Let us caress ‘Kattankudy’

I was not planning to write this morning (Friday, August 05, 2011).  Didn’t write yesterday either.  This is not the place for laying out reasons but let me say ‘sorry’ nevertheless.  I write today because I must.  I know that’s clichéd but I am not cringing as I might have on another occasion.  A couple of days ago I got a text message from a man I’ve never seen but I know through email exchanges and rare messages.

Ramzeen Azeez is one of the most well-read people I know.  He knows a lot about a lot of things and is generous with his time and wisdom.  He points out error or misconception gently, as is the way of those who have opened their minds to perceive the eternal verities.  He’s not alone of course and one day I will write about all the giants who with affection, giving and wisdom make me less of a dwarf than I am. 

Ramzeen is a devout Mohammedan and I feel a discerning and humble student of the Holy Quran.  He teaches English to Sinhala children in Habarana.  I am sure he’s teaching them more than English songs and pronunciation, but it warmed me when he informed me recently, with unmistakable pride, that they can now sing ‘My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean’. 

‘Today is the 21^st anniversary of the massacre of 147 people who were praying in mosques in Kattankudy’, the text message read.   We forget and I am not sure if that’s good or bad, honestly.  On the other hand, if we do remember or are reminded, we must in the very least caress for gripping tight only hurts gripper and gripped.  These are therefore caressing thoughts of a time that could hardly be identified with things soft and tender.  Or so I would like to think.

I am a regular recipient of hate mail.  I respond to each and every person, named, bogus-named and otherwise anonymous.  I am asked to feel ashamed about July 1983 and the suffering that Tami people were subjected to.  My remorse, as I have mentioned many times, is that the citizens of this country, especially the Sinhalese could not save all the Tamils attacked by marauding mobs, instigated by ruling party thugs and given a free hand upon the directives of those in power.  I do not ask, by the same token, that Tamil people apologize to me for the horrendous crimes committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against people like me in the name of Tamil Nationalism. 

If ever any Sinhalese speaks of LTTE atrocities, there are people who shoot back saying ‘you produced the LTTE’.  And that’s a half-truth at best, but in fact a downright lie.  Tamil people down the lane we lived in never caused us any harm.  Their political loyalties were not known then and are irrelevant as far as I am concerned in the matter of being good neighbours.  Like in our Sinhala villages, all doubts, jealousies, suspicions, ill-will and other negative things were and are put aside on joyous and sorrowful occasions.  Just like in the aftermath of the tsunami where the first lorry loads of relief items collected by ordinary people in the southern parts of the country were sent to the then LTTE-held areas. 

I don’t agree with those who support the LTTE or those who advocate separatism, even the Chelvanayakam variety of ‘a little now, more later’ that is touted by the self-reinvented devolutionists, but I do understand ‘aspiration’ and sense of ‘grievance’.  When I receive hate mail, I am not angered.  I have often wondered what the Muslims had done to the Tamils, or were perceived to have done, to warrant the silence about the Kattankudy massacre on August 3, 1990.    

I’ve wondered why the fact that one in ten Muslims was an IDP did not factor into the conflict equation at any serious discussion on the subject. 

On the 11^th of June that year, the LTTE murdered in cold blood 600 policemen who had been instructed by the then President, Ranasinghe Premadasa to surrender to the LTTE to keep a tenuous ceasefire alive.  The LTTE thereafter ordered Muslims to vacate Kattankudy or else!  The geo-politics related to ethnic cleansing and manufacturing traditional homelands deserves a lot of comment.  Today, twenty one years later, just as on that day 21 years ago, all that is relevant is the capacity of human beings to treat their fellow creatures with barbarity.  All that is relevant is that those who lost their loved ones remain without them.  All that is relevant is that the LTTE is no longer around to do a repeat of all this.  All that is relevant is that it could happen all over again if the relevant lessons are not learned. 

I don’t know anyone who died that day.  I don’t know their relatives.  I know just internet caricatures, for example Mohammed Ibrahim, then 40, who told the New York Times, ‘I was kneeling down and praying when the rebels (not sure if that’s the word he used or the word that the particular reporter used; probably the latter in this age of horror-cleansing media spin) started shooting; the firing went on for 15 minutes; I escaped without being hit and found myself among bodies all over the place.  Or Mohammed Arif, a 17 year old student at the time, who said, ‘Before I escaped from a side door and scaled a wall, I saw a Tiger rebel put a gun into the mouth of a small Muslim boy and pull the trigger’.

