Congratulations Sri Lanka 1.0

Congratulations to Sri Lanka for getting rid of the Parabahkaran and his racist band of mass murderers.

When I first started blogging about Lankan issues after the tsunami I was hoping that the LTTE will transform into post-tsunami mainstream politics, though I despised their racism. Then, when they started attacking the military I gave up on that and the only question I had was how badly the military will retaliate. When the early signs of the Trico5 and Pottuvil10 emerged I began to have my doubts as to how the fighting would be conducted above and beyond the fog-of-war scenarios. It appears that the politico-military had learnt it's lessons well. IMO the prosecution of the war has not been as cold-blooded and indiscriminate as it could have been though bloody.

Most of all however I have been interested in how the public were led and motivated to back the war and to compare it to the atmosphere around 1983 era. Tyranny of the majority or the Patriotism of the majority were the questions? particular it has been interesting to view the sense of ownership and patriotism that has been fostered under the current elites to combat the separatist agenda. There are many lessons that I have learnt in observing this process. A notable mention must go to Dayan Jayatilleke for his writings. These I feel are as important to future Sri-Lankans as the Fedrealist papers have been to the formation of the US.

Another aspect that I came across while blogging has been the peace-NGOs and the psuedo-intelligentsia. They have been the most disapointing aspect of this. While a few aimed to be the moral watchdogs of democracy a majority of them just seemed unable to be morally responsible and too out of touch with the soul of the nation. Let alone not being able to express themselves in Tamil or Singhalese. The Western European nations too have been particularly disapointing in their lack of effort to put more pressure on the LTTE, particularly towards the end.

Online and offline talking, reading and interacting with Sri Lankans in the diaspora and in the country I get the feeling that Sri Lanka has found it's sense of self for the first time since it's formation as a post-colonial liberal democracy. In my interactions, for every sinhalese nationalist voice there has been a Sri Lankan nationalist voice. This gives us heart that what we are witnessing is the emergence of Sri Lanka 1.0. A nation that I feel can in good time, ensure the liberty and equality of all individuals without prejudice. All the best of luck.

PS: Nice show by the government in not going overboard with the official end of war celebrations. Compared to the Eastern Victory celebrations these appeared to be more measured and secular.

Betting on an Australian Win

My bets are on Australia wining tonight. True to Sri Lankan form, and if kottu is the form guide, the world cup has caused an epidemic in the normally fever ridden Sri Lanka. Something I cannot even imagine in current day Australia, well suburban Melbourne at least. More people seem to be interested in this weeks AFL games than the cricket, except for the Lankan migrants of course, perhaps its just the arrogance of victory. However, today’s newspapers have been all about Sri Lanka.

This time around it seems to be all about Big Respect for Sri Lanka. Something, if memory serves me correctly, unimaginable a decade ago where Sri Lanka hardly even rated in the pre-final news coverage. But then a decade past a fierce and at times spiteful rivalry has formed between the two aggressors on the fields where the sounds of leather on wood echo around the world through the hyper channels of networked life.

So who will win in this metaphorical battle between David and Banda? Lets have a look. Australia, a team of extremely talented individuals, that has been physically dominant and competitively ruthless on it's way to the finals or Sri Lanka, again an extremely talented and artistically majestic but at times has been susceptible to psychological laziness on route to the final.

On paper the bowling attacks appear to be well matched, though Maharoof's average is (9 at 22) is not really up to Bracken's (15 @ 14.93). It's the batting that is a cause for concern. The top order differences are marked; (Aus) 64.81 vs (SL) 44.02 and the SL top order have just not shown the confidence that the aussies have. The information markets are in favor of Australia too with AUS @ $1.37 and SL @ $3.20 to win. Looking at the recent past meetings, Sri Lanka's wins against Australia in the VB series have been under exceptional performances where Jayasuriya has fired and Dilshan and Murali stepped up. eventually when Australia finally put the foot down Murali ended up with the worst figures of his career and the kangaroo had knocked out the lion.

What would it take for SL to Win? Well In My Uneducated Opinion (IMUO), they will probably have to bring the A+ team to the game. Jayasuriya or someone else capable of dominating the attack would have to plunder the Aussie attack. I haven't seen enough SL matches to figure out who this might be (but I did see Kapugedara show signs of Jayasuriaesk flashes, perhaps for the next world cup). Sangakarra would probably have to bring his game face on. Most of all they will have to break the Aussie psyche. To this end the psy-ops so far may be a positive. By resting the bowlers it has many of the players talking about it, then there has been Sangakarra and Moody's retort to the Aussies commentary and finally Ponting was kept waiting yesterday. The tactics are not the same as with Ranatunga but then Mahela is not him.

Ultimately what are the chances of Sri Lanka winning? My head, and the markets say Australia and that's where I place my Money. Like many aussies with divided allegiances my heart is with Sri Lanka in the cricketing field. Good luck to the Sri Lankan team.

Shills, Comics and Plagiarists at the AsianTribune.com

I usually like reading the AsianTribune. However every now and then they end up publishing articles which turn out to be comedic gems. I don't know about the editorial policy practiced by K T Rajasingham and Co but some of the posts border on the plain ridiculous and do not show any kind of journalist integrity.

The latest article, which finally prompted me to write this post, is this blatant piece of commercial promotion titled Record breakers Mahela and Kumar launch revolutionary 'Intel' processors by Quintus Perera. I don't know if Intel is paying dear old Quintus to act as a shill but it surely seems to have paid off in trumps. This is nothing but a sell out and even indi does a better job covering the Intel launch than QP.

Then there was this piece by Janaka Perera titled German NGO's duplicity exposed which I think is an attempts at investigative journalism / expose but ends up being nothing more a scatter shot approach to throwing mud at the Berghof Foundation. I don't have a problem with the logic or the topic under discussion just the unprofessional methods used. The article is nothing more than hyperbolic accusations and wild speculation that fits more in the blogsphere than in an internet daily. To use such incivil tactics as invoking the specter of Nazism to smear all Germans by implication, no doubt a well thought out tactic, just highlights Janakas inability to perform the sort of investigative journalism required for an expose. On the other hand if this was meant to be a polemic he has far to go and may I suggest that he take some lessons from his colleague HLD. Actually I was even more surprised when the Berghof Foundation replied to it.

Was about to publish this in the morning when I saw todays edition and guess what? We have a new player attempting to reach the plateau of mediocrity. Todays article titled Sri Lankans fight to defeat fuel prices by Sunil C. Perera appears to be saying something related to the sensationalist headline but I just don't get it. Perhaps someone can point it out to me. Other than an unsupported assertion at the start followed by a couple of sentences referring to consumer reluctance in the take up of ethanol mixed fuel the article certainly doesn't portray any sense of lankans "fighting to defeat fuel prices" unless Sunil has found a new synonym for the LTTE. The remaining 80% of the article is spent describing fuel-cell technology and has no direct relevance to the topic under discussion. It gets even worse.

I was a bit suspicious of the content so I did some googling and it turns out good old Sunil C. Perera is a plagiarist (Note: Since he hasn't acknowledged any of the original sources I am quite happy to label him a plagiarist). He seems to plagiarized most of his content from fuel-cell related sites on the net.

For example

from http://www.fuel-cell.org see What is a fuel cell?

from http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/hydrogen.htm see What is a fuel cell?

from http://www.ecn.nl/en/news/item/article/166/1/ see ECN build first Dutch hydrogen car

These are but the most recent attempts at comedy in the AsianTribune and one must question its editorial process and if this continues its integrity. I am not trying to adopt a holier than thou attitude here but if this is what we can expect from South Asian Journalist, specifically Sri Lankan journalists, its NOT GOOD ENOUGH. You need to lift your game.

I couldn't decide who was the bigger culprit, Quintus Perera acting as a shill for Intel or the plagiarism of Sunil C. Perera.

In Absentia

Let's see, shortly after my previous post,







BabyH was born
I lost track of time
Assumed new responsibilities at work
Started post-grad studies
Lost more track of time
Added oooh, aagh, gaaaa to vocab
Started looking for a new job
Forgot what time is
Planning on renovations
Did I say something about time ...


