Whores, Brothels and the JVP

Photo by indi

The JVP and the SLFP has accused each other of engaging in ‘the world’s oldest profession’, a somewhat politically correct way of saying both parties act like a bunch of whores.

The first ‘blood’ of the now unraveling saga was drawn by the JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe, evidently upset that the SLFP is engaging in a dialog with the UNP accused the SLFP of acting like a prostitute waiting to be picked up by anyone who comes along the way. A somewhat honest statement, but a one that perhaps his supporters wish was never made. The Rebuttal came a bit later at another public rally by the SLFP general secretary, Maithreepala Sirisena who said that the JVP would have had to engage in the “world’s oldest profession” had the president called for general elections after the pathetic showing by the JVP in the Local Council elections. The marriage, or rather the ‘living-together’ era of the SLFP and the JVP has never seen such troubled times in recent years but no one should speculate a permanent rift as long as the President Mama is in office.

If the two main players in this rather unexpected but highly entertaining drama is the SLFP and the JVP, the third player is none other than Sirasa TV or rather the whole Maharajah network who for past few days has given extensive coverage of the issue and added some fuel to the fire by getting interviews from other leading SLFP men including Anura Bandaranaike.The keen interest taken by the Sirasa seems to stem from a larger, multi-facet battle fought between the Maharajah group and the JVP. In recent times the battle has intensified with the JVP-run ‘Lanka’ newspaper accusing the Maharajah boss of having links with the LTTE, claiming that his brother in London is a LTTE-funder (or something to that effect).

In a strange twist to this already twisted tail, the authorities have cracked down on a Brothel with links to a member of a ‘certain political party’. Sirasa, promptly carried this news item two days on a trot, right after it traditionally reports the Amarasinghe-Whore story. In its report Sirasa virtually threatens to give out the details of the member which fuels speculation that this ‘certain political party’ could well be the JVP. The Sirasa-JVP media battle can be seen as a type of a David vs. Goliath battle but the story might not quite end as in the bible.

Deane.

BlogCamp - Sri Lanka ?

Recently India had their largest ever blogger ‘unconference’ in Chennai, TamilNadu which apparently is the home to the largest number of Indian Bloggers. An ‘unconference’, is type of a conference driven mainly by the attendees rather than the speakers which supposedly generates to a lot of creativity and new ideas.

The event, named 'BlogCamp' took place on the 9th and 10th of September and seems to had an attendance of about 200 Indian Bloggers discussing various topics related to blogging, documented in detail here in the BlogCamp site. All in all the unconference seems to have been a success. So, why not a Sri Lankan version of it?

A Colombo BlogCon, or UnCon as the case maybe, is not a too distant reality. My guess is it’s an eventuality, someday someone’s going to have the idea of having a ‘BlogCon’ and most of us would flock in. The question is, are we ready now? Is the community sizable enough? These questions are worth examining. Undoubtedly the core of Sri Lankan blogging can be found at Kottu.org which currently tracks 150 or so Sri Lankan Blogs. But it’s a mistake to equate the size of kottu the SL Blogosphere. There is a good number of other blogs (the exact number is hard to guess) not syndicated at kottu, due to either, not knowing that Kottu exists, not knowing how, or simply not wanting to get their content syndicated. There is a great deal of SL blogs in MSN spaces in particular which are hardly ever syndicated at kottu or any of the other kottu spin-offs.

Quite apart from blogging, the general population of SriLanka-Online is reaching sizable proportions. Hi5, arguably the most popular social-networking site among Sri Lankans hosts about 86,000 profiles of Sri Lankan residents. Shihan Mihiranga included.

With numbers like that, its possible to envision something along the lines of a Bloggers Conference, even if it is to.. ahem.. ‘raise awareness’.. among the general public about the whole blogging phenomenon. How, and who would take the initiative is another matter. Ultimately there has to be enough commitment within the community for something like this to happen. Maybe this post will serve as a viral injection of sorts to get things started. maybe it won’t. Who knows these things.

Cheers
Deane.

Related Links : [http://www.ibnlive.com/news/chennai-a-melting-pot-for-bloggers/19636-3.html]

A National Government?

It’s one of those things that have always had much ‘public support’ in this country, but many times when such an opportunity has presented it self, Sri Lankan politicians has shied away. It remains to be seen whether this latest opportunity will be examined in earnest or paid only lip service. I am quite expecting the latter.

A potential ‘National Government’ has many benefits, one being the possibility of a much eluded national consensus (and not necessarily a ‘southern’ consensus) on the ethnic conflict; another of course is the availability of expertise and skill currently idling in the opposition from Prof. GL Peris, to Milinda Moragoda to the big fish himself, Ranil Wickramasinghe. Yet another advantage would be the annihilation alienation of the obstructive JVP/JHU parties.

The request itself by His Excellency, much like most things in his administration, is not without its ambiguities. The official word seems to be the president requested the UNP, and other parties to ‘Support’ the government in its efforts to solve the ethnic conflict. Now, ‘support’ can be tendered in various ways and not necessarily through the potentially dramatic step of a ‘National Government’. The local press though, seems to be of the view that the request is along the lines of a National Government.

