Morning
Spice by Ginger
Picnics are no
longer safe
One of Ginger's favourite
pastimes was picnicking in the old days. It had a
wonderful relaxing effect on you and you could
even equate it to a brief holiday. Today the
outing in most instances would be a drive to a
seaside restaurant for a buffet and few will
blame one for doing so as it is no longer safe to
do anything like picnicking. The chances are that
you would be looking down the barrel of an
automatic weapon or a revolver and being relieved
of your cash or valuables. But yet there are a
whole heap of attractive picnick places left in
the country and some tourists would just love the
idea of a picnick into some picturesque spot or
other .In Europe the hotel or home where you are
staying would pack your lunch for such an outing.
Here too we should see that tourists have the
same facility. Many of the out door type love
such outings and we have so many places of
unusual charm to offer the tourist but the snag
is that many of these places are not safe. What
the tourist trade can be is to have certain
selected picnic spots and have them patrolled by
policemen in mufti who should be on the borders
of those picnic spots as their presence should
not be obtrusive or too noticeable.
Excellent coverage of
cricket series
This time MTV got its courage
of the on going series right. What Ginger liked
was that once the match was over and Sirasa TV
got back to its normal programme, MTV took it
over from there and carried on a repeat for the
benefit of those who could not see it because the
matches start early and many viewers are at
office when the matches are on.
This is the kind of
consideration that builds up loyalty to a station
besides the advertising does not cut into the
playing time - at least not so far and we hope
the station will continue to adopt that policy.
While it is considered that advertising is vital
it must not be the main aim of a station covering
an important event. Ginger hopes that other
stations that have been rather amateurish in the
televising of such matches follow how MTV does
it.
Marcos issue surfaces
The Marcos issue re-surfaced
after the funeral of his dreaded general Fabian
Ver. Thousands of people were murdered during the
period that this deadly combination was in power.
When it was known that Ver had
died at the age of seventy eight. There was quite
some argument as to what sort of funeral the man
behind so many deaths should have.
Estrado left it to his generals
to decide what sort of funeral he should have and
they decided on a simple one and not one reserved
for heroes. Meanwhile Aquinos widow said that
nations wounds could heal only once the culprits
behind the Aquinos murder were brought to
Justice. Quite a percentage of Marcos's death
would go to compensate human rights victims of
the regime, according to Estrado.
A
plea for a reply!
Government officials, from top
to bottom and from bottom to top are averse to
giving replies to the letters sent to them by
well-meaning, loyal and humble people, expecting
relief from the government they have elected to
serve them! But the moment, a government comes to
power, the people who elected them become slaves
and they, the government become the supreme
masters! The people are masters only for a time,
a brief period, during the canvassing for votes,
until the eve of the elections!
Gone are the days, when rules
enforcing (i) acknowledgement of letters, for
which, replies are not possible, within three
days of their receipt; (ii) interim replies,
where replies are not possible, within fourteen
days and (iii) final replies, within one month,
etc., were strictly followed, under pain of
punishment for default!
Whatever said and done, English
reigns supreme still! English is respected and
given prominence not only by the people who had
clamoured for 'Swabasha', but also by the
'Swabasha' oriented government and
administration!
Administrators sneer at
Swabasha letters, but feel happy when they see a
neatly typed or even hand written letter in
English. But then they are unable to understand a
hang of it, and so they keep them under their
paws, like dogs in the manger! A similar fate
often befalls Swabasha letters,
And who cares? No one! Because,
the higher rungs too do not know what to do! They
cannot read and understand the Ordinances and
legal enactments they are expected to follow,
because these are all in English!
Take for instance, land work,
in Kachcheries or District and Divisional
Secretariats, as they are presently named, in
elevated fashion, but unable to produce results
equivalent to their elevated names! But who
cares? The people still call them 'Kachcheries'
and 'Government Agents'!
No one knows land work, in most
kachcheries, compared to what we had in the
recent past, when we had brilliant Government
Agents and Land Officers, who knew their woork to
the hilt and were dedicated to it!
