කබුරුපිටියේ නන්දාරත්න හාමුදුරුවනේ, මගේ ගෑනීගේ දරු බොක්ක සාංගික දේපලක් නොවෙයී.

මම මේ වංගියක් තිස්සේ ලියන්නයැයී කියල හිතාගේන හිටියේ. වංගියකට උඩහං මේ කබුරුපිටියේ නන්දාරතන උන්නාසෙයී තවත් ආගම්පාලුවො කාන්ඩෙකුයී, පිලියන්දල ඉස්පිරිතාලෙට කඩා පැනලා, තගදාලා, උපත්පාලනය කොරගන්නයැයී කියලා තිබුනු සායනයක් කඩා කප්පල් කොරලා තිබුනානේ. මෙන්න මෙහේ ඔය ගැන ප්රවුර්තිය තියෙන්නේ.

මේ සිංහල ජාතිය නැති කොරන්න ජාතියන්තර බලවේග කොරනා කාරනා කියලා තමයී උන්දෙලා දොඩන්නේ. මුසිලිමානු ඇත්තො කෙලවරක් නැතිව නැතිව දරුවො වදනවාලූ, මොකැයී දරුවන් වැදීම, දෙවියො උන්දෙලාට පවරලා තියේන දේවකාරියනේ. ඒ හින්දා, උන්දෙලාගේ ප්රතිශතය වැඩි වෙනවාලූ, සිංහල බෞධදයන්ගෙ ප්රතිශතය අඩු වෙනවාලු, සිංහලයො වඳවෙනවාලූ. ඔන් ඔහොම තමයී ඔය හාමුදුරු ගොල්ලො කියන්නේ. ඒනිසා, මගේ ගෑනිගේ දරු බොක්ක සිංහලේට පැටව් හදන ෆැක්ටරියක් කොරගෙන, දිගට හරහට පැටවි ගහන්න කියලා තමයී උන්දෙලාගේ අවවාදය. දැන් උන්දෙලා බණ පැත්තකින් තියලා, ඉස්පිරිතාල වලට වැඩල තග දාන්නත් පටන් අරගෙන. හරියට කව්ද ඔය, තලෙයීබාන්දයැයීද කවුද කියනා උන්දෙලා වගේ.

අනේ අපේ හාමුදුරුවනේ, අනුන් කියන විදිහට ලමයී හදන්න ඕනේනම්, අපිත් කතෝලික හරි මුස්ලිම් හරි ආගමක් අදහන්න තිබුනානේ. එහෙම කොරන්නේ නැතිව, අපේ උන්දෙලා මේ ලෝකයේ අනිත්යය මෙනෙහි කොර කොරා පන්සිල් ගන්නේ, බුද්ධාගම ඔය වගේ ආගමක් නොවෙන නිසායී. අපේ ගෙදර උන්දෙලට මීයො පැටව්ගහනවා වගේ දරුවො වදන්නයැයී කියලා බුදු හාමුදුරුවො කියලා නැහැ. ඒ ඔක්කොටම්ත් වඩා අනිත් ආගමුත් එක්කලා බූරුවො වගේ තරග කොරන්න කියලාත් අනේ ඕන්, බුදු හාමුදුරුවන් දෙසලා නැහැ නොවැ. අනේ එහෙමත් අලංකාරයක්. අනේ එහෙමත් නිදහසක්.

