Mawbima News

By Niranjan Rambukwella –

In 2015 our government will only invest Rs.12,150 to educate the average major or secondary school student for the complete year.[1] This is due to the fact Sri Lanka’s education spending budget for 2015, which pays for all teachers’ salaries, college infrastructure, and any other cash spent by the Ministry of Education, will only be 364 million dollars. For some context, Sri Lankan Airlines lost 157 million US dollars in 2012[two] and constructing the Mattala airport cost 209 million US dollars.[3]  

Sri Lanka plans on spending over two billion US dollars on defence.[4] 1.74 billion of this sum, 12 % of the country’s total expenditure, will be spent on the Army, Navy and Air Force alone. A lot of the remainder will be spent on the coast guard, civil security, registration of persons and so on. Contrary to popular perceptions only 200 million US dollars, or 9 percent of the defence budget, has been allocated for improvement activities.

We will only devote 74 million US dollars on our foreign ministry in 2015. Sri Lanka has 51 diplomatic missions abroad[5], so that’s much less than 1.five million US dollars per mission per year – not to mention the expense of the foreign ministry’s essential Colombo operations. Despite Sri Lanka’s precarious international relations – with increasingly strained relations with the West, the OIC, other states in the Global South and possibly even India – the foreign ministry’s budget improved by only .5 %. By contrast, the government price range as a complete improved by 18 percent.

40% of the 14 billion US dollar budget is controlled by the President, who is the Minister of Law &amp Order Highways, Ports and Shipping Defence &amp Urban Improvement and last but not least Finance &amp Organizing. Just for very good measure, Basil Rajapaksa controls another six%. Therefore, the average expenditure controlled by the remaining 65 members of Cabinet is a mere 115 million US dollars per year.

As opposed to all other ministries no breakdown of the Highways, Ports &amp Shipping ministry expenditure was offered in the Appropriation Bill.[six] This ministry accounts for 11% of all government expenditure. On the other hand a fundamental breakdown was offered for the tiny Ministry of National Languages &amp Social Integration which accounts for only .04% of the spending budget.

Responding to the Colombo Telegraph story &#8220Exposé: Centre For Policy Alternatives Defrauded And Hoodwinked Donors&#8221 the Centre for Policy Options says that it will post a response to the allegations in the next two weeks.

Dr. Sara

The CPA&#8217s potent Executive Director, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu who is currently in London attending a conference titled ‘The media in post war Sri Lanka: supporting democratisation in the era of the ‘War on Terrorism’” organized by “The International Association of Tamil Journalists”.

The CPA web site says &#8220The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is conscious of an report in the Colombo Telegraph website titled ‘Exposé: Centre For Policy Options Defrauded And Hoodwinked Donors’ published on ten October 2014. The article contains a number of allegations against the organisation and particular members of the employees. As the Executive Director is travelling on perform, CPA will post a response to these allegations on his return to Sri Lanka in the next two weeks.&#8221

Alarming Colombo Telegraph on the CPA&#8217s clarification, a Sri Lankan very good governance activist stated &#8220if the CPA is not an authoritarian organisation, why does it require two weeks to respond? It looks like &#8216Saravanamuttu is the CPA&#8217, that is how the NGO technique operates&#8221. &#8220No difference to the Rajapaksas, we each day, hear: Mahinda, Mahinda, Mahinda Chinthana and so forth&#8221 she further stated.

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By Suren Rāghavan –

Dr. Suren Rāghavan

The Greeks had no single term to express what we imply by the word ‘life.’ They used two terms that, despite the fact that traceable to a widespread etymological root, are semantically and morphologically distinct: zoē, which expressed the straightforward reality of living typical to all living beings (animals, guys, or gods), and bios, which indicated the type or way of living proper to an person or a group” – (Gerogoi Agamban 1998)

The news that a section of the faculty of University of Colombo had decided to stop their academic engagements to bring an end to the on-going rather inhuman ragging inside their university (and other greater education institutions) is disturbing and welcoming.