Ibrahim would be 61 now and Arif 38.  I don’t know what lives they’ve lived or if they are still alive.  I don’t know who the assassins were and what happened to them thereafter.  All I know is that 147 people were murdered.  It was so unnecessary.  Like the close to 100,000 who died in the 30 year conflict, the 60,000 killed between 1988 and 1989, and the 20,000 killed in 1971.  Unnecessary. 

That we are  still coherent as a nation and a people is certainly consolation. Whether we will remain as such is never guaranteed.  It requires courage, compassion, humility and tenderness. 

It is good to remember.  It is good to touch without touching, in the manner of exercising equanimity in the face of life’s vicissitudes.  I forgot, but was reminded.  I am just extending my friend Ramzeen’s arm, using words.  I hope they touch, that they caress.

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TNA, Tamil aspirations, post-war amity and the local government elections in the North

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the umbrella organization of once unabashed apologists for the LTTE secured control of 18 local government authorities while its arch rival, the Tamil United Liberation Front, which openly criticized the LTTE won two while the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance also took control of two bodies in the strongholds of key ally, the Eelam People’s Democratic Party of Douglas Devananda. 

The results have provoked hurrahs on all sides, some chest-beating and some condemnation of an ungrateful and even communalist electorate.  Cogent arguments have been presented to support each thesis, referring numbers, contexts and the dimensions of ingratitude and racism.

I am of the view that it is too early to be hasty in concluding this, that or the other about the election result.  It is useful, however, to review the various ‘last words’ on the results. 

First of all, there are some indisputable facts that need to be taken into account.   This was the first election held in these areas sans the heavy sway of gun-wielding terrorists who have on occasion exacted boycotts (Presidential Election 2005) as well as return of preferred candidates (TNA in 2001 and 2004). 

For more than half a century, politics of identity have held sway over all other considerations. There has been a lot of stress on communal grievances, real and imagined, a natural tendency to make mountains out of mole-histories and of course the closing of communal ranks in a conflict deliberately portrayed in ethnic terms.  All of this was buttressed by the fact of an overwhelmingly Sinhala army taking on an exclusively Tamil insurgent group, even though terrorism was the principal modus operandi and one which was glossed over by those who abhorred method but identified with objective.  We should also factor in the reality that the length of conflict does not necessarily make a freed people less impatient in the matter of benefiting from war-end.  No human being is ever happy with his/her lot.  Few would weigh relative merits.  Tamils are human beings.  Just like the Sinhalese.

It is against all this that the ingratitude claim needs to be assessed.  True, the Tamil people are now better off than they were during ‘LTTE-time’.  Today there is development and a relatively high-speed catch-up with the rest of the country.  The Northern Province was denied all that and the people can thank the LTTE for development lag.  There are no bullets whizzing over people’s heads.  No parent spends sleepless nights wondering if his/her child would be abducted by gun-toting thugs.  No one is pilfering food, medicine and other essentials now being freely transported to these areas.  No one is being taken hostage by a rascal who wants to save his blood-stained skin using a human shield.  Should not the Tamil people say ‘thank you’ then?  Have they not?

The numbers indicate that the majority have backed the pro-LTTE TNA.  People back parties for different reasons and don’t necessarily have control over the ways in which that support is interpreted by the winners.  The TNA, given its long history of separatist communalism said it was a vote for self-rule, never mind the fact that history does not support the traditional homeland thesis, demography shows that more than half the Tamils in the country live outside the North and East, that vast swathes of the so-called traditional homelands are inhabited and have been inhabited by Sinhalese and Muslims for centuries, and that the place names of the relevant electorates secured are mostly recent Tamil corruptions of original Sinhala names. 

Forgotten is the fact that the TNA got just 34% of the total eligible vote.  Forgotten also is that significant numbers voted against the TNA.  Even if one were to correct for twisting of election regulations and even downright violation of the law, the anti-TNA numbers remain significant given context.   It can be read as gratitude and it can be read as rejection of communal lines. 

The TNA, during the election campaign, made the valid point that development is part of the politician’s/government’s job description.  People may or may not reward, even if the reward-seeker has performed beyond expectation. It is not and should not be a given. 

