Category Archives: sri lankan society

May 7, 2014 · 3:38 pm

Sri Lanka’s Politicians as a Scourge

Footprints In The Sands … by Derrick Mendis. s.j.

 DEREK MENDIS

Politics in Lanka is a dirty game

Sans sense of honesty, honour or shame.

On election-campaigns that squander millions,

When in power, make illicit billions.

 

Full of corruption, nepotism, crime,

They leave no footprints in the sands of time,

Self-seeking, self-serving, power-drunk quacks,

Cover up their crab-like, crooked tracks.

 

Parliament’s pack of jokers, jerks,

Abuse their power for self and perks,

Goons and buffoons, men of straw,

Brazenly bend and break the law.

 

They promise us the sun and the moon.

Pledges broken or forgotten soon,

Barefaced, through their teeth they lie,

On hollow words can we rely?

 

They flagrantly flout every rule in the book,

To come into power by hook or by crook,

From one party to another they jump,

Kiss President’s feet and lick his rump.

 

In sumptuous luxury they wine and dine,

Make ample hay while sun doth shine.

Of life’s best things they have their fill,

The taxpayers have to foot the bill.

 

They trot the globe and have a ball,

In five-star hotel, shopping mall,

Lavishly splurge like duke or count,

On bankrupt Lanka’s state account.

 

Their life is sweet, a bed of roses,

Gobbling Lanka’s scarce resources,

Our so-called rulers, leading lights,

Are a bunch of social parasites.

 

Their hands are soiled, palms well greased,

Our people, rich and poor are fleeced,

Most of them to the core are rotten,

They flaunt and flash their wealth ill-gotten.

 

How could these robbers ever dare

Their numerous assets to declare?

An auditor’s test they will not pass,

Many would end up behind bars.

 

Crime and corruption they cannot battle,

In their own cupboards many skeletons rattle.

A sincere statesman I fail to see

Among Sri Lanka’s powers-that-be.

 

Idolized heroes of yesterday,

Made traitors, villains of today..

Free-media muzzled, my country’s bane.

Journalists, editors attacked and slain.

 

Many politicians are vermin, pests,

Who earn fast-bucks and feather their nests,

They leave no footprints in the sands of time,

But craftily cover up their tracks of crime.

 

Rev Fr Derrick Mendis SJ

Colombo 4.

 

A NOTE: This poem has been circulated a number of times previously.  However, it is worthy of repetition, particularly in the present context.
Its author is Fr. Derrick Mendis, a Jesuit Priest, who was a brilliant student. He obtained a BSc Honours Degree in Economics. He then decided to qualify as a Chartered Accountant. The day he passed out as a Chartered Accountant, he declared his intention of joining the Society of Jesuits, which engages in evangelization and apostolic ministry, working in education, intellectual research and cultural pursuits, promoting social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

He is an amiable individual and is not averse to a sip of “spiritual” refreshment on social occasions, to complement his love of food. He is a talented musician, plays the piano and guitar [as well as the electron organ, ukulele, and flute]  wonderfully, has a magnificent singing voice and a lively sense of humour. This all contributes to him invariably being the life and soul of any social gathering. He amazingly also finds time to indulge in his love for the sea, by way of swimming, snorkelling, spear fishing and fishing with rod and line. A big man, he rides a tiny scooter, is quite rotund and sports a thick – now grey – beard. He is a highly respected priest, whose sermons are apparently outstanding, with a fair sprinkling of humour. He is, of course, quite outspoken, as his poem indicates. He is now retired from his pastoral role, but continues to work with lepers. He is quite a personality!

            

 

 

 

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May 6, 2014 · 11:46 am

Fulbright’s global vision is a LESSON to those with narrow parochial minds, Mr President

Amarakeerthi Liyanage’s Open Letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa

His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa, The President Socialist Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka, Office of the President, Temple Trees, 150 Galle Road, Colombo 3, Sri Lanka.

MR PROCLAIMS

Dear Mr. President,

AMARAKEERTHIMy name is Liyanage Amarakeerthi, a Fulbright Scholar (1998-2000) and a university lecturer.

