So I went down to the demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse. I, however, left before the hardline monks stormed the stage and things became violent. And that’s a funny sentence. In regards to the intent of the march, I do support people sitting down and thinking about how to win rather than mindlessly bombing. Not that I support their whole platform at all. I think, as Blacker says, that military solutions can work in parallel with other solutions, but at least those marchers are advocating ‘other’ solutions. What I don’t support is mindlessly reacting to whatever the LTTE does. That’s not achieving any of your objectives, you’re just letting your enemy control the situation. They know how we’re going to react and they can play our reactionary elements to achieve their goals. Sinhala nationalists claim right, but their emotional, knee-jerk reactions lead us into the abyss. We need to take a step back, think, and then act.
Peace March
I dunno what the platform of the marchers was, exactly, but the front was lead by Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu clergy. They were followed by National Anti War Front, Estate Workers, some MPs (UNP I think). Vasu (the former mayoral candidate) and I think the whole thing was organized by someone Rupasinghe. It was, however, broken up at the end when extremist monks from a JHU faction stormed the stage, tried to take over and violence broke out. Which is a fitting end in the way. The greatest threat to Sri Lankans and the Sri Lankan state has never come from outside, it has always been the extremists in our midst (like the formerly terrorist JVP) who wave the flag the highest while offending and killing every color on it.
The Hard Way Out
I also think the march, and the difficulties it encountered, point to the fact that peace – far from being appeasement – is the hard and courageous path. People think violence is a great reaction, that it is strong, but it is, IMHO, weakness. Being violent is easy. Letting your emotions guide you is easy. There’s no courage there. Animals do it everyday, that’s just status quo. What takes courage is stepping back from your emotion, resisting your natural urges and actually thinking. That is strength. I define strength as doing something difficult, and letting your blood boil and raising your hand or calling reactionary airstrikes doesn’t count. What’s hard is plotting a strategy to defeat a terrorist threat while simultaneously maintaining and even expanding an inclusive state, now that’s hard.
There should be some photos on my Flickr stream, I’ll try to tag them later.
“mindlessly bombing” I think you are right about that. We should protest against mindless bombing!
http://www.colombopage.com/archive/August14130117CH.html
If the “Mindless Bombing” link not opening properly.
I dunno why these bloody monks cant stay in the temples instead of involving themselves in politics…the big temple honchos should really put some kind of code of practice in….immediate outage from the monkage for swinging a fist. That said its a bit silly to have Mervyn addressing this march, does vylifying Indian origin Tamils and breeding a thug for a son qualify to be a keynote speaker for peace? He is exactly the kind of person we should be protesting AGAINST to address the root causes that led to the shit we are in today…so much for credibility
Mate you’re absolutely right about Mervyn. But since we’re on the topic of peace let’s leave that argument and its attached complexities for another debate. To be fair to him, he acted with some (relative) restraint yesterday before being provoked. I’m a fairly non-violent bugger and given the circumstances I think I might just have acted far more belligerently than Mervyn did. I have no affection for the Buddhist clergy and no political reputation to squander by beating the living shit out of them. If you watch the footage carefully, the bugger didn’t really do too much damage personally. He remains a cunt though – let me establish that.
Indi I agree wholeheartedly with your final paragraph. That it is the hard way out. It’s brilliantly written as well. It is because it’s the hard path that I keep saying we should cease all ‘retaliation’ or ‘intelligence driven attack’. It is not the peaceful way. I stand by my premise that it’s either war or peace. It can’t be both.
Well I think the demo was good anyway cause there should be a voice for peace too: as General Sherman said [and Sherman is right!] “War is All Hell”. But I wonder whether the UNP guys were there actually to stop the war: since they’re a major political party they might as well do anything to destabilize the government and recapture power. I think the government was doing stuff repeatedly to prevent war but the LTTE were continuously doing stuff to provoke the government and get the war going again. At least they can rally here in Colombo, kick some serious ass at the end and go home at most with a good bruise. If they’re urging both parties to end the shooting, why not go and rally in Kilinochchi [at least in Jaffna] as well?? Maybe cause they know if they even try it, they’d be returning as HR [Human Remains] in some aluminum box.