හාමුදුරුවනේ, ඔබ තුමා අහලා නැති උනාට, ඔය බුදු හාමුදුරුවෝ කියලා එක්කනෙක් ඉදලා තියෙනවානේ. උන්නාසෙ, චරත බික්කවේ බහුජන හිතාය, බහුජන සුකාය කියලා කීවේ, ගමක් ගමක් ගානේ වැඩලා ලමයී වදලා බෞධදයෝ ප්රමානයෙන් වැඩි කොරන්න කියලා නොවෙයී. ඔය බහුජනයැයී කියලා කීවේ, ඔය සිංහල බෞධ්ද, දෙමල කතෝලික මුස්ලිම් සියලුදෙනමයී. ඒ සියලු දෙනාගේම සුකය තකා වැඩ කොරන්න කියලා තමයී උන්නාසේ කීවේ. නැතුව බෞධ්දයන්ට අනෙකුත් ආගම් එක්කලා තරග කොරන්න උගන්න කියාලා නොවෙයී. අනේ හාමුදුරුවනේ, මේ අනුකම්පාවෙන් කියන්නේ, ඔබ වහන්සෙට අනිත් ආගම් ජාති එක්ක තරග කොරන්න ඕනෙනම්, ඔය සිවුර ගලවලා පිච්ච වැලක් උඩින් දාලා, පව්නොදී ගිහිල්ල කිරිස්තියානි අගමට හරි මුස්ලිම් ආගමට හරි බැදෙනවද? මොකැයී, ඔබ තුමා ඔය කිරියාත්මක කොරන්නේ, ඒ ආගම්වල උගැනුම්නේ. ඉතින් මොකැයී තවදුරටත් උගුරට හොරා බෙහෙත් කන්නේ, සිවුරකුත් පොරවාගෙන.

Is War Expired?

There are stories about great warriors in those history books with brownish papers with peculiar smell. I like reading them. They are entertaining. They explain how Genghis Khan blows like a wind from east to west and created the largest empire this planet ever had to this day. They explain how King Alexander the Great marches from west to east. Great warriors they are, they said.

But war is a brutal concept. In a war, one group or groups, physically and socially eliminates other group or groups for some reason relevant to that time. Most probably Genghis Khan woke up one day and thought, “What a lovely day today, I feel like been an emperor, so let’s go on a killing spree and become an emperor”. So he did. He killed. And he killed more. Nothing special about it, everyone expected that in a war. At least back then.

Now war is deferent. We don’t expect to get killed in a war. We rather sit here and blog about it. And have a hot tea. We want someone else to engage in that. Professional solders, we call them. I don’t know exactly when this change started. May be it started with first Geneva Convention, or may be after WWII. But one thing I can say for sure, that change came from west. They come up with concepts like human rights, pow and most of all, they created this group call “civilians”, that we have not heard of before. Civilians turn out to be rather special bunch of people. They do not carry weapons nor wear uniform. But they fund the war and everything about it. War cannot exist without support of civilians. They provide solders and they provide moral support. But at the same time, they have special rights. Such as not be harmed by any means. That makes the war very hard game to end.

I think by the time WWII ended, west seen enough of war. They experienced the distraction they have done to others and to themselves. May be that cause them to tighten up rules of war. Or one can say its western philosophy or industrial development. But because of one reason or another, west created this set of rules and, I must say, it worked pretty well for them. West didn’t kill each after they tie themselves up with those set of rules, because it is not practically possible to start a war and win it too, under this set of rules. It is like trying to butcher an animal without drawing any blood. Almost impossible to do.

Now if one do not follow this set of rule and engage in a war old fashion way, like how Genghis Khan and King Alexander the Great did as worriers, we call them Terrorists, simply because they terrorize people such as hotel guests, school children or train passengers, commonly known as civilians. Genghis Khan did not had any super powers like one of those comic book heroes when he become an ampere, all he had was the reputation he build up as a terrifying person by terrorizing everywhere he go, villages, temples and farmlands. He is a terrorist.

Now the problem we have today is, only one group gets to play with old set of rule, and terrorize civilians, bomb hotels and school buses, forcing them to surrender fast, while other side forced to respect civilians and allowing them to continually fund the war. Now this make it harder, when the “terrorists” even do not follow the simple rule of wearing a uniform or been a professional solder, but rather been an ice cream vender in day time and suicide bomber at night. Now as we all know, this make very hard to defeat terrorists. We see that in Afghanistan, we see that in Iraq, we see that in India and even we saw that in Sri Lanka. Now Sri Lankan government is wining, partly because LTTE also evaluate (somewhat) as a conventional army that have to respect set of modern rules. (And that is why Ranil’s peace process is also an important event of wining this war). Sri Lankan army won the war against JVP whitch is not conventional army, because army got to terrorize people at the same time, more dramatically than JVP ever did.