On the other hand, some TNA candidates took the communalist line that it was not largesse but recompense.  It reminded me of a sign in Tamil that was visible to all at the Jaffna library (post-rebuilding) stating that the facility was destroyed by Sinhala racists and was rebuilt by Sinhala racists to alleviate guilt.  I’ve not heard of signs in Tamil thanking Sinhalese for post-tsunami largesse (I doubt any Tamil believes the tsunami was wrought by Sinhala racists) or for the unprecedented voluntarism that Tamils in IDP facilities benefited from after being rescued from certain death at the hands of the would-be liberator in the first 5 months of the year 2009.  And yet, I am sure there is appreciation.  Thanksgiving need not take tangible form. 

With respect to gratitude transforming into votes, all that needs to be kept in mind is that the UNPers in Colombo would never vote for the UPFA even though under this government the city has become far more livable and beautiful than under any UNP mayor or government. 

Nevertheless, extreme communalism made for easy rhetoric on the part of many TNA candidates who are yet to say ‘thank you’ for being able to speak with their own tongues now, whereas that particular organ was the play thing of a terrorist.  The blood-call of the TNA would have played a part and if more enlightened Tamils do not step in to warn of the possible consequences, then we could very well see another 30 year war and a repeat of this article by some unknown scribe consequent to 100,000 people dying unnecessarily for nothing.  Sadly, the likes of Sambandan, Senathiraja, Premachandra or Sumanthiran will be around to be held accountable to their crimes of omission and commission.     

Rajan Hoole offers a different gaze at the results.  He attributes low voter turn out to disenchantment regarding the TNA and its unholy association with the LTTE.  On the other hand, he attributes the TNA victory to a rejection of the EPDP, which he says has replaced the LTTE as the local thug and value-extractor through all means available and is also a veritable safe house for approvers of and perpetrators of sexual abuse.  Most importantly, Hoole offers that it was not about Tamil or Sinhala, but about the corrupt and the clean.  Oppressive government was rejected, he argues, even if fronted by a Tamil.  He does not explain how LTTE proxies were seen as ‘clean’, though.  Still, that is an element that was very present and the Government can thank Douglas Devananda for compromising any positives that ending the war and developing the region may have won it.  Hatred or at least default loyalty to Prabhakaran should not have been assumed to translate into love for Douglas.  It is in this context perhaps that TNA, communalist and complicit in the crimes of terrorism, was seen to have a prettier face than the EPDP.

Despite all this, it is not illogical for Sinhalese people to ask themselves ‘why bother?’ for very few Sinhalese would see themselves as racists and moreover would not see ‘Tamil’ in the recipient of assistant but fellow Sri Lankan.  I know that many Sinhalese, here and abroad, are frustrated that Tamils abroad are hardly lifting a finger to support various fund-raising projects aimed at helping people in the North recover their lives, livelihoods and dignity, especially in a context where such Tamils have pumped inordinate amounts of bucks so the LTTE could procure arms and ammunition used to kill thousands of Sinhala people.  

Gamini Gunawardane has the last word on all this, I believe.  In response to an ingratitude claim, he wrote the following.

‘Personally, I do not think that a good government could afford to be petty minded. A government needs to be about Bahujana jana hithaya, bahujan sukhaya (for the good and wellbeing of the masses). Merely because one section of the people rejects them, a government should not marginalize the entire community. A government cannot afford to think and act like them, a minority, and expect them to come into its fold, thinking as one country, expecting fair play. Good Governance is a far more broad concept. I think we should all as a nation do Metta (compassion) on these unfortunate people, some of whom are immersed in hatred, believing their own lies, unable to get out of that hell they created by themselves.’

We live in complex times.  Let us be conscious about the fact.  It is not an easy path to navigate, this road to peace, tranquility, solidarity and equal citizenship. We are hampered by map-lack as well as map-suffusion.  As always, wisdom and compassion will help.  If we have room in heart and mind for such things.

                                                    

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HRW and Brad Adams need to get some sleep

It was expected.  Those who have uncritically and happily believed and continue to believe lies trotted out by terrorists and their minions in various garb, including human rights advocates, journalists and academics who ignore the most basic tenets of fact-finding; namely corroboration, reliability of source and verification; were not going to buy anything that would in effect show them up.   

