David Cameron’s reverie during the long flight back home

[IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE CALLED ‘HUMILITY’]

I came, no one can say I did not. I saw.  I mean, I saw some stuff, didn’t see a lot of stuff and pretended not to see some of what I did see.  I pretended to be conqueror.  I can’t say I talked tough or talked down, honestly, because I was at the receiving end of a lot of ‘tough’ and was left looking up a lot of times. 

I spoke about media freedom but didn’t talk about the Leveson Inquiry which all of Britain knows is a judicial public probe into the culture, practices and ethics of our press following the News International phone-hacking scandal.  When I tough-talked with my friend Mahinda, that tough-talk was tossed at me.  I had to opt for thumb-twiddling. 

I spoke about human rights and I was asked about the Chilcot Report and about Bloody Sunday, the former about an illegal invasion 10 years ago and the latter about crimes against humanity perpetrated 40 years ago. The Chicot Report, if you really want to know, is being edited to clear our friends (should I say ‘our masters’?) across the Atlantic of any guilt.  I got a lesson in arithmetic, since the LLRC Report came out just a couple of years after May 2009.  The LLRC Report was not ‘edited’.  So when I gave a March 2014 deadline and had to say ‘please give me six months to get the sanitized version of the Chilcot Repoirt out, I was made to look like a first grader who was finding it tough to add one to one and get ‘two’.   More thumb-twiddling. 

There was other stuff that I had to listen to. It was altogether uncomfortable and disconcerting. But then again, I had a script in hand and I played my part. I had to say certain things to Mahinda so that I could come out and tell my journo-buddies (who alone were allowed to shoot questions at me, ‘freebies’ or ‘full-tosses’ I think they are called) ‘I said this and that’ in my ‘free-and-frank’ monologue.  No one asked what was said to me, because I didn’t allow intelligent journalists who subscribed to media ethics to query me.  

The flight home is long.  I have time to think.  I know for a fact that we allow, in the name of ‘freedom of expression’, LTTE operatives to demonstrate in London.  We did that even when Prabhakaran was alive.  Then, as now, the Tiger flag is waved.  We would never allow an Al Qaeda flag to flutter anywhere in our fair land, folks.  No Al Qaeda slogans either.

And then there’s this other funny thing.  It’s also about numbers, but those numbers were not shot at me when I met Mahinda.  My government never listens to unions or union members who are more numerous than all the brown folk who take to the streets in London.  

I also thought how important the Commonwealth is to us.  As a client state of the USA we have nothing to brag about except past glory.  We need the monarchy because that’s the only thing that gives us ‘leadership’ in the CHOGM.  Truth be told, if we became a republic, India might take over the Commonwealth.  That’s what happened to the ICC.  

I closed my eyes and the words of a Yaka floated into my dreams.  Loud and clear.  Ox-bridge accent and all to make sure I got the lines right.  Here’s what I heard:

“They have always used the early technique of 'transference'...
they hit us on the head to get rid of their headaches...
it clears the synapses apparently...
the angst about debt...”

It will be nice to get back to London. 

msenevira@gmail.com

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A truly 'CHOGASMIC' week

Cameron fires from No-Fire Zone 
‘Friendly journos’ provide human shield 
BBS wrecks another party 
UNP loses plot

If last week has a name it is CHOGM.  A wit quipped, ‘CHOGASM’, and that would be an appropriate descriptive, for multiple reasons and multiple forces including those at odds with one another.

The side events took center stage in the early parts of the week.  There was much pomp and pageantry, heart-warming speeches, deliberation and ‘final documents’.  The Youth Forum was inspiring, the Business Forum was as expected pragmatic with little concern about the political shenanigans surrounding the main event, and the People’s Forum marked with all the intrigue, backstabbing and sleight of hand that is par for the course when it comes to ‘civil society’ operations. 

Then there were the other side events.  Prince Charles and his birthday party.  The stand-in for the Queen was offered a kevum or traditional oil cake by President Rajapaksa which he (Charles) was obliged to nibble.  When he turned, he was accosted by the First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa who offered him kalu dodol, which too he couldn’t decline.  He was also obliged to follow suit when the President offered a banana to an elephant.  He took it all in good spirits and delivered a decent enough speech at the Opening Ceremony that was quite in contrast to the choreographed utterings of the Prime Minister of his country yesterday (16).  We’ll get to that later.