Someone said it elsewhere, but the irony was stifling yesterday.
So-called peaceniks started hitting people who didn’t agree with their views.
Buddhist monks who supposedly promote peace and love were protesting against an anti-war stance.
This country is fucked-up… and I love it! I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Admit it people – we love Sri Lanka because it is such a mess. If everything worked properly, what would we have to talk about? ;)
however much some cry they are realists and want to take ‘hard’ considered decisions they fudge at the first word in order to avoid taking a decision.
point to the fact that peace – far from being appeasement – is the hard and courageous path
what kind of peace ? that is the question. ppl avoid.
bc peace can be bought at too high a cost.
especially for the people who have to suffer due to that kind of peace at the hands of terrorists.
on the other hand for those who don’t have to live under them it is easy,
not to take note of such real and potential victims of such a peace, act as if they don’t exist, ( what right do such people have to be so emotional? )
deliberately turn a blind eye to ltte’s inhuman demands and acts, from sole representative status to killing of all tamils who dare to say anything different .( why can’t they take the hard decision to obey the ltte like all good tamil should ? )
abuse the military (what cruel idiots these must be, they bomb mindlessly, saying things like “we can bomb the shit out of it without warning or evacuating these people”),
and call anyone who do not agree an extremist or worse ( how dare they think ? or ask questions? must be a warmonger and a jvper )
etc. etc.
that is easy , that requires no thinking .
–
it is idiotic to physically disrupt the hypocritical pro appeasement protests that had mervyn silva(upfa), dilan perera(upfa) , rajitha senaratne(unp) , vasudeva nanayakara(upfa). at head.
it is idiotic to bomb mindlessly.
but it is not idiotic to expose that hypocrisy
and it is certainly not idiotic to defeat ltte.
both are morally defensible and realistically possible.
Sittingnute…where do you buy your weed. Can I have some?
i agree with indi.
but i dont agree with politicized peace marches. they should b non political in the first place, unless expressely organized and stated by a politicl party. if so politicos have a right to talk at them. religious leaders should b invited so as to stop religious differneces entering the conflict and should b allowed to speak. normal balanced ones are 100% fo peace, always, whatever religion. obvious provocations should not b allowed, they can organise their own war marches/rallies in a free country. it is sad to see that u cant have freedom of speech/marchin/rallies/ film stars/ cricket matches etc. because some fascist/arsehole/terrorist (ltte)/bombers/uniformed clergy interrupts/disrupts proceedings.
pathetic all round performance.
I’m sure there were some hundreds of people who really believe in peace but I have serious doubts about the intentions about the key people behind the march
NGO prince Kumar Roopansinghe…wows! Is this the same Rupasinghe who published “Jana Vegaya†journal in the 70s ? Then he has taken 180 degree turn…’cause those days he was begging the then government to teach a good lesson to the Tamil Separatists and their supporters in South India.
I wonder how come this same Rupasinghe, who was almost expelled from the continent of Africa as result of his exploitations in Sierra Leone as the head on International Alert IA , would lead us to peace.
