The mosque near Town Hall.

Islam is not a race, yet Islamophobia partakes of racist characteristics. Most Muslims do not “choose” Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way that they choose to become fans of Coldplay or Radiohead. Most Muslims, like people of any faith, are born into their religion. They then evolve their own relationship with it, their own, individual, view of life, their own micro-religion, so to speak.

There are more than a billion variations of lived belief among people who define themselves as Muslim – one for each human being, just as there are among those who describe themselves as Christian, or Buddhist, or Hindu. Islamophobia represents a refusal to acknowledge these variations, to acknowledge individual humanities, a desire to paint members of a perceived group with the same brush. In that sense, it is indeed like racism. It simultaneously credits Muslims with too much and too little agency: too much agency in choosing their religion, and too little in choosing what to make of it. (Hamid, Guardian)

In Sri Lanka groups like the BBS and even sensible people discuss Muslims like they’re one coherent thing and they’re not. It’s a bunch of individuals, which is basically the most complex group of objects you could imagine. Any group of a billion people is so diverse that it’s just foolish to make any generalizations about them. This is not to say that you can’t talk about Islam – both good and bad aspects of it, as practiced – but you always have to be aware that there are real people involved. This is easy for me cause I have many Muslim friends and I can’t think of these abstract arguments without literally seeing their faces. But it’s also something we should all try to do in general, when talking about large groups of people who are perhaps more different than they are the same.

I mean, we make group judgements naturally. Those heuristics (rough guesses) are how we’ve long survived. One of the benefits of civilization and education, however, is that we can question those assumptions in relative fight-or-flight safety and be aware and try to give a little and understand.

It’s an interesting read, and actually worth getting in the print. You can check it out online here.

Anyways, here’s a quote from the epic interview:

If you could have personally witnessed anything, what would you want to have seen?

I have seen the world, the only thing remaining is out of space, which I strongly believe I will see in a few years. (Life)

The current state of the old Nibras Bawa site.

This is what I wrote back then:

Nibras Bawa, however, is a coward. Rather than standing on the strength of his words he chooses to publish peoples names and addresses, threaten them, cry to Johnny Law, leave comments using their kids names, etc.

He is a named person so I’ll address him as such. I think Nibras Bawa is a coward and borderline sociopath. He does not seem to know how to engage with people in a respectful and gentlemanly manner. He also threatens peoples jobs and families and both slanders and libels them. ((indi.ca, 2009)

I think at some point Nibras Bawa claimed that the blog posts and comments weren’t him but I really don’t know. What I do know is that he sent me emails claiming that he was a victim of impersonation in the exact same tone, also cc’ing my parents so as, I suppose, to try and get me in trouble. I dunno. He also commented under different names, used stock photography to represent his family, it was really weird. What I can say is that some Nibras Bawa is back, with the same sort of bile and noxiousness. Here he is on failing to get a sponsorship from Dialog:

An odd-looking guy introduced himself as the person who called me, and introduced me to another corpse-looking (not being mean, but seriously, the guy looked that dull, lazy and sleepy… maybe after a heavy lunch, but he was yawning even when he said hello!) guy and asked me to speak to him… It was annoying, fucking annoying to be blunt, but me being me, I’d like to think I was in control of the situation. I didn’t show I was annoyed nor would I say anything…

Now, here’s the climax, guys! The corpse that met me was a PHP Developer from their Web Team! I hear you say.. hmm.. WTF! Yes, a techie. Now, I’m not insulting that person. Not at all. (Nibras Bawa)

The arrogant and stupid post is ironically titled ‘Arrogance and Stupidity of Dialog Axiata‘. That techie guy he met was Nazly, who people on social media probably know as an organizer of Refresh among other things. He’s also an Assistant Manager at the Web and Portal division, which actually does handle this stuff. Bawa mentions that he’s a programmer like he’s a janitor or something. And he’s not. I’m not sure what’s so offensive about meeting a ‘techie’. Nazly is a highly intelligent guy who, along with Mili, leads the team that put Dialog on the social media map.

Social Media Lessons

So, if you were considering shelling out 20k to learn social media from an organization with less FB fans and Twitter followers than the average Sri Lankan company online, here are some lessons I’ll give you for free.

