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Morning Spice by Ginger
Aussie bowling and Sri Lankan defeatWe fared a little better against Australia in Perth than against England. Our batsman faced the rising ball better than on the previous occasion and might have done a little better if bad luck did not alter the course of the game when a nasty rising delivery from Brendon Julian fractured Sanath’s wrist. Just when he was making mince meat of the Aussie bowling. Just twenty more balls or so from him would have taken the pressure of our other batsmen. Two or three others too paid the price off careless batting. Both Hashan and Mahela who was shaping so well got out trying to loft the ball on the onside.
Lifting the ball over the top is perfectly legitimate but lofting it to the outfield where a fielder is patrolling the area could be highly dangerous. Arjuna too was a little too casual about his shot. The less said about Mahanama the better. Upul Chandana would have played a far more useful role one feels let’s face it. As one of the commentators said we are an ageing side. This talk about experience is all trash. It is high time people like Aviskha and others replaced some that are passengers in the side. One thing Avishka will have to learn is where his off stump is which he will do with a little experience. The older players are losing their reflexes and, so like it or not we have to blood our side a without delay.
Imelda Marcos
What is the other name you would like to give Imelda Marcos. She can when you come to think of it be described in more ways than one and perhaps been the butt end of many a snide remark. Few however would have dared to call her by a name that would have been an apt description of her when her husband was in power.Foreign journalists however were not so intimidated by that one time Miss Manila. They called her the steel butterfly and this title is what was given her when she became the first lady back in 1965. She was probably given that name because of her grace and elegance and the steel nerves she showed when dealing with her enemies.
Against crime
Portugal too is getting set to hand over Macau within the next year as so. The signs are that there will be quite some confusion before the Portuguese pull out of Macau. The authorities have already started a full scale war against crime in the state.Already some seventy odd people have been taken into custody after the police started raiding gambling dens in Macau. The raids and the gangs feeling kind of honey moon is round the corner seem to have started fighting each other to control prostitution and gambling in Macau.
Educational reforms in an English context?
I was surprised to read that the so called New Educational Reforms have all been thought out at Cambridge University in England. The politicians kept telling us that we must throw out the old British system. They should have added that we are going to replace it with a new British system.
It is so sad that we still after 50 years of Independence, lack the self assurance to dispense with foreign advice and more important advisors. To get advice on Education from of all places England which has probably the most undisciplined, disgruntled and selfish young people in all of Europe is the biggest joke.
Furthermore it is impossible for an effective Education System to be devised by persons who are not intimately aware of the Social Environment in which the children are placed. The relationship between children and Teachers for instance is far different in this part of the world to the West. The permissive educational model where for instance teachers are addressed by their first names is unlikely to be thought of as the most appropriate by Lankan parents.
Even where the physical size of children are concerned the latest reforms are obviously following British standards where the average size of a 5 year old will equal that of a Sri Lankan 9 year old. The play equipment which are supposed to be used by grade 1 children are as a result actually used only by the bigger children. Any principal will confirm this. These systems may in fact be most suitable for our "International" schools. I suggest that it be tried out there first.
Former teacher
Conflict of communities and confused nationhood
The informative and thought provoking series of articles contributed - periodically to ‘The Island’ by Ms. Kamalika Pieris explicity - explain some of the varied aspects of the current ethnic conflict.
The relevant critique calls for some concerned interest and enquiring with a view to arresting in some measure the currently developing scenario of a downwards drift in the strength and character of the majority community.
Without malice or recrimination against other ethnic groups, generally referred to as minorities - but on pragmatic terms quite powerful and influential in most areas - the views expounded by the writer deserve dispassionate discussion and review by all those seeking a reasonable settlement to the ethnic problem. The dissertation also provides an insight to the surreptitiously evolving ulterior motives and under hand manipulations lashing against the already weak and crumbling collective unity - the break water - guarding the structure and psyche of the major community.
In the way certain things are taking shape, the major ethnic group seems to be gradually declining towards the position of an endangered species. The very base of its bulwark is apparently disintegrating.
