thanks

By all means please do publish your experiences. It would be very useful to everyone concerned. You could start your own blog, or email me posts and I will publish them as guest posts on my blog.

But you cannot expect me to write about them. To me, the situation is very much complex and grey, and not black and white. I have not experienced anything that has made the situation black and white for me. Who knows? Had I lost someone I loved or lost a limb maybe I would be just like you: maybe I would see things as clear cut and as a bunch moral absolutes. I would never claim to be above that. But since I have not had such experiences, and I thank my stars for this every day I promise you, I do not see it like that.

I am sorry. You are not the first person who has accused me of being unhappy that the war is over. I never supported the war or all the violence that surrounded it. I am so happy that it is over. Just because I have expressed concern for what’s next, this does not mean that I am unhappy about the fact that the GoSL won it. Please try and separate the two issues. If you would read my blog, you will see that I have always been against the war. I have never belittled the death of anyone, leave alone someone who died as a result of the war.

I shouldn’t bother defending myself really, but I do so because this is something that I really care about. This is something that has always been close to my heart and it kills me to think that people believe that I am someone who does not care because I have escaped the suffering. Everyone who has not suffered is not indifferent. It does not take suffering to make someone care. Of course suffering probably makes one care more, obviously, but those of us who have not suffered are not all heartless beasts.

As for this sentence “I’ll always be seen as some NGO asshole that benefits from the war. ” These were your words not mine.

You do need to understand that there are people who were quite personally affected by the war in Sri Lanka.

Those of us who paid the price and did not have the luxuary of analysing the situation from Colombo or from UK and USA, we do not see the situation as grey at all.

It is my brother they killed, it is my uncle whom they drive away from his own property , it was my best friend who was blown to bits in the bombing in Colombo.

For us we do not have the luxary of the air chair analysis and the endless talks of perceptives as you or yours have.

Those of you who have NEVER faced hunger or the threat of loss of property or the grief that tears at your heart every single minute at the useless death of your friend or relative have no perspective on the war.

If you have not scraped or collected or identified the body of your friend, brother or cousin, you have no perspective of our pain.

Ofcourse you cannot even imagine such grief !!!

So each time you talk of grey and each time you be little the death of ours we will tell you. We have lost them but we will do everything possible to ensure that their death is not belittled. They were not statistics Electra. For us they were people , we knew their names and their favourite books !!!

Imagine yourself scraping off the body of your parent, sibling or friend from the railway track or trying to identify their bodies from the debris. Imagine you are at the funeral of your brother and see his sealed coffin. Now think of the pain you might feel.
Multiply that pain 1000 fold when you read that their deaths belittled as spoken in terms of statistics.

Now you might feel .00001 of the pain and grief that we live with.

As for judgement, your blog itself is named “Portrait”. Of course we are going to judge you on what you write. That is the very persona of the blogger.

Anne: Just because I’m not making a post a minute about how hard I’m working to help the IDPs and oh how many terrible things I’ve seen, it doesn’t mean I’m not. I am doing everything I can, and I like to keep my personal life separate from my blog so I don’t write posts specifically about how much money I donated or how many times I’ve been to Vavuniya or how many crying children I’ve held in my arms.

Just get off my back, and stop telling me what to say and what to post about. All of you should just stop seeing what I’m NOT saying and think about what I AM saying. Start your own blog, where you can post what you like and as many links to as many organisations as you like.

Just leave me alone, I’m really tired of getting so much shit. Everyone has limits and I’ve reached mine.

In your own way you have expressed grief to SLA ??? THAT must be the same time that the Christian church apologised for the witch hunt !!!

Hope you have read the above and realised that the Tamil people too are happy about the death of brutality.

There are two types that are not pleased about the end of the war except for the LTTE, of course. The NGOs that love to egg the pudding and the arms dealers.

End of the war spells disaster to both these parties and therefore they are very unhappy.

hmmm which category are you and yours in because you are clearly displaying unhappiness.

Was there a different way to finish the war ???If there was perhaps it is your fault for not brining that to the attention of the government.

Electra words are cheap and easy . Actions are not. All you have so far shown are the words and that is all.

Look at your post on the IDPs . Purely words . Is there a single line of action , at least promoting the good work that ACT is going and displaying their URL may have been the least that you could have done.

Real hope only comes from working hard and working at ground level and not trying to egg your pudding by the misery of other people.

It seems as though you will disagree with me no matter what I write. And it didn’t take Javajones to figure that out. I figured this out a long time ago. I like to think it’s nothing personal, but at this stage I really don’t know. It seems as though no matter how carefully I write, or how objective or fair I try to be (and I do try, and I like to think that for the most part, I do succeed) you see me as being hateful and unfair and all the rest of it. I have tried not to let your inane, illogical and sometimes even incomprehensible arguments get to me, and I have succeeded in that aspect, too. Mostly.

I say inane because you barely make any sense. You’re so busy taking other people’s ideas apart that I sometimes wonder whether you actually have any of your own. I say illogical because you lack logic, pure and simple. You spend a long time going around and around and in the end, you’ve forgotten where you started. I say incomprehensible because sometimes I actually cannot understand what you’re saying.

Your logic fails me because of your inability to adapt. You see each post through the same frame, you process each post using the same formula. You cannot do this. It is not forbidden, so much as actually impossible. And thus you fail to see any sense in it, and as a result you fail to make any sense. You can’t judge everything I write through the same equation. You cannot filter it all through the same filter. You cannot expect every post I write to comprehensively encompass everything, and trash it when it doesn’t, because obviously, there will be a world of things it doesn’t say. You cannot assess what a post does not say alone and understand what it is saying. You must first assess what it does say. And you never really seem to do this.