So whats new in serendipity? Hmmm, the tigers have started fighting again as predicted. A pity since they are on a lost cause. Heads up to sittingnut and David Blacker for calling it, but is it war ? Actually i don't want to discuss that much right now.

Due to time constraints I wont be posting much but I do catch up on the blogophere daily. I expect future posts here to be minimalistand irregular. I'll also be popping up here are there for comments.

Well, off to find more time.

An Eastern Affair

What went on in the east just under two weeks ago? This is a question I have been asking myself since then. The established facts are, following two of the many blatant LTTE actions murdering innocent civilians their aim of instigating retaliatory attacks bore some fruit when there was ethnic rioting targeting tamils. To the credit of the government they reacted quickly and effectively to bring the situations under control. Beyond that there are accusations such as these, primarily from tamil nationalists, that the revenge attacks had a degree of pre-planning and organization to it.

The violence did not occur against a backdrop of ethnic harmony. Over the past year, besides the tiger related violence, there have been other incidents associated with singhalese extremists aimed at inflaming communal tension. There was the erection of buddha statues, thaipongal hartals and the assault on a JVP MP who opposed the said hartal. Given these incidents the obvious question is, has there been a resurgence of the singhalese ethnic identity in the east over the national identity and did it contribute to the retaliatory attacks?

Aggressive identity politics based on ethnicity always leads to communal tension and if not mitigated ends up causing a blowback in the form of organised violence, be it in sydney, bosnia, or the janjaweed. It is within this context that I find myself unable to discount the possibility of third-party organisation and/or involvement in the retaliatory violence.

Over at moju.lk sittingnut thinks that I am being irrational in engaging in such speculation.

go by facts and common sense not by wild irrational speculation

Am I being irrational and unreasonable given the recent tension and agitation in the east? The facts are thin and I haven't seen any credible investigative reports of the events that unfolded other than the news from the international media, SL related websites and the likes of DBS Jeyaraj and co (If you have any please point them out to me or email them. My profile contains the email address). Perhaps this is an indictment of state of investigative journalism coming out of the SL these days.

I suspect that I am facing a form of the information asymmetry problem given the tyranny of distance to SL. If I am having doubts, and I consider myself to be open minded on issues, how will these events be perceived by those who are sympathetic to separatism and/or do not trust the GOSL?

Events since then have stolen the limelight and given the non-conclusive nature of the issue I am going to wait a little longer before making up my mind. I await the next UTHR (J) report hoping that it will shed some light on the issues.

Also, what did the MahindaR mean in his latest speech when he said

We are also aware that several Tamil citizens have also been killed during this period. My special attention has been drawn to this.

Was it an acknowledgement or a subtle warning?

---

A note on the CPA report (pdf) - I find sittingnut's concerns about the press statement to be valid. While CPA is not under any obligation to explain itself to an anonymous blogger but it’s reputation would have less damage had it released the report together with the press statement.

It's been one of those months

bb | ^bb I'm not a poet so I'll let the bard echo my thoughts ....

To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn(e)
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

It's just not cricket

On a 43 degree day I didn’t feel like doing much except keeping cool and sitting in front of the tv to watch the cricket (a rare feat) and some reading in between. As Sri Lanka beat Australia I watched the trumpeter and a few drummers kick off what looked like a baila tune or two. However, a similar attempt to keep a band playing at the previous match at the Melbourne’s Telstra Dome was apparently thwarted, after crowd complains, by the ever reliable boys in blue. According to a Sri Lankan – Australian, Laknath Jayasinghe, who wrote in The Age op-eds during the week.

….this, and other far more cutting and racially motivated language, is what confronted me and my friends - all Australians from migrant Sri Lankan backgrounds - when we decided to sing traditional, festive Sinhalese songs to amuse ourselves during what was a very one-sided cricket match.

There was dancing, and some from the broader Anglo-Australian community joined in. To me, this was multiculturalism in its truest and most joyful sense.

So it was incredibly sad to hear a collective grunt of displeasure from a large body of spectators seated nearby, sneering suspiciously at our "foreign" activities. This was followed by a collective sigh of relief from this same section of the crowd when the boys in blue, whom they had complained to, asked us to stop singing and dancing …

This is nothing new. In the past I’ve been to a few AL vs OZ games in Melbourne and invariably when the baila starts playing and people get together the boys in blue materialise as if an alarm has gone off in their deterrence detection meter. More about that later. The next day a friend forwarded the following email ( edited for minor cleansing) which was written by a mate who was at the match providing context for the above cited article. It provides an insiders view.

What happened at the Dome was this. The first half I really enjoyed the banter because there were a few Aussie guys with the beer in their hands who were countering our cheering with Murali taunts ( and we were 10 guys who started shouting in Sinhalese (native language) and then turned to English when we started copping it - so that people can understand). Anyway that was good fun and both parties enjoyed it and we even had a bit of a chat during the 40 minute interval. Then came Part 2.

Part 2 happened when the band started playing and the about 150 or more Sri Lankans got together on one part of Level 3 at the Dome and started singing sinhalese songs/ This is when the crowd around us got apparently uncomfortable (or maybe offended) and asked the cops to make us stop. In between some Aussies teenagers got between the singing group and started to yell in English. So the cops came and they asked us to leave and told that if we want to sing that we should take it outside the stadium. So most of us did a lap around the Dome and watched the remaining 30 odd overs at the big screen outside the Dome .Honestly, I thought we copped a bit ( and there were some very minor scuffles !) but I didn’t relate any of the events seriously to 'other more broader issues' until I saw this article and looking at a lot of things, I do agree with a lot of the content.

My response in another post…TBC.

Take a bow Dr.Gunatunga you are an individual

Living overseas it's hard to guage the day to day violence and death in the North and East of Sri Lanka and finding the truth is itself a challenge as each of the antagonists are out to create illusions of it. I usually await the UTHR(J) publications (last report) to clear the air. However, in this particular criminal act the truth appears to be a lot easier and transparent thanks primarily to one individual.

By all accounts 5 innocent students were intentionally killed in Trincomalee on the 2nd of January 2006 and attempts were made to frame these murders.

This was followed soon after by the killing on 2 January of five high school students from Sri Koneswara Hindu College and St Joseph's College in Trincomalee. Although the army first claimed they were killed by a grenade that the students were carrying, following a post mortem it was revealed that the students had been shot, three of them in the head. The President has ordered an inquiry into the killings. [link Amnesty]

As narrated by DBS Jeyaraj one individual stands out in his actions for the truth.

The truth however became known when the post - mortem and judicial inquiry was conducted. The Trincomalee Judicial Medical Officer Dr.Gamini Gunatunga conducted the post - mortem and ruled that all five dead victims had died due to gunshot injuries. Three had died of head injuries while the other two had succumbed to abdomen and chest injuries. The JMO however observed that some of the victims had injuries other than gunshot wounds too. But the fatal ones were from gunshots. [link via theacademic]

I for one would like to offer my thanks to Dr.Gunatunga for his actions and not caving in to any pressure applied by the criminal elements who comitted these acts in the name of the state. To me this is an ideal example of the difference an individual can make in times of overwhelming odds as well as the power of the truth when the judiciary is transparent. Now the question is, having ordered an inquiry into this incident will Mr.Rajapaskse stand up to seek justice.

The year that was meant to be but didn’t

This was the year Intelligent Design (ID) made its push to get into the science classroom and Iraq was supposed to be the shining new example of democracy in the Middle East. Alas, the latest attempt at cloaking creationism by another named gibberish has encountered its first knock back by the US legal system in Pennsylvania. The court's decision is available here (pdf) for the interested.

Judge John E. Jones III declared that the school district's claim that I.D. is a scientifically valid alternative to evolution is simply wrong. "Intelligent design is nothing less than the progeny of creationism," he writes.

Salon has an in depth article titled Survival of the unfittest looking at the challenge from ID and its rise in mainstream culture. Thankfully the situation here doesn’t appear to be as bad as in the US with both Bush and the Pope joining the chorus.

