for Pop Chips) has gone effectively viral now, perhaps that was the point. Or at least, not a bad thing. I suppose I know what Pop Chips are now, and apparently they’re kosher, so presumably halal. I’m just not offended. Honestly, I’m more offended by home grown Indian ads for vagina whitening cream than anything else.

The Sri Lankan flag is a lion on a maroon background with orange and green stripes, plus a yellow border. The lion flag was the last insignia of the last Kandyan king, who was Tamil/Telegu, insomuch as such distinctions were distinct back then. It has nevertheless come to symbolize the Sinhalese to many people. I mean, I think it officially does symbolize the Sinhalese, tho – like all forms of identity – it breaks down if you look closely enough. I mean, by the mythology the lion was the Indian grandfather of Vijaya, the mythical progenitor of the Sinhalese race.

But nevermind. The rub is that the stripes symbolize the other races rather explicitly, kinda on the sword side also. I’m not a fan of putting demographic info in flags. I mean, demographics change. But nevermind. Those are criticisms of the flag, but honestly my main complaint as a child was that I just couldn’t draw the lion. It’s a symbol and I at least have got over my design issues to have a love for the symbol as it is, and what it represent, which to me is Sri Lanka.

For a lot of people, however, the idea of a Sri Lankan state is scary and Sinhala, and the flag represents that. So they don’t like the flag. Hence there’s a controversy about Tamil National Alliance MP Sampanthan even holding the flag at a UNP rally. He’s a sitting MP so there really shouldn’t be an issue, but there is, which shows you how deep the mistrust is, and how insecure the idea of a united Sri Lanka has been. And is, to a degree what with INTERNATIONAL CONSPIRACIES ABOUND. I refer to Mahinda’s May Day refrain, which is the only issue keeping economic protests off the streets.

The bigger issue, of course is that there’s still mistrust around the very idea and symbols of a centralized Sri Lankan state. Which is why I’m glad that Sampanthan did wave the flag. The ‘I’ll respect the state once the state respects me’ argument is, IMHO, about as pointless as figuring out whether the chicken or the egg came first. I mean, just let there be chickens and eggs and get on with things. Hence I’m all in favor of waving the flag, even if we have an imperfect state.

Regarding which, I’ve always found it interesting that Mahinda has his own flag, and I’ve often wondered what it was about. Apparently Sri Lanka Presidents have their own personal flags. Mahinda’s one I rather like. It’s simple, austere and SYMBOLIC rather than being, you know, a sort of ethnic infographic. But you know, wave the flag you have. Happy, uh, Monday.

Rage comics, if you want to know your meme are usually drawn rapidly in MS Paint (or were drawn, they’re mostly recycled now). What Sam Spratt has done here is an interesting riff on a riff. For occasionally funny Sri Lankan memes check out the Facebook group.

Buddhist Flag and the Vesak full moon.

Votive lamps and a Buddha statue.

Sri Lankan Buddhism, or Sinhala Buddhism if you will, has gotten its share of bad press lately. In the calm of temple I could reflect on how offensive and shameful it is to interrupt people at worship, as Muslims were heckled and harassed in Dambulla. People of faith have that in common and churches, temples, kovils and mosques remain safe places, and should remain so. I’m terribly sorry and I oppose moving the Dambulla mosque and fully support equal religious rights for all Sri Lankans.

Temple dog.

That said, the general practice of Buddhism here is a positive force in peoples lives, and a positive force in our society and nation. I’m not the most ritualistic Buddhist, but I do try to meditate every day and I’m aware that my practice wouldn’t be possible without the knowledge Sri Lankans have preserved over thousands of years, at least partly through ritual. I used to think that I’m above the ritualistic, cultural side, but as I get older I’ve realized that my practice may not have been possible without it, without that cultural substrate. So I no longer begrudge the seemingly unrelated ritual.

The Vesak crowd.

Indeed, I rather enjoy Vesak. The lights, the food, the crowds, the general happiness and chill. People crowd into vans and trucks and the backs of lorries just to see the lights, to be together. There are old people, young people, babies; crowds of boys popping wheelies on bicycles, wearing Scream masks (some demon thing), being boys but safe. Vesak is a bit less this year, but you can see the difference from the recent past. I mean, we are safe on the streets again. People can live in their city without fear of being blown up by terrorists, and it’s so great to see.

