This is a photo taken by the brilliant Omnia, who’s been uploading some of her Sri Lanka photos, among others. They are well worth checking out. This is the atrium thingy at the Colombo Plaza
Lately I spend a lot of the time at the Plaza, going to the gym and swimming. The Internet is about 2 seconds slower and the delay makes extended work slightly intolerable. Sent out 3 contracts and I’ll work on whoever gives me an advance first. First thing is the Point Pedro job to pay for my ticket to Tanya’s wedding. There were new posters out today, none of which I understand. There are big red JVP (?) banners for May Day. They got this stylized hammer-and-sickle industrial complex. In another poster I learned that 2005 is the year of ‘Protest Against Recolonization’. OK. If the guy screwing you is brown is it somehow better? Fell asleep on the bus and ended up in the wrong part of Battaramulla. Walking home was almost scenic, if not for the fear of open sewers in the dark.
Online the kottu.org photo stream updates a lot more than I thought it would. I like looking through all the photos. On this site, there are informative comments from Ruwani and Chandare, among others. It looks like things are more complicated than a case of ‘bad Sri Lankan attitude’. I think the basic issue is Poverty. There’s a debate on how many Sri Lankans are poor at all:
There are so many poverty lines for Sri Lanka. I know how they do at Stat Dept., so I depend on the internationally accepted one. According to that only 6% of the Sri Lanka population live below one Dollar per day. In other words, if we take the average number of members in a family to be 5, only 6% of the families have monthly incomes less than Rs. 15,000. This is much better than the case of our neighbours. Measured on the SAME SCALE, in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh more then 30% of the population live below one Dollar per day poverty line.
ivap commented that a figure of 23% makes more sense
I’ve been looking at stats for SL on the web and all the documents/sites I came across show an absolute poverty rate of about 23% (please read on) and breaking it down by the great saviours there estimates are :
IMF(using 95/96 data) = 25% Link
WB(using 2002 data) ~= 23% Link
“Evil” GoSL www.statistics.gov.lk ~= 22.7% Link
I’m inclined to agree with ivap on this one. It seems to be the standard that the Colonizers use isn’t 1$/day, but somewhere between that and 2$ (100-200 Rs). I don’t feel like begrudging someone making 2$ a day their poverty. It costs me at least 40 Rs a day to commute, and I don’t even live that far. Lamprais (lump rice, not lampreys) is like 40-50 Rs, but it could be cheaper. How, I know not, but I’m sure it does. Oh, and if you’re curious how Lamprais is made, my neighbors in a house without a roof make some. I was coming home at 6 and I saw them boiling stuff in their cauldrons. Whenever I’m out I eat hamburgers, which would be like 2 days worth of wages. Anyways, that’s some costs in Colombo, and if you take expenses like clothes or medicine or anything it adds up pretty quick.
So, out of 20 million people let’s say you have 5 million people in poverty. That gives us the obvious problem of their human suffering, but that we could just ignore – as callous as that is. Except we can’t. I mean, having that many people ‘off the books’ screw up the whole economy. A parallel discussion on the Say No To Crack post had an interesting comment from Ruwani.
The situation in SL is something like 38 – 50% of an economy that functions under the radar. That figure is the portion of the informal sector by share of GDP from a paper by Schleifer (1997), so about 50% of national income at the higher level is going untaxed. Granted some of it may be criminal activity, but the poor tax base has more to do with administrative efficiency than anything else.
So, poor people take money out but don’t put money in. This means less money, but what’s worse is that it means less people participating in the economy. It’s their country and its their democracy, but besides an ink-stained finger they’re not participating. No taxes, no rents, no insurance, no loans, no pensions. I slept through my fluff economics, so it’s better to read Ru’s comments on that, but I guess it’s the old tragedy of the commons. remember when Gnutella got all crapped up with free-loaders. I understand it in terms of network theory and the Napster/Gnutella issues. But not enought to say anything worthwhile this late at night. I just wanted to thank Ru and Thimal and Chandare and ivap and Chanuka and everybody for confusing me.
Does anyone have a picture of that poster the Patriotic National Movement put up two days ago with the picture of Mailanathan’s face resting in his lunch? The poster is against the joint mechanism. Is the joint mechanism by any chance a rolling machine?
I can’t really comment on the bulk of this post because I’m too sleepy and I have to haul my ass to Kelaniya in a few hours. But yeah, maybe I’ll do a May Day post for you Indi. There are far more interesting posters than those ones you saw outside CP. The one on the right (the Anagarika Dharmpala one) is not May Day related anyway. But I’m going off topic (hm.. is Chanuka rubbing off on me?).
Wish I had a digicam actually. Uni is quite colourful at this time of year (well it’s ALWAYS colourful) but with elections AND May day coming up, it’s like a stream of red. But hey, that’s for another blog post. It’s good to see Ru commenting on these posts. I can’t really understand have her Economics, but they do seem to generate a lot of discussion. And as I say, that’s always a good thing.
Morq, I missed your comment (was typing mine and didn’t bother to refresh). But yeah, I’ve seen that poster around. No picture though. Perhaps Indi (or Scourge) can try and take a shot sometime.
I saw a bunch in Rajagiriya. Wtf was that? It’s a man face down in his lunch packet with blood coming out of his ear.
That’s a poster that the Patriotic National Movement put up against the Joint Mechanism. It’s a picture of someone who was assassinated by the LTTE sometime last month I think. He was someone in the national vocational training athourity if I am not mistaken and a member of the EPDP, if I am not mistaken again, His name was something Mailanathan. He was shot in Batticaloa.
