Sri Lanka has a 2600 year-old Culture?

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lanka-has-a-2600-year-old-culture/

If what has become of Sri Lanka today is the legacy of a “2600-year old culture”, might we have been better off without any culture at all?

Ever so often we hear the famous cliché ‘dropped’ by our politicians- “………Sri Lanka’s 2600-year old culture……….” It is a sine qua non statement repeated ad nauseam at many a public and political forum (the most recent being CHOGM) to add ‘weight’ or to perhaps impress otherwise empty utterances. This is obviously done solely to awe the audience, especially a foreign one.

I recall, as an impressionable young girl, when Sri Lanka’s first Executive President J.R. Jayawardene made his State Visit to the USA during Ronald Reagan’s tenure as US President. In his televised address on the South Lawn of the White House, JRJ casting aside his noblesse oblige referred to the United States as “a country with only a 200-year old history, while Sri Lanka’s was over 2500 years old”!

This ‘casual’ or ‘calculated’ remark (with JRJ one never knew) has remained with me to date. To me even then, this ipse dixit remark reeked of an acute inferiority complex and I felt utterly embarrassed on his behalf.

What did Sri Lanka get out of CHOGM?

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/what-did-sri-lanka-get-out-of-chogm/

It appears that our Emperor’s attempts to show-off his new clothes viz spanking new infrastructure, spotless city etc., to the world through CHOGM went seriously wrong!

At the expense of the Lankan tax-payer we managed however to provide a free and very expensive platform for the LTTE diaspora to be heard through the Eton- educated gab of none other than the British Prime Minister David Cameron himself. He made no bones about why he was coming to Sri Lanka and what he was going to do here and he did it!

India’s CHOGM faux pas!

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/indias-chogm-faux-pas/

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is being flogged mercilessly by the Indian Media – a symbol of how tall democracy stands in that country – over what is being dubbed as India’s ‘CHOGM Blunder’.

The Indian PM’s decision not to attend the summit in Colombo is being viewed as giving into the bullying tactics of Jayalalithaa’s Petticoat government. Just days before, Singh while addressing The Annual Conclave of Indian Ambassadors/High Commissioners abroad in New Delhi outlined what he believed to be the ‘Five Core Principals’ of India’s development-centric Foreign Policy.

Singh will not sing at CHOGM!

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/singh-will-not-sing-at-chogm/

So the Injun PM is not coming after all! No surprises in that, given the racket Tamil Nadu has been making in the recent past over him attending/not attending CHOGM in Colombo.

Just imagine our poor Emperor hopping mad; pulling his jet-black tinted hair and moustache, seething with fury over the snub. After all what can he do, short of dragging the Injun PM by his turban or beard to Colombo?

CHOGM- A Carnival is coming to Town!

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/chogm-a-carnival-is-coming-to-town/

There is a tangible feeling of an impending carnival-coming-to-town in the air these days in Colombo. The city is being virtually turned up-side-down and inside-out, dusted and vacuumed by the Surgeon General of Lanka’s cosmetic surgery-Urban Development cum Defence - in order to make it look pretty to impress the visiting revelers.

Vibrant coloured banners and gadgets decorate the streets and roundabouts, competing with larger-than-life cut-outs of our very own Emperor-in-new-clothes. Trees pruned and some uprooted, innocent homeless dogs banished, roads re-carpeted and of course the pavements/side-walks dug up and some still awaiting to be tiled. In the interim, pedestrians at great risk to life and limb must share the roads with speeding vehicles.

In short, anything that doesn’t look pretty and prosperous is being removed and pretty-looking-things put in its place.

But this is not just any ol’ carnival coming to town, it’s CHOGM!

Sinhala-Buddhists vs Buddhist Moderates 

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sinhala-buddhists-vs-buddhist-moderates/

In Sri Lanka today there are two types of Buddhists- the Buddhist Moderates who identify themselves as Sri Lankans and those who identify themselves as Sinhala-Buddhists which they regard as their nationality!

 

As a Sri Lankan (a Sinhalese and a Buddhist by faith) I have lived and worked amidst the strange practices of Sinhala-Buddhists in Sri Lanka. As such I have observed closely what a Sinhala-Buddhist is as opposed to a Buddhist Moderate. 

 

The following are my observations.

Courting Satan in Saffron Robes

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/courting-satan-in-saffron-robes/

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it” – Aung San Suu Kyi

The Rajapaksas’ moment of glory has passed. The sheen on the “We won the war” badge has now faded. The golden moment that presented itself post-2009 to ‘right’ the ‘wrongs’ of the past is now lost. The lack of a political vision, direction and leadership of a country emerging from the quagmire of a protracted bloody civil war is tragic, to say the least.