Whatever the case, the country and its government are in need of clear and direct action along the avenues a negotiated settlement to the present crisis situation. The Rajapakse administration has proven that it’s incapable of handling the situation anything short of all out war. In this light, Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister may offer hope in breaking this spate of violence and forcing the LTTE into negotiations once again. His methods might not be terribly inclusive, but he - at least when in government, has proven to be a GTG (Getting-Things-Done) politician, very much a breed in demand. After all these supposedly ‘inclusive’ initiatives like the APC (All Party Conference) and that advisory council of experts has achieved nothing much tangible. Their very existence, particularly of the APC, seems to be for mere cosmetic purposes than for any honest effort to solve the larger or the immediate conflict.

Despite these facts, the UNP is likely to demand the government spell out its parameters for solving the ethnic conflict before saying anything remotely closely to ‘I Do’. It’s always safer to get a concrete compromise out of the President than to just commit blindly for the sake of greater good. Additionally I’m sure, like any ‘good’ party, they would consider factors like the number of cabinet portfolios in the offering, and the bigger picture of the war situation Mahinda has created, which in time may be beneficial for the UNP.

The ‘war’ may be popular and even easier to start but is not so easy to sustain, both in itself and in terms of its popularity. When the heat of the war enters Colombo and the surrounding suburbs, and when the prices of everything from petrol to peppermint inflates, and when the government tries to squeeze for every penny, rupee and dollar to save itself from bankruptcy, and when the ‘masses’ who voted in favor of the present president find that the fertilizer subsidy is no more, they will think twice, thrice and many times and may heed to a future UNP plea to make things right, once again.

The above thinking of course, is along extreme partisan lines and hopefully the UNP is above that. If in fact this offer from His Excellency is to form a National Government, and is genuine, and if (and only if) the government is willing to compromise on some its positions and drop its fake nationalist rhetoric, and if it is genuinely willing to solve both the immediate and the larger conflict, then I think the UNP has a duty to accept it.

However, His Excellency and his government must realize they cannot have all things their way; it’s a pipe dream to think of a National Government if they still wishes to be in bed with the JVP. The government must make a solid decision on which way it wants to take this country. If the government decides to take the JVP route, then it will be a matter of time before they strangle themselves.

Deane.

Gizoogle-it yo

I've been around online for a while now, and this just has got to be one of the coolest things i've ever come accorss, ive discovered it like a few hours ago, and cant seem to stop playin' with it.. scrap google dawgs, enter gizoogle..

gizoogle is google, and therefore da web turned snoop-doggy speak. it connverts any webpage into what it calls 'jive' it's probably not new, but for those of you who didnt know it, go check it out, you'd have a blast.


This is part of my last post gizoogled..

Mobbin' tha GOP

"I don’t really like Republizzle Two years of B-to-tha-izzush presidency has seen tha United States playa on most th'n ‘American’. From tha war in Iraqta spy'n on its citizens President Bush has done a pretty lousy job. But this isn’t `bout Biznush, Cheney or Schwarzenegga this pizzy is `bout our own Grand Ol Party – tha UNP . Drop it like its hot."

Here's the link to the whole site gizoogled (got to add a permanent link )

and the CNN headlines :

# srael sez 100 Hezbollah targets hit before diznawn
# Rockets shizzot back fizzy Lebanon, po-po say
# Haifa now like ghost ghetto baller Hezbollah attacks
# Tony Blair seeks U.S. support fo` U.N. resolizzles

they do have, a images page but if they jive tha images, heres wizzle dat red-jinglin boi t-ilvin wud look like.

i cud go on, but hell go C-H-to-tha-izzeck it out. pez out.

Deane.

Reforming the GOP

I don’t really like Republicans; Two years of Bush presidency has seen the United States falter on most things ‘American’. From the war in Iraq to spying on its citizens President Bush has done a pretty lousy job. But this isn’t about Bush, Cheney or Schwarzenegger this post is about our own Grand Old Party – the UNP.

It has been almost eight months since the loss of the last presidential elections, and the promised reforms for the party are still to be seen. From then and now the UNP has lost yet another election, lost a few key members, made a joke out of the Colombo Municipality and now the good President is poaching away more of its MPs almost at will.

Ranil Wickramasinghe, for his part seem to adopt a rather unique philosophy of problem solving - ‘Do-Nothing’; this philosophy seemed to have worked for him in varying degrees, especially in the recent leadership crisis where he seemed to have ridden the storm with only minor injuries, the victory in 2001 general election too seem to adhere to this philosophy of ‘let them strangle themselves while I do nothing’, which is an eventuality in all forms of socialist and populist administrations. But if ever the UNP has any designs of regaining power then party reforms are a necessity. These reforms should be based on objective analysis of the political atmosphere and not brought on to accommodate certain people or groups of people.

There seems to be (or was) a ‘dissident group’ within the UNP, who call for a change of leadership; Presenting Karu Jayasuriya, the current deputy leader as the replacement for Wickramasinghe. Although a fair enough substitution, I really don’t see how anyone can expect this to solve UNP’s problems. Karu is much like Ranil, a principled man with adequate skills and vision but like Wickramasinghe hardly a good orator, and his waving and clapping seems as awkward as his incumbent leader. But one thing I can agree on is there should be changes.

