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Morning Spice by Ginger
Many seek private sector jobsGinger read a story under the headline "unemployed graduates flex muscles." For what I wonder. With the hand over of the economy to the private sector there is precious little the state can do about employing all the graduates without work. A certain percentage may be able to get jobs with the state but most would have to look to the private sector which is not likely to give any such assurance. One can understand the frustration of these graduates.
The fault one feels lies to some extent with some educationists and dons of the past. Had they been following global patterns of employment as well as they should have? Did the faculties take in their undergraduates after proper consideration as to what scope there would be for employment after graduating in certain subjects. It was obvious that it was becoming the era of computers, marketing men and engineers. Only the professions offered anything by way of earning capacity. What the state could do is to put them through some rapid course that would improve their chances of employment free of charge and so improve their prospects of getting employment in the private sector.
Be silent when travelling
When you are travelling as many people do these days it may be the prudent thing not to make any conversational faux pas or for that matter make the wrong gestures or give wrong signals when you meet people living in other countries, when you are passing through. Some of them do have some odd superstitions.Now if some one were to offer you a chrysanthemum you would possibly be quite pleased but don’t do it if you are in Argentina. You would make your host more than a little nervous as they suggest funerals. Just as clocks could also mean death in China and when in South Korea do not give any one a pen with red ink as it denotes hostility. It is not a nice thing to give a gift and get a black eye in return.
Heri Ziegler
His boldness showed right through his life and also paid heavy dividends. Heri Ziegler who died at the ripe old age of ninety one was not only a heroic resistance fighter during the last war but a bold businessman who made France and Europe more effective than they ever were in the field of international aviation.Shortly after the war he was appointed Director General of Air France. He soon gave that up to go into the plane industry. It was he who co-ordinated and completed the building of the Concorde and was also responsible in helping to find the setting up of Airbus Industrie.
To the believer the ultimate damnation is the stygian darkness of hell. This is exactly where he lands when he is obliged to visit a government office. Take for example the withholding tax. This is a burden that is placed on the heads of not the big hitters, but the ordinary people who depend on Providence for their daily bread. The bone in the throat of the withholding tax is the burden of collecting the tax certificate which is required by the IRS. Often collection is an exercise in futility because entering a government office demoralise the hearts of thinking people. The first obstacle is security. Standing solitary, the security man carries an inscrutable face as if his life has been a tale of spirit besting destiny. He believes he is a man of self respect and self possession and someone who excels at a difficult art. Although his work demands a clear head and a steady hand, he is unlikely to display these skills in an emergency, because like the board rooms, the security services are also showing strong geriatric tendencies. After a perfunctory body search admission is granted.
The place is a low doggery, with an occassional whiff of the usual fragrances and crawling with staff, most of whom are women. Nearly all look godforsaken. Some have their heads on the tables as if they are nauseated. Others are reading newspapers, some others are staring at the walls. Mooring on to a metal rail I prepare for a long wait. Meanwhile the customers who need attention also wait. After all this is an evil which most of them often bear. The supervisors do not care a hoot and go about their indifferent ways straining at gnats and swallowing camels. The customers as a rule are not over eager to complain and for the clerks idling seems to be their regular trade. After some prevarication, security admits that the clerk is not in the seat and requests patience. It was then that I discover that hunting for clerks is also part of his responsibilities. Summons come in due time and before I could settle down, the pen pusher complains that she is not well and it takes the eloquence of the ancients to make her understand the purpose of my visit. Speaking flippantly in a earthy vernacular, a date is given for a return visit. The follow-up visit was worth next to nothing. I had to put up with the expense and nuisance of multiple visits to resolve the matter.
There is a general belief that the system has gone to the dogs. The tendency is to blame education because of the fact that school leavers know very little and are often bewildered. But the real villains are the quacks who have changed the gender patterns of recruitment. These are the deadly frauds who are responsible for the rockslide and must be held accountable for the impact of the rocks that they themselves are not throwing.
Ask a physiologist and he will tell you that women are regularly affected by PMS known also by its old name PMT. They suffer terribly with such-symptoms as mood swings, depression, nausea, irritability, bloating, headaches and joint pains. Some are even disabled by cramps and a tendency to violent behaviour. Given this, one would have to be brave or even foolhardy to pack a office with women and expect it to function smoothly. This thoughtless practice has brought the machine to a standstill because the gear wheels are designed with an-odd number of gears. Consequently no amount of threats, exhortations, special pleadings, snide remarks or even the wringing of hands will start the engine, because the gear trains are now locked solid, a mechanical breakdown akin to a slipping clutch.
