Sunday, April 30, 2006
over
I am so over this country right now. Everything has ground inexorably to a climax and my nerves are actually shattered right now. I can't believe that this was the week where there was a suicide attempt at the General, followed by airstrikes by the GOSL and people fleeing the East. Also some relationship drama last night just makes me want to howl and to throw things and just release anger and bitterness and sadness and the stupid thing is that its' not about him at all, its about me, about my inability not to fuck things up time and time again. I'm filled with acute self-loathing. And the week ahead promises some major drama at work and by the end of this coming week, I'll be ready to just open the dammed-up reservoir of tears at this whole country, my whole year here, the people I've met and screwed (and vice versa) and then I'll blithely jet off to grad school and abandon everything.
Friday, April 28, 2006
intros
The funniest thing all week (side note: things are tense but calm here). There was a yahoo group created for new admits to my grad program and predictably everyone has felt compelled to post detailed CV summaries about themselves , ostensibly 'introducing' themselves on the group emails. . .. Here are a few classics (name and school edited out for anonymity!)
"(my) career has straddled the private and public spheres - did a few stints at Bangladesh Government/World Bank/UNDP projects as an economist, presented keynote papers at business chambers and government ministries on market access, regional cumulation, sustainable environment management, MDGs, also ran my own small international trading company engaged in the pharmaceutical and apparel industries, currently involved in consulting and political campaigning"
"My instution is the sole body for designing foreign trade policies of Turkey...since i am working in the Asia and Pacific department, I've been to many places in the region and met different people. To be more specific, my section is dealing with the trade negotiations for bilateral agreements. And I am in charge of the bilateral trade and economic relations of Turkey with the Asian and Pacific countries as well as negotiator in trade and economic cooperation agreement negotiations ..I am most confident that Harvard would be an excellent opportunity and reference for all of us during our carrier"
"After my undergrad schooling, I was commissioned as a Korean Air Force Second Lieutenant in 2003. During the past three years as a junior officer, I haved worked at the Korea-US Combined Forces Command and the Ministry of National Defense dealing with intel/ops planning, policy, and protocol"
"For the first time in a long time, I feel very shy and humbled by my future classmates. My intro will be very boring, comparatively. I am an entering MPP candidate. I am probably the youngest of the bunch, having turned 21 just four short months ago. "
"I consider myself more or less a political realist and am interested in the International Security and Development PAC, then perhaps writing (and here I betray much) for AEI, Cato, or the Heritage Foundation. On a slight side-note, is it not incredible that we will be studying at the same place Samuel Huntington teaches? Love him or hate him, it’s impossible not to be amazed, being that close to he who is, for lack of a better term, the master.
While an undergrad, I have presided over our Student Government (supervising the first overhaul to our Honor Code since its inception), edited our school newspaper, and enjoyed Kappa Sigma among other things".
Somebody please kill me now.
"(my) career has straddled the private and public spheres - did a few stints at Bangladesh Government/World Bank/UNDP projects as an economist, presented keynote papers at business chambers and government ministries on market access, regional cumulation, sustainable environment management, MDGs, also ran my own small international trading company engaged in the pharmaceutical and apparel industries, currently involved in consulting and political campaigning"
"My instution is the sole body for designing foreign trade policies of Turkey...since i am working in the Asia and Pacific department, I've been to many places in the region and met different people. To be more specific, my section is dealing with the trade negotiations for bilateral agreements. And I am in charge of the bilateral trade and economic relations of Turkey with the Asian and Pacific countries as well as negotiator in trade and economic cooperation agreement negotiations ..I am most confident that Harvard would be an excellent opportunity and reference for all of us during our carrier"
"After my undergrad schooling, I was commissioned as a Korean Air Force Second Lieutenant in 2003. During the past three years as a junior officer, I haved worked at the Korea-US Combined Forces Command and the Ministry of National Defense dealing with intel/ops planning, policy, and protocol"
"For the first time in a long time, I feel very shy and humbled by my future classmates. My intro will be very boring, comparatively. I am an entering MPP candidate. I am probably the youngest of the bunch, having turned 21 just four short months ago. "
"I consider myself more or less a political realist and am interested in the International Security and Development PAC, then perhaps writing (and here I betray much) for AEI, Cato, or the Heritage Foundation. On a slight side-note, is it not incredible that we will be studying at the same place Samuel Huntington teaches? Love him or hate him, it’s impossible not to be amazed, being that close to he who is, for lack of a better term, the master.
While an undergrad, I have presided over our Student Government (supervising the first overhaul to our Honor Code since its inception), edited our school newspaper, and enjoyed Kappa Sigma among other things".
Somebody please kill me now.
analysing peace
The below is a good analysis of the dynamic in Sri Lanka and was written before this week's events. It is by Dr. Jayadev Uyangoda, a leading (rational, unbiased) intellectual from the University of Colombo. I found it on another blog (full disclosure!)
Can the Peace Process be revived.
1. The peace process that began in 2002 in Sri Lanka appears to have reached an end. It has exhausted its potential to produce a settlement agreement, even an interim one, between the GOSL and the LTTE. The main tangible outcome of the 2002 peace process is the Cease-Fire Agreement between the GOSL and LTTE. The CFA has also been under great strain in a twin context of regime change in Colombo that began in October 2003 and increasing violence primarily in the northern and Eastern provinces. The emergence of a new peace process seems to be quite difficult.