I wouldn’t even bring it up again, it’s so far from memory. I know a lot of kids for whom the war has to be explained. But I remember. This scene wouldn’t be there with the ongoing violence, so I am thankful. That we have our city and island to live, eat and sleep in, in peace.

Buddha statue in Dehiwela.

Perhaps that isn’t what Vesak is about, but perhaps it is. Buddhism has always had a relationship with power and the state. Even the Buddha depended on donated land and political patronage. Today, most of the Vesak floats I was were done by the armed forces and police. The dansals were more private sectors, but a different sector than you might thing. Radiant Cabs, smaller banks (but also Nations Trust), communities – those were the people giving out free food. And even a non-self faith like Buddhism still needs food, land, and ultimately political cover to exist.

The troubles with Sri Lankan Buddhism come from this need, this attachment if you will. Yes you get festivals and a space to preserve knowledge and meditate and be. You also, however, get drama and racism and violence and abuse and all the concomitants of human administration of religion. I choose to see the positives of Sri Lankan Buddhism, but there’s a whole bunch of negatives that I don’t choose to see, they get shown to me, to my great embarrassment and shame. I’m not excusing the intolerance done in the name of Sri Lankan Buddhism, but I hope you can understand the faith and that it’s personal, social, and generally good.

Vesak lanterns.

See Vesak for example. Sometimes territorial, but generally chill. I’ve been enjoying it so far, I hope you have too, whatever faith (or non-faith) you are. My best you and your family. May you be well, peaceful and happy. Preethi Vesak.

Avurudu is the best. Yes all the rural domestics leave and the Colombo class struggles to find a clean shirt or, like, eat, but there is also a dramatic drop in traffic on the streets. All the bus drivers, three-wheel drivers, commuters – they’ll all gone home. Even the street dogs and cows seem to take a breather. Avurudu is technically only like a two day holiday, but it ends up being at least a week. Colombo traffic didn’t return to the normal horrorshow for about two.

So there’s April. May has begun, but it began with May Day, ostensibly a workers holiday, but really another day of not work. In between competing government and opposition marches, there really wasn’t a lot going on. I just sat in the lunch kade, eating rice and chicken curry, watching the communist floats go by.

This weekend is Vesak, you can see all the Vesak lanterns and, like, Scream masks on the side of the road. Apparently people also dress up as demons on this Buddhist (really older than Buddhist) holiday, a sub-tradition which has been replaced by America pop culture and Chinese manufacturing. The armed forces are loading paper mache elephant trunks out of military vehicles and stringing up lights and flags around the Beira Lake. Post-war, I honestly see the Army assembling floats and making, like, dioramas more than anything else. There’s food stalls and should be a great light show, with lotuses glowing round the Gangarama temple. I wouldn’t venture to take a car out (and I don’t have one anyways), but it should be an interesting walk around.

If I remember correctly, they’ll have smaller (yet still big) pandols all over, depicting the life/lives of the Buddha, being a stage for puppet show, generally being awesome. Last year the neighbors had an ice cream dansal (give away) which was pretty awesome, but nobody’s hit me up for money yet. I heard there’s a fried rice dansal down the street. Dansal is just giving food away, sometimes forcibly stopping traffic and forcing people to eat and drink. I’ve heard these can lead to dodgy stomach but, honestly, I have put some ridiculous stuff into my stomach lately and I think the bacterial force is strong within me. I must be giving parasites diarrhea.

Uh, anyways. AFAIK this is the last of the major holidays and social work presumably begins in earnest after this, but I honestly don’t know. You get in this mode where you’re kinda unaware of what time it is – the usual lotus island phenomenon in the extreme. These months are insufferably hot and there are so many holidays that time and life pass slower. I’d feel lazy, but everyone else is doing it. Indeed, I have been working these past few months, but I actually feel rude for doing it. People are often on holiday, or coming back from holiday, or otherwise unavailable or occupied.

People say Sri Lankans are lazy or that we have too many holidays, but I think it’s OK. This pace of life is sustainable and sane. I hope you’re enjoying the long months. Happy Vesak.