A lot of people seek answers to complex systems with closed solutions rather than spending the effort required to critique and/or debunk one’s beliefs and maintain an open and sceptical mind. ID isn’t the first and will not be the last challenge to the sceptics amongst us. I was always in favour of teaching the theory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster alongside ID. So what’s going to happen to FSM now?

As Nassim Taleb writes, there are many Opiates of the middle classes needing debunking. Another supposed success was to be the spread of secular democracy in Iraq. While some sense of political self-governance has taken hold it’s hardly the resounding success it was meant to be. The US appears to have done a deal with the Sunni leadership but Iran is sabre rattling, so what's up?. IMO, the biggest questions in 2006 will be if Iraq slips into a civil war and how the US-Iran relationship will evolve. Meanwhile Juan Cole has a an excellent article titled Top Ten Myths about Iraq in 2005

See you in the next year and all hail

Racing to develop

Over at Lanka Libertarian there is a bit of discussion about the social vs economic development. Sometime ago while discussing Sri Lanka with a family friend who was involved in and led a development organization for most of his life expressed the view that the problems were caused by the social development of the country outpacing economic development. I made a mental note though I wasn’t convinced of this as the causal factor.

The more plausible argument seems to be that the problems faced by Sri Lanka are multi-causal and economic development (the lack of it) was one of the causes. Particularly amongst the educated and meritorious youth who were frustrated by the lack of opportunities for advancement.

Anyway, while googling for a book on SL the new big-brother suggested a link to this paper titled Economic Roots of Political Conflict: The Case of Sri Lanka (pdf) by Sirimal Abeyratne. The Abstract reads,

The escalation of political conflicts in many developing countries and their impact on economic development have been topical issues in recent development literature. The overwhelming emphasis on 'ethnic conflicts' in the literature has, however, precluded analysts from looking at political conflicts beyond their ethnic dimension, in the wider context of the development process. In particular, because of the preoccupation with ethnic roots as the prime source of these conflicts, reverse causation, running from economic policy to political conflict, has been virtually ignored in the debate. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap through an in-depth case study of the 'twin political conflict' in Sri Lanka - the Tamil separatist war in the North and the Sinhala youth uprising in the South - with emphasis on its economic roots. The findings suggest that fundamental contradictions in the national development policy in the restrictive trade regime of Sri Lanka were at the heart of the country's twin political conflict.[paper (pdf)]

For an academic paper in economics its a surprisingly easy read. I recommend reading it, better yet print it out and keep it under the pillow and read a page or two each night before falling a sleep. More south-asian economics info at ASARC.

of Middle Eastern Appearance

Note:subscription issues using links try www.bugmenot.com

Over the past five years these words became part of the media verbiage when describing violent and anti-social activities associated with gangs of first and second generation Lebanese-Australian youth in Sydney. It looks like the blowback has finally happened in the rather insular suburb of Cronulla which has a history of intolerance towards people from other suburbs. What was intended to be a legitimate protest by surfies and beachgoers quickly became a cowardly and inexcusable racist mob that indiscriminately attacked anyone who looked “middle eastern”. This has been followed by more cowardly reprisal attacks over the past two nights by car loads of youth (read Lebanese). Lets make no mistake, this is a turf war between two Neanderthal tribes ( the "lebos" and the "surfies" ) with a racial elements mixed in.

While I’m not a Sydneysider and am not intimately familiar with the city, I lived there for a year. I also have family members and friends whom I visit at least twice a year. It is from this perspective that I analyse and write here.

The timeline and lead up

Lebanese youth seem to have been frequenting the beachside suburbs of southern Sydney and generally making a nuisance of themselves (more below). Reports alleged threatening behaviour towards fellow beachgoers, loudmouthed ogling and calls of “sluts” towards girls in bikinis / swimwear, etc.

Ms Lamour said the gangs that roamed the beach targeted the locals. "They always come down trying to start trouble. It's the only reason we don't want to come down, because we know we will get harassed."

On the previous Sunday a gang of Lebanese youth were involved in an attack on lifeguards at Cronulla beach. This attack seems to have been the straw that broke the camels back. In most beaches lifeguards provide a volunteer community service which carries a degree of respect and gratitude within the local community.

As a response a community protest was planned this past Sunday but without proper coordination the organisation took a life of it’s own (similar to flash mobs) as SMS texts did the rounds calling “Aussies” to take back the beach and join in “bash a wog and leb day”. The media too got a wind of this and started to report on it.

The media baiting and incitement(?)

During the week elements of the media, particularly the RWDB shock jocks on Sydney talk-back radio let rip and stoked the flames on intolerance as usual.

Alan Jones was screaming like a race caller whose horse was coming home. "I'm the person that's led this charge here. Nobody wanted to know about North Cronulla, now it's gathered to this."...

top-rating breakfast host had heaps of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners on. "Alan, it's not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it's thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it's been taken over by this scum. It's not a few causing trouble, it's all of them."...

He assured his audience he "understood" why that famous text message went out and he read it right through again on air: "Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the shire get down to North Cronulla to support the leb and wog bashing day …"

Such comments, IMHO, contain statements inciting violence. The question is, would the authorities enforce the rule of law and call these lame and temporal media elites to account?

Though this is not the first instance of the media targeting the Lebanese community as a whole due to the actions of some, many high-profile incidents involving self-identifying Lebanese youth have created a negative stereotype

Lebanese violence and stereotype

The history of Lebanese migration following the civil-war is an interesting story on its own. It’s my understanding that the then prime-minister allowed many unsavoury characters to migrate to Australia and most of them settled in Sydney but they certainly haven’t followed the script of Model Minorities. From this emerged crime gangs whose modus operandi became the unrestrained use of firearms. At times it seemed that drive-by shootings in the south-western suburbs became a weekly event and even the police stations came under fire.

Also in Sydney, around 2000 gangs of youth from muslim backgrounds were involved in luring and gang-raping “Aussie” girls. Most of these limpdicks self-identified themselves as Lebanese. The most notorious being one Bilal Skaf now in jail.

These events and other minor incidents involving a disproportionate use of violence sent chills throughout Sydney and socialised the “lebo” stereotype. Though some are eager to blame the S11, Bali and Tampa incidents I believe much of the damage was self-inflicted by a community now knowing how to come to grips with the idiotic and macho elements among them. As with any other insecure minority the lebos too make a habit of over emphasising their ethnicity and are negative towards “Aussies”.

Cronulla; an intolerant suburb

Cronulla, the suburb where the riots occurred, has a history of violence towards outsiders. During the week the beach is primarily the domain of locals but on weekend the people from the nearby suburbs arrive and it seems this riles the locals. There have been riots and rivalry between the parochial insiders and outsiders and it appears to have been particularly bad in the 60s. Most of the Lebanese youth who frequent the beach are from these same suburbs.

My significant other worked in a Cronulla school for over 6 years and according her it’s a generally middle-class suburb, but ethnically homogenous with a underbelly of nastiness. According to her, the yobbo elements were always a significant proportion of the population. It also appears to have one of the lowest proportions of migrant settlement rates in Sydney.

In 2003 I wrote a feature for the Herald about the implications of the Shire's cultural make-up. Its 215,000 people then (the second biggest local council in NSW and the fourth biggest in Australia), had one of the lowest proportions of non-English-speaking-background residents in the country: 9 per cent. White faces dominate, as do conservative values.

The suburb is known for its surfing facilities. While there are many smart people who surf one needs to differentiate them from the “surfies”. The surfies are those for whom surfing is their primary identity and lifestyle. Having spent some time amongst surfies, most people I know agree with me when I say that surfies are not the brightest lights on the beach.

The riots

Following the cowardly attack on two lifeguards by about 20 Lebanese youth a community protest was planned for Sunday. Spreading the message via SMS and the media the protest seems to have attracted a large numbers of youth from all around the shire. It was also attended by small numbers of ultra-rightwing neo-nazi and nationalist groups who were there spreading their bile and stirring the passions of hatred as usual.

According to what I saw on TV, a hot day, lots of booze and a lackadaisical police presence seems to have turned local pride into jingoistic ethno-nationalist hatred. While there was a racist element to the mob, my observation was that it contained people from many races not just Caucasian Australians as reported worldwide. The racism that was evident was of everyone hating the “lebos”.

