Portrait

I wrote this as a comment to Indi’s post, The War is Over, Tell Your Friends. Indi makes what seems to be a petty issue with Groundviews and with Sanjana Hattotuwa into a misinformed (or ignorant) post of a number of badly thought out, extreme statements strung together for what may be shock value (I can’t think of any other reason). Just wanted to post it here as I hadn’t posted in awhile and felt this captured the helplessness I had been feeling as of late.

I realise this may come off as slightly pessimistic and I in fact sympathise with Indi’s optimism, his eagerness to move on - but we can’t be optimistic at the risk of being blind.

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Indi – you know I respect your opinion and I more often than not, like what you write. However, I have often also argued with you as a result of the extreme nature of your statements sometimes. Especially now, I am shocked to read a post like this from you – it seems so naive, so ignorant, so determinedly blind, so sweeping? It has none of the nuance and thoughtfulness I know you possess as a human being. I’m challenging you Indi – forget the sound bites, write something for real. Do the research (that goes beyond a word cloud), do the homework, do the thinking.

Extreme statement number 1 – ‘They’re still all war all the time while the average Sri Lankan is like, ‘breakfast?’ ‘
Really Indi? Do you really believe this? Do you mean the Average Sri Lankan that you know and encounter? Average Sinhalese, maybe? Do you mean Average Sri Lankan in and around Colombo? I’m not sure what you mean – because for a LOT of people, life is not as simple as ‘breakfast’ right now. Even things seemingly un-related to war, like the cost of living and corruption are basically fucking up life for the average Sri Lankan, as far as I know. And that’s only things un-related to war. I’ll get on to those other things in a bit.

Extreme statement number 2 – not really a statement, but do you really think it’s a good idea to cite Daily Mirror and Sunday Leader as a good reference point as to what the Average Sri Lankan is thinking/feeling? Forgive me if I think this is preposterous. The Daily Mirror can’t string a sentence together and the Sunday Leader has its own agenda and only takes interest in character assassination a lot of the time.

Extreme statement number 3 – ‘The war is over and the only people that can’t really accept it are either abroad or facing abroad.’ Well even if this were true, why do you think this is Indi? Why do you think they’re all abroad or ‘facing abroad’ as you put it? The ‘war’ in the strictest terms, may be over, but there are hundreds of thousands of people still suffering its consequences, still suffering injustice – and they’re all in Sri Lanka.

Indi, yes, the war is over. We as a nation would like to move on, but we kind of can’t. You may not have noticed or may not have bothered to find out (which pisses me off in a country as small as ours) but we can’t move on because people are still suffering – every day. The Average Sri Lankan faces corruption and the rising cost of living at every level, nothing can be achieved without bribing someone or pulling some strings – you can’t send your kids to school, you can’t develop your business – you’re basically vulnerable all the time, for at any moment if someone feels like it, your life could go to shit. People face harassment, intimidation, abuse – just Average Sri Lankans. And I’m only now getting on to the people in the North – these families live in structures with half-walls, with no door sometimes, and no real roof (none of which was given to them by our government anyway). To date, there is no official compensation for them. To date, there is no list of detainees with the location of their detention to be accessed by these families, so people have no idea where some of their family members are. Many of these detainees are not even charged and cannot access a lawyer (a fundemantal right). Detainees are tortured, or treated inhumanely on a daily basis, at best. But our military and government seem to have a keen dislike of documentation and figures anyway, as to date we have no official figure of civilian deaths, civilian casualties etc. And don’t get me started on the disappearances – there are hundreds of cases of reported (by eye witnesses) disappearances for which there is no resolution, no answer. It is a problem that simply does not exist. So where are these people? Who is accountable for them? These families are not even allowed to commemorate the deaths of their own with any kind of rite or ritual – did you know that, Indi? They can’t lay flowers at a grave or perform any religious rites for their dead – it’s banned by the military. They face restrictions on gatherings, on movement – they live in a military state. Any kind of dissent faces intimidation and threat – and this is not just in the North but everywhere. So many people, some of them average Sri Lankans, not journalists or activists, are forced to go into hiding or to leave the country – for filing complaints that may pertain to our ministers, military or some authority figure, for noticing injustice and speaking up. And don’t tell me the media doesn’t face oppression – please don’t refer to the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Leader and tell me that journalists aren’t in trouble. Don’t go there.

We have no truth, we have no closure – there are no numbers, no figures, no statistics, no facts – and a lot of the battle still continues. It may not be on the front-lines, but people and human lives are being destroyed as a consequence of this war, every day. Yes, still. So the next time you want to say it’s over, really think about it. What part of it is over and what part of it still lives on? What part of it still remains unresolved?

Don’t perpetuate this culture of sweeping it under the rug, Indi. You’re better than that. You’re smarter than that. The state is expending all its energy pretending like nothing bad ever happened, or is happening – so please don’t make their job any easier. They don’t want to admit to any grief, they don’t want to admit to any trauma – they don’t want to acknowledge that this country paid a great price for their victory and continues to do so every day – so please don’t aid their argument. Don’t confuse whatever petty disagreement you may have with Sanjana or with Groundviews for what’s really going on. If you want to discredit Groundviews, you’re free to do so – but don’t make it about anything else. Don’t pull propaganda on your readers – don’t perpetuate the notion that everyone who has a problem is abroad. That’s bullshit and you know it.

If this counts – I’m Sri Lankan, I live in Sri Lanka and I don’t think the war is over.

A Vesak pandol in Sri Lanka.

This article was previously posted at Groundviews.

I have not hidden my increasing disdain for the way Buddhism is practiced and promoted in Sri Lanka. To say the least, we have not only forgotten what it is truly about, we often downright contradict and insult it. I wrote about it here, almost exactly a year ago, after the Poson holiday of 2010.

In the last year, I have become even more disillusioned with the establishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka - I am always shocked by the bigoted sermons given on TV, the terrible behaviour displayed by monks turned politicians, and how the Nationalistic element of Sri Lankan Buddhism has seeped into everything. I felt even more wary as we as a nation approached Vesak this year.

For anyone that needs a heads-up, the Vesak full-moon Poya day is a special day for Buddhists. The Buddha was apparently born, attained enlightenment and passed onto Nirvana all on Vesak poya days. Don’t ask me how he managed that timing, but it has long-been accepted that Vesak day was the anniversary of his birth, enlightenment and attaining of Nirvana. This Vesak is meant to be extra special, as we celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the attaining of enlightenment; of a prince becoming a Buddha, of an amazing journey of meditation, introspection and self-discovery that unveiled to him the truth about life and existence.