The impotence of government touches everybody within its reach and some believe the problem could be resolved by restoring the civil service. The CCS was established as a barrier to patronage and the pork barrel. It was a separate branch not open to promotion from the middle and lower levels. Recruitment was through examination and was expected to insulate itself against political passions and provide continuity. It produced a few distinguished servants but a litter of stereotypes and ended pettering into decadence and ineffectiveness. The system could not save itself and today we are left with a few geriatrics, lurking in board rooms, dreaming of the good old days and rapidly slipping into dotage.
The Mandarins of China had a system which was based on years of study and apprenticeship. Selections were based on stiff examinations. But the system ended in failure because it was not immune to corruption.
In Jonathan Swift’s, Gullivers Travels, Gulliver described how the Lilliputians chose people for public office. "They have more regard for good morals than for great abilities" reported Gulliver, "for since government is necessary to mankind, they believe that Providence never intended to make management of public affairs a mystery, to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius. They suppose, truth, justice, temperance and the like to be in every man’s power, the practice of which virtues assisted by experience and good intention, would qualify any man for service of his country, except where a course of study is required".
The Ottoman Turks had an unusual system which I believe is worth emulating. Children were taken at an early age and exhaustively trained to devote themselves single-mindedly to the state and were forbidden to have families or own property. Some were sent to the Janissary, the military arm. Others were attached to the Kapi Kullari, the administrative arm. The system worked to excellent effect massively contributing to the growth of the Ottoman Empire.
According to Plato, philosophers must become kings and those who are now kings must learn to seek wisdom, like true philosophers. Until that day, he acknowledged, there can be no rest from the troubles for the cities. We have no kings neither do we have philosophers. This has left the field open to imposters who believe power is the coin of the realm, to safely grab power and repeat today the blunders of yesterday.
Ephrem Fernando
Battaramulla
Disproving Tamil claims to the Eastern Province
A "one-word" answer (to borrow a phrase from Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar) to Mr. Gamini Iriyagolla’s and the Sinhala Commission’s "disproval" of the Tamil "claims" to a traditional Tamil homeland in the E. Province, is to ask them whether they know of any Sinhala person or family that claims an E. Province origin. In all my 64 years I have yet to come across a Sinhala person or family that "hailed" from the E. Province.
On the other hand, one frequently meets or hears of "Trincomalee" or "Batticaloa" Tamils, or Muslims, or Burghers, who are proud of their ancestral habitation of these lands, and are not chary of declaring it. Sinhala people of the same vintage, if any, seem to prefer to keep the fact under cover, for reasons unknown.
Hence, whatever was true of the Kandyan Kingdom up to 1815 AD, or is to be gleaned from the diaries of British Civil Servants in the 19th C., the present ground situation is what is relevant to a viable political settlement of the "Eastern Question". Unless Mr. Iriyagolla and the Sinhala Commission accept current realities as the parameters for finding a solution to this outstanding issue, without living in the past, we shall never get anywhere in bringing it to a finality.
E. A. V. Naganathan
We have read in the newspapers that the Western Province Council is going to insist that all private buses issue tickets to commuters. In case passengers are found without tickets, they will be fined.
This seems particularly unfair. The obligation to issue tickets lies on the bus conductor and owner. Why punish the helpless passenger who will curtly asked to get down if she or he asks for a ticket from the (often) ill mannered conductors.
There is no way for Inspectors to board these buses ‘en route’ as they are packed to bursting point. The only way out is to employ Inspectors who will examine the tickets in the hands of the conductor before the bus leaves a terminus or after it arrives at its destination. The bus owner and conductor should be fined if there are no tickets.
The ticket is the only proof the commuter has that he/she travelled; in case of an accident, it is a claim for compensation. In Rome when buses and trams offered free travel at peek times to draw away traffic from private cars, during a certain period in the seventies, tickets were none-the-less issued as a travel document by the City Council.
The further decision to ban foot board travel should also be applauded.
