Portrait

I read Island of Blood many years ago, when I was a younger. At that age, I was moved to anger by the horrific accounts of racism and injustice. Anita Pratap gave an insightful look into Prabhakaran’s mind and the beginnings of the LTTE. She portrayed him as brave, heroic, the chosen leader of the Tamil struggle. It was a while before I saw that book for what it is: propaganda. She wrote an irresponsible, one-sided account, which, as a journalist, she should be ashamed of. She did a series of interviews with him in the ’80s, which have also proved to be both unique and insightful, but unfortunately, typical of her, blatantly biased. Despite the rare opportunities she had to get that close to one of the most elusive, determined master minds of modern terrorism, she didn’t use them as a real journalist would have. She used them to further her own agenda and her own opinions. Even in this interview, although it is extremely interesting, it’s clear that she is intending the questions in a very specific direction. More recently, she has written another article which is just as shallow, and places things in very unrealistic blacks and whites. You can see it here.

I left this comment on Chitrangi’s weblog, where the above article had been posted:

“Anita Pratap should just stop. Whatever positive attributes of her her book, Island of Blood, which gave an interesting and unique insight into the workings and beginnings of the LTTE, were overshadowed by her un-professional one-sided bigotry. She’s supposed to be a journalist. And this is what I hate: if you want to publish biased, uninformed opinions that you hold, then don’t do it under the pretense of journalism. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, we all have our one-sided opinions, but a journalist has a responsibility to tell both sides.

This article is just another example of her sweeping and ignorant ramblings, which I think are a pathetic excuse for journalism.

I have always attempted to inform myself of both sides of the conflict, and I have always condemned acts of violence committed both by the GoSL and the LTTE. I have always been very open about my distaste for the way that the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Government are handling the current situation. But even I know that the LTTE is a terrorist group. They cannot be called anything else. This fact is undeniable. They are terrorists.

By writing this kind of misleading garbage, when you have the power and the place to write, is just futile and meaningless. It’s offensive. One should be using the opportunity to tell the truth. Glorifying Prabhakaran to be some sort of heroic leader of the Tamil battle and glorifying his army and his cause is just silly and naive. It only serves to accelerate the growth of fanatic and misplaced Nationalism both amongst the Tamils and the Sinhalese. There is nothing honourable about what Prabhakaran has done, and there will be nothing honourable or dignified in his death or suicide, if that does ever happen. If he does get held up as a martyr by the many brainwashed and misguided masses, it will be because of agendas like Anita Pratap’s.

I admit, I have always struggled to see the LTTE’s side of things. But it is time they make a decision, that will for once, be about the people, and not themselves.”

They’re all just people. Just like you and me and everyone we know and love, they too are just people. They have no more energy to be passionate or angry or hostile anymore.

I wish the people who are actually fighting this war would, for once, take a step back and make a decision that will be for the people, and not for themselves. Both sides need to think about these people; just normal, innocent people who have no desire to die for a glamorous cause. I wish that those who are carrying the weapons, will do what it takes to get these civilians out of this mess that they have created. I wish they would just stop. Give it up. Let it go. Someone here needs to compromise. Someone here needs to think of the bigger picture and be the bigger man.

From the Human Rights Watch Report, February 2009:

“When we came to Suthanthirapuram, it was full of dead bodies. Bodies were lying along the road. Nobody cared about them. They smelled. We didn’t have food for two days. We slept in the field.

Some 150 people started out together, but when we tried to leave, at Suthanthirapuruam, the LTTE tried to stop us. There was only a narrow path to leave by. The LTTE caught us. There was fighting, arguments. They were shooting at us. Many people were injured and killed. It was shocking to see. Only 65 were in my group when we came out. We were separated from the rest along the way.

One father was carrying his child on his back. As they were running from the LTTE, he was holding him by the arms so hard-in order not to lose him-that he broke both of the child’s arms.”

So, I have totally missed this ridiculous argument between a certain Nibras Bawa and the rest of the Sri Lankan blogosphere, headed by, I am proud to say, none other than my good friend and fellow-blogger Rhythmic Diaspora.

It’s this age-old argument: if women want to be treated with respect, they should dress and behave ‘decently’.
First of all, decent by whose standards? Who are these bigoted people we need to take our moral standards from?

Second of all: Women don’t need to do or not do any thing in particular to be respected by others. They deserve it as human beings simply by the virtue of being alive.

I have always been surprised at how male chauvinism infiltrates even the highest ranks of men: meaning I have come across really nice, intelligent guys who are just inherently sexist, and may not even realise they are.