I sympathize with the local farmers, but supply and demand isn’t something the government can manufacture. Honestly, I don’t get the demand for powdered milk at all. I do wish milk would come in something beside paper cartons that make me spill everywhere, but I still buy Ambewela, which comes from Nuwara Eliya apparently. I should note that I only buy Ambewela because like two years ago they gave me a free glass with every two-pack. At this point I had no glasses and this seemed like a win. They stopped giving the glasses 1.5 years ago, and yet I still blindly buy Ambewela. So perhaps better marketing would help.

That said, apparently prices have gotten so divergent that many distributors are simply not buying local milk anymore, with the exception of big chains like Cargills. Hence the farmers are protesting.

The traditional government response, however, is bad economics, which ultimately hits the consumer. It’s protectionism, trying to limit imports, but for a country like ours (any country really) it really doesn’t work. It’s like pushing air around a limp balloon. The pressure will just pop up somewhere else. In this case, the government is effectively subsidizing dairy farms at the expense of all consumers (who buy milk). I mean, I buy milk like once a month, but people with families buy it every week.

There’s a subcontinental fetish with milk products – especially for children – as you can see from advertising. Horlicks, Milo, Nestomalt – all are considered an essential extension of mother’s love. Plus milk tea is often more milk than tea. Hence, these are items that people buy constantly and if they are buying milk powder it’s probably out of economic necessity. Now, however, milk powder is up by Rs. 92 a kilo, so presumably without taxes it would be much cheaper than it is. This is another essential good like tinned fish, which is also imported and taxed heavily.

So, do I think it’s good policy to subsidize Sri Lankan dairy farmers? No, not really, because it comes at the expense of Sri Lankan consumers and creates another inefficient subsidy. It is, however, almost necessary politics.

In other news, my cereal had ants in it. I would eat them out of hostility, but they taste bad.

They typographic style in Pondicherry – half and half.

Pondicherry bike shop.

Here it is at a Pondicherry winkle, or bike shop.

Jayalalithaa poster.

And here it is on a wall painting for Tamil politician Jayalalithaa. This is a common variant, with a white stripe through the middle. Other variants have a wavy or jagged white stripe, often with a neon green/yellow highlighter color surrounding and defining the whole thing. It’s an interesting little cultural trope.

May Day bikers on Horton Place.

A highly dubious New World Order.

In the images above, you can see yellow-clad members of Wimal Weerawansa’s NFF, a break-off of the JVP. What I found noxious was the New World Order signs, and the placards reading stuff like ‘Hands Off Syria’. The faces they’re showing are generally of dictators and douchebags, who actually have very little economic or cultural connection to Sri Lankans. Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Hu Jintao, Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I mean, is this really the company that Mahinda wants to keep, or the kind of leadership we desire?

That said, the JVP protestors are still wearing Lenin and Guevara t-shirts, also negative characters, but the vital difference is I didn’t pay for them. While the NFF may have their own funds, they were guarded by military, which tax-payers pretty surely are paying for. There were police securing the other rallies, but not military.

Barack Obama and Coca-Cola bad.

Wimal Weerawansa, of course, is (most recently) famous for protesting the US Geneva resolution nagging Sri Lanka by calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola and Google. So here’s Barack Obama on a Coke float.

The government buses crowds in.

There were also dudes wearing ‘Mahinda: Our Hero’ t-shirts, which I would honestly like to have. Didn’t get a photo of that. What you can see above is the sheer amount of state buses corralled into service. Hence, these aren’t really workers protests. The government is actually busing people in to make a show. Yet at the same time the cost of living for workers has gone up dramatically and people can’t afford petrol or vehicles and we’re all struggling under higher taxes. So I guess that’s why this kind of government sponsored workers protest sticks in the craw a bit. In reality, this is a government workers should be protesting against.

May Day on Sri Saranankara.

Kid in a float.

The show down Saranankara befouls traffic, but it’s always entertaining. They had a big rally in Cow Patty Park and then proceeded down the street with marching bands, giant ships, kazoos, kids waving flags, people chanting slogans. Some of the ideas are nice, solidarity, unity, and a growing emphasis on Tamil language and issues. Some ideas are less nice, ie, support for the North Korean dictatorship, Iran, Syria.

Big boat.

Mahinda, where are our school uniforms?

I’ve always been struck by how anti-government these casual marches are. Mahinda is pilloried, usually as a stooge to Uncle Sam. I don’t agree with the JVP on too much, but I do agree on some things. They and the TNA are the only parties that actually offer any real opposition to the government anymore, unlike the UNP which has quite literally become the down side of the coin, under Ranil.