In that context, it is desirable that the national leaders sit up and take notice of the emerging dangers and take some reasonable remedial measures - without causing harm to other ethnic groups — to cry halt to any further degradation of the majority groups’s status quo.
The minorities seem to possess support bases and widening influence in near and far flung states to sustain and empower them in most pursuits whereas the major nationality is palpably diminishing in its collective strength and other worthwhile aspects.
Some self styled intellectuals with various beneficial NGO connections might no doubt fault their critics as narrow minded communalists bent on harassing and harming other ethnic groups and would also sermonize on the benefits of an assimilation of nationalities on a global concept to form a global) community and they would in the process attempt to ignore or shield some of the sectarian machinations and acts of aggrandizement resorted to by certain groups that are trying to disparage and undermine the historically indigenous community.
Irrespective of such misleading misdirections national leaders should open their eyes wider and be alive to the over powering dangers that would someday restrict the free movement of the major community and constrict its very existence.
R. M.A.B. Dassanayake,
Matale
'The creeping usurpation of Kandyan Birthrights'
Day by day one sees the erosion of the birthrights, - heritage and rights of the Kandyan peoples. Mr. Thondaman is losing no time, and as Minister of "Estate Infrastructure" is busy as a bee developing not only the infrastructure of the Estates as an economic asset but rapidly an infrastructure to develop the interests of the Indian estate population in directions purposefully inimical to the interests of the native Kandyans.
Aid and abetted by the emphatically anti-Sinhala policies of this Govt. (as well as of the past UNP Govts).
We now find: (1) The Indian estate people are being made part owners of our Tea Estates (once owned by the native Sinhalese or Sri Lankan Companies); (ii) are being vested with land that really belong to the Kandyan Peasantry (iii) are being allowed the facility of having Teachers imported from India and (iv) being pampered with various other facilities. All this in the name of a never ending cause of "improving the lot of the down-trodden estate workers" by a Minister who has been given almost on a "Build Own, Operate" basis, a Ministry empowered to enrich the Indian population to his heart’s content.
Meanwhile nothing is being done to improve the lot of the indigenous Kandyan people whose lands were robbed and now are being given to the Indian workers; whose birthrights are being insidiously but remorselessly robbed by an Indian Minister (now naturalised) but whose permanent interests are emphatically still Indian and in India. Note the several trips he does to India when important matters have to be decided on. Yes, the Kandyans have been betrayed by their own MP’s too who do not lift a finger against the creeping erosion of Kandyan rights and interests by Indian Estate powerhouses.
The PA Government should realise that it has given Mr. Thondaman a lethal weapon to use against the Kandyans. The Ministry of Estate Infrastructure is one that gives Mr. T. immense scope to enrich the estate people to infinite limits almost. And he is striking while the iron is hot, most of those blows being blows against the interests of the Kandyan people. For purpose of obtaining votes and capturing and retaining power, both the UNP and the PA have been ready to betray and have betrayed the Kandyans to the outsider.
Certainly, the estate workers must be given basic rights, such as decent housing (not ownership), medical facilities, a decent wage education etc. But equally the rights of the Kandyan must not be sold for these purposes, and they to should be rehabilitated and their birthrights restored as far as possible. The Kandyans themselves must arouse themselves and fight for their rights. One does not see any resistance from them against the steady erosion of their heritage. They sit meekly, indolently and do nothing. Nor does the Buddhist clergy do enough. Both must wake up and act now. Else they’ll be like a tortoise against a hare who (unlike in the fable) never sleeps a wink but keeps on running to its destination, viz an Indianized Hill country or ‘Malayanadu’:
"Perturbed - Sri Lanka.
The right to life and birth control
This is a rejoinder to Mr. R. M. B. Senanayake in your journal. I reiterate that the Catholic church is not against birth control per se. But she is definitely against abortion. "THOU SHALL NOT KILL" the commandments do not specify the type of life. Neither does the first precept of the five precepts in Buddhism " PANATHI PATHA...." accept killing, in any form.