Number one is don’t be like Nibras Bawa. Social media is social, and flaming out and attacking people personally (calling them corpses, for example) when you don’t get a sponsorship isn’t a recipe for longevity. Sadly, it’s in character for this character, but it’s weird that the man thinks he has enough social capital to do anything public here, let alone ask for money. For those who were online in 2009 Nibras Bawa is a highly memorable troll, but let’s just measure him by what he’s said today.

If you don’t get a sponsorship or something, that’s not a reason to attack a company. If you attack the company by attacking their employees personally, it’s unlikely that readers will take you seriously. It’s also extremely unbecoming and no corporate should consider having such a loose cannon represent them online or anywhere else. I can’t speak for the other presenters at EngageLK, but the organizer is not someone to learn anything from.

The basic rule of social media is to be social. That’s it. Don’t be rude, don’t lose your temper, and share information in a friendly way. The only thing you can really learn from Nibras Bawa is how not to behave, and you don’t need to pay thousands of rupees for that.

Photo of Salley in more connected days via BT Options

The difference is that Mahinda is operating from a position of relative security and he won’t use it to actually shore up the long term strength of the nation. Mahinda doesn’t have to depend on Sinhala nationalists for a tenuous, explosive and corrosive sort of power. But he coddles them nonetheless. For every other leader it’s been a sort of Faustian bargain which killed or maimed them in the end. Mahinda seems to be doing it cause he actually agrees with the devil a bit.

Take his government’s response to recent anti-Muslim sentiment. Under the Prevention Of Terrorism Act and various wartime laws, incitement of hate along ethnic lines is a crime. However, in practice, this rarely applies to attacks on minorities, it’s actually used against minorities more than anything. Hence you get the BBS group actually practicing hate speech against Muslims and they get tacit government and police support. Meanwhile a Muslim population who has spoken out is arrested under the same laws, ostensibly for saying something ‘inciteful’ in an Indian mag, but – according to DBS Jeyaraj – also for calling Mahinda’s wife a beauty queen. Which she was, but I think he said it disparagingly.

Whatever the soap opera politics behind it, the result is a very clear message. Racists are protected, those who speak out against them are not. And I haven’t even started on Duminda Silva. This kingdom grows more and more unjust and brazen by the day.

Service at KFC

Sri Lanka is also interesting in that there is a service culture of sorts, but it tends to funnel people out of the country. I’ve talked to Colombo restaurant owners who say that they find talented service people at other restaurants or outstation, train them in Colombo, and that those staff in turn get recruited abroad, like to the Middle East. Which is not bad in itself, people should earn more money, but one hopes that the funnel gets bigger and wider.

Sri Lanka is seeing a boom in restaurants, shops and hotels, but (from a tourism perspective) we have to remember that we’re still priced higher than places like Thailand or the Philippines and that, our natural friendliness aside, we have much worse service. We also have to get over that favoring tourists (AKA white people) thing, because service should be service and the new middle class deserves and should demand better.

For me the best service I’ve gotten has been at places like Shiraz or Cup Cafe where the owner is physically there, minding the till, cleaning tables, serving food, talking to people. Come to think of it, perhaps that’s perhaps why the service at kades is often good as well, because the owner is also serving the customers. The worst service is at places with no discernible owner and where the staff is not empowered to make any sort of decision or adjustment.

So that’s two cultural changes which could make an immediate difference – owners could show up, and staff should be empowered to make adjustments for the customer. The overriding trend, however, is that as more places open up they’ll have to compete, and compete based on services. Inshallah.

Statue in Jaffna town.

For me it remains a Buddhist practice, something I learned under a Buddhist monk (Bhante Gunaratna, in America) and practice in a mostly Buddhist country (though it’s honestly harder here than in the west). At retreats I’ve gone to there have always been Christian or non-Buddhist meditators, and that is fine. There’s no particular context to meditation unless you want to place it there. For me the teachings of the Buddha have given the most guidance, but even he says that the dhamma is like a raft that you have to discard at some point. There are presumably other ways of crossing the stream.

But anyways, I was interested to read this article about how mindfulness meditation is popping up everywhere from Davos to big companies to the US Marines.