I would propose reforms somewhere along the lines of creating an executive chairman who would have to be elected by the members for a set period of time. The chairmen will be in charge of all party activities including appointments and nominations at all levels, fund raising, promoting party policies, election strategy, and grassroots organization. A good person for the post would be S.B. Dissanayake, the fact that he’s popular, organized, and not in parliament are definite advantages. The ‘party leader’ can be someone else who will be in charge of policy and direction of the Party, Ranil himself is a good choice for this position. Both chairmen leader and other front liners could be in a central committee where their inputs can be taken for both policy and strategy.

More immediately, the UNP should get official spokespersons for specifically for Defense and Economic issues so as to stop the mixed signals they seem to be sending, they must be having someone better than Tissa Attanayake in sirikotha, Also the debaters, especially in TV must be asked to be a bit more focused and strategic in their arguments, currently the UNPers seems to be engaged in a verbal fights with the JVP/JHU while the government politicos are sitting pretty.

The UNP must learn to focus on its strengths, rather than trying to minimize its weaknesses. It’s credited for having the better people, so much so that even the current government is almost run by former UNPers - Rohitha Bogollagama, Keheliya Rambukwella, Tyronne Fernando, Ajith Nivard Cabral combined are almost both the engine and the face of the government. But the people still on the UNP side of the fence (albeit ‘on’ the fence) seems to be hiding away for some unknown reason. They have got to come out, and get some logic and credibility going in the UNP noises. They should also de-demonize things the UNP stands for: from free-market economics, to specific policies of privatization, to their rather liberal stand on the ethnic conflict.

Finally, the UNP should take advantage of the multicultural support base. I frankly think Ranil should have run as the ‘Sri Lankan president’ because he was truly the only leader who could reach out to all communities, that was his strength - Didn’t use it. Besides, really -how many Sinhalese Buddhists with the superiority complex would vote for him any way.

What’s done is done, UNP has lost elections it should and could have won. But with the right people in the right places and with a coherent strategy coupled with the self-destructive nature of socialist-inspired governments the grand old party could be restored to its former glory. If reforms are not pushed, however, I’m afraid the UNP will remain as it is: Grand, Old and Obsolete.

iRevolution

The post entitled ‘Enough’ by a certain Mala in Moju may symbolize the beginning of known form of Internet Activism in Sri Lanka. If all goes well, there should be a group of people sipping expensive coffee at approximately 1700 LKT at Barista’s in Colombo 03 with the purpose of doing ‘something’.

While initially I was a strong proponent of defining the ‘something’ in which we were supposed to meet, I have increasingly come to accept the fact that meeting for something is better than no meeting at all, and hopefully there WILL be a meeting.

The various types of things any activist or a group of activists can ‘do’ are limited only by their individual and collective imagination. What is important though is to clearly define what any such group seeks to achieve- in clear, specific, unambiguous terms. Broad, generic desires such as say, ‘peace’ are very hard to not only achieve but to measure success, no matter how sincere that desire may be.

On the subject of ‘what-to-do’, it is justifiable to say that Blogging itself, especially on issues that matter, is a form of activism. In the current context of course, impact of blogs are rather subdued, mainly because of comparatively poor internet penetration in Sri Lanka and because many people, even online, are not aware of this phenomenon. That is not to say that the internet is useless as a form of activist campaigning, it is estimated that there are approximately close to 300,000 Internet users in Sri Lanka (without of course the SL expatriates) , those numbers are only going to up in the coming months and years.

The problem is those users - at least the ‘active’ ones, are currently segmented into various ‘online spheres’. There is of course the SL blogosphere, which most who would come to contact with this post should be familiar with, then there are these various communities, or forums most notably ClubLK which boasts a respectable 24,000 members. Then there are social networking sites such as Hi5 where there seems to be quite literally tens of thousands of Sri Lankans networking, sharing kinky comments and the likes. This structure of social networking, which is very similar to real-world social networks have huge potential to be transformed into viral marketing initiatives especially if the cause is good enough, and is sold properly.

There is already a presence of politics these forums and in Social networking groups more on that later, in another post.

Now what?

I didn’t blog about Kebithigollewa massacre, because I didn’t think I had anything new to say. But now, with the increase of terrorist activities has led many, including acclaimed journalists to believe that we are indeed heading towards yet another war, so I am compelled to write something on a potential way forward, if again (god forbid), all hell breaks loose

I believe, if there is a resumption of direct hostilities between the LTTE and the government then the government must make a paradigm shift towards how it view the conflict. In the past any resolution of the ethnic conflict was tied with negotiations with exclusively, the LTTE. Now it’s time the people and the government tries to go around the Tigers if that’s what’s required to achieve progress.

What this means in essence is the Sri Lankan government must take steps to create a legitimate and acceptable political solution to the ethnic conflict even while fighting a war against the LTTE.