What many people argue in abortion is that no one is certain when life begins. But it is very simple. This is my belief. Once the sperm unites with the ovum, it produces a cell that can divide and finally become a living being. Isn’t it elementary to realise that if this cell can grow to become a living being, a replica of the being that produced it that life has already started at the time of union, what we call "conception"’.
According to any religion, the desire or Chetana determines whether a sin is committed or not. When a female after union with a male stops menstruation the first assumption is that it is a pregnancy. Thus doing anything deliberately to cause the disruption of this process is tantamount to murder, even if it was not a pregnancy. Once a life is formed, taking away same would be murder. And no one has the right to murder.
I had the occasion to see a video-cassette on abortion. It was terrible. If one were to see same I am sure one would have second thoughts about even thinking of an abortion.
According to any religion the greatest achievement is to be born a human. As a medical person I have seen women on the verge of suicide, because they were unable to become mothers. There are so many who lament because of sub-fertility. How many spontaneous abortions take place a day in Sri Lanka? How many neo-natal deaths occur every day? So, is it not a great achievement to be born a human being.
There is an international organisation, ``HUMAN LIFE INTERNATIONAL" in U.S.A. working on the VALUE of human life. I wonder whether there are any such organisations in Sri Lanka. If there are, it is time for them to get together. If not it is high time forming one and I think of two eminent persons who can be sought for advice.
One is Rev. Gangodawila Soma Thero and the other is Rt. Rev. Frank Marcus Fernando the Bishop of Chilaw.
Dr. Jupiter Moonemalle,
Kurunegala
‘Creeping usurpation of Kandyan birthrights’
Day by day one sees the erosion of the birthrights, - heritage and rights of the Kandyan peoples. Mr. Thondaman is losing no time, and as Minister of "Estate Infrastructure" is busy as a bee developing not only the infrastructure of the Estates as an economic asset but rapidly an infrastructure to develop the interests of the Indian estate population in directions purposefully inimical to the interests of the native Kandyans.
Aided and abetted by the emphatically anti-Sinhala policies of this Govt. (as well as of the past UNP Govts).
We now find: (1) The Indian estate people are being made part owners of our Tea Estates (once owned by the native Sinhalese or Sri Lankan Companies); (ii) are being vested with land that really belong to the Kandyan Peasantry (iii) are being allowed the facility of having Teachers imported from India and (iv) being pampered with various other facilities. All this in the name of a never ending cause of "improving the lot of the down-trodden estate workers" by a Minister who has been given almost on a "Build Own, Operate" basis, a Ministry empowered to enrich the Indian population to his heart’s content.
Meanwhile nothing is being done to improve the lot of the indigenous Kandyan people whose lands were robbed and now are being given to the Indian workers; whose birthrights are being insidiously but remorselessly robbed by an Indian Minister (now naturalised) but whose permanent interests are emphatically still Indian and in India. Note the several trips he does to India when important matters have to be decided on. Yes, the Kandyans have been betrayed by their own MP’s too who do not lift a finger against the creeping erosion of Kandyan rights and interests by Indian Estate powerhouses.
The PA Government should realise that it has given Mr. Thondaman a lethal weapon to use against the Kandyans. The Ministry of Estate Infrastructure is one that gives Mr. T. immense scope to enrich the estate people to infinite limits almost. And he is striking while the iron is hot, most of those blows being blows against the interests of the Kandyan people. For purpose of obtaining votes and capturing and retaining power, both the UNP and the PA have been ready to betray and have betrayed the Kandyans to the outsider.
Certainly, the estate workers must be given basic rights, such as decent housing (not ownership), medical facilities, a decent wage education etc. But equally the rights of the Kandyan must not be sold for these purposes, and they too should be rehabilitated and their birthrights restored as far as possible. The Kandyans themselves must arouse themselves and fight for their rights. One does not see any resistance from them against the steady erosion of their heritage. They sit meekly, indolently and do nothing. Nor does the Buddhist clergy do enough. Both must wake up and act now. Else they’ll be like a tortoise against a hare who (unlike in the fable) never sleeps a wink but keeps on running to its destination, viz an Indianized Hill country or ‘Malayanadu’:
Perturbed - Sri Lankan
‘Good things no cheap, cheap things no good’
"Good things no cheap; cheap things no good," said the Chinaman.