2. There seems to be some fundamental dissatisfaction, on the part of the GOSL, LTTE and the Muslim community on the outcome of the 2002 peace process. The GOSL views the CFA and the peace process as having resulted in negative consequences for state sovereignty and national security. The LTTE’s assessment of the no-war no-peace situation is that it has not brought any tangible outcome to the LTTE or the Tamil people. Meanwhile, the Muslim political parties are angry that they have been excluded from the bi-lateral peace process between the government and the LTTE. They fear that even an interim agreement between the government and the LTTE would endanger their interests. The absence of a strong social support base for the 2002 peace process has been a major impediment to its success.
3. The Geneva Talks between the Rajapakse Administration have a limited agenda. It focuses on the proper implementation of the CFA. The Geneva talks are not intended to resume political negotiations between the two sides. Even with a limited agenda, the engagement between the two sides has been valuable in managing violence and protecting the CFA.
4. The CFA is facing a crisis of existence. One party to it defends it in its existing form while the other party wants to revise it. It is the pragmatic need felt by the two sides to control violence that can sustain the CFA as well as Geneva talks. Without GOSL-LTTE partnership, the CFA can survive only as a strategic condition. Sooner than later, it will become clear that without returning to political negotiations, the two sides may not be able to sustain the CFA. A post-CFA scenario can have two possibilities – all-out war or protracted low-intensity violence.
5. Concerning the future of the peace process, a maximalist trajectory of conflict resolution appears to be both unrealistic and impossible. Political conditions that exist in Sri Lanka do not provide space for a maximalist program of conflict resolution. Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim societies as well as major political actors representing these ethnic formations expect contradictory outcomes from peace. They conceptualise the idea of peace differently and expect different outcomes from peace. For example, UPFA government’s notion of ‘peace with dignity’ is conceptually and politically different from the LTTE’s notion of ‘just’ peace. The goal of peace has not yet become a shared political perspective either. The inclination among the major parties to the conflict is to view peace as an outcome with unilateral gains.
There is also a fear of a peace settlement. In all the three ethnic formations, the fear of peace emanates from the apprehension that external actors – the global state system — might impose on Sri Lanka a settlement conceived externally. A peace settlement is certain to have its gainers as well as losers, but the fear of a settlement is a state of collective mind. It is concerned with the anxiety that an externally conceived peace agreement might favor one group over all the others. Then, there is the deep-seated suspicion of a peace settlement itself. Sinhalse nationalists fear that a settlement with regional autonomy would be a stepping -stone for secession. Tamil nationalists, particularly the LTTE, do not believe that the Sinhalese political class, even after signing a peace agreement, will implement it. They want to maintain their military structures and war preparedness in order to ensure that the terms of a settlement agreement will be implemented fully and comprehensively. Meanwhile, Muslim nationalists fear that a peace settlement between the GOSL and the LTTE would reduce the Muslim community to the status of a permanently disempowered minority. Finally, the Sinhalese political class, which controls the Sri Lankan state at present, does not seem to be ready for a political settlement acceptable to the LTTE. It is extremely difficult to conceive an early peace agreement signed and implemented in Sri Lanka.
6. What, then, is the path to peace in Sri Lanka? In my assessment, there is no direct, or straight, road to ethnic conflict resolution and restoration of peace in Sri Lanka. It is a crooked path with many zigzags, turns and blockades. Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict requires a protracted process of transformation, reconciliation and settlement. The first breakthrough in the peace deadlock in Sri Lanka will have to be a conceptual one. I suggest that the realization of the protracted, contingent and recurrently unstable nature of the peace process constitutes that conceptual breakthrough. No sensible observer of Sri Lanka’s politics can think of any other breakthrough in the peace process, except opportunistic and pragmatic ‘deals’ between the President and the LTTE leader.
7. A protracted period of no-war with no formal peace agreement without the GOSL and the LTTE relapsing to all-out war, seems to be the best available option for peace through conflict transformation in Sri Lanka. The maintenance of no-war no-peace is predicated on the willingness of the GOSL and the LTTE to honour, strength and amend the CFA. At the moment, the two sides appear to have a rather narrow approach to the CFA. The government thinks that the CFA violated the constitution and the law of the country. It has committed to properly implement the CFA purely as a pragmatic necessity. The LTTE, on the other hand, does not see any need or political space to revise the CFA. Both these are narrow and partisan approaches to the CFA. To maintain the present no-war no-peace situation further, it is crucial that the two sides agree to strengthen the CFA by amending it at least in one crucial area. It concerns the capacity of the SLMM to monitor, enforce and ensure compliance on the proper implementation of the CFA. If the SLMM cannot perform these crucial functions, there should be an international body with powers to monitor and investigate violations and ensure compliance with the decisions of the monitoring body.
8. A protracted period of no-war will not be able to sustain itself without addressing humanitarian issues of the people living in the North and East. In this regard, the government and the LTTE need to build up a partnership. Such partnership will be based on the realization that addressing humanitarian issues should be linked to a rapid economic development process covering entire Sri Lanka. External assistance for a humanitarian agenda needs to be seen only as a short-term measure. Rapid economic development in the North and East requires the assistance of the Sri Lankan state and linking the North-East economy with the economy of the rest of the island. Similarly, rapid economic development in one region will enhance the economic development in the other. Realization of inter-dependence and mutuality of outcomes in economic development can ideally be an incentive for the government and the LTTE to work out a framework of partnership.
9. The question of political democracy will invariably emerge in a long period of no-war. This will pose a major challenge to the LTTE. The LTTE needs to realize that without democracy and plurality in representation, its agenda of representing the Tamil nation will face a serious crisis. The goal of peace needs to be conceived not as prior to democracy. In the politics of ‘national emancipation’ peace, justice and democracy should be simultaneous processes.