The CFA, despite its shortcomings (I’ve yet to come across a document without) resulted in a climate which created unique situations that didn’t exist before. For the first time there are a few groups which can claim to effectively represent the Tamil people other than the LTTE; from Karuna’s followers to Mr. Anandasangaree, to other anti-LTTE Tamil voices in Europe. There is now, new room to take a new view of the process.

So the government must, in the event it fails to re-start negotiations with the LTTE form a sort of a council given full authority to come up with a draft constitution to bring a lasting political solution. The council must comprise of the willing Tamil academia, other interest groups including the Karuna faction, and of course representation of other ethnicities via representations by political parties.

If the LTTE continues to refrain from engaging in talks and continues to engage in violence like in Kebithigollewa, or tries to blow up the whole coastline, as they seemed to be doing now this may be the only solution we are left with.

A Face-lift and some kottu, moju buttons

I had a pretty jobless couple of days, so finally got around to give my blog a much needed face lift. Nothing major, just a little editing of colors, and a little image here and there, at least it doesn’t look like, I donno, millions of other blogs anymore.

Also, got around to creating these Kottu and Moju buttons. A little something to have on your blogs and stuff if anyone would care to use. No licensing or any shit like that. Just go ahead and use them if you want to, a zip file with all the buttons can be downloaded at :
http://www.box.net/public/8qc1qq0ak4

Or just right click and save these..




Does anyone know a good, Free direct link file host btw?

Cheers,
Deane.

Devils and Angels

First of all This posts isn’t about Angels, it's not about Devils in fact it's about nothing. There are of course more substancial things to blog about but i don’t quite feel like having another session of mahinda-bashing/bitching. His time will come, a post like this would sure to charge me up, who the fuck does he think he is anyway, playing nanny to the rest of us on his mahinda-knows-best policy, huh.. to speak of the devil.

Speaking about the Devil though, yesterday was 06/06/06 the day of the devil. No real satanic things though, except for the little fact that when i wanted to post something yesterday about 666, Blogger wouldn't log me in, probably the Damien is working at Google now (blogger is owned by Google). so much for 'don’t be evil' policy. I wonder if there were anything related happening in Colombo, i know there is (was?) an anti-Christ church in colombo. I had a couple of friends who were worshipers back in school, Their stories were tempting enough to go check out the place, especially parts about lots of black-lipstick clad HFC chiks come there and do all sorts of crazy things. But you had to do some crazy things to get in, and to be honest i was a little chickened out, and then there's Morality issues and of course going against J.C is not a comfortable concept anyway. Most of these 'worshippers' are doing it coz they really want to be 'baad' and do the whole heavy-metal thing rather than any belief, in fact some of them are not Christians to begin with. I wonder if they had anything though, like a chicken-sacrifice. I wonder if someone can write an expose' on the papers. Probably not, The Sri Lankan media is increasingly disappointing me; Especially the papers, it seems no one can get past the LTTE and report on something a little interesting. For example Sri Lanka had it's Gay Pride recently nobody even reported it,

it's almost as if it never happened. Sri Lanka probably could do with a more youth-oriented paper perhaps, or even a more liberal one. Which takes about issues of sex, trends, and i donno.. whatever need being talked about.

oh well this post is going nowhere so I’m just stopping. Just felt like blogging today.

cheers,
Deane.

Da Vinci Code - Banned!

His Excellency has decided to ban all public screening of the now infamous movie Da Vinci Code due to the pressure applied by the Catholic Church.

One could hardly expect anything less from a president whose whole political philosophy seemed to be nothing more than simple populism, add to that the possible repercussions of not heeding to church pressure on an issue where there is no counter pressure from any other religious element.

It’s the Catholic Church who should be criticized for their unjust curtailment of freedom of expression not to mention the pure stupidity of not understanding the move would only be counter productive as this would result in otherwise unprovoked curiosity which could and probably will result in increased DVD sales of the movie which are already available as ‘camera-copies’. The church should have learned that from the whole ‘Hollywood Buddha’ protests that the Buddhist elements once organized some years ago even after film-maker removed the controversial poster and apologized.

On a more personal note, I, myself being a practicing catholic don’t think anything depicted in the movie (or the book) will change my prospective on the religion I was brought up on. The fact that Jesus could have been married and had children with Mary Magdalene is irrelevant to the philosophy of Christianity I believe in.

The Da Vinci Code is just a good story, many of the so called ‘facts’ in the book have been since proven to be inaccurate. However the best way the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka or elsewhere should have handled this issue is to have not handled it at all.

War, Peace and all the bullshit

Colombo is pretty much charged with a ‘lets-nuke-em’ mentality more than ever before, and who can blame them? The average blissfully apathetic Colombian has now had a taste whatever that was going on in that far eastern province. It’s not so much the number killed, it’s not so much the person targeted but it’s the way that it was carried out. The method, the location, the aftermath brings back memories long desired to be forgotten and forgiven. Many people at this point in time see the issue in black and white; they identify a clear enemy - a fascist terrorist outfit and call for its destruction based largely on the incident a few days ago coupled with the build up of activities to that day and after.

