Secession and Terrorism

I mentioned that I was knee-deep in homework the last time I posted. Now, after two weeks of reading up on stuff that I missed due to being absent for lectures, I finished one of the assignment and figured that it would make for an interesting blog entry. As we all know, the Sri Lankan blogosphere is rife in conversations about the ethnic tensions in the country, the impending war (is it impending or is it ongoing?), solutions, and even conspiracies. What better place, then, to ask feedback on my own assignment, which concerns secession, self-determination and terrorism in the Sri Lankan context?

Here it is then. The assignment asked to consider the consequences of the demands for secession merging with terror, with special reference to Sri Lanka. What I am looking for is constructive feedback on the assignment plus discussion on the points I have put forward. It will be interesting to see how people from different shades of the politicial spectrum interpret my work.

I’ve uploaded the assignment in word format for those who find the rendering on WordPress to be painful to their eyes. For others, the assignment in its entirety is available below:

Tamil. Not a Terrorist.

I was working on my international relations homework when my significant other pointed out a comment by Janapathi on Indi's blog. The comment goes as follows:

“TRUST THEM OR NOT”

How do you know that three-wheel fellow is not a Tamil Terrorist? We have all reasons to suspect every single tamil living around us for our safety. Remember the former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Rupawahini Wasantha Raja? He is a Tamil Terrorist. The terrorists who represent LTTE in Oslo were practicing, registered lawyers here in Sri Lanka. If your boss is a tamil or your company is belongs to a tamil, you will not know whether the guy is a terrorist or not. You will not know whether he contribute part of his salary/profits to Tamil Terrorist network or not.. You will not know whether he is a spy or not..

If I were you, I will not take that taxi again.
I would rather walk or jammed in to one of our buses or hop around to find a Sri Lankan taxi. It’s fully worth the trouble.

In my sleep deprived state, my initial reaction was to flame the man. Who the fuck was he to call all of us all terrorists, I thought. Common sense, thankfully, took over and in the next half an hour, I wrote the following in response.

Dear Janapathi,

I am Tamil, not a terrorist.

I make a substantial salary for someone of my age, not a cent of which goes to the LTTE. When the A9 was opened, I didn’t travel to Jaffna to see my relatives because I refuse to allow a cent of my money going towards their ‘cause’ – it is not “our” cause.

I believe in harmony across all cultures, religions, castes, <insert idiotic social criterion here>. I do NOT believe in Eelam.

I weep every time brainwashed sheep (martyrs apparently) from the North go around blowing themselves up in the midst of large crowds. I wept when I saw pictures of those who were murdered last week.

I weep when a man, unable to support his family, joins the military and doesn't live to see his sacrifice rewarded. I weep every time a fellow Tamil comes to me and glorifies the acts of a psychotic barbarian; apparently he is ‘our leader' and is fighting for 'our rights'. I weep every time they call him and his band of maniacs 'the sole representative of the Tamil people'.

I weep every time I see comments like yours, but I weep more because I don't blame you – it is only natural to feel threatened and my initial anger at your comments is now replaced by empathy.

I weep because every time I feel empathetic to such comments, I am accused of turning my back on my own people. I weep every time a Tamil says such things, he is branded a traitor. I weep because such ‘traitors’ of greater substance than myself, such as the late great Lakshman Kadhirgamar, are murdered.

I see a soldier's face change when he finds that the young lad in front of him is a Tamil. I weep as I hear his silent thought, 'What if he is one of *them*?"

I weep because I am a Tamil. Not a terrorist. Like me there are others, Tamils not terrorists, who weep at the state of things in this country.

But I look around and I see the proverbial silver lining and I smile.

I smile because my two best friends – as Sinhalese and Buddhist as you can get – treat me like brothers they never had; not a potential terrorist.

I smile because it was a Sinhalese employee at my family’s establishment who willingly donated blood when my grandmother was gravely ill. I smile because we didn’t even ask him. I smile because my family’s establishment has employed people from all backgrounds, including Sinhalese from the south. I smile because they will be the first to tell you that we are Tamils. Not terrorists.

I smile because the love of my life – Sinhalese and Buddhist again – and I will prove people like you wrong. I smile because she was more offended by your comments than I am.