Disturbing since ragging of such cruel nature should nonetheless exist, welcoming as the faculty members have decided to address this seriously.

Universities are not only about earning a degree or helping towards that. They are centers of societal citations and (re)type procedure within the context of information gaining and transferring. Passing exams and achieving a degree is deemed a core element of that method aimed at the discipline of systemic thought evaluation. But the complete objective of university education is severely undermined if the advancement of vital nonacademic person building sphere is non-current or deliberately dismantled.  In such definitions, Sri Lanka universities have a checked history of person and collective violence. I am not certain if a thorough going research has been ever undertaken to examine the culture of (physical, sexual and social) violence inside the universities of Sri Lanka. If not, it seems an urgent necessity.

The nexus of violence

When we discover the concern of university violence, it robotically gravitates about the query as if the epicenter of such phenomena is correlated to the waves of political power struggles outside of these universities. As all universities in Lanka are nevertheless state funded and operate below the political sub structure, such cross fertilization of state power politics and normativity of violence can not be separated. Lanka’s postcolonial history is fractured with junctures of direct body politics of violence. 1971 JVP armed struggle showed that by then Lankan universities had turn into the ideological cradle of legitimization of collective violence. Such process and their historical weight crushes the thin layer of social fabric inside universities.   In a Foucauldian sense, Lankan university politics quintessentially submerges with the biopolitcal dynamics outdoors. For Foucault (1997) “biopolitics is a new technologies of power for violence [that] exists at a diverse level, on a diverse scale, and has various bearing places, and tends to make use of extremely diverse instruments inside the state governing structure”. In Lanka, certainly such biopolitics and sovereign exceptionalism  usually constructs the primary filed of politics. Beneath biopolitics, life, society and energy grow to be indistinct. Violence against the new comers by the seniors -who ironically were ragged by their seniors when entering university, then becomes the recurrent dynamic connected to the nature of politics at big.

The thought of positions &#8211 ascribed or accomplished &#8211 as an instrument of oppressive energy- is an intrinsic feature of Lankan politics. More than 4 centuries of colonial oppression and the historical feudal and monastic control more than the peasant citizenry that is romantically memorialized as ‘ideal’ type of governance in the well-liked discourse have moralized a energy game of violence. The struggle for control is deeply dichotomized and sharply projected as elitist versus non-elites or the peripheral rural versus the urban center. On the foundation of such mindset, a violence political culture is normalized by structural political operation. Such illiberal undemocratic behave had turn out to be the norm of elected politicians in the current history. When the state concretizes such patterns as privilege of rule, while a wider civic society became prepared spectators, violence for energy and particular display of energy over the layer quickly under is inevitable. It is a truth the J R Jawawardane , Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickramasinghe are representative of such elitist energy circles in Lanka.  For the very same reason in a comparative sense, the level personal corruption of the above three are marginal as witnessed in Premadasa and Rajapakse eras. Each Premadasa and Rajapaksa are nevertheless deemed as representatives of the oppressed class, who in my analyses in turn became super oppressors. What operates inside the universities also travels on a parallel trajectory. It is secure to suspect that the culture of violence on campus attracts students from rural background.  It is for this purpose from Daya Pathirana to Sanjeewa Bandara are either victims and/or part of that violent political approach. It appears that all university of Lanka from Jaffna to Ruhuna has an equal level of potentiality to make such violence. Demographical, socioeconomic and pre university expertise of violence of the leaders of this ragging culture may shed some valuable sociological keys to unlock this paradigmatic process of internal /external violence.