Rev. Fr. Dalston Forbes OMI
Hindu Buddhists and Soma Thera
I have been reading in the daily papers, arguments in favour and against on Rev. Gangodawila Soma Thera’s approach to Buddhism and also follow discussions, sermons, preaching of Rev. Gangodawila Soma Thera over the electronic media. I as much as others, agree with Soma Thera that worshipping of devas or gods is absolutely against Buddha’s teachings and having devales for these gods in temples is devaluation or dilution of pure Buddhism, and sacrilege.
Man from time immemorial has been worshipping some unknown or their dead to save them or grant favours. Married couples go to churches, devales and offer poojas and pray to gods to bless them with children, even when medical opinion is in their favour. Of course, when they are blessed with a child, they thank god but not the doctor. It they fail they do not blame god but recline to their state by saying "it is the will of god". Bookie owners, kasippu kings and those of the underworld throng Katharagama, seeking the blessings of the god there, to carry on their nefarious activities without any hindrance and to prosper. The name-sake ignorant Buddhists worship at the statue of Lord Buddha and seek favours. So also at the Bo-tree tying coins (pandura) on the branches of the Bo-tree seeking favours.
As long as defeated attitude and lack of self reliance, self determination in man exists this cult in seeking help of gods can never be removed. In Greek mythology, we read of several gods for different activities. Likewise other countries too had beliefs in some supernatural or an unknown being. It could be possible, that prophets, philosophers and thinkers, without demolishing or destroying this inherent pre-historic belief, preached their gospel within this frame. It is Buddhism only, which preaches the doctrine of karma, cause and effect, self salvation, emancipation and reach enlightenment, be by one’s own effort, adhering to the Noble Path which Thathagatha preached over 2500 years ago. The Dhammapada in Atta Vagga says:-
Atta hi attano natho,
Ko hi natho paro siya
Attana va sudantena
Natham labhati dullabham.(One self, indeed is one’s saviour, for what other saviour would there be? With oneself well controlled one obtains a saviour difficult to find).
It is only the intellectuals and those seekers of truth and question oneself could understand and be a Buddhist, a Buddhist by conviction, a true Buddhist.
It devales in temples and if the namesake Buddhists are called upon not to worship the Gods or deviyos, and not to patronise devales, trying to break away from a belief or practise by innocent, ignorant, illiterate, weak minded upasakas and upasaka ammas, the temples will be empty and gradually they will turn to Hindu kovils. Ultimately, Sinhala Buddhists will be Sinhala Hindus. Therefore, the process of convincing the lay Buddhists of this meaningless worship of deviyos or gods, should be done with utmost care, lest other religions, worshippers of gods, take advantage and bait the innocent.
With the vast advancement in science and technology, the coming millennium will see a more intelligent generation seeking and questioning the purpose of life and expect rational and acceptable answers.
It is my belief that the effort of Rev. Gangodawila Soma Thera is to meet that challenge. That’s the resurrection of pure Buddhism, which has today deteriorated due to the present day Buddhist monks greed for worldly pleasures and benefits — ‘loukika sampath’. It is my humble wish that Rev. Gangodawila Soma Thera, carries on his crusade, bearing in mind the danger, I mentioned above.
S. Gardiarachchi’
Boralesgamuwa
Soma Thera popular even among non-Buddhists
This refers to letter by Dr. Jupiter Moonemalle, published in ‘The Island’ of Jan. 1, 1999, on ‘Soma Thera off the air’. He is not off the air because I listened to him today (1.1.99), at 9.30 a.m., on the T.V participating in a conference. The way he speaks, the tone of his speech and the manner of his factual representations are so enchanting that even a non-Buddhist is obliged to listen to him with interestedness. Needless to say, that the Ven. Soma Thera is very popular today and there are many who are keen to listen to him.
Truly speaking, Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thera is not a devil advocate, but a bhikku primus inter pares (first among the equals), to uphold orthodox Buddhism of the Theravada Canon, which does not encourage divine worship above homage to the Buddha. In fact, Buddhism does not repudiate polytheism, but recognises gods and goddesses as super beings second in importance to the Buddha. For a Buddhist, the first preference is the temple and next the devale. Ven. Soma Thera accuses those who topsy turvy the position.
Dr. Moonemalle, being a Roman Catholic, says ‘I really admire this fearless Thera who calls a spade a spade. A good and practising Christian will never oppose this Ven. Thera, because he never runs down any religion, be it Christianity, Hinduism or Mohameedism". I myself have listened to this Thera on many a occasion, when he appeared on the TV screen or spoke over the radio, with the greatest interest, because I felt he spoke the truth, as a true disciple of the Buddha, treading along the correct path.
