The Anti-Mangala Brigade should get a life!

Rain and Mangala had headaches. They still have headaches.  Mangle certainly does not deserve them!

The Foreign Ministry has acknowledged that the minister, Mangala Samaraweera, had indeed met with representatives of the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) while in London.  There have been howls emanating from certain quarters over this meeting.  It’s the usual story about compromising national security, betraying the memory of the thousands who laid down their lives to rid the country of the terrorist menace and poking his fingers in things not relevant to his ministry.  YAWN!  

What’s wrong, people?  Don’t you now what’s what about this country?  What’s wrong with some Sinhala people hobnobbing with some Tamil people in the former Mother Country (the new one for the newly initiated is the United States of America).  But let’s get to that later.  First things first.

The first thing is an old idiom.  Old habits die hard.  ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is another version of this.  To understand why this is ‘ok’ you have to understand the man.  Mangala was always friendly with the LTTE.  From the time he was Mahinda’s campaign manager according to some, and even before if you consider that he was always Chandrika’s blue-eyed boy (and we all know about how Eelamists were mollycoddled by her!).

There are many ways to be their friend.  First and foremost you have to worship that Maoist dictum, ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’.  You know who Mangala hates so you can easily understand why he’s friend to GTF types.  And then you can also find ‘friendship’ in commonality of positions taken.  In post-LTTE Sri Lanka where Eelam is a bit too unrealistic, federalism is a fall-back option.  So Eelamists have to wave the devolution flag.  Guess who else waves it!  

But these are trivialities, friends.  

The most important objection to those who object to Mangala downing whisky and sharing a cigar with the Tiger Rump is that we are all beholden to the superior race, we are second-class, second-rate and what have you to Mr and Mrs White.  

Those who are howling in protest need a reality check.  Those of us who know what’s what have realized that being Brown Sahib is best.  That’s a Kolombian article of faith.  That’s how we got to run this country.  That’s why we can look down on the riffraff and have a good laugh when they think this is a sovereign country.  We only have conditional sovereignty and the condition is that Kolombians can lord it over the rest.  

The GTF knows this.  Mangala also knows this.  Why else do they go on bended knees to the Dog House of the White House at the drop of a hat?  Mangala (and of course his de facto papa and mama, Ranil and Chandrika respectively) knows that anyone and everyone who has pride about this country’s past is a moron totally out of touch with reality.  The GTF knows this too.  That’s why they prefer fiction to truth, legends and myths to history.  That’s why they talk of exclusive traditional homelands that never existed.  That’s why they are located outside Sri Lanka.  Smart dudes.  

So there’s nothing wrong with Mangala meeting them.  This is a Kolombian government.  Ranil

is the boss.  He is our boy.  Mangala is also our boy.  They are enlightened individuals.  They know what they are about.  

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Kolombians are defined by the F-Word, Comrade Vasu please take note

Kolombians are a distinct people from Colombo who know much. They have things to say.  A lot of things to say.  The entire country can learn from them. This is the twenty ninth in a series published in 'The Nation' under the title 'Notes of an Unrepentant Kolombian'.  Scroll down for other articles in this series. 

Comrade Vasu is an unrepentant Socialist.  I think he still considers himself a Marxist and perhaps even a Trotskyite. He’s an unrepentant kind of guy.  That’s why he is refusing to say sorry for using the P Word on Ranil.  Bandula Gunawardena in trying to save Vasu the blushes has made things worse but that’s another story.  Let’s  focus instead on Vasu, the P Word and its inherent poverty.

Vasu defined himself in a non-Marxist or rather out-of-Marx kind of way when he used the P Word.   No, he didn’t define himself to be a crude kind of person for cuss words are used by one and all, gentlemen and otherwise, Kolombians and non-Kolombians.  He defined himself as someone who is not and will never be a Kolombian.  It’s simple.  The P Word is never used by us.  We are F-Word people.  Not P****** but F******.  