Then on the other side of town there’s the government marches. Both block up traffic and stuff, but for me were easy enough to get around. The government demonstrations, however, leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. At a time when government taxes and waste are upping the cost of petrol and transport and everything, they’re using public resources to bus in tons of people to put on a show. It’s a bunch of people in blue shirts and then yellow NFF (Wimal Weerawansa) guys with military security. I mean, it’s our money. It’s not a spontaneous demonstration by workers, it’s the government spending the workers money to prop themselves up. But let’s leave that for another post. Here are some photos of the JVP march today.

Here’s the caption for the general photo above:

This is the mosque. To my knowledge, the pictures in this gallery here are the only ones of it that are out there. If it looks more like a big shed than a mosque, that’s because it is a big shed. This is actually an expanded area, built for the congregation as it grew larger. I can’t name the local heavyweight, so I’m going to call him Robin Hood. He’s Robin Hood, because he did 7 years in prison for breaking into and opening a dam so that desperate farmers wouldn’t lose their crops. He’s Robin Hood because he told the cops in no uncertain terms they were no one to deny us entry into his place of worship. He’s Robin Hood because he was THE major NPC.

Small and modest as it is, the mosque gets its share of outside visitors. Moslems visiting at Kandalama hotel swing by here to pray, as do the Paskistani and Bangladeshi cricket teams when they come to play at Dambulla.

This Koran is tattered because Buddhist monks had been tearing the pages out of it. I asked if the monks had tried burning a Koran, I was told no.

Note that this is the most offensive and inflammatory thing I saw. Can’t confirm or deny.

This man is one of the trustees of the mosque. He told us he came to Dambulla in his twenties (during the 1950s) to work in a shop. In back of the shop they would pull out a table and pray on it. They attracted more and more worshippers, and so they built the mosque area behind the shop.

The police was as helpful and as friendly as I imagine they could have been under the circumstances. They clearly cared about the community they were protecting, and I learned from these two that many of them had been stationed in Dambulla for years (police rotations were common during the war).

I would have probably run into the chap on the left, he had been stationed in Bambalapitiya. There was about twenty policemen in and around the mosque area. Some were more nervous than others, so I did not go about taking pictures of them.

Apparently the monks also threatened to remove a tiny nearby Hindu shrine.

The 8 year old shrine was built by these people.

These are “Sakkili” caste Tamils. The “Sakkili” are the “toilet cleaner” caste. They are not allowed in upper caste Tamil kovils. They live in a slum, and are the second poorest people I have ever seen (the poorest are up north in Batticaloa, where people cannot even afford walls)…

This house is made of mud and sticks, and thatched with dried coconut leaves. Sootch said he can’t remember the last time he’d seen a house that didn’t have a brick in it, and I can’t either.

We were shown video footage of the Head monk himself arguing with a Sakilli slum woman, telling her that not only would he knock down their shrine but that he’d also knock down their houses.

According to the slum dwellers, more Buddhist Singhalese people come to their shrine, than Hindu Tamils. On the left here is a statue of the Buddha.

We asked what the Moslem community beyond Dambulla was doing about the demolition. Robin Hood told us that Moslems in Chilaw (where Moslems are a majority) had been planning a hartal in protest – they were going to shut all their shops for a day. Robin Hood and the other community leaders had asked them not to. The Dambulla Moslems were not only confident that they could protect their mosque from the “parachute priest” as they called him, but were very insistent that this not become a flashpoint for violence.

It wasn’t a concern out of fear, as one would expect (Sri Lankans can be amazing cowardly), but instead a concern to protect the people of Dambulla as a whole. They were not going to do anything that would pander to any extremist agenda, on either side. They needed people to not cause any complications, and I think this has been why nothing visible is being done by the Moslem political leadership in Sri Lanka. I suspect they’re doing a lot — but nothing on a public stage.

We were told that the final fate of the mosque is to be determined in the next few days.

Great freeporting by Navin and Such. Do check out the whole set.

Muslim man, Buddhist elephant (insomuch as that is possible). Via Fear Of A Muslim Island

This is not to say that Sinhala Buddhism is a bad thing, or that this is Sinhala Buddhism. Or Buddhism. I’m Sinhala and Buddhist, which should show you how diverse the sort is. I honestly don’t think these categories are the best way to look at a diverse island.

