Washington: DC; As we meet here, my Special Envoy, Dick Holbrooke, is meeting with A half century ago, a visionary generation of leaders gathered at Bretton Woods to build a new economy to serve the citizens of every nation. In one of his last messages to Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt said that the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — and I quote — “spelled the difference between a world caught again in the maelstrom of panic and economic warfare, or a world in which nations strive for a better life through mutual trust, cooperation and assistance.”

The Bretton Woods generation built a platform for prosperity that has lasted down to the present day. Economic freedom and political liberty has spread across the globe. Since 1945, global trade has grown 15-fold. Since 1970 alone, infant mortality in the poorest countries is down by 40 percent. Access to safe drinking water has tripled. Life expectancy has increased dramatically. Even now, despite the difficulties of recent days, per capita incomes in Korea and Thailand are 60 percent higher than they were a decade ago. A truly global market economy has lifted the lives of billions of people.

But as we are all acutely aware, today the world faces perhaps its most serious financial crisis in half a century. The gains of global economic exchange have been real and dramatic — but when tides of capital first flood emerging markets, then suddenly withdraw; when bank failures and bankruptcies grip entire economies; when millions in Asia who have worked their way into the middle class suddenly are plunged into poverty; when nations half a world apart face the same crisis at the same time; it is time for decisive action.

What has caused the current crisis? First, too many nations lack the financial, legal, and regulatory systems necessary to maintain investor confidence in adversity. Second, new technologies and greater global integration have led to vastly increased, often highly leveraged flows of capital, without accompanying mechanisms to limit the boom-bust cycle — mechanisms like those with are integral to the success of advanced economies.

I am confident that if we act together we can end the present crisis. We must take urgent steps to help those who have been hurt by it, to limit the reach of it, and to restore growth and confidence to the world economy. But even when the current crisis subsides, that will not be enough. The global economy simply cannot live with the kinds of vast and systemic disruptions that have occurred over the past year.

Vital to prosperity
The IMF and the World Bank have been vital to the prosperity of the world for the past half century. We must keep them vital to the prosperity of the world for the next half century. Therefore, we must modernize and reform the international financial system to make it ready for the 21st century.

The central economic challenge we face is to harness the positive power of an open international economy while avoiding the cycle of boom and bust that diminishes hope and destroys wealth. And the central political challenge we face is to build a system that strengthens social protections and democratic institutions so that people everywhere can actually reap the rewards of growth.

We must put a human face on the global economy. An international market that fails to work for ordinary citizens will neither earn, nor deserve their confidence and support. We need both an aggressive response to the immediate crisis and a thoughtful road map for the future. We must begin by meeting our most immediate challenges.

Two weeks ago at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, I outlined what we have done and what we must do. I am gratified that today the leading economies speak with one voice in saying, the balance of risks have now shifted from inflation to slow down. The principal goal of policymakers must be to promote growth. Every nation must take responsibility for growth. The United States must do its part. The most important thing we can do is to keep our economy growing and open to other’s products and services, by maintaining the fiscal responsibility that has led us to the first balanced budget and surplus in 29 years.

Winning this discipline was not easy and was not always popular. But it was the right thing to do. That is why I have made it clear to our Congress that I will veto any tax plan that threatens that discipline.

Also, the United States must — must — meet our obligations to the IMF. I have told Congress we can debate how to reform the operations of the fire department, but there is no excuse for refusing to supply the fire department with water while the fire is burning.

Europe must continue to press forward with growth-oriented economic policies and keep its markets open. And Japan, the world’s second largest economy and by far the largest in Asia, must do its part, as well. The United States values our strong partnership with Japan — our political, our security, our economic partnership. But now the health of Asia and, indeed, the world depends upon Japan. Just as the United States had to eliminate its deficits and high interest rates which were taking money away from the rest of the world over the last six years, now Japan must take strong steps to restart its economic growth, by addressing problems in the banking system so that lending and investment can begin with renewed energy; and by stimulating, deregulating and opening its economy.

For all of us there can be no substitute for action. And all of us must also act now to restart growth in the rest of Asia by helping to restructure firms paralyzed by crushing debt and replace debt with equity across entire economies. Through OPIC and the Export-Import Bank, we are providing short-term credit and investment insurance to keep capital flowing into emerging economies.

I welcome Japan’s announcement that it will contribute to the reconstruction effort. And I am gratified that the World Bank has agreed to double its investment in the social safety net in Asia to help those who have been harmed by the economic crisis.

In all these ways, we can minimize the consequences of the current financial contagion. But the flash of this crisis throws new light on the need to do more — to renew the institutions of international finance so they reflect modern economic reality. The institutions built at Bretton Woods must be updated for 24-hour global markets if they are to continue to achieve the goals established by the Bretton Woods generation.

First, we must recognize that the free and open exchange of ideas and capital and goods across the globe is the surest route to prosperity for the largest number of people. But we must find a way to temper the volatile swings of the international marketplace, just as we have learned to do in our own domestic economies.