The Defence Ministry debriefing of military activities, titled ‘Humanitarian Operation – Factual Analysis’, released on Monday, August 1, 2011, is a comprehensive account of the challenge of ridding Sri Lanka of the menace of terrorism.  It includes the all-important contextualization of the entire operation.  A full description of the principal enemy, the LTTE is offered, including atrocities against civilians, use of child soldiers, the systematic practice of ethnic cleansing, attacks on democracy, the global spread of the organization and relevant threats as well as responses by key members of the international community by way of proscribing the organization. 

The report describes the potency of the LTTE, human and material resources at its disposal, supply network, international support mechanisms and its transnational criminal activities.  It also covers the long history of attempt at a negotiated settlement and how the LTTE scuttled them all and used such moments to recuperate, recruit and re-arm.   

All this is ‘context’ that the vociferous anti-Sri Lanka lobby have largely played down or ignored all together.  The report gives a full account of the military strategy and how it was informed at all times and in all things by a concern for civilians that is hardly ever part of military operations anywhere in the world, especially those that ostensibly take on terrorists.  Most importantly, this report complements a separate account of the humanitarian assistance including provision of food, medicine and other essential supplies and services both during the military operations as well as after the liberation of close to 300,000 civilians held hostage by the LTTE. 

 

Now some have argued that this is ‘unbelievable’ and their disbelief, sadly, is perfectly believable.  They are after all used to seeing ‘war’ as an uncompromising and unapologetic exercise for this has been the history they’ve read, lived through and benefitted from.  Interestingly, though, this was not a ‘war without witnesses’ as some have claimed.  All this is clearly established in these two documents.  Still, we live in a world where those who will not see just cannot be expected to see.  I am thinking right now of a man called Brad Adams and the outfit he works for, Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW has released a comment on the report titled ‘Sri Lanka: official report whitewashes military abuses’.  There’s a sub-heading thrown in for good measure: ‘Admits civilian deaths for the first time, but puts all blame on Tamil Tigers’. 

Now had HRW actually read the document, it would have something more to say.  What Brad Adams has said shows that neither he nor HRW are interested in the truth of human beings, but rather, having coming to some crazy conclusions based on tall tales whispered to them by a bunch of terrorists and their mouthpieces, are ‘honour’-bound to repeat a lie and pooh pooh all evidence to the contrary.  All in a day’s work, yes.   

Two things are mentioned: military abuses and civilian deaths.  Civilian deaths need not have been ‘admitted’ two years after the LTTE’s military was routed.  They were known from Day One, beginning with Velupillai Prabhakaran murdering Alfred Duraiappah, the Jaffna Mayor on July 27, 1975 right up to the cold-blooded spraying of bullets on men, women, children, the sick, disabled and elderly on May 15, 2011.  The Sri Lankan Government adopted a policy of zero civilian casualties.  It is this objective that a) helped minimize civilian deaths, and b) increased troop losses.

No hostage rescue operation is so clinical that innocents come out unscathed and this was no exception.  What is crucial to remember is that in all law pertaining to humanitarian issues and human rights is those concerning intent, systemic nature and proportionality.  Sri Lanka fought an unequal war: the LTTE was answerable to none and the state a signatory to numerous international conventions.  Sri Lanka came off with flying colours on all counts.  HRW and Brad Adams do not agree.  This is their right.  On the other hand the onus is on them to back disagreement with fact.  What do they have to say?

Brad Adams claims, ‘The Sri Lanka government admits its forces caused civilian losses during the conflict’s last months’.  I don’t know if Adams has read some spoof version of the report, but there’s no admission of causing civilian losses, deliberate or otherwise.  Adam’s perhaps doesn’t have the basic intelligence to understand that the ‘causing’ was all done by the LTTE, a terrorist outfit, a child-snatching outfit and a hostage-taking outfit.  Talk of twisting!

Adams brushes off the report as ‘the latest and glossiest effort to whitewash mounting evidence of government atrocities’.   What’s this ‘evidence’, though?  HRW refers to reports issued by a UN Panel of Experts, a US State Department Report and its own reports.  Nothing is said about the reliability of the sources quoted in these reports, though.  Most importantly, HRW is silent on the fact that evidence  (sic) is hugely tainted by the fact that it was mostly culled from LTTE propaganda and that key ‘informants’ have since admitted to wild exaggeration extracted at gun-point by the terrorists. 

