Methods of student protest betray stagnation and lack of ingenuity in local higher education system

The recent tear-gassing of a student protest has been the topic of much conversation, especially since the newly appointed government was seen as being much more student-friendly than the previous one.

Protests by students enrolled at state universities and higher education institutes are nothing new. Every year, these students cumulatively spend thousands of hours sitting/standing/walking/running from charging riot police in congested areas of Colombo. Ward Place, where the ministry of Higher Education is located, is the scene of near permanent sit-ins by students.

Primary, secondary and tertiary education is heavily subsidized in Sri Lanka. This has not prevented undergraduate students, selected for universities from impoverished backgrounds, from going through immense hardships to complete their education. The lack of funding has made research grants almost non-existent. The system is groaning from the stress it is under.

Yet when students react to their situation, it's often in a very confrontational and chaotic manner. Student protests gain the eyes and ears of the public, but not in a positive manner. The social standing of university students has diminished greatly among the general public. The view that they're a nuisance and lacking in discipline has become somewhat entrenched in the public consciousness.

New thinking and true creativeness is required from undergrads to get their message across. Instead of old, boring, disruptive, and potentially violent picketing and banner holding, novel methods of protest should be explored. Students should fight to win back the esteem that society generally holds such qualified and talented individuals in. They should show us why they're the exceptional one percenters who made it because they were at the right end of the bell curve.

Hong Kong students clean up after 2014 protests

Freedom of Religion - Level: Asian

CHAPTER III - FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

10. Every person is entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

– Constitution of Sri Lanka

Most countries attempt to guarantee freedom of religion (and freedom from religion) by taking the secularist approach: clear separation of church and state and the government's non-interference in religious matters (and the church's non-interference in matters of governance). Sri Lanka, as always, has a different way of dealing with things: by giving all of the "recognized" religions a very powerful lobby in the government.

According to the "Ministries" page of the Sri Lankan government's official web portal, the following Ministries and Departments are concerned with religion:

• Ministry of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs
• Department of Christian Religious Affairs
• Department of Buddhist Affairs
• Department of Hindu Religious and Cultural Affairs
• Department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs

Now, that's a shitload of public money being spent for the promotion and "protection" of religion. "Protection of religion" usually involves going batshit insane when a bunch of kids write a rock song that has some "religious material" in it. I wish these were the regular government departments that waste public money and blow some hot air once in a while, but hell no, they usually end up infringing on my right to live and enjoy life.

Census: Atheists aren't Sri Lankans too

Recently, the census forms were causing a commotion among Sri Lankan atheists, because you only had the choice of picking between the four (or five) major religions and another box titled "other", with no space left to write what those "other" beliefs were. This is not a big deal in itself, but it's a symptom of a much bigger issue: Sri Lanka is in denial about its growing population of atheists, agnostics and apostates; and it's refusing to give them equal recognition, protection under the law, and perhaps their own department. ;)

In Conclusion

There's nothing much to be said on this matter that isn't common sense. Government should be about managing our tax money in a responsible manner and providing the general public with basic services and security, not about telling us what to believe and when to riot over Akon or a rock song. Oh fuck, wait, I forgot I was talking about Sri Lanka there. My bad.

The government should not have any religious affiliations, and while having a Ministry of Culture is cool with me, I don't see why we need a Ministry of religious affairs and departments for each major religion. That money would be better spent on, I don't know, doing something useful like giving kids better Science education so that they can evaluate, and make an informed choice, regarding their world view and belief system.

Perhaps, in the future, the traditional picture of kids from the four religions representing the concept of Sri Lankan-ness can be modified thus:

I'm not really kidding

Guilt tripping the cricket fans

This post is not really about cricket. But for the record I'll just state that I enjoyed the match and as one of my friends said, "It was a game befitting of a final, unlike 2007". How very true.