What is troubling today is how quickly discouraging news in one country can set off alarms in markets around the world. And all too often, investors move as a herd, with sweeping consequences for emerging economies with weak and strong policies alike. We’ve all read of families that worked hard for decades to become middle class, families that owned homes and cars suddenly forced to sell off their possessions just to buy food. We’ve read of doctors and nurses forced to live in the lobby of a closed hospital. With fuel and food shortages in some countries, the onset of winter threatens mass misery. And in Asia, where the ethic of education is deeply ingrained and has led to the rise of tens of millions of people, and strong schools are deprived of nations, we now see too many children dropping out of school to help support their families.

Just as free nations found a way after the Great Depression to tame the cycles of boom and bust in domestic economies, we must now find ways to tame the cycles of boom and bust that today shake the world economy.

The most important step, of course, and the first step, is for governments to hold fast to policies that are sound and attuned to the realities of the international market place. No nation can avoid the necessity of an open, transparent, properly regulated financial system; an honest, effective tax system; and laws that protect investment. And no nation can for long purchase prosperity on the cheap, with policies that buy a few months of relief at the price of disaster over the long run.

That is why I support the fundamental approach of the IMF. The international community cannot save any nation unwilling to reform its own economy. To do so would be to pour good money after bad. But when nations are willing to act responsibly and take strong steps, the international community must help them to do so.

Too often, what has appeared to be a thriving market system, however, has masked an epidemic of corruption or cronyism. Investors and entrepreneurs, foreign and domestic, will not keep their money in economies where prosperity is a facade. Bank balance sheets should mean the same thing in one country as another. Contracts should be awarded on merit. Corruption cannot be tolerated.

To this end, I applaud the Working Group reports that call for the IMF to examine and publicize countries’ adherence to strong international standards, as well as higher accounting and loan standards for private institutions. The United States will continue to press for new ways the private sector can implement sound practices — for example, through an accreditation system for national bank examiners.

Business practices essential
But while strong policies and sound business practices within each nation are essential, at times they simply will not be enough. For even the best functioning markets can succumb to volatility, soaring in unrealistic expectations one minute, followed by a sudden crash when reality intervenes. Such miscalculations of risk are an inevitable fact of market psychology.

In our own domestic economies, we have learned to limit these swings in the business cycle. In the United States, for example, a strong Federal Reserve has ensured a stable money supply. (Wireless File – USIS)

Continued tomorrow

Amidst the carnage and mayhem of last week on the war front, the most inspiring news has been the survey conducted by the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo which reveals that nearly 78% of those interviewed answered “No” to the question “Do you think military action alone can solve the problem?” Commenting on this the head of the Department of Sociology, Prof. S. T. Hettige said that the view of the “vocal minority of persons in the media is not reflected in the minds of people at the grassroots level.” This is an example of a case in which the people are way ahead of the politicians and the media.

One of the most atrocious aspects of the war in the North has been the recruitment of children by the LTTE. We have read with concern the stories of the “Tiger Cubs” paraded through the English, Sinhala and Tamil press and T.V.. According to reports, these young people were forcibly recruited by the LTTE, disallowed to continue their education, given substandard treatment within the LTTE hierarchy and ultimately abandoned by their higher-ups as the Sri Lankan military closed in on Mankulam.

The clearly traumatized children were paraded in front of the press. Photographs of these young ones, whose ages reportedly ranged from 11 to 17, made the front pages of Friday’s Daily News, Island, Lankadeepa, Divaina, Dinamina and Virakesari. The children were named and quoted in the accompanying stories. They were displayed like war trophies, ironically in early October, during. ‘Children’s Day” celebrations.

The tragedy of the story is the exploitation of the children — first by the LTTE and then by the government. Increasingly, children are the pawns of war, used and abused by all. Without any power to influence political decisions about war and peace, children are armed by some and arrested by others.

Children and Armed Conflict
According to Amnesty International, there are an estimated 250,000 children and young people under the age of 18 presently in government armed forces and armed opposition forces, including the LTTE. Not only do child combatants suffer grave human rights abuses, but also they become perpetrators of such abuses. ‘Some children are killed or maimed as a direct result of participating in armed conflicts, others suffer from psychological trauma or are captured and detained in ‘prisoner of war camps.’ Some children join armed forces voluntarily, while others join in order to obtain food, clothing and shelter. There are also many situations where children have been forcibly recruited, with brutal methods used to ensure their subordination. Child soldiers are used not only for support activities such as carrying munitions or supplies and as lookouts but in many cases they are armed and ordered to engage in combat. Many children soldiers are also sexually abused.” (Amnesty Report)

In addition to the trauma faced by child combatants, children generally suffer disproportionately during war. Modern weapons do not discriminate. Children account for one of the largest groups of maimed killed and wounded civilians. Likewise, children comprise a large percentage of the world’s refugee and internally displaced populations. In addition to threats to their physical security, war-related trauma amongst children in conflict zones is high. Furthermore, war is one of the biggest producers of orphans. All this is true of Sri Lanka too.