Irrespective of the targets all racism is deplorable. What is bravery when the fight is 5000 vs 1 or 20 vs 2 ? How does one justify a mob attacking a muslim girl? or attacking an ambulance? These acts of violence were conducted by cowardly thugs involved in a turf war. They seem to find security in self-fulfilling ethnic identities and resorting to pack mentalities afraid of one on one confrontations.

More discussion at catallaxy(post1, post2), LarvatusProdeo and darp. Oh and by the way, In my experience Australia is not Racist.

A whinge or two

I haven’t been in a blogging mood lately. It must be that time of the year because I have been out of sorts. The head heavy; the heart dry; the clouds grey; the mood dim. This explains the lack of interest in the blogosphere.

Weekend and long hours became part of the work week in trying to get the latest version of the software out the door. Having inherited some bad algorithm designs it always riles me when a change in behaviour/usage exposes holes containing code that’s comparable to using band-aids to hold together a train. There is no excuse for bad design decisions, says I, one who has been guilty of such conduct at times. Anyway, managed to get it all under control and ship it in time.

On top of that one of my neighbours seems to have set up a wifi network. This coupled with a M$ XP software “product feature” meant that every time I tried to load a page the laptop would drop the network connection. On the weekend I finally managed to move aside the furniture in the study to get to the router and reconfigure the channel. It seems to be working now.

There are a few things to blog about. Have been holding back from blogging something about the elections but the time is nigh (unlike some broken intentinons). Before that however I must write something about the anti-lebanese racially tuned riots at Cronulla beach in Sydney. For now, it’s time to cruise across the blogs and leave some comments.

Breaking news ...

Australian federal police and secret services organisations have raided suspected Tamil homes possibly associated with LTTE. The news item mentioned that one of the the raided houses could be connected to the Kadiragamar murder and that Tamil material has been taken away.

Staying up late and this is what I just saw in the late night news bulletin. Here is the first item I could find online. Stay tuned for more elsewhere.

I'll update this tomorrow once the MSM (MainStreamMedia) start comng out with the story.

Update I: link link link google news

Update II:

Some background items on recent LTTE related activities in the Oz news.

• Threats made against a person living in Australia. - link link
• Oz and Thai police bust a people smuggling scam - link link
• Australian citizen suspected of involvement in kadiramar affair - link link
  

Engineering Innovation

Unis are not happy about the maths skills of new students. Professional bodies are worrying about shortages of engineers. Could it be that engineering is not sexy again? Is this the attitude in general and are budding engineering geeks opting for softer options like banking? In a recent OnlineOpinion article Tanveer Ahmed argues Australia needs more engineers and fewer bankers to secure our economic growth.

In an index developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a measure of a country’s potential for innovation was the number of quality engineers it produced per head of its population. The measure is to innovation as infant mortality statistics are to development.

Indeed innovation is driven by engineers and an entrepreneurial culture but it's something we don't see enough of in the Australian zeitgeist with it's over reliance on natural resources and the media distracted by the rapid uptake of new technologies (mostly developed elsewhere). I'm not aware of the per-capita comparisons of engineers between nations but Tanveer comments

A Chinese student is six times more likely to choose engineering as his American counterpart. An Indian graduate is eight times more likely, according to figures from a MIT study. The figure in Australia is likely to be closer to the US, if not less.

Is this a reasonable comparison? I would expect China and India to be starting from a lower base of higher-ed students and qualified engineers. Obviously with a high demand for engineers, necessitated by the increasing needs of infrastructure development, it would be reasonable to expect that a prospective student in such a country has more to gain by being an engineer during their lifetime.

Things have changed since my days at school. Since the tech-boom they have introduced teaching activities focusing on Innovation, Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship. Also, unlike IT, the governments are heavily investing in bio-technology. That said, development is not always innovation, it does not create tomorrows bleeding edge.

it is engineers and other like-minded science professionals who have driven forward our civilisation. From inventions like the electric motor and the computer chip, to astonishing achievements like the Harbour Tunnel, it is their brains that financiers must rely on to get rich off.

I think all potential innovators understand this and realise

Innovation and great ideas take time, hard work and can be filled with uncertainty.

Is it this desire to follow the path that begins with inspiring ideas, leads to sleepless nights, times of self-doubt, bouts of depression and periods of obsessive focus that produce the elusive innovation? Don’t know, but I‘d like to find out.

Murali vs Warne

The smh had an article yesterday comparing Warne and Murali. The question is, given a chance, on merit who would you pick ?

Your mission, and you have chosen to accept it, is to pick a cricket side like no other. A team comprising the best players from the Australian and Rest of the World XI sides strutting their collective stuff at the SCG this week. You can choose whoever you like, but there's a catch. You can have only one spinner.

Go on, take your pick - Shane Warne or Muttiah Muralitharan? Who's better?

On Sunday, having some free time I sat down to watch some the ICC test match and coincidently Murali was at his flame throwing best. He has hardly played any tests in Oz so it was a treat to watch as Peter Roebuk described it,

Hitherto, Murali had been wheeling away without much effect. His bowling has changed during the years. Nowadays, he aims his off-break at the wickets, so it is hard to tell apart from the doosra. Judging by the expression that remained on Mark Boucher's map for most of the innings, the ploy is working. Murali's off break turns less and he relies more on his "other one". As usual, the Sri Lankan had been bowling wholeheartedly but the batsmen had been playing him intelligently, working the ball into gaps, using their feet and sweeping powerfully.

Suddenly, the spinner sprang to life. Inspired by the rush of wickets, Murali put an extra flick on his deliveries, whereupon they stopped high-jumping and started pole-vaulting. His next over will linger long in the memory.

Delivered from around the wicket, another skill the tweaker has added to his repertoire, every ball curled through the air, landed on a length and jumped like a surprised child. As far as Simon Katich was concerned, the bowler was talking an unknown language.

I'm not a cricket fan though I don’t mind playing it when I get the opportunity. My interest is usually piqued only when Australia play Sri Lanka. I've decided to see who I would pick for my team. Trying to be as reasonably objective, my strategy has been to

• limit it to test cricket
• seek a good sample size ( minimum of 5 innings )
• select common opposition
• select common soil / destination
• exclude results against minnows ( Bangladesh and Zimbabwe )

This limits me to picking countries where both SL and OZ have toured. On the head-to-head count I can only use Autralia’s tours of Sri Lanka as Murali hasn’t played many tests in Oz ( IMHO, they should play at least a 3-test home and away series every four years).

The following are the results of the one-to-one comparisons using the excellent cricket statistics site provided by channel4.

Murali vs Warne

Country	Player	M(Inns)	Runs	Wickets	Avg	S/R	Wckts/Match		Runs/Over		Link
India	Murali	5(5)	731	15	48.73	105.73	3		2.77		link
	Warne	9(16)	1466	34	43.12	81.03	3.78		3.19		link
England	Murali	3(5)	517	24	21.54	59	8		2.16		link
	Warne	22(44)	2832	129	21.95	52.33	5.86		2.52		link
Pakistan	Murali	7(13)	1053	49	21.49	50.18	7		2.57		link
	Warne	3(6)	504	18	28	60.56	6		2.77		link
NZ	Murali	4(5)	382	13	29.38	77.08	3.25		2.29		link
	Warne	9(18)	1044	49	21.31	51.41	5.44		2.49		link
W.Indies	Murali	4(7)	456	25	18.24	41.92	6.25		2.61		link
	Warne	7(12)	674	17	39.65	78.29	2.43		3.04		link
S.Africa	Murali	6(10)	911	35	26.03	60.54	5.83		2.58		link
	Warne	9(16)	1060	49	24.04	63.37	5.11		2.18		link
Aus vs SL	Murali	8(14)	1223	47	26.02	54.06	5.88		2.89		link
	Warne	8(14)	794	37	21.46	42.54	4.62		3.03		link

I pick Shane Warne. He comes out on top on the more important stats (Avg and S/R) and is a better batsmen. Arguably he has always had the better, tougher and more predatory team around him and this would have contributed as well. He may be an ass but is a very good cricketer.