Can the Peace Process be revived.
1. The peace process that began in 2002 in Sri Lanka appears to have reached an end. It has exhausted its potential to produce a settlement agreement, even an interim one, between the GOSL and the LTTE. The main tangible outcome of the 2002 peace process is the Cease-Fire Agreement between the GOSL and LTTE. The CFA has also been under great strain in a twin context of regime change in Colombo that began in October 2003 and increasing violence primarily in the northern and Eastern provinces. The emergence of a new peace process seems to be quite difficult.
2. There seems to be some fundamental dissatisfaction, on the part of the GOSL, LTTE and the Muslim community on the outcome of the 2002 peace process. The GOSL views the CFA and the peace process as having resulted in negative consequences for state sovereignty and national security. The LTTE’s assessment of the no-war no-peace situation is that it has not brought any tangible outcome to the LTTE or the Tamil people. Meanwhile, the Muslim political parties are angry that they have been excluded from the bi-lateral peace process between the government and the LTTE. They fear that even an interim agreement between the government and the LTTE would endanger their interests. The absence of a strong social support base for the 2002 peace process has been a major impediment to its success.
3. The Geneva Talks between the Rajapakse Administration have a limited agenda. It focuses on the proper implementation of the CFA. The Geneva talks are not intended to resume political negotiations between the two sides. Even with a limited agenda, the engagement between the two sides has been valuable in managing violence and protecting the CFA.
4. The CFA is facing a crisis of existence. One party to it defends it in its existing form while the other party wants to revise it. It is the pragmatic need felt by the two sides to control violence that can sustain the CFA as well as Geneva talks. Without GOSL-LTTE partnership, the CFA can survive only as a strategic condition. Sooner than later, it will become clear that without returning to political negotiations, the two sides may not be able to sustain the CFA. A post-CFA scenario can have two possibilities – all-out war or protracted low-intensity violence.
5. Concerning the future of the peace process, a maximalist trajectory of conflict resolution appears to be both unrealistic and impossible. Political conditions that exist in Sri Lanka do not provide space for a maximalist program of conflict resolution. Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim societies as well as major political actors representing these ethnic formations expect contradictory outcomes from peace. They conceptualise the idea of peace differently and expect different outcomes from peace. For example, UPFA government’s notion of ‘peace with dignity’ is conceptually and politically different from the LTTE’s notion of ‘just’ peace. The goal of peace has not yet become a shared political perspective either. The inclination among the major parties to the conflict is to view peace as an outcome with unilateral gains.
There is also a fear of a peace settlement. In all the three ethnic formations, the fear of peace emanates from the apprehension that external actors – the global state system — might impose on Sri Lanka a settlement conceived externally. A peace settlement is certain to have its gainers as well as losers, but the fear of a settlement is a state of collective mind. It is concerned with the anxiety that an externally conceived peace agreement might favor one group over all the others. Then, there is the deep-seated suspicion of a peace settlement itself. Sinhalse nationalists fear that a settlement with regional autonomy would be a stepping -stone for secession. Tamil nationalists, particularly the LTTE, do not believe that the Sinhalese political class, even after signing a peace agreement, will implement it. They want to maintain their military structures and war preparedness in order to ensure that the terms of a settlement agreement will be implemented fully and comprehensively. Meanwhile, Muslim nationalists fear that a peace settlement between the GOSL and the LTTE would reduce the Muslim community to the status of a permanently disempowered minority. Finally, the Sinhalese political class, which controls the Sri Lankan state at present, does not seem to be ready for a political settlement acceptable to the LTTE. It is extremely difficult to conceive an early peace agreement signed and implemented in Sri Lanka.
6. What, then, is the path to peace in Sri Lanka? In my assessment, there is no direct, or straight, road to ethnic conflict resolution and restoration of peace in Sri Lanka. It is a crooked path with many zigzags, turns and blockades. Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict requires a protracted process of transformation, reconciliation and settlement. The first breakthrough in the peace deadlock in Sri Lanka will have to be a conceptual one. I suggest that the realization of the protracted, contingent and recurrently unstable nature of the peace process constitutes that conceptual breakthrough. No sensible observer of Sri Lanka’s politics can think of any other breakthrough in the peace process, except opportunistic and pragmatic ‘deals’ between the President and the LTTE leader.
7. A protracted period of no-war with no formal peace agreement without the GOSL and the LTTE relapsing to all-out war, seems to be the best available option for peace through conflict transformation in Sri Lanka. The maintenance of no-war no-peace is predicated on the willingness of the GOSL and the LTTE to honour, strength and amend the CFA. At the moment, the two sides appear to have a rather narrow approach to the CFA. The government thinks that the CFA violated the constitution and the law of the country. It has committed to properly implement the CFA purely as a pragmatic necessity. The LTTE, on the other hand, does not see any need or political space to revise the CFA. Both these are narrow and partisan approaches to the CFA. To maintain the present no-war no-peace situation further, it is crucial that the two sides agree to strengthen the CFA by amending it at least in one crucial area. It concerns the capacity of the SLMM to monitor, enforce and ensure compliance on the proper implementation of the CFA. If the SLMM cannot perform these crucial functions, there should be an international body with powers to monitor and investigate violations and ensure compliance with the decisions of the monitoring body.
