Going Global

There has been an influx of new rules and regulations, mostly seemingly meaningless, imposed upon the general public.

Take new motor traffic regulations. Some of the stuff I’ve heard belies all logic, like the imposition of restrictions on modifications. Let’s not even go near the banning of cell phones in schools which is obviously a badly thought out knee jerk reaction that bears almost no consequence on the actual issue. Even the 'porno rules' strike me as absurd, seeing as only a few locally visited smut sites have been removed.

But what the purpose these outcries are serving, intentionally or not, is to divert the public's attention away from the important issues. Like the political situation; is there any serious reform going to happen? What of the pro devolution and anti executive presidency lobby? It’s turned into a pro-porno one. And let’s not even talk about economic development; we can leave that in the expert hands of the government's mathematicians

What about all the dead bodies turning up, again? Sure we may say that it is a good thing because most of them are apparent gangsters. but do we seriously think that this is an idealistically motivated killing spree? I think it’s just about control. Whoever is instigating these killings, and I’m not accusing anyone, is aiming at consolidating power. The drug industry fills the coffers of a lot of people and, on a completely unrelated note, rumour has it that Potta Naufer is driven by the police to his home every night to enjoy his mothers meals.

Meanwhile, no one in power is going to stop sending their kids to school without phones; neither are they going to stop jerking off to the internet, doing drugs, dealing drugs, driving souped up cars without seatbelts and engaging in other general abuses of power.

Sri Lanka will not accept any conditions on a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the island's president has said.

"We will not pawn or sell our motherland to obtain any monetary aid," said Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Sri Lankan government is in talks with the IMF about a $1.9bn (£1.4bn) loan to help combat the economic downturn and pay for reconstruction.

The IMF usually insists on conditions for any emergency loans.

No forced measures

These involve taking steps such as cutting public spending or raising interest rates.

But Sri Lanka has made it clear.... (more at BBC)


Hmmm.. no  I have not got many thoughts there. As of late the West seems to have simpered a bit to the war efforts and have indicated a lot more support than they used to. With Hillary Clinton's call to the president and her supposed 'support extended with regard to the 'humanitarian improvements' and the elimination of terrorism etc. I still have the Derana News Alert on my phone.

Except she didn't. Well she did call him but internet news reports seem to deny the fact that she had anything good to say, while some others agree a little more with the Temple Trees version of the tale. This phone conversation and what was really said and implied could play a big role on our future relations with the West and entities such as the IMF and World Bank.

SL is very much an import dependent economy for many of its basic essentials and therefore foreign help in terms of loans, exports tariffs, trade deals etc are essential to its survival. And these rarely come completely devoid of conditions. It seems in a polarized world, the only way to maintain true independence is to have a completely closed economy or be the strongest player around. Since we're nothing of either, it looks as if we will have to go through some changes based on the whims of others soon enough.

But obviously, the government will not make it look like they were 'conditions' when they implement them in the economy oh no. And since we seem to have pretty much of a dormant opposition it looks like the real news of what is going to happen in the in the future may not be too clear till months later. By which time it'll be too late to do anything about it. Not that anything much could be done about it anyway. But at least we'll know.

Who is a soldier? Is he a fighter in a noble cause? Or is he a villain used by the forces that are to channel his blood lust in the direction of who is perceived to be the enemy? Then should he be noble in his actions or should he be as dastardly in his deeds as his conscience provides provision for and his superiors give him leeway?

Talking about Ajantha Mendis, in a post that directed a fair bit of strong points of view in my direction. I became embroiled in this argument/discussion/casual chat with Mr. David Blacker. Though we started off talking about Ajantha Mendis, as all arguments go, this one ended up at a stalemate where there was a hold off on the meaning of one word and its implications.

The word was 'virtue' as it was used by Nicholas Machiavelli in his Art of War.