But I have to instead talk about a duller and murkier topic than run rates, field placements and Poonam Pandey's knickers. There are a few people who've been suggesting that supporting the Sri Lankan cricket team equals supporting the Government of Sri Lanka and its policies. (The word 'genocide' is thrown around liberally by these people.) While its not untrue to say that a majority of Sri Lanka's 20 million people support the regime, the support for the cricket team transcends any petty political, ethnic or religious lines. They were watching the match in the south, in the north, the west, the east and up in the hills. Cricket is the glue that held us together during the most difficult periods of our history.

For me, I support the team because they represent me, and my 20 million countrymen. Not because of politics, not because waving a lion flag (something I've never done, to be honest) gives me a feeling of superiority or whatever the critics say it's supposed to do.

To all the haters, I say: Go fly a kite. We love our boys, and nothing is ever going to change that.

Things

I've been a bit busy in the past few days. And things will only get more so, with exams approaching. I'm kinda excited about the things we're learning these days, bar the antics of a certain Statistics teacher who has wild mood swings. We're learning regular expressions next week! Things I've heard about for such a long time, and we're getting to try it out! :D And yes, we've hit the fifth stage by learning Perl. ;) So exciting stuff, albeit very tiring.

I've been keeping a close eye on the destruction in Japan. My mom got the text message about some radioactive rain falling in Sri Lanka or something. Totally agree with Pseudo that children should be taught basic nuclear science so that people don't panic unnecessarily like that. I mean, every time someone mentions the word 'Nuclear', people think of Chernobyl, Hiroshima and cancer. The phobia is so much that MRI scans, which should be called 'Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging', had to drop the N so as not to scare off patients. But seriously, panicking over Nuclear power is so 1950s! People should get with the times already.

And in other news, I will be casting my first vote tomorrow! :D Yep, pretty excited about this. Look for a purple pinky to be my profile pic on Facebook for a couple of weeks to come. ;)

P.S. I broke with tradition and didn't post a big match update this year. I didn't get tickets early for the match, and when it looked like a friend could set me up with some tickets, I fell ill. I should stop this nasty habit of falling sick right before the big match. :( Anyway, it was a wonderful game and I watched a lot of it thanks to the live broadcast on Prime TV (or CSN) and on ThePapare.com. A big "Thank You!" to those guys for making it possible for us unlucky folk to catch the action. :D

National Day

As I type this out, the King is giving his speech on TV. All these years they showed only the guy giving the speech on TV, but now he's confined to a small picture-in-picture box, while the bigger area is being used to show all the reservoirs, roads and ports they've built. This government are masters of the spin, or atleast self-promotion, I'll give them that.

As we pass the 63rd milepost of self-rule, we're facing challenges seldom seen in our short history. Most of the world is out to get us, we've got a government that favours centralised rule and a president who abolished term limits that applied to him, we've got the armed forces engaged in business (vegetables, luxury cruise ships and even whale watching!) and we've got an opposition without hope. Even when things looked bleak for the UNP in 1975, with Sirimavo using her majority to delay elections by 2 years, there was a valiant and cunning leader in JR who capitalised on the unpopularity of the government (and its inability to feed its people... ring any bells?) and won a landslide when elections were eventually held in '77. Today the UNP is a party of blind leading the blind, and the other forces in the opposition are either in jail (SF) or getting routed from their traditional strongholds in the universities (JVP). And before you accuse me of being an anti-government booyaka who wants nothing more than to topple the bros from Hamba, let me remind you that people who want this government to succeed (myself included, I've seen way too many governments fail before) would want a strong opposition that acts as a watchdog against government wrongdoing, corruption and wastage. If we're to call this a democracy, the people at bare minimum deserve that from their elected opposition. For example, all the pundits seem to agree that had Gamini or Lalith not been assassinated, and had served as opposition leader from '93 - '99, CBK's government would never have grown so corrupt and impotent incompetent. So for the sake of the country, wake up from your slumber and get your act together, hoes. And don't complain about losing elections, you idiots don't even deserve the seats you win. Do it now or 15 years down the line, we'd all be forced to 'Walk Like an Egyptian'.