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image from The Age / Reuters

Immediate Violence and Assassination Person

via namedcoder

Harmless fun - leave yours ( remove line breaks )

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Serendip + Eye

Chindia complex

On the weekend there was yet another article describing the chindia complex. Thankfully unlike other articles it does not aim to compare the growth and development of Chinese and Indian economies. It’s a little more realistic and focuses on the growing ties and relative differences of the two.

Despite its reputation as a software superpower, India's exports have been driven by the export of one item: iron ore. Last year the country shipped 60 million tonnes of iron ore to China, as the country's construction industry gobbles up the world's raw materials. Chinese officials have long insisted that if their country is the workshop of the world, then India is the globe's office…

To many experts, China offers India a role model. Indian IT companies made a mark because the Government avoided stifling them with regulation...

…Hardly a day passes that its government does not invoke the "Chinese model" to justify rolling back the state…

As shown, comparing China vs India is really a typical case of apples and oranges. On most major statistics China is by far and away ahead of India.

However, most mag journos seem to make two mistakes. The first is to always directly compare the two economies ignoring the social conditions. The second is to obsessively focus, to the point of showing their ignorance, on the Indian IT sector. It’s good to see things changing in the media.

Via sepiamutiny. More at gnxp, ForeignPolicy (pdf)

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image from
link

Distraction by history

Since I have been distracted to from finishing a certain promised blog it's my turn to distract with a few quirks (or was it not-so quacks) from history.

In 1978 who wrote?

"Today the consequences of such an educational emphasis are already apparent, and while it may once have served helpfully to boost battered post-colonial egos, against this must be set the fact that it has sharpened the communal hostilities between Sinhalese and Tamils, has intensified the spirit of linguistic chauvinism, and in its generally anti-rational character has encouraged the development of a society, already astrologically obsessed, which allows itself to be ordered by planetary conjunctions and a whole calendar of endlessly pored-over auspicious dates and times."

Roger Sandall writing in 1979 about Sri Lanka's sticky future

Now that Libertarians are popping up all over the lastnnodes of the sub-continent, who was the Indian economist influenced by Hayek and the Austrian School of economics?

"After teaching in Ceylon and India, he joined the Reserve Bank of India. He was sent to Washington as the Indian representative for the World Bank and the IMF from 1951 to 1953. He could have become the governor of the RBI but he couldn't stand it anymore. So he took a cut of half his salary and went back into academic teaching. They made the mistake of leaving him on a panel of economists for the planning commission. In an appended dissenting report issued in the early 1950s, he predicted that if the Nehru plan went into effect, India would face a foreign-exchange crisis and inflation and there would have to be cuts. Nehru got very upset."

B.R.Shenoy is discussed in an interview with his economist daughter Sudha Shenoy.

A conversation thread

A blog commentator named Ashanthi, who first turned up in nittewa, has the habit of carrying out unrelated conversations across multiple blog entries. So I opened this thread for the conversation here.

Escape from New Orleans

Watching Snake Plissken in Escape from LA I could never have imagined such a scenario occurring in the US. At least not in 2005.

A few days before cyclone Katrina visited the shores of the southern US states I was watching a detailed news briefing outlining the expected fall out from the hurricane, the measures taken to safeguard the city, the emergency planning and disaster preparedness. The 3D animations were very detailed, the scenario had been war-gamed previously and the news conference oozed with the confidence of technocrats. So where did it all go wrong?

Chaos and gunfire hampered efforts to evacuate the Superdome, and, Superintendent P. Edward Compass III of the New Orleans Police Department said, armed thugs have taken control of the secondary makeshift shelter at the convention center. Superintendent Compass said that the thugs repelled eight squads of 11 officers each he had sent to secure the place and that rapes and assaults were occurring unimpeded in the neighboring streets as criminals "preyed upon" passers-by, including stranded tourists [via dailykos]

It is sometimes said that the mark of progress is how a nation reacts in times of disaster. The US is the worlds most advanced country and the current sole superpower. If so how did they allow for the currently unfolding, unmitigated disaster that is New Orleans? I am baffled by the mistakes and un(der) preparedness. Even in the aftermath of the much more disastrous SE Asian Tsunami there didn't appear to be the near anarchy, chaos and lawlessness as what appears to have gripped some areas of New Orleans.

A few questions I can think of .....

• Is this the end of small-government talk in the US for a while?
• Why wasn't there any support structure at the convention centre?
• What happened to the disaster preparedness and management plans?
• Did the looters and gangs easily access guns and firearms from abandoned shops (i.e. gun control)?
• Would this bring more focus on the plight of the US poor?
• Is the US heading to a recession?
• What is the impact on the world economy and how does it cope with shocks to the US economy?
• Have the republicans lost the next election?
  

John Quiggin has been looking at the economic fallout following the storm damage. Follow Hurricane Watch where they are covering the ongoing situation.

If history is any guide, knowing the human condition, it's not surprising to see such behaviour in light of food and water shortages. What has become of Homo economicus ?

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Update:

• An adequate CAT5 defence for New Orleans was atleast 25 years away.
• Excellent on the ground blogging at The Interdictor - via the1truecoolguy

Something around

Some blogs and articles that drew my attention while the offline world has me occupied.

Sanjana acting as Hell's Dire Agent appeals to the much needed Cudgel of Reason in Sri Lankan politics. John Quiggin has a very interesting discussion about the merits of pursuing political objectives by the use of force. Don Arthur is blogging at catalaxxy on how think tanks( aka NGOs ) capture the mainstream political discourse by creating dissent and legitimacy for their causes. Some weeks ago the staple of anti-racism in the west, Guns Germs and Steel, came under the gaze of the blogosphere.

The biological basis for race and the lack of purity from the NYT. The conservative movement is looking at new directions. The nature / nuture of homosexuality is written up at The Boston Globe. With all this how do men reclaim our masculinity?

I got Polled

I have always wanted to experience being Opinion Polled on politics (sad! yes I know). Growing up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, AFAIK, we hardly received phone calls for opinion polls. Now that I have settled in a middle-about suburb, we must be within the pollster demographics / geography. I missed the previous two calls but it was 3rd time lucky.

ACNielsen was conducting a not-so-maybe-so random phone poll on politics, current affairs and entertainment. Interestingly they were conducting multiple polls coupled with a marketing survey. Note: I choose to separate the opinion polls from the marketing surveys eventhough they can all be viewed as product preferences.

The first poll was about the preferred Prime Minister in the aftermath of the Bob Carr retirement. The questions were about John Howard vs Kim Beazley vs Bob Carr.

The second survey was on anti-terrorist crime prevention measures. Questions were about Shoot to Kill orders, National ID cards, CCTV Cameras in public places and the Detention and Deportation of terror suspects.

Finally the marketing survey was for the struggling cinema industry. The questions focused on the choice of films, cinema audio / video quality, pirate films, importance of customer services, etc.


Also, on polling and the outer suburbs......

As I mentioned previously, political polls were a rare occurrence in the outer suburbs. For all I know the rest of the family may have answered the phone when the pollsters rang but I had my fair share of the phone and cannot remember a single political poll. There were the usually annoying telemarketers but I've always wondered what kind of people they rang for opinion polls. Back in the day the outer suburbs were Labour strongholds, I wonder if this was a cause as it may have lead to lopsided poll result.

Lately however these suburbs have changed as the political compass has moved in the direction of the Liberal party. Some attribute this to the rise of the Aspirationals and their McMansion housing estates. I would also venture to say that there has been a rise in the number of people reaching maturity and paying off their home-loans, feeling a sense of economic security and taking an interest in, and feeling an affinity with, the (neo?)liberal political discourse. Interestingly, many migrants initially settle(d) in these suburbs.

ABC on CBK

A quickie...arrived home last night only to find an interview with the Iron Lady of Sri Lanka (their words not mine) on an ABC TV program called Foreign Correspondent. The ABC is our version of the BBC and usually do a good job. The story and the streaming video (RealMedia format) can be found here. It was followed by a story on decorative coffins.

An interview with CBK seems to be an annual event in the Oz TV landscape. Related in someway to this is Indi's blog about CBK's games with the constitution of SL.

