Morning Spice by Ginger
The end of a business honeymoon

Just as much as the stock market has taken a sharp tumble which might be signalling the end of a business honeymoon for some one feels that socially too many an individual is feeling the ground underneath and so many feet may be planted more firmly on terra firma. The five star life seems to be less in vogue than in the past, the club as a place to “meet and greet” seems to be claiming its place in the social “totem pole”. It is nice to see the clubs or rather some clubs having more members in the evenings.

At times Ginger thinks one has to be either stinking rich or a prize sucker to pay close to Rs. 100 for certain chasers and three times of the cost for the hard liquor. A certain type may prefer to be seen at such places feeling their ambience and so forth would lift them socially. I remember a medical specialist telling Ginger when asked why he had no accent after spending years in England that those who had something to show for themselves did not need it. It was normally the park and pump attendants who developed such accents. But this fact apart club life is always more friendly and firmer friendships are forged in the more informal atmosphere of a club house you are less inhibited as well.

HIV virus
Now this is really bad news. We were feeling that the battle proper to conquer the HIV virus was just starting and the latest technique of combining four powerful drugs that slowed down the spread of the virus in the system and helped the antibodies in the body to fight the disease was showing signs of promise.

Other forms of cure too seemed to boom on the horizon as the reports indicated. Now gloom looms instead for those who get infected in the future. A new strain of HIV that cannot be detected by the tests conducted today appear to have created serious complications for those who are trying to contain the virus.

Murali
The last three Dulux cricket shows were more or less all involving Murali. Nobody denies Murali’s right to all the accolades he is getting but we must learn to view things in proper focus. Did Laker get receptions all over the country when he was the architect of England’s victory after a similar achievement. After champagne and a few glowing press reports it all ended. We are great on receptions and tamashas.

How good is all this for the person involved. You put such a performer under too much pressure at times. He knows so much is expected of him not only by his team but also the whole country. After Chaminda comes back he may have some support but that does not mean that he would not be under constant pressure to perform miracles and that could affect his performance in the final analysis by making him a very nervous person.

Man and animal must co-exist

The recent proposal to set up an armaments factory in Sri Lanka in order to supply firearms to farmers so that they could protect themselves and their crops against wild animals, in general, and the elephants, in particular, is ill-conceived, ill-timed and insane. It comes at a time when elephants are being slaughtered for no rhyme or reason (8 elephants killed within a week in September), in this predominantly Buddhist country of ours which places so much value on life.

If this proposal is implemented, then not only will more wildlife be destroyed or maimed indiscriminately, but it will also create a community of armed men and women who can become a menace to society, especially at festival times when, fortified with potent spirits people usually take the law into their own hands and settle old scores with vengeance and resolve family feuds. Arms giving should not be confused with alms giving.

We are fully aware of the problems faced by the people living in close proximity to wildlife. Parks and reserves are not islands, and wildlife, especially the elephants, spill over and range frequently outside the borders of even the largest conservation area in Sri Lanka. A year’s staple food crop of a peasant family can be destroyed in a single night by elephants, at times accompanied by death to members of the family. Unless such losses can be compensated adequately and promptly, farmers will call for the destruction of the elephants and other wildlife that endanger their lives and destroy their crops. As competition for natural resources is a fact of life, in the final analysis, the number of elephants in any conservation area and its surrounding region can support will depend on the people’s tolerance of the animals.

Many farmers have lost their tolerance for wildlife in the face of mounting losses and by the absence of any relief from authorities concerned. In the absence of deterrents, such as electric fences, against elephants in many rural areas, the methods people adopt to deter elephants raiding their crops, require almost 24-hour vigil for three or four months at a time during the cultivation season. This is a serious drain on a family’s labour and health.

The problems faced by the farmers in Sri Lanka cannot be solved by merely arming them. This would make the maintenance of the Department of Wildlife Conservation redundant. One must understand why elephants are being slaughtered so indiscriminately in Sri Lanka lately. Many of the elephants that fell victim to the farmers are tusk-less bull elephants or maknahs. These are killed neither for the ivory (which they lack) nor for the meat (fortunately, elephant meat has never been popular in Sri Lanka).

Therefore the slaughter of elephants is not the result of an increased demand for ivory, meat or hide Instead, as the well known Zimbabwean conservationist, Dr. Graham Child, points out, the real cause may lie in how farmers perceive the value of elephants. It also boils down to the fact that in Sri Lanka, there seems to be no advantage to the ordinary man of having elephants around. For those people who live next to a protected area, the presence of elephants is a curse. The killing of an elephant therefore, removes a pest. Thus, many farmers may not really regret the disappearance of the elephant from their neighbourhood.