Okay then, back to watching the parade...

Patriot: My take

Word of warning: Long and pointless post ahead.

Let's begin with definitions first.

Patriotism is love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.

Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression. Freedom is commonly known as a state of being free from government oppression.

"L'Etat, c'est moi." (I am the state.)    – Louis XIV, King of France

First things first, country ≠ the government or the ruler. Loyalty to your country does not mean you should be loyal to your leader. In [an ideal] democracy, the government really has no say in what an individual can do with his life (as long as it's within the laws of the land) and cannot force him to do something that he refuses to do. This is a fundamental human right guaranteed by our constitution and this is why there are Fundamental Rights Petitions in the supreme court. That being said, Sri Lanka is not an ideal democracy. Not really because the paperwork isn't there (we might complain loudly against this 'bahubootha wywastawa' of ours, but really it's positively heavenly compared to, for example, what the Chinese have) but because there are thuggish ministers who are 'above' the law and can mess your life up pretty bad. Ministers with firm handshakes and funny laughs, actually.

So imagine you're Mr. David Senanayaka. You're the son of a famous General Abhaya Senanayaka, who gave his life serving the country. You're quite a hot commodity in the advertising world. You've got a nice wife who's expecting your first child, a mother-in-law who knits stuff for you and friends who talk of our glorious 'Hela Sinhala Buddhist nation' while sipping 800 Rupee lattes in posh Colombo coffee shops. Oh and you hate the government. Not 'hate' as in bitching at the dinner table 'hate', but hate as in "To hell with them, I will not work for them even if it gets me, my wife and unborn child killed." hate.

The reasons for this hatred is not really explained, but thanks to snippets of dialogue I theorise it's because:

a) He believes the government (of the time?) bled his father dry and left his carcass for his mother and him.
b) The severance payment wasn't enough to support them.
c) He believes the government is not doing a good job with post war reconstruction. ("The north got completely demolished by the war. Then why is so much money being spent on the south?")
d) He's wary of the 18th amendment.

So when your bitchy boss sets you up with a government propaganda contract which promises rewards limited only by the star at the centre of our solar system, you pick a fight with your boss, get drunk, badmouth the president of the country in front of his loyal coffeehouse electorate, and get whacked by the minister's thugs. The interventionists offered two plausible alternate endings:

a) Tell the minister to go shove it and leave country fast. Ironic since David is a 'patriot'.
b) Swallow your pride, shut the eff up and work for the government. You're in advertising for heaven's sake, you DON'T HAVE IDEALS! (What sort of messed up moral compass lets people make ads for 'fairness creams'?)

Okay, so final thoughts: You might think you love your country, but that doesn't make you a better person. (Example: me) You might think you're right and the government is wrong, that doesn't make you a patriot and them oppressors. It just means you have political and ideological differences. For all you know, the laughing foetus-murdering minister might 'love the country' as much as you do. There's no definite way of saying that you love your country more than someone else.

But in conclusion, in this country, loyalty to the head of state is more important than loyalty to the state itself. (Example: Compare Sarath Fonseka's present situation to that of Karuna Amman.) In this country, we shut up and keep our heads low, for love of everything we hold dear, and wait for the next election and hope the government doesn't rig its outcome. If you don't like the system David, you might as well a) cut the patriotic crap and leave b) enter politics and attempt to shake things up. Sorry for being blunt, but that's how 'we' roll.

I hear you asking, what's the point of this long and wandering post? My point is that the title of the play should've been "Political Freedom" and not "Patriot". Yes, I'm pointless like that.

Racism, Elected and WAGON PAAAAAARK!

I was at the BB production Elected on the 22nd of May (last Saturday). I think BB deserves a lot of praise, especially for openly discussing a sensitive topic like racism in Sri Lankan society and also the really good theatre production that they offered the audience that night. It was a forum theatre, meaning the audience got to participate in the story by modifying the way the characters behave in that situation and also giving their feedback on the actions, and basically starting a discussion on this topic of racism. Let me run through the story, and how I felt that it dealt with the issue of racism.