In Vavuniya, we have a staff,
from top to bottom, who cannot tackle land work,
properly, judiciously, honestly and without fear
or favour! A wide scale probe into the whole
strata of land work, from, say, 1990, at least,
will reveal a large multitude of sins of
omissions and commissions committed by
unscrupulous, self-centred people, who have used
the opportunity to enrich themselves!
The biggest racket in Vavuniya
is 'encroachment', with a capital 'E'! Tank beds,
road reservations and railway reservations, have
taken a hold of crown land, to an extent that no
crown land will be available for public purposes,
soon. And the funniest thing is that encroached
land, is being peddled , like goats and sheep,
due to the desperate housing shortage in Vavuniya
town.
Reverting to the question of
replies to letters, it is pertinent to point out
that the people spend large sums to have their
letters typed and sent to government departments!
They spend as much as Rs. 50/= to Rs. 100/=, per
page of a letter typed, in addition to Rs. 13.50,
for registered post, instead of Rs. 3.50, for
ordinary post, because they have more faith in
the 'registered post'! This is another subtle
way, by which the government is fleecing the poor
man!
Thambirajah Mahadevan
Vavuniya
The
American dream
Following the impeachment vote
against him for perjury and abuse of power,
President Clinton's approval rating rose from 68%
to 72%. Many will wonder how this could be. The
answer can be found in what has now come commonly
to be called "the American cult of
victimhood". The London Economist once had
an editorial on this. There are
"victims" all over America. They are
not the murdered, the mutilated, the raped or the
sexually harassed but the persons who committed
those crimes. These are the unfortunates whose
mothers did not love them or whose fathers forced
them to eat spinach thus ensuring that later they
would take to a life of crime. Bleeding hearts
all over America empathise with these poor
criminals. Recently, a young mother shopping in a
department store with her two children, slapped
her little son for bullying his sister. The
mother was arrested and led away in manacles! The
Bobbitts went to court, but she was acquitted of
maliciously emasculating him (she had suffered
years of humiliation!) and he was acquitted of
harming her (he had paid the price up front!).
¥A thief trying to break into
a school at night through the roof crashed to the
floor and was injured. He sued the school and was
awarded a million dollars damages. The school had
no business to have a roof with rotten timber
which could not support the weight of a
respectable burglar! A white man, travelling on
the Manhattan subway was mugged and robbed by a
gang of four black hoodlums. A few weeks later it
happened again. A week later it happened a third
time. He decided to carry a gun. When he was
attacked a fourth time he shot all four hoodlums
injuring all but not killing anyone. One of them
however, was crippled permanently. He sued and
was awarded two million dollars damages. The
white man had to sell his home to pay the
damages, he had to move to another neighbourhood
and he lost his job.
In America it is the criminals
who become the folk heroes. Billy the Kid, Bonny
and Clyde, the James brothers, Wild Bill Hickok,
Buffalo Bill, they all have achieved the status
of cult figures. The people whom they robbed and
killed are forgotten.
Technologically, the Americans
lead the world. They have produced, in addition
to giant airliners and highly complicated weapons
of mass destruction, including missiles, of
frightening sophistication.
John Fowles wrote: "If
anything stands condemned, I suspect it's the
ridiculous notion that advanced technology
produces richer human beings when it is becoming
only too clear that the contrary is true É The
absurdity is that they (the Americans) have
managed to turn themselves into the most
culturally deprived people in the advanced
west."
(John Fowles: Daniel Martin)
Another endearing
characteristic of the American people is their
tendency to go gung-ho over a president who bombs
non-white people in large numbers. Harry S.
Truman, who killed close on two lakhs of
non-combatant Japanese men, women and children,
is regarded as one of the greatest US presidents.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush all got
immediate hikes in popularity whenever they
bombed Asians or Africans. Clinton, too, played
this card on the eve of his impeachment but all
it got him was a 24 hour respite, at the cost of
68 Iraqi lives. Had he killed 10,000 Iraqis
perhaps he might have had a more rewarding
result.