As I just said on RD’s blog, there have always existed different standards of sexual behaviour for men and women. While men are expected to be promiscuous and sleazy, just because they are men, women are not given this freedom of behaviour without being cruelly and unfairly judged and disrespected for it. I have met so many men who are, in every sense of the words, ’sluts’, and are ‘easy’. But they are never considered easy or slutty no matter how many women they sleep with, simply because they are men and sexual promiscuity is expected of them, and even looked up to (by other men, mostly) with respect as achievements, or ‘conquests’. It is also always assumed that the men are the ones who are the conquerors in these relationships, and never the women. The women are always just the tools.

If a woman sleeps with multiple men, or attempts to pick up men in the same way that men pick up women, it is immediately looked upon, even by the most supposedly liberal groups of society, as act that compromises her dignity of self respect. Why can’t a woman follow the same patterns of behaviour as men and still retain her respect and status in society?

The other crushing thing is that a woman who chooses this lifestyle is neither by respected by men, nor women. The women will call her a slut, and the men will call her easy. But the men will still find her good enough to sleep with her, but not good enough to take home to their mommies. So all these ‘liberal’ men will sleep around endlessly with these ‘easy’ girls, simply because they are easy and the sex is achieved without a great amount of effort, and then discard them and settle down for long relationships with wholesome, ‘decent girls’ who don’t have a man-a-night track record.

So a woman who chooses to exercise her right to have sex with whoever she pleases whenever she pleases, definitely doesn’t have a lot to look forward to.

This idea is not only in-built into men, but unfortunately into many women as well. This leads to many unhealthy notions in women, like ‘I cannot get a men unless I sleep with him’, or ‘I am only as good as a man says I am’, or worst, ‘I am evil and unworthy if I sleep with more than one man’. It also leads to women hating and judging each other. Women themselves are sexist against their own kind.

However, I sometimes do feel that unfortunately, this is the reality of the world we live in, and therefore we women need to protect ourselves at any cost from discrimination and disrespect. Sometimes, this may call for curbing our various lusts and not acting out on our every whim and fancy with men. In other words, it calls for a degree of carefulness. I realise this is unfair, especially since men don’t need to adhere to the same rules. But let’s face it. It’s the reality and we might as well learn how to deal with it, in practical and realistic terms.

Of course this doesn’t mean I endorse telling women that they need to dress properly if they don’t want to be stared at or molested. That’s just the worst kind of bullshit. How come women don’t grope men on buses? How come women don’t stare and call out to every man that passes them by on the street? How come women aren’t overcome by some maniacal frenzy for sex at any given moment?

Just a little self control, my friend. And some basic respect for mankind.

I got into a tri shaw today in Colpetty. The driver was this nice Muslim uncle with white hair who insisted on speaking to me in English. I like talking to tri shaw drivers. They’re always interesting, and most often very passionate and opinionated. Not long into our conversation, he asked me whether I’m going to vote. I said I would like to, but it doesn’t seem as though there is anyone worth voting for. I said this half-jokingly. It turns out that this guy is actually a candidate for an independent party! I can’t remember which, but the tea leaves are their symbol. Then he bombards me with his ‘help the poor help themselves’ propaganda, and gives me his card and gives me a leaflet and everything. I’m quite impressed and I promise to think about it when I get off and pay him.

I like it when Sri Lankans actually want to help themselves. I find that the general attitude towards our lives, our jobs, our problems is always a bit ‘pathetic’. I don’t mean I think it’s pathetic, I mean I think people feel too sorry for themselves. We wallow in playing the victim, when most often the only thing we’re bogged down by are our own complacency and inefficiency. People do not take pride in their jobs here, especially in the government sector, people don’t capitalize on good opportunities and make the most of them. People don’t manage their time well in order to be more efficient and thus do better for themselves. We are a fiercely intelligent and lovely people: I think we have forgotten that we are. It’s been too long since we’ve been poor and downtrodden and ruled over by someone else. We’ve let our humility turn into sheer laziness. And I don’t mean just the impoverished. The well-to-do’s of this country are plagued by their own brand of indolence and the absolute refusal to do anything more than what is required of them. If you look so far as even India, you will find that people are far more awakened, interested and eager to get ahead. Thailand is another great example of super efficiency and enthusiasm which is fuelled on by national pride.

Anyway, needless to say I am always impressed when I meet people who want to work hard to get places, who want to actually do something to change their life, or the lives of others, and don’t expect it to be served to you on a silver platter.

It may be a time when we can’t do much to change the country we live in, but a time is coming when we can all take the chance. Vote in the upcoming elections. Use your right to vote in a democratically selected candidate who will further your dreams and values. Do the research, follow their campaigns, meet the candidates and use this opportunity to make a difference. This is not some great humanitarian thing that is being asked of you: do it for yourself.