A meme of books

Morquendi tagged me couple of weeks ago with the book meme. Finally got around to having some blogging time. How can this be a meme? It's sent out with intent unlike memes that spontaneously evolve through social dialogs. If anything its viral meme.

Total Number of Books I Own:

Currently the bookshelf contains about 150+ books, leaving out the books from my teenage days and library borrowings. I also abuse the work printers periodically on books from Project Gutenberg and the net. I was addicted to reading as a kid involving weekly trips to a small lending library in the backstreets of Nugegoda and regular visits to the second-hand bookshops near St.Josephs ( can't remember the area ). Oh yeah, these guys always offered overseas prOn mags from behind the counter. I lost interest in personal reading during the early years of migration and uni but thankfully recovered it afterwards. Don't get to read as much as I would like to and I need a new bookshelf.

Last Book I Bought:

   Liberalism in Australia - need to know more about Oz history.

Last Book I Read:

   As Above

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

These are not the favourites (some are) but they have equally contributed from different perspectives.

1. Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder

2. On Liberty - John Stuart Mill

3. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas S Kuhn

4. Foundations of Computer Science - A V Aho & J D Ullman

5. The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson

Tag Five People And Ask Them To Do This On Their Blogs:

   Anyone over at kottu.org

Is.....

…one man’s terrorist another man’s freedom fighter ?

If they lived in a village in Darfur,
If we disagreed with our own,
If some are starving in North Korea,
If we were Tutsi in the 1993 of Rwanda,
If our right to vote did not exist,
If your mother caught a train to London today,
If she was a black living in apartheid,
If your lover worked in the fateful twin towers,
If his house was demolished in Zimbabwe,
If her house is still a Tsunami tent,
If our son is killed in a Redfern chase,
If my religion leads to a correction camp

While I sleep on the way to school,
Will you be justified?

Another attack,
Another sign of the times,
Few thoughts many questions

It’s 10:35 PM and the preacher on TV is Rohan Gunaratna

Winter chills

There are endgames being played out in SL but the chills of winter have finally come around. It started raining during the week followed by the cold winds and snow is falling in the mountains as I type. My hopes of a white winter have been raised and I hope it holds out until I get a chance to make it to the mountains over the coming months. Below are some photos to feel good

I'm away this weekend and am going to miss the internet. In particular the SL news via Nittewa.

Hope this cough goes away, it's been bugging me all week

I hope the the day dreams of skiing don't hurt the cashflow this season as they become reality.

I will finish the HLD trilogy when I get back.

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Images from Mt.Hotham

The science of pulling and doing

Life has gotten in the way of blogging lately. It's time to get back into it and I intend to finish the analysis on HLD. It's the queen's birthday long weekend and a dry winter with intermittent rain, caused by a new drought hitting the continent, means there are no signs of snow in the mountains. Neither are there any signs of a republic on the horizon. However I came across some interesting science news and discussions over the last week.

Beside the fact that bio-technology is one of the most inventive / innovative fields around at the moment (similar to IT in the previous decades) bio-sciences are throwing up interesting results like this.

Using research on male masturbation the New Scientist reports

Men who view pornographic images of two men and a woman produce better-quality sperm than men viewing pornographic images of just women, an Australian study reveals.

The finding suggests that humans may be capable of subconsciously increasing semen quality when faced with the possibility that their sperm will have to outrun those of other men in a woman’s reproductive tract.

Will this be used as an excuse in future gang-rape trials? If not, at least is an episode of Law and Order.

In the meanwhile research from socio-biology on female orgasms reports

The Australian research, confirmed this week by a study of 4000 female British twins, adds weight to the view that climaxing serves some purpose in the evolutionary scheme of things.

It may help some women conceive, or just make them willing to have more sex, increasing the species' chance of survival. Orgasms could also have evolved as a mechanism that allows women to weed out unsuitable life partners, the authors of the British twin study believe.

Unfussy women who orgasm easily could end up with men who do not have the patience and caring nature to bring them to orgasm and then also hang around for decades helping look after the children, they say.... [The study (pdf)]

In The Blank Slate, Stephen Pinker argues for socio-biology, however the questions on the scientific methods and claims of it are hotly debated these days. As socio-biology attempts to provide genetic answers to human behaviour, many argue that the current methodology does not take into account the culturally adopted / inherited / adapted behavioural traits. The Oz blogsphere was buzzing last week on this issue and "larvatus prodeo" had the most interesting debates on biological determinism.

In the meanwhile that annual psychology study of putting Australians in a house for three months, also known as

Big Brother - a group of rock-apes and airhead sluts sit around discussing masturbation and the physics of turds floating in toilet bowls. Fascinating stuff. For some reason, millions of people are addicted to this. [Quote]

May have produced it's first results on mating theory also known as doing it.

The Strategic Importance of Lanka

Heads up The Agonist is running a story about Sri Lanka's strategic importance. It's discussing two articles (below) about the Indian vs Chinese influence in SL and South Asia in general.

Sri Lanka's strategic importance at the HindustanTimes
China's March On South Asia at The Jamestown Foundation

Go contribute. IMHO, The Agonist is one of the best Foreign Affairs Blogs around.

Old face, New face

Lately there have been two sides of Australia on display. Both bringing out the ugly face of nationalism as well as highlighting an emerging face of a new Australian ethnic identity.

The first story involves the detention of illegal immigrants. In 2001, post 9-11, the Oz elections were decided on the platform of protecting fortress Australia from illegal immigrants smuggled in boats from Indonesia (the few hundreds of them; read Muslims). The PM even claimed,

"we decide who comes to this country and the
circumstances in which they come"

Fast-forward to 2005 and it turns out that a mentally-ill Australian, of German origin, was detained in one of the detention centers. Next thing you know there may have been nearly 200 Australians detained, some even deported. The decisions to detain seem to be based on the fact that the individuals did not have any form of identity and didn't have a genuine Aussie accent.

Race doesn't appear to be the deciding factor but one's Australianness (some comfort). This worries me as I know a few people that have gone through mental breakdowns and reverted to their native tongues. In a modern multicultural nation I find this to be an unacceptable treatment of citizens and would like a few heads at the Department of Immigration to roll. Could I be next? Interesting discussion at catallaxy.

Schapelle Corby, a 27yr old woman convicted of taking drugs to Bali, Indonesia (It's a cheap holiday destination). On the evidence presented, IMHO she is guilty. However the story has a few complications and some unknowns. Indonesia is currently conducting a war on drugs.

.... trafficking cases leapt to 7410 compared with 1833 in 1999. Indonesian police havearrested more than 700 people in recent raids across the country. In Jakarta alone there were about 150 arrests in April, some resulting in shoot-outs. ....

It was just another news story until GTV9, one-time TV ratings darling but now struggling, decided to take part in populist journalism bordering on xenophobia. Could it be that the media [I recommend watching the videos] is taking its lead from the 2001 elections?

Nearly all columnists and commentators, including the hard-right oriented like Andrew Bolt, agree that the judgement seems fair. However, it caused a shit stir and has brought out the ugly Aussie. Some want to boycott Bali, some reportedly want their tsunami contributions back and some have started using the word "monkey" with intent.

IMHO, this fear of the other is a pathological problem that manifests itself in the Australian public discourse every 5-8 years or so (more about it some other time). It seems to be grounded in a fear of invasion by south-east Asians caused by WW2 Japanese bombings. An interesting discussion at larvatusprodeo.

Position Vacant: Conservative Democrats need apply – Part2

Having previously looked at H.L.D Mahindapala’s primary thesis, before further examining his ideas, arguments and views, we should examine HLD's self-expressed principles and values in regards to Individuals, Ethnic Groups, The Democratic State and the relationships between them.

The individual and the state

The rights of individual are universal.

.... universalities and commonalities in the rights of individuals transcend the rights of group ....

.... a state that recognizes individual rights can resolve those rights non-violently, through principles of justice implemented by its democratic institutions, which can ease and alleviate the grievances and aspirations of groups .... [link1]

.... those who seek to make a difference to this world are not morally entitled to fold their hands and remain neutral[link2]

On multiculturalism

.... universalities and commonalities in the rights of individuals transcend the rights of groups ....