HRW talks of shelling of hospitals.  Again, no evidence except fairytales spouted by the naïve or the pernicious.  ‘Thousands of civilian casualties’ is another casual insert, again demonstrating horrendous arithmetic skills; the subtraction from the highest population estimate (305,000 – again artificially boosted by the LTTE to obtain greater quantities of supplies which they could pilfer) the number registered in IDP Receiving Centres (approximately 295,000), LTTE cadres who died in the fighting (over 4000, according to last intercepted LTTE communications), those who perished after that final intercept, those who fled without registering to India and other parts of the island, those killed by the LTTE while attempting to flee, does not add up to ‘thousands’ and certainly not to the 40,000 offered by Channel 4.  'Lies Agreed Upon', a damning rebuttal of wild allegations trotted out by the likes of Brad Adams sheds a lot of light about modern-day number crunching.

HRW makes much of the Defence Ministry ‘admitting’ (makes it sound like a ‘confession, no?  Should we add a smiley, I wonder) the use of small arms fire including sniper attacks in rescue operation.    I wonder if HRW and Brad Adams, had they been in charge of rescuing hundreds of thousands of hostages from the grasp of ruthless terrorists could have managed to save even one by offering pieces of cakes or shooting peanuts using a pea-shooter.  What planet are they living in, I often wonder.

There’s more ‘startling’ emphasis by HRW: ‘The Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat itself effectively admitted in April 2009 to using heavy weapons in areas where there were civilians, stating: “Our security forces have been instructed to end the use of heavy caliber guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons which could cause civilian casualties”.  What’s so startling in this?  Once the No-Fire Zone was announced and demarcated and all Tiger command positions eliminated, it was only logical to issue such directive.  It does not imply that heavy weapons or aerial weapons were used deliberately to cause civilian casualties.  HRW is great with sleight of hand, terrible at logic.

‘Artillery attacks on hospitals!’ Adams screams.  No evidence, though.  Except a highly tendentious and malice-ridden account by a discredited UN official quoting people who were made to lie at gun point by the LTTE. 

Finally, Adams says that there is growing evidence that the Government forces committed war crimes. Is he referring to the Darusman Report?  The laughable, highly unprofessional and mischievous productions, as quoted in reports carrying precious Brad Adams quotes?  Well, all that has been debunked, didn’t Adams know?   

I am convinced that Brad Adams and HRW are pretending to be asleep.  No amount of compelling evidence to counter their wicked and/or naïve perceptions will wake them up.  Not even if Prabhakaran’s ghost came up and prodded them with his Made-in-Germany pistol and said ‘Thambi, you are dead wrong!’  That’s what happens when you slip or are sly.  You have to keep pretending. 

I think Brad Adams and HRW should get some real sleep.  Then and then only could they be expected to wake up.  And smell the coffee, as they say in that part of the world whose crimes against humanity are everyday affairs but defy the noses of the likes of Adams and his outfit. 

 

[Courtesy Daily News, August 4, 2011]

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There are oases of serenity amid the clutter desert of Colombo

A few days ago I tried to introduce a set of mid-career students to the world of poetry, pointing out that it helps grasp the idiomatic use of a language, in this case English.  I walked them through and walked with them through William Wordsworth’s ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’, which I heard for the first time more than thirty years ago at Lakshmi Jeganathan’s ‘Speech and Drama’ class.  Aunty Lakshmi taught me that poetry had to be recited and how it ought to be recited as well.  I was essentially teaching an ancient lesson to new students.

I’ve never seen the serenity of early morning London when viewed from Westminster Bridge and I am not sure if gaze obtains the same kind of calm and sense of peace that Wordsworth experienced almost two centuries ago.  I have seen however in years gone by that the squalor in and around the Pettah can be blanketed by a stillness that would evoke similar sentiments around the same time of day, daybreak.  Places have multimple characters. They wear different faces at different times of the day and under different skies and weather conditions.  Theoretically, then, there is no place on earth that does not have the prerequisites for serenity’s residence, even if such residencies are transient as is the way of the world. 

I’ve also known people who are at peace regardless of the clutter, cacophony and odour of location.  It probably takes a special kind of dis-attachment.  The city is like an accomplished pickpocket though.  People are regularly relieved of peace of mind and tranquility without any by-your-leave as such.  We are not only exhausted by the work we do but by the fact of city-sojourn.  And so we seek or are drawn to oases of calm in the loud desert of movement, smoke, dust and commerce we spend the major part of our days in.   