The week was also hogged by the self-labeled ‘journalists’, representing a self-labeled ‘media’ outfit called Channel 4, Callum Macrae and Jonathan Miller. Ill-willed, selectively informed, lacking in the most basic of journalistic skills (verification, checking source-reliability, letting fact speak instead of cut-paste exercises of de-contextualization), they came to turn CHOGM into circus. Macrae was honest in one thing. He said ‘I will make more films’.  Film is what he does; ‘documentary’ is what he calls what he does. 

The United National Party predictably got itself into another mess thanks to its fixation with the idea that power is something that only someone like David Cameron can deliver to them.  Since the Camerons of this world have found ready and slavish allies in dollar and euro dependent NGOs, it was probably ‘sensible’ to show linkages and get into some serious mutual back-scratching.  This was done.  When it backfired, an UNP stalwart is reported to have said ‘we just rented our premises,’ another senior, Gamini Jayawickrama Perera was appalled by the excuse. 

The Bodu Bala Sena, which stormed UNP party headquarters, ‘Sirikotha’, as is now a matter of habit, got into fisticuffs. This bull-in-China-shop operation, coming at a time where prudence should be privileged over emotional outburst, did neither government nor country any favors.  BBS has a pattern of stirring things up at critical moments; for example it whipped up anti-halal fervor during the UNHRC sessions in Geneva.  

Chief of the UNP’s Leadership Council, Karu Jayasuriy, who has a good reputation for not having any truck with terrorists and their proxies, local or foreign, has remained silent on the issue as has sidelined leader-wannabe Sajith Premadasa. In the end the party decided to boycott the CHOGM and the only ‘jumbos’ seen at the BMICH were the highly decorated four-legged variety brought in especially to add pomp to the event.   

There was another gate-crash of sorts.  During the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth People’s Forum (CPF) in Hikkaduwa, Hugo Swire, Britain’s Minister in Charge of the Commonwealth Office, was smuggled into the hall by the Commonwealth Foundation without informing the Sri Lankan team involved in the organizing until the eleventh hour.  Swire indulged in a Cameron-like Sri Lanka bashing.   His antics quite overshadowed what was generally seen as a highly productive Commonwealth People’s Forum.

Channel 4 aside, the media operations during the week have been utterly fascinating.  Australia’s ABC was unabashed in its anti Sri Lanka bias, openly lying about India’s non-participating, attributing reasons that no responsible Indian politician or official had uttered. They were big, like BBC and Channel 4, on ‘Human Rights’ and ‘allegation’, but silent on context and fact. They distracted from important topics such as poverty alleviation, following the colonial line of their ancestors.  Who sent or facilitated the sending of food to the conflict areas, did these people wonder?  Were children vaccinated and were they attending school? If not, why not?  These are relevant questions.  As for war crimes, the evidence is on the table: there was nothing systemic in any transgressions that may have taken place, although the likes of Frances Harrison are trying to make ‘systemic’ the second Goebbelsian element of their campaign, the first being the Goebbelsian arithmetic, ’40,000 killed’; all to buttress the rump of the Tamil Pop Pot Velupillai Prabhakaran’s terrorist outfit, the LTTE.    

ABC did not catch the importance of elections and the overwhelming victory of the TNA.  ABC quoted a lot of people but not a single member of the Northern Provincial Council.

By the way, there were two individuals who dominated CHOGM-related news over the past several months, Manmohan Singh and Stephen Harper. No one seems to have missed either of them. 

David Cameron played the ‘Empire’s Minority Card’, in the classic exercise of divide and rule.  It was all about going to Jaffna.  No one heard him thanking the Government for getting rid of the LTTE so he could actually go that part of the island; the TNA didn’t prompt him either, for they can’t really say that and please the LTTE groups abroad whose pawns they are.  The TNA played along.  But Cameron pretty much undressed himself in Colombo yesterday at a stage-managed media conference.  He preempted any hard questions by reserving two entire rows for ‘friendly’ journalists.  Given that human shield of sorts, Cameron opened fire.  He didn’t have to dodge any bullets, for he orchestrated a no-fire zone by refusing to let anyone but his buddies ask questions.

And the man had the gumption to talk the language of democracy, freedom of expression, media rights etc.! 

A local journalist had to shout as this dodgy politician strutted away, ‘what are you going to do about the Chilcot Report?’  Not a word, not a murmur.  His ears may have stung and gone red when they were grazed by a bullet called ‘HYPOCRITE!’ but few would bet on it.     

The President seemed to take all this in his stride, good-humoredly taking all questions.  In stark contrast to Cameron’s disgraceful and cowardly behavior, the President, in a joint press conference with Commonwealth Secretary Kamalesh Sharma, went out of his way to solicit questions from the Channel 4 ‘journalist’, Jonathan Miller. 