My argument was that soldiers, in order for war to be truly effective and not beget terror in any other form, have to be essentially 'good' people, and should not mistake going to war with having an opportunity to unleash suppressed animal instincts on innocents met along the way. To make things clearer I'll highlight a couple of exchanges me and David had. The extracts are from our last two comments.

Me: Virtue after all simply put, refers to good qualities doesn’t it?

DB: Over-simply put, I'm afraid. Good, after all, is a subjective term. But I think it's clear that Machiavelli didn't mean "goodness, honesty" etc. He was talking about strength, ambition, manliness.

Alright, let's assume that Machiavelli did mean these things when he spoke about 'virtue'; but then strength, ambition and manliness does not necessarily detract from being 'good' does it? one does not have to be evil to be strong, ambitious or manly. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that true manliness arises from achieving your ambitions in a way where you extract as little unnecessary discomfort on your fellow human beings. One can argue that it is a weakness and not a strength to trample upon the already downtrodden.

So therefore shouldn't soldiers essentially be good people? Shouldn’t they refrain from raping, pillaging, shooting unarmed civilians and leaving the women and children unharmed?

Perhaps it is the rationale behind the war in the first place that makes soldier behave in certain ways. If motives behind the war in question are contrived to seem good and just whereas there were ulterior motives present (take the Iraqi war for instance) then the soldiers will not be fully convinced as to the justifiability of their actions. The hidden truth will permeate down through the ranks and there will be a certain sense of frustration and greed and ambition that will be directed at achieving that ulterior motive in the level of the soldiers themselves. Translating into deeds that are commonly known as 'crimes of war' but pass unnoticed in most cases due to the confusion. Because essentially the actual motive behind the whole war is essentially in currently defined terms a 'crime'.

Iraq was a crime. There were no WMD's found there. Ever. The whole thing was a fisco. Some say the reason behind it was oil. But it was not a battle between good and evil or whatever you may call it. That much was painfully obvious. Here is where we specifically discussed a soldier's behavior;

Me: I beg to differ David. It is goodness that keeps a soldier from stealing from the dead. It is honesty that keeps him from lying to his superior to save his own neck. It is goodness and virtue in its 'modern meaning' that keeps a soldier from not shooting down an unarmed enemy; it is goodness and 'virtue' that would prevent all the war crimes that go unheeded in Iraq and perhaps, in our own land.

DB: That is true, and the fact that such atrocities occur (and have always occured) is in fact because virtue (in its modern sense) does not exist in the military. Virtue would prevent atrocities, yes, but it would also prevent the ruthlessness needed by military leaders which must sacrifice lives for objectives, ignore civilian suffering, and abandon everything but victory. Virtue, in its modern sense, would prevent an individual from even being a soldier who must kill and maim his fellow human beings in order to achieve a political objective. True virtue would prevent war.

But would virtue or being good and honorable actually reduce the effectiveness of a soldier? Or is soldiering just like anything else we humans do? and do we have a choice to choose whether to be honorable or bloodthirsty while doing it? like in Business, Career, Sport etc. can we always be virtuous and still win wars?

The year draws to an end and there is still so much wrong with the world. It may be a pessimistic outlook but sadly the human race seems to be defined by the crises that befall it. We are naturally cynical towards the good things in life. an uncorrupt government? a war to be won? Equality and universal acceptance? Not all of us would meet these statements with complete optimism. We believe in the weaknesses of the human race. We believe in the age old tome of our lives; 'perfection is impossible', 'nothing is and ever will be perfect' we keep telling ourselves. but are we so far away from perfection as we think? I do not know. But there is hope.

After that somewhat soppy start, let me list out the major crises/ happenings of 2008 that will define the following years as i see them off the top of my head. But pertaining to the cynical nature of the race on Earth, i have referred to any significant event as a 'crisis' so you may think it’s a good thing, but somebody somewhere will suffer because of it, perhaps owing to its imperfect nature.