There were formal complaints to UN and other international organizations (with evidence) against Rupasinghe about his links with terror groups in Sierra Leone. He was directly accused of involved in illegal mining, smuggling etc
(grab a copy of the Peace In Sri Lanka obstacles and Opportunities and find more about Rupasinghe )
Rajitha – actively involved in suppressing the JVP insurgence; certainly not through marching for peace. He needs peace only with LTTE; not with SLFP, JVP, JHU supporters
Dilan – pet dog of CBK who used all the dirty tricks to win Mahiyanganaya seat (still failed but got into to the house through National list)
Marvin – no comments…(do I have to comment )
Vasu – Bahu – they too had nothing to say about suppressing of both JVP uprisings but I have some respect for them ;cause there have been pretty consistent
I don’t know all I see is a bunch or crooks with the hidden agenda and a parade of paranoid set of people behind them
I don’t like what these monks did yesterday. It’s plain stupid. But I agree with what they say……
GO TO VANNI AND DEMAND FOR PEACE, IF YOU DARE
“So-called peaceniks started hitting people who didn’t agree with their views. ”
peacenik doesnt mean without balls my dear. look at g9 meetings, for example in genova, italy. come get sum! you can figth for peace u know…
i am never short of topics, i dont need this bullshit war just to talk, actually rather talk bout smthg else, but what to do…bombs keep exploding and bullets whining…
hey indi, are you going for BuBa tonight? i wanted more info on it, but didn’t know who to ask. apologies for the unrelated comment.
I tend to agree with Sophist on this one. No surprises there. A military solution coupled with a political package is theoretically sound, but in Sri Lanka, my feeling is that if a military solution even becomes a distant possibility, all thoughts by the southern ruling polity of effecting a political package will be forgotten. Many people even deny that there is an ethnic problem here in the first place. The idea of a political concession is seen as a necessary evil in the pursuit of containing the LTTE.
The sad reality is that only the LTTE are capable of getting the south to keep the power sharing within a federal framework on the table. That is why, as a Tamil, I fear this talk of military solution together with a political solution. I just can’t get myself to trust the Sinhalese leaders enough.
dude, what do you have against paragraphs? Are you writing poetry here? Shit gives me a headache and I can’t finish reading these comments
Isn’t it ironic that we can’t complete a peace march in peace? If as a nation we can’t do the simplest things then what hope is there? Also someone needs to put these monks in place, i think they’ve forgot’n their role in society. We need a dictator, some nations just have to be led, sophist might be good at this, wanna give it a shot?
Also Indi, i think you have the reach to organize a wider scale peace rally, one of those “everything comes to a standstill for 2 hours” kinda ones. If we set a date and run an email campaign right throughout colombo and other major districts I’m sure it would be a success. It has to be precise, clear messaged, “We our tired of this war! We stand as one!” This is to be aimed at the international community as well Sri Lanka as a whole. We can give the international press adequate notice on this one. All individuals, companies and schools make there own banners, but it has to be one message only. Local TV coverage to get the message out there is not a problem, no issues with the press either.
Why is this different from other peace rallies conducted so far:
1. One Clear message
2.Young adults getting together finally to forward their stand point, its about time we fronted this cause.
3. Planned press coverage both local and international.
4. Country comes to a stand still of only 2 hours.
Any takers on the idea? All it takes is a date, well structured advertsing strategy and passion!
the godfather
i initially thought yours was an ironic comment . but it seems you are serious.
1. One Clear message – which one? “We (are ) tired of this war! We stand as one!”? for what ?
2.Young adults getting together finally to forward their stand point, its about time we fronted this cause.
– cause of what ? what is their stand point ?
cause of ‘peace’? but that word includes lot of things
what kind of peace ? a peace that hands over millions of people in to terrorist hands? peace bought buy making concessions to (appeasing) the ltte ?
–
why not start on the “hard and courageous path” by saying what kind of peace ? or is that too hard ? does courage fail them ? when ppl are reluctant to take that initial step (due either to inability to think for themselves or hypocrisy ) and prefer to hide behind words. will they get anywhere?
instead they have opted for the support of few political thugs( stooping very low in that regard too ) with their own agendas in order to get a semblance of a crowd and violence to get some media coverage .
indi:
how about one question if you cannot face the hard reality of ltte oppression of ppl who will come under its rule, killing of independent tamils, your own callous insults to the military and other name calling:
what makes a ‘peace’ that makes concessions to ltte (not tamils) different from appeasement ?
sophist :
where do you buy your weed. Can I have some?