America cynically accuses Iraq
of not complying with UN resolutions. Actually,
America has the utmost contempt for UN
resolutions and, in fact, has consistently and
relentlessly used its veto to block UN attempts
to punish Israel for defying UN resolutions.
Similarly, America accuses a
highly civilised country, China, of human rights
abuses. America uses this as a weapon in its
economic aggression against China. The truth of
the matter is that America is one of the world's
worst offenders in the field of human rights. A
recent Amnesty International report claims that
"across the country, thousands of people are
subjected to sustained and deliberate brutality
at the hands of police officers. Cruel, degrading
and sometimes life-threatening methods of
constraint continue to be a feature of the US
criminal justice system."
Believing in free enterprise
with an almost religious fervour, they have
privatised prisons and turned them into
profit-making capitalist ventures. Private
corporations make huge profits by cutting down on
the amenities of the prisoners. AI reports that
the contracting out of prison management to
private corporations has resulted in a drastic
deterioration in prison conditions.
So there you have it. This is
America. This is the American dream. Sigmund
Freud, when he was 52, visited America. He
returned to Vienna in a few weeks, disenchanted.
He told Ernest Jones: "America is a mistake.
A gigantic mistake."
Piyal Gamage
On
pristine Buddhism
Reference to Mr. Stanley
Jayaweera's article on January 19 th under the
heading on pristine Buddhism, what the Buddha
discovered under the Esathu tree in Gaya and
preached 2500 years ago at Varnasi and recorded
only hundreds of years later still remains clear
and unpolluted despite the passage of time. Under
the Bo-tree at Gaya the morning after his
enlightenment when He uttered the famous Udana
Vakya " Aneka Jathi Sansaran Sandavisam
anibisam and so on" He proclaimed to the
world that He had finally found the truth. It
took him another 49 days to settle down and walk
to Baranesa (Varnasi) and proclaim the Dhamma to
the five ascetics, who had deserted Him earlier
as He had chosen to follow the middle Path rather
than torment his flesh by following the "
Aththakilamathanuyoga". The DHAMMA CHAKKA
PAVATHTHANA SUTTA He preached set the Wheel of
Dhamma rolling. "Suffering, the Cause of
Suffering, the Cessation of Suffering and the Way
leading to the Cessation of Suffering - i.e. the
Eight Fold Path" is what He laid bare on
that day to the five Ascetics.
For forty five long years he
traversed the North-East of India on foot,
splitting it into three Circuits - the Sulu
Mandalaya, Madhya Mandalaya and Maha Mandalaya -
meeting people and preaching to them. Most of
these discourses were handed down through the
Dhamma/Vinaya which are fairly accurate record of
what He said when questioned by various persons
of that Society. Mr. Jayaweera has cited one such
story and ended up by giving the wrong answer to
the final question the Brahamin asked: "Then
who are You" The Buddha answered:
"Ahang Buddhosmi Brahammana" This is
one of the few instances where the Buddha
identified himself as the Buddha.
Mr. Jayaweera with his powerful
command of the language makes a frontal assault
on learned monks by making a sweeping statement
that "One can memorise the texts and become
an Agga Maha Panditha but that is no guarantee
that such an individual is awakened to the
truth". As far as I can remember no Agga
Maha Panditha has ever made such a claim. To
ridicule the knowledge that some learned monks
have acquired after a long period of scholarship
is rather unbecoming of a gentleman of the
calibre of Mr. Stanley Jayaweera. It is said that
the Gauthama Buddha took a long period of time
("Sara Asankya Kalpa Lakshayak")
traversing through Sansara to reach that Supreme
State of Buddhahood.