A combination of high human population growth and deteriorating fertility of the land in rural areas has led to increased encroachment and degradation of forests inhabited by wildlife. It takes about 5 square kilometres of land to support an elephant in the wild. The 4,000 odd elephants that are estimated to exist in Sri Lanka, will need almost a third of the land area to survive. The existing protected areas cover only 12.5% of the land area, large enough to support only about 1,600 elephants. No wonder 70% of the elephants’ range lies outside the confines of the protected areas.

The key to mitigating human-elephant conflicts in Sri Lanka is first and foremost, to encourage the adoption of sensible national land-use strategies that minimize conflict situations, and to ensure that in areas where people and elephants overlap, that people derive tangible benefits from the presence of the elephants. Furthermore, in areas where elephant depredations impoverish the people, their losses must be promptly and adequately compensated. So far, the amounts paid as compensation have been woefully inadequate. The Department of Wildlife Conservation received a sum of US $ 5 million through the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), and is now negotiating a loan of US $ 40 million. A substantial amount of the funds from such international donor agencies usually go to pay for the services of expatriate consultants.

For the people who suffer so many problems such as insufficient health care, inadequate educational facilities, unemployment, fluctuating rainfall, increasing oil prices, etc. elephants must surely be a luxury, luxurys that they cannot afford. If only a portion of the financial resources from the international donor agencies is spent to improve the livelihood of those people who bear the brunt of elephant depredations, it may be possible to enlist their support in minimising the slaughter of elephants in Sri Lanka.

The survival of people and large animals such as elephants, with whom they share the land, depends on how well these suggestions are implemented. Arming people will be a prelude to a disaster far worse than the slaughter of elephants.

Charles Santiapillai
University of Peradeniya

Jayantha Jayewardene
Biodiversity & Elephant Conservation Trust

Norwegian interference

I wish to thank Citizen-D of Kandy for his letter to you with the above caption published in the Daily Island of September 28. He has highlighted an important subject, namely the hypocrisy of some nations who have assumed the old of ‘Do Gooder’ in the context of Sri Lanka’s national crisis. I would like to add a few other points to confirm what Citizen D has so competently spelled out in this connection.

Firstly the historical fact which is now well confirmed that the Norwegians collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War while being fully aware that the Nazis practised an extreme and barbarian form of racism that included torture and killing of millions of innocent Jewish men, women and children — their own citizens and citizens of other countries which they subjugated — for the simple reason that they belonged, according to their shameful doctrine, to an ‘inferior race’.

Secondly, the fact that Norwegians are among the Western countries whose embassies in Colombo follow a conscious policy of discrimination against Sinhala Buddhists in recruitment of their local staff. This is obvious to any person who visit these places for obtaining visas. This obnoxious practice is also being followed as an unwritten law by at least one important international organization which should know better since they are supposed to assist countries to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This organization was headed until recently by a Norwegian. However the discrimination against Sinhala-Buddhists started much earlier than his time.

This practice has been carried out to such absurd lengths that there is at least one service department in the office in Colombo that refuses to recommend recruitment of any worker other than one who belongs to a particular community and religion. It may be noted that unlike in the case of an ordinary embassy, this particular organization receives a large annual contribution from the Government of Sri Lanka in the form of a free use of government owned prime property in Colombo 7, meeting their telephone bills and cost of several other services.

Thirdly, I may also mention another case of open discrimination practised by a Norwegian official aid organization. This relates to the establishment of a technical and vocational training institute with NORAD assistance in Hatton area. The work on the construction and setting up this institute is underway. One of the conditions of the grant assistance to which the previous government unfortunately agreed was that courses should be conducted at this training institute only in the Tamil language. So much for the high principles that they claim to possess.

P. B. Dolawatta
Peradeniya

Buddhist monk bashing

G. A. D. Sirimal of Boralesgamuwa continues his crusade against Buddhist monks in his reply to me (The Island, 29.9.98) on the above subject. He persists with the phobia that the major threat to Buddhism comes from miscreant Buddhist monks. And he keeps writing to the papers (to the ENGLISH press, mind you) hoping to correct the situation. An apparently noble gesture indeed. He quotes quite effusively from the scriptures too.

I said earlier that this is a new approach of various diabolical elements in the NGO cocktail circuit. If Sirimal’s intentions are genuine, he should write direct to the venerable Mahanayakes or to the Jathika Sangha Sabha and to various Buddhist organisations. If not, he should send in his views to the SINHALA press and to Buddhist journals which are read by the vast majority of Buddhist monks and lay Buddhists. This would bring home the message to the target group concerned a lot more effectively.

On the other hand, a weekly bashing in the English papers serves a different purpose altogether. The motive remains sinister, despite Sirimal’s effusive rhetoric to the contrary. This being a democratic country, Sirimal is quite free to continue his crusade of exposing Buddhist monks to ridicule to the English-speaking world. I too, have a crusade. That is to keep the public informed, at least in a small way, of subtle campaigns by NGO-backed elements.