I see great potential in Shiral Lakthilaka and Rosy Senanayake. Ok, she maybe a bit strange personally, but I think she is intelligent, bold and diplomatic and has a certain worldly quality about her. She also has a great way with people I think, no matter who they are. He seems a very solid candidate; he has proven himself to be honest, hardworking and practical. He’s not just a talker, he seems to have some real solutions and ideas.

Indi has some interviews with him:

http://indi.ca/2009/03/shiral-lakthilaka-39-interview/

Anyway these are just my thoughts. I hope everyone uses their vote this time, it’s the least we can do.

I have always hated Oprah. No OK, wait. There was a time, once a long time ago, when I did watch her show with great admiration. But then I grew up enough to realise that she is actually a talentless hack who is not funny, not smart, not interesting, and not any of the things that it takes to be mildly worth watching. Worse, she is self- righteous, sanctimonious and all she does is judge people and judge people and judge people. And I cannot believe that Americans put themselves on her show day after day, to have their self-worth and self-respect stripped to shreds on national TV. Her fame and fortune rides on the pathetic, basic human instinct we all have which gives us great pleasure in watching someone else be told off in public for something they did wrong, and smugly thinking ‘Hah. I’m better than that’. We love watching someone else’s tragedy unfold in public. We sit glued to it in some kind of morbid fascination. She has made her millions selling the suffering of others. She’s vile, moronic, offensive and frankly, really politically incorrect. I don’t understand how she is still even on TV and that people haven’t realised the fact that watching that show is downright unhealthy.

I have a friend staying with me right now, and one day recently I walked into our living room and she was watching Oprah on TV. I didn’t want to impose, so I just sat and watched for 5 minutes, also mildly curious as I haven’t watched an Oprah show in a long time.

On this episode, they’d gotten together a bunch of single mothers who were on an average between 40-50 years old. These women are working 2, sometimes 3 jobs at the same, taking care of 3-4 children and keeping it all together, entirely on their own. Some have come out of destructive relationships, some have even experienced abuse. These women are heroes. They’re your real-life heroes. Was their selflessness and their exemplary lifestyles of hard work and sacrifice for their loved ones the focus of the story? NOPE. It was the fact they looked ten years older than they actually were.

Oprah proceeds to take these women out of their ordinary, honest lives and puts them each in the ‘truth box’: a transparent yet sound-proof booth which sits on the middle of a crowded American street. While they’re standing in there oblivious to the noise outside, people are encouraged to stop, take a look, and hazard a guess at the woman’s age. Passers-by comment on the unkempt nature of each of the women, in quite harsh and blunt terms, saying their teeth are bad, their hair is bad, their skin is bad, blah blah blah, and everyone pegs the woman at being (drum roll) ten years older than she actually is. That’s the crux of the show.

OK. You could take them out, buy them some new clothes, get them a decent hair cut and that would still be a nice thing to do for these women, most of whom don’t have the time, or the money to treat themselves. Give them a cash prize in recognition of how hard they work. Give them an award on National TV for being brave women. I would have been OK with that. But no, Oprah, unsatisfied with the triumphant nature of the story as it is, goes the extra mile. Many of them burst into tears, discussing why they have fallen into such negligence. They say between abusive relationships, children and keeping a real life in the real world together, they have ‘forgotten to care for themselves’. Sounds fair to me. So they are taken by Oprah to receive a full make over. And this full make over doesn’t entail new clothes and a nice manicure. No, it goes into all the horribly, intrinsically sexist and politically incorrect creations of our time: things that were created to make money by telling women that they simply are not good enough, or young enough, or pretty enough. These women receive Botox injections, other forms of plastic surgery, Lasik treatment, new teeth, on top of new hair cuts (which include colouring etc.), make up styled by a professional and new clothes, which are more likely than not completely uncharacteristic of her.

And then they’re brought on the show, and made to believe that now because they look better, they’re supposed to ‘feel’ better about themselves. Now I don’t doubt that these women did in fact feel a lot better about themselves after this makeover. I’m certain they gained a lot of self confidence and became more assured and secure. But this is exactly the point: the fact that we need to look good to feel good is a age-old notion that has been stuffed down the throats of women over centuries. Oprah should be telling them exactly the opposite; she should be telling them it’s OK to look a little scruffy because they work so hard, that it’s OK to not have a haircut every two weeks because they need to do more important stuff. Why doesn’t Oprah give them the right to feel confident anyway? Why doesn’t she make them feel good about themselves, just as they are? Why not make the show about how great they are, which would have undoubtedly made them feel worthy and that what they’re doing is acknowledged? Why are they not worthy of being given a pat on the back and put on Oprah without being completely changed?