I am also a fiction writer of some fame and acclaim. More importantly, I am a Sri Lankan citizen who imagines a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka where all its citizens can live without any form of discrimination regardless of their ethnicity, caste, gender and so on. Usually I do not write letters to political authorities or any person wielding power. As an intellectual I keep a critical distance from all centers of power. I will certainly not write any letter to such authorities to gain personal favors of any sort. However, I often write in order to draw the attention of people like you, Mr. President, towards the important issues of our country. I publish such letters in the press, which is one of the important spaces for freethinking citizens to express their views on matters of national and international significance.  In some of my recent articles to the press I have argued that state funding for education in our country has dramatically dwindled under your presidency. Yes sir. It has gone down. I hope you have read some of those articles. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2014 · 11:33 am

Introducing Political Conflicts in South Asia

Gerald H Peiris

GERRY PICSince the termination of European dominance over South Asia in the mid-20th century people living in most parts of the region have been plagued by various types of violent political conflict – some, excruciatingly prolonged and devastating in impact – most of which have roots in the colonial legacy. These range from international military confrontations and protracted civil wars to intermittent and localised riots involving rival groups with distinctive primordial or associational identities. Documentary sources of detailed information (academic writings, official records and trails of media reports etc.) on such turbulences, though available in abundance, are widely scattered, with certain sources remaining confined to archival depositories serving exclusive institutional needs. The present study is the product of an attempt, sustained over many years, to gather, systematise, and synthesise the information extracted from these sources, adopting, where appropriate, a comparative approach, and highlighting thematic concerns of salience to an understanding of the successes and failures of the South Asian countries in their post-colonial nation-building efforts. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2014 · 11:21 am

A Comparative Exploration of Political Conflict in South Asia: Peiris forges New Paths

Gamini Samaranayake reviews Political Conflict in South Asia by Gerald H Peiris … Peradeniya, 2013 .. from Island, 5 March 2014

 

ggerry BOOK COVER This monograph has a broad scope, one that encompasses political conflict in the countries in five national entities of South Asia – India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka – and their trajectories of state-formation with all their turmoil, upheavals and inter-group confrontations. In the literature on contemporary processes of globalisation there has been a widespread practice of referring to Asia in general terms. This has tended to obfuscate the very distinct difference between South Asia and the other macro-regions of the ‘Asiatic Crescent’. South Asia, being the cradle of four main world religions, is the venue of a rich and highly diversified social and political history. It is the home of almost one-fifth of the world population, with a large proportion of its inhabitants living in conditions of poverty. Although the British Empire at its zenith included almost the whole of South Asia, the present nation-states of the region have their own distinctive political legacies from the past. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2014 · 10:31 am

Sri Lanka in India’s Orbit: A Discerning Study by Dayan Jayatilleka

N. Sathiya Moorthy, courtesy of The Hindu where the title is  “Re-discovering Sri Lanka’s place in today’s Asia”

22 --Accord_152409f It is not always that a work of non-fiction, however current and relevant the title and topic be, goes into a second print within a year of its publication. It is also not always that public discourse ensues on the book, however elitist and academic it be, and the contents become the topic of a seminar. It is not always, again, that the author concerned takes time and effort to incorporate the valid among the suggestions made at the seminar in the ‘revised’ edition of the book within a year.
Colombo-based scholar-diplomat Dayan Jayatilleka’s Long War, Cold Peace: Sri Lanka’s North-South Crisis has all this and more. Every page of the book is replete with words of wisdom that reflect the author’s scholarship, authoritative academic background and painstaking preparations of a political scientist. Dr Jayatilleka’s early background as one from the global Left, who got frustrated by and with the local Left-leaning JVP militancy, and also possible excessive expectations from the Tamil-Left in Sri Lanka, too, stands out in the process.