Rights of the Child
International standards exist to provide extra protection to children during times of armed conflict. The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires States-Parties to undertake special protective measures in respect to children in conflict, as do the Geneva Conventions on the Rules of War. Some of the protections set forth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, include that children should not be separated from their parents (art. 9); that they should be protected from physical or mental harm (art. 19); that they should enjoy the highest attainable standard of health (art. 24); the right to education (art. 28); the right to rest and leisure (art. 31 ); and protection from economic exploitation and hazardous work (art. 32).

Currently, there is a move to draft an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically on the involvement of children in armed conflicts. This Protocol would, among other things, prohibit children from participating in armed conflict. Furthermore it would prohibit recruitment (either voluntary or forced) of children by both governments and armed opposition groups.

Media Manipulation
While Cats Eye deplores both forced and “voluntary” recruitment of children for armed combat by the LTTE, it likewise condemns the manipulation of children in the media for propaganda purposes. The children have been victimized and then victimized again.

The government has a duty under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to “take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by armed conflict.” (art. 38(4)) Parading clearly traumatized children in front of the press and making them perform for the press — i.e. condemning one set of captors and praising another — is a sad spectacle. Cats Eye agrees with the 78% of those interviewed in the Colombo University study who, in response to the question “Do you think military action alone can solve the problem,” answered a resounding ‘ No”. This is good news. We plead with the LTTE, the government, the Opposition, militant groups and the LTTE to stop the madness before there is no future left to fight for. The war must end.

Untold stories
The LTTE’s capture of Kilinochchi last week was followed by an immediate official news blackout. Casualty figures continue to trickle in from official sources. Meanwhile, Mankulam with casualty figures in the double rather than triple or quadruple digits - has taken over the headlines. The “win” at Mankulam, the government says, is the more important story. More important than the hundreds of dead soldiers? Respect for those who have given their lives in combat calls for truth for the families.

Last Monday, the death toll among government troops was reported by the Ministry of Defense to be 9; on Tuesday, 43; on Wednesday they grew to 150; Thursday they were at 400; and Friday, 600. In contrast, reliable sources on the Internet placed the numbers of casualties from the attacks at Kilnochchi in the thousands.

Cats Eye questions the use of censorship to control access to information about casualty figures. The censorship is supposed to keep news of potential strategic importance out of the hands of the LTTE. As pointed out already by the Free Media Movement and others, casualty figures have no strategic importance. So who is it that the Government is keeping the information from? The families of the dead deserve to know the truth. The dead should be so honoured.

Censorship serves to numb the collective conscious of the public. Particularly in a situation, such as Sri Lanka, in which the war has fairly distinct geographic boundaries, censorship serves to further “remove” the war from the reality of those living outside of conflict. Those of us who live outside of conflict areas have few alternate markers of reality in terms of the war.

By manipulating the “truth,” the government manipulates the polity. Such manipulation effectively quells dissent and stifles anti-war protest. The farther we are kept from the reality of the war, the easier it is to ignore it. In fact, many of us want to believe the Government numbers because the alternative is just too painful.

Reality has been reduced to numbers. The bigger the numbers, the more real the war becomes. Although we all know that numbers add up, rarely do we stop to do the calcuations. Emotionally. it is easier to deal with single and double digits. When we hear one or two ambulances going down Galle Road, we listen for more. When we hear a seemingly endless procession, we start asking questions.

The long-term effects of such information manipulation are unclear. According to Vaclav Havel. “[i]t is truly astonishing to discover how, after decades of falsified history and ideological manipulation, nothing has been forgotten.” Although nothing may be forgotten, much is lost. The chasm between those who are governed and those who govern widens. Trust in the State is shattered.

For the families of the dead and wounded soldiers, the truth can be manipulated only so far. In the end, the dead are still dead. The wounded are still wounded. The wailing of the mourners will still fill the night.

Sex as a weapon
“Where do correct ideas come from?” asked Mao Tse Tung in the days of the Chinese revolution

and he answered “from the people”. Today’s answer in the Clinton-Lewinsky farce‘ could

certainly be “from the people of America.” After the infamous Clinton tapes, on TV

the pub1ic in the USA and abroad is now being treated as a dumpster for more garbage in the Clinton scandal. It is clear that the intention of the whacko right, the Christian fundamentalists and the Clinton haters and baiters, is to shame him into resignation. Instead, as the tapes were being shown around the world, the Stock Market index role and Clinton’s popularity ratings in the USA, went up from 60 to 66% rose in the USA and the rest of the world, the horror and disgust at the whole proceedings led to Kenneth Starr’s popularity” reaching an all-time low. The German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, not given to radical outbursts said he felt like throwing up and in France the whole inquisitional circus was condemned by both Left, Right and Centre.

Correct ideas, from France

One of France’s best-known women politicians, Simone Veil, speaking on Monicagate said the first victim of the scandal will be democracy and condemn Starr as “a horrible individual whom we may regard as not only a voyeur but perhaps also as a sex maniac.” the Lefist Green party member

Guy Hascoet made the point that the affair was “the dregs of an inquisitional Puritanisn in the USA”, and Alain Krivine a critic of the US bombings in Sudan and Afghanistan said “The US has a dismal and disturbing form of democracy: it allows a president to get away with killing thousands of people. Yet threatens him with impeachment because of an in inappropriate drop of sperm.”