:-) is that the best you can come up with? how many times have you used that in this blog alone? i thought you were better at this than indi.
aside from the silly personal taunts – what a great debate – to peace or not to peace.
the bottom line is if it were bombs flying over your head whilst you try and camaflouge your very existence hiding under a few palm trees, you would want peace at any cost.
I think S/L’s must be allowed to express thier views. I think those monks have been asking for a good hiding for a long, long, looonnnnnggg time. In fact ever since one of them assasinated the President of our country. The disrespect they show to us probably one of the most unique cultures and more so combination of cultures on the planet is plain to see. The JHU are not for Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese or Budhism – they are for themselves .
Can you even begin to imagine the shock, horror and headlines if a Catholic priest walked up to Tony Blair and shot him? Even the Iman’s of this world get someone else to do their dirty work. They are so without common decency that they lower themselves to public violence. I agree – go back and meditate in the temples and pray for peace.
S/nut :-) you are an apologist for the GOSL army – you know damn well that none of the people that have written here are apologists for the ltte – time to stop with the blind “army good tiger bad” – life is never that simple.
indi,
you really should not plagerize…
if you quote the stones you should credit them
“So I went down to the demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse…”
just cause yer in SL don’t think we haven’t hearda the stones
but then again plagerizing is SL thing… see the Wall Street Journal (Europe version) of Wed, Aug. 16, 2006 “Familiar words: plagiarism stirs controversy at Ohio University”
both sl’ers mentioned are sinhala… haha
you are an apologist for the GOSL army
:-) i don’t mind that kind of statement from a person like you or ppl who make insults against the military.
time to stop with the blind “army good tiger bad†– life is never that simple.
in fact there is no comparison. army as the representative of a legitimate state should be judged by higher standards.
tigers are merely slaves of a megalomaniac mass murderer and a terrorist.
btw it was a prime minister the monk killed not a president.
It’s a pretty obvious reference. It’s actually a joke, which you didn’t seem to get.
yes and everyone who blows themselves up in Sri Lanka are Tamil….do you see the pointlessness of defining characteristics to races or are you just too lost as an individual?
I think thats a good idea, I would replace one clear message with a set of demands instead…objectives are paramount. It would also be funky if parallel demonstrations could be had in other countries. The key is that the moderate Tamils worldwide show solidarity as well, because a demo would have to be for the freedom of the common person, whether sinhala, tamil, muslim, etc from the lack of accountability of the idiots in power and the tyranny of the LTTE.
also whatever is put in motion would have to be sustained someohow, instead of just aa one off demonstration.
Those who do not learn the lessons of Sri Lankan history will be buried in covered coffins.
In the early days of the JVP in the universities (1969-71), the monks were used as shock troops to break up meetings and demonstrations by other political organizations. The robes were pretty good for covering up all sorts of weapons and the Sinhalese are strongly conditioned to respect monks, so this was a pretty good technique. Seeing the robes coming off one monk on the Sirasa shots I was thinking someone remembered.
The JVP specializes in not going against the main enemy as defined by their rhetoric (the UNP in those days, the LTTE now) but focusing their maximum destructive effort against those who are likely to appeal to their constituents. So the left organizations in the universities took the brunt of the violence in the pre 1971 period; and of course we know what they did to Vijaya. Shot the face off, so that he had to be buried in a covered coffin.
They also specialized in claiming a monopoly on the rights to speak and demonstrate. Counter-revolutionaries have no rights to speak, they would assert. Do you hear the echoes in the claim that no peace rallies can be held in Colombo, only in Kili?
I hope the people in the anti war front remember. Otherwise, it won’t be too long until they do a Vijaya. I wouldn’t open my door to strangers if I were Kumar.
Seriously, who died and appointed you plaigiarism policeman?
Before you join the chorus on the Ohio U controversy, take the time read the evidence: no claim that data is plaigiarized; only the intro language. And a decent and honorable man’s name has been besmirched, simply because he didn’t have the photographic memory required to identify these copied sentences in the theses he supervised. But because it is America, he will get justice: he has already sued the university. But unfortunately, the story on the university making an apology and paying him damages won’t make the international press. The people who hear about from assholes like Vat will not know.