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May 6, 2014 · 10:13 am

The book man and quintessential civil society man: Ananda Chittambalam

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews

Way back in the 1980s when I was on research work in Sri Lankan and based at my sister’s place in Wellawatte I received a phone call from a total stranger who introduced himself as “just a businessman” and a reader of books who was impressed by my four-volume work Documents of the Ceylon National Congress (1977). Ananda Chittambalam sold himself short at that moment. He was not just a “reader” of books, but in fact a lover of books — books political, historical, sociological and sensational. Continue reading →

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May 3, 2014 · 5:23 am

In Appreciation of David Kalupahana … Letters from Wimal Dissanayake, Asanga Tilakaratne, Justin Whitaker

Kalupahana-320x320

I. “DAVID KALUPAHANA AND THE FIELD OF EARLY BUDDHISM” — Wimal Dissanayake**

I had known Professor David Kalupahana for over fifty years. David, his wife Indrani, my wife and I were undergraduates at the same time at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya.  He was, of course, senior to us.  David and I lived in the same hall of residence and used to meet frequently at breakfast and dinner. Even as an undergraduate David evinced a great interest in Buddhism and philosophy. I recall one of his earliest articles that he sent to the students’ magazine was on the idea of causality in Buddhism an idea which was to be comprehensively explored in his magnum opus.  Many of us knew instinctively that he would end up as a university professor; what we did not know then is that he would emerge as a foremost scholar in the world of early Buddhism. He initially studied Pali, Sanskrit and Philosophy and later specialized in Pali. This prepared him well for his subsequent work in Buddhist philosophy. Continue reading →

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May 2, 2014 · 3:36 am

Is R2P “humanitarian intervention” a form of imperialism? and a shift from a frying pan into a fire?

 

colmans-column3 Padraig Colman, courtesy of Ceylon Today where the title is “Pros and Cons of R2P“

Louise Arbour, of the International Crisis Group, said that, “The responsibility to protect is the most important and imaginative doctrine to emerge on the international scene for decades.” Anne-Marie Slaughter from Princeton University has called it “…the most important shift in our conception of sovereignty since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. ”

The UN General Assembly endorsed the principle of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) in 2005. The Security Council unanimously reaffirmed the principle in Resolution 1674 in 2006. The head of the UNHRC mission to Darfur, Jodie Williams, used it to evaluate the government of Sudan’s performance, finding that the government had “manifestly failed” in its responsibility to protect its citizens. Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon used R2P in relation to their diplomatic efforts to resolve the post-election conflict in Kenya. Continue reading →

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April 29, 2014 · 7:52 pm

Let Prabha and his kind dream peacefully

Noel Nadesan

13b -VP--colombotelegraph Right now Sri Lanka is facing three offensives – and all three have come from abroad with the Tamil Diaspora trying their best to embarrass the Sri Lankan government. The first is the anti-Sri Lanka resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council at its 25th session in Geneva. This resolution insisting on an international investigation into allegations of war crimes in the final phases of the civil war in 2009 has pleased the Tamil Diaspora. They think they have scored a victory against the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL). But GOSL has bluntly refused to go along with the UNHRC resolution. What the Diaspora does not realize (or does not publicize) is that the economic consequences of any sanctions will hurt the Tamil people in the North and south more than the Government.  GOSL is working on its own formula – possibly a Truth Commission on S. African lines – which will weaken the UNHRC move as the GOSL has shown a willingness to conduct an investigation of its own.   Continue reading →

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April 29, 2014 · 7:08 pm

The National Question: All about State Power

Jayampathy Wickramaratne, in his S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Memorial Oration, 26 April 2014

DR JAYAMPATHII am thankful to the   S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Commemoration Committee for inviting me to deliver this memorial oration on the occasion of the 37th death anniversary of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C., a revered leader of the Sri Lankan Tamils. I am told that I am only the second Sinhalese, after Comrade Bernard Soysa whose birth centenary we celebrated last month, to be invited to speak at a Chelvanayakam memorial event. While I am happy to follow Comrade Bernard, I am sad that it is indicative of the divide between the two communities, a divide that we must endeavour to bridge.

State power- at the core of ethno-political conflicts: Where several communities, defined by ethnicity, language or religion live in one state, questions invariably arise regarding the rights of the various communities, their representation in bodies of government and their share of state power.

In states where numerically smaller communities live dispersed, the demand is for equality.  Such communities demand representation in the legislature and the executive proportionate to their strengths.  They also demand constitutional guarantees of equality and non-discrimination.  They demand their due share in employment.  Issues such as economic opportunities, lack of educational facilities and university admissions also arise.  The right to safeguard and promote their culture and to use their language when communicating with the government is also demanded. Some smaller communities resent being described as a ‘minority’ claiming that they are a ‘people’ or a ‘nation’. In some languages the word ‘minority’ conveys a derogatory meaning. Continue reading →

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