Just imagine a Kolombian gathering, let’s say at a corporate board meeting.  People get upset sometimes.  They lose their tempers.  They vent out their frustrations. They spew out cuss words.  They will toss out four letter words left and right.  You might hear F-off, F-them, F-it, F-you Mother-effer etc., etc.  All that is OKAY.  But if someone wants to use the P-Word or the H-Word for that matter he or she would immediately be censured with an audible ‘Shhhhhhh’, disapproving frowns from the more polite and eventually lose standing in the K-Community.  

That’s a fundamental difference between Us and Them.  We think it’s ok to swear but the swearing must in in English.  English cuss words are somehow not as vulgar-sounding as Sinhala cuss words.  That’s probably indicative of cultural superiority, I am convinced.  We can eff things up anyway we want and therefore we can say it too.  That’s culture. That’s civilization.  That’s class.  No disjuncture between word and deed, no contradiction.  

Non-Kolombians of the P-Word using kind do it when they are really, really angry or when they are drunk.  They don’t use the P-Word as verb (transitive and intransitive), noun, adjective etc., etc.  The P-Word, in short, lacks the linguistic versatility of the F-Word.  If you want to check out the power of the F-Word, google ‘Osho + F***’.  He spells it out beautifully.  The word can describe pain, pleasure, hatred and love, Osho points out.  Effing-beautifully, I might add.  But if you are too effing-lazy to do that just think of all the ways in which the adjective form can be used: It’s effing fantastic, he (Vasu) is effing crazy, they are so effing innocent.  You get the effing point, right?

The P-word just doesn’t do it.  The F-Word empowers.  The P-Word is ungainly, it is crude and indicative of a primitive mind set.  The F-Word is the last word on culture.  We are Effing-Kolombians.  That should say it all.   Comrade Vasu, please take note.

Other articles in the series:

Have a free lunch on Election Day

Shortcuts to becoming a Kolombian 
A Kolombian's worst nightmare
The Bourse is ours!
You name it, Kolombians own it
We shall not be re-named
Get off my walkway! 
Thank you Mahinda for the Avacado Prawns!
English is a feel-good thing na?
Dear Percy, your membership card is ready
Forget Mahinda and Maithree, Alistair Cook is the Kolombian choice!
One day we will acquire 'class conciseness'!
Mahinda, Maithripala and their Money-Pestos 

Kolombia and Kolombians all the way!

Maithripala's victory: the yakkos did it (for us)! 

Kolombian loyalists take over and how!

This 'ihapaalana' stuff is driving me nuts! 

Spare us the sliced-bread nightmares Ravi!
If rice is too expensive, eat cake yako!

They've kept the baby AND the bathwater

Lord Ranil and Serf Maithripala 

Spare us the bad news, ok?

Get off our backs, Ranil! 

Ranil the Executive, Maithri the Approver

The wrongdoing birthright 

CBK is stabbing us in the back! 

The true meaning of Insider

Kolombians know how to eat, alright?

Dude, you gotta love our Keriya

Kolombianism = Cameronism

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Kolombianism = Cameronism

Cameron the Colombian tells 'Human Rights' to eff-off

David Cameron’s Tories were re-elected.  Hurray!  I am all for conservatives and conservatism (expect when it comes to forests — the sustainable development of profit demands that we brush aside tree huggers and other such riffraff).  So yes, let me say it again: HURRAY!

What was most interesting about the UK elections, however, is not that David and his boys and girls won.  No.  What is significant is what it will do to human rights in that country.  David promised to scrap those silly notions and replace it with some vague lines about citizens’ rights or something.     

Now there’s a lesson in this for us.  David knows that he has a huge problem to deal with.  Terrorism.  There’s was the Al Qaeda and now there’s the ISIS.  So David thinks ahead.  Maybe he has learned something from Sri Lanka’s experience, maybe he has not.  What counts is that he is thinking straight.  And he’s thinking ahead.  

Simply, he doesn’t want to be in a situation where he has rule books thrown in his face.  No human rights laws means no violations, because you can only trip over existing traps.  In Sri Lanka’s case, there were and are human rights laws.  So even if there were no violations or nothing so serious as to warrant international inquiry or censure, the book can be thrown provided of course you set it all up in the media.

David doesn’t want to deal with the hassle.  Yes, that word is right.  It’s not that the grandmasters of non-violence, co-existence, tree-hugging and love like the USA will buttonhole David if he were to slip up.  Friends don’t do that to friends.  Friends didn’t do that to friends when friends invaded Iraq on a pretext and illegally.   Still, David doesn’t want to take chances.  I call that smart.

This is the difference between that country and Sri Lanka.  It is also the difference between Kolombians and non-Kolombians.  The smart guys know the laws.  If the laws are inconvenient the smart ones (read, Kolombians) will get rid of them.  If you can’t get rid of the laws, you will find ways to get around them.   And you’ll do it in a way that you won’t be caught even later.  

And it is not only about laws, breaking them and getting away with it.  It’s about all things.  Like the 100 Days Program.  We are into the second 100 days but no one minds.  Kolombians were pretty sure that no one will mind.  Take the promises.  No 20th amendment, no Right to Information Act, no Code of Conduct for MPs.   And on top of that Ranil and other Kolombians are acting as though they have already set up heaven on earth!  That’s class.  Upper Class.  You could call it Kolombian   Style.  Is anyone checking the prices of those 11 items that our Ravi Boy picked for a price-slash?  No!  That’s the beauty of it.  You give and take and then you get people to say ‘Thank you so much!’  Like banks.  Yes, you can say it’s money in the bank.  Sure thing.  

It is all about making a hue and cry over things.  We grill the likes of Basil, Gota, Sajin and Dilith, but Arjuna and Arjun we let be.  We won’t utter a word about the cute moves by Lalith K.  Now don’t be surprised if his lady love arrives to raucous applause one of these days.  

We are just mimicking David.  It is something only we can do. Non-Kolombians cannot do it.  Well, they can’t even begin to understand.

Human rights, did they say?  What human rights  What humans?  What rights?  These are the kinds of questions that David and others will ask if any rambunctious idiot dares talk about human rights once they sock it to those terrorists or whoever they think doesn’t fit into David’s kind of Britain.  Kolombianism stamped all over it.  Yes, you could cll it Cameronism.  I feed proud!

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Gota confuses the hell out of Kolombians

Kolombians are a distinct people from Colombo who know much -- so much that they are wont to think that others don't know and can't think. They have things to say.  A lot of things to say.  The entire country can learn from them. This is the twenty eighth in a series published in 'The Nation' under the title 'Notes of an Unrepentant Kolombian'.  Scroll down for other articles in this series. 

As I have said before I didn’t mind Mahinda that much.  In fact at one point when it seemed like he was Ruler for Life I even recommended that he be made an honorary Kolombian, provided of course that he dropped ‘Mahendra’ for his other and much-better sounding name ‘Percy’.  Gota was different.

To begin with it would be hard to come up with a name so un-Kolombian as ‘Gotabhaya’. On the other hand Gota obviously felt for us.  He turned what was a squalor-ridden, slum-infested glorified township into what could legitimately be called a garden city.  He even managed to ‘upgrade’ the slums into apartment complexes.  He made sure however that they would look at best like poor relatives of the luxury condominiums peopled by Kolombians.  That’s class. Class that is almost Kolombian.  Almost, but not quite.  

So when this talk of arresting him came up, I was in two minds.  The perverse part of me was naturally happy that a non-Kolombian was in hot water.  He was crude in the way he dealt with his detractors.  Threatening editors, using his brotherly connections to get things done etc was hardly ‘Kolombian’ in character.  We do things with finesse; do things in a way that desired outcomes are obtained but so that no one notices who did it or how.  We laugh all the way to the bank.   

The gentleman in me, however, was upset.  Gota did a lot for us.  I walk on Gota-walkways, gaze on Gota-beautified cityscapes, invest and reap rewards in a Gota-cleared, terrorist-free land, after all.  

It was all very confusing.  I didn’t like him being hauled to the Bribery Commission but was put off by the riff-raff that turned up to protest Gota being questioned.  They were not Kolombians and they’ve not done anything for us.  

Even now, a part of me is happy that the Supreme Court stopped Gota being arrested, but the other part of me is upset that this non-Kolombian is being treated with kids’ gloves.  He may have looked after our interests but then again he wasn’t ready to take orders from us.  

The other problem in Gota-less Kolombia is the issue of upkeep.  What was spick and span under Gota has lost some of the sparkle.  It makes me wonder if Ranil is really calling the shots or worse whether Ranil is at heart anti-Kolombia.  

What really worried me is that there was this voice inside that kept whispering disturbing things to me.  I heard it say, ‘things were better with Gota around’.  I ignored.  Then it came up with this worrisome idea ‘maybe Gota will come back’.  Got me thinking.  Was the interim order by the Supreme Court staying Gota’s arrest some kind of ‘deal’?   No insult to the learned judges of course; they would surely understand my concerns considering the way things have happened in this country under the Rajapaksas and yes, even under Maithripala when Presidential powers were used to sack, reinstate, facilitate resignation and appoint judges to the Supreme Court.  

Is this some kind of deal where Maithri offers the premiership to Gota (as Mahinda’s proxy) so that everyone is happy, the SLFP obtains unity and the UNP is shown the door?  That question makes me want to wring Gota’s neck, never mind the walkways, the beautiful city and a terrorism free land that makes it easier for us to make our bucks earn more bucks.  

I don’t want OUR guys out.  Sure, they are no better, no worse, but the thing about commonality is that it gives comfort.  Kolombians need to have Kolombians running Kolombia.  ‘Seeming to run Kolombia’ is the icing on the cake.  We all have a sweet tooth and our sweet teeth have been denied for a long time.  A few months is hardly compensation.  

When Mahinda, after losing, looked like making a comeback I wasn’t worried.  He can be dealt with.  Gota is a different kettle of fish.  He confuses.  He worries.    

Other articles in the series:

Have a free lunch on Election Day

Shortcuts to becoming a Kolombian 
A Kolombian's worst nightmare
The Bourse is ours!
You name it, Kolombians own it
We shall not be re-named
Get off my walkway! 
Thank you Mahinda for the Avacado Prawns!
English is a feel-good thing na?
Dear Percy, your membership card is ready
Forget Mahinda and Maithree, Alistair Cook is the Kolombian choice!
One day we will acquire 'class conciseness'!
Mahinda, Maithripala and their Money-Pestos 

Kolombia and Kolombians all the way!

Maithripala's victory: the yakkos did it (for us)! 

Kolombian loyalists take over and how!

This 'ihapaalana' stuff is driving me nuts! 

Spare us the sliced-bread nightmares Ravi!
If rice is too expensive, eat cake yako!

They've kept the baby AND the bathwater

Lord Ranil and Serf Maithripala 

Spare us the bad news, ok?

Get off our backs, Ranil! 

Ranil the Executive, Maithri the Approver

The wrongdoing birthright 

CBK is stabbing us in the back! 

The true meaning of Insider

Kolombians know how to eat, alright?

Dude, you gotta love our Keriya

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Dude, you gotta love our Keriya

He didn't come with guns. He didn't need to.  We know he has them and knows how to use them.  

Kolombians are a distinct people from Colombo who know much -- so much that they are wont to think that others don't know and can't think. They have things to say.  A lot of things to say.  The entire country can learn from them. This is the twenty seventh in a series published in 'The Nation' under the title 'Notes of an Unrepentant Kolombian'.  Scroll down for other articles in this series. 

It’s official.  We have a new boss.  Sorry ‘Lizabeth, we have to move on.  Time passes, things change.  Sure, we appreciate all that the English did for us and we will be eternally grateful too.  But what was big then is small now and we must take note of dimensions.

For more than fifty years we let history override this thing called ‘current reality’.  Oh yes, we knew all this time that Britain had long ceased to rule the seas.  The sun set a long time ago.   But although Britain’s sway globally had diminished quite a bit, we didn’t let on.  It wouldn’t have served our purposes. Yes, you taught us what ‘self interest’ is (and we are grateful for that too).  You see, the non-Kolombians living in this island didn’t know who called the shots or else weren’t too sure.  But our friend John Kerry changed all that.  And now that everyone knows, we might as well acknowledge the truth.  No hard feelings.   

John Kerry is not our boss, but he represents The Boss.  ‘The Boss’ is the United States of America.  You can also use ‘Washington’ or ‘The US State Department’ or ‘Wall Street’ instead of ‘USA’, it doesn’t matter.  We all know what’s what and that’s what counts. 

So when Keriya (he’s so cute and lovable that it is only right that we ‘affectionize’ his name) says ‘Sri Lanka’s war with Tamils’ we go along with it.  One does not argue with the boss.  And mind you, if anyone thought he was ignorant that’s all tosh.  He knows what he is talking about.  He will lie, distort, feign ignorance, remain silent, look the other way and do whatever it takes to get whatever he wants.  That’s his prerogative.  As loyalists we go along with it.  That’s what is so beautiful about Kolombians and that’s the secret of our long-standing success. 

Our Keriya probably knew how to spell the name of the great Buddhist revivalist from America.  Americans know and even if they didn’t we will not dispute.  We will defend.  So when he butchers the name of Henry Steele Olcott and calls him Alcot, it’s deliberate. He’s saying, ‘I will call him whatever I feel like calling him – deal with it!’  One must admire the arrogance of the Boss (and his representatives of course). 

Now some people are a bit peeved that our Keriya played the role of both President and Elections Commissioner by declaring elections in Sri Lanka.  They are upset that Keriya was ignorant of the fact that this tropical island doesn’t have the same seasons that North America experiences.  They are upset that he thought Sri Lanka had a summer.  Well, since we are now officially beholden to the USA and have accepted the truth that the USA is No 1 (we are glad, by the way, that although Barack Obama is dark, his policies are all ‘white’), it is only right that we salute our Keriya and accept the fact that Sri Lanka now has a Spring, Summer, Fall (not Autumn, for that’s too ‘British’) and Winter.  Don’t be surprised if we get some snow in November.  And don’t complain if we don’t, because not all the states of the USA get snow! 

Yes, we gotta love the dude.  We are gonna make sure that Sri Lanka becomes totally ‘American’ by the year 2020.  We will get Ranil to formulate a 5 year program where the US version (spelling and slang included) of English becomes the official language of Sri Lanka, vehicles will be driven on the right side of the road, ‘Sri Lanka Matha’ replaced with ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and the flag something like what the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico have (some stripes but only red and white and NO green or orange, some stars but NO lion, sword, perhaps a cross but NO bo-kola) and currency notes carrying the legend ‘In God We Trust’.

It would be a bit much for me to celebrate Obama, given his color (we might get used to it a few generations down the line, but not now – we’ve been worshipping ‘white’ for far too long!), but if say Hillary becomes president you would find me screaming ‘I wanna hold her hand!’ 

Yep, we gotta love our Keriya and everything he represents.  It’s been a huge burden going along with the British lie, but we done with all that.  It’s USA, baby.  All the way!   

Other articles in the series:

Have a free lunch on Election Day

Shortcuts to becoming a Kolombian 
A Kolombian's worst nightmare
The Bourse is ours!
You name it, Kolombians own it
We shall not be re-named
Get off my walkway! 
Thank you Mahinda for the Avacado Prawns!
English is a feel-good thing na?
Dear Percy, your membership card is ready
Forget Mahinda and Maithree, Alistair Cook is the Kolombian choice!
One day we will acquire 'class conciseness'!
Mahinda, Maithripala and their Money-Pestos 

Kolombia and Kolombians all the way!

Maithripala's victory: the yakkos did it (for us)! 