The agenda for CHOGM proper was set by President Rajapaksa during the opening ceremony.   He pointed out that before talking about the ‘common wealth’, the gathering must discuss ‘common poverty’.  The following excerpts are of particular relevance.

‘I am extremely thankful to all of you who have been firm in your support and understanding, of the related complexities in Sri Lanka’s post conflict phase. This confidence reposed by you in my country will greatly assist me in steering the Organization’s future in the best interest of our peoples.

‘We in Sri Lanka are stepping into a new era of peace, stability and renewed economic opportunities that have been long denied to my people, due to the menace of terrorism that existed for nearly three decades. In ending terrorism in 2009, we asserted the greatest human right, the right to life. I am happy to state that in the past four years, there hasn’t been a single terrorist related incident, anywhere in Sri Lanka.

‘There is a multitude of global challenges, arising from the uncertainty of the socio economic conditions, faced by our nations today. We, in the Commonwealth, must therefore collectively find means of effectively addressing these challenges to safeguard the values we hold dear.

‘It is in recognition of the urgent need to address the burning issues connected to growth and development, which directly impinge on the lives of our peoples, that Sri Lanka proposed the theme, “Growth with Equity: Inclusive Development” for this CHOGM.

‘We believe that this theme has broad relevance to the larger Commonwealth, and highlights the importance of equity in economic development, particularly in view of the existing disparities in the distribution of wealth, and economic benefits. Inclusive development promotes progress and contributes towards achieving Millennium Development Goals.

‘In the case of Sri Lanka, our current policy agenda, the Mahinda Chinthana, Vision for the Future, spells out clear strategies of improving the livelihoods of our people, ensuring that economic and social benefits reach every strata of society, and more importantly, taking Sri Lanka into the future, by aiming to be the ‘Wonder of Asia’.

‘I am happy to say that Sri Lanka has achieved success on a range of social indicators that comprise the MDGs, despite being a lower middle income country. Absolute poverty in Sri Lanka declined from 15.2 per cent in 2007 to 6.5 per cent in 2012, surpassing the MDG mid-term target. While reaching out to care for all our people’s needs, the Government has also taken a pro-active approach, to post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.’

President Rajapaksa posed some questions for the heads of governments and their representatives present in Colombo: 

Can we realistically say that the need for basic facilities, healthcare, education, productive employment, access to food and safe drinking water, eradication of poverty and hunger, are of lesser importance than political concerns?

Should not the Commonwealth, collectively strive towards the realization of development goals, to enable its member countries to reap economic benefits?

Shouldn’t we be addressing more vigorously the issue of ‘common poverty’ before we talk about ‘common wealth’?

He seemed to have anticipated the kinds of antics that Cameron was to indulge in:

‘If the Commonwealth is to remain relevant to its member countries, the Association must respond sensitively, to the needs of its peoples and not let it turn into a punitive or judgmental body. We must also collectively guard against bilateral agendas being introduced into the Organization, distorting Commonwealth traditions and consensus. The strength of the Organization lies in keeping the member countries together, helping one another in a spirit of partnership, making the Commonwealth truly unique.’

He quoted the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama:

Na paresaa vilomani - na paresam katakatam; Attanova avkkheyya - katani akatani ca

[‘Let not one take notice of faults of other’s or what they have done or not done. Let one be concerned only about what one has done and left undone.’]

Clearly the Commonwealth or rather its vulgar elements which re-defined several times over what crimes against humanity, cultural erasure, genocide and grand theft really meant in the century or so that came before the ‘Commonwealth’ was formed, did not have ears to hear these words. 

Not that anyone is really surprised. Sri Lanka proved to be an exemplary host; David Cameron an uncivilized guest who embarrassed his Queen.

One question remains: ‘What has changed?’    

msenevira@gmail.com

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President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivers his welcome address

[In a parallel CHOGM, perhaps....]

Fellow Commonwealth leaders, ministerial and parliamentary colleagues, delegates from around the Commonwealth, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I extend a warm welcome to all of you on behalf of the citizens of Sri Lanka, a resplendent and resilient land whose cultural ethos if marked by anything is signature by the privileging of the quality of equanimity.  We take our joys and sorrows, fame and misfortune, profits and losses, praise and blame with a smile. 

It is customary to allude to our shared past, refer to complexities of that past and the resolve by members to reinvent the collective that emerged from these commonalities.  We are gathered here, men and women from different cultures and of different faith. We will speak about the commonwealth of values and the responsibility and accountability embedded in the idea of membership.  If I were to pin it down to essence, two words remain: free and equal.