Dangers to Democracy
While America-bashing is a common pastime in Europe, critics of the impeachment moves also point out to the dangers of the contagion spreading. Francois Bayrou, head of the centre-right UDF warns: “People say it’s America! But we should stop and think. What lies behind the destabilisation of Clinton is an unstoppable chain reaction involving the judiciary and the media and that is something which can happen in any democracy.”

In Britain too, there was a sharp response. A leading journalist, Polly Toynbee, noted that the American founding fathers were very clear about cruel and unusual punishments and added that Clinton had been subject to “slow torture by excruciating embarrassment.”

But to come back to the American people - they were clear from the start. 68% said the tapes should not be broadcast and 55% said they would not watch them - and still 66% say Clinton is doing a good job as President and should not be impeached, although they disapprove of Clinton’s personal conduct. The November elections will be crucial. If the voters turn out to protest against the Starr inquisition, Clinton may emerge from this ordeal as the ultimate Comeback Kid.

Article 5
1. National policies and programmes shall be planned and implemented with due regard for the legitimate interests of personsbelonging to minorities.

2. Programmes of cooperation and assistance among States should be planned and implemented with due regard for the legitimate interests of persons belonging to minorities.

Article 6
States should cooperate on questions relating to persons belonging to minorities, inter alia, exchanging information and experiences, in order to promote mutual understanding and confidence.

Article 7
States should cooperate in order to promote respect for the rights setforth in the present Declaration.

Article 8
1. Nothing in the present Declaration shall prevent the fulfilment of international obligations of States in relation to persons belonging to minorities. In particular, States shall fulfil in good faith the obligations and commitments they have assumed under international treaties and agreements to which they are parties.

2. The exercise of the rights set forth in the present Declaration shall not prejudice the enjoyment by all persons of universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms.

3. Measures taken by States to ensure the effective enjoyment of the rights setforth in the present Declaration shall not prima facie be considered contrary to the principle of equality contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

4. Nothing in the present Declaration may be construed as permitting any activity contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, including sovereign equality, territorial integrity and political independence of States.

Article 9
The specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations system shall contribute to the full realization of the rights and principles set forth in the present Declaration, within their respective fields of competence.

6. The other declaration referred to was the UN International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (1969) This is referred to as “CRRD)”.

Article 1
1. In this Convention, the term “racial discrimination” shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

2. This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens.

3. Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as affecting in any way the legal provisions of States parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality.

4. Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination, provided, however, that such measures do not, as a consequence, lead to the maintenance of separate rights for different racial groups and that they shall not be continued after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.

Article 2
1. States parties condemn racial discrimination and undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding among all races, and, to this end:

(a) Each State party undertakes to engage in no act or practice of racial discrimination against persons, groups of persons or institutions and to ensure that all public authorities and public institutions, national and local, shall act in conformity with this obligation;

(b) Each State party undertakes not to sponsor, defend or support racial discrimination by any persons or organizations;

(c) Each State party shall take effective measures to review governmental, national and local policies, and to amend, rescind or nullify any laws and regulations which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination wherever it exists;

(d) Each State party shall prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination by any persons, group or organization;

(e) Each State party undertakes to encourage, where appropriate, integrationist multiracial organizations and movements and other means of eliminating barriers between races, and to discourage anything which tends to strengthen racial division.

2. States parties shall, when the circumstances so warrant, take, in the social, economic, cultural and other fields, special and concrete measures to ensure the adequate development and protection of certain racial groups or individuals belonging to them, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. These measures shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.

Article 5
In compliance with the fundamental obligations laid down in article 2 of this Convention, States parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the following rights:

(a) The right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice;

(b) The right to security of person and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government officials or by any individual group or institution;

(c) Political rights, in particular the rights to participate in elections — to vote and to stand for election — on the basis of universal and equal suffrage, to take part in the Government as well as in the conduct of public affairs at any level and to have equal access to public service;

(d) Other civil rights, in particular:

(i) The right to freedom of movement and residence within the border of the State;

(ii) The right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s country;

(iii) The right to nationality;

(iv) The right to marriage and choice of spouse;

(v) The right town property alone a well as in association with others;

(vi) The right to inherit;

(vii) The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;

(viii) The right to freedom of opinion and expression;

(ix) The right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

(e) Economic, social and cultural rights, in particular:

(i) The rights to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work, to just and favourable remuneration;

(ii) The right to form and join trade unions;

(iii) The right to housing;

(iv) The right to public health, medical care, social security and social services;

(v) The right to education and training;

(vi) The right to equal participation in cultural activities;

(f) The right of access to any place or service intended for use by the general public, such as transport, hotels, restaurants, cafes, theatres and parks.

Thereafter in Part II of this Convention, there is provision for a Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, consisting of 18 experts acceptable to the member states. They should be of high integrity and impartiality and should represent the varios regions of the world and its various civilizations.