‘Citizen-D’
Kandy.

Obsolete postal date stamps

The franking machines at almost all post offices and sub-post offices are worn out and the impressions are not clear. As a result the office and date of posting cannot be traced.

Cannot the postal authorities replace these metal date stampers with rubber ones at least as a temporary measure without delay, and thereby make the date-stamp impressions more clearer?

Upali S. Jayasekera
Colombo 4.

SLMC’s posturings

This is in reply to the letter which appeared in the Island recently under the caption ‘US Missile Attack — Dastardly Act’ by Mr. M. M. Zuhair, MP (National List), Member of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).

When Mr. Zuhair was critical of the Americans’ for the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan, which are two Non-Aligned Nations (I am not aware of the present position of the Latter), the Sri Lanka government of which the SLMC is a constituent party had condemned the dastardly attack. I also came across in the same newspaper where the President of Sri Lanka calls upon the Non-Aligned Nations to become parties to the convention on the suppression of terrorist bombings but at the same time conveniently ignoring the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan, killing and maiming innocent people.

In the past, too, the members of the SLMC which is a constituent member of the PA administration have quietly sidestepped vital issues like removal of the Haj Holiday and the Non-appointment of a minister in charge of Muslim Affairs.

There were privileges enjoyed in the past by the Muslims specially, the Haj holiday. Instend it is vociferously protesting against trivial issues of insignificance to the Muslim community like the pruning of ministerial portfolios of its members. It seems that the SLMC has put self before community interest. This is hypocrisy of the highest degree.

Below are some of the adverse effects of the SLMC leaderships to irresponsible and partisan speeches have had on Muslims.

a. The influx of Muslim refugees.

b. Division created between Muslims living in the Eastern Province (EP) and other parts of Sri Lanka, i.e. most appointments and positions are given to the SLMC supporters in the EP when compared to the Muslims living out of EP, (even Mr. Zuhair is also at the receiving end) and

c. Suspicion created in the minds of Sinhala and Tamil communities towards the Muslims.

I wonder whether the SLMC members are steadfastly holding on to their portfolios and making hay while the sunshines as they are aware that this is the last chance of enjoying power at the expense of the innocent Muslim community.

Faiz Jamaldeen
Democratic United Muslim League

Rambling Notes by Nihal Corea
Bad boys and good girls

Clinton continues to dazzle. The Island published a story under the headline “why bad boys get the girls” which is more than a little fascinating. Though the answer to many would be obvious there is precious little a girl could with a good guy. A good boy’s prudish instincts limit his capacity to entertain the normal girl whose hormones keep egging her on to take her to association with males to more delightful pursuits than small talk.

The good guys “hands off“ could be a little galling to the average girl and she would be strongly inclined to thump him on the side of his head and call him a dolt. She would much rather transfer his hands from his knees to hers. She does not as a rule seek mental stimulation when with a male or rather it takes second place to what a male can offer by way of what is purely biological. Now that is what a bad boy offers from the very start.

A good guy may think he would be pleasing a girl by sending her an invitation to some high brow seminar. A bad boy on the other hand may invite her to some questionable rendezvous for some low down frolicking and given a choice her glands are going to decide the issue for her. There is nothing a seminar can do to compare with the thrill of a good tryst with a bad boy.

Now take the case of Elizabeth Gracen who admits having spent one stupid night with Bill Clinton. Evidently she was married at the time and so was he. The incident was something she was not proud of and she is damned if she knew why she did it. Well there could be many reasons for it.

The rather regrettable fact in the association is that few women do such things for the sake of satisfying pride. It is done to satisfy totally different needs. True one may regret what happened in retrospect but at such moments one does not think of future reflections but immediate pleasure. Her question has been more than adequately answered by doctor Carole Lieberman a psychiatrist.

She says that this remorseful female was drawn by Clinton because he was a “wanton wolf”. True it is a bad reputation for a President of United States to have. The chances are that women will be discouraged from attending functions he is attending but still the women of America like this wolf in sheep’s clothing. Their instinct is to rip off the sheep’s clothing and confront the wolf in him.

Think of what a dull prospect he would have been if he was a sheep in wolf’s clothing bleating out highly conventional and correct convictions to them. What most people fail to realize is that bad guys are good news to most women. It needs a very resourceful woman to derive any pleasure by being with a good boy.

On the other hand a bad boy signals the message that a good time can be had by all. Women evidently love this wolfish streak in the male. Lieberman says she still sees her first boy friend as the ultimate in sexual deviance. Clinton need not worry. He has plenty of that. In fact he has plenty of deviance going by what Lewinsky has to say.