On the contrary, Sinhala Buddhism is great. Whatever the blips and blurps, this culture has still preserved a remarkable, simple and lucid form of Buddhism which has great value to both the spirit and science. What I mean is that Buddhism is a boom to me and millions like me, and basic mindfulness meditation has proven neurological effects and is a part of mainstream cognitive behavioral therapy.

Underneath all the rituals and symbolism this practice and therapy is best preserved in Sri Lanka (and Burma I suppose). I’m not personally as into the Temple Of The Tooth and the various rituals, but I’m aware that without this culture (and without the patronage of the state) this valuable knowledge and practice might not be here.

So Sinhala Buddhism is not a bad thing, and I don’t think it’s really the problem here. SB is both older and more diverse than these particular monks in Dambulla, though I understand that ‘extreme’ element has actually been fairly mainstream at various points in time. Or seemed so.

What is going on, I think, is more attachment to this particular concept of self or community. As in, the type of attachment that leads to anger, hatred and suffering. Though I dunno, perhaps I doth project too much. Those acting and reacting so aggresively towards Muslims are a shame to Sinhala Buddhists and Sri Lankans in general, and the governments coddling of these sectarian forces is an embarassment. I’m Sinhala and Buddhist (not a racial posterboy, I know) and I don’t condone this shit at all. Neither, I suspect, do most Sinhala Buddhists.

I mean that in the sense that most Sinhala Buddhists don’t have decisions driven by that identity. We’re not a monolithic lot, and human decision making is anyways driven by multiple factors. People look at ‘extreme’ elements and presume that they’re acting out of that identity, but that’s a fallacy. They’re acting out of immediate territorial issues, political stuff, social, and also religious and cultural concerns. There’s honestly more going on at a territorial ape level here than the spiritual.

So, while I condemn any offense to Sri Lankan Muslims, I also – in the same spirit – think we should respect Sinhala Buddhists as well. Insomuch as any of these identities exist, it is a small island and we know all too well how small extremists can drive otherwise diverse people apart. So not again, not ever. Muslims are cool, Sinhalese are cool, Tamils, Veddahs, whatever.

For me, one of the most important insights in Buddhism is that all identities are transient. They have a purpose, but even the dhamma is like a raft across a river. Once you cross you don’t need to keep carrying it on land. In meditation, what remains after these sensations pass away is a feeling of connection and love. That is always there, even if we forget. I hope you can remember it now.

Poster from an unrelated political movement.

What Comes After The Social Network?

Technology is cyclical, or perhaps hexagonal, but within set time frames there is the appearance of linear progress. ie, within a short time frame, you can make some predictions. Let’s start with recent memory.

Drawing an arbitrary line, let’s say that first there was the personal computer. That was the big thing, and Microsoft and Apple made some bank. Now there is the social network, which is the current big thing. What’s next?

For clues, you can see what people use the current technology for. What do they hack it to do, aside from its intended use? With PCs and the Internet, one of the first uses (a la Tim Berners Lee) was sending messages and rudimentary email, then chat, etc. That was the social use of a ‘personal’ medium, culminating in the organized social network. What do people use social networks for? A lot of things, but one prominent adaptation is politics. People use social networks to discuss and organize politically. My hypothesis is that the next big thing is the political network. The organized adaptation of social networks to political goals.

What Is Politics?

When most people think of politics, they think of politicians. What the Greek word politikos actually means is ‘of, for, or relating to citizens’. It is essentially the social relations around authority or power. It is a quirk, I believe, of the medium of democracy that we depend on representatives or professional politicians so exclusively. By medium I mean the paper and physical meeting based processes involved in mediating power. Like other sectors of human activity, this too is poised for a creative and dramatic change. Democracy 2.0 if you will. The idea that democracy will continue to run on paper is preposterous. It is poised for a big change.

When I was speaking to Isura this morning, he asked why we were talking about politics, since his research with smartphones at the village level showed that people were using them for economic and personal empowerment. What I will try to clarify in the talk is that this is what I mean by politics. Politics is the ability to get a decent road to take goods to town, and to access the tender information if the asphalt is watered down and thin. Politics is the ability to get bail for an arrested child and assure that they’re not beaten in custody. Politics is, sadly enough, the ability to get a child into school and to have decent schools at all. These are day to day impacts, and that is what I mean by politics. Not the macro-level stuff, though that is important. I mean the day to day.