The story takes place in a national university of Sri Lanka, where student council elections are being held. The candidates are two bright 2nd year students, Mihiri, a Sinhalese girl, and Mohan, a Tamil guy.

The drama starts with Mohan giving his speech, talking about how the university infrastructure is crumbling and that he feels that he can give the leadership to change things in uni. He gives due respect to his opponent, and from his confidence it is apparent that he is a popular figure among the student community. Next up, Mihiri talks about very much the same things, but she ends her speech with a twist. "Some people" she says, suggestively turning her eyes towards Mohan, "seem to think that just because we choose to speak in our mother tongue, that we're incompetent. Does speaking in English make you a better leader?" and continues in Sinhala that she believes that she believes that she's one of them (the students, possibly meaning Sinhala students) and she ends it with the outrageous statement (that almost made me go "DAMN!" the first time I heard it) that "Even though the forest changes, the Tiger doesn't change his spots". Tiger. Campaigning against a Tamil student. Racial profiling much?

Ok, now dealing with this part, which is the first act of the play, the only obvious pieces of racism that I could pick up was the Tiger remark. Seriously. See, the director or the scriptwriter makes several key assumptions in writing Mihiri's speech. a) That Tamil students speak more/better English than their Sinhala peers. b) That only Sinhala students take pride in talking in their mother tongue. c) That Tamil students think they're more competent than the Sinhala students because they speak English.

As we all know, Sri Lankan universities conduct all their courses in English, and with good reason. But a majority of students (both Sinhala and Tamil) who enter uni don't have a working knowledge of English and find it hard to keep up with their coursework. This is a major problem in universities, so much so that the authorities are planning to introduce a 6 month English course and subsequent mandatory exam for all university students. Mihiri was trying to tap into this market with her remarks in Sinhala about being one of them and knowing of their problems. A cheap political trick, to turn the anger and disappointment of those students into votes, without actually addressing the issue and offering solutions (extra English classes, perhaps?). We see this a lot in national politics too, but my point is that Mihiri was going for the biggest chunk of that non-English speaking cake by talking in Sinhala (many of those voters might not even understand what she was saying in English previously) and that there wasn't really any racism involved in that decision. Her subsequent jabs about competency and pride in speaking the mother tongue were directed at the English-speaking community, and not at the Tamil students.

The Tiger remark, which she chose to end her speech with, was not at all appropriate and was clearly racist remark. She did what some Republicans in the US resorted to when Barack Obama was running for the presidency, and fear mongered. "That guy's a Tamil, ooooh he must be LTTE", was what she was saying there.


In the second act, Mohan is planning his campaign with a bunch of freshmen during lecture hours. A senior lecturer (one could say the big boss of the uni), Ananda, asks Mohan if he's got permission to take the freshmen out. Mohan cannot produce a letter to prove that he has gotten permission and the freshmen are chased away to their classes. Mihiri on the other hand has no such problems with Ananda, and he lets her use his name to get the hall anytime she wants for her campaign work. He also tells her that he wants to see "one of our people" (meaning Mihiri, the Sinhalese) elected to lead the council, and that he doesn't want to see the culture of the university changed. The audience also learns in this scene (away from Ananda) that Mihiri is using thugs to intimidate voters and get popular and bright students to support her campaign.

The audience reactions to this part was really interesting. Some argued that Mohan being a Tamil, should have known that this was going to happen and made sure that he got a letter. I think that BOTH candidates should get proper letters, since pulling a student out of a lecture is a serious thing to do, and shouldn't be done without permission. So I agree with Ananda's course of action there. In the second scene, it is made apparent that Ananda has a thing for Mihiri, and that Mihiri's milking every bit of her sexuality to get this powerful force on her side. As an audience member pointed out, Ananda is using this "Us and Them" thing as a cover to protect his own interests, or in other words his thing for Mihiri.