To me the problem must be considered in a larger sense, what led to these circumstances? Whose fault was it? Obviously one party at fault is the LTTE but certainly there are others, fault must be found in the leaders of this country past and present, and of course the people who brought them into power by either voting for, or not voting against those leaders. Ultimately we are all at fault, either by action or inaction to the sorry state of this nation.

It must be realized however, that the Sri Lankan government is not the white sheep it pretends to be, it merely is the lesser-evil, by a long way in immediate comparison but evil nevertheless. Evil because of its inability to find and propose a practical solution to the ethnic conflict, evil because of its inability of clear, unambiguous and decisive action resorting instead to selling off the conflict in the political stage for petty reward of power and political mileage.

It is very much apparent when looking at short history of this peace effort, the parties concerned have failed, despite the rhetoric, to ‘go the extra mile’ for peace. Initially when the ISGA proposals were put out during the latter part of 2003 there was a desire for both parties to start on with the stalled dialogue, but the then Prime Minister refused to hold talks without holding the control of the Ministry of Defense at which point in time Her Excellency has taken under her tender care. After some time the Prime Ministers and the governments changed, and in time, when the next chance for peace was offered the Red Comrades, then in government refused to support the effort on the basis of an ISGA proposal and hence that chance was lost. The pattern continued from that to the Join Mechanism and beyond. It would have happened to Geneva if not for the urgency with which the talks were required, midst the claymore mines.

The road to peace if ever there was one is bumpy, there will continue to be crisis. Some small, some uncompressible and seemingly unforgivable but how we negotiate them will measure the true strength and spirit of our leadership, our people and our nation. It is a mistake to think there is an easy solution out there, and that one sudden spectacular moment or action can bring an end to all ills of this country. You won’t wake up one fine morning and find peace at your door step. You got to work for it. You got to give it every chance, every inch, all the time.
And as some of us now call to fuck for virginity. We got to ask our selves, have we given it all?

Deane J.

Mahinda, The Great

Last week’s LC polls results signifies an important twist in the pathetic tale of Sri Lankan politics, now it seems that the all powerful president has received a commanding mandate to carry forward his ‘Mahinda Chintanaya’ and all that without the firepower of Wimal and his red clowns. At this point in time, Mahinda Rajapakse seems tall, towering and mighty. He seems to have beaten the odds, done the impossible and now seems to be in-tune with the will of the masses. My mind goes back to the time not so long ago when the name ‘Rajapakse’ meant little to the very people he now seems to command.

The year was 2003; one Ranil Wickramasinghe was in the Temple Trees, I and a cousin of mine was asked to deliver a package of fish on behalf of my uncle who happens to be the chief organizer for SLFP in one pro-UNP district. I recall browsing around the streets of the much envied part of Colombo, asking directions for a ‘Mahinda Rajapakse’ residence, some people hardly knew the name, let alone the residence. Yet after barely two years after the incident, Mahinda have gone from the leader of the opposition back then, to the prime minister, and then to the all-mighty president. His escalation from a political nobody to THE political everybody is truly extraordinary and for that fact alone he should be respected.

However, the title of this post is misleading; the man himself has a long way to go before begin called ‘great’. If he wishes to get there, then he must subscribe to some other sort of philosophy, because ‘Mahinda Chintanya’ is not designed to get him there. ‘Mahinda Chintana’ and other type of these rata-perata-type supposedly pro-poor ideologies are in essence – fake. When put into practice these so-called pro-poor chintanayas or ideologies are nothing but a set of block policies of no-privatization, fertilizer subsidies and other goodie bags to please the masses, all the while trying desperately (at least by some) to follow a sort of a free-market economy. The mahinda chintanaya as a philosophy too is fundamentally flawed; it tries to instill great national pride by calming to promote local industries and enterprises by restricting foreign imports, but what it really says is that Sri Lankans and its entrepreneurs cannot face the global challenges and we must run away from those challenges instead of facing them head on. So the mahinda chintana can be appropriately named as ‘ponna-chintana’ without damaging the underlying philosophy.

Unfortunately though, the leader of the grand green party or his merry men fail to use these in their campaigns, the United National Party has become an entity which has no brand, or anything at all that is sellable to the masses. It is a sad plight, to a party and its leader who at least in my opinion led the most successful government of free Sri Lanka. It must be accepted however that the UNP faces a tough challenge. It’s hard to argue a case against a program that aims to give a glass of milk to poor school kids, or a program that promises jobs for unemployed youth or indeed to make a case for a Cease Fire Agreement, when it’s been brutally violated time and time again.

But the challenge should be taken up; it should be taken up because it’s the right thing to do so, and because if these populist policies are stopped and lasting peace achieved, there is no telling where this country can go. Therefore the UNP must focus on its strengths rather than trying to minimize its weaknesses. If the multi-ethnic vote base is the strength then go for it, come up with slogans, logic and find people to carry the message. Focus on strengths, and then perhaps one day the giant can be tackled. It is an eventuality it’s just ‘when’ that remains to be seen.

Deane.

