These things are important. There’s Vigil at Alexandra Circus tomorrow at 6.
I called myself a Buddhist for most of my life, but I never really understood it until I meditated. In the same way I’m beginning to believe that I can’t really call myself a citizen unless I practice democracy. So that means speaking out more, be it in writing or in voice. It means paying attention to elections, even local ones, and voting. It also involves writing letters and meeting people and standing on the street and running around and being uncomfortable and awkward and generally muddling through. I’d say getting your ass the first inch off the couch is the hardest, but it gets easier.
Before the tsunami I used basically read all the books in my parents house and go swimming. But the tsunami got me off my ass and I discovered purpose and direction. In the same way, Lasantha’s death has gotten me off my ass in terms of the suffering we face now.
People ask whether it’s wrong to make Lasantha a ‘martyr’ or talk about him anymore or whatever. I think it’s fine, important even. That case is still open and he’s still murdered. The powers that do depend on Colombo forgetting everything within a week, but there’s some things we shouldn’t forget. Lasantha’s death has left a vacuum, but that vacuum is being filled by a new activism and citizenship. The Sunday Leader is coming back stronger and people are meeting and campaigning and generally waking up.
I mean, it’s not that many people, but that’s OK. I have lost interest in the lesser jihad of blackguarding the powerful and am fully occupied with the greater jihad to empower myself. Not that there isn’t a place for speaking truth to power, but there is an accepted way in a democracy to do this. You can write in the papers, online, you can protest on the street, you can speak in public, you can meet with like minded people and send letters and stickers out. You can just walk around and talk to people. You can call politicians and talk to them. These are small things, but I believe it’s simply important to get the blood flowing in the body politic. So we can lift heavier things later.
In the process, I’m also actually far less angry and far less adamant about me being right and other people being stupid. I don’t rant against the government anymore because I think that we need to work with them. And that has to start with, at the least, respect and the knowledge that they’re trying to help the country. I still don’t agree with how, but I’m far more open to compromise now. Because – outside the rarefied air of irrelevance – you have to compromise.
I dunno. I guess that’s where I’m at now. I have a bumper sticker on my car that says ‘I’m Sri Lankan Too’, in three languages. I go to meetings and I’ll be going to the Vigil For Democracy tomorrow (Thursday), to stand on the street at Alexandra Circus. I don’t know if these things make a difference to Sri Lanka or the world, but that doesn’t bother me as much anymore. It makes a difference to me.
I realize now that no one is going to give me the life I want, even though I think I want simple, basic things. Like the fundamental rights in our Constitution, like freedom from excessive taxation and corruption and highway robbery and minister’s sons flashing guns at clubs. But no one’s going to hand those things to me, certainly not the fellow complainers I meet around Colombo.
However, no one can gave me Buddhism either. Just because it was written down and I understood it on a logical level didn’t make me Buddhist. I had to practice and I have to, everyday. Anything important exists in practice. My faith diminishes if I don’t meditate and our rights disappear if we don’t practice them. I don’t even consider democracy a right anymore. I consider it a responsibility.
”I can’t really call myself a citizen unless I practice democracy”,
stinging words they are……..
Well said and bravo Indi
“I don’t rant against the government anymore because I think that we need to work with them. And that has to start with, at the least, respect and the knowledge that they’re trying to help the country. I still don’t agree with how, but I’m far more open to compromise now.”
I’m glad. In my opinion, when ranting against the govt (or any group of people), you’re only preaching to the converted…a pointless waste of energy, methinks. The fact remains that by hook or by crook, the govt is in power, and there are people (who are not necessarily stupid – they just disagree with you) who support them. So your energy is far better utilised by working to convince these people that we all have a common goal, just different ways of achieving it. Show them the merits of your approach, rather than just criticising the current approach. By ‘you’ I don’t mean you specifically btw, I’m just speaking generally.
I’m not sure how effective protests and vigils are, but I’m sure that whining is extremely ineffective, so kudos to you for choosing the former. If you can convince your like-minded friends of anything, convince them that the proactive approach is the way to go. Our country has suffered too long from negativity and apathy.
An IMF straightjacket is just what the doctor ordered but unfortunately I don’t think it will happen this year. Next year is a possibility.
No harm in pointing out the errors of the government’s ways, someone needs to so and the press are not really upto it anymore, but yes intemperate rants are of no use. Reasoned argument is worth it, if only for the record.
You must wait for popular dissent to set in and ride that wave if you want change. This will come only when the population has, metophorically speaking nothing to eat. It is only then that the message gets through the coconut-skulls of the masses. Wait another year.
@Jack
People have been waiting another year for like 50 years. How is ‘popular dissent’ going to set in if people don’t do anything about it? These things don’t come from on high, and the ‘masses’ aren’t stupid. I think the real problem is that the elites are lazy and are waiting for some magical shift to happen without actually doing anything about it.
There’s no more time to wait. People need to do whatever they can now, even if it feels tiny and inconsequential.
Jp…
getting fired by HSBC does not make you part of the elite…. Just another worm who needs to be controlled by the great empire! long live the Maharajah….
The Maharajah seeks to enlighten the masses on the Irony of JP’s statement now…..
”through the coconut-skulls of the masses” – Hip Hop JP OF the masses….
Who’s the hot chick on the far right in white shirt with phone in her hand, why are only women marching in front?
I think the people are still living in an illusion, a dream world. It is only when hard reality bits that they will ask questions.
Everyone is quite swept up with the victory over the LTTE. The expectation seems to be that once this is over all will be well.
The spell will be broken when personal experience diverges from the official propaganda. In short when people struggle for existence while the government boasts of how well the country doing.
It is only then that they will start to question the perennially rosy optimism of the government statistics and propaganda. This is when they will start to ask what did we gain from this all and are they really telling us the truth. When they begin to open their eyes and see that the ministers and their cronies living in obscene luxury while they starve, that is when the rumbling starts.
Tap into this and you have a good chance of success. You need to feel the pulse first, and the UNP could never do this.
That’s not the front, it’s the middle. From Lasantha’s funeral