They are of different kinds, these oases.  Some come in the form of friend and heart-mate, some as temples, some as taverns, some as entertainment in theatres, film halls and open-air concerts, some in the form of cyber space conversations and browsing.  Bookstores are oases too.  I’ve heard that for some, there’s no better peace-giver than an iPod.  It takes all kinds, yes. 

A few months ago I received an invitation to the opening of a gallery.  It was a relatively quiet affair and quite tasteful too.  CasaSerena or ‘House of Calm’, backs off the busy Havelock Road, just opposite Police Park.  Launches attract a lot of people and I did not relish the idea of checking what was inside that particular evening.  I did visit a couple of times thereafter and each time I told myself that I ought to spend more time there. 

The architecture, interior décor, the elegantly laid out crafts, the crafts themselves, the gallery and what it held, a book corner, literally and metaphorically, as well as the books that were on sale, indeed everything about the place complemented the name of the place.

On both occasions I spoke with the creator of this place, Nisansala Karunaratne, who had studied fine arts at the San Jose State University, California, majoring in photography with graphic design as her minor.  She’s already held several photography exhibitions, both in the USA and in Sri Lanka.  She’s a painter too.  Her work, whether in photography or on canvass describes a person intimately and seriously engaged in the exploration of the eternal verities.  Nisansala said that nature inspires her. Again and again.  Not just the beauty, but harmony in form and colour.  That exploration is clearly informed by a deep appreciation of culture and tradition.

She believes that cognizance of root is an important element of who she is and what she does.  Serenity is evident and is touched by things familiar not just because we’ve seen it often but they speak to and of our bones, sinews and moments of deep reflection. 

The boutique and gallery are naturally signature by creator touch.  It has already hosted two exhibitions; Nisansala’s own exhibition of watercolours, oil painting and natural pigments, ‘Visual Formations of Form and Colour’ in February this year and ‘A Puerto Rican in Sri Lanka’, which showcased watercolour and woodcut prints by Rashid Abdur-Rahman.

Nisansala, in her quiet way, said that the boutique-gallery was designed to showcase a wide range of traditional and modern creations to enhance the art of living. ‘Some will be practical, some will be useful and some will just be beautiful,’ she said.  It is to stimulate the mind and the senses, she explained.  She didn’t have to. 

To this day, I am not certain if it is the view from Westminster Bridge or Wordsworth’s way with words that spoke serenity.  I wonder if someone will ever write a poem about ‘Casa Serena’.  All I know is that even in the texture of a random piece of art or the colour-arrangement in a neatly designed notebook cover or the cropped out extraction from a photograph of some piece of Sri Lanka deliberately left unnamed to spur exploration, there is serenity.  I felt blessed to have access, to see, learn and wonder. 

[Courtesy Daily News, August 3, 2011]

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Reflections on foolishness, wisdom and those deserving of honour

I have been reading and reflecting on the Mangala Sutta of late, i.e. the Discourse on Blessings, and found that even the simplest line from the Buddhist scriptures inspires immensely.  My wife, a keener student of the doctrine and who frequently listens to bana on the radio, made an interesting observation:  ‘Yes, and it’s all linked and should be reflected on keeping in mind other pertinent and salient elements of the dhamma (doctrine); the Mangala Sutta should be read in conjunction with the Parabhava Sutta (the Discourse on Downfall)’.

I glanced through the latter, which complements the Mangala Sutta by pointing out the causes of downfall and that those who allow themselves to be tarnished by these, blocks their own road to worldly, moral and spiritual progress while lowering all that is truly noble and humane.  Being mindful of the dangers enumerated in the Parabhava Sutta and avoiding them, therefore keeps open the pathways to receive the thirty eight blessings detailed in the Mangala Sutta.

I read again the particular lines from the Mangala Sutta and as always happens when a mind enriched by further elaboration re-reads, the inspiration was greater and the reading richer or so I like to believe. 

Asevanā ca bālānam
Panditānañca sevanā
Pūjā ca pūjaneyyānam
Etam mangalamuttamam

The above is the first set of blessings that our Budun Wahanse is said to have mentioned when asked to speak on the subject by some deities visiting him at Jetavanarama as recorded in the Sutta Pitakaya and the Kuddakapatha following re-telling by the incomparable Treasurer of the Dhamma, the Ven Ananda Thero.  The stanza advocates association with the wise, disassociation with fools and the honouring of those worthy of honour and observes that those who do this are blessed.