The War - can it be won? how many of us are really dying in Killinocchi? why are they not allowing reporters in there of everything is going our way? What’s really going on.

The Economy - Both local and global. it shifted the world around. Having worked for a US bank involved specifically in the area of lending to subprime customers, I was privileged to see firsthand what was going on. although I left that place sometime before the crisis hit. Greed and capitalism deregulation and irresponsibility plunged the world into darknessssss...

Nigeria - Here is a country absolutely loaded with oil reserves, wealthy as the wealthiest country in the world potentially, whose people are still suffering without basic living conditions. Corruption has reached astronomical heights and practically all the petrodollars are going into the private coffers of government officials.

What’s sad to see is the international community does not do much about it. They're in cahoots with the government of course; it's all about pillage, plunder and take what you can. The less powerful and helpless the people, the better. Nobody cares about the Nigerian people as long as they can get the oil. They are terrorized. and terror begets terror. Therefore arises the MEND. and they are branded terrorist. Kind of like the

FARC - originally a bunch of helpless Columbian farmers, fighting the industrialization of their forests. The loss of their rivers due to the building of dams. The world tried to run over them and they fought back, and another terrorist group was born.

The Middle East - namely Palestine, I do not know if there have ever been a single race of people so downtrodden and treated unfairly as these. I mean the actually cut off electricity and food supplies to the whole nation because o a political fight. This can only occur when the powerful are so vain and corrupt as the forces that instigated the unfortunate humanitarian crisis in the name of 'democracy'. Ironically, it was in protest of Hamas, who gained rule of the Gaza strip in democratic elections as opposed to their opponents who were more friendly to the West.

Global Warming - It wages on and things seem to be improving really slowly. We are beginning to see a major movement emerge in popular culture in support of the environment. But a part of me is cynical, because there really doesn’t seem t be a significant change happening.

Africa - As opposed to the rest of the world, Africa alone as a continent seem to be going through a lot. Inflation in Zimbabwe is reaching unbelievable levels, one wonders why the economy has not simply crashed apart. Aids is spreading like wildfire, one advice to you i'll give, if you're in Africa, feeling horny, and want to get it on, don't. For the love of sweet life, don't.

Obama - The embodiment of change, an end to Bush who incidentally is probably the worse one man crisis to ever hit the world since Satan himself, Obama seems to embody everything opposite. but his rhetoric draws out the cynic inside, is he really all that? Well, we'll see, but don't expect fire crackers right away.

The Balance of Power - We are finally reaching a point where there are clear signs of the beginnings of decentralization in the world's power base. Russia, Iran and China are in the forefront of the challengers to the US followed by India, Brazil and Sri Lanka (not). But fifty years is a long time to build a power base and the US is still by far the most powerful country on Earth. interesting times ahead.

So thats my list of where the world stands in terms of significant happenings as at the end of 2008. Now I'm curious to hear about yours, and what events of the world impacted your view of this year and the years following immediately afterwards. So unfortunately im gonna tag a few of you thinkers out there to ensure your kind response :D sorry. Indi, Dean, Aufidius, My prerogative, Jack Point, Noorie, LD And the Mathawaada crew you're it.

A quick look at the ingredients for a healthy dictatorship.

1) Consolidated power base - Gee, I don't know, like maybe family members holding almost all the positions of real power in the government


3) The Army - Win the war and you've got a highly loyal army standing around doing nothing. Easy peacy job it'll be to use them to counter any public uprisings and to ensure a,


And finally and most importantly

7) A Passive People - we don't give a shit as long as our bellies are full yeah? we're not going to take to the streets if we can just as comfortably sit on our couches and watch other people do it. Like I said, the masses will be taken care of, and if the masses are not angry enough, the revolution wont happen.


Mix it all together with a generous dose of lies and treachery and viola! instant dictatorship. Pretty soon you and me will find ourselves done with the 'war on terror' and fighting a war for democracy. Bon appétit.