I look around and I think, ‘What do we have to celebrate?’ The disintegration of his philosophy? The complete bastardisation of everything he stood for? Of everything he discovered and taught? The total and deliberate misinterpretation of a value system that saw everyone as equal, now replaced by beliefs of superiority in race, sex and caste? The convolution of his message for political gain? What introspection has his teaching led us to, in 2600 years? What self-discovery? What revelations?

I always enjoy the sights and sounds of Vesak, and had already for the last few years, sought to enjoy it as a secular holiday filled with crowded nights, looking at Vesak lanterns and colourful pandols. This is of course once again ritual vs. philosophy, as I’m fairly certain the Buddha did not want huge pandols and lanterns erected in his name, and would rather have us reflect than worship. However, this is an ongoing Sri Lankan custom, now an imbedded part of Sri Lankan culture.

But Vesak pandols in particular are a wonderful and interesting thing; and this is how I stumbled upon this.

It seems that the advertising agency JWT is creating a special pandol for Vesak this year, depicting not the traditional Jathaka story (Jathaka stories are the stories of the Buddha’s previous births, told mostly as fables about the Buddha’s compassion, kindness etc.) but the various forms of abuse suffered today by women.

This to me seems by far the most fascinating thing I’ve seen during Vesak for years, and doubtlessly something the Buddha himself would support above the meaningless expenditures spent on celebrating and worshipping him. I think this is a really clever way to bring the topic into the consciousness of thousands of Sri Lankans who will be on the street tonight and tomorrow night, ’seeing’ Vesak. Imagine walking past a seemingly traditionally constructed pandol to discover that it is about violence against women; it will compel you to look again.

They also have this great video , which is a clip of an interview with the man who built the pandol - someone who’s been doing it for years - and how he feels this is unique and interesting.

To me it seems as though this idea will be more in line with Buddhist philosophy than many things that pass off as ‘Buddhist’ these days. To create awareness about the fact that women deserve the right to live a safe life with respect and dignity, and to push people to truly feel inclined towards building a society in which women are respected and are given equal opportunities: this seems more Buddhist to me than banning Akon, or getting up in arms about a “Buddha Bar”. It seems more Buddhist than monks in parliament, or protesting on the roads with their robes hiked up to their knees. It seems more Buddhist than loudly blaring 1 hour sermons through megaphones across neighbourhoods.

In this day and age, when Vesak celebrations seem to have come a long way from their origins (just today I saw in stalls, alongside Vesak lanterns, a favourite item for sale seems to be masks of serial killers, such as the one from the famous Hollywood slasher flick, Scream.) it seems appropriate to spend this momentous 2600th anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment, reflecting on and celebrating one of the key cornerstones of Buddhist philosophy: equality.

For those of you who might not be able to access the Facebook page: this pandol will be open to the public from 18 May - 22 May from 7.30 pm onwards at the Buddha Rashmi Vesak Zone - Navam Mawatha Car Park (Behind Cinnamon Grand)
Colombo, Sri Lanka.

As I spend two days going in and out of government offices and waiting at ministries, there is a moment in which it strikes me. It’s while I wait in a long queue at the Foreign Ministry, that I tap a confused boy, who I have noticed is Tamil, on the shoulder, and offer to help him decipher what each of the signs at the counter say. I’ve watched his growing frustration for a bit; I’ve watched him look desperately at the signs he cannot read, I’ve watched him try to speak to several officials behind glass windows, who turn him away, shaking their heads: not rudely, not cruelly, but simply in their own inability to understand him. Luckily, he speaks a little English. So I talk him through the process.

It’s as I sit there, surrounded by signs in Sinhalese, having done what I had to do in less than 10 minutes because I could read them and communicate clearly with the personnel at the counters, having taken for granted that the process was fairly clear - why, the signs tell you what to do, and if you’re in any doubt you could ask someone at the counter for help - that I realise that this is what we’re avoiding. This is the task at hand. Everything would have to change; every sign in every office, the way Parliament is run. This ‘change’ would have to be complete, across the boards, it would have to trickle down into every tiny aspect of our lives, every small function of this nation. It’s then that I realise that a very good first step to being truly multi-ethnic, is to become truly multi-lingual. But it would still be just one step.

It’s then that I fully realise the enormity of the job. It would be decades of work. It would be hard, at least it would be hard to do it properly. We’d have to start from scratch.

And this is why I’d like to see our nation give the UN a real response to the Panel’s Report. Dismissing it is simply not good enough at this stage, it is too easy and too lazy. How is the matter of the Panel’s Report linked to the proper and holistic rebuilding of our nation, one might ask. In my mind, it’s obvious. And I’ve said this before: this is about the truth.

Why do we need accountability?

The issue that the Report focuses on, the very heart of it, is the question of accountability. It calls for the GoSL to open independent and fair investigations into the matter of war crimes and crimes against humanity, allegedly committed both by the LTTE and the SLA during the last phase of the civil war and in its aftermath. Of course the GoSL has maintained from the very start that it was not responsible for any civilian casualties, and if there had been any, that it was the LTTE that was solely responsible. In fact, it went so far as to claim that not a single drop of civilian blood was shed. Just one of many occasions in which the President reiterated this, was this interview in July 2007 with TIME Magazine, where he dismisses the question about civilian casualties with this confident response -

“In the eastern province, zero casualties. I won’t say there are zero casualties in the north. The LTTE shot some when they tried to escape.”
(Mahinda Rajapakse)

It also calls for investigations into the matter of forced disappearances, the matter of violations of human rights of those who were detained by the GoSL/SLA, such as suspected or former LTTE cadres, and the matter of violations against the media and other critics of the government.

Fundamentally, it calls for the GoSL to answer several questions, to clear up several mysteries: what about the disappeared? The voices of the GoSL can continue to say that there is no such problem, but then what about people who are missing? The GoSL and SLA can continue to say they never hurt or killed civilians, but what about the people who died during their attacks - the countless people who have given eyewitness accounts of the shelling of hospitals and schools, clearly carried out by the SLA? What about those who have been threatened, assassinated, or had to flee and hide overseas, simply because they reported that the GoSL and SLA were responsible for irresponsible behaviour?