Beyond BORDERS Festival : SEE. THINK. ACT.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this post on moju about a 'British council Youth Festival', since they posted a sort of a press release, i wont repeat the exercise. instead i'll give you some info on the actual workshops.

The Festival will be happening on the 28th and 29th March at the BMICH committee rooms A & B. Registration is Free.

i'm one of the organizers of the festival. the project itself is the reason for my absence in the blogosphere and at the blog-meetup.. actually i could have made the meet up.. i was somewhere near (BC) but tired.. and not exactly dressed for the occasion.

anyway if any of you guys consider urselves young (16 -24, or can pass urself to be in the range ) then drop us an email at slbeyondborders AT gmail DOT com or call Hanim on 0773067347.

lots of skools have already registered. so hopefully loads of chiks will show up..

the workshops are probably going to be good, the Forum theatre thing , which is a sort of an interactive form of drama, where they first show the audience the drama, and the audience gets to change it around to change the outcome. The forum theatre on Conflict resolution is directed by Nimmi, (saw a post on kottu about her recently.. cant remember who posted it)

and the guys from Sage training, Robert & lalith are simply the best self-development guys in the business. 'citizenship – who cares' is a must see workshops.

oh and before i forget, there is a concert happening in conjunction with festival called 'junction', sunera foundation, Bathiya and santhush, the Fusion drummers from nomad will be there. tickets are rs.200 available at the British council. the concert will be on the 28th at 7.30 Pm at the HNB audi. tickets wont be available for long, so if u wanna come, get to it tomorrow or day after or email me : deane034 at gmail DOT com. (i wonder if that prevent spam..at all.. ne way irrelevant)

The following is part of the official write-up.. or at least one of the drafts :)

FORUM THEATRE ON HIV & AIDS and Conflict Resolution

This theatre form was developed in Latin-America in the 1960's as a special kind of performance, where the distinction between reality and theatre is lifted by inviting the audience with their ideas on stage. The aim of Forum Theatre is to
change the spectator from a passive to an active participant and to encourage people to get active and engage in dialogue about issues of concern within a given society. At the festival we focus on two themes on Conflict Resolution and HIV & AIDS.

WORKSHOP ON CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Conflict is part and parcel of our daily existence as human beings. They are built into our human relationships. The Workshop will deal with such practical aspects on conflict resolution and will give an introduction into how this tool can be used to better our lives. Mr. Harsha Fernando of the Attorney General's Department, a seasoned trainer in Conflict management will
conduct the workshop.

WORKSHOP on the HUMAN EFFECTS OF HIV & AIDS

Adolescent Reproductive Health is a topic that all young people should have knowledge on to lead a healthy life. This workshop will focus on the human effects that Sexually Transmitted Diseases including HIV AIDS have on people's lives and will also open you into practical elements of how to lead a healthy sexual life. An experienced activist in the field of HIV
and AIDS will lead the workshop.

Public Speaking

Public Speaking is an important tool that all of us should have and is not a quality expected and limited to those who want to be 'leaders'! This workshop brought to you by experts from the Colombo Toast Masters Club will give you tips and pragmatic inside information on how to become a good public speaker

Youth Activism

Young people are not just leaders of tomorrow but are being increasingly recognized as development partners for today. This workshop lead by Mr. Sanjana Hattotowa, a civil society activist will give you an introduction on how you can contribute to positive social change.

'Vision Passion Action'

This workshop will help you to streamline your passions to cultivate your vision and translate your vision into action.


'Citizenship- who cares?'

Active Citizenship is one of the three themes of the Beyond Borders Project. The workshop run by Robert and Lalith from Sage Trainers will focus on means and ways to be a pro-active citizen and will question some of our misconceptions, fatalist attitudes and perceptions!

Substance Abuse – A burning problem of our day

this session run by Prof. Ravindra Fernando, a medical professor from the University of Colombo will deal with the social effects that Substance Abuse brings about and will also deal with the Pharmacological aspects of the problem.

A glimmer of Hope

The waiting is over, the news from Wanni has arrived - there will be talks.

After weeks of bloodshed, doubt and fear finally there is a cause for celebration and a reason for hope. Hope that whatever happened during the past weeks, months and indeed yesterday will be behind us and a path to a more resilient peace will be before us.

So let us first wish the current administration of the Government of Sri Lanka, all the very best and god’s good graces in perhaps their greatest undertaking yet. Let us hope with all their inadequacies of appropriate leadership and skill, they will somehow be able to pull it off. Equally importantly Let us also be thankful to the man they call the ‘white tiger’, for this particular mission, nobody else could have done. Let us also be thankful to that other man they called the ‘traitor’ the ‘don juan’ and so many other horrible things, for what he has practiced and preached for years has been realized today.

When the man signed the agreement of the ceasefire, they said he was giving away the country; today they are desperate to implement it. When his delegation started the negotiations, they said the terrorists must first lay down arms; today they just want them to stop using arms. When the talks were held in Oslo and Bangkok, they said he was touring with the terrorists and talks must be held within the ‘motherland’, today they have agreed to hold talks in Geneva, no, not part of the ‘motherland’. When the man lost the reins of power, he asked them to engage in dialogue irrespective of its basis; they said the dialogue must be based on a final solution, today there is no basis mentioned. He said the country would slip into war if the talks didn’t resume. They said no. but he was right and ‘they’ were wrong. Lives could have been spared, time could have been saved, and things would have looked brighter. Yes, it’s a shame he’s not leading this country, but that’s our loss, not his own.