.... group rights in multi-cultural societies tend to clash head-on causing multiple and irreversible injuries to individuals and groups. The proliferation of multi-cultural societies in the modern world, leading to the rise of competing claims within nationalities dominated by established majorities, demand a fine balance between the rival groups. Invariably the redressing of historical imbalances is at the core of group conflicts. .... [link1]

The liberty of individuals and limits

... liberty has limits. Liberty without limits is chaos. In fact, liberty is enhanced when its limits are defined ....

.... one man’s liberty ends at the point where the other man’s nose begins .... [link1]

The morality of using violence

.... violence cannot be left to the whims and fancies of individuals. It must be restrained by law and morality. The politics of violence is all about who has the right to use violence against whom and under what circumstances. It is the moral content in political violence that distinguishes it from other kinds of mindless violence ....

Political violence must be strategized and used only as an extension of a valid morality......Violence not justified by morality loses its validity either as an instrument of political power or as a base in a political discourse ....

.... if a society has co-existed for a period of time, maintaining an estimable record of harmony and balance between competing communities, and also if it has shown a willingness to accommodate the reasonable claims of minorities to preserve their identity, cultural and political rights then the use of violence on mere perceived injustices, or on a manufactured political agenda would be inimical to the stability ....[of] any democratic polity .... [link1]

Violence and threats outside the parliament have destabilized and dehumanized society. .... [link2]

Democratic politics

.... in a democracy, however defective it may be and however tardy it may in introducing changes, it is immoral and a threat to the life, liberty and security of all individuals if any one group/s resort/s to violence based on exclusive claims that negates the rights of all others concerned ......

.... Democracy by nature is not geared to instant or radical changes. Incrementalism is the hall mark of progressive democracies. And as long as any political system has shown the capacity and the willingness to accommodate changes then those in a hurry have no right to resort to violence .... [link1]

.... In a democracy, cutting deals behind doors, or self-serving manoeuvres by the elected parliamentarians should not derogate the expressed will of the people ....

Unless any party .... can make pure morality the basis of all political actions, circumstances dictate....that the best option is to go for the lesser evil in the hope of guiding politics, step by step, for greater good in the future.

Parliamentary democracy triumphs over other political systems because of two invaluable fundamentals: (1) the transferring of power non-violently and (2) the granting of unfettered tolerance to opponents who act non-violently within the democratic process.

.... there is no rationale for violence and threats to be brought into the House.

Some parliamentarians, no doubt, entertain illusions about their omniscience and omnipotence. As a counter to this there are sobering checks and balances in the parliamentary system like elections, for instance, which give the people the decisive opportunity to bring them down to earth .... [link2]

After shifting aside the oft-repeated rhetoric and the statements of obvious political intent, I believe that it's these ideals that come to the fore in HLDs writing in regards to SL. Thus, in the next blog, it's with these in mind that I intend to look at the views expressed in his writing. Such statements as

Restoring the lost rights of the oppressed people .... [link]

.... in these condemnatory terms was the notion that only minorities had rights, aspirations, grievances ....[link]

....1) the inherent pacifism, liberalism and openness in the Buddhist culture and 2) the fact that the monks were in politics without being an integral part of running its day-to-day affairs.... [link]

....our people’s efforts to preserve this island as an undivided multi-ethnic nation, protected by democratic liberalism and pluralism, with respect for rule of law and human rights....[link]

That's it for today, more in the next blog.

I've come across some very "thada singhala" migrants in the diaspora with pro-JVP views and most of them tend to disagree with the '87-'89 period of violence. However, I have never really spoken in depth with them about this but HLD seems to have some info on the current support-base for the JVP amongst the diaspora.

JVP today is the most disciplined and the best organized party operating effectively at the political, grassroot and trade union levels. Unlike all other parties of south, it is the only party which has direct and powerful links to the Sri Lankan Diaspora. It has a substantial base in Italy and its branches are spreading their tentacles in Australia, Switzerland, France etc. ..... [link]

A few years ago while I was at my parents a SL lady rocked up for some signatures. Initially I didn't really understand what was going on but it turned out she was canvassing for votes (don't know about the party) for a SL election where her brother was running as a candidate. WTF?

BTW, HLD has a sense of humour too (I am not familiar with some of the mentioned)

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The equivalent of my amateur analysis here would be asking a political science major to write software in C++ so feel free to critique, comment and discuss what’s been written. No hate speech please there are plenty of other forums for that, otherwise open a damn blog yourself.

Note; Multiple quotes from the same article are grouped together with one link at end of the last quote.

Position Vacant: Conservative Democrats need apply – Part1

We are seeking a Conservative for Sri Lanka to defend the Democratic institutions and constitution of the nation. Your role is to uphold the Liberal Democratic Values central to the wellbeing of the citizens of this nation against over-zealous reformers wishing to implement ideologically driven reforms.

Today’s candidate is H.L.D Mahindapala. There isn’t a single up-to-date repository of his writings but most of it can be found at lankaweb, sentor or google. Of late he has been expressing his views as a columnist for the AsianTribune, an online current affairs site (A “newspaper” where I can’t seem to find some archived articles and it doesn’t have a search tool but more on that some other time).

As mentioned previously, this started from a discussion I was involved in over at Indi’s and at the same time coming across this article by HLD (read the very funny comment by Ruwani). Until a couple of months ago I didn’t know much about HLD and Chandare was kind enough to give me the 101 on his background.

I am not out to attack him just to analyse his views as expressed in his writing. FYI, If I wish to, I can consider myself to be a singhala-buddhist, a “kalu sudda” or a traitor to the motherland.

Eitherway what first drew my attention to HLD’s writing was his use of the words Liberalism, Democracy, Multiculturalism, Rawlsian welfare, Aristotle, etc, because these are words that encompass ideals and values important to me and the society(ies) I would choose to live in. As an outsider rarely have I seen these ideas being discussed in the public eye with reference to Sri Lanka other than for criticism. May be these words are discussed more often in the SL media and polity at large than I have seen, if so please let me know.

To limit the length of this blog I’ll by quoting only small portions from HLD’s writing. This should be enough for locating the relevant sections whithin the linked articles. Also, I am focussing mainly on his ideas and principles as much as possible and looking at the content in relation to these. Read the articles for the full content, rhetoric and/or context. Anyway, Let us start.

His primary thesis appears to be this historical analysis of N/E Tamil class/caste politics and the south (Warning my vulgar summary ahead).

Defining his method

Tracing the origins of any violent conflict can run in diverse directions with emphasis on one or the other cause that contributed to its growth and momentum…

… the most misleading path is to rely on any single cause…

Invariably, it is politicized history that would tend to focus on mono-causal interpretations…

A holistic approach, taking into consideration all the operative factors, is more likely to eliminate emotions and introduce a more balanced view of the evolving chain of events…

It is also important that events should be placed in the proper sequence…

… Therefore any meaningful analysis must necessarily step back from the immediacy of events and take a dispassionate view of the totality of forces that led to the crisis…

….mono-causal view turned into a popular and orthodox reference point…

…“1956” – a common starting point for those who advocate the mono-causal view….

…. History can be written in two main ways: 1) by picking the relevant and available facts from the ground that could lead, by the force of its own logic, to a comprehensive pattern that explains the past or 2) by constructing a theoretical formula at the top from selected facts to fit a preconceived pattern.

The holistic view

…. the grassroot forces breaking out of the old mould crumbling with the antiquated colonial empires fading into oblivion; the rough and tough transition from semi-feudalism to modernity; the caste-based ancien regimes resisting change in the hope of clinging on to their feudal and /or colonial privileges, powers and positions; the historical necessity of redressing imbalances of colonial legacies; the local leadership grabbing and diverting the internal forces to extremities; the stagnant economies that frustrated the hopes of youth looking for social mobility; the rewriting of old histories to justify new ideological claims to exclusive territories; the importing of new ideologies and political vocabularies from the West to rationalize extreme demands and violence; the dynamic interconnectedness of evolving events; the chance happenings and the actions and reactions….