In the next part, the lecturer in charge of elections, Himali, confronts Ananda in the common room. Ananda accepts that he did tell the freshmen to return to classes due to the lack of proper permission, and that he doesn't like Mohan. Himali tells him that she thinks Mohan's a perfectly good candidate, and this leads him to mock her telling that she likes to think differently (or in other words, that she's not a racist like him). Preservation of interest? Dunno. It's also revealed that Ananda has been involved in several election malpractices in the past.

The audience generally agreed that Himali, as the 'elections commissioner', should've known that Ananda was trouble and taken steps to neutralise the threat before it became a problem. But having lived through countless elections, and seeing how the elections commissioner gets pushed around, most Sri Lankans would understand that this is hard business.

Now we approach (IMO) the most crucial scene. Mohan approaches an old friend (I don't remember his name so let's call him Aruna) who's a bright student and a brilliant marketer (according to Mohan). Mohan asks him to join his campaign work and do some posters for him, but Aruna refuses, citing exams coming up. Mohan does very little to empathise with Aruna, and after a few more "No"s, leaves telling him that his friend (Mihiri's thug) is here to meet him. Mihiri's thug does a much better job of empathising (or understanding) with Aruna's situation. He is facing economic hardships and his siblings are joining the uni in the near future. The thugs could really mess up his and his family's life. So Aruna is left to decide which candidate to support, his old friend or the one that has the thugs.

Now, Mohan completely dropped the ball in this one. He should've empatised with Aruna's situation and made Aruna see that the only way that his siblings could come into a thug-free campus is if Mohan gets elected. He should've basically said "Look, I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing it for you. Do you want to be pushed around by these thugs all the time? Do you want your siblings to be pushed around? Or do you want someone clean and thug-free running the place?". He didn't, and he let Aruna and his family down by doing so.

A few minor scenes follow. Mohan complains to Himali how Ananda is interfering in the campaign and supporting Mihiri, but doesn't have any proof. Later, Mohan goes to talk to Mihiri as a friend but is given the 'Talk to my hand' by her, and gets beaten up by her thugs. The thugs later kill him or beat him up, and even though the audience interventions were supposed to change this tragic ending into a good one, I don't think we succeeded. We also ran out of time, and I think the BBites should take note of this next time they are staging an FT. :)

Not much racism to discuss, in the end. Just thuggery and a sexy candidate against a guy who can't empathise with his voters and supporters. I'm sorry you lost Mohan, but I don't think it was because you were Tamil. Seriously.

Ok, now Wagon Park. The poster lied! :( There was no Wagon Park, just Milo and Madu (the two guitarists), and you don't promise Wagon Park unless Buddhi's coming, right? That being said, the pre-play music was pretty good, just that Buddhi's Buddhi man... I don't know if he was going to come and then cancelled or something but the poster, in my humble opinion, should've said who exactly was playing. Just a thought. :) Ok, I got to know that the whole group was coming and it was a late cancellation. That being said, the music was pretty good, especially Thushara who sang two excellent covers of a Bob Dylan song (All Along the Watchtower) and a Nine Inch Nails song (Hurt, I think). Good stuff! :)

P.s. My PC's out and it still hasn't been fixed. Woe is me! :( I'm really sorry I'm missing out on you guys and your blogs... but I hope it'll be fixed within the week! :)

Also, ADSL is so bloody slow. It took ages to get this post posted and I can't load some of the other blogs even. It's due to a cable snap I hear... :/

Politics and apathy

The coming general elections might be the most apathetic we've had in quite a while. The general public doesn't seem to give 1/100th the shit the candidates are giving when it comes to voting. People are still facing hardships: the cost of living is high, wages are low, and the Maharagama cancer hospital has run out of drugs and has to reuse catheters because the government isn't properly supplying them. Yet candidates are building massive campaign halls (reminiscent of what MR had built at Temple Trees during the Presidential Elections) all around, and spending massive amounts of money on campaigning. In the Colombo district Pachaayudaya, R. Duminda, Boggles and Wayima (a.k.a. Ayomaya Shakthiya) seem to be ahead on the spending. Where the money comes from is anybody's guess, but why the public isn't more concerned about this extravagant spending is even more worrying.