The reason we need accountability is perhaps almost a cliche - it’s because without the truth, you can’t get very far. It’s because as long as a government continues to lie, not just to the world but more importantly to its own people, I’m not sure how much genuine reconciliation can take place. It’s simply because people can’t do bad things and then act like they didn’t. And this Report is has said this out aloud to Sri Lanka (not the first to do so, however) , officially and irreversibly.

The GoSL need to take a step back from the voracious jingoism and triumphalism, and acknowledge, I mean properly acknowledge, the fact that Sri Lanka’s people have paid an enormous price for this victory. People have suffered and died and lived through their families dying, and yet, as a nation we continue to ignore and insult them by saying it didn’t happen and that these people who say they witnessed certain things or have lived through certain things, are, effectively, lying. The GoSL have been so busy beating their chests and shaking their fists and blaming the enemy, that so far, not in one speech, not in one moment have they paid tribute to the great sacrifice, physical, psychological and emotional, made by our people. In all the hundreds of thousands of rupees that have been spent erecting memorials to slain military personnel, there has not been a single one erected in memory of all the thousands of civilians that have died; not just in the last phase of the war but even those that perished in the many suicide bomber attacks that were carried out by the LTTE. As far as I know, there is a plaque in commemoration of the Aranthalawa massacre, and of course there are many memorials commemorating the deaths of politicians, but I believe the state is yet to build a memorial for civilians, of all ethnic groups, who died during the war, in all circumstances. Never mind a plaque or a statue, I believe to date there is no comprehensive and accurate list or figure of civilian deaths and casualties during the war.

The GoSL has continuously shown that they simply do not care - as far as they are concerned, the end justifies the means.

This is what accountability means: it is many fold. It is not just throwing up your arms and saying, ‘OK, we admit, we did it’, as the GoSL simple-mindedly seems to believe. It is not merely an admission to the wrongs you have been responsible for. It requires that we count each and every life that was lost, it means we count each and every person that is missing, or has been maimed or displaced, it means that we count every journalist, every activist who has been attacked, it means we count every single person who has had to hide or flee. It means that through this, we come to fully understand the depth and enormity of what Sri Lanka has been through. It means that we learn, acknowledge, accept and reconcile with what happened - what really happened. Because I don’t think anyone, and I mean anyone, really knows. A true and unbiased narrative is needed.

Why has the GoSL dimissed it?

I honestly can’t believe that they don’t understand that by dismissing it so rashly and so arrogantly as they have, all they are reiterating in the minds of people both at home and abroad, is that they are guilty. They are stupid enough to dismiss it and call it the machinations of an evil West that wants to destroy Sri Lanka. (What anyone stands to gain from destroying Sri Lanka, I don’t know.) Not only do they seem guilty, they are further proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are small-minded, immature, corrupt and tyrannical.

Some of the famous arguments are:
1. ‘They did it first’.
Using the example of the US and the UK and the War on Terror, the GoSL constantly attempts to place themselves above accountability for what they have done : claiming, ‘they did it first’. Yes, we know civilians die, yes we know people are disappeared, tortured, interrogated and killed in custody. Yes, we know critics of this war are silenced. Why is it ‘war crimes’ when it’s us and ‘War on Terror’ when it’s them?

I don’t know if it’s the inherent nature of international politics, I don’t know if it’s the inherent nature of the human race: but it’s true that for the most part, the US has been ignored and allowed to do as they please, except of course for activists and civilians around the world and in America who have resoundingly expressed their objection to the way the war is being carried out. I agree that the methods and tactics of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be questioned. All I can hope is that one day they will be. But to use this argument to remove oneself of one’s responsibility to one’s own people is atrocious. Yes, the US does it - so what? This is no excuse. The GoSL and SLA have a responsibility to serve and protect its people, and if it has in anyway violated this duty and instead abused its power, stolen from the nation, killed, raped and abducted civilians, then it needs to be brought to justice.

2. ‘It is a Western conspiracy’
This is just plain stupid. As I said, it reeks of guilt to say this. This is the weakest of all the arguments. I think the West has better things to do and bigger fish to fry than conspire against Sri Lanka. Everything is a Western conspiracy here now - the fact that Mahinda Rajapakse didn’t make the TIME 100 was called a Western conspiracy, surely it can’t just be a purely editorial decision on the part of the Magazine’s Editors, who of course reserve the right to do whatever the hell they want with their magazine. Every time anyone criticises the government, it’s a Western conspiracy - they’re being paid by the US, the diaspora, the LTTE - God forbid people have a right to an opinion on their own accord.

3. ‘The LTTE did far worse’
The Report, if I’m not mistaken, clearly states that it has found that both the LTTE and the GoSL are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The GoSL has long since countered every argument against its own methods and intentions by changing the subject and drawing attention to the heinous crimes committed by the LTTE. So, effectively, they’re saying they only strive to be just a little better than one of the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisations. That’s great.

The LTTE were terrorists: they had no duty to protect civilians or be responsible for them. They had no duty to anyone or anything other than themselves and their goal. As always, an army’s job is two-fold - protect the people and eliminate the enemy. If it was failing to do one of these things, it was failing.

Ultimately, asking for accountability and then ensuring it, is no easy or simple task. Allowing someone to demand it of you, is no easy task either. And while I may have not gone into the complex political issues surrounding the Report or seriously delved into its contents (which I have only skimmed), I really do believe that when you boil it down, it becomes about truth and how a future built on truth can just be a better future. I also believe that when you boil it down, it becomes a true test of how much our government really cares.

It is no simple task, but it is the task at hand.

There’s an interesting post here about the Report.

Note: This was written before Osama Bin Laden was killed. That’s another post.

Let me start off by saying, I didn’t used to be a cricket fan. But in time I’ve come to appreciate the game and its various players. It’s a good game, an ingenious sport even - it’s intelligent, fun, and yes, gentlemanly. It’s not violent and doesn’t involve kicking and tackling and requires more grit and patience than sports that do, in my opinion. Of course even for a half-convert like myself, the World Cup means you can’t help but getting totally sucked in.

I was in a trishaw, on the way home on the day of the World Cup Final, just before 2 PM. There was bumper to bumper traffic on the street - everyone trying to get somewhere in time. The streets, neighbourhoods and towns of Colombo were filled with the many symbols of patriotism - flags were on fronts, sides and backs of cars, people were wrapped in flags, faces painted, noise-makers of some sort in hand. Snippets of chants and slogans and even the National Anthem could be heard drifting out of open-backed trucks. There were groups, large and small, who had simply taken to walking on the street, sometimes in the middle of the street, happily singing and celebrating. In fact, the atmosphere was very similar to that which prevailed on our streets in the days that followed the GoSL’s ‘victory’ over the LTTE. The air had been filled with nationalism, as a jingoistic tide had overtaken our country. However, it was also different. Anyone who reads my blog may remember that I noted that the mood on the streets in those days had been distinctively aggressive, whereas in the hours before the Final, all that was tangible was pure joy and excitement.