A challenged academia

As I have argued elsewhere it will be an crucial moral example when the academia can initial lead the campaign against such ill democracies within them.  This will then earn the correct to be heard when they moralize their demands just before the wider society and then lastly with the state. Lankan academics are a unique group of individuals working below completely difficult situations. Lack of reward or recognition, lack of physical and monitory resources for desired researches, constant party politicization, and the looming fear of really unionized students who carry an immediate capacity for violence are some continual reality they are called to deal with. Nevertheless academic integrity does not cease at ethics of paper marking and moral partnership with students.  That is the minimum currency. In truth the by-laws. Constant instance of individual development for intellectual assentation and to play the part of an agent provocateur for positive modifications within the campus  are a portion of the ‘internal social contract’ that faculty members of universities can aspire to. While most surely such practices might prevail, they are mainly based on individual worldviews. What is needed now is to make such a portion of the overarching academic faculty culture.

Three decade of LTTE terror politics and equally or deeper state terror have only legitimized the acceptance of direct biopolitics on campuses as typical. Ragging that humiliates and seeks to manage the newcomers is homophobic and stems from a subterranean heteronormativity mindset. Ragging also displays deep crisis of understanding of individual and collective energy and the politics behind them. The majority of the present regime – have turn out to be the monopoly of such oppressive power mobilization. Such has become the well-known culture. The thought of militarizing the universities has only future deepen the crisis.

We all want Lanka achieves its complete academic potentiality which is no doubt world class. We can demand the state to make greater education an independent but interdependent zone of democracy and intellectual free of charge considering. For this end, continual vigilant to secure guard the free of charge education program and its democratic influence on the wider society is basic and not negotiable. Nevertheless, what is a pure summation of such freedom and democracy if the 1st population of the university- the students do not not appreciate and conduct themselves as representatives of such aspirations. Humiliating ragging and physical violence against the newcomers diminishes all such ethos. Ragging of all forms should be stopped. Quickly and with out apology.  The collective action of the faculty members is a good first step in that direction

Reference
Agamben, Giorgio (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press pp 1
Foucault, Michel (1997). Society Need to Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976. New York, NY: St. Martin&#8217s Press. p. 242

*Dr. Suren Rāghavan is a Sri Lankan academic- at present visiting professor at University of St Paul – Ottawa and a Senior Study Fellow at the Centre for Buddhist Studies – University of Oxford. [email protected]   

Journalists and scholars will collect this Saturday, October 11, to discuss the challenges of covering issues in Sri Lanka in the existing international context.

The conference, titled “The media in post war Sri Lanka: supporting democratisation in the era of the ‘War on Terrorism’” will take place at the West London University in London. It aims to create an exchange of suggestions and insights amongst academics and experts on the part of media for counteracting the delegitimisation of democratic process in post-war Sri Lanka in the Age of the ‘War on Terrorism’.

The one-day conference seeks to uncover the challenges, troubles and obstacles faced by media and journalists in upholding international human rights norms and their implications for democratisation in Sri Lanka. As a result, starting with the media, which has a role as a social institution in advertising democratisation, the conference seeks a broader understanding of the problems facing those searching for to promote international human rights norms in Sri Lanka these days.

Journalists, media scholars and media activists from Sri Lanka, India, Europe and North America will present papers at the conference, with the chance for discussion amongst the audience and speakers following the sessions. Speakers contain Professor Rune Ottosen from Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Dr Ibrahim Seaga Shaw, Lecturer in Media, Human Rights and Politics at Northumbria University, Dr. Walid Al-Saqaf, Director of the Master of Worldwide Journalism Programme at Orebro University, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Mr. J.S. Tissainayagam, an award-winning journalist in exile and Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, Assistant Professor in Intercultural Theology and Inter religious Research at the Irish College of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin.

In an appalling show of his close affiliations with the Rajapaksas, de facto Chief Justice Mohan Pieris has stated in Courts these days that the ‘only individual who knows every thing is the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Secretary.

Pieris and Gotabaya

This remark had been created by Pieris today throughout the hearing of a Basic Rights application (No: 414/14) where a group of Agricultural engineers/professionals had challenged the new service minutes, pointing out it has deprived them of getting promoted to higher positions in the Agricultural Department due to being forced to remain portion of the Sri Lanka administrative service.