Mr. Jayaweera had agreed with
Mr. Amarasiri Weeraratne what the latter had
written about "Ven. Soma and the Hindu
Gods". What the ven. Gangodawila Soma is
trying to do is to awaken the Buddhists to the
fundamental need of standing on ones own feet
rather than depending on unseen Gods. (Aththa hi
Aththano Natho É Mr. Amarasiri Weeratatne who
has been writing so much about the caste issue in
the Buddhist religious. The pernicious caste
orders has a word of praise for Ven. Soma system
is a direct outcome of Hindu Teachings where the
Kshastriyas ruled, Brahamins had a stranglehold
on education, the Traders on the varying trades
and the Shudras doing the menial work. The
Buddha's direct challenge to that system resulted
in the liberation of men being tied down to
castes that they were born in to. He opened the
doors of his Sasana to all comers, irrespective
of their castes. Suneetha a conservancy labourer,
Upali, a barber and so many others entered the
Sasana and became Arahants. It is no secret that
in the second half of the 20th Century, entry
into Hindu Temples was denied to the so-called
low caste people in the North of Sri Lanka.
So it is time for Buddhists to
start thinking and behaving like Buddhists. When
in doubt go back to the original teachings of the
Buddha and find out where you have gone wrong.
The Buddha Himself said after His Parinibbhana
the Dhamma will be the guide. What the Buddhists
in Sri Lanka need is a real body blow to awaken
them from the deep slumber they have got into.
Ven. Gangodawila Soma is just doing that.
Jayatissa Fernando
Colombo 3
Some
People's Bank
Among the state banks People's
Bank appears to be the only bank that in always
run by pachyderms. They are so thick skinned that
no amount of legal goading could put them in the
right track.
If the reader has followed
their manipulations in the past which are evident
by the number of litigations the management has
already faced regarding promotions, you might
wonder whether these schemes of promotion or
downright scheming! Not that such malpractices
were not there in the remote past but, being few
in numbers the affected had not the precuinary
strength to go into litigation. Sometimes even
union leadere were involved in this racket to
push through their earmarked ones.
However, after 1977 with the
formation of JSS things went from bad to worse.
Promotions became a sordid affair. Some were
demanding promotions as if a promotion was one of
their birth rights. On the eve of promotions you
could find henchmen at Sri Kotha. On the
following day like the waving of King Mida's wand
things had changed.' First was the last and the
last was the first.
Now from recent times the
employees have found that it is useless to appeal
too the management because such manoeuvring
happen with the connivance of the union and
certain cliques. In the judgement appearing in
the Daily News of 10th Nov. on People's Bank
promotions, it is revealed that CBEU branch of
People's Bank was aware of this scheme. Some of
the petitioners are former members of the union
who resingned from it over such issues.
During the past five years we
came across so many judgements in favour of the
affected employees. However, it appears that the
management never learns. It seems to be
impervious to precedents and court rulings. They
run roughshod and behave like errant knights.
Do these employees get any
satisfaction by suing their employer? No. In
their heart of hearts they don't like it. But it
is their last resort. It is with a sense of
frustration that they seek justice. They feel
they are discards. At every step the bank creates
dissension among its staff. It creates animosity
between the two groups -the management promotees
and the legal promotees. The institution becomes
a house divided among itself. Could you expect a
sense of espirit de corpse in such an
establishment? What is the result? It is
anybody's guess!
I hear that out of the five
petitioners four are transferred to faraway
places such as Uhana, Thanamalwila, Buttala and
Udawalawe. Is it Tit for Tat? If so when will the
management come of age?
Ex-employee unionist
Acupuncture and homeopathy
treatment at Kalubowila Hospital
The Acupuncture Clinic at the
Kalubowila Hospital is a unique institution. At
the hospital what is usually practised is the
western medicine but together with acupuncture
and homeopathy under one roof, we patients have
the option of receiving the most suitable form of
medicament for our illness.
It is now widely understood and
accepted, the disadvantages in western medicines,
for that matter as in any system of medicine and
such deficiencies are compensated to a great
extent by the valuable knowledge gained from the
studies in acupuncture and homeopathy.
I have been suffering from a
skin disease for several months and continuous
western treatment made only slight improvement
and made me feel weak physically and mentally,
but at last I came to know of the acupuncture
clinic at Kalubowila Hospital and the improvement
now is substantial. I feel healthy and it was
easy on my purse. As I could not take leave
continuously. I shifted to get treatment in the
evening at the clinic at Wellawatte.