Re-invention implies a break from the past, a forgiving and forgetting, a restoration of civilization, recovery of dignity and such.  This is good.  It is good because it says that condescension has no place in this forum.  It is good because there can be no more ‘talking down’ or ‘talking tough’.  That’s what equality means.  

What does ‘free’ mean?  It means we can be frank with one another.  It means we can be friends.  The Buddha whose teachings more than anything else has shaped the culture and civilization of this country, talks about two categories of friends, those who are virtuous and those who are evil.  True friends will criticize to face, with praise in absence; evil friends are not really friends, they smile to face and ridicule behind the back.  Let us be true to one another, therefore.  Let us have conversation and not monolog.  Let us draw deep from the philosophies that have nurtured and sustained us during the colonial encounter, given us the strength of character to recover from the bludgeoning we’ve received and venture forth with confidence to expand the horizons of freedom. 

Of all things bequeathed to my country during colonial rule, one stands out: the opportunity for my people to encounter a man called Jesus Christ. His life inspires, his word empowers. Some of us are theists and others are atheists, but both categories of people can benefit from the Sermon on the Mount, which prescribes ways of being and engagement that resonates with the teachings of the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama and Prophet Mohammed. 

Let their teachings frame our deliberations and guide is on issues of propriety.  I do not have to tell my learned and respectable friends that stone-throwing is what we wanted to put behind us when we became members of this august body. We can and must resist the human urge to be passionate for passion dulls reason. We must instead privilege wisdom, exercise caution and always keep in mind that we, as recipients and givers of much blackness in the past, would do well to recognize complexity and acknowledge context.  If we do not, we would quickly slip to a point where statement degenerates into shout and conversation becomes a competition to see who has the shriller voice.  We can do better, I am convinced.

We have met before.  Many times.  We’ve made our points, talked about commonalities and the commonwealth of ideas and values.  And yet, it seems that we have allowed rhetoric to triumph over substance.   Perhaps out of a reluctance to state the disconcerting, chosen to skirt vital issues that are also common to many of us.  We have on many occasions chosen to look the other way when member state bullies fellow member state, when member state joins with non-member to bully fellow-member and when our members themselves are perpetrators of aggression that is an affront to our collective humanity.  We have to decide, friends, whether we want to continue like this.

We could chose to tread the tired paths we’ve walked on all these years.  We can make the same tired speeches drawn from easy templates.  We can use this forum to spout venom, we can paint ourselves as saints who can do no wrong, we can air our pet peeves and we can say a lot without saying anything of substance. 

If that is the best we can do, I am afraid that this gathering is a colossal waste of time.  If we, as a collective, cannot come up with creative and pragmatic solutions to the problems that beset our peoples such as poverty, hunger, limited access to health and education, development that compromises the idea of sustainability, the poisoning of soils and people by toxic substances, the hoodwinking of less-informed consumers by unethical pharmaceutical companies and so on, then we might as well resolve to close shop.

This Commonwealth of Nations can be better that it has hitherto been.  

The people of Sri Lanka warmly welcome you.  Wherever you go, there’s one thing you will find.  A smile. We hide our sorrows well, we spread the joy.  We say to you, ‘Come, partake’. And to those who’ve seen this country through borrowed eyes, I can do no better than say what the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama said of his doctrine, Ehi Passiko, ‘Come, Explore!’

Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatta

May all beings be happy.

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If the Common Welt is to be erased...

‘Crime and punishment’ is the title of a novel.  Human society embraced the notion of punishment as a mechanism to facilitate cohesion by way of agreement or contractual obligation which turned populations into societies.  Transgressions of whatever kind and whatever magnitude subverts the contract and punishment was and is thought to obtain adherence to agreement.  Threat of punishment then stops rupture.  If crime goes undetected, that’s a leaking that might result in a lot of things, laws included, going down the tube.  If crime goes unpunished it emboldens those who find reason to transgress.  All this is true of even the most rudimentary social organization such as a sports club as well as larger collectives such as multilateral gatherings with complex rules of association. 

Just the other day, British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that Kenyans tortured by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising will receive payouts totaling 20 million pounds.  Thousands of people were killed during the revolt against British rule.  The victims cannot be brought back to life and most if not all of the perpetrators of genocide are now dead.  On the other hand in the affairs between states or countries the violence done to collectives by those operating in the name of other collectives call for collective compensation by way of punishing those guilty of crime.  In Britain’s case, the living have benefited from their ancestors’ handiwork which of course cost and continues to cost those whose ancestors received the blood-worth of that very handiwork.  ‘It happened a long time ago,’ is a cop-out objection for the past is always past, whether we are talking of yesterday, the day before or one hundred years earlier. 