As anyone who knows me will know, I’ve struggled a lot with the ideas of patriotism and nationalism. I’ve argued and debated, with others and myself, whether the idea of actually loving your country is necessary, or even possible, or whether perhaps it is an idea manufactured by those for whom it would be good to have people pledging unquestioning allegiance - for whom it would be a useful tool with which to justify and explain the things they do and the choices they make. So you see, I’ve never really been certain if I agree with ideas of patriotism and nationalism - on a very fundamental, basic level - at all anyway. I’ve discussed it here, quite in depth, so I won’t go into it again.

However, as I said, even I myself hadn’t escaped the national pride that had seeped into all our lives by the day of the Final. I had even argued the day before, with a good friend, who was staunchly unhappy with it, and who said, ‘It is this kind of Nationalism that gives way and excuses all the other kinds. Why should we take credit for something that eleven people are good at?’. I had disagreed heartily, saying, ‘Come on, you can’t deny this, it would be awesome if we won’.

The moment that shook me out of this happy reverie was that moment, on the drive back home. I was somewhat turned off by the repeated waving of the National Flag. I was irritated by the blatant ‘taking credit’, the blunt and obvious taking away from what the true task was. I was somewhat put off to realise that millions of Sri Lankans would be watching the Final that day, not because they were fans of cricket, not even because they were fans of our team, but because they ‘loved’ Sri Lanka. I was even further irked to discover that His Excellency our President, had in fact, already officially ‘taken credit’. The parallels had been drawn - crediting a cricket victory (if achieved) to the ’state of the country’, to the GoSL’s victory over terrorism and the prevailing situation of ‘peace’ and hope in Sri Lanka. It is, after all, a good time for us, everyone was saying, duped by the propaganda. Who is it a good time for? I asked. To which many would naturally, and ignorantly, respond with sentences that trailed off into silence, about how ‘the roads are being built…’.

Oh the roads. The roads. Because that’s all there is to a country - to the development of a nation.

I could almost picture Mr President - in the aftermath of a victory - walking onto the field, waving, basking in the glory, shaking the hands of our cricketing heroes, and for days to come probably, harping on about how he and his regime had created the right atmosphere of change and optimism, how they had, once again ‘won’.

I soon found myself wishing that the team had their own flag, or at least their own logo, that there was a way to cheer on those eleven people, simply because they were good at it, simply because it was a good sport. It seemed despicable to me that we were somehow talking about war and peace in the name of a cricket match. It seemed unfair to me that we had ended up with the sword-clutching lion in our hands, and the words of false promise on our lips, in order to support eleven great sportsmen. It seemed so shortsighted to me, that we were citing an atmosphere of positive change in the nation, just because we were about to, maybe, win a World Cup.

I like our team, I like the sport, and as another friend said, ‘Murali is bigger than the nation state’ - so I watched the match and cheered them on. Two teams played and the best team won. So be it. They are sportsmen and their lives will go on, and there will be many other games, and other losses and victories coming their way.

As for a true victory for Sri Lanka, it seems that’s not what’s in store for us yet. We are ill-fated.

I am certain our cricket team will contest for another World Cup, or many, and I hope that by the time that opportunity pops up once more, that Sri Lanka would have experienced a real change for the better - as small as it may be.

There is also a very good note on Facebook on this same matter here.

The days are getting hotter now in Colombo, and I’ve just finished watching Restrepo. It is an alarming and striking film. What it leaves me with, is the realisation of the strange predicament that my generation is in - the predicament of absolute and untainted access. Of how meaningful it is that we in our generation are privy to such information, to such raw and authentic first-hand accounts of things like war. Now in our time, all the stories are laid out for us. Through cameras and phones and blackberries and iPhones and the internet, all the facts of life are laid bare - we can bear witness to war and suffering and victory and pain, from the comfort of our living room. It is almost surreal that we can watch the war in Afghanistan like this - so close, so true. Turn on the news channels and at any scene of disaster or mayhem, count me the number of people standing by with their camera phones out. Count me then the number of minutes it takes any of these people to upload these videos to Youtube and then send the link to all their friends on Facebook. In moments, you can get the story out there - and create your own ten-second revolution online.

What I’m getting at is this - more and more each day, I find myself quite certain that we will not be able to turn away from the world and wash our hands of it as easily as people have done before. In time, who we support and what we support, which things we stand by and which things we openly object to - we will be accountable for these in a way that I think people have never had to before. Our opinions will be undeniable and we will not be able to separate ourselves from them. We will not be able to say ‘We didn’t know’. We won’t be able to claim ignorance of what that government we supported were doing in war, what that politician was doing under the table, what that president was doing underground. We know - we have known all along. We know all the stories, we can find out all the facts, and much easier than before, a first-hand account is not going to be hard to come across. Especially in Sri Lanka, our small country, someone who has directly been affected by the war, or has lost someone, is not far removed from you or me. Perhaps they are a mere 5 or 6 people down the line. Or, in fact, we’re so small - it could be you or me.

In this time, therefore, it is even more important to choose our causes and battles wisely.

At the beginning of this year, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy and some others called for a boycott of the Galle Literary Festival, through an appeal that said “We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country”.

I’ve been following some email threads about the upcoming Jaffna Music Festival, suggesting that we think twice about attending it, giving these reasons -
1. It is state-funded (It is not, in fact)
2. It is not appropriate to hold a music Festival in Jaffna at the present time
3. It is not inclusive and does not have the best interests of Jaffna residents at heart

No one has really called for an official ‘boycott’ yet, but they are implying that boycotting is what they would do and what we should think of doing too.

The idea of boycotting is a very complex one for me - I’ve debated with myself, in the past too but more in recent times, on how I feel about the concept of ‘boycotting’. I was faced with a personal dilemma recently - there’s a group that works with urban poverty issues, and works a lot with children of the Colombo North area. Some friends and I have been working with them to offer these children workshops in the arts. We’ve given a few workshops to these children. A few people told me recently that this group that organises these workshops and other projects for these kids are Christian fundamentalists and are converting the people they work with.