8. A protracted period of no-war will not be able to sustain itself without addressing humanitarian issues of the people living in the North and East. In this regard, the government and the LTTE need to build up a partnership. Such partnership will be based on the realization that addressing humanitarian issues should be linked to a rapid economic development process covering entire Sri Lanka. External assistance for a humanitarian agenda needs to be seen only as a short-term measure. Rapid economic development in the North and East requires the assistance of the Sri Lankan state and linking the North-East economy with the economy of the rest of the island. Similarly, rapid economic development in one region will enhance the economic development in the other. Realization of inter-dependence and mutuality of outcomes in economic development can ideally be an incentive for the government and the LTTE to work out a framework of partnership.
9. The question of political democracy will invariably emerge in a long period of no-war. This will pose a major challenge to the LTTE. The LTTE needs to realize that without democracy and plurality in representation, its agenda of representing the Tamil nation will face a serious crisis. The goal of peace needs to be conceived not as prior to democracy. In the politics of ‘national emancipation’ peace, justice and democracy should be simultaneous processes.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
language
"We are in a state of readiness and are awaiting for the instruction from our leadership to respond with a force that will be catastrophically disabling and devastating to the enemy," said Mr.S.Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam commenting on the current situation in Muttur east, sources said"- source Tamilnet.com
This is the kind of language flying around Sri Lanka these days. With over 40,000 Tamils fleeing Trincomalee district, with both sides upping the rhetoric and literally teetering on the brink of war, with nearly all INGOs pulling out of the Trincomalee district, this kind of language ensures that the stove is always set to burn.
This is the kind of language flying around Sri Lanka these days. With over 40,000 Tamils fleeing Trincomalee district, with both sides upping the rhetoric and literally teetering on the brink of war, with nearly all INGOs pulling out of the Trincomalee district, this kind of language ensures that the stove is always set to burn.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
sad
Everything feels so sad right now. Everything I've spent the last year killing myself for, all the back-breaking toil, seems to have evaporated in smoke. The shelling continues in the Northeast. Apparently orphanages, offices, even a primary school has been hit in the 'crossfire'. The deliberately provocative statement by the LTTE in attempting to assassinate Sarath Fonseka has almost probably started a cycle of war. The future looks grim. If we slide back into war (like the 90s), it could be another ten years until another resolution comes. We simply cannot continue like this. All these lives snuffed out. Why? Why is violence always the only answer between nations? Our schools will be used as bomb-shelters, maybe as refugee camps. The next five years will see us working with not the poorest-of-the-poor. Everything that I paused my life for, it has all become meaningless. I can't even think straight and I am totally defeated.
obits
I found this on a blog today and it matches my mood perfectly and I hope I shall be able to say the same when my time comes.
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the course,
I have kept the faith
2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the course,
I have kept the faith
2 Timothy 4:7
more
The ceasefire agreement is dead in the water. If I was a political commentator I could make my bones on this conflict, but since I am only an NGO activist, all I can say is that there is an inexorable, irreversible slide back into war.
The army hasn't stopped bombing LTTE-controlled areas in the East. We have had to pull out completely out of Trincomalee and all our existing projects in the East will go unmonitored for another year. This escalation was not anticipated until June/July. If this is reality, I'm ready to check out. It is enormously stressful wondering when the next bomb will detonate and who will be caught in it. I wish I knew what to do. My father, in a rare intervention actually asked me whether I thought I should stay and whether I should come back. (They're the most laissez-faire parents ever- when I proposed going to Iran my father wanted to come along for the adventure too, and when my friend proposed to her dad about going to Iran, he confiscated her passport at the age of 23!).
The army hasn't stopped bombing LTTE-controlled areas in the East. We have had to pull out completely out of Trincomalee and all our existing projects in the East will go unmonitored for another year. This escalation was not anticipated until June/July. If this is reality, I'm ready to check out. It is enormously stressful wondering when the next bomb will detonate and who will be caught in it. I wish I knew what to do. My father, in a rare intervention actually asked me whether I thought I should stay and whether I should come back. (They're the most laissez-faire parents ever- when I proposed going to Iran my father wanted to come along for the adventure too, and when my friend proposed to her dad about going to Iran, he confiscated her passport at the age of 23!).
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
bombs
This is how it begins
Had a lunch meeting with a partner at Slave Island. After lunch, one of our staff members gets a call to say that there has been a bomb blast in Fort (ten minutes away from where we are).
We frantically try to call staff/friends who are known to be in the area. No response as all the networks are frozen and only high-priority military communication can get through (so as to also not incite immediate communal violence)
.
We get into a car and put on the radio and the news filters through: General Sarath Fonseka, the new military commander under the new administration is dead after a bomb blast inside the high-security army headquarters.
Silence inside the car. This marks the beginning. We had all expected it to start soon, but probably in July and certainly after the Geneva peace talks had finished their second round. Such a deliberate and successful suicide bombing is provocative. It will result in increased army clampdowns and brutality in the Northeast which will in turn provoke a violent response by the LTTE. It means escalation and immediate escalation at that.
As we drive back the calls and messages start flooding in. Everyone is safe. I get back to the office and make sure we have emergency contact details for everyone. The other news filters in slowly: a female suicide bomber, almost certainly from the LTTE, blew up the General's 5 bodyguards and herself. The General himself looks like he will survive. The attack it turns out was not successful. But then these politicians have always had nine lives.
It also means that Colombo is not going to be immune to attacks and as someone said, every day when we go to work now, we do not know whether we will come back. It is this culture of fear and uncertainty that is most difficult to live with. And even that I could live with. What I fear is the day that communal violence will begin and even the most pacifist amongst us will be turned into raging bloodthirsty mobs, hunting down Tamils and Sinhalese to kill. Like in July 1983.
Had a lunch meeting with a partner at Slave Island. After lunch, one of our staff members gets a call to say that there has been a bomb blast in Fort (ten minutes away from where we are).