Member states of the UN must submit reqular reports to this Committee as to the action taken by their countries to uphold the standards laid down in the Convention. The Committee is empowered to call for these reports. In addition, member states are empowered to report against other member states, if they feel that the Racial Discrimination Convention is being violated. If such a report is received, the Committee is to inquire into it and also try to effect changes.

Each of the UN member states which are signatories to this Convention must first make a declaration that it will permit (recognise) the Committee to accept complaints from individuals or groups within the country, claiming racial discrimination. “No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a member state which has not made such a declaration.” (Article 14.1) Thereafter, the member state is also free to set up an agency to deal with such racial discrimination complaints, from within the country. Member states must thereafter inform the UN that such a body has been set up. However, this Convention permits groups or individuals to petition the Committee directly, bypassing the local body. The Committee is expected to take up the matter thereafter, with the member state, concerned. There fore we see that this Convention has established a mechanism for settling racial disputes within its member states.

The Committee must include in its annual report a summary of all such petition received and the action taken regarding them. Further this Convention also permits that any dispute between two or more member states as regards the application of this Convention could be referred to the International Court of Justice for decision.

This convention permits member states to express reservations as regards it clauses. Also member states can request a revision of the Convention, at any time it wishes.(Articles 8-23).

I have looked at several of the annual statements issued by the UN agencies concerned with minority discrimination. I have not found any complaints made to these agencies by the Tamil separatist movement on behalf of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. There is a simple reason for this. The Sri Lankan Tamils enjoy all the benefits and privileges of the citizens of Sri Lanka and they cannot show any minority discrimination. If they did petition, there is the possibility that the petition would be rejected after due inquiry. This would weaken the Tamil case and generally mess up its act.

These UN resolutions make certain things clear. Minority rights are limited to cultural rights alone. These include the use of the Tamil language and the right to be instructed in Tamil. These have been in existence in Sri Lanka long before the minority Rights Declaration was made in 1992. These declarations give no special political rights to the Tamil minority. Lastly, the UN always stresses the fact that none of its declarations can be used to divide territory or affect the sovereignty of its member states. Sri Lanka is a member state of the United Nations. It is also a signatory to the UN conventions described above.

(Concluded)

There is another intrusion to human identity occurring through information technology. The senses and so parts of the ‘mind’ are through electronic means now being extended beyond one’s person. By pressing a lever, clicking on an icon or speaking to a device I can effect an event remotely and that effect can also be fed back to me so that I internalize this feed back experience. This, and the extensive cloning of human capacities through a computer tend to spread the human identity widely over artefacts.

With advances in biotechnology and information technology there-fore, questions of identity, and of associated philosophical social and ethical modes become complicated. A further important question also arises: what is the ethical framework from which to view the environment from one of these hybrid lineages, say hybrids of the cultural artefact-genetic or the genetic-cultural stream?

The fact that the three streams can hybridize is proof of their basic equivalence, made of the same basic ‘stuff’ and having similar properties. So what is true of one lineage, say the mind lineage, the transmission mode for culture, must be true of the others. Has this class of philosophical, and ethical problems been met with, and discussed before and so provide us with some hints to navigate such a future world? There have been attempts in the field of cultural information to tackle these hybrids to which I will now turn.

One attempt is by Derek Parfit (1984) in a book Reasons and Persons which aroused considerable interest. The Times Literary Supplement reviewer considered it “by any standard the most notable contribution to moral philosophy in the last hundred years” (Scheffler 1984). Among the issues raised by the book is the nature of the person. Parfit argues what would happen in three hypothetical instances of changes in the internal make up of individuals such as firstly in an Enterprise type scan (of the TV film series Star Trek) and recreation of a human at a remote end, and secondly of hypothetical surgical interventions in the brain with implantation of memories, and thirdly of brain transplants. All this raises deep questions regarding personal identity. But what can be believed with reason is only the physical and psychological connectedness from one instant to another of a person. That is all what one can truly asert. From this description of personal identity and continuity Parfitt argues against self interest theory, the dominant moral theory in philosophical circles.

Parfitt’s argument is from the point of view of a ‘person’ whose interiority had become changed either through biotechnology or information technology and becomes a hybrid. He does not spread this hybridization problem more generally to that of hybrids in the other two lineages, or hybrids of all three lineages taken together. Specially the question of morality and ethics, of looking at the world from one subjectivity framework of a given lineage or a combination there of, is not examined.

There is another approach to such problems that uses some of the general properties considered in evolution. But before I discuss this, let me digress to some related issues which have already been referred to in this conference.

(Continued tomorrow)

About the author E.C.T. Candappa was one of Sri Lanka's been feature writers in the mid-fifties till the seventies. He was an outstanding journalist at Lake House and distinguished himself as a reporter and feature writer. He is now domiciled in Australia but still very much interested in his country of origin. He visited Sri Lanka last year and interviewed many of the personalities featured in this book.

Continued from yesterday

Attendants on duty actually arranged their bedding on tables in their duty room by nine at night and slept soundly till dawn.