Now this is not shocking. If at all, in Sri Lanka we’re quite used to religious groups heading poverty alleviation work, and there is almost always some level of conversion going into it. This matter itself is very complex and not one to be painted in black and white. It does not always mean that these are hard-liners who are using brute force to make people convert into their religion. But this is where it’s tricky - the people we are talking about are vulnerable, impoverished and don’t really have a lot of options in life.

I dug a little further and realised that this group is probably responsible for a little evangelism - nothing too harmful, I think, but on principle, wrong.

I struggled with this - do we bail on the project with the kids in order to protect our reputation and work to our principles, which are strongly anti-religious conversion? Or do we stick with it at the risk of working with a group that is possibly carrying out fundamentalist work? The question that I was left with, at the end was this, and I think it’s a very important one - who stands to lose out?

And I think this is really the question that clinches the deal when talking about boycotting.

In my case, I realised that the only people who would lose out if we were to bail from the workshops project would be the children. So we decided to stay put and find another, more open way to engage the organisation itself in discussion to talk about the methods they were employing in their work.

Some people in Colombo and outside have been calling for a boycott of the Galle Literary Festival for years - saying it is elitist, shallow, heartless, and insensitive to the ’situation in the country’, as it is called. Asking the writers to not attend an independent literary festival in this country because the government is monstrous is illogical at best - who loses out? The government? Of course not - it wouldn’t be the government - it would be us, it would be Sri Lanka. Because the two are separate, aren’t they? Who loses out are a bunch of moderate Sri Lankans who like books and literature and like talking to each other about these things. What a group of people to boycott - yes, truly dangerous! They should not be supported and engaged with but should be abandoned by the civilised world to rot, after all. Did it occur to the writers of this appeal that they would not in any way be boycotting the government of Sri Lanka - but that they would be instead boycotting its people? Did it occur to them that there are those of us here too who don’t agree with what the government has done? That maybe it would be good to come here and talk to us? That maybe coming here and engaging with Sri Lanka would be more useful than rejecting it? That standing by Sri Lanka would in fact, be a stronger objection to the government than simply not attending a literary festival that the government doesn’t really care about?

Those asking for a boycott of the Jaffna Music Festival (JMF) are in fact the same kind of people. JMF, as far as I know, is bringing indigenous folk artists from all over the country together for many performances, in an event that will culminate in the JMF - 25-27 March 2011, in Jaffna. There are artists from the South, and the North and the North-East performing - some of them after decades.

People are citing reasons like it is state funded, when actually it’s not. And even if it were - would that be a reason? The state should be funding events like these! As far as I know, it is to be a nice cultural event that will be free and open for all. I really do not see how this can be harmful or bad. If we do not go, who loses out? The government? No. The Jaffna Music Festival? Not really. Their main target audience are the residents of Jaffna and from what I hear, a lot of people are very excited about going. So who loses out? It would be us, really. By not going, we would simply be passing up on an opportunity to hear authentic folk music from all over Sri Lanka, see performers who have been doing what they are doing for generations, and to go to Jaffna - to be there, to meet people there and maybe come away wanting to go again.

I would say to these boy-cotters - judge the thing for what it is. One thing cannot possibly encompass everyone’s politics or indeed, any politics at all. It is not duty-bound to do so. The JMF as far as I can see is giving the people of Jaffna a chance to see some wonderful artists, and is giving these artists a chance and the platform on which to perform to a great audience and to share their knowledge and expertise of some very unique traditional folk art forms. The Galle Literary Festival, as a Literary Festival, always did its bit to address issues that we are facing in Sri Lanka, and to create places and times for people from other countries who may have had similar experiences to share their thoughts with us here. It could not have ignored its setting. Its caring was shown in its programme, in the writers it has invited - be it Gillian Slovo from South Africa, whose parents were leading members of the anti-Apartheid movement and whose mother was lost to the cause, or be it historian Farish Noor, from Malaysia who shared his experiences of the difficulties and complexities of building a historical narrative of a multi-ethnic society. There has been Thomas Keneally, who wrote about insurgencies and is especially famous for having written about WWII, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote about the Biafran war. There have been diverse writers from different countries, who have had diverse lives and life experiences with whom audiences have been able to talk, and debate and finally share with each other experiences of this daily struggle of being alive, of simply being human.

These are cultural events, and there are cultural events just like these everywhere in the world - in places where there is prosperity but also in places where there is pain. Perhaps, in those places, it is even more important for people to sing and dance and talk and be together, and perhaps the people in those places do not have to apologise for doing so.

I urge people to delve in, find out, dig deeper. Form your own opinions. Reject or support something only after knowing what its intentions are - what its actions are. And ask yourself, who gains? And who loses out?

A very wise person once told me, ‘Everything can’t be about everything’. I trust she was right.

We go through our whole lives waiting to feel that feeling. My Hollywood generation – we carry around within us this idea that love is electric, all-healing, all-consuming. We never, ever need to know what happens beyond the happily-ever-after, what happens after the teary ending of a heart-wrenching novel or blockbuster flick. We are sated with the false glory, the idea that love is mighty and noble and that it defeats all our own inadequacies.

And so we wait for our hearts to be wrenched. We wait to fall in love - to fall head over heels, to plummet from a cliff to the nothingness below and to feel our chests in our mouths. We wait for the moment in which it feels as though our hearts are full to the brim, the moment in which our hearts feel like they will explode now – just now - the moment in which all we are will overflow from fullness and drip to our toes in a golden syrup, and everything we have been waiting for will lift us above the clouds and we will be carried away to some different oblivion on a gust of wind that never turns back – and all the while Hey Jude will be playing in the distance. We sit on a beach waiting for our hearts to be broken, so that we can wear it like a battle scar - so that we can imagine that we have sacrificed and suffered for love. We want to be able to tell the world - to shout it out for everyone to hear - to say ‘You know - I have been in love!’. We want to make heroic choices - we want to make choices that we will remember and be remembered for, but we don’t know which one is the right one of if the right one even exists. So we take mad leaps of faith - hoping that when we hit the ground, not all will be lost, and that there will be a crowd waiting to applaud our bravery, our passion. We leave people and chase others - hoping that it doesn’t end in heartbreak and that even if it does, we will be better human beings for it.

We ignore life and all its mundane subtleties. We don’t recognize the warm, comfortable feeling of true love, of old love – we bore quickly. We want that feeling. Like junkies we move from one love to another, hopelessly, desperately trying to feel that way again. We forget the value of someone who knows you. We discard the fittingness of someone who cares for you. We forget which things are truly precious. We chase that raging feeling, trying to recreate that moment from that book, that movie – trying in vain, to hear the cascading crescendo of music in the soundtrack to our lives as we make moving speeches to our lovers.