In the foothills of the Appalachians, the rednecks don’t differentiate between Sinhala and Tamil; they can’t tell the difference even between Sri Lankan and Indians. The Sinhalese still have their jobs; a poor Indian is already out.
It’s sad to see racism and stupidity mixed up in the same Vat package.
haha… so it’s ok to plagarize the intro as long as they don’t plagarize the data… hahaha… i think you just reinforced the issue being discussed… that people from the 3rd world don’t know or adhere to the rules vis a vis attribution etc…
and it was that idiot’s job to review and find these mistakes… he didn’t… so he’s screwed… any fool can sue… but call me if he wins…
1-800-suck-me
a Catholic priest walked up to Tony Blair and shot him?
No this will never happen ’cause they are strategy is different ; back stabbing
Kumar cannot become a Vijaya…what ever said and done vijaya was not a crook …but Kumar the NGO prince has been branded as a crook by international community, even though his followers are still unaware of that (may be they not bothered as long as they are paid to follow him)
I think we all can agree with the fact this war is heavily politicized…in my opinion, now even the peace efforts seems to be politicized after the birth of this so called “anti-war” front
Once Gandhi said..” to do great things or make great change you need only great minds and handles but those great minds and hands should not be dirty ones…”
Since my post was on the dangers of forgetting history . . .
Suggest that CMB improve his knowledge history to make more persuasive assaults on princes.
1. Janavegaya was a left wing offshoot of the SLFP that was active in the 1970s. They were sympathetic to China but definitely not anti Indian. That;s mixing up the JVP’s anti Indianism at various points in its existence.
2. Vijaya was a great guy and should not have been killed. But who doesn’t know of his extensive relations with the underworld (continued now by his cousin Jeevan and to some extent by CBK–recall Baddegane Sanjeeva?)
I prefer to take my mud from slingers who have their facts straight.
Errr… peaceniks advocate peace, unless I’m mistaken. If they resort to violence in order to advocate non-violence, this seems a bit hypocritical to me. But that’s just my opinion, I may be wrong… My bad.
it’s is a curios fact that many prominet peaceniks are former jvpers ( 70’s variety) . and most in 88-89 protested against then government (not of course in sri lanka – they avoided sl then like they avoid kilinochchi now- but in foreign countries) on behalf of jvp terrorists. old habits die hard.
1. One Clear message: How about “Shut SittingNut Up”
:-)
Hmm… I thought it was a Prime Minister that a monk killed. The monk converted to Christianity before he was executed. The poeple behind him, especially Wimala whoever and Osmond Wickremesinghe were both Anglicans. Why would the monks ever want to kill their lackey boy SWRD Banda.
Well I’ve heard of Popes getting murdered by their successors. What’s so unique about a culture that practices self-mutilation, caste based discrimination, violence, murder, cannibalism etc. I thought there were many such cultures in a nearby continent where you truly belong.
Do you for one moment think the peace protestors were real peace activists? LOL. They were just henchmen/thugs of the politicans of dubious reputation who took part in the protest. Without them there would only have been a few dozen real protestors (the organisers). Do you think people like Mervyn, Ravi etc who’ve been anti-Tamil for most of their political careers give a shit about you?
They have a right to protest against a protest in a public place. It’s the protestors who initiated the violence and this should be obvious if you watch the news videos. Frankly speaking, the monks emerged as martyrs for their cause and the peaceniks lost whatever credibility they had in Sri Lanka. I’m pretty sure that this is what the monks wanted. If they really wanted to disrupt the protest there would definitely have been more than 8 of them. LOL. Peaceniks were so dumb to have played into their hands infront of the TV cameras.