We frantically try to call staff/friends who are known to be in the area. No response as all the networks are frozen and only high-priority military communication can get through (so as to also not incite immediate communal violence)
.
We get into a car and put on the radio and the news filters through: General Sarath Fonseka, the new military commander under the new administration is dead after a bomb blast inside the high-security army headquarters.
Silence inside the car. This marks the beginning. We had all expected it to start soon, but probably in July and certainly after the Geneva peace talks had finished their second round. Such a deliberate and successful suicide bombing is provocative. It will result in increased army clampdowns and brutality in the Northeast which will in turn provoke a violent response by the LTTE. It means escalation and immediate escalation at that.
As we drive back the calls and messages start flooding in. Everyone is safe. I get back to the office and make sure we have emergency contact details for everyone. The other news filters in slowly: a female suicide bomber, almost certainly from the LTTE, blew up the General's 5 bodyguards and herself. The General himself looks like he will survive. The attack it turns out was not successful. But then these politicians have always had nine lives.
It also means that Colombo is not going to be immune to attacks and as someone said, every day when we go to work now, we do not know whether we will come back. It is this culture of fear and uncertainty that is most difficult to live with. And even that I could live with. What I fear is the day that communal violence will begin and even the most pacifist amongst us will be turned into raging bloodthirsty mobs, hunting down Tamils and Sinhalese to kill. Like in July 1983.
crap-
I'm in a really crappy mood and I hope it passes.
Some oddbits- Kaavya Viswanathan, author of "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" has been accused of plagiarism and vows it was unintentional.
I've also become vegetarian for the next three months, at the end of which I will re-evaluate. Primarily because I think it's the morally correct thing to be.
I've also been asked to emcee at someone's engagement in a sari.
I'm also trying not to succumb and go crawling back to an ex, grovelling for affection.
I'm just in a crappy mood and I hope it passes. I miss everyone and I want to go home.
Some oddbits- Kaavya Viswanathan, author of "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" has been accused of plagiarism and vows it was unintentional.
I've also become vegetarian for the next three months, at the end of which I will re-evaluate. Primarily because I think it's the morally correct thing to be.
I've also been asked to emcee at someone's engagement in a sari.
I'm also trying not to succumb and go crawling back to an ex, grovelling for affection.
I'm just in a crappy mood and I hope it passes. I miss everyone and I want to go home.
Monday, April 24, 2006
in the off-ing
Organized an offsite off a beach resort in Beruwala during which many topics including program implementation calendars were discussed. The evening saw a water polo match and a lot of drinking, including a session by the beach with all of us dancing and singing baila and assorted tamil songs. Then it was a session with the 'cool' clique (every office has one) where cigarettes and more alcohol were passed around while 'love failure' was discussed in great depth drawing on the personal experiences shared.
Then I met 'Amden'. Amden was the name of a German warship which eluded Allied capture during World War 11 and managed to sneak through Allied defences. It has become the nickname for those who are basically clever, manipulative and capable of achieving their own ends. (Ranil Wickremasinghe, ex-presidential contender was nicknamed Amden). Anyway Amden also is the name of a cartoon character, and there are thousands of stories spun in the collective national consciousness about Amden. (Amden stories are told at funeral gatherings, when according to Buddhist rituals, the body has to be accompanied for four days prior to the funeral and for all 4 days there is to be no sleep, to watch over the body. So to pass the time, and keep awake, Amden stories are told and exchanged.).
I suppose they lose the flavour, and the humour when not told in ribald Sinhala, but here are some anyway.
Amden is coming out of his mother's womb. Being the naughty fellow that he is, he wants to come out feet first, and not head first. So he keeps pushing his feet out and back in, playing a game with the doctor and nearly killing his mother. So then the doctor takes a cigarette butt and singes his feet the next time he shoves his feet out. Then Amden leaps back, puzzled and sticks his head out to see what was up and the doctor hauls him out with both hands.
Amden is at school and asks his teacher a question: Why are fish so flat? Nobody else knows the answer and Amden puts up his hand to answer the same question. Frustrated the teacher asks why? And he says because the whales sat on it!
Amden asks another question: Why do the eyes of prawns bulge out so?Nobody else knows the answer and the teacher, increasingly frustrated asks him why? And he says that the prawns were watching the whales who sat on the fish!!!
Last one for today: Amden is a great graffiti artist and adorns the school walls with three dimensional pictures. His teacher calls his father and says: his art is really fantastic but he can’t keep drawing them on school walls. The father said: Better he draws them here than at home: At home he drew a 3D picture of a naked female and so realistic it was that the father tried to… you-know-what and in the end ended up getting his you-know-what twisted!
Then the weekend was spent morosely moping around the place for no substantive reason really other than the mood struck me and I was annoyed with and at everything so I stayed at home and watched eight episodes of the second season of the O.C. which didn’t work it’s magic and then I fell asleep reading the Economist, which by the way, rocks. Girls and boys, we have a new editor in da house and boy, is the difference marked and noticeable. There is poetry in every article. And I love it. Here’s to good writing!
Then I met 'Amden'. Amden was the name of a German warship which eluded Allied capture during World War 11 and managed to sneak through Allied defences. It has become the nickname for those who are basically clever, manipulative and capable of achieving their own ends. (Ranil Wickremasinghe, ex-presidential contender was nicknamed Amden). Anyway Amden also is the name of a cartoon character, and there are thousands of stories spun in the collective national consciousness about Amden. (Amden stories are told at funeral gatherings, when according to Buddhist rituals, the body has to be accompanied for four days prior to the funeral and for all 4 days there is to be no sleep, to watch over the body. So to pass the time, and keep awake, Amden stories are told and exchanged.).