While the case was being heard, Pieris had told that he is properly conscious and knowledgeable on solid waste management and agriculture and had gone on to criticize the engineers, calling them ‘useless’. At this point, the lawyer appearing on behalf of the petitioners, Manohara De Silva had pointed out the de facto CJ should not let his personal information interfere with the ongoing case although adding that the only information that should be applied is legal expertise.

Even so, Pieris had dismissed De Silva’s statement adding that as a judge, he has the power to refer to his individual expertise as effectively.

As the hearing proceeded, specific comments had been made on the Colombo Municipal Council, which is not at all relevant to the case that was becoming heard. However, Pieris had continued to comment on it as he moved on to speak about the Sathutu Uyana fund, which he had claimed was initially mismanaged but is now in right hands of MOD Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

“The only person who knows almost everything is the Defence Secretary. He also knows about waste management,” the de facto CJ had stated shamelessly violating skilled ethics and the independence of the judiciary. Manohara de Silva had responded to this claim stating, “But I do not want him to do the job of my customers.”

By Tisaranee Gunasekara –

“Tyranny, like hell, is not simply conquered.” – Paine (The American Crisis)

Hopefully it is a fabrication, created in Medamulana, like the ‘news’ of America softening its stance towards Sri Lanka or Premier Modi wanting the TNA to participate in the newest All Parties Conference.

According to Irida Divaina, the JVP has decided to boycott the Presidential election, if Mahinda Rajapaksa is a candidate[i]. The logic is that President Rajapaksa can’t contest for the third time and if he does so it will be an illegal act which in turn will transform the election into an illegal exercising. The JVP, it is becoming reported, will neither field a candidate in such an illegal election, nor take part in a joint oppositional alliance. Alternatively the JVP will conduct a national campaign, educating the voters about the illegal nature of the election.

In other words, the JVP will (implicitly or explicitly) advocate an election boycott. It will confuse, confound and demoralise the anti-Rajapaksa camp and deprive the opposition of tens of thousands of a lot necessary votes. That such an outcome will advantage none but the Rajapaksas is apparent and certain.

This may be the JVP’s way out of its personal political conundrum. Anura Kumara Dissanayake is a marvellous speaker, factual, logical and forceful. But his leadership is not enough to make an sufficient turnaround in the JVP’s electoral fortunes. The Uva elections indicated, as did earlier provincial polls, that the JVP will fare incredibly badly if it contests the presidency separately. The JVP is certainly reluctant to assistance a UNP candidate. Since among them, Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, seemed to have killed the prospect of a joint oppositional platform, the JVP is attempting to locate a face-saving formula.

Did the Rajapaksas – or their allies – have something to do with the JVP’s surreally stupid decision? Following all, the Rajapaksas reportedly bribed the LTTE for imposing an election boycott on Tamil voters in 2005. Vellupillai Pirapaharan would have created the decision since he was rearing to unleash the Final Eelam War, but he clearly did not mind generating some economic gains, on the side. Mr. Pirapaharan was not a Rajapaksa stooge he was not in cahoots with the Rajapaksas. He was, or thought he was, getting diabolically clever. He was going to aid Mahinda Rajapaksa into energy, take Rajapaksa money and use it to defeat the Rajapaksa government in the battlefield. We know how that program ended.

If the boycott-story is accurate, the JVP is remaking Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s deadly mistake. The Rajapaksas will use the JVP boycott to win the election and then, getting secured familial rule by appointing a Rajapaksa as PM, will hammer the opposition into submission, which includes the JVP. Just as ordinary Tigers and ordinary Tamils paid the price tag of Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s colossal inanity, ordinary JVPers and their families will have to pay the price of JVP leaders’ hara-kiri logic.

