Thursday, December 01, 2005

We, the silent majority

Getting actively involved with the Sri Lankan Blogsphere and if I may call it, the entire Websphere has been truly an eye-opener.

The pure and filthy Racism is not only hurtful but just horribly disgusting to even read. It seems the racists have sprung up everywhere most notably in comments on blogs, mailing lists, and news sites. A prime example is comments posted at Lankanewspapers.com a site which offers regular news updates from Sri Lanka. The comments for each of these news articles almost always end up in a war of words between Sinhalese extremists and Tamil extremists.

It’s interesting to analyze where exactly this blatant racism is coming from, usually the majority of Sri Lankans (please excuse Mr.Wimal Weerawansa) are rather laid-back creatures. Perhaps the apparent anonymity of the web gives them a sense of security to voice out what they really feel without worrying about the possible consequences. Either way the situation is very depressing, not only because there seems to be so much of racists but more so for the fact that there seems to be almost no response from the middle minded moderates of this country.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
(Edmund Burke)

So I think it’s time we the silent majority take some action, perhaps maintain a racist list in a separate Blog dedicated to Anti-Racism in Sri Lanka or maybe something as simple as a ‘I hate Racists’ button on blogs with a zero tolerance for Racism. Any ideas are welcome.

Cheers,
Deane J AKA ~CC~

3 comments:

Jack Point said...

Maybe what is needed is for moderate views to be posted, to dilute the extremists.

Many of the extreme view come from overseas, I think a lot of people are radicalised in alien environments.

They also insulated from the consequences of their actions.

They live in stable democracies, with 2% inflation, relatively low unemployment, enjoy a igh standard of living and pay low taxes.

They pay no taxes in Sri Lanka, are unaffected by bombs, checkpoints, a depreciating currency, high inflation, unemployment, corruption, deteriorating law & order and the rest that go with a war situation.

Deane said...

true. most of them do live abroad.

it's also important to find the right balance, when comments are moderated.

perhaps someone should email lanka newspapers

sittingnut said...

i think it is better to let the racists speak their mind and any attempt at curtailing that freedom will fail. i agree that ppl who spew out filth should be identified (whenever possible) and their details published but that should be all.
it is good that ppl have started to notice this fact about their foreign residency, someone should do an academic study on this.