You and I don’t write in the same way. Your blog is full of statements, rather than anything else. I try to write. I like to write. This is why I have a blog. You attack me because it seems you do not understand the way I write. You cannot read between the lines. Unless I use the very specific words, you don’t understand that I have alluded to that very same idea in another, more subtle way. I like to think I write in a style of some sort, be it good or bad. You do not seem to be able to comprehend this style, and therefore you don’t bother to see what is truly being said. It’s like you do a keyword search, and if you don’t come across any of the words you are looking for, you start having a fit. I don’t write like you. And I don’t want to. You always blame me for hiding behind rhetoric. I am not hiding, that is merely the way I write. It’s not my fault you can’t see the subtext and look only for the glaring statements. I try not to make glaring statements. I try not to view things in stark black and white. This is not how I see the world and I don’t wish to.

Funnily, I think we would agree on a fair number of things. But you’re determined to see me as the enemy, so you do. In your mind, you have a clear picture of who I am and what I believe: NGO peacenik, pro LTTE and whatnot. So no matter what I say, you understand it to mean what you think it means. Of course, we would also disagree on a lot, but that’s fine. It’s healthy to disagree. If you know what you’re disagreeing with. With you, I don’t even know what you’re shouting about anymore. I can’t even disagree because your way of saying things is so confusing and round-a-bout. So I always end up just defending myself, and I shouldn’t.

This post is the perfect example. I am condemning the LTTE in a big way, and telling everyone who is still supporting it that it is futile, and that there may be more useful work to be done here than protesting. I am saying they have wasted 30 years supporting a cause that never materialised, so maybe at least now they can stop and help those who were oppressed by it instead. I’m saying they supported ‘extremism and violence’. But you do not see that. Since I have not used the words you are familiar with when it comes to this subject, you have missed the point. Since I have not said who exactly I mean, you have missed the point.

I don’t wish to equalise the Armed Forces of my country to a terrorist group. But their actions, on some occasions have been equal. And therefore, I can’t help but equate them if I wish to acknowledge the truth and not lie to myself. They have broken laws too, they have defied the laws of conduct on a battlefield. And they are a state Army. It is their own actions which have compelled me to equate them to the LTTE. But I said, in an earlier post, that I am willing to hope that they will never do these things again, now that the war is over.

I stand by my view that war is not a glorious thing. It is something that should be entered into as a last resort. I do not wish to take anything away from the SLA that fought and won the war, I have paid my homage to them in an earlier post, and in my own way, and I have expressed my grief for all the young men who have died in its service. Just because I do not wish to glorify war, it doesn’t mean that I don’t understand what a huge sacrifice they have made for my safety. I realise that. I realise the enormous human cost that has been paid here. But on principle war is not an answer as I far as I am concerned, and that is that. But you however, cannot separate the two. You cannot separate my view on ‘war’ as a concept from my view on the Army, whom I see as human beings. I respect them, as much as any one human being can respect another. But I cannot accept war as a solution, therefore I do not support it. But this does not mean I don’t support the men who have fought and died and have been injured.

You also have been, over the years, unable to understand that just because I don’t support the GoSL, it does not mean I support the LTTE. This has been a crucial misunderstanding on your part. In your little world of black and white, you cannot grasp how someone can condemn one side and not be a supporter of the other side. I condemn violence and injustice, as a whole, and I condemn anyone who perpetrates it. Therefore I have been compelled to condemn the GoSL sometimes, once again due to their own actions. But once again, I have said that I am willing to hope. I am willing to give them a chance.

I do not believe that I am hateful or racist or any of the things that you have called me. In my conscience, I know I am none of those things and that is enough for me.

I used to think there was some point in arguing with you, but now I see beyond a doubt that there isn’t. You will, it seems on principle, disagree with everything I write simply because you cannot understand it.

Your vision is too narrow to see anything beyond what you want to see. Your mind is too narrow to accept any views or truth other than what you want to believe. You are too caught up in your own opinions and ways to ever see sense in anything else anyone else says or thinks.

I’ll leave it here. I thought I’d dignify your illogical and boring rants with one last response before I leave it be forever.You are of course more than welcome to comment on my blog, as you always have been, and of course I will continue to read them and try to understand. But I don’t think there is any point in continuing in any kind of discussion with you, as I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

in contrast some ppl try to ban( and did as far as kottu was concerned) things that they find objectionable . wonder where java jones and electra stood/stand on that?

slander sri lankans and military.
devalue the glory and achievements sri lankns in war against terrorists,
morally equalize terrorists and sl military,
are racist ( ie equate tamils with ltte, and consider terrorists as rebels engaged in a ethnic conflict and not criminal thugs ),
excuse or deny, peacenik support for appeasement of terrorists, and their corruption.
are hypocritical or irrational

i hate ( yes hate ) all that
this post does some of that .(and some earlier posts here did all of that ) .
trying to hide those things in empty rhetoric and platitudes does not mitigate the objectionable of those things .

i certainly do not empathize with ppl who do things in above list and i object to them forcefully as i can, and will do so in the future .

however when i criticize i take the time to explain specifically what i find objectionable. ( again see my previous comment )

( that is unlike java jones who is unable to be specific about what he objects to in my reply and take the usual easy road of attacking me for having no “empathy”, and for being ” filled with hate and vitriol”. duh!.
and “some past experience” ?! - that ‘attack’ is a sure sign that the person making it knows that his other ‘arguments ‘ ( if any) are without merit)
-

here is a challenge-
can anyone explain why i should empathize with a post that does soem of the things i listed( see my first comment) and not object to them specifically as i did?