Oprah should be brought to justice and told that she has no right to judge anyone. Who is she to tell anyone that they need to look better or work harder or do anything differently? She has it alright, it seems. What does she know about working 3 jobs or indeed about being the single mother of more than one child?

I know she is a great philanthropist and I am always glad when the willing help the needy. But she should get off TV and stop polluting the minds of those who just don’t know better and treat her words as the gospel truth. She is just a marketing robot set up to make money and influence millions of people to buy stuff that they don’t need and do stuff that they don’t need to do and to feel things that they don’t need to be made to feel by a television show host.

It is the ultimate power, having the power to influence the way people think, the way they feel. And a lot of dangerous people yield that power in today’s world, and Oprah is topping that list.

We were on the train to Hikkaduwa last weekend. One of those fancy new trains, all squeaky clean still, blue and white. On a Friday evening, it was the worst possible time to be on a train down south. We were packed like sardines into it, nose to nose. Of course everyone stares at us, maybe as we are dressed differently, maybe because we are speaking in English, maybe because there are quite a few of us. Who knows.

After awhile, we notice that all the baggage racks are empty, and this is a part of the reason why it feels so crowded…because everyone and their baggage doesn’t leave one very much room to have both feet planted firmly on the ground. I stood like this for awhile, and then, in desperation, I hoisted my bag up onto the baggage rack. The empty baggage rack. Now, there was a notice pasted onto the wall of the train that said (in Sinhalese only, of course, in a country where not only do we have a multi-lingual community, but one in which we frequently entertain tourists) to please avoid placing your baggage on the baggage racks as far as possible, for security reasons. And they don’t mean security reasons like the bag may fall on the head of the person seated beneath it and kill them. No. They mean security reasons like the bag could be contain a bomb. Anyhow, the notice clearly said ‘avoid as far as possible’ and it did not state that this was forbidden.

First of all, I really don’t see why you would have baggage racks and then tell people not to place their baggage on it. What is for then, your children? Secondly, I really don’t see how not putting your baggage there, you could avoid a bomb exploding. A bomb in a bag, whether it is on the ground or on the rack, will explode and thereby kill or harm everyone in the near vicinity. I don’t see how placing the bag on the rack is going to increase it’s chances of killing everyone or make it more dangerous. This seems to me like a pretty inefficient and futile way of handling the problem, and just another way to scare people and make them more paranoid than they already are (and they are militantly paranoid, aren’t they?).

As I proceeded to do this, the woman and the man who were sitting beneath my bag, now on the rack, flipped out. Especially the woman. They started shouting, and told me, in English, that this was forbidden, and just because I speak English don’t get off thinking that I am above the law of this country. And I’m like WTF? What has that got to do with anything?

So I tell them very kindly, in Sinhalese, that as they are happily seated and I am standing, I don’t expect them to understand my plight, but I really do not have any room in which to even out both my feet down, and therefore, my bag was going to stay on the rack. They continued to hoo and haa and discuss us avidly in loud whispers (in Sinhalese) as if we weren’t there, or as if we wouldn’t understand.

Meanwhile, in our compartment, there was a group of loud, boisterous boys who were singing baila and banging away on the sides of the train, with no regard for the hundred other people who had no choice but to be deafened by this unpleasant and loud ruckus. Of course, this was completely harmless, I understand that. But it seemed strange to me that of course no one complains about that. It’s not like that’s annoying or anything. But I get the concerned citizen number for putting my bag on the baggage rack.

So, basically, if you dress normally but do weird stuff, it’s OK. But if you’re dressed weird and do normal stuff, like put your bag on the baggage rack, you’re a freak.

I’m always tickled by the irony: the people of this country care so passionately about all the stupidest rules, and yet disregard the truly important ones as if they were a joke. This may sound far fetched and conspiracy theory-like, but this incident was just another in the list of incident that, to me, display the growing nationalism amongst even the most average Sri Lankans. People have an even stronger sense of a particular code of behaviour that is ’socially acceptable’ and ‘Sri Lankan’. In another incident, one not so actively putting-off, at a recent meeting on Citizen Journalism, one gentleman kept saying that while it was great that we all have blogs, how does one call this true citizen journalism as it is not the voice of the true Sri Lankan citizen that is heard through our blogs. I am a true Sri Lankan citizen! All of you are!

So our train journey continued, punctuated by stares and whispered conversations about us. And the boy band continued almost right to the end, as loud and as annoying as they were when they began.