Come forward and then become a target of these “so called peace lovers� I think I have a good idea of the brand of peace they are speaking about they want peace with LTTE only but not with their opponents. The past behavior of the men and women gathered there fully support my assumption
I have some respect for Bahu/Wasu and other leftist …at least they have been holding on the to the same opinion on war but the rest of click…Ravi, Rajitha Marvin…?
During his lecture in WAPS conference held in Colombo one year ago, Dr Susantha Goonatilake exposed with evidence this so called agent of peace in front of hundreds of representatives from all established political parties , religious groups , both international and Sri Lanka media ( referrer to the speech transcript published in Peace in Sri Lanka – Obstacles and Opportunities – Vijitha Yapa )
It was direct and cannot be called a mud slinging and I’m yet to see this crook or one of his henchmen to come forward and answer to those allegations
That’s not the half of it mate, I’ll tell you a small story about KR
I used to work at a leading brokerage house in SL as an analyst and was contacted by Mr R about the possibility of investing in the SL equity market. Now I was under the impression that he was interested in investing some his own dosh but to my utter lack of surprise he proposed that we find away to invest some Tsunami aid (it was in early 2005) without directly implicating him or his NGO (I might add that no one at the NGO knew about his intentions). I say ‘some’ tsunami aid but it actually was to the tune of US$100m. He had all his bases covered inasmuchas we (there was another broker there) were instructed that the monies would have to be broken up into different accounts (for which he already had names) and invested over a period of time so as to avoid detection or regulatory attention. He even knew which industries he was looking to get into… He was however adamant that he intended to channel the profit back into the overall fund, but was cagey when questioned as to why he wasn’t willing to do this through more official channels.
When I told him that I was uncomfortable going ahead with it and that I would not be recommending this to management he was quite blasé about it and said he understood and that he had other projects in mind as well. I left the brokerage firm a month after for different reasons but he kept contacting me for some time after to find away to do this.
C’mon s/nut – there’s no need to start marginalising me again in the hope that some nutter facist blogger will launch a barrage of slurs which you’ve inspired from time to time against Morq.
Be reasonable. I have said before the army are young boys from rural areas which the GOSL is putting to death for no good reason. War profiteering is a crime you know and a very dirty one at that.
We need to move on from this tit for tat insult trading crap. If you could be reasonable and honest about the use of armies, the police and hey monks to comit acts of violence against the populous not just Tamils but all Sri Lankans then your high and mighty rhetoric would bear some weight.
However, instead you rant and rave about virtually underage “peaceniks” who are trying with all the best intentions in the world to voice their opinions.
Shame on you.
http://www.sinhaya.com/tamil_grievances.html
Follow the URL ; this is just one example to display the political duplicity of the people behind these so called peace – rally
Ah.. You’re so familiar with the Rolling Stones that you now call them the “Stones”. You’re so furious because indi insults your intelligence by not having a bibliography at the end of his post to credit this obvious (not to me.. I don’t listen to fucking “Stones”) reference. How condescending of Indi to think that a little wannabe moron who probably don’t have enough money to buy a genuine album wasn’t familiar with the “Stones”.
Ah… he even uses supposedly cool terms such as “yer” and “coulda”. Hahha.. Living in the past century are we? I guess it takes decades for modernity to trickle down to the backwaters where this idiot lives.
Get a life loser. Btw, are you sinhala? lol.
hmmm… you live on lombard huh? kewl… what’d ya do in the city?
Dear God….I find myself agreeing with Ashanthi. See the things you DO Sittingnuthouse.
Sophist: on a COMPLETELY different note. I breifly mentioned to you the other day, that many citizens of this country are unaware of their basic civil rights.
you kindly suggested that you might be able to conduct a brief lecture/talk on this. However, i was wondering as we are in a state of emergency do we have any rights at all?
Very very few Naz. It’s a sad but true state of affairs. Even if they treat people like dirt, there’s more or less always a legal sanction for it. I guess it’s a sign of the times because this sort of legislation has been introduced even in England, and governments are hurriedly trying to justify the necessity of these measures. Some will say that they are indeed very necessary.