What has gripped Western attention is mindfulness’s ability to improve performance—of Olympic athletes, parents, and even nations, as promised in U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan’s 2012 bestseller, Mindful Nation: How a simple practice can help us reduce stress, improve performance and recapture the American spirit.Institutions and companies are racing to adopt “mindful” practices—among them Google, the U.S. military and Monsanto. Jeff Weiner, CEO of the social-networking site LinkedIn, is a disciple, boasting that “compassion” and “listening to others” are now his central management tenets. (Macleans)

I honestly don’t think it’s a bad thing but, as the article points out, not the point. Getting insights from a practice which is somewhat immaterial and using it to pursue a material lifestyle seems like it might end in tears, or at least confusion.

“The real focus of Buddhism is on awakening, on coming to some insight or wisdom about our true nature. Without that, we can’t get at the real source of our dukkha, or suffering,” he says. Institutional dukkha exists, as well. “The mindfulness movement is good for adjusting certain types of dukkha, but from the Buddhist perspective, it’s not addressing the most deep-rooted and problematical forms of dukkha. In fact, it seems to be reinforcing the kind of self-centred individualism that seems to be our more basic problem.” (David Loy, quoted in Macleans)

A respectable amount of politicians and religious leaders turned out.

What was the rally for? Well, for me it was basically not being a dick and holding the country together so we can have peace and prosperity for all. I think the stated aims were showing that there are people who stand against hate and for unity. I think one of the bigger accomplishments here was that it showed that people who do stand for peace can organize something without embarrassing ourselves. There was a good turnout, everything proceeded on time, the cops were helpful rather than slapping people, it ended positively, peacefully and well.

I’d keep supporting this sort of action even if last weekend’s event was a fail, but it wasn’t. I’d say it was a success.

I’ve got more photos here. You can also read Halik’s post here.

You can see everything from the photo above, from Tinie Tempah’s Instagram. The crowd was huge. I’m not great at eyeballing this stuff but there were thousands of people. The acts were also really good. Alunageorge quite unprofessionally pulled out at the last minute, I think to do a TV show in London, which was lame and really unfair to fans. However, they got New Young Pony Club to replace at the last minute, which is a band I’ve been listening to for years. I don’t think the crowd of teeny-boppers really understood them but they were great.

The main act, however, drove the young crowd wild. They cleared the stage and it was just Tinie Tempah and one other MC roaming around. He’s a great performer and the crowd knew a lot of his songs. I’ve actually never been at a show in Sri Lanka like that. I’ve been to DJ performances and live acts where people aren’t really paying attention, but this was different. It was everyone captivated by one MC and enjoying themselves together.

Historical Digression

This show was a long time coming, and God knows the organization still had its flaws. However, I’m not sure people understand how hard the organizers – Leah, Tasha, Lee, etc – have worked, and in the face of how many setbacks. A lot of people have said that having cool international acts in Sri Lanka is impossible. That we’re a destination for either pop fluff (like Mohombi or, bit better, Shaggy) or a retirement home (Englebert Humberdinck, Olivia Newton John). Not to denigrate either demographic, but the best music in the world is flying under the radar of both pop radio and time, it’s in festivals and clubs and YouTube and Soundcloud. That’s a network that people have said just didn’t fit in Sri Lanka, that neither artists nor fans would show up.

And, honestly, for the first two Electric Peacocks you could say that those people might have been right. The first fest had good acts but low turnout (due to realistic but also unreasonable pricing). Then, due to rain, the main acts couldn’t perform and it ended in a bit of a mess. The second festival had a great venue but was also unlucky in that another international act (Avicii) was scheduled on the same day, reducing the crowd.

I mention this not to criticize but actually to praise. After being told that this dream was impossible in the first place and then getting organizationally and financially hammered twice a lot of people would give up, but the Bazalgettes née Marikkars kept going, and it’s finally bearing fruit.

Tinie Tempah is an internationally huge act with real artistic credentials. He showed up and put on a great show and enjoyed himself as well. And a huge crowd of (extremely) young people showed up, showing that there is demand for this sort of thing. Bumps and farts aside, Electric Peacock is finally solidifying as a brand, both locally and internationally. It was a fun night and just look at the picture. I think it represents the country well.