Who are the ‘foolish’ referred to here?  Taking into account other relevant discourses, ‘fool’ refers to those who do not observe basic morality.  The commentaries indicate that even if one is conversant with the dhamma but does not observe moral conduct, one is foolish since the behavior results in suffering, the augmentation of suffering and a lengthening of sansaric sojourn. The commentaries also argue that in the ultimate sense this stanza extols the individual to remain aloof from foolishness. 

It occurred to me that there are no absolute fools and that no one is absolutely wise except those who have walked the path advocated and have reached the destinations of knowing.  In each of us there is a fool and there is a wise person.  To the extent one fortifies oneself with the thrividaratne, or the Noble Triple Gem, the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, one is able to better ascertain the dimensions of foolishness and wisdom in a given individual, and able to empower oneself by learning from the wise dimensions and check oneself against being contaminated by the foolish. 

It is not a piece of advice where the individual is required to label someone ‘fool’ or ‘learned’, run from fool and walk with the wise.  If that were the case, we would have collectives made exclusively of fools and exclusively of the wise with no interaction whatsoever between the two, even the fools who wish to be wise being snubbed by the latter. 

Like in all things, the call is for the twin deployment of pragna (wisdom) and maithree (compassion), keeping in mind the virtues of practicing upekkha (equanimity), with full knowledge of the transient nature of things (even fools can become wise and the wise slip to foolishness, for example).

Most importantly, the stanza calls for deep self-reflection, advocating that the individual seek within him/herself the foolish and the wise using one or more of the many tools provided in the vast canon of Buddhism.  An easy pathway would be to reflect on the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha (the collective of those who have renounced worldly pleasures, or the bikkhus incorrectly translated as ‘clergy’).  The distance between self in all its facets and the ideal-types (if you will) articulated in these qualities of the Noble Triple Gem, would help, I feel, in discovering within oneself the elements of foolishness and (relative) wisdom and help also to obtain sense of the dimensions of ignorance.  Once these things are ascertained in some approximate manner, it becomes or should become easier to move from avidya (ignorance) to vidya (comprehension), darkness to light, foolishness to wisdom and so on.

The ‘honour’ element is no less fascinating, I found.  Who are those who can be seen to be worthy of honour? The commentaries offer a list:  those who provide material and spiritual benefits such as parents, teachers, employers, monks, public servants, etc. and also those with more refined morality, greater learning, or greater age.

The latter set of characters worthy of honour cuts across all categories for everyone is honourable one way or another, and by the same token everyone has qualities that sit well with the opposite.  The advocacy, perhaps, is to expend wisdom and compassion in order to be able to ascertain in each individual one encounters, that which is praiseworthy and to applaud the same, even as one recognizes flaw and protects oneself and if possible the flawed as well, without being condescending or succumbing to moral posturing. 

Critically important, likewise, is to reflect on the idea of ‘honour’ in the context of self-exploration.  It is inevitably a humbling exercise and an ego-washing that makes for more wholesome engagement with the larger collective even as it makes for keener and more beneficial exploration of self. 

This afternoon, a friend, benefactor, reader and critic, told me that she was disappointed with the tone I had used in a piece I wrote for Sunday (July 31, 2011).  I told her that there are times when foul language has a role.  ‘No Malinda, never; it might seem to be effective but in the long run it is not’. 

We slip and I am sure I will slip again.  My friend was absolutely right.  I was checking out the Mangala Sutta for a different purpose when a particular line popped up before me.  It was about the well-spoken word and how speaking it is a blessing.  I wrote back to her, copy-pasting the stanza, acknowledging that she was right.

There’s a fool in me.  The association of the wise (my friend) helped me recognize myself or at least that particular aspect of who I am.  She is truly worthy of homage. 

I take refuge in the Buddha.  I take refuge in the Dhamma. I take refuge in the Sangha.  May all beings be happy: Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatta.

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On keeping things in the neighbourhood in South Asia

Nirupama Rao, India’s soon-to-retire Foreign Secretary, when asked about the Channel 4 video purporting to comment on the last days of the LTTE’s military, is reported to have said that Sri Lanka should look at the video carefully.  Well, that’s already been done.  Channel 4’s mal-intent, unprofessionalism and scandalous lack of integrity have been adequately exposed.  The good lady probably knows this. 