Raj knew that it would be unwise to give the lad any drink but he also knew that it would be all right to moisten his lips with water. He did this and was able for a time to still the restlessness of the lad.

About one the boy stirred again, then woke and gazed blankly around.

"I want to go to the bathroom," he said.

"Shhh," said Raj, "what do you want to do?"

"One," said the lad.

"All right," said Raj, "you do it into this."

He bent and took the urinal up to him.

"I can’t," said the lad. "I want to go to the bathroom."

"You can’t do that, malli," said Raj, "you are after an operation."

It was then that realisation dawned on the lad and he began to weep silently. All the fight had gone out of him. In the moment of pain and suffering and helplessness he was himself again, a child, a little boy of ten.

Raj went over and cradled his head in his arms and caressed his hair, quite damp with sweat.

"You must try to pass urine," he said, fearful of letting the little man undergo the trauma of a catheter.

By four o’clock and after many attempts, Ajantha had still not passed any urine. With the waning of the anaesthetic the pain was also returning. He grew restless and kept kicking off the rubber sheet under him. It was a necessary precaution after surgery but with the room temperature in the ward quite high even by dawn , it was quite oppressive. Raj found an old newspaper and fanned the lad. It cooled his fever and he slept for a while.

He woke again within the hour. Dawn was creeping in, and with it, the fear of the catheter. Raj suffered vicariously for the lad.

"Come on," he urged him, "pass a little into this. Go on, go on."

He didn’t want to implant fear into him for that would be an effective way of corking him. Instead he tried sound child psychology, the suggestion of embarrassment.

Raj took one small hand and pressed it gently between his hands and was aware of its smallness and vulnerability. The boy opened his eyes and was calmed by the soft gaze of the man and strengthened by the strength of the reassuring hand.

"You have to do it or you’ll spoil the sheet and the nurses will laugh at you," Raj told him, some mocking amusement in his eyes.

Silence was a taut line between them for a while. The lad pondered this with bright, wide awake eyes.

The shock sank in.

A few seconds later Raj heard with enormous relief the sound of a trickle, a long steady trickle in the urinal. There was something conspiratorial in the smile that followed between them.

Then, the lad sighed deeply. His features relaxed and almost immediately he went to sleep.

The special attendant slept on.

A few of the other patients were stirring gently.

Raj returned to his bed and fell asleep.

By the time Ajantha’s parents returned by seven the special attendant had risen when the morning cup of tea was brought in, washed and spruced himself, and was all alertness and service. Ajantha slept on and would not rise till well past noon.

"How is he?" his mother asked the special attendant in a whisper.

"No trouble at all," he said, "he slept like a baby."

Raj, who heard it, said to himself: "Well, someone did."

Chapter 23
As the furry strokes of two struck in the wheezy tower, drowsiness slid in like a long, never-ending rat snake. It was a sluggish liquid movement that crept over every slope and slant of consciousness. The advance of sleep in the heat of the afternoon assailed the eyes and the ears, but in a snaky way.

There was, indeed, a fusion of visual images and patterns of sound. Dazzling kaleidoscopes of psychedelic colour danced before drooping eyelids while the ears were dulled into somnolence by vendors’ cries which seemed to elongate themselves specifically to induce sleep.

The treacle vendor’s cry was as viscous as the product. "Pan-eee-ohhhhh-naaaaa-the--------r," the cry rising and falling like the vapour from the melting tar on the street. The writing pad on his knee fell off, jolting Raj back to the ward.

His journal was two days off. Any hope of filling out just then seemed forlorn.

Under drooping lids he watched Haniffa wagging his feet quite vigorously. He wondered what profane thoughts were going through his aged but fearfully agile mind.

Patil next to him was soundly asleep. Perhaps in that state he was less troubled by the fears needlessly planted in his mind, by the cruel Dracula, that the surgery effected on him jeopardised his chances of entering into an early marriage planned for him by his orthodox family or even of living a normal married life thereafter.

The schoolmaster on the other side was writing letters casting every now and then a venomous look at the Moslem opposite.

The others were asleep.

In the corridors and rooms adjacent, peopled by hospital staff, the subdued, inconsiderate bedlam prevailed.

Raj turned over and let the coils of sleep entwine him. At length, a groan, like a chain saw cutting through ironwood, woke him. It crawled out of the guts of agony and snared the listener. Raj felt the quite irresistible compulsion to set forth and discover the cause. It lay in the next room.

The young house officer had also been surgically treated that morning and was even now emerging from the effects of the anaesthetic.

There were two attendants on either side, each holding an arm down.

The agony of such surgery was excruciating, Raj had been told. He imagined that the young medic had such theoretical knowledge to a far greater and more intricate degree through his studies, through his internship, and even perhaps, through his little practice up to that point.

He would also have told many patients that there was nothing to worry about this operation, that it was quite a simple one really, best got over and done with. He might have made crude jokes about it while at medical college, and now, Raj reflected, he would discover that pain, regardless of who endures it, is no joke at all.