I smile because in us, and others like us, I see the very personification of Gandhi’s profound statement: “We must be the change we wish to see.”

That we are. That we will be.

Cryptic Movie Image

Check out the image below and see how many movie references you can pick up.

 

 Click on the image to see an enlarged image. 

 I've picked up the following:

Birds
Titanic
Bend it like Beckham
Phone Booth
The Rock
Hand that rocks the cradle
Monalisa Smile / Da Vinci Code
Raging Bull
Taxi
Scorpian King
Chicken Run
Four Weddings and a funeral
Big Foot?
Airplane
Casino
Se7evn The JacketRear Window?The Crow
XXX
Stealth
Broken Arrow
Crash
Anaconda
Thirteen
Jackass
Pink Panther
Saw
Nepolean Dynamite
Red Dragon
Zulu

Album Download of the Week – Pink Moon by Nick Drake

Every week, I will upload a favourite album of mine for the listening pleasure of those who read my blog. Each upload will be accompanied by a review written by myself – a no bullshit introduction to the album and, possibly, the artist(s) behind the music.

The singer-songwriter offshoot of the rock genre can be a highly unforgiving plain for artists. History has shown that only a handful of artists get any recognition during their careers while some tried, not often with success, to utilize the success of their respective bands to further their solo careers. And there are also others who pass away with little success, only for their death to inspire a posthumous interest in their work.

Nick Drake falls into the third category – a tragic example of an amazing talent who was way ahead of his times; so much so that when listening to his work now, the listener is doubts his ability to get recognition in this day and age of manufactured pop. His discography is small, but in that short career, Drake wrote, composed and played tunes whose technical brilliance – his finger-picked guitar playing and odd tunings is a revelation – is only bettered by the emotional power they pack.

Nowhere is his brilliance more evident than his final album, Pink Moon. In all but 35 minutes, Drake – a depressed artist on the verge of mental breakdown – throws the full spectrum of his emotions into his songwriting and compositions. The results will either chill you to the bone or make you look elsewhere for aural solace.

In the album’s standout song Know Drake sings over a repetitive riff on a classical guitar: ‘Know that I love you/Know that I don’t care/Know that I see you/Know that I am not there’.

That’s all. When the listener first hears it, the experience can be an emotionally disorienting experience. For those who are familiar with trying to come to terms with the manufactured apathy that results from unrequited love, Know will either disturb them or help them come to terms with the feeling.

Be under no illusion – this is a difficult album to listen to and not the ideal way to be introduced to one of folk music’s great enigmas. However, for those who love music to challenge them mentally and emotionally – and I do – Pink Moon will be a standout.

Click here to download the album.

RIP Pirate Bay

Some news filtering through that renowned torrent tracker, The Pirate Bay, has been shutdown by Swedish authorities. For years now, The Pirate Bay has claimed that Sweden, being a land of "sane Intellectual property laws" allowed them to operate as a legitamate entity.

As a downloader myself, I found The Pirate Bay to be an amazing site for music and movies, and would often point my browser in that direction when there was a need to find material that most other torrent trackers didn't have. The last time I did so was two weeks back when I downloaded the entire King Crimson discography.

The owner(s) of TPB regularly posted emails/letters that they recieved from copyright owners asking for the removal of item(s) that were being distributed illegally. On the same page, there would be a link to TPB's response to the email/letter sender; most of the time, responses innvolved liberal use of "fuck". I can't pass judegement on how authentic these emails/letters were though.

Regardless, I am going to miss TPB and I would like to thank the owners for keeping it afloat for so long. As for me, I will be going to Demonoid, Oink and Torrent Spy for my downloading needs from now on.

Click here to read the final message from TPB.

Stigmata to play in Maldives

Just got an email saying that Stigmata, Sri Lanka's premier heavy metal band, will be playing in Maldives.

Rockstorm festival will kick off in Male on the 4th of June and will go on until the 5th. Other bands that are playing include Fasy and Serenity Dies – both of whom I haven't heard of – but I am assuming there are more performers.

Click here to go to the festival's official website.

Here's wishing Suresh, Andrew, Tenny, Vijai (?), and Ranil a kickass show. Go show em what you are made of.

Beyond Our Last Tomorrow

Dedicated to the one I love.