I am no regular traveller, nor do I hold any brief for the private bus owners. However, I believe that "sauce for the goose’ is sauce for the gander". When all other things have gone up in price, why should only the bus fares and train fares be static? Specially the private bus owners are forced to run a whisky service on a toddy budget! When the Minister of Finance, who is our President as well, wanted to increase the bus and train fares, the Minister of Transport and Highways threatened to resign fearing unpopularity among his voters, with the result that the relevant paragraph in the budget had to be deleted, and the bus owners were left high and dry.
In the case of the Minister of Transport and Highways he can, of course subsidise the C.T.B. and the C.G.R. to any extent from the inexhaustible fountain of the Consolidated Fund formed even by taxes of the poorest of the poor, who pay customs duty even on their span cloths. But from whom can the bus owners obtain subsidies to maintain an efficient private bus service at a tremendous loss? "Money makes the mare go." What will happen in the future is that private buses will drop off one by one and the remaining private buses will turn into "black holes of Calcutta", causing tremendous inconvenience to commuters!
While on this subject, may I touch on another relevant matter? Several letters have appeared in the press media on the advantages of double decker buses. They can be considered as a great panacea for the present evils because besides clearing crowds at bus stands in no time, they are more steady, won’t jerk and commuters, who occupy the upper deck, can travel comfortably as it is never overloaded. It is hoped that the energetic Transport Minister will put several of them on the roads without delay.
GP,
Mt. Lavinia
I read with much interest an article written by Mr. D. Amarasiri Weeraratne in the Midweek-Review of the Island paper on 13/01/99, on Ven. Soma. He states that the Ven. Soma has been asked by the Advisory Council of Religious Programmes of the SLBC to desist from treading on the religious susceptibilities of the Hindus and Muslims.
I am one who has been listening to Reverend’s Sermons for quite some time. I certainly don’t think the Bhikkhu is in any way treading on the susceptibilities of the Hindus or their religion or any other religions. He is only trying to correct the Buddhists themselves from wrong practices, wrong views. "Mithiya Dusti".
Ven. Soma in his sermons has been asking the Buddhists to abstain from worshipping Hindu Gods. The two religions Hinduism and Buddhism differ in that the Buddhists do not believe in an Almighty Creator or God. They also don’t believe in a soul or "Athmaya". Whereas’ the Hindus believe in these two factors. In fact all other religions believe in God and Soul.
Then the Ven. Soma points out people offer poojas to Gods, and ask for favours and gains. In Buddhism this is craving or "Thanha". Craving according to Buddhism is the cause of suffering. What the Buddha showed us is a way to end suffering, in which we have to give up craving.
I do admit that in Sri Lanka as in India there were various religions in the misty past. But after the advent of Buddhism brought by Arahat Mahinda the majority of the Sinhalese became Buddhists in Sri Lanka.
Mr. Wimalaratne says the Dalada Maligawa is a Hindu Kovil, in all its practices. I certainly cannot agree on this score. If he means the "Avatheva" done at the Maligawa, it is quite different from the poojas done at Hindu Kovils.
Mr. Weeraratne says that in no known country is there pure and pristine Buddhism preached today even in Sri Lanka. I do admit quite a percentage of Buddhists are Deva worshippers. But we should do our best to practice the pure, pristine and noble doctrine. That is exactly what the Venerable Priest is trying to show us.
Buddhism is a very tolerant religion. In nowhere in the history have there been wars and forced conversions unlike in other religions. Buddhism is a "way of life’, That anyone who wishes to learn and practice could do so. Its aim is to end suffering which is "Nirvana". That is why Hindu Kovils were allowed to be built near Buddhist temples.
The Buddha says that if one practices the Dharma the Devas even will give their blessings.
Mr. Weeraratne ends by saying the good Rev. Soma can ‘fulminate and fume’. But it will be a cry across a desert. Let me remind him that there is already a large following for Rev. Soma who are interested and awaits his most analytic and enlightening Sermons.
C. Godamunne,
Kandy Humanitarian Society
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