Raj in his journalistic experience had concluded that every minister of state would function more effectively if he for some time at least practised his portfolio. A doctor would make a better Minister of Health than a farmer, and a farmer a better Minister of Agriculture than a city-bred, city-bound lawyer.

Now he felt every doctor would be better for having undergone surgery in a public hospital in the non-paying section, eating the mass-cooked unsavoury mess and squatting in the unthinkable hells of toilets.

The young house officer, he felt certain, would leave the hospital a better doctor, a better man.

Now that he was awake, Raj sauntered over to see his cousin Rienzie. And he was surprised to see him in bed, his arm still in plaster, with a couple of nurses hovering around him. He waited outside till they had left and went up to the bed. He knew he would not be able to stay long this time for evidently something was amiss.

"What’s up?" he whispered.

"They broke my bloody arm again," he said in a strangely amused way.

"What?" Raj hissed back.

"Yes. Now they have set it right again so that the bones will join right."

"Bloody hell," said Raj, his nose flaring with anger. "I hope they get it right this time."

"I don’t know what my father will say."

"What do you mean?"

"He’ll be quite annoyed that he will have to come down to Colombo often again."

Raj was aghast.

"You mean that’s all he’ll worry about?"

"He’s a busy man."

Some time later in the afternoon Haniffa beckoned to Raj. He crossed over.

The old man’s face looked the portrait of innocence. The skin was shiny smooth over the bony gauntness. His white hair was soft and fluffy. Without his dentures, his mouth was sunk in wrinkles but the eyes were alive with a dull grey fire.

Raj pulled up a chair and sat beside the old man.

"I’m going tomorrow," he said.

"Oh," said Raj. "Did they tell you?"

"I told them I want to go. They’ll cut the stitches today."

"Why, what’s the hurry?"

"I must get back to my job."

"I didn’t know you worked."

Mr Haniffa grinned toothlessly.

"Then how do you think I live?"

"But don’t you have children?"

"Yes, and they have children too. I don’t want to be a burden on anyone. When I can’t support myself Allah will take me."

"But is it not an Islamic custom that children must look after their parents?"

"That is what the Holy Koran says."

Raj did not probe further.

Mr Haniffa, however, chose to tell Raj more about his work. He was a cashier in a casino club in Maradana. Raj knew the area, a central suburb which contained a major railway station, several big schools of various denominations, Catholic, Buddhist, Moslem, several well-known churches, mosques, temples, several well-known cinemas and the best known theatre of all, the Tower Hall. It was also the heart of Colombo crime. Dens of vice honeycombed the area. There were sordid little brothels, opium dens and casinos of the type that Mr Haniffa had mentioned. They were periodically and ritually raided by the Police with whom these crimelords had an understanding. Their patrons and sometimes their proprietors were often prominent, even VIP, politicians. Life was the same everywhere.

It surprised Raj somewhat that Haniffa worked in such a place bearing in mind his fidelity to Islam. But then, not too much, considering his repertoire of naughty songs. Haniffa told Raj in a conspiratorial whisper of his deeply-laid suspicions of the Sinhalese.

"Never let one of them get behind you," he said. "They all carry knives and they can stab you in the back."

"Oh, come on," said Raj, "some of my best friends are Sinhalese. Some of them went out of their way to protect me during the riots."

"Mr Indra," he said, opening his eyes, and bringing his wagging feet to a standstill. It was a sign of the significance that he attached to the next pronouncement.

"Mr Indra," he said, "I am older than you. Old enough to be your father." He squinted at Raj with one eye. "Old enough to be your grandfather," he added. "I know a thing or two. You were not born when the Sinhalese Moslem riots took place. I will never trust them."

"But that was in 1915, Mr Haniffa. Forty four years ago..."

"Say what you like. That’s my advice."

Ah, the long bitter memories, the building blocks of prejudice, thought

Raj with a surge of sadness.

"You can’t judge people by what they do under such circumstances. Husbands kill wives sometimes, wives poison husbands, mothers drown their babies, brother murders brother. What do you want people to do? Not marry, not have children, and let the world run down slowly and die? Is that what you want? Life must go on, Mr Haniffa..."

But Mr Haniffa was, to all appearances, fast asleep.

Raj left the man. "Old hypocrite," he muttered darkly.

He noticed Ajantha sitting up and reading a lurid comic. A poisoned dart, a racial prejudice from the conversation with the old Moslem, hissed past his mind.

That was close, he thought.

He ambled down to the lad’s bed and there was welcome in the youngster’s eyes.

"Katandarayak kiyanna, Aiyya," he said.

A simple and natural request from a child for a story yet Raj reeled with the shock of it.

The metamorphosis in the child was complete. He was no longer the snotty little brat who had come to pollute the air with his snobbery. He had even condescended to speak in his native tongue rather than use the language of the erstwhile colonial ruler as a sword with which to cut down inferiors. (The particular idiom of the sword in this place is an anachronism for its birth was not due for at least twelve years.) He had also called him aiyya, older brother, which was the respectful manner in which all Sinhalese called their male elders. This custom prevailed even in schools.