Had the acupuncture system of
medicine not been available at the Kalubowila
Hospital, I would not have had the confidence to
try this out as recommended by a friend of mine.
Hence I should firstly thank the Kalubowila
Hospital administration for the benefit I
received, but recently when I came to hear that
there are plans to close down this acupuncture
clinic, I was saddened.
I appeal to the President and
the Minister of Health. Please do not close the
Acupuncture Clinic at the Kalubowila Hospital.
Instead please make arrangements to improve the
Acupuncture Clinic at the Kalubowila Hospital and
make such services available in other hospitals
as well. It is a meritorious act and every one of
us will remember you with gratitude, if this is
done.
S. de Silva,
Mt.Lavinia
Rail car service between
Vavuniya and Anuradhapura
In the rapid strides taken by
you to improve the transport system, particularly
the Railway, we would like to recommend to you
the introduction of a Rail Car Service, between
Vavuniya and Anuradhapura, a distance of thirty
miles, at regular intervals!
Vavuniya is a very important
town now, seething with tremendous activity and
development. It is the present terminus for the
Colombo-Jaffna line and is the gateway between
the North and the South. People of all
communities move freely in this town, without
fear. Commerce and traffic, are terrific!
The present bus service between
Vavuniya and Anuradhapura is very unsatisfactory,
hazardous and brutal! The private bus service is
horrible! They are a law unto themselves! They
load the vehicles to bursting point and the
passengers have to put up with a lot of agony,
discomfort and harsh treatment!m
There are two check points on
the way and the people are made to get down and
walk up to the check points at both points and
then walk up to the bus, parked a big distance
away. Very often, the old and the sick are also
made to undergo this ordeal, by churlish men!
There is also a kind of subtle communal
discrimination, in this exercise, by the sadistic
types!
The train services are much
better and people do not have to undergo such
hazards, ill treatment and discomfort! But then,
this service is inadequate and found wanting! It
is therefore, strongly suggested that a regular
Rail Car Service is introduced at once, to
alleviate the suffering of the poor people, who
bear this agony, in silence!
A reader
Memorials to honour great heroes
Situated in front of the sacred
Dalada Maligawa, the historic Mahamaluwa, honors
the great heroes and patriots of Sri Lanka, by
statues and memorials erected to honor and revere
the memory of the great hero and patriot
Keppetipola Dissawa, D. S. Senanayake the first
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka the child hero
Madduma Bandara, and Rev. Miggetuwatta Gunanada
Wariyapola Sri Sumangala the heroic bhikku who
pulled down the British flag and hoisted the
National flag of Sri Lanka.
The statue of Sir D. B.
Jayatileke should also find a place in this
galaxy of great leaders and heroes. Sir D. B.
Jayatleke was a great Buddhist educational
leader, was the first Principal of Dharmaraja
College, Kandy, was virtually the first Prime
minister of Sri Lanka in that he was the Chairman
of the Board of Ministers under the Donoughmore
Constitution. It must be emphasized that the
Board of Ministers included several future Prime
Ministers of Independent Sri Lanka.
The Board of ministers led by
Sir D. B. Jayatileke patiently, wisely and
steadfastly pioneered the Independent movement in
a statesman-like manner, enabling Sri Lanka to
win Independence in 1948. A great statesman,
Buddhist Educational leader patriot and Scholar
Sir D. B. Jayatileka deserves a statue in the
Mahamaluwa. The habitual vision of greatness is
the foundation of character building and moral
integrity of the present generation and of the
generations to come.
J. A. Jayawardena
Retired Regional Director of Education, Kandy
Why teachers for Christianity
only?
This is the text of a copy a
parent of a student has sent to Minister of
Education and Higher Education , Richard
Pathirana.
1 would like to bring to your
kind notice that religion other than Christianity
is not taught to children in primary section of
non fee levying private schools though the
teachers are paid for by the government.
When the primary section of the
Ministry was contacted I was informed that these
schools have allocated six periods/week for
religion. However these schools only hand over
the books given by the government but do not
teach the children Buddhism/Hinduism/Islam.
Concerned Parent
Kotte
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