Essentially the poster says that the LTTE are terrorists and that we shouldn’t agree to the Joint Mechanism.
It’s time to take up arms against the JVP. Start spreading the word through your insidious little web community (of which I am ambling tourist because I have free broadband). The buggers are evil, and sooner or later if they grab a larger chunk of the electorate we are going to be forced to blog in Sinhala. Nothing against Sinhala blogs. Just don’t want to be forced to do anything. The JVP is worse than the Catholic church – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The Pope’s father was in the Gestapo.
Quoth Shanaka:
Sort of like invading Iraq to oust Saddam, eh ? My point ? Oh, nothing. Never said a word, yer honour. Honest.
And heck, forget about the Pope’s father.. The Pope was in the Hitler Jugend. The man appears to like fancy uniforms.
Yes, yes. Dem’s all jokes. Send your sense of humour in for a service check before you start flaming.
I think what we need is a sex scandal involving Wimal, preferably gay. What kind of rebellion are we going to start Shanaka, occupy Odel’s and Clancy’s?
No men…Odel’s and Clancy’s are already bourgoise strongholds. We can’t occupy our own fortresses. We need to invade the minds of the campus goers. Trust me I was in university in Colombo for over four years and the minds are ripe for plucking. It’s just that neither the UNP or (god forbid) the PA gives them an attractive alternative. Wimal’s hair is a dead cert for votes. If I was a Latha I’d vote for the bugger too.
Ado Thimal…I’m not flaming. And you don’t need to call me Your Honour. ‘Sir’ would suffice.
But seriously – you boys need to start taking at least your writings to a wider more accessible forum soon. Newspapers, magazines etc. Y’all are just lazy bastards.
Shanaka, it’s just a phase. When in campus, you’re a rabid leftist and wear red and chant slogans and talk about bloodsucking capitalist scum. Some (most ?) change their politics when they leave. Heck, some people I know even adopt the guise of Marxists to blend in. The nail that sticks out gets hammmered down etc etc
Free broadband ? Free highspeed internet ? You elitist pillager of bandwidth. Come revolution, you’ll be first up against the wall. I promise you. Sir :)
Great idea ,Shanaka .
How about the reverse,get all the mo’fo’s to blog!
What about all those politically active student groups in University of Colombo ,Moratuwa ,Kelaniya ,Ruhuna and Peradeniya?Can’t some of them blog?Even the JVPers the Nationalist groups should have somebody who can blog about his party line and politics in the university.
All of them have internet access.Battle it out in blogosphere!(It is good for your health ,considering the bloody history of student movement .Also will save lot of paper,ink and polythene ).
If you cannot write it in English, try writing in Sinhala using roman alphabet.;-))It is freaking difficult to type Sinhala.
Since Mahangu just got inside the system and will be blogging ,probably he can convince some of them to blog.
Also these kind of comments will not help, when they make mistakes.Most of them are really conscious about their language ability.The following is a comment from Mahangu in Morquendi’s blog.
“Dear Anonymous,
You have blinded us all with your amazing wit and fine tuned sarcasm. Only, you seem not to have ever heard of a thing called a dictionary.
Wesetrnised capitalists will surrender for there days are number.
Really, those capitalists should teach you to spell. And to have the balls to put your name forward when you speak.
# posted by Mahangu : 1:55 PM “
The revolution will be blogged!
;-))
In the words that I used extensively to my rugby team at Colombo (unbeaten for five years mind you). “Umbala okkomalata pissuyako!!”
No but seriously. Unless and until the internet becomes the largest and most widely accessed medium in Sri Lanka this sort of banter won’t cut it. You boys seem to be fairly intelligent, rational human beings. It’s jokers like you that need to get out there and take some leadership. While you remain hidden behind an online pseudonym you are part of the problem. The problem being middle class apathy.
We are the revolution mate. Get off your arses.
Ado – I only have free broadband because I’m in University in London. Yes…more University. Nearly 27 and still effing studying.
Shanaka, I have a couple of years on you and I’m still effing studying too. Fancy that. Pity me. Fling those stones around when you’re out of the glass house.
Middle class apathy ? Wot’s that ? I don’t know and I don’t care. Politics in SL is a dirty game. It can even get you killed or worse (finding examples is left to the diligent reader). I’ll pass, thanks very much.
Yes but I’m not talking about conventional politics mate. Everything is politics. We just have to play our politics on a different plane. As much as I your irony doesn’t escape me, it also doesn’t do much to alter a very alterable situation. You’ve been studying for 29 years (you poor bastard), and after all that effort wouldn’t it be nice if people apart from you and your immediate family benefitted. Crap – I’m sounding like a Commie. Sorry.
They can’t kill us all.
thanks guys for posting my image! I found it today. I had a great time in Sri Lanka – it is nice to know you are enjoying some of my snaps. I love Sri Lanka :)
sad to hear of the political situation. I’ll be back to visit the site. Take care – my heart is with you.
I disagree with you
Not sure who you’re disagreeing with here Jen, but the political tensions in Sri Lanka cause a lot of problems for everyone. Maybe some consensus can be reached soon. It is really quite a tragic situation. Especially combined with the devastation of the tsunami.
uh, I think Jen might be a spambot testing the waters, not sure.
watch out for those spambots!
I especially love this comment by Shanaka: “No men…Odel’s and Clancy’s are already bourgoise strongholds. We can’t occupy our own fortresses. We need to invade the minds of the campus goers.” As a frequent user of Odels cafe, I have to agree. I don’t get this stuff about the JVP though – I thought you would be happy for them to get more seats in parliament? Or do they have such an extremist manifesto? Pls enlighten me on that.