….As in all other historical movements, the events rolling down the turbulent years collided with each other and exploded with a violent and unmanageable fury -- particularly the events originating in the post-1983 phase…

The analysis

I can’t do all the work can I. Actually, too many things to summarise presenting a summary of a historial summary would be unrealistics and given it's content de-humanise it. I would rather the readers come to their own conclusions and discuss it. You gals and guys are going to have to read the rest yourself. Also, compare it with this (pdf) analysis from the CPA Center for Policy Alternatives in SL, though not as historical.

Basically he seems to focussing on a set of historical events that unfolded according to the Law of Unintended Consequences leading to the issues of today.

That’s it for Today. We shall continue to analyse his qualifications for this role in the next blog.

Some of the stuff (including the Broken Palmyra) I’ve read about the situation in the N/E of SL squarely blames the progressive left at the time (in addition to the usual culprits) for not taking a principled stands and actions as they were too busy talking about revolutions to act on progressive policies, thus ensuring their ineffectiveness by ‘83. What I haven’t seen or read about are stands taken by committed and conservative democrats. The kind I’d expect to find in a polity versed in democracy and willing to break ranks and affiliations in standing up to the politicians who backed violence upto and including ’83. That’s why I wonder if there is a conservative democratic tradition in SL. If there is, can we add HLD to it? If not can he be considered for a starting role in this tradition? (Please let me know if I’m being naive in thinking that effective conservative democratic voices didn’t exist).

Black Hat View

While the article as a whole offers a particular perspective and clearly focuses on the different historical threads, writing a simplistic summary of this worries me. What I find scary is that a summary focusing on a particular caste and it's relationship with the northern polity would most likely end up being one degree of seperation from hate speech. The kind of speech that can be easily used to demonize the "other".

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The equivalent of my amateur analysis here would be asking a political science major to write software in C++ so feel free to critique, comment and discuss what’s been written. No hate speech please there are plenty of other forums for that, otherwise open a damn blog yourself.

Update:

Clarified my reluctance to summarise the "analysis" and added the Black Hat View.

oops I did it again

Here I was planning to write something long about an article I had seen while not being involved in an interesting discussion with sanjana over at Indi's. Unfortunately while riding to work in the morning I put my back out. Found it hard to sit up in front of the computer all day and finally got a lift back home.

After visiting the physio I've been instructed to sit or lie in the most awkward positions where typing feels like extreme-yoga. Apparently I have aggravated something between Lumbar Nerves L4/5 in my back. Oh ..Ok.



Hopefully by tomorrow I'll get around to finishing that blog . For now, over at Indi's there are a few interesting discussions are going on.

Budgetting for anxiety

How is your status anxiety today? Hope it's under control. Have you checked if the latest budget offers some prozac?. Apparently it's supposed to give tax cuts to the high and middle income earners over the next two years. Andrew Leigh from Imagining Australia has some analysis. To summarise,

viewed per individual ... Report (pdf) [see pages 8/9]

Here is the annual pre-tax income distribution for adults (aged 18-64 with positive incomes), and the corresponding tax cuts in the budget.

• Poorest 25%: $6,830 per year ($80 tax cut)
• Median: $29,890 per year ($312 tax cut)
• Richest 25%: $49,000 per year ($312 tax cut)
• Richest 10%: $70,000 per year ($1752 tax cut)
• Richest 5%: $90,000 per year ($2752 tax cut)
• Richest 1%: $162,000 per year ($4502 tax cut)

These income figures are from the 2003 HILDA survey....

viewed per household ... Report (pdf)

• The share of the tax cuts going to the richest 1% of households will be 3% in 2005-06 and 4% in 2006-07.
• A greater share of the 2006-07 tax cuts will go to the richest 5% (19%) than to the poorest 50% (11%).
• Middle-income taxpayers get substantially less than an even share of the tax cuts.

This probably didn't help your anxiety as everyone else in the same income bracket will get the tax cuts. In case you've forgotten how well off you are in Oz this should help you relax.

Native language blogging in Sri Lanka

Just a heads up to let you all know that you can now blog in Singhalese using a standard English keyboard and minimal effort. Indi has developed a new font for phonetic singhalese that relies on english letters (romanization) to sound out (phonetically spell) singhalese words. As for Tamil there has been a lot more work on developing it. Here is a good starting point.

You need to install the ekottu font and enable the International keyboard[Instructions (pdf)]. Once you have done this you can type singhalese in most of the Winodws applications (eg. MS Office apps, etc) using the Keymaps.

I don't plan to blog in Singhalese anytime in the near future as my written word is atrocious due to a lack of usage. Given past expreiences, it takes me a period of 2-3 weeks in SL to regain fluency in just reading the language. It's quite easy to use this method. Even with my limited grasp of the language I can type out stuff like

dAn' siØíhl BaSaevn' b'elog' krn'D puluvn'

Chandare has good examples of bilungual blogging. Thanks Indi, keep scratching those itches. Hm, that doesn't sound too good but you know what I mean.

The Mad Monk who would be

Been promising this for a while and I've finally got around to writing something about Tony Abbott the Federal Liberal Government's Minister for Health, AKA the "Mad Monk". The blogsphere is full of entries about him so feel free to Google. In the meanwhile here is my contribution.

Tony Abbott is the pitt-bull of the right and seems to have trouble separating his politics and policy submissions from his Catholicism. This leads to him having a love-hate relationship with the public and the media. He grew up in one of the more affluent suburbs of Australia and as Mark Latham put it,

He's the son of a North Shore medical specialist. He's the product of an expensive private school and Oxford education. He's a former editorial writer for The Australian. He's a past press secretary for the Liberal leadership. He's a former head of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy

BTW, Latham was his former opponent and at first glance the opposite of Abbott in every possible way, however he seems to have self-destructed...more on him at another time.

In university in the mid-70s Abbott was involved heavily in right wing student politics. To quote the SMH on his uni days,

"...He was a very offensive, a particularly obnoxious sort of guy..."
"He was very aggressive, particularly towards women and homosexuals".
...after a narrow defeat in the university senate elections in 1976 - Mr Abbott's first year of an economics-law degree - he kicked in a glass panel door...
In the ensuing two years, he was repeatedly accused in the university paper of being a right-wing thug and bully who used sexist and racist tactics to intimidate his opponents.

Abbott went on to be a Rhodes Scholar and attend Oxford. However, as he let it be known in 1998, while at uni he was contemplating being a priest (thus the "Mad Monk"), practiced Vatican Roulette with his then girlfriend and fathered a child. In keeping with his faith he "helped" the girlfriend give the boy up for adoption. During the pregnancy they split up, he packed his bags and went overseas (Take a look at fluffy's funny take on this). To put a twist in the story. He found the long lost son in December 2004 but later DNA testing showed that he wasn’t the father. It turned out to be the GFs old flatmate. This has led to him being called a cuckold in the context of modern relationship dynamics. (more after the link).

This decision to adopt-out has been the cornerstone in his anti-abortionist Adopt-out not Abort mantra. In keeping with this belief, in the recent past he has made a number of attempts to limit funding for abortions and now he is attempting to limit the government's financial support for IVF (I don't think this is motivated by his faith but economics). The women in the government are not having a bar of it and poor Tony has taken a step back each time (may be sideways).

Abbott sees himself as the intellectual leader in the government. He is a political conservative but some of his views seem to clash with liberal-democratic traditional conservatism as discussed here. For a wider aspect of his views have a look at his speeches (I, II). Politically he is a skilled player. He gets legislations passed but afterwards it turns out that the policies were severely under-costed and needing extra funding. First it was the JobNetwork now it's Medicare (the latest election promise to be broken). He was instrumental in helping One Nation destroy itself into the grave of populist politics.

Abbott is ambitious and wants to be a future leader of Australia. Preferably in an Australia still governed under a monarchy. His arch enemy has always been Mark Latham of the opposition but he isn't in the picture now.

In my view he has two problems. The first, His overt religious activity and the tendency to link it with his policies. Australians tend not to like policies driven by religious agendas. A more detailed discussion over here. However, IMHO his biggest problem will be with female voters in these post- feminist times. I don't know if someone (read woman) hurt him as a child because he constantly gets on the wrong side of females across the political spectrum. Throughout is adult life he seems to have a problem with women. Why?

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