Both of my grandfathers were political. My grandfather G.D. David would hold open houses where people brought him their issues, which he would go and try to sort. He ran for office, which is an interesting story in itself. My grandfather Ainsley Samarajiva was a human rights lawyer who, during various insurrection times, would try to defend the countless young and old people who were taken in. They took very immediate, very human issues and tried to document and sort them with the powers that be This is the sort of retail politics I’m talking about, the social relations that determine the flow of power, and the quality of peoples lives.

What’s The Idea?

My hypothesis is that the next big thing will be a political network. At some point governments will get IDs, drivers licenses and the other essential parts of identity online in a coherent way and that will be a new and powerful network. They definitely feel the pressure from social lobbying (especially in the Middle East) but they’re still too monolithic to really take advantage of the potential from within.

They will adapt in some way, but right now there is a brief window where governments really don’t know what’s going on. This is a chance to update the system dramatically, rather than simply recreating it online. There is a potential for dramatic, distruptive and positive change, like has happened to publishing, the music industry, telephony, etc. My idea is that we can build a political network, a sort of parallel democracy, where issues and ideas are raised, where data is collected, and where concerns are escalated to the media, to higher authorities, and where results are monitored and measured. This works with but also goes around existing political structures where they are inefficient and unfair.

For example, someone in Kilinochchi notices that new signboards are in Sinhala only (this is hypothetical, signboards I’ve seen are tri). They go to their local meeting (which is currently happening as part of the Sarvodaya Deshodaya program) and raise the issue. A young, trained person is there, and he inputs the issue and number of people concerned about it into a smartphone. This goes out across social networks and to a dashboard that the media and higher level council members have access to. They can then see that this issue has been raised in Kili, this many people are concerned, etc. The media can contact people immediately through the interface for quotes (with translation), and they run a story. The higher level Deshodaya members pick up the phone and call their school friends in the Army and government. And something is done.

How This Is Old

This is actually how things are done, and have been for years. Stuff spreads through a political network which runs entirely parallel to our institutions and stated flows. Once some young reporters (CODOC) wanted access to the north, right after the war. They filed all the relevant papers but I just laughed at them. I told them to approach stuff on a ‘machang level’, to ask their family and friends if they had any personal contacts in the Army or MOD. So, Guy asked his uncle, who asked his friend, who was school friends with someone in the Army, who got them a meeting, which got them a contact with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who approved their request. That is how they got access, and how they made the film The Truth That Wasn’t There. It’s crazy, but that’s how things work. That’s how power flows.

The idea is take these informal flows of power and route them through simple, village level technology to systemize their use and spread the power of connection to more than the connected. To give this benefit to more Sri Lankans, to the worthy.

The Implementation

But how to do? I actually proposed this idea as part of Milinda Moragoda’s losing mayoral campaign. They proposed that ward councils be reinstated in Colombo, and I got language inserted that would embed one digitally trained young person with a smartphone at each meeting. They would feed the system, formalizing the informal flow. We would also enable data collection via SMS, voice, and social networks, a la Usahidi.

That campaign lost, but I think the idea was good. Indeed, the idea for Kottu was initially intended to coordinate NGOs during the tsunami, an idea that was ignored by the CHA.

Recently I was in Kilinochchi with Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne (and Dr. Ari) of Sarvodaya to see their Deshodaya program. This is a sort of parallel political system which has village to national level councils, like a parallel Parliament. My proposal was to embed young digeratti here. Even more promisingly, Sarvodaya Fusion (Isura and Udara’s group) has been doing research with smartphones in villages and they are creating the vanguard of trained youth that can power such a system.

So

So that’s the idea. We get smartphones out to young people, we get bloggers and media socialites from Colombo or wherever to train them, we get geeks and developers to build a sophisticated data gathering system, and then we plug that in to the mainstream media, connected people that can make phone calls, and ultimately the current political system.