On the other hand, she adds a comment: ‘As per the video, there were human right violations during the last few days of the war they were fighting. It cannot be justified any way. But it was a war zone. It should also be taken into consideration that there were tragedies in Sri Lanka.’

Rao doesn’t mention (dare we say ‘she doesn’t dare mention’?) that the only established violation so far are those perpetrated by the LTTE and include hostage taking, shooting dead fleeing civilians and sending children with bombs trapped to their persons to the centres established to receive Tamils entering the Government-controlled areas and blowing them up to deter would-be escapees.  Rao doesn’t mention either that India has a long and continuing ‘tradition’ of violating human rights, for example in Kashmir.  Someone needs to tell her, ‘it cannot be justified in any way’.  

That’s ok.  ‘Par for the course’ from an Indian diplomat, I would say, even one on her way out.  What interested me more was an observation or perhaps a wish that things in the neighbourhood should be kept in the neighbourhood: ‘We must take care of it and have to avoid jumping into conclusions on any third party’s involvement’. 

The logic can be extended.  Sri Lanka can keep things within Sri Lanka.  Tamils and Sinhalese can sort their problems among themselves.  India can negotiate and resolve long-standing grievances of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities with the aggrieved.  Sri Lanka leaves Pakistan alone, Pakistan doesn’t bother Bangladesh, India stops messing with Nepal and Nepal will not interfere with India.  The point is, India played ‘Third Party’ in Sri Lanka, jumping to conclusions and playing a major role in turning a pussy cat into a people-eating Tiger who not only consumed her Prime Minister (Rajiv Gandhi) but slaughtered thousands upon thousands of Sri Lankans, in particular Tamils, leading to the inevitable denouement we saw on May 19, 2011. 

Still, this neighbourhood watch proposal deserves exploration.  We can be good neighbours with India and indeed the whole region of South Asia can be more fraternal than it has.  Why should we open ourselves to ‘third party involvement’ in our affairs, and in particular the terrorist and terrorizing West led by the USA and UK?  They’ve not done us any favours and even as we speak are killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan not so much to combat terrorism as to maintain a presence in the region to oversee resource extraction of the US $ 1-3 trillion worth of unexplored mineral wealth across the Hindu Kush, in particular uranium, lithium, copper and iron ore.  And that’s a treasure trove that India is keenly aware of and has already moved in to paw with greedy hands.

There’s a need for South Asian countries to cooperate.  It is the mutual suspicions we have about one another that have paved the way for rogue nations like the USA and Britain to massacre our brethren in the name of protecting them.  Much of these suspicions are not without foundation. India did give refuge to, arm, train and fund separatist Tamil terrorists in order to destabilize Sri Lanka.  India continues to renege on UN Resolutions and the Terms of Partition with respect to Kashmir.  Pakistan is accused by India or funding and training the insurgency in that troubled region.  There are realities. 

So when Rao says ‘let’s be good neighbours’ or ‘let’s sort out things among ourselves’ one wonders if she means ‘let India be the ultimate arbiter; let the UN and USA go fly a kite!’  She ought to have spelled it out without leaving room for conjecture.  In the absence of elaboration, one has to revert to history and that doesn’t paint a happy picture of regional solidarity.  Indeed it conjured the image of a regional thug. 

It is not easy for the powerful to show humility or even to acknowledge that all is not well at home.  India has her own problems.  Political and economic both. India is not a sadhu state and Rao hardly a diplomatic Mother Theresa.

South Asia is a region of squabbles and squabbling nations.  Petty animosities and meaningless one-upmanship efforts have opened the door to outsiders.  We are so busy fighting one another or being wary of one another that we don’t have the eyes nor the energy to stop the robber barons. 

No one wants to belittle India, but we can be a decent neighbourhood only if all households have equal say, treat one another as partners and fraternal entities.  There cannot be big brothers in a neighbourhood watch programmes.  There can’t be ‘godfathers’ here.  South Asia cannot be a mafia made of a mafia boss and a bunch of minions dependent on him for security and tidbits.  I am sure Nirupama Rao knows all this. 

We are ready to take her opinion at face value and work towards working out its full potential.  Let’s hope Delhi is ready too. 

[Courtesy Daily News, August 1, 2011]

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