My point is, terrorism is an important part of warfare. One might say war is terrorism altogether. How modern way of fighting of tying ourselves with set of rules, keep up with old ways of fighting or terrorism as we call it now, where no rules? It is impossible. That makes me thinks; modern way of war is expired. Either we have to give up our set of rules, and start behaving like Israel (which I hope not), or after some terrifying event, South Asians who are the breeders of terrorists right now, also somehow understand the impotency of respecting civilians. If either one did not happen, we have to find some alternative ways to engage in our conflicts, like King Ashoka did. In such an occasion, I suggest food eating contests as an alternative.

Support Our Troops. Click Here.

I just finish watching Band of Brothers, for the second time. Watching a good movie is like having delightful sex. You want to talk to someone at the end. Since I don’t have my dear friends around me, I’m doing the next best thing. Writing to you guys.

First time I watch that in HBO some years back. What a movie it was. 12 long hours. I don’t know how humanly possible to create such a movie, long 12 hours and still every millisecond of it very well planed, and most of all, very well done. Only way I can explain that is, Spielberg, Tom Hanks and others who made this movie are above normal human capacity. So I watched it again.

I’m not a big fan of war. I’m a type of a person, who likes to send other people to do evil things to evil people, so I can sleep tight on my comfortable bed every night. Been such a person have lot of advantages. It gives me chance to have my hot Ceylon tea and discuses about war with my friends or argue about it in blogs. It gives me chance to be proud about those men and woman we send out there to do evil things to evil people in evil circumstances. And click forward button in my outlook and show how much I care about those people. Or write something like let triple gem protect our solders or Gold bless our solders. And then go on doing other things such as look at funny emails or have Chinese fried rice with deviled chicken.

Even you like war or not, everyone must watch Band of Brothers. Not because it is a good movie. Because it can make you little bit closer to the experience solders go through in every millisecond, so you don’t have to do what they are doing. It will make you think twice before next time you say yes or no to war. It will make you shame of yourself if you click on the link minutes before, because you thought somehow you can support our troops by clicking on a link.

Sinhala Nationalists, Are You Ready to Lose The War?

Whenever I talk about ending the war in Sri Lanka, always prefer to use the word IF. We grow up with the war, it was shadowing our life every single movement, and it would be very odd for us when the war is over.

When war started I was a tiny kid, and been a kid I absolutely had no concept what war is, until I heard the news of Star-toffee factory is on fire one day. I liked Star-toffees, Red once. When you are a child, you don’t ask long questions from your parents. So I asked my father, “Why?”. I guess he didn’t knew how to answer that question. So he simply said, that was a Tamil business.

They looted and destroy every Tamil business possible. We use the word “they”, when we are not absolute about who “they” are. But I suspect “they” are some sort of disgusting thieves who call them Sinhalese according to the opportunity. Reason I don’t say they are just Sinhalese, because I saw the same sort of people doing same sort of utterly discussing things in the time of Tsunami too regardless of race, without any regard to human decency. Regardless, I don’t hesitate to leave the blame to Sinhalese as a group, since it was Sinhalese nationalism that introduced to the country by the first closeted Tamil president in Sri Lanka, who went by the adopted family name Bandaranayke, provided political meaning to all of that. At least I wish we Sinhalese were capable of catch the leader of those disgusting group of people and 700 those disgusting souls, shave one half of their heads and exile them, so they can float away to some island and start their own country by cheating on the woman who help them. But we didn’t bother to do anything that sort. Instead capable Tamil people left Sri Lanka to develop other countries, like Singapore, while others migrate to north by thousands, to develop the world most organized and well oiled terrorist organization.

I know every Sinhalese are not racist or every Tamil. I’m not talking about those good people in this post. I’m talking about the group of people who misleadingly call themselves Sinhala Nationalists or Tamil Nationalist or “any other tribal name” + Nationalists. Let me make it clear, all of them are racists. There can’t be such a thing call Sinhala nationalism nor Tamil nationalism because neither of them are nations. There is only one nation and it goes by the name of Sri Lanka.

So far in this racist game, Sinhala nationalist are winning like Jayasuriya & Kalu pair in 90s. They achieved this mainly by destroying Tamil business every possible way. When group of people depend on each other’s supply-and-demand to run their business, their differences become secondary. Trading is what keeps capitalistic society connected together. Not only setting fire to Tamil businesses, they achieved this by making commercial capