Sleep my children and may peace attend you all...

This was first published in the Daily News on June 3, 2010, exactly 6 years ago.  It was written just after Israsel attacked a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza strip, killing 10 people in the pre-dawn attack  on May 31, 2010).  The world was outraged, but the expression of outrage was as always filtered through the politics of propriety.  Human rights have colours and so do their violations.  Read on...

I seldom go to sleep before midnight.  Most days I sleep around 1 pm.  I know some people subscribe to the early to bed and early to rise style of sleeping.  Some like a ‘power nap’.  Some are veritable Kubakarnas; they sleep for decades, it seems.  Some sleep like logs. Some are restless; they toss and turn.  Some sleep-walk, some walk-sleep.  Some have sweet dreams and some nightmares.  We are all made differently and so there’s nothing surprising in there being lots of possible sleep-ways. 

My friend Priyantha Wickramasinghe, as an undergraduate, was almost impossible to wake up.  He would vow to study all night after getting back to the hostel but would invariably beg us to wake him in 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, he would be woken up and told that his time was up. He would beg for another 10, then 15, then an hour.  This would go on until the ‘wakers’ tired of the game and went to bed.  Priyantha would literally fall asleep with a book in his hand. He would be on his side, book held up and from certain angles one might think he was deeply engrossed in it.  The book, I mean.  He was engrossed.  In slumber. 

People have strange sleeping habits and I have not had reason to lose any sleep over this issue.  This morning, however, I wondered.  I really, really, really, really wondered about how some people sleep.  I am thinking about a man called Ban Ki-moon.  I am thinking of a woman called Navi Pillai.  And another called Louise Arbour.  A man called Chris Patten.  In happier times I might have wondered about Gordon Brown and David Miliband, but these poor gentlemen have lost too much sleep in the past few months for me to wonder about possible shuteye-pattern. 

I wonder because I heard that Israsel attacked a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza strip early Monday morning, and that 10 people had been killed in this pre-dawn attack.  Ban Ki-moon has woken up from a stupor.  He’s outraged.  He’s called for an investigation.  I love this man.  He’s called for investigations in Sri Lanka. He’s thrown the book at Israel. I am checking the internet every few minutes, waiting for a statement from Navi Pillai, the woman who loves to hate Sri Lanka and who got her knickers so twisted by listening to Tiger propaganda that she would fight a war to get things un-twisted. 

This is what she has said: ‘I am shocked by reports that humanitarian aid was met with violence early this morning reportedly causing death and injury as the boat convoy approached the Gaza coast.’

Shocked?  Just ‘shocked’?  What’s the lady done with her moral high horse?  Sold it to Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister?  I am surprised she didn’t get on the phone with Chris Patten and draft a letter for the International Crisis Group to release to the world, demanding that Barak and his Prime Minister drop their pants, bend down and be caned for being naughty. 

Was she sleeping, this lady, when those 10 people died? Did someone wake her up?  Does she have on her computer several word templates, one for each country; one for ‘shock’, one when she’s ‘appalled’, another for ‘investigations’, and so on? 

Chris Patten. Where was he? Why is he so silent?  We are not talking about a ‘first’ here. Isreal, Palestine, Gaza, West Bank…these are not place names we are hearing for the first time. We heard them all long before we knew that Ban was the first name of a man whose surname was Ki-moon, long before Navi Pillai started sucking up to terrorists and started believing anything and everything that they said, and long before Chris Patten had to leave Hong Kong. 

Forget Gaza. How about Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo Bay?  How about investigations in and of these places?  Does Ki-moon fall asleep automatically when such names are mentioned?  Does Pillai? And Patten?  Louise Arbour…what does that lady have to say?  We are talking here about elaborately planned and precisely executed crimes against humanity, ladies and gentlemen. Not once in a blue moon.  Frequent attacks. For decades.  We are talking about repeated and in-your-face violation of UN Resolutions by the State of Israel.

I am imagining Chris Patten waking up to this bit of news from Gaza.  I don’t know what he would say or think, but since he’s said and done nothing, I would like to put some words into his mouth and some action into his hands.

‘Gaza?  What’s Gaza?  Some kind of sweet, some Turkish Delight?  Who is the aggressor?  Israel? Nooooooooooooooo…….can’t be.  They don’t do crimes-against-humanity.  They are our people.’

Chris Patten then does some ‘doing’. He gets on the phone to the British PM and says, ‘You may have heard about some Zionists chewing some Turkish Delight, but that’s all baloney. Didn’t happen. Will not happen.  If you are pushed, say “concerned” and nothing more.’

Chris Patten then has breakfast and calls his pals in the International Crisis Group and briefs them: ‘Palestine is not a country, and is therefore not our concern.  Israel is a Holy Cow.  Don’t touch it.  It’s Sri Lanka. Get it? Sri Lanka.  Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka.  Gaza Smaasha. Israel Smeashrael.  Palestine Shalestine.  All bunkum.  Let me repeat.  There are things we can chew and things we cannot.  And things we will not even if we could.’

Something was murdered yet once again on Monday morning.  Integrity.  Pillai must sleep well.  So too Ki-moon.  And of course Arbour and Patten. All good and healthy sleepers.  I am sure they have differences, but in this they are similar: sauce for the goose, according to them, is not sauce for the gander.

Sleep tight ladies and gentlemen.  There’s a bug that’s biting you.  Take a few pills called Sri Lanka and you will sleep well. All through the night. And, if necessary, through the day as well.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malinsene@gmail.com

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Navi Pillay rides again

Many, many years ago a Sri Lankan cricketer who was more than a tad naughty had been caught napping by his team mates while on tour.  The cricketer had brought a lady into his hotel room.  His team mates had been tipped off and they were ready. As the manly hero went out to bat, so to speak, his cricketing friends had stepped in to cheer him on. 

He was embarrassed. He was livid.   He was small made (as in height and weight). He was relatively new to the team.  He looked around and ticked off mentally those he could not take issue with, i.e. those who were senior and those who were stronger.  There was just one left, a young and frail bowler from Kurunegala.  Our hero pounced on him. 

This may have happened, it may have not.  If it did happen maybe the details are not all that accurate.  Still, there is a lesson to be wrung out of this, and one doesn’t have to know anything about cricket to learn it. Indeed, one doesn’t have to come from a cricketing country either.  Navi Pillay, for example, may or may not have played cricket, even though she is from South Africa, but she would get the point.  In fact there’s no telling whether ‘the point’ was obtained from that particular incident (if it did take place).  We don’t know where Navi Pillay went to school, but it is clear that she knows how to ascertain height, weight and seniority. 

Navi Pillay is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.  If you google her name along with the name of any particular country, you will find some statement she has made (if indeed she has).  The google-weight of ‘Pillay+Country’ would give you an indication of the nature of her concerns.  It looks like she’s obsessed with Sri Lanka.  Hold on, it might also mean that Sri Lanka has a horrendous track record on human rights, in which case it is but natural for Pillay to be thus concerned. 

On the subject of google searches, if you typed the name of any country along with the words ‘human rights’ in the ‘search box’, something will definitely come up because there are no abuse-free nations in this world; paradise, clearly is an other-worldly affair.  The world knows, however, who the big bad boys of rights abuse in this world are.  So what has Pillay got to say about the United States of America?  Precious little, apparently. 

On Sri Lanka, her rants are mostly drawn from nightmarish accounts which, if you dig deep enough into source-soil, have been first mouthed by utterly unreliable ‘witnesses’.  The line to ‘recall’ is full of politically compromised individuals with multiple axes to grind.  Last year, for example, just after the US-led resolution on/against Sri Lanka was passed, Pillay issued a warning: ‘don’t harass human rights activists!’ 

That was a laugh.  Sri Lanka’s ‘human rights activists’ are either terrorist-apologists, donor-fleecers, dis(mis)placed political activists or just down-in-the-mouth doom’s day prophets.  They are top income earners.  They are not just a miniscule minority but probably the most visible miniscule minority in the world.  Pillay has nothing to worry because they are very well looked after.  On the other hand, Pillay’s decision to bat for them indicates where she gets her story-line from.  It’s no wonder that Pillay seems to have nothing better to do than castigate Sri Lanka.  It’s not enough to send a recon-team ahead to Sri Lanka, she wants to send an army too, before she decides to fly in like some hybrid of a Viceroy and a Field Marshall.  

Sri Lanka is then a young and frail cricketer from Kurunegala for Pillay. She is not taking on the bigger-made, more ‘senior’ and forbidding United States of America.  ‘Drones’ are policy-instruments.  The ‘evidence’ of rights-abuse in Sri Lanka, quite apart from being drawn from doctored footage which cannot be conclusively linked to the Sri Lankan security forces and the victim-numbers being marked with inflation and little else, cannot be branded ‘Policy’. 

Pillay has been caught with her pants down. She has to save face. Sri Lanka is as good a whipping boy as she can get, considering that other ‘boys’ would probably whip her if she tried anything funny. 

 

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A note on power, truth and their relative lifetimes

The worth of a statement is not necessarily associated with its truth-value.  Truth does stand on its own, but very often by the time it is so recognized and even consecrated, a lot of water has already passed under the bridge. Blood-stained, we might add.

How many innocents have been slaughtered in the name of justice courtesy the death penalty? How many communities, cultures and languages have been obliterated from the face of the earth in the name of progress?  How many thousands are being rendered homeless, orphaned, widowed, limbless and distraught even as I write, all in the name of pursuing democracy and peace?
 
We all know that things are seldom as they seem. When the USA invaded Iraq, the excuse trotted out was ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Tommy rot, it turned out to be. Barack Obama’s Libyan testosterone-test was about no-fire zones and protecting civilians. Both Bush and Obama were cheered all the way by the mainstream media in the West. The cheering has not stopped.  Crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in gay abandon and with 100 per cent impunity. Truth, like justice, is slaughtered on the altar of expedience. This was how it was and this is how it is. There is no reason to believe it will not be so in the future.
 
It is all about power. Glen Ford in an article titled ‘African Union says ‘UP YOURS!’ to International Criminal Court’ (published on July 7, 2011 by Black Agenda Report), lays it all out. He talks of the US-led attack on Libya and how original reason has been left far behind and how the International Criminal Court appears to be half or almost totally blind when it comes to crimes against humanity perpetrated by the West, in particular the USA and the UK.  Israel too is a no-no as far as the ICC is concerned, one notes. The ICC does not see what the West is doing in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
Ford tells us what the current AU Chairman, Jean Ping, had to say about Navaneethan Pillai, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, the lady with more than a soft spot for LTTE terrorists.  It is worth a full quote:
 
‘Without doubt, the International Criminal Court is as Eurocentric in its view of the world as are the governments in Paris, London and Washington. So is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillai, who had the nerve to chastise China for ignoring the ICC indictment against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Bashir has travelled in Africa and the Middle East on state visits, and went to China for high level talks, last week. Navi Pillai, the Human Rights Commissioner, whined that she was disappointed with China for not arresting Bashir – although China, like the United States and Russia, is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
 
‘Nevertheless, Pillai showed herself to be a true servant of the West. “The whole world favours” putting Bashir on trial,” said the bureaucrat. Most of the continent of Africa does not want to put Bashir on trial. Isn't Africa part of the world? China does not want to put Bashir on trial. And one out of every five people in the world is Chinese!’
 
We haven’t heard Pillai calling for George W Bush’s arrest or for that matter the arrest of Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Nicolai Sarkozy or David Miliband. She hasn’t expressed regret or dismay that countries these gentlemen have visited had not arrested them.
 
Ping lays it out as thick as it deserves: ‘Pillai thinks the whole world revolves around Paris, London and Washington. So does ICC chief prosecutor Luis Morena Ocampo, who wants to deputize the United States military to enforce the criminal court's arrest warrants – regardless of what the African world or the Chinese world or anybody that is not European or American thinks. It's sad to say, but at this point in history, the UN serves the Empire.’

There is no such thing as unadulterated truth, ladies and gentlemen. Truth comes out of the barrel of a gun. It is something that strains out of power realities and relevant structures of approval and rejection.

The most important thing to remember is that truth does not win the day.  Power does. Truth wins. Later. It keeps us waiting, very often. In the long run, we are all dead, they say. In the long run, our children may be alive and if not, their children would. Time is longer than life, some Africans say. This is true. Time beats power. That’s small consolation for us of course. 

Civilizations, however, outlasts tyrant and idiot both. That’s why we are Sri Lanka, have been, are and will be. A bump along the road will trip the Obama’s, not a nation, a civilization and a culture.

http://print.dailymirror.lk/opinion1/50441.html

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A postscript to journalistic quackery a la Channel 4

It was bound to happen. Channel 4 has suffered a serious case of egg-on-the-face, but it was almost inevitable. Channel 4 was motivated in the first instance by bitterness at having one of its correspondents deported for gross violation of expected professional ethics. Channel 4 has a considerable track record in dodgy and shoddy journalism. Channel 4 seems to have been intoxicated by the shrill self-righteous statements issued by British parliamentarians shamelessly pandering to the LTTE lobby hoping to secure electoral victory.  Channel 4 seems to have been outraged by the fact that all chances of preferred outcome materializing were buried on the shores of the Nandikadal Lagoon. 

‘Revenge’ was called for. Revenge was sought. And, as usually happens when delusion, hatred and greed inspire rather than deter, Channel 4 tripped. Over its own vomit, did I hear someone say?

A few days ago, in New York, there was a screening of the much advertised ‘documentary’ about what Channel 4 (and other interested parties including rabid chauvinistic elements among Sri Lankan Tamils overseas) want the world to believe happened in the last stages of the historic operation that rid Sri Lanka of the terrorist menace (interrupted by stoppages for snacks and chit-chat we are told). Major General Shavendra Silva who led the 58 Division at the time the 30 year war came to an end and now Sri Lanka’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, New York, in a matter of a few minutes stripped Channel 4 of all vestiges of respectability and trustworthiness.

This does not mean of course that Channel 4 will confess to media quackery, apologize profusely to all Sri Lankans, all viewers and especially to the Tamil people living in other parts of the world for preying on their fears, insecurities, communal pride and grief. It does not mean that Channel 4 will fold up operations or even stamp ‘Chapter Closed’ on the door of its malice-ridden operations pertaining to Sri Lanka. It does not mean that this will be the last such effort on the part of terrorist-backers such as the Global Tamil Forum and the British Tamil Forum nor their partners in crime in the British Parliament, the European Union, the US State Department, certain UN agencies etc.

Neither will see racketeers like Jehan Perera and Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu shut up; it’s their livelihood to vilify things Sri Lankan and bat for forces that are determined to divide the country. For all their bleeding-heart bawls about human rights violations, these ruffians have with full knowledge advocated strategies that make for blood-letting. The will do so in the future too, I am sure. It’s a profitable business, we know. The intellectually dishonest, such as R.M.B. Senanayake and Kumar David will continue to pander to Eelam interests. Guaranteed.

We do not live in a world where social and political processes necessarily move towards the consecration of truth and justice. Tyranny wins, nine times out of ten.  The end of tyranny is only comic relief for world history has shown that tyrannies are not necessarily succeeded by democracies, nor tyrants by the benevolent, but rather other tyrannies and tyrants respectively.

Still!

Channel 4 with all the resources available could only come up with a movie.  A cheap one at that. Sure, there was clever use of the age-old misleading and misrepresenting trick, juxtaposition, and the use of music to wrap the lie in tragic flavours. There was the expected deliberate misnaming of terrorists as artists and journalists. The characters were, as expected, developed with careful non-mention of key and extremely relevant facts about who they are and what they’ve done. Care was taken not to compromise the purported ‘independence’ and ‘respectability’ of those employed to vilify the Government of Sri Lanka.

Greed, hatred and delusion did their usual work. They produced a sloppiness that the frills of music, lie-narration and doctored imagery just could not hide.  As was the case with the report submitted by the panel appointed by Ban Ki-moon to advise him on Sri Lanka, over-enthusiasm was the undoing of the Channel 4 movie.

‘Killing fields’ was supposed to buttress efforts by various forces to get the UN to authorize an ‘independent’ investigation into the ‘last days’ of the war (i.e when the LTTE was wiped out, and not, as should be the case, the time period that makes sense, February 22, 2002 to May 19, 2009).  Some want the truth. Some want confirmation by hook or crook of a cooked up story. Some want closure. Some want to use threat and intervention to extract regime change from the political chaos they believe these moves would generate. Some want to make Mahinda Rajapaksa submit to the Chelvanayakam Option (A little now, more later) by fixing Eelam-boundaries via the 13th Amendment, thereby legitimizing Eelam mythology. Most know and most pretend they don’t know that these malicious moves will only give life to communal disharmony and postpone reconciliation, even resulting in a fresh round of blood-letting.


                     
Parts 1 - 3


                     

Parts 4 - 6 

Malinda Seneviratne, a journalist and political analyst based in Sri Lanka

debunking the claims made by the

Report of the Secretary General of the UN

on Accountability in Sri Lanka [Darusman Report]

        

Channel 4 need not worry. Darusman won’t lose any sleep and neither will Navi Pillai, Louise Arbour, Manfred Novak, David Miliband, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Bernard Kouchner, Robert Blake, Peter Hayes, Patricia Butenis etc.  Jehan Perera can take a lot of egg on his face.  So can Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu.  Kumar David might say it’s just facial cream.  R.M.B. Senanayake will offer a prayer and bat on in the sophomoric manner he has perfected.  Gordon Weiss might move to another exotic location where he can play ‘Conqueror and Subjugated’ and maybe write another book or two.

We must expect the above from these ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’, ladies and gentlemen.  They are not fast asleep. They are not deaf or blind.  They were not born with twisted tongues.  They are pretending, most of them.  Therefore it will take a lot to wake them, make them hear and see, and make them speak the truth.

They don’t own Sri Lanka and they will not either. There are people who can say ‘I am Sri Lankan’ and ‘Sri Lanka is mine’, not because those words come easy but the civilization, heritage, culture, ways of being and becoming and the philosophies that nourished all this runs in their veins and make their sinews.  They and not the above mentioned individuals won the war for us, made this land free.  They alone will protect this earth in which the ashes of their ancestors are buried. They will be stopped, tripped, hurt and humiliated no doubt.  That’s in the short-term. History is long, ladies and gentlemen.

There will be tyrannies, no doubt.  Still, no tyranny is so efficient that it can obliterate a civilization. That takes multiple and consecutive tyrannies over many centuries.  We went through such a period. It lasted 500 years.  We survived.  A poorly made film by a set of crooks who are at best journalistic quacks just won’t do it.  Sorry. 

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