Kolombian loyalists take over and how!

This 'ihapaalana' stuff is driving me nuts! 

Spare us the sliced-bread nightmares Ravi!
If rice is too expensive, eat cake yako!

They've kept the baby AND the bathwater

Lord Ranil and Serf Maithripala 

Spare us the bad news, ok?

Get off our backs, Ranil! 

Ranil the Executive, Maithri the Approver

The wrongdoing birthright 

CBK is stabbing us in the back! 

The true meaning of Insider

Kolombians know how to eat, alright?

Read more

Kolombians know how to eat, alright?

Kolombians are a distinct people from Colombo who know much -- so much that they are wont to think that others don't know and can't think. They have things to say.  A lot of things to say.  The entire country can learn from them. This is the twenty sixth in a series published in 'The Nation' under the title 'Notes of an Unrepentant Kolombian'.  Scroll down for other articles in this series. 

Rice tastes better on a plantain leaf, this is something the Kolombians know.  That’s why we eat lamprais.  That was a blessing, really.  If not for lamprais we would have had to forego the flavor-delights that the plantain leaf breathes into a packet of rice.  Yes, you wouldn’t catch us opening a lunch packet that looks like something Sirisena’s wife cooked for him so he could take it to work all the way from Ambalangoda to Colombo.  Kolombians are a breed apart and we intend to interpret that literally. 

Sometimes some of us have to eat humble pie.  Politicians, for example.  They have to pretend that they are of and for the common people.  Ranil, for instance.  Poor man, he has to sit with the riff raff now and then.  I suppose he would have had to swallow a lot of pride to treat Maithripala Sirisena as an equal.  He’s done a good job of that, one must admit.  After all Maithri was No 1 and even after the 19^th Amendment remains No 1.  Ranil has carried on as though Maithripala is an equal.  Smart.  When he treats Maithripala as an equal Maithripala is dragged down to his level or to put it another way Ranil moves up.  Clever. 

It must be gutting for him although he hides it well.  That’s politics, though.  Eminently sufferable.  After all, we all had to treat Mahinda as though he was king and we were slaves for nine years, even though he was looking after our interests primarily.  One gets used to such things. 

The problem for Ranil is that there are times he has to play ‘commoner’ outside wherever he chit-chats with Maithripala.  Just the other day he had to sit on a bench (ugh!) along with the riff-raff.  Sagala was there smiling bravely through the discomfort of holding a nelum kole in one hand while gamely picking at the kiribath.  That might have given Ranil some comfort, we don’t know. 

But our man Ranil is a Kolombian through and through and for all my misgivings about him I applaud him for asserting the fact.  He didn’t let the side down.  He got someone to place a paper plate on the nelum kole and have the kiribath served on to the plate and not the leaf.  Talk about ingenuity.  He’s played the required politics without compromising identity.  He redeemed himself with this deft move, in my book!

Other articles in the series:

Have a free lunch on Election Day

Shortcuts to becoming a Kolombian 
A Kolombian's worst nightmare
The Bourse is ours!
You name it, Kolombians own it
We shall not be re-named
Get off my walkway! 
Thank you Mahinda for the Avacado Prawns!
English is a feel-good thing na?
Dear Percy, your membership card is ready
Forget Mahinda and Maithree, Alistair Cook is the Kolombian choice!
One day we will acquire 'class conciseness'!
Mahinda, Maithripala and their Money-Pestos 

Kolombia and Kolombians all the way!

Maithripala's victory: the yakkos did it (for us)! 

Kolombian loyalists take over and how!

This 'ihapaalana' stuff is driving me nuts! 

Spare us the sliced-bread nightmares Ravi!
If rice is too expensive, eat cake yako!

They've kept the baby AND the bathwater

Lord Ranil and Serf Maithripala 

Spare us the bad news, ok?

Get off our backs, Ranil! 

Ranil the Executive, Maithri the Approver

The wrongdoing birthright 

CBK is stabbing us in the back! 

The true meaning of Insider

Read more