The fight for preferential votes do provide us with the laughs though. Pachaya had a huge cutout in front of the Pannipitiya flyover, and some Duminda supporters had decided to plaster posters of their candidate over Pachaya's mouth! And I wouldn't trust anyone who tells me that they didn't laugh when they saw Niroshan Padukka's poster, where he's posing like a flower girl! ;) At least the level of violence in Colombo seems to be close to nil, whereas in areas like Rathnapura (where Premalal Jayasekara, a.k.a. Choca malli, is running a campaign of terror) even candidates from the ruling party have found it difficult to campaign, so you can imagine what the situation is for the opposition.

The outcome of the election is not apparent at the moment, but I'm willing to bet that the UPFA will win. My best case scenario is that the chauvinistic elements in the government (the NFF and the JHU) as well as those in the opposition (the JVP) are eliminated in the election, and the centrists change the constitution to something with a more decentralised power structure and a weaker President and stronger parliament. The government doesn't need a 2/3rds majority to achieve this, since everyone will support a good constitution. Teamwork and bi-partisanship will produce better results and achieve a solution that's acceptable to all segments of society, instead of just the UPFA voter base...

meh

On Police brutality

This post is not about the Trincomalee incident. Details of that are still hazy and we will have to wait to find out what really happened. The editor of the Divaina yesterday had a hard hitting editorial in which he said something along the lines of "While man came out of the jungle years ago and attempted to shed his animalistic instincts to become a more civilized creature, the police is on a course which has taken them back to the jungle clad in grass skirts, and they have proceeded to remove those skirts and live in the nude" - Ouch! He went on to warn that "...If police brutality continues to grow onto a point that the general public cannot take it silently anymore, we will see the public taking up arms to protect itself, and therein lies a great danger". He also paints a picture of a dark future where law and order have broken down and armed gangs (with public support) and police will be engaged in a civil war. A bit over the top, but based on what we see today, it is entirely possible that something of this nature could happen.

The Tibetan-Sri Lankan monk and poet S. Mahinda thero was a freedom fighter involved in Sri Lanka's struggle to gain independence from British rule. His poetry aimed to awaken our sleeping nation and create a virtuous and just society. To quote one of his poems:

උස් තැන් දැක හැකිලෙන්නෙ
මිටි තැන් දැක පුප්පන්නෙ
නිවටුන් බව සිතමින්නෙ
මගෙ පුතා නැලවෙන්නෙ

...which roughly translates to "My son thinks that those who become meek before the powerful, and those who become aggressive before the powerless, are indeed cowards". Isn't the Sri Lankan police force a good example of that? Do they not attack the weakest segments of our society in the most unjust ways? School kids, mental patients and the disabled and elderly have all been victims of police brutality. And is the police force helpless when it comes to fighting the real criminals, who also happen to be powerful? Don't they become meek when they see the drug lords, thugs, Mafia bosses and Politicians and their families?

If the Police force isn't reformed, and the public's faith in the criminal justice system is restored, the bleak days predicted in the Divaina editorial might not be far off...

The Morning After

I look around as I enter Uni. Everywhere I look, people have their sad face on. Hushed discussions between like-minded folk in the canteen speak of various ways in which the election was rigged. Non offer any solid evidence, but they seem convinced, and sad. The Colombo middle class, the UNP's most bankable vote block, has once again been disappointed. There seems to be a silent consensus that we're indeed doomed to 8 (or 6, depending on who you ask) more years of the same corruption and nepotism.