The very fact that he had spoken to Raj, a Tamil, in Sinhala, demonstrated vividly that racial tensions were the invention of the devil and of politicians, in that order, Raj decided, and that politicians who exploited racial tensions for their own advancement were briefed by Satan, the father of dissension, himself. Children, until poisoned by their parents, had no racial prejudice in them.

So Raj sat by the lad’s bed and told him a story which he made up as he went along. For this was one of his gifts.

When he had done he ran his fingers through the child’s hair and called him malli, younger brother. And in that moment they built another bridge.

The relationship between storyteller and listener was also an intimate one. It was evocative always of the security of childhood. Mothers and grandmothers told stories and ancient retainers who were often surrogate, if temporary, mothers; sometimes old uncles and aunts and then always the favourite ones; not just any uncle or aunt who happened to know a story or chanced to be inclined to tell one. Children would never condescend to listen to a story told by a stranger or one whom they disliked.

And they only asked for a story from one whom they trusted and liked. So a bridge had surely been built here.

That moment of joy was shattered a few hours later when the visitors arrived. With unfailing fidelity Raj’s family came daily. Knowing the routine of his small but well regulated household and the limited resources available, Raj was conscious of the sacrifice involved.

Their entire day was geared to the evening’s visit, innumerable inconvenient adjustments had to be made; and yet when they came, it turned out to be little more than an empty ritual. They had to share the time with several other visitors, and since they were not family and came only once, Raj felt compelled to speak more to them. On some evenings he ended up speaking just a few words to his own.

The visitor who spoilt his evening was so unwelcome that he could have done so just being what he was without adding to the distress by what he said.

He was Bob van Dort, a casual acquaintance he had met at a house party. He was a Burgher, another of the many ethnic groups in Ceylon. Very earthy in their manner and very native in many of their customs and habits, they retained a strong Western outlook. The spoke and thought in English, though not all with elegance, or even with grammatical exactitude, wore Western clothes and spurned and scoffed at everything native. The overwhelming majority of them disdained the common garb of Tamils and Sinhalese, and the women would very rarely wear the saree nor the men the sarong, preferring instead pyjama shorts appropriately at night and incongruously by day. They were by and large the bohemians of Sri Lankan society, and like another tiny ethnic group, the Colombo Chetties, lived for the day, enjoying drink and song.

Some of their number, however, were highly educated and cultured and made momentous and historic contributions to Sri Lankan life and culture in almost any field one could think of. They had excelled in the arts, in the sciences, in medicine, they shone in public administration and made significant contributions to scholarship. With all that they felt removed from the native people, and where in the past some few of their number had migrated to Australia qualifying under the White Australia policy, being able to prove a white European ancestry, they were at this time leaving in large clusters owing to an unfortunate and third-rate pun, delivered by the brilliant Bandaranaike, totally unbecoming of his distinguished academic, Oxford-oriented background and the dignity of his office of Prime Minister.

When he had introduced what many considered his ill-considered Sinhala Only Policy with indecent haste and characteristic expediency, the Burghers who had always felt so anglicised that they could not or would not use Sinhala except to speak to servants and menials went in a distinguished deputation to Prime Minister Bandaranaike and asked what their future as Burghers, would be. And as the word bugger had found common currency in the Burgher vocabulary, Bandaranaike had extracted his pipe from his sneering lips long enough to deliver that famous line which went instantly into history.

"You can burgher off to Australia," he said, to the accompaniment of a cruel cackle.

They missed the joke, caught the insult and took him at his word.

In the months and years that followed, they migrated to Australia, the heaven some Burghers believed they would go to, before they died. And Ceylon as a whole was gradually impoverished not only of some top-ranking professionals and administrators; society was denuded of some exceptionally beautifully women and handsome men, of fair skin and light eyes, and of a very good-natured, colourful people. Their presence in Sri Lanka gave continuity to an historical process and they bore witness by their appearance to the country’s storied past.

Bob van Dort was not typical of his race. He was a climber, a creeper, a parasite, a man whose every pore was a sensor receiving messages conveying opportunities for advancement, for himself, for his family or for his friends. If he found and used an advantage for a friend, then he would plough that back into the friendship and bide his time to seek another advantage from the one he obtained it.

And his face bore the signs of such strain. It was a fair face like most of his race, and his eyes were light, a dull grey in his case. But they were restless eyes and they darted in many directions. There was a servile half smile around his mouth which broadened into a bumptious grin whenever an advantage seemed likely. He could never mask his intentions.

"Hullo, Raj," he said. "How are you?"

"Oh, just the same. I don’t know when the operation is going to be."

"What do you mean?"

"They haven’t fixed a date."

"You want me to put in a word to the registrar? My brother-in-law knows the bugger."

"No, no, don’t worry."

"No worry at all, Raj. What’s the time now? Just leave it to me. I’ll fix it."

"Look..."

"Not another word."

Raj knew even before the unsought favour had been bestowed, he was in van Dort’s debt.

(c) E. C. T. Candappa

Continued on tomorrow