That is a kind of political network that we can build and test in Sri Lanka, and by the time it gets big enough that the powers that be notice, it’ll be big and powerful in its own right. Because think about it. People can’t mess with me because I’ll make a fuss here, I’ll make a fuss in the paper, people I know will make phone calls and it’ll put a lot of pressure on whoever’s messing with me to stop. If I have an idea, I can also get it out there and heard. Why not extend that power to Sri Lankans everywhere, using the basic tools of democracy (voting, group action) plus technology (algorithms to aggregate and prioritize input)? Why not give any young Sri Lankan the same power I have? I’m not any more deserving, I just had more computers in the house. That, I think, could change politics and change the world, and we have the technology and people right here.

We’ll be presenting at 5:30 at Refresh Colombo, at the Royal Skills Institute. And that’s my notes.

The airport

This is how to apply for your Indian Visa (these instructions are for tourists, but there are other categories).

1. Read the info at the Indian Visa application online. For me this was dodgy on anything but Firefox.
2. Once completed, print out the PDF this process produces
3. Take your application and passport to the Indian Visa Application Center. In Colombo this is on Galle Road, Kollupitiya, past Alfred House Gardens, before Durdans and McDonalds. It’s next to the TNT center, which I always thought was an odd name for a shipping company.
4. You can get your photos and photocopies there. You need copies of any other passports (Canadian in my case).
5. I wonder if a list is the best way to present this.
6. Wait for your number, which is not so bad, and hand the stuff over. You get a receipt.
7. After about 5 working days (four in my case)you can track your passport online
8. When you know it’s ready, come back with the receipt (or they let you copy your ID and write a letter if you lost it).
9. Collect the passport, hopefully with the visa.
10. Bounce.

And that’s basically how to get an Indian Visa from Sri Lanka. For me it costs like Rs. 1,200 for some reason, but I may be an outlier with the dual. All in all it’s worth for avoiding so much hassle and suffering. The old process involved leaving your phone and entering some terrible, disorganized line limbo.

Pressed by the international community for speedy, effective steps at reconciliation, the government stands at cross roads today. The clock is ticking. If this country is to move forward effectively, we desperately need to rise above the pattern of thinking we had got used to for the past few decades. As Einstein pointed out, the same level of thinking that gets you into a problem cannot get you out of it. It might be more profitable for the country to stop castigating the external ‘bogyman’ and to take a hard look inwards. Are we doing what we really should be doing? For our own sake, to ourselves, we need to be true. 

Three years after the end of the war, the conflict still rages and we need to acknowledge that the conflict will cease only when the need for an extremist group like the LTTE is removed from the minds of Sri Lankan Tamil community at large.

Reconciliation is possible only where bruises of conflict are healing and for healing, there needs to be above all, trust and a sense of security with consistency. This is required in the North as well as in the South.  There is of course much to be seen in infrastructure development, resettlement and rehabilitation of ex-combatants etc. But the core issues, the sense of truly belonging and acceptance, equal opportunity and inclusiveness in decision making, the sense of dignity and security, these among others, need to be addressed and strengthened. Means of dialogue must be in place that enables parties to even disagree at times but yet retain the trust and rapport. In interaction, guarding the status quo or the ‘majority complex’ is not an inclusive approach nor is it conducive in building an identity of ‘one nation’. Similarly, the Sri Lankan Tamil community need to rid of their ‘minority complex’. However, the redeeming factor is that in each community there is a considerable segment that is not plagued by these complexes and blend well. There is hope.

As we approach another anniversary of the end of armed hostilities on 19th May, we see a window of opportunity for healing and reconciliation. It would be well to remember that there were a considerable number of Sri Lankans who, willingly or unwillingly, lost their lives on the ‘other side’ of the divide and their loved ones are also sensitive to the significance of that day. If we are sincere about the idea of ‘one nation’, a genuine way forward would be to acknowledge that in every upheaval since independence (since we were responsible for ourselves), irrespective of the divide, it was Sri Lankans that died in violence seeking a place in the land of their birth.

An effective step to commence the national healing process would be for leaders of all communities to come together and collectively acknowledge the loss of our people (all Sri Lankans), collectively acknowledge responsibility for failure by omission or by commission to build an environment to prevent such loss and irrespective of their political or ethnic divide, to mourn for the dead, prior to any further celebration of victory. Although mourning is considered a personal matter, such a collective gesture would be the beginning of a journey from a divided past to a united secure future.  

This gesture of course requires statesmanship all-round.

For more on the subject of reconciliation, you can check out Brigadier’s prior videos, including an appearance on MTV’s morning show, under the tag heallanka.