I suppose they lose the flavour, and the humour when not told in ribald Sinhala, but here are some anyway.
Amden is coming out of his mother's womb. Being the naughty fellow that he is, he wants to come out feet first, and not head first. So he keeps pushing his feet out and back in, playing a game with the doctor and nearly killing his mother. So then the doctor takes a cigarette butt and singes his feet the next time he shoves his feet out. Then Amden leaps back, puzzled and sticks his head out to see what was up and the doctor hauls him out with both hands.
Amden is at school and asks his teacher a question: Why are fish so flat? Nobody else knows the answer and Amden puts up his hand to answer the same question. Frustrated the teacher asks why? And he says because the whales sat on it!
Amden asks another question: Why do the eyes of prawns bulge out so?Nobody else knows the answer and the teacher, increasingly frustrated asks him why? And he says that the prawns were watching the whales who sat on the fish!!!
Last one for today: Amden is a great graffiti artist and adorns the school walls with three dimensional pictures. His teacher calls his father and says: his art is really fantastic but he can’t keep drawing them on school walls. The father said: Better he draws them here than at home: At home he drew a 3D picture of a naked female and so realistic it was that the father tried to… you-know-what and in the end ended up getting his you-know-what twisted!
Then the weekend was spent morosely moping around the place for no substantive reason really other than the mood struck me and I was annoyed with and at everything so I stayed at home and watched eight episodes of the second season of the O.C. which didn’t work it’s magic and then I fell asleep reading the Economist, which by the way, rocks. Girls and boys, we have a new editor in da house and boy, is the difference marked and noticeable. There is poetry in every article. And I love it. Here’s to good writing!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
and back.
And so, I'm back in the muck again. Just two days ago, life was all about having crepes for lunch and choosing what kind of earrings to buy and here choices revolve around having to withdraw aid completely from the northeast in the light of recent increased violence, thus setting back our implementation agenda by at least four months. Or endangering staff and project assets instead. And those decisions lie with someone phenomenally inexperienced and incapable of having to make those decisions.
So predictably, I went home and shared a bottle of wine with a colleague in town and we talked about aid, about our NGO, about the developing world, about education, about film and it was the kind of conversation that I had missed in Sri Lanka all this while. While I was on the plane coming over, all I could think about was how much I missed my friends and family despite the relatively short-haul in front of me. But a day of being back in the office and it feels right, and the sun is shining and it feels as though i had never left.
Someone mailed me some music composed and I was thinking that it was an incredibly personal thing to do for when I hear that music, I think of him which surely isn't right?
Also reading the Israel Lobby (from the London review of books, read if you have a chance) an academic paper from the Kennedy School of Government detailing the extraordinary and inexplicable power of the Israel lobby in American politics.
So predictably, I went home and shared a bottle of wine with a colleague in town and we talked about aid, about our NGO, about the developing world, about education, about film and it was the kind of conversation that I had missed in Sri Lanka all this while. While I was on the plane coming over, all I could think about was how much I missed my friends and family despite the relatively short-haul in front of me. But a day of being back in the office and it feels right, and the sun is shining and it feels as though i had never left.
Someone mailed me some music composed and I was thinking that it was an incredibly personal thing to do for when I hear that music, I think of him which surely isn't right?
Also reading the Israel Lobby (from the London review of books, read if you have a chance) an academic paper from the Kennedy School of Government detailing the extraordinary and inexplicable power of the Israel lobby in American politics.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
on currency
In the past year, I have used
The Great British Pound
The Euro
The Singapore Dollar
The Malaysian Ringgit
The Cambodian Riel
The Sri Lankan Rupee
The Indian Rupee
The Australian Dollar
The New Zealand Dollar
The U.S. Dollar
The Vietnam Dong
The Thai Baht
Cities I have been in the last year in chronological order since leaving MS: London, Paris, London, Singapore, Siem Reap, Singapore, Colombo, New Delhi, Colombo, Singapore, Langkawi, Singapore, Sydney, Christchurch, Auckland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore, Phuket, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore and back to Colombo now.
I need a new passport. But it takes 17 days to get one in Singapore and I don't want to get it in Sri Lanka since I don't want me turning up in Karachi with a beard and being 52 years old running an arms cargo.
The Great British Pound
The Euro
The Singapore Dollar
The Malaysian Ringgit
The Cambodian Riel
The Sri Lankan Rupee
The Indian Rupee
The Australian Dollar
The New Zealand Dollar
The U.S. Dollar
The Vietnam Dong
The Thai Baht
Cities I have been in the last year in chronological order since leaving MS: London, Paris, London, Singapore, Siem Reap, Singapore, Colombo, New Delhi, Colombo, Singapore, Langkawi, Singapore, Sydney, Christchurch, Auckland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore, Phuket, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore, Colombo, Singapore and back to Colombo now.
