fear of giving offense

after the recent ridiculous and violent protests by some muslims against the comments by pope, which should not have been offensive to anybody who actually read the pope's lecture (for which imo he should not have apologized), we now have the cancellation of an adapted staging of the opera idomeneo by mozart. this adaptation by director hans neuenfels featured severed heads of muhammad, jesus, and buddha (see above pic from der spiegel's website).

no doubt the religious chauvinists of all kinds here will approve this latest example of chickening out on the part of western 'liberals', while politically correct peaceniks everywhere will support it as showing tolerance and sensitivity to other 'cultures'.

imo, as i said when cartoon controversy was going on, there should not be any curb on freedom of expression, even if the intent was to give offense, as long as others are allowed the same freedom. i agree with the mayor of berlin who said, "our ideas about openness, tolerance and freedom must be lived out on the offensive, voluntary self-limitation gives those who fight against our values a confirmation in advance that we will not stand behind them". that is true not only in berlin but everywhere.

intolerance should not be tolerated

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update
there is news that cancellation was canceled after criticism. good.

quote

war is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. the person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

john stuart mill

reminds one of sri lankan peaceniks who think peace is worth any cost including freedom, justice, human rights, and democracy. they are ever ready to hand over millions of sri lankans in northeast to pussies in pursuit of 'peace'.
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btw i am not dead, just busy, be back soon.

return of the muttur refugees - what the peaceniks didn't want to happen

by all accounts thousands of (mostly muslim) refugees who fled the ltte's attack on muttur have started to return to their homes voluntarily during last few days. this is natural given that the main source of insecurity in the area, terrorist camps at sampur, were captured by the sri lankan military.

pussies had several aims when they attacked muttur. immediate aim was to relieve their then beleaguered forces at mavilaru who were holding water hostage. another aim was to have a better position to attack trinco. but perhaps the main reason was to ethnically cleanse the area. though tigers were chased away from muttur (in spite of several peaceniks efforts to prevent that) refugees were reluctant to return with terrorists, who have shown their intentions clearly, so close to their homes. as i pointed out one of the aims of that sampur operation was to get rid of that source of insecurity. by last monday military achieved their aims more or less.

as usual paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, sunanda deshapriya, sunila abeysekera, kumar rupasinghe and other assorted peaceniks did their best to prevent that by calling for an immediate halt to hostilities. apart from their usual preference for all out appeasement of terrorists, in this case there was probably more immediate and concrete reasons for this: they know they and their ilk will benefit as long as refugees remain refugees because lot of refugee aid passes through their and related ngos.

there maybe some naive mollycoddled young people and even some foreigners in colombo, who because they are either unable to face reality or even think for themselves, accept what their peers or families say without questioning and end up believing all violence is bad and peace is worth any cost. most people who go to fake peace protests and hold placards fall into this category. on the other hand peaceniks i mentioned are intelligent enough to know the facts. still they chose to back a course of action that would have made the sufferings of refugees and terrorist's attempted ethnic cleansing permanent. that they did this while proclaiming they care for the refugees makes this just the latest example of their hypocrisy comparable to their acceptance of ltte's sole representative status while claiming they are human right activists.

people are course free to be selfish. it is only that most leading individual peacniks' self interests coincide with terrorists'. they try their best to hide this with hypocrisy. it is in the other sri lankans' (in this case muttur refugees' for instance) self interest to expose that hypocrisy. more they are exposed for what they really are, even less will they matter.

last two weeks

what a fortnight! i went round and round the country several times. then went again. one night i was seeing faint traces of rockets going off in the horizon, next enjoying the fireworks in the sky. one day in the dry zone in the southeast, next in the dry zone in the northwest. and it is not over yet. i may be at it for the rest of the month.

why? because that is what i do. i am what is called a businessman/mudalali/entrepreneur or any combination of those. i do lot of things (most of the ventures being comparatively small it is too early to concentrate on core competences) and many of them do not fall under what is called 'new' economy. though a few do fall under that category too. i flatter myself that i do some of the old things in totally different innovative ways. most of the time i don't need to run around but this time i had to, to get the best out of them. and i did and will.

as i said in january i enjoy such periods of intense activity and almost lose all desires and appetites during them. this time wasn't an exception though i had more leisure. mainly because my free time wasn't clogged up by internet or television as it normally is when i am in colombo. most of my recent blog posts were written offline and posted later. spending nights in hotel rooms and other people's houses, and being driven around the country also gave me an opportunity to do some sustained reading. though i have always enjoyed reading, normally i do it in a haphazard way. i never finish books at one go. i read/reread several books piecemeal at the same time. this time i reread a huge novel (more on that in a later post) from beginning to the end. hopefully i will get to read several more during the rest of the month.

as usual there is nothing like going out of town to realize how disconnected from reality sri lankan blogosphere is. though i must say it has started to change perceptibly. this wasn't the same blogosphere i encountered last year or even last april. most of the newer bloggers seem to be more firmly grounded in reality than the old (according to internet time) ones. as the internet use spreads, sri lanka on the net will inevitably reflect the country. good.

good because reality truly and clearly exposed without filters created by some people in their cocoons will be favorable to sri lanka and sri lankans. i for one have no hesitation in asserting that, in spite of the war, and in spite of the government and politicians, this is the place to be if you are willing to work hard and make something out of yourself as an individual. opportunities are endless whether one makes an effort to use them is one's decision.
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ps
somebody (one of those who started visiting from north america after my posts on u.s. and canadian terrorist arrests. this blog got/gets lots of traffic because it was/is within the top 10-20 results in google and others, for several keywords connected to those arrests including some names) writing a comment challenged me to defend my 'views on the ltte within the libertarian framework'. i was also asked how i can maintain my 'libertarian integrity while supporting sri lankan nationalism'.

i will write a full reply/post later when i get the time. for now i will just say i am not a nationalist. i do consider myself a sri lankan (and not a sinhalese as my birth certificate probably says), but as a description not as an identity. i call myself a libertarian because i believe "individuals should be free to do whatever they wish with their person or property, as long as they do not infringe on the same liberty of others". i believe ltte infringes on my liberty as well as on others'. i also believe appeasement of terrorists do not work. as such my and other sri lankans' self interest requires that ltte should be defeated through a pragmatic and morally justifiable strategy in order that all sri lankans can exercise their rights and freedoms.

sampur in military hands?

reuters and afp quoting government officials report that, military has moved in to sampur (or sampoor) without much resistance today, after a week of fighting. so does bbc (hardly the most reliable source on sri lanka). nothing yet on mod, national security, or tamilnet.
if confirmed and after consolidation, this is a great development for the sri lankan military. it certainly took less time than i estimated. maybe tigers are even weaker than we think.

who will jump to the tro's defense?

assets of the exposed pussy front tamil rehabilitation organisation (tro) were reportedly frozen by central bank of sri lanka. will the assorted peacenks jump to its defense? will consortium of humanitarian agencies (cha), of which tro is a full (not just an associated member as the website says, read their 'annual report') member along with lot of other peacenik non governmental organizations? will the few non peacenik ngos there have the courage to stand up to the peaceniks and stop their being dragged to defend terrorists? how long will it take for the peaceniks to parrot the ltte propagandists call for government to release the ltte front’s assets, so that it can address "the current humanitarian situation in the northeast of sri lanka"? any guesses?