sri lankans as a people are prone to expect too much from foreigners and nothing from themselves. this inability to accept blame and praise is one of the few truly 'national' characteristics here.
it is always them not us that is to blame and we can never get ourselves out of trouble (created by foreigners of course) no we need indians or americans or norwegians to do that.
if the tigers have got stronger it is due to white guys or before that indians mollycoddling them, never because of social injustice and lack understandings between ourselves. if economy goes down it is because of those dastardly multinationals, oil prices, worldbank, and imf, never because half the sri lankans are lazy loafers who more or less live on government subsides and worldbank aid. if we lose cricket matches it is because those evil australians' unsporty tactics or indian hora umpires not because of our lack of confidence or arjuna and interim board fucking up the whole thing.
same goes for the other side, we are supposedly not able to compete in global markets against chinese exports or multinationals, so need special concessions from eu or usa. india - sri lanka free trade agreement is bad because we are weak and indian products will flood us out. just one look at the sri lankan soft drinks market or last year's export figures to india and elsewhere show how wrong such attitudes are. we can and do, beat the very best in the world because we can match them head to head.
main problem is our inability to see reality and our self interest clearly. this is partly due in my opinion to sri lanka's prevailing buddhist culture. that culture, contrary to what most people believe and claims to the contrary, encourage fudge and unreality. it is not helped by the enervating marxism, unconscious or otherwise, of the most of the intelligentsia.
anyway that is for another post.
to come back to current situation everybody is expecting a lot from former villain white tiger turned prince of peace, erick solheim to bring peace this week. some hope! even the stock market went up sharply at the end of last week for two days in a row. well, it will come down and the war is inevitable, and the next bomb in colombo is only a matter of time imo.
solheim cannot work miracles. he has to work with what he is given. btw it really does not matter where the talks are held (a question that seems occupy whole lot of people even though it has zero effect on anything). what matters is what the government is willing to offer to tigers, which should be a federal solution that will work. not just because such a thing will have to be established eventually before we get peace, but also because international community should be left with no doubt as to who is driving the country to war at present.
that way, as i have said before elsewhere we will be in a better position than tigers when the war comes and we can contain them and force them to the table again. already army's highly commendable and commended restraint has thrown the tigers into desperate acts such as killing their own prominent supporters in a fruitless effort to blame the government for something. we should not be provoked and if war is averted or if more likely when war comes tigers get a through bashing from every quarter it will be because we held our nerve and were not provoked, not because of well meaning solheim. we and the army should be proud of that. solheim is just a messenger, nothing more. so do not expect anything we ourselves cannot achieve.
ps last weekend's story about tamilchelvam being attacked and killed, and the way this unconfirmed and extremely sketchy story was reported in newspapers here as fact, just shows how uncomprehending even editors can be of the situation, whether or not story was a truth or not. imo story has some basis (take a look at tamilnet today and it's strange complete silence about it), but that does not excuse any paper that wish to call itself a national newspaper from publishing the whole thing as a fact with non existent details. journalists should be more skeptical.
it is always them not us that is to blame and we can never get ourselves out of trouble (created by foreigners of course) no we need indians or americans or norwegians to do that.
if the tigers have got stronger it is due to white guys or before that indians mollycoddling them, never because of social injustice and lack understandings between ourselves. if economy goes down it is because of those dastardly multinationals, oil prices, worldbank, and imf, never because half the sri lankans are lazy loafers who more or less live on government subsides and worldbank aid. if we lose cricket matches it is because those evil australians' unsporty tactics or indian hora umpires not because of our lack of confidence or arjuna and interim board fucking up the whole thing.
same goes for the other side, we are supposedly not able to compete in global markets against chinese exports or multinationals, so need special concessions from eu or usa. india - sri lanka free trade agreement is bad because we are weak and indian products will flood us out. just one look at the sri lankan soft drinks market or last year's export figures to india and elsewhere show how wrong such attitudes are. we can and do, beat the very best in the world because we can match them head to head.
main problem is our inability to see reality and our self interest clearly. this is partly due in my opinion to sri lanka's prevailing buddhist culture. that culture, contrary to what most people believe and claims to the contrary, encourage fudge and unreality. it is not helped by the enervating marxism, unconscious or otherwise, of the most of the intelligentsia.
anyway that is for another post.
to come back to current situation everybody is expecting a lot from former villain white tiger turned prince of peace, erick solheim to bring peace this week. some hope! even the stock market went up sharply at the end of last week for two days in a row. well, it will come down and the war is inevitable, and the next bomb in colombo is only a matter of time imo.
solheim cannot work miracles. he has to work with what he is given. btw it really does not matter where the talks are held (a question that seems occupy whole lot of people even though it has zero effect on anything). what matters is what the government is willing to offer to tigers, which should be a federal solution that will work. not just because such a thing will have to be established eventually before we get peace, but also because international community should be left with no doubt as to who is driving the country to war at present.
that way, as i have said before elsewhere we will be in a better position than tigers when the war comes and we can contain them and force them to the table again. already army's highly commendable and commended restraint has thrown the tigers into desperate acts such as killing their own prominent supporters in a fruitless effort to blame the government for something. we should not be provoked and if war is averted or if more likely when war comes tigers get a through bashing from every quarter it will be because we held our nerve and were not provoked, not because of well meaning solheim. we and the army should be proud of that. solheim is just a messenger, nothing more. so do not expect anything we ourselves cannot achieve.
ps last weekend's story about tamilchelvam being attacked and killed, and the way this unconfirmed and extremely sketchy story was reported in newspapers here as fact, just shows how uncomprehending even editors can be of the situation, whether or not story was a truth or not. imo story has some basis (take a look at tamilnet today and it's strange complete silence about it), but that does not excuse any paper that wish to call itself a national newspaper from publishing the whole thing as a fact with non existent details. journalists should be more skeptical.
3 comments:
Tamilchelvam is well and very much alive. Tamilnet has a photo of the arrival of Balasingham in Kilinochchi today which shows Thamilchelvam welcoming him. These are just stupid stories cooked up by some bastards to have some cheap thrill and sell theire newspapers! These must be the same people who said Prabhakaran was killed by the tsunami and an imported coffin was sent to bury him!
** if we lose cricket matches it is because those evil australians' unsporty tactics or indian hora umpires not because of our lack of confidence or arjuna and interim board fucking up the whole thing.
liked that bit :)
Why r Sri Lankan journalists number 1 in spreading false rumors? cos here in Aus none of the newpapers carry false news...it
s well-guarded and only facts r revealed.
Keshi.
I totally agree with you about the general attitude amongst most Sri Lankans...it completely irks me that they can never assume responsibility for their own actions...especially if the outcome is unfavourable.
it's not surprising, you know, the continuous failure of the SL government is probably because of the tigers, international pressure, george w. bush...etc. it just couldnt possibly be our incompetent, power-hungry politicians who have no vision for the country - except for themselves!
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