I need a new passport. But it takes 17 days to get one in Singapore and I don't want to get it in Sri Lanka since I don't want me turning up in Karachi with a beard and being 52 years old running an arms cargo.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
trinco violence
Jesus Christ. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with this country and why they are so intent on ripping each other's brains out, for twenty fucking years and obviously there is no real peace process but neither is there any real intent or incentive on either side to create the conditions for peace. Finally the reason for war is war. A bomb blast on Wednesday in Trinco in which 16 were killed while shopping for the upcoming New Year, and 50 wounded. Followed by 'an ethnic cleansing' rampage by a Sinhalese mob (although the bomb was most likely set off by the Tigers) in which 7 Tamils were cut, chopped and killed. Police finally intervened the next day by declaring a curfew when Manmohan Singh was leaned upon to call the Sri Lankan president to ask for an intervention for the civilians. This is so FUCKING ROTTEN. This will also mean an end to all our work done so far as we were concentrating in Trinco. I am so tired of this. No matter what anyone does, it's just bloody holding a finger in a dyke.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
grey's anatomy
Oh! I have discovered a new reason to live. I have seen the future and it is Grey's Anatomy!. I love this show. I know I sound like a deranged fan and mainly I'm crushing madly on Patrick Dempsey who is actually, like seriously, really, just hot.
And Ellen Pompeo who is a cross between Renee Zellwegger and Joey Lauren Adams from Mallrats and Clerks (?) and the Kevin Smith films. And of course Sandra Oh who actually just rocks. The first season only had 9 episodes filmed and it became a totally amazing hit and now Season 2 is airing on Channel 5 and for the first time ever I wish I lived in Singapore so I could WATCH it. DVD Season 1 here I come.
And Ellen Pompeo who is a cross between Renee Zellwegger and Joey Lauren Adams from Mallrats and Clerks (?) and the Kevin Smith films. And of course Sandra Oh who actually just rocks. The first season only had 9 episodes filmed and it became a totally amazing hit and now Season 2 is airing on Channel 5 and for the first time ever I wish I lived in Singapore so I could WATCH it. DVD Season 1 here I come.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
read
From the "What is a Classic?" lecture by J.M. Coetzee collected in Stranger Shores, a collection of his essays on literature.
"In Bach nothing is obscure, no single step is so miraculous as to surpass imitation. Yet when the chain of sounds is realized in time, the building process ceases at a certain moment to be the mere linking of units; the units cohere as a higher-order object in a way that I can only describe by analogy as the incarnation of ideas of exposition, conplication, and resolution that are more general than music. Bach thinks in music. Music thinks itself in Bach."
And in counterpoint, I also read "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life". It's not bad or at least not the utter tripe I was expecting. There are even words like 'asphyxiated' and 'aspartame' in it.
"In Bach nothing is obscure, no single step is so miraculous as to surpass imitation. Yet when the chain of sounds is realized in time, the building process ceases at a certain moment to be the mere linking of units; the units cohere as a higher-order object in a way that I can only describe by analogy as the incarnation of ideas of exposition, conplication, and resolution that are more general than music. Bach thinks in music. Music thinks itself in Bach."
And in counterpoint, I also read "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life". It's not bad or at least not the utter tripe I was expecting. There are even words like 'asphyxiated' and 'aspartame' in it.
Friday, April 07, 2006
cambodia
Am back home right now. amazing the enthusiastic reception this time around compared to before when I was barely tolerated. Too late to change some people I guess.
I wanted to post all these photos while I still had them. To commemorate perhaps an increasingly distant past when I felt like I still had energy, optimism, an open mind.
This is angkor wat.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
yarlpanam
Essentially a day-trip up to Jaffna completed for a high-end donor visit (the grand-daughter of an ex-US president and the president of a large charity organization in her own right and really rather sweet if a tad scatty) and a flight out tonight leaves me exhausted. As the plane whirled away from the tarmac, I saw all-too-briefly the shorelines with waters green and blue, deserted as it is in the high-security zone and therefore populated with army bases. It would have been high-end hotels if the land were free. I saw tobacco leaves, plucked and being dried on the eaves of houses, turning into cheroots under the burning sun. Tobacco is a cash crop, but detrimental to long term agricultural cultivation. I saw too for the first time, in those zones, from high up in the sky, houses with their ceilings bombed out of them, gaping helplessly up at the sky, forlorn structures of cement and stone. Somewhere among those houses was the house that my father grew up in, where I should have been born. There is so much political angst to write about, but it would be misinterpreted and it is yet unformed, and all I recognize are the wisps of rage and anger and confusion meshed together.
Cry, beloved country.
Cry, beloved country.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
seafood
So went to a seafood/fine dining restaurant in Mount (no prizes for guessing which one). It was my first time back there since the manager had asked me out (and I had respectfully declined- due to at that time being in a relationship of sorts and also because of a complete lack of interest otherwise). Anyway this time I took my mother as armour and also ostensibly to celebrate more recent news. We feasted on crumbed Brie, lobster neuburg (marinated in champagne I believe) rock lobster stuffed with crab served with bak choy, champagne sorbet, cabernet sauvignon and some exotic fruit pavlova. Sated, and stuffed, we are ready to sleep.
I don't really think I'm prepared for this you know? Like, I mean what if I don't end up saving the world or anything? Does that mean I'm a waste of space/money? what if I don't innovate a solution to end poverty and disease in the Third World? Does that mean my education was wasted? What if I choose to be a taitai? (Can sri lankan women be taitais?)
I also found out I was related to the activist below. Most of the time I am sick of all of my relatives, but this time, I'm a little awed.
I don't really think I'm prepared for this you know? Like, I mean what if I don't end up saving the world or anything? Does that mean I'm a waste of space/money? what if I don't innovate a solution to end poverty and disease in the Third World? Does that mean my education was wasted? What if I choose to be a taitai? (Can sri lankan women be taitais?)