Hopefully sense will prevail, and the JVP will abandon this suicidal-homicidal choice. But the very fact that such an inane thought has been mooted, plus the divisive and destructive conduct of Sajith Premadasa and his cohorts, indicates that the Uva Guarantee can well turn into a mirage, an additional tragic may possibly-have-been. (Sajith Premadasa conduct is the opposite of his father’s. Ranasinghe Premadasa worked, harder than every person else, for the party sans situations. His attitude was “First we will canvass the whole nation and then ask for our due place”[ii].)

The outburst of post-election violence in Uva (which reached unprecedented levels) is yet another signal of coming events. The Rajapaksas are not going to go, lawfully and democratically. They will do every thing they can, from trickery to thuggary, to remain.

“Better to destroy than to make cost-free,” Schiller’s Grand Inquisitor tells a wavering King Philip in Don Carols. That would be the Rajapaksa attitude, as Siblings, Sons and Nephews ready themselves to face a suddenly not-so-specific future.

The Plague of Tyranny

Jean-Claude Duvalier, ‘Baby Doc’, died yesterday of organic causes. At 19 years he inherited the presidency from his father and ruled supreme for the subsequent 14 years. Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier came to power electorally and transformed Haiti into a tyranny and himself into its president-for-life. Over the subsequent numerous decades, the Duvaliers made Haiti into a byword for repression and murder, poverty and backwardness.

The still ongoing plight of Haiti indicates that receiving rid of a tyrant may turn out to be the straightforward element. Recovering from tyranny is a far arduous task. Restoring to well being institutions and human habits undermined by tyranny frequently proves to be beyond the frail capacities of newly liberated lands and their newly free of charge individuals. The longer a tyranny lasts, the tougher it is to create a democracy on its ruins. This is especially so exactly where tyrants have undermined and destroyed all countervailing powers and institutions, turning nations into their private/familial preserves.

The inclusion of de facto Chief Justice Mohan Pieris in the presidential delegation to Vatican demonstrates (again) the degradation of one particular of the most fundamental pillars of the state. Right now the upper judiciary is a mere appendage of the Ruling Family. If the Rajapaksas can be evicted next year, it may nevertheless be feasible to repair the damage and restore the judiciary to overall health. But if Rajapaksa rule continues for a lot of a lot more years, the virus of subservience will infect the entirety of that august institution and even the memory of judiciary as an independent pillar of state will vanish. The next generation, like the next generation of judges and lawyers, will think it natural and normal for the judiciary to act as an instrument of Rajapaksa energy.

As Joachim Fest pointed out, “At initial the numerous violations of the law by our new rulers nonetheless caused a degree of disquiet…. quickly life went on as if such crimes had been the most all-natural factor in the world”[iii].

Rulers set trends. We learnt to drink tea from the British. The Sinhala-Buddhist morality espoused by Anagarika Dharmapala and his ideological descendents is much more akin to English Puritanism, German Calvinism and Victorian values. The colourful costume worn by the Kandyan kings and aristocracy (which goes by the misnomer, ‘Mul Anduma’, original dress) was naturally copied from the European fashions of the 15^th/16^th century, brought to Lanka by the Portuguese. These days the kurrakkan shawl of the Rajapaksas has grow to be a fashion accessory among the new elite and these aspiring to that status. Rank nepotism, abuse, impunity and intolerance are some of the Rajapaksa values which are percolating into larger society. 5 far more years of this contamination, and even the ousting of the Rajapaksas will not suffice to bring Lanka back to overall health and sense.

The Opposition has been buoyed by Uva. But Uva represents a possible, a chance, an opportunity and not a certainty. The Rajapaksas will do everything in their energy to avert the opposition from capitalising on Uva. The unresolved crisis in the UNP and the JVP’s choice to boycott elections are merely the 1st stumbling blocks in the opposition’s achievable path to victory.

Uva opened a trapdoor. It can be widened into an exit for the Rajapaksas.

It can be done. But will we do it?