From what I hear MPs Sumandiran and people like Dayan Jayatilake may show up, and they have the requisite permits and have informed police, etc. With this stuff you never know, but I do know that something must be done.

Demon scene from Mulkirigala, tho I think these demons are actually women.

You can read her interview in the Daily Mirror. It’s so awful, and shameful for the country. In India there is far more rape and brutality like this, but there also seems to be some response. Here it’s like people just violated all rules of hospitality and humanity and got away with it.

When I finally swung by it was just monks (people in robes, more accurately) and security forces. A friend had called earlier and said they were arresting people for showing up. The BBS is a group that’s said the country is for Sinhala Buddhists only and has been calling for shutting down Muslim businesses and restricting their way of life, especially halal food. Just this morning I got an SMS that a newspaper had been attacked in Jaffna. Things are going bad.

During the war you could somehow understand the hate and violence and anger as something spun out of control, something exacerbated by terrorism into a form that didn’t represent us. But now, as the government is proud of saying, terrorism is gone. So what is this? Where does this hate and anger come from if not from us?

I always try to see the bright side of things, of this country, not cause I think that’s the most likely outcome but cause the future is still unwritten. Cause we can still change it, so may as well look forward with hope, and hope that the way we imagine things can change what’s to come.

Lately, however, I feel quite sad. We’re not at war anymore but people are still angry. And that ignorance and hatred and fear is spearheaded by people wearing robes, people who should be meditating and acting mindfully and practicing right speech and compassion. The monks in the BBS are often little less than thugs in orange. Their leader was documented as getting a drunk driving charge and blackguarding police officers, just has he practices vile and angry speech against minorities now.

Yet when I ask trishaw drivers in my neighborhood what they think of BBS, they say it’s good. It’s a sample of like three, but still.

I like to thing that we’re a young country. That things like the riots and discrimination against Tamils were worst in the past and are fading now. That we’re more enlightened, that politicians riled this stuff up, that it’s not who we are. But then why are we doing this now? Why are groups like the BBS riling up ethnic tensions and division, and why is the government supporting them? And where is the opposition? And where are the good minded people who don’t want war or hatred or any of this nonsense, but to get on with their lives?

I love this country and I’m looking forward to the New Year. It’s just that right now, I feel like things are going bad.

Halik was there, read his blog for more.

A lot of people complain or write petitions against this rising hate in the country, but it’s important to have physical events like this. No matter how many online petitions there are, if we want really change we have to show that this many flesh and blood humans do not agree with a Buddhism that attacks people and threatens violence against them. It’s important to show each other that this is not Buddhism and it’s not Sri Lanka.

I hope to see you there. You can get more info on YAMU or via their Facebook page. The basic info is that it’s at 7 PM and if you care about what’s happening you should show up.

One direction this conversation often goes is to say, well the opposition sucks and if Ranil left there’d be a chance. Which is true but, given that Ranil has made a dictatorship out of the UNP, not especially helpful. Even if he is sacrificing the party, minority rights, vibrant democracy and the country in general, Ranil Wickremesinghe is not going to let go of power, making him an effective and useful appendage to the government.

Since minorities and the disaffected are effectively disenfranchised by the UNP, there doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do about things that are obviously going wrong. The only thing that gives me a bit of this was reading this, via Andrew Sullivan:

The greatest error of almost all important social movements is to look for and follow the politicians for success. The politicians are often the last people to get it. That was the underlying principle behind the marriage equality movement – we would change hearts and minds on the ground first. Then after 25 years of that, we have a sudden Senate majority for equality. In a couple of months. That pattern can tell you a lot. (The Daily Dish)

The question this idea gives rise to, however, is where are the grassroots moving. If you judge by the Bodu Bala Sena, the grassroots in moving towards racism and division and conflict among communities. However, I tend to think that an organization led by corrupt monks focused on racial identity and anger has less long-term power than rational people trying to live in peace or, say, the actual teachings of the Buddha.

Sri Lanka is a diverse and multi-ethnic population not just as an ideal but as a historical and tangible fact. I don’t know what it’s going to take, but I do think the forces of division will die out and saner voices will come to the fray. I hope.

The Bodu Bala Sena and associated racist, corrupt Buddhist groups are threatening and attacking Muslims and Muslim businesses. In response the government has mostly capitulated, agreeing to a ban on halal labeling and having the Defence Secretary attend BBS events.