As one can understand, no other religionist is on the war path against the Ven. Soma Thera, but only the Buddhists who have felt bad about his discourses when he spoke about the ritualistic attitude of divine worship, and the way people spend lavishly on ‘poojas’ dedicated to the gods, for no positive gain but as a wasteful expenditure amidst economic hardships. In reality, the ‘kapuralas’ of the devales and the custodians of the temples make use of the offerings as non-taxable income.
Ven. Soma Thera is, really, outspoken, straight forward, dauntless and energetic in expressing his views to enlighten Buddhist laity who beseech divine help regardless of Buddhist principles.
Aryadasa Ratnasinghe
Mattegoda
Down to Earth
Pinnawela: haven for rescued wild elephants
by Derrick SchokmanIn this age of ever-increasing conflict between humans and wild elephants, Pinnawela is a haven for abandoned baby elephants and wounded adults from the wild.
Sited on a 25 acre block of coconut close to the Maha-Oya, it was started in 1976 with six rescued animals as an off-shoot of the Dehiwela Zoological Gardens.
Today the population is 61, and the target is 100. It is an achievable target since the elephants are fed on introduced fodder in a cut and carry system as for farm animals.
The fact that elephants at Pinnawela are allowed unfettered movement is a delight to visitors.
Specially at bath time when the adults frolic in the Maha-Oya and lie down to be scrubbed by their keepers.
The last time I was there, some elephants disregarded the commands of their keepers to lie down. Instead they scampered across to the other side of the river and began to wallow in the sands, until a master-mahout of sorts went across and ordered them back.
Was it all real? or was it a stunt to drum-up some variety and humour in what is a routine occurrence?
Whatever it was it certainly went down well with the tourists who had a field day trying to capture this elephantine comedy on film.
The other attraction is the feeding of the babies. Each one gets seven giant-sized bottles of "Lactogen" milk plus five other meals a day.
Pinnawela has no doubt proved to be an excellent attraction for visitors, local and foreign. It earns six to seven times more gate money than the Dehiwela Zo annually.
Captive Breeding
Yet, there are people who feel that in addition to its entertainment value, Pinnawela needs to be developed to its full potential as a research centre for studying the reproductive and social behaviour of elephants.Today, there is a sense of urgency over the plight of elephants born both in captivity and the wild as to their numbers are steadily declining.
Given this trend, attempts to breed elephants at Pinnawela have had some degree of success.
Between 1984 and 1997 there were 12 births. The calves were born to six females. Just two bulls sired 80 percent of the births. The pregnancy period in elephants is over 20 months.
Studies on serum testosterone levels are being conducted to determine significant breeding times in an effort to increase birth rates.
Baby elephants born at Pinnawela however are not returned to the wild.
One reason is that their close contact with humans could be a major cause of rejection by their wild relatives.
Another reason is that they lack the association and instruction of their mothers on how to survive in the wild.
They are consequently disposed off to temples and sent overseas as gifts to foreign dignitaries.
Experiment
A novel experiment now in progress, initiated by Dr. Nandana Attapattu of the Wild Life Department, is studying the possibility of returning rescued wild elephants to the wild after rehabilitation.Three young females and two young males rescued from the wild were allowed to stay together in the Udawalawe Transit Home with minimal human contact.
They were allowed to find their own food. Furthermore, they were not taught a language as is done at Pinnawela.
In March 1998 these five animals were radio-collared and released as a group into the Udawalawe National Park.
Their progress and interaction with other wild elephants will be monitored over a period of two years.
The present feedback is that the animals are staying together as a group, roaming and browsing a 50-acre block in the park.
Ecotourist Centre
Aside from research, there is a crying need to develop Pinnawela as a prime centre for ecotourism, complete with a comprehensive library and audio visual information service on the history and relationship between humans and elephants in Sri Lanka.This is something the government should seriously consider in order to create a critical awareness of the plight of wild elephants and the urgent need for conservation.
There are plans to create a new zoological gardens on modern lines in an area close to Pinnawela.
It would be in the national interest if these plans could be extended to making Pinnawela a prime ecotourist centre.
There is every likelihood of co-opting the assistance of international conservation organisations in getting such a project off the ground.