Despite this bit of good news, in the current way of things it is easy to justify war; it is easy to condemn terrorism, and condemn the terrorists, it is easy to say that to attain an ‘honorable peace’ we must first wage war. But that’s the easy thing to do. We need leaders today who can do the difficult things, the difficult thing as of this moment would be the commitment for peace, it is difficult because of all it’s complex underpinnings, because of it’s history and because all those who dared to tread the path of peace have failed to date, the only person to have tasted partial success could last long enough in the temple trees to attain his goal. That indeed is one of the hurdles; the path of peace and dialogue would not only require the resolve to tame the warmongers of the north, but also the resolve to tame the warmongers of the south, armed with their words of hate, which at times are more efficient than bullets and bombs.

Come what may, let the middle minded Sri Lankan know that this conflict can only really end by way of dialogue and diplomacy and not through claymore mines and paramilitaries. For those who think that permanent peace can only be achieved by dialogue there is no other way, for those who question, rightly, about the sincerity and the commitment of the ‘rebels’ then all I can say is that the best trap that we can lay for them is that of peace and not that of war. May that be realized.

Deane.

p.s – on a total different topic, today also saw the crossing over of two ‘ dissidents ‘ from the ‘green party’ to the government, reports say there is more to come. The reason given is that the MPs need to ‘offer their skills’ to the serve the people and country rather than wasting them in the opposition. Cutely put. But I strongly believe sirs that the right to serve your country and your people must be won, not surrendered. Ideals and beliefs cannot be traded, bought or exchanged.

Oh and yea.. about the whole post .. I was kinda feelin a little speechy :)

Cheers
~CC~ AKA Deane J

That belated New Year Blog

Meant to blog this long time ago but so far this has been one hell of a year. I got stuck at home on 31st night doing an assignment for college, only to find out the next day they have shifted the submission dates from 2nd to the 6th, of Jan. now how crap is that? Anyway that is probably a sign of things to come; I thought this college thing was going to be a breeze but it has been hell so far, and it doesn’t seems to get any better. Academics a side, it’s not that great socially either, I’m stuck in a class with NO girls (I’m serious), and here’s the clincher - majority of the ‘politically opinionated’ are Mahinda supporters (actually JVP, hence Mahinda).

I’ve been schooled in two schools in my life, yet I can actually name the three SLFP supporters we had in our class (and yeah, they so got bullied) so this is a whole new experience. Despite this at the core of it they are pretty nice people, although some of them do subscribe to groups like the SL patriotic group which sends out shit like this, and some of them openly resented the Christmas party, and all it's fund raising in protest, But most of them mean no harm. At least knowingly.

Another thing that hit me was by the end of this year, i will no longer be a teenager. now that sucks. just caught me by suprise that one, i just loved being seventeen and i had my reasons. must say i had a blast the last three years, doing what i like, met some wonderful people, of course most of them left the country as soon as they finished ALs. more will leave this year while i will be stuck here in mahinda-land for at least a few years. should have left when i had the chance, now i'll have to live with it.

another aspect of loosing the whole 'teen thing' is giving away of Sri Lankan Teen Central (SLTC), i'm officially asking someone to take over, which closes another chapter of my life. It was nothing more than a msn group, but those days back in 2002, there were hardly any sri lankan ones. in fact some time ago it was (albeit on loosely scientific accounts) the largest Sri Lankan community, a title it has lost to many other sites now, and belive me it was good while it lasted, met some of my closest friends through that site and the stories of SLTC deserve it's own book.

My resolutions for the year, well.. they are kinda private so no blogging them. Apart from that everybody’s blogging about the security situation, and how the war will start but that will be another blog. So that’s it for this one, need to get back to more assignments; hope everyone else is having a good time… oh and happy new year

Cheers
Deane.

Jeyaraj's Comments

This is in response to the lankanewspaper.com article titled ‘Jeyaraj attacks church hierarchy’ where the current Minister of transportation and so many other things apparently blamed the Catholic Church for it’s apparent support of Ranil.

First of all despite what jeyaraj has to say, majority of the Christian vote did not go for Mahinda, this is quite clear when looking at electorates where there is a Christian majority in the population. Even in his own electorate in Katana, usually a robust clean win for a SLFP backed alliance saw a great narrowing down of the gap between the UNP and the SLFP candidate.

It must be said, that statements near elections are in fact quite a common procedure for the church, where they usually preach about choosing a candidate who can bring peace. This has been the sermon of the church near election times for the past few elections, and if someone actually bothered to read the statement they would notice that even this time around the statement have not deviated from this basic message.

What is true however, is the fact that anyone reading a statement such as that, anything which calls for ‘peace’ over an election period would immediately get the perception that whoever wrote the statement is in support of the UNP. it’s also true that some Christian priests did ask very openly from the public to vote for Ranil, basing their arguments on mahinda’s JHU affiliations among others.