In all these cases they’re unleashing an irrational and potentially violent force that they really can’t control. It’s like both sides have learned nothing from history, Tamil Nadu and India from their coddling of the LTTE and Sri Lanka from its indulgence of reactionary monks. In both cases it ended with Prime Ministers dead or – more accurately – didn’t end there.

At the moment it’s political expedient for them to coddle these racist and divisive forces, but in the long run it’s a great threat to us all.

Image via Pakistan’s Nation.

Organized Sinhala Buddhism is rife with corruption, like the Roman Catholic Church with even less daylight. There is no way to formally defrock priests and priests that abuse children or keep women or are corrupt are very difficult if not impossible to move. There is a lot of child abuse and abuse of power that goes on. On a higher level, organized Buddhism controls a vast amount of land and money with very little transparency. The traditional Buddhist orders, also, are largely caste based.

The BBS is a rebellion within Sinhala Buddhism as much as without. I’ve heard reports that, upon receiving reports of corrupt monks, they’ll go and ‘give them two slaps’ and throw them out. Which sorta should be done. At the same time the BBS chaps are thugs and corrupt themselves, but they do position themselves against a calcified and unresponsive institution.

The BBS also addresses the new middle class insecurity in Sri Lanka. There is a middle class of Sinhala speaking people who have money now but find that it still won’t buy them into urban society, such as it is. At the very top Sri Lanka is now ruled by a Sinhala elite, but the heights of business and commerce remain English speaking and disproportionately Tamil/Muslim. It is this Sinhala middle class seeking validation that drives some BBS support, IMHO, though it is of course the poor of all races that have to suffer.

Thus the BBS is more than just xenophobia. They play on valid issues of caste, religious corruption and class – albeit in divisive ways that make the problem worse. However, unless we address some of those underlying problems, the BBS – like the LTTE – will continue to find legitimacy among enough people to cause big trouble.

Not the best place for an airport.

Sri Lanka does need another airport, but it has been placed in a random place because the President is from there. See this quote from the Daily News:

According to Wickramanayaka, Hambantota will be the next capital of Sri Lanka due to its ample space vacant for opportunity. According to him the fact that the airport and port, being bigger than the Katunayaka Airport and Colombo port, will attract many business opportunities.

“This is where we belong. Galle was the capital when the Dutch were here and Colombo was the capital when the British were here but now it is time we go back to the capital which was truly local and before the invasion, the late Magampura and the present Hambantota, we are going back home,” he said.

The broader project really does seem to be, as kings did in the past, to move the capital to someplace random. What I think they have backwards is that ports and airports do not in themselves generate growth out of nothing. If you put ports near places with business and populations they can be force multipliers. You can’t drop a port and expect that to generate business and human migration immediately. It’s a bit like opening a mall in Hambantota rather than Colombo. Except this is a whole lot more expensive than a mall.

Mattala is near nothing except a lot of parks and bird sanctuaries. The closest big town is Matara, which is only close in the sense that Ratnapura is close to Colombo. Besides that it’s vaguely close to Badulla to the north. To the east is a lot of protected land and nature reserves that you have to go around.

This airport is of really limited value except as a second airport for emergencies. If the Rajapakses weren’t so parochial they could have put the airport near a growing population (like the North Central Province) or something that should grow (Trinco) or a place that a lot of foreigners would like to fly to (Jaffna). Or anywhere else really. This is literally the dumbest place to put an airport, and airport which makes no sense unless you’re from nearby Beliatta, where the first family is from.

The government is spinning this as a boon to the least developed areas, but it’s not that. Spending public money and incurring debt to build inefficient projects is not a boon to anyone. It’s a waste, and given our current tax structure, one borne more heavily by the poor.

I had no idea what was happening here, but it happened. Jaffna, 2010.

The reasons Spitt outlines is that our legs and butts are just built for it, but also that we’re far better at cooling ourselves than, say, dogs, or by extension wolves. Dogs have to cool themselves by panting so they can’t spring for that long without slowing to both pant and breathe. Cats big and small also can’t run long distances at speed. The only thing that really competes is horses.