Election night, I was at a friend's OMGWTFBBQ-night. Most of the guys there were leaving the country for higher education in the next month or so. The firm belief that the opposition candidate was going to win evaporated (like the food on the table, earlier in the night) as the results came in, one defeat at a time. My friends were sure glad that they were escaping the hell-hole well before the storm strikes. I on the other hand, thought about what Cerno said, and focused my attention on watching 'Sherlock Holmes' projected onto the wall instead. But it sure sucks being a UNPer these days... these Royalists are like, inherently bad at running it, nuh? ;)

This Ad...

...actually made me think twice about who I'm going to support at the upcoming presidential election... ;) I just loved, LOVED the tune! :D

Who would've thought...

...that Tharanga and Dilshan would make such a good opening pair? (especially those who knew the 'back-story'...) ;)

...that the Pannipitiya flyover would get finished during our lifetime? And now, thanks to the election, looks like it finally will! :/

...that politicians would be so good at shooting themselves in the foot? WE ALL DID!!! :D Some golden quotes:

• "Gota ordered them to be shot" - Gen. S. F.
  

• "The President's Fund has paid for Sarath's daughters' education in the US, and still does" - Gota (Awesome!!! People are dying without medicine and you'd much rather spend OUR money on your little puppy?!)
  

• "The biggest threat to our nation's environment, which is terrorism, has been successfully eradicated" - King M. (O RLY??! I thought your own ministers cut down more acres of rainforest a month than the LTTE managed to down in 30 years!)
  

• "The General called us and asked what to do when Homeland Security wanted to interview him" - JVP (okaaaay, so you're saying that he would've told them everything had you told him to go ahead with it?)

okaaay, this post is getting too political for my liking... bleh! :/ It looks like we're going to lose the match, and I have exams next week! 3 days after Christmas! Not cool, not cool at all! :(

But in the midst of it all, I'm happier than I let show... isstrange! Must be my friends, I really don't appreciate them as much as I should! :)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ummm

So, Sirasa is getting all excited and running the flashing lights and the urgent music. Breaking news alerts were rarely seen after the end of the war. It seems that the General wants to resign, and apparently run for the Presidency! :/

My sources deep within the political establishment have sent me a detailed report showing the reaction of the incumbent on hearing this news... I shall, at great personal peril, share this report with you! *gulp*

If you're one of those people who have no idea what internet memes are all about, consider yourself lucky! lol ;D

P.S. If my body turns up in the middle of some rubber estate in Avissawella, you'll know who to blame! ;)

Republics without elections?

When I first came across the Wikipedia article about Demarchy (accidentally) I thought it was some sort of joke... I mean who would want important decisions (like who your representative to the legislature would be) left to random chance right? Here's a quick quote for those too lazy to click on that link:

Demarchy or lottocracy is a political system run by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by lot.

Sounds absurd and untried right?

Wrong! Life and death decisions are made by randomly selected people every single day, and this has been going on for quite a long period of time without major glitches.

An example of demarchy in most democracies is the use of a jury of peers in criminal cases. The jury is normally a body of randomly selected citizens who decide the guilty or not guilty verdict, which is a prime example of demarchy.

One of the things I found really interesting is that Demarchy effectively ends partisan politics, the single most despised thing about democracies (and also end the enormous wastage of funds that goes into election campaigns as well as the process of holding elections and counting votes).

I'm not going to go on about Demarchy, because it has never been implemented as a system of government, but what would your reaction be if there was a proposal to make your elected representative, well, not 'elected' anymore? :)

I dunno what to call this...

OK, I just woke up early morning and this was twirling in my head and I just had to put it out there:

dude let's overthrow the government!

OK, now I know that your either laughing, closing this tab (DOOOOON'T!!!) or calling the Army HQ to tell them about a possible Coup attempt or something... :S ok I really don't wanna be dragged away in a white van so I'd keep this short and in-(or un-?)subversive as possible...

So I assume everybody's watched at least one movie about America's "War of Independence" right? It was one of those grassroots movements where people of all castes and creeds and professions (from the fancypants New York lawyer to the farmer from Virginia) got together, took their muskets along and overthrew the colonial government. After they did that, they wrote the most perfect constitution in recorded history... how perfect you ask? it has been amended only 27 times in the USA's 233 year existence. (in comparison ours, which is only 32 years old, has been amended 17 times already!)