I also found out I was related to the activist below. Most of the time I am sick of all of my relatives, but this time, I'm a little awed.
no more tears sister
There is a rather new documentary film about the family-tragedy of Tamils in Sri Lanka during the 1980s and is specifically about the life and times of a Tamil human rights activist, called Rajani Thiranagama who was assassinated allegedly about the Tigers. It is one of few artpieces that do not needlessly romanticize the conflict or the Tigers as pure freedom fighters, but instead depicts them as intolerant of political dissent or alternative voice as the Sinhalese government. Oh, what a world Sri Lanka? The narration is done by Michael Ondaatje.
dev industry
Seamus Heaney has a new collection out: District and Circle which I must beg borrow or steal for I can't find it here in Sri Lanka. The itch to write again is overtaking me. I watched Sheltering Sky yesterday: I don't know why Bertolucci is so obsessed with that shifting space of sexual relationships. A friend is getting married and I am to be the bridesmaid (good god). Must define research interests soon enough. Oh yes, I remember now what I wanted to say: i discovered a true intellectual and how often can you say that. The only wonder is that it took me this long. The below are full excerpts from pieces of her work. She is a leading intellectual in Sri Lanka, focusing on the development-conflict-peace nexus.
"In this context, the question may be raised as to why the GoSL and the LTTE have chosen or been impelled to chose the World Bank to be the custodian of the post/conflict fund? And on what basis? Historically, the United Nations is the international organization charged with and experienced in dealing with post/conflict reconstruction (East Timor being a recent example). Moreover the UN agencies despite numerous critics have a relatively open attitude to human security, local voices, priorities and knowledge systems, than has the World Bank since it is not so closely allied to international finance and corporate interests, and in the grip of what Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize winning economist and ex-Vice President of the World Bank, terms ‘market fundamentalism’ in his book Globalization and its Discontents. Is the World Bank then a more or less neutral actor or will it ensure that the peace is structured to suit the agendas of international finance and corporate capital while making Sri Lanka vulnerable to fluctuating global financial markets as the world economy goes into recession (as occurred in Argentina)? As conflict, security and development are increasingly linked will it disburse funds to projects that have a less capital friendly and more social justice focus?"
"The information lacuna in turn perpetuated a number of myths that sustained the conflict, both at the level of policy as well as in popular discourse. As the conflict escalated in the nineties, the notion that ‘growth with war’ is possible appeared to be the operative fiction in policy circles. Meanwhile the conflict generated a war economy with military service becoming the leading income generation project for young men from rural areas even as it generated new forms of social and economic inequality and marginalization (eg. Muslim-Tamil conflicts in the east coast). That Sri Lanka, the South Asian leader in social indicators may be slipping in health and education, and mortgaging its future as the numbers of disabled increased, and the economy structured into a war economy, with the rural sector increasingly dependent on soldiers wages was not mentioned."
"Finally, the question remains: will humanitarian and post/conflict aid effectively subsidize SAPs and country's adjustment to Global Capital (ism)? As the various MPs tour Switzerland, Canada etc for constitutional models they may as well read Stiglitz and visit Third World Latin American countries in conflict and post/conflict situations that have a far closer profile and learn from economic debate and debacles in that region not to mention Africa. What informed critical debate in those countries may suggest is that After almost two decades of armed violence in Sri Lanka building a sustainable peace would entail political and economic reform aimed at achieving substantive rather than ritual or procedural democracy and the need for re-distributive justice. By substantive democracy is meant here, economic and social as well as civil and political aspects of democratic practice. "
"In this context, the question may be raised as to why the GoSL and the LTTE have chosen or been impelled to chose the World Bank to be the custodian of the post/conflict fund? And on what basis? Historically, the United Nations is the international organization charged with and experienced in dealing with post/conflict reconstruction (East Timor being a recent example). Moreover the UN agencies despite numerous critics have a relatively open attitude to human security, local voices, priorities and knowledge systems, than has the World Bank since it is not so closely allied to international finance and corporate interests, and in the grip of what Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize winning economist and ex-Vice President of the World Bank, terms ‘market fundamentalism’ in his book Globalization and its Discontents. Is the World Bank then a more or less neutral actor or will it ensure that the peace is structured to suit the agendas of international finance and corporate capital while making Sri Lanka vulnerable to fluctuating global financial markets as the world economy goes into recession (as occurred in Argentina)? As conflict, security and development are increasingly linked will it disburse funds to projects that have a less capital friendly and more social justice focus?"
"The information lacuna in turn perpetuated a number of myths that sustained the conflict, both at the level of policy as well as in popular discourse. As the conflict escalated in the nineties, the notion that ‘growth with war’ is possible appeared to be the operative fiction in policy circles. Meanwhile the conflict generated a war economy with military service becoming the leading income generation project for young men from rural areas even as it generated new forms of social and economic inequality and marginalization (eg. Muslim-Tamil conflicts in the east coast). That Sri Lanka, the South Asian leader in social indicators may be slipping in health and education, and mortgaging its future as the numbers of disabled increased, and the economy structured into a war economy, with the rural sector increasingly dependent on soldiers wages was not mentioned."
"Finally, the question remains: will humanitarian and post/conflict aid effectively subsidize SAPs and country's adjustment to Global Capital (ism)? As the various MPs tour Switzerland, Canada etc for constitutional models they may as well read Stiglitz and visit Third World Latin American countries in conflict and post/conflict situations that have a far closer profile and learn from economic debate and debacles in that region not to mention Africa. What informed critical debate in those countries may suggest is that After almost two decades of armed violence in Sri Lanka building a sustainable peace would entail political and economic reform aimed at achieving substantive rather than ritual or procedural democracy and the need for re-distributive justice. By substantive democracy is meant here, economic and social as well as civil and political aspects of democratic practice. "
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