So what was the benefit of this? Well, rather than being the sexy and decisive predator that chases down and kills animals in battle, we were probably the kind that just followed them around and kept them from drinking or eating until they tired out and tired. Then we killed the weakened animal and scavenged the flesh before the hyenas came.

It’s not the most noble seeming past, but it is an interesting adaptation, and one that seems logical based on our bodies. Overtime our brains got bigger and we thought of new and compelling ways to kill things, but it seems that chasing animals until they got tired was a probable start.

Eating Red Snapper.

Here are some money quotes:

I feel full after drinking a single glass of Soylent and while the smell of Mexican food from the street used to drive me crazy, now I am unaffected. It’s like finding a new partner you really care about. When all your needs are met, you don’t have a desire to stray.

I used to spend about 2 hours per day on food… Now I spend about 5 minutes in the evening preparing for the next day, and every meal takes a few seconds.

I think it would be nice to have a default, healthy no hassle meal. Similar to drinking water most of the time, but wine or beer when you’re socializing. If you saved money on food at home you would have the freedom to go out more often.

(How I Stopped Eating Food)

And this stuff from his interview with VICE:

Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don’t want to go to the movies three times a day.

People may giggle when I say I poop a lot less, but this would be a huge deal in the developing world, where inadequate sanitation is a prevalent source of disease.

Right now I only eat one or two conventional meals a week, but if I had any money or a girlfriend I would probably eat out more often. I’m quite happy with my bachelor chow. I don’t miss the rotary telephone and I don’t miss food.

(This Man No Longer Requires Food)

Honestly, food is going to change dramatically in the next 20-50 years. Our descendants will look back on much of what we do as being as absurd. Eating the way we do it now may well become a leisure activity while we can get the nutrition we need to not die in other ways. Perhaps not this, but what Rhinehart describes here are soylent allows him to calibrate what he needs very precisely, controlling his blood sugar and even weight.

It’s not an end to food, but an end to the tyranny of food would be good.

Ranil during the Fonseka election.

A meeting of Women In Business And Politics. They’re really quite capable, that 50% of the population.

It also seems that Mr. Karaliyadda isn’t the adept at child development either. In 2012 he said that students shouldn’t be punished stringently, only caned. Except kids really shouldn’t be caned at school.

Seriously, not to belabor a point, but these guys really aren’t so good at the modern governing stuff.

The British PM and then Energy Secretary Chris Huhne walking to the Energy office. Strange country.

Compare that to Britain. A Cabinet Minister resigned and is now going to serve jail time for a much more minor offense – lying about who was driving a car to avoid speeding points. In a divorce gone terribly and publicly wrong, the once powerful Chris Huhne was shown to be just another citizen under the law, one who couldn’t lie to get away with a crime, even an exceedingly minor one.

Compare that to here, where rape and violence abound and the laws simply don’t apply to the connected. We should be ashamed.

If this can happen to a DIG’s son, then good luck to you.

Recently Sirisena’s son seemed to be exposing himself at a resort and beat up a Deputy Inspector’s son when the latter complained. Which goes to show you the pecking order. More horrifically, a Pradeshiya Sabha member in Tangalle beat and killed a British tourist and assaulted his girlfriend, and is now out on bail with the case going nowhere. The basic rules are that a certain class can get away with anything, and the unscrupulous are scrambling to do whatever they can to get into that class.

The hallmarks of this new Thugocracy are getting away with crimes – everything from rape to murder. It seems like almost a status symbol, how much can my idiot son get away with. There used to be a time when people were proud of their kids education or work or marriages. Now it seems like the new elites give their kids money and cars and ignore them while they go to clubs, do drugs and rape and assault people. It’s like the parents aren’t even there and the kids are being raised by gangster rap.

The new status symbols are money and foreign goods gained without working and the ability to break traffic laws and white glove and assault rifle regular civilians aside. I have been watching a lot of Soprano’s and it’s honestly striking how similar our new ruling class is to New Jersey mobsters. What a pathetic and embarrassing state of affairs.

It’s weird how much further we could go with imaging. There are already cameras that let you change the focus after (Lytro) and the new Blackberry 10 has a time shift mode that lets you rewind part of a photo (a face in a group shot) to get the perfect expression without changing the rest of the frame. And this stuff is all out there and shipping. Cool.