Apology is a good thing, but we’ve not seen any of that.  Hague, speaking on Kenya, stated that the British government recognizes that Kenyans were subject to torture, regrets the abuse and understands that they marred Kenya’s progress towards independence.  No mention of how Kenya came to lose independence in the first place.  If he were speaking of Sri Lanka, would Hague say that the British violated the agreement signed with the Kandyan Chieftans and ‘recognize’ that that very act, complemented by a butchery replicated in other countries that are now members of the Commonwealth ‘marred progress towards independence’ to the tune of 133 years? 

Talk, though, is cheap and cannot be banked.  If saying ‘sorry’ would do, then all legal systems would degenerate to the ‘give-take’ of Catholic Confessionary.  Anyone, then, could get away with ‘It was God’s will, His ways are not our ways and it is not ours to question Him’.  The British courts won’t accept that and neither should any other member state of the Commonwealth.  

Statue of Tara ferreted away by Governor Brownrigg

The reverse transaction is not possible in full.  The true value that was extracted and the true cost of the damage done cannot be ascertained accurately.  How does one cost the erasure of a culture and destruction of ways of life, for example?  Do we know how much of value was extracted from slaves, over and above the costs of dislocation, the violence associated with slavery and the trauma that entire communities were subjected to?  Has anyone kept count of the resources that were extracted and shipped ‘home’; the gold, diamonds, sapphires and other precious stones, the ivory, the spices, the timber?  Never mind their true value can anyone make a complete list of the items that were robbed?   

Still, fourteen Caribbean nations are getting ready to sue the United Kingdom (and also France and the Netherlands) for reparations over ‘the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade’.  The exact amount demanded has not been specified, but it has been noted that Britain paid 20 million pounds (equivalent to 200 billion pounds today!) to British planters in the Caribbean in 1834, i.e. the time of ‘emancipation’.  Britain may point to roads, railways and other ‘development’, but all that was built by local labor, funded by illegal taxes and for more than a century only facilitated the extraction of resources.  The British, in addition to the butchery, destroyed temples, set fire to countless and invaluable Buddhist manuscripts and shipped out countless artifacts.

So let’s talk of loot now.  A few days ago, Yale University in Connecticut decided to return to Peru a collection of antiquities taken from the Inca site of Machu Picchu almost one hundred years ago.  Richard Burger who has been in charge of these items for 30 years says that the situation is different from classic repatriation because it was not about stolen goods but a contract dispute; things were not clandestinely dug up’. 

 

Mask from Nigeria

Yale has a case. Barely.  Britain does not.  ‘A catalogue of antiquities and other cultural objects from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) abroad,’ is the title of a book by P.H.D.H. De Silva, published in 1974.  It lists a considerable set of known artifacts stolen from this island.  There are over 15,000 items listed.  The loot it seems has ended up in 23 countries and 140 holding facilities.  The vast majority are in Britain.  Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berkshire, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Sheffield, and Windsor all have ‘Little pieces of Ceylon’ so to speak.  All stolen goods.  For antique and historical value, each and every amulet, the tiniest statuette, the most fragile manuscript with hardly legible lettering, is priceless. 

What was common in all this wealth and all the wealth plundered from all Commonwealth countries?  Theft! 

That’s a crime, ladies and gentlemen.  Sure, the present day custodians did not pilfer anything.  They are not answerable to crimes committed by their ancestors.  They may not suffer guilt on account from benefitting from the sacking of cities.  But there is no getting around the fact that possessing stolen goods is a crime.  Punishable.  And on the other side of the equation there is a people, a nation that demands that stolen goods be returned, even if the thieves got away with murder and were duly unburdened of whatever ghosts spawned by wrongdoing by death decades ago.                             

After all these years of lies and self-delusion, perhaps it is now time to sober up.  There was never a commonwealth.  There was never a sharing of wealth.  There was wealth accumulation through outright looting.  We can let bygones be bygones and move on, but if that is to happen, dignity has to be restored.  Some will have to hang their heads in shame but that’s just necessary but not sufficient condition for friendship. 

Collection centers will duly be set up in all member countries of the ‘Commonwealth’.  That is easily arranged.  Return the loot.  It’s as simple as that.

That’s a first step.  We’ll talk reparations later.                                                                                    

 msenevira@gmail.com

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