But it isn’t there.

So much has already been said - so much has already been done. People have written angrily about it, stood on the road about it, attempted to talk about it - but it seems protest is merely self-expression now. Opposition is just a personal statement.

People far more knowledgeable and proficient in these matters than myself have said and written everything there is to say or write about the 18th Ammendment in abundance.

All I can say myself though is that I feel immense pity for myself, for ourselves - as I stood on the road desperately trying to keep a candle lit, I felt the acute onset of hopelessness, an ominous feeling of pending disaster - not instantly catastrophic, not a whirlwind that takes its victims immediately, but a disaster that happens in slow motion as we watch on, helpless. A suffering that is so long drawn out, that happens slowly over time - one that satisfyingly, greedily takes its toll little by little, rather than all at once.

It was there, on that street, that for the first time in my life I felt strongly that I was ‘doing something for my country’. I was standing for Sri Lanka - for our sovereignty, our independence and dignity as a nation. For the democratic governance of my motherland. I was standing for the idea that my country exists outside of whichever party is in power, that it exists outside of some people - that it is bigger and better than those that rule it. That it should, on some level, function independently from its government, that it should continue to run justly and constitutionally correctly for all its people - for all its public servants, for all its citizens, for all the people that work to keep it together. I was standing there for development and progression of Sri Lanka. I, who usually does not believe so readily in national patriotism - I, who prefers the idea of individualism and once applauded Gore Vidal when he said ‘How can one love a bit of land?’ - I who am so often called a traitor, unpatriotic. I stood there proudly, wishing I could tell the patrolling Policemen that I was doing this for them - wishing I could shout out for the whole world to hear that we were the country, if Sri Lanka didn’t belong to its people, who does it belong to? Wishing so badly that I could walk over to Mr President and shake him - because perhaps deep down he knows - he knows its our country too, and not just his.

To everyone who called any protesters on Wednesday ‘traitors’ - you do not know what you support. You are blinded, fooled. And when you figure it out, it will be too late. And you will complain about the government, typically - and put your head back in the sand.

R.I.P Democracy. I am sorry, Sri Lanka.

Malinda Seneviratne recently penned this article in the Lakbima News. The matter of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission is a hot topic these days. Some seem to think it’s a move in the right direction, others are cynical and say that it is a facade, carefully controlled by the President, to appease critical voices. Those critical voices don’t seem appeased for the most part, and some others are hopeful that is at least a sign that we are willing to admit that there are lessons to be learnt and that there needs to be a commission to advocate reconciliation.

But Mr Seneviratne’s article has little to do with evaluating or even discussing the purposes of the LLRC and how it may or may not succeed. It is boring diatribe at best. It is a name-calling, NGO-bashing exercise that undermines a lot of things - amongst them, the immense and immeasurable trauma and suffering that countries like our own have suffered due to political upheaval and war.

Mr Seneviratne says ‘we moved on from the 1971 insurrection without letting the trauma of it all get under our collective skin’, ‘we got over the bheeshanaya of 1988-89 with all the 60,000 plus deaths, the horrible images of people being burnt alive in street corners and every waterway turned into moving cemeteries without as much as a murmur from those who today tend to empty their bowels at the first sign of rights violation’.

It’s funny that in the same sentence in which he describes (in graphic detail) the amount of violence that Sri Lanka as a nation has witnessed, he dismisses the need for any kind of close look at why it happened and how we’ve been affected by it. He even seems upset that some people seem to care - even belatedly - about human rights.

He says South Africa ’sorted things out’ - like it just took a snap of someone’s fingers - as though, even after all these years and and everything they have done, they are simply ‘over it’.

Mr Seneviratne, though it seems hard to imagine, seems blatantly ignorant and unaware about the long-term effects of violence and war - or perhaps decidedly delusional. He somehow seems not to have been able to grasp the long-term implications that things like war, or indeed, colonisation have on a nation and a people. As if very good examples of the contrary aren’t abundantly visible to us no matter where we look.

He says we got over colonisation, ‘71 and ‘88-’89 - so why not get over the war? It’s shocking that he does not seem to understand the difference between political upheaval (as severe as they may have been) and war - what’s further shocking is that he genuinely seems to believe what he’s saying. He seems to genuinely believe that, not only are we over past political unrest, we can get over the war without talking about the lessons learnt or indeed, reconciliation.

Firstly - who says we are over ‘71? Or ‘83? Or ‘88-’89? Or colonisation, for that matter? He only need look around and he will find that we are not ‘over it’. People may not be waking up screaming from nightmares, but people who were affected, people who still are very much affected - are everywhere. Do you ‘get over’ things like colonisation? Yes - we’ve moved on, we’ve even made nice with the conqueror, we’ve sucked up and paid our dues in our own time - but ‘got over’? I think not.

And why should we?

Many countries were ruled over by others in the past. The very fact that they were once colonised has made its way into the culture, language, behavioural patterns of the people, governing systems, educational systems - everything - of the country. For better or for worse. Many countries have fought and overcome wars - many countries today continue to be caught in deadly wars - these countries were forever changed, their people forever changed by this ordeal. For better or for worse. You don’t go through something like 26 years of war and come out of it unchanged. You come out of it changed forever, permanently altered. The story of your country, forever more, will always be tinged by the story of war, it will always be shaped by the stories of suffering and pain endured by your people through the time. You will never be able to tell the story of Sri Lanka hereafter without telling the story of the war.

And why should you?

It happened. It was real. Painfully real, for hundreds of thousands of people - not too far away from where you’re sitting right now.

You don’t just get over your baby being blown to bits and hanging from a nearby tree, you don’t just get over your husband disappearing one night never to be found again, you don’t just get over the fear, the mistrust, the confusion, the helplessness.

Mr Seneviratne doesn’t think that we need to take a step back and take a long, hard look at all of this. He thinks we’re being West-ish and making a mountain out of a molehill. He thinks it’s unfair that some people - namely, according to him, Mr Jehan Perera and Mr Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, are demanding that the LLRC do its duty, that it provide some answers to the some of the most pressing questions of our time. I think I can assure you that it is very much a mountain - a big, big mountain.