Now let me get to the point. The people who wrote that document were the same that had fought in the war. And they were basically everyday people, who understood the problems that everyday people go through. That's why the constitution was begun with a "We the people" not "We the Barons" or "We the Noblemen" or stuff like that... And that's why the constitution itself provides Americans with freedom from government and basic rights that nobody can take away from them. It emphasizes "Individual Freedom" over "Government Intervention" and that instills that "I don't want the government messing with me!" attitude that ordinary Americans have, and makes America the "Land of the free", the world's most Libertarian country...

Now compare the situation here. We were basically a feudal society till 1505 (1815 in the Kandyan Provinces) and when the colonial powers took over they continued with that excising framework of control... basically why fix something that's been working for like 2000 years right? And when they gave us Independence in 1948, they gave it to a bunch of Elitist Noblemen. Who's the biggest savior of the peasants? Bandaranaike? oh didn't you know, he was like the richest and most powerful of them all! and the man who wrote (or should I say enacted?) our present constitution (which gives downright dictatorial powers to the Executive President I should add) was a part of that government that got us independence in 1948... man! like how cool is that??!

Now that you've got the background, here's what we're missing out on: citizens who give a damn about their rights, and who'd take it up with the government if they thought that their freedoms and way of life were at threat. And what have we got in this country? peasants who just go "Keep your head down son and the government will fix everything someday"! I hate it! I want a proactive citizenry who'd have tea parties and demonstrations, who'd ask tough questions from their Senators at their local town halls! I want a freaking government that UNDERSTANDS that it's only in power as long as the people consent to it and is hence kept in check. Is this all too much to ask for?

Yeah, you may go ahead and dial the Army now... :P

The World Through CS:

What happened 2 weeks ago:

What's going on now:

West tries to go anal on Sri Lanka

I, for one, am disgusted at the West's repeated attempts to poke their noses into Sri Lanka's internal issues. They should instead try to help maybe?

* promised myself that I won't go into politics in this blog when I started, but what's happening now just disgusts me to the point that it warrants a blog post... not that it'll make any difference I guess... :(

A Bad case of blogger's block...

I'm not much of a spontaneous person, so unless something big happens and I feel an urge to write it down, you wouldn't find any posts from me which I hadn't carefully cut and chopped and made as non-offensive to anyone as I can. The post about the news presenter was a kinda joke so it doesn't count... :)

Anyway, since overthinking is my thing, I thought about many things to blog about. My adventures with my friends was the obvious first choice, until I realised that I never accompanied my friends on anything adventurous. This is big match season, and all of them must be climbing over walls and getting chased by angry cops... and I, a free man, a school child no more, can just join 'em right? no problems from school, no suspensions, no scene! But I don't. and I don't know why. It's simply inexplicable.

The second thing I thought about writing was chicks, and how Facebook has changed the mating game. Well, it hasn't for me. If not for the internet I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have missed so many real world opportunities. Here's how picking up a girl with Facebook goes: You see a girl, you find out her name through 'other' sources, you search her up on Facebook, see she's not a member, slap yourself hard and begin to cry... This IM/Facebook culture has destroyed the art of meeting, greeting and getting the phone number. Damn... :S

The third, obviously veering into political territory, was a condemnation of the attack on our cricketers. Here are 15 kids that every freaking Sri Lankan loves... no matter how divided we are, we'd all watch the match on the TV together. We'd cheer together when our boys did well, but would never go and burn their houses if the lost, would we? Unlike some of our neighbours. And according to what Mahela was saying on the Telly yesterday, if that one rocket had hit the bus and not some lamppost, we would've lost them. Our heroes, our symbols of unity... gone in a few seconds! imagine that... I sure don't want to.

Yep, well atleast I blogged about not being able to blog and got a rather decent post out of it. woot! :)