The truth be told, it’s highly unlikely that Christians would face great ‘atrocities’ in the hands of mahinda; after all his wife is a Christian, he sent his kids to a Christian school, and as far as I know, up until now had a pretty healthy relationship with the church.

I, as a Christian and a catholic would personally prefer if the church stayed out of the political process as much as possible, especially in instances where Christians as an entity is not under any sort of great ‘danger’. I strongly believe that religion is a personal thing, and the state and its politics should be separated as much as possible from religion.

However, if a criticism is leveled against the church for influencing the political thinking of its followers then the criticism should also be leveled against all the religious organizations and figures using religion as leverage for political gain, but unfortunately neither Jeyaraj, or anyone else for that matter have the balls enough to say anything against these other, mainly Buddhist religious organizations and figures influencing and participating in mainstream politics.

Cheers
Deane.


p.s – this was supposed to be one of my replies to the actual news story in lankanewspapers, but figured it would be better to just blog it.

Finally.. the Interact site is up..

After like a year since i built this, finally managed to upload the Gateway interact club site, now of course im out of school and out of the club, but the bureaucracy in Gateway is unbelievable, after building the site it took us 2 months to get approval,and then ofcourse i had to sit for ALs and then it was too outdated to upload. Even now this upload is on a free server.

The site is a little buggy, and i also did a pretty dirty job on HTML and as of now it's pretty much outdated, the new Interact board is supposed to send me the content; Hopefully they can get 'permission' for it, and pretty soon the site can move on to paid hosting and get a propper (already paid for) domain running.

Any comments are welcome, i know, the gfx arent that optimized, the HTML is horrible but apart from that.. looks alright huh? :)

hmm.. come to think of it, this is pretty much a pointless blog.. oh.. and probably my first non-political post :) .. wow.. i actually managed to do that..

Ahh.. Rajpal

It’s been a long time since my last post; things have been crazy with exams, Christmas and lot of other stuff. But hell, how often does your blog get referred on mainstream media? I just had to blog this one.

The shocker came yesterday when reading the Rajpal Abeynayake column (of the Sunday Times) where Mr.Rajpal, now back to his usual UNP bashing ways, referred to a blog post I made the day before the November 17 election where I wrote about how Rajpal likes to pinch, slap and punch the UNP, and in particular Ranil and Milinda Moragoda.

So our dear Rajpal is a blog reader (perhaps even a blogger?), must say I’m rather elated about the fact that he referred to the post, more so than I like to admit, and hell I’ve been always curious about knowing who this Rajpal pora really is, and what other columns he writes. Hmm..

so perhaps you can leave a comment next time you visit Mr.Rajpal, nice to see you in the LK blogsphere.

Ciao
Deane.

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~

An interesting week ahead

As far as Sri Lankan politics is concerned the coming week is an interesting one.

we have already solved the mystery of the Prime Minister. Rajapakse has gone for a safe choice as far his party is concerned and given it to Ratnasiri, an option CBK went for with same concerns in mind. The BBC, reporting the appointment called the new PM a Hawk, and a Sinhalese Nationalist Hardliner. Perhaps they should have just called him an idiot, because he's nothing much more than that.

The decision is surprising because despite Rajapakse's pre-election deals with the devils (JHU/JVP) I really never thought of him as an extremist or a nationalist, and I believed like some others, if he were to get elected he would try to tune down his ‘hardliner’ image which he seems to have created. The step to make Ratanasiri PM doesn’t do well to that end, as Ratansiri’s known to spontaneously flame the tigers with words that up until now, has had no weight. So definitely a not so positive move as far as the peace process is concern.

Other interesting development to follow will be actions of Anura Bandaranaike, most speculate that he is going to loose the Foreign ministry. I’m not so sure about that, I think it’s in Mahinda’s best interest that he keeps at least some solidarity with the Banda’s. Anura is such an unpredictable creature; you’ll never know what he will do, so he will be an interesting character to look out for.

It’s also reported that Jeppa’s wont accept ministries just as yet, so it will be interesting again to see who will get the key ministries of Finance, Agriculture, and if above speculation is correct, The Foreign ministry. It’s likely that Sarath Amunugama will retain as the finance minister; at least the guy has some common sense in him.

Other key appointments to look out for will be who will receive Kadiragamar’s national list seat, and who will be appointed as the peace secretariat after Mr.Danapala’s resignation. Let’s hope he wont be replaced by a ‘war secretariat’ :P

The other more perhaps important development will be to see how the UNP will reform it self, whether or not Ranil will leave will perhaps be the thing to watch this week. A lot of people speculate that despite the loss, he might stay on as the leader of the UNP. I must admit that it’s seems to be likely, he seems to have the backing of the party seniors. Having said that I think Ranil should start grooming the next presidential candidate from the UNP. So perhaps he will continue on as the leader of the UNP, and give the post of ‘Opposition Leader’ to someone else, like Mahinda Samarasinghe.

All comments/speculation/predictions/bets are welcome :)