The worst thing that he can put his finger on in all this is that we haven’t needed it before. What I think he means is that we had never thought about it before. He assumes that we should treat horror and violence as we’ve always treated it. He doesn’t seem to like the idea that we’ve evolved, our ideas have evolved, our understanding of life has developed. We know now things we may not have known before.

We didn’t have a Commission to overcome ‘58, ‘71, ‘83 or ‘88-’89 - of course. But maybe we should have! We know that now maybe one was needed. The thousands of people who were forever traumatised, who never got a moment’s attention in the aftermath, who picked up arms in retaliation, who lived their lives in the shadow of pain and fear and suspicion - these people are all evidence to the fact that it was needed then, and it is needed more than ever now. Is it so bad that we’ve figured this out, albeit late? A true case of better late than never?

The one move that was made by our President in the direction of reflection, the one sign that we are, on some level, willing to look at what happened to us and what our role in it was - amidst all the truimphalism, the marching bands and the Victory Day military parades - and people like Mr Seneviratne would shoot it down for the same reason that human beings seem to shoot many things down, almost as a knee-jerk reaction - because it is something new to us.

He seems to think that it’s ludicrous that Mr Perera asks that the LLRC dig up ‘root causes’ of the conflict. He seems to think that it’s racist that Mr Saravanamuttu says ‘Tamil children must know how their fathers died!’

Why do people often think that the pointing out of inequality is racism?

Of course - no one can deny that children all over Sri Lanka have lost their fathers to this war, and that they are all equal in their suffering. I do not wish to undermine the pain of the families of the deceased combatants of the SLA, nor do I wish to undermine the enormous service they have done us all. But in their grief, the children of the lost soldiers of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces can feel proud, they can march at Victory Day and wave the national flag, they can lay flowers on a decorated grave, they can openly celebrate the life of their father - a national hero. But what of the children of the dead LTTE cadres? Never mind that - what of the children of the men who had nothing to do with the LTTE but were abducted at night, killed, tortured, made to ‘disappear’?

I think all that Mr Saravanamuttu hopes to say is that we must be equal in our distribution of answers - we must be just in our giving out of truth.

Yes, Mr Seneviratne - all of these children, both Sinhalese and Tamil, have the right to know the truth. We have the right to know the truth. How else can we build a better country, a new identity, if not on the shoulders of a new generation of Sri Lankans that have confronted and dealt with the truth? How can a country move on, or even hope to get over it, without the truth? How does one come out wiser at the other end if one does not acknowledge and understand the truth?

Mr Seneviratne dismisses the word, the very idea of ‘truth’. Perhaps he does not realise, or chooses to ignore, the value of something as simple, something as cliché, as the truth.

It’s sad and disappointing that those like Mr Seneviratne are turning this into a battle against the NGOs, an opportunity for petty, personal attacks and mud-slinging. This could instead be a chance for all us civilians to support the idea of a Commission and demand that it works transparently and truthfully to investigate, for us, the deeper layers of this issue.

Are the answers easy? No. How can they be, when the questions themselves are so hard. But why attempt to stop those who wish to ask these questions? Why be afraid of what we might find? Is it a reaction out of fear?

Are we so afraid, as a nation, to confront the realities of our past and present?

Colombo is nice, if you know where to look. There are people doing interesting things with their time and sharing it with their friends. There are musicians who have long hair, artists wh0 have nice hands, and writers who are good with words but little else.

Colombo is exciting if you don’t want your excitement gift-wrapped - here it comes in finding where to buy the perfect Lamprais and having an iced-coffee after. In discovering new short-cuts with know-it-all cab drivers. In finding that a clean stretch of beach is never too far away.

Colombo is fun if you can make your own fun. If you can rally up the troops for the day on the beach. If you’d like to sit in a seedy sea-side shack eating fresh, grilled fish. If you know people who know some other people who’ll invite you to a weird party, where you’ll meet some strange people, and dance to some stranger music.

Colombo is an adventure if you’re willing to go down suspicious little roads. You will find tiny shops that sell crochet, lace and ribbon in every imaginable colour, size and shape. You will find a noisy, busy hole-in-the-wall that sells delicious Jaffna food at lunchtime. You will discover houses where old aunties make the world’s tastiest profiteroles, or perhaps you will find a family that can make you pretty much anything out of cane.

Colombo is cool if you have a little money - of course. If you can occasionally go and watch a movie in a cinema, or a play in the theatre. If you can have a drink with your friends at a lake-side bar, or a meal in a garden restaurant. If you can drive out of town for the weekend once in awhile. And on the days that you don’t, you can still sit on the beach somewhere and watch the sunset, for free.

Colombo is interesting if you enjoy juxtaposition - a place where air conditioned houses with swimming pools exist down the road from urban slums, where children grab your skirt and beg for money when you come out of your neighbourhood supermarket, where you can get everything from wireless internet to Blackberrys to sports cars to McDonalds to DKNY, but you know that a day-labourer’s wage is only a little more than what you just spent on lunch. A place that is incredibly modern in some ways, and hopelessly old-fashioned in others. Colombo is interesting if you allow it to open up to you - if you can see, from the corner of your eye, the real world expanding and stretching right outside of your own. If you don’t mind the dirt and the grime and the frustration that lies just beneath the surface.

Colombo is funny if you enjoy madness. If you enjoy seeing traffic coming to a halt to let a herd of cows cross the street. If you laugh when you see the local community getting creative with ‘Don’t Dump Your Garbage Here’ signs. If you like a people that can go on strike or protest about almost anything - hey, I’d rather that than a people that are dumbed down into obedience. If you like tri-shaw drivers with political opinions. If you can appreciate the unique brand of humour in local comedy films and tele-dramas, or the blatant violation of copyright law that’s visibly displayed everywhere - Beyonce selling Lakmaali Communications, Aishwariya Rai selling every jewellery store in Wellawatte.

Colombo is great if you like life-stories - everyone has one, and everyone wants you to hear theirs. You can hear about arranged marriages that turned into love stories, political revolutions that turned into farce, funerals that turned into massacres, ambitious boys that turned into business moguls, con-men who turned into parliamentarians, cricketers that turned into national heroes. Everyone has a story - and through their story, they will tell you the story of this town, and this country.

Colombo is OK if you can deal with corruption, inefficiency and the abuse of power at every possible level - even the security guard outside a government building thinks he’s better than you, never mind the people inside. It’s OK if you take it in your stride, resist it whenever you can, in whatever way you can and get on with your life the rest of the time.