Beyond our last tomorrow
by Theena Kumaragurunathan

Love comes in four seasons:
Spring, when the heart’s flower blooms
To the gentle rays of young love;
Summer sees the flower become
The root of greater gardens;
Autumn and the flower begets
The remembrance of its past so joyous;
Winter comes last – not harsh nor cold
Yet unwelcome still for its promptitude.
I speak of the spring of our love -
The dawning of metamorphosis most beautiful.

I greet the sun with a smile on my face,
I long to behold – perchance sight – your face,
I write long winded verses of my love.
My love, if for a moment you imagine -
Imagine our moments for the remaining seasons -
You will see that our love like that flower be.
And as I write this, I ask, as you may,
What of winter and beyond? What of our love then?
With winter we become seeds of cross-pollinatory rhyme,
Lost to the winds, beyond our last tomorrow.

I wrote this a month or so back for my girlfriend. Felt like sharing this since I have nothing to rant, rave or yack about.

SLT ADSL connection issues

Bah.

SLT's ADSL, easily the best consumer broadband internet service in SL, is seemingly struggling these days. I've noticed that my connection has become markedly slower over the past few months. Today, for instance, I am trying to download a 50MB zip file from a website and its coming in at 7 KB/sec – In the words of an online friend from Canada, "Jebesus!".

Can other SLT ADSL users reading this share their personal experience with the service? Or am I the only one faced with such a plight?

LTTE banned by EU……but will anything change?

Long overdue, but here at last. EU bans LTTE and places them on terror list. Read more here.

The situation in the country is such that one doubts what positive effect, if any, this move will have. As Dr Jehan Perera points out, "This could mean a major military attack that seeks to show the world that the international ban has not changed anything on the ground."

Life in Colombo, however, will go on as usual. The tension is still there. So is the fear.

Fear of travelling. Fear of losing loved ones. Fear of losing one's life. Fear is the most powerful weapon that a terrorist organization has.

Everytime a security personnel asks for my ID, I look for a reaction; upon seeing that I am Tamil, he eyes me with extra caution – a mix of suspicion and fear. I can almost hear his brain at work - What if he is one of them?

It is not the greatest feeling when you are viewed as a potential terrorist, but can I blame them? No. I would be feeling the same if I were in their shoes.

The Wasted Decade

As if anyone needed reminding, Cricinfo's Charlie Austin writes a timely article on the decline of Sri Lankan cricket. The problem, as the article will highlight, is deep – so much so that when the low point comes – and it will come; have no dilusions that Sri Lankan cricket will go through a period of extended decline – it will be like the 80s and early 90s when we were the wipping boys of international cricket.

Some of the highlights in the article:

" The excitement generated by the World Cup win was Sri Lanka's equivalent of England's 2005 Ashes effect. Cricket was carried deep into Sri Lanka's rural out-stations, popularising a sport that had hitherto been largely the preserve of the privileged minority in the main cities. Cricket's growing popularity made a mockery of volleyball's official status as the island's national sport. No other sport mattered any more: cricket was the undisputed No. 1."

I was 13 when we won the World Cup and I remember the excitement of those times – when our cricketers suddently became superstars overnight, when the cricket board spoke of making the country the best cricket nation by the year 200 (Remember Edna Chocolates issuing stickers with ever bar?) Glory days indeed, but in hindsight, were we overly optimistic? Naive even?

The key to any team's long term sucess lies in their domestic structure. Australia, India and now England can lay claims to having a domestic structure that prepares a cricketer to the demands of international cricket. Look at the calibre of players that they are producing on a consistent basis: Micheal Hussey, Micheal Clarke, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Kevin Pieterson being the most outstanding cases.

Australia's domestic tournament is arguably the toughest in the world – so much so that when a player like Micheal Hussey was finally given the chance to represent the country, his performances thus far beg the use of an old cliche – like a duck to water – in describing his total infalibilty – his mental preparedness – to the demands of international cricket.

Can Sri Lanka lay claim to producing first class cricketers with that sort of mental strenght, let alone the technical foundations? I don't believe so. Just as the Australians went through a phase of transition in the early 80s, I believe we have to do the same.

This time calls for sacrifices on the part of the cricket board and team management, and patience from supporters. It is time we get the domestic structure in order instead of pretending that everything is nice and rosy.

Click here for the full article.