Colombo is nice if it’s your home. If you’ve lived here all your life, if you had been born here and if you had grown up here. If your friends are always around the corner, and there is a family lunch every Sunday. If you can drive down the road where you grew up, if you can occasionally drive past your old school, if you can now sit in a spot where you had sat as a child, if you can take the same cycling route that you took as a child, if you can drink the deep-purple fizzy drink that you drank too much of as a child.

It’s nice if it’s your home because then you can also hate it sometimes - you can hatch plans to get away, you can dream about living somewhere else, you can write about it angrily - because you will always have that right. It will always be yours, and you will belong to it - in some way.

I wrote this letter to the Editor of DM Online regarding a shocking video-documentary that was posted there on 7 August. This letter was written with the support of many others who were equally horrified by the video.

11 August 2010

Dear Mr. Easwaran Rutnam,

I am writing to you regarding a video posted on Daily Mirror Online titled “Women of the Night” published at the following URL: http://video.dailymirror.lk/videos/615/women-of-the-night

There are many disturbing aspects about this short documentary that compelled me to write directly to you as the News Editor of Daily Mirror Online.

I am stunned that in this day and age, leading English publications like Daily Mirror continue to endorse and publish outdated, archaic and ignorant views on widely discussed topics such as prostitution. There is a wealth of information, findings and statistics available on this matter, making it inexcusable to publish such old-fashioned, ignorant, narrow-minded and downright sexist views on it.

Firstly, as you will I am sure also agree, prostitution is a serious issue. However, this video treats it as a melodrama. Inanely titled “Women of the Night”, the documentary opens with the narrator saying that even though prostitution is illegal in Sri Lanka, “prostitutes continue to stand freely on the roads” while the authorities turn a blind eye. What this indicates to the viewer is that the producers of this video clearly believe that prostitution is evil and morally bankrupt – akin to saying that ‘rapists continue to roam the country freely’. This clearly indicates the reporters responsible for the video believe that prostitutes should be arrested and put away by the ‘authorities’, turning prostitutes into predators who are vaunt to pounce on unsuspecting, innocent victims!

She goes on to tell us that in order to procure an interview with a ‘prostitute’ – and the narrator keeps using this term, even though this term itself is offensive and disused in research and professional media and is widely considered politically incorrect - the Daily Mirror Online team lied to the sex-worker featured in the video, saying instead that they were University students conducting a study on prostitution in Sri Lanka. As far as I know, this is in direct violation of the PCCSL Code of Ethics. Easily accessible here at http://www.pccsl.lk/code_of_practice.php, the Code clearly states that -

8. HARASSMENT and SUBTERFUGE
8.1: Journalists, including photo-journalists, must not seek to obtain information or pictures through intimidation or harassment or by misrepresentation or subterfuge. The use of long-lens cameras or listening devices must also not be used unless this can be justified in the public interest and the material could not have been obtained by other means.

One assumes that what is meant by ‘public interest’ is that reporters are allowed subterfuge, for example, if they are investigating a person, process or issue that directly threatens or concerns public safety and security if not exposed. This brings to mind sting investigations, where a reporter suspects for example a Government official is misusing public funds, or in the case of going undercover to expose terrorist activities, human trafficking or corrupt arms deals. Your coverage of sex-workers in Colombo does not fall into this category.

There are many activists and journalists in Sri Lanka who work with sex-workers in a more professional and ethical manner. It is highly probable that the sex-worker featured in the video would not have refused an interview with Daily Mirror Online, had the journalists assured her that her name would be changed and her face obscured in the video. This approach requires journalists to invest time in explaining to the sex-worker what the intention and agenda of the documentary is. Clearly the reporters who made this video either didn’t bother - or worse, didn’t think that someone like a ‘prostitute’ was deserving of any explanations.

The documentary goes on to state things like ‘The thought of determining a price to have sex itself is appalling’, suggesting a clear moral judgment by the journalists who produced the video. This runs against professional journalism that seeks to inform, not prejudge. Do these journalists not know that it is not within the scope of their jobs as journalists to pass judgment – but that their work is limited to reporting the facts and allowing the readers/viewers to form opinions?

Further, the documentary is a good example of lazy journalism. There are many other ways the reporters could have approached this story:

1. Did the journalists not explore what other options these women really have? It’s ironic because in this very same documentary, the sex-worker being interviewed tells a devastating story about how she was tricked into prostitution.

2. Why did the journalists not interrogate the lack of opportunities for rehabilitation and the lack of support for sex-workers from ‘the authorities’ to find themselves a lucrative vocation and integrate themselves into society? Why not do a story about how prostitution is illegal, but how these women are not offered any alternatives, or any help or support from the state and the law to make a living?

3. Why did the journalists not look at what information is available for sex-workers regarding their rights as women as and human beings? Ironically, the sex-worker featured in the video mentions how she was badly beaten by one client – did the reporters bother to investigate further into what assistance is available for these people to assert their right to work freely and without fear of physical harm and harassment?

4. Did the journalists care to note that the continued criminalization of prostitution means that sex-workers cannot receive the protection of the state or the Police in their work?

5. Why did the journalists not look into all the lobbying that has gone into this matter – both for the legalization of prostitution and against it? What are the arguments both for and against? Who are the figureheads of these movements?

Clichéd, moralistic piffle parading as journalism is a tragic indictment of the quality of journalism practiced by and promoted at Daily Mirror Online. This story is a lost opportunity for both the reporters and viewers to meaningfully discuss alternative livelihoods, long-term solutions and safe working conditions for sex-workers in Sri Lanka. The documentary is shallow and voyeuristic - while not offering any real insight into the issue, it instead highlights the details of how sex-workers pick up and ‘entertain clients’. It almost makes one think that DM Online is pursuing a marketing policy that ’sex sells’ and that this story is meant to increase their online readership.

Finally, it is an insult to all the years of work that different activists, lawyers and academics have done, attempting to change society’s views on prostitution and attempting to humanize sex-workers in the eyes of the public. These kinds of morally superior, condescending views being published so openly by a leading and well-known publication is hugely damaging, and shows how little we as a society have evolved and progressed. It is a blemish on us all.

It is up to you as an Editor to guide your team of journalists and reporters - it is your duty to instill in them integrity, high standards and a strong work ethic.

I do hope that you and your team at DM Online will take this letter in the right spirit, and that you will discuss this matter and take whatever steps needed to ensure that it does not happen again in the future. I am a regular reader of DM and DM Online and have high expectations of you and your team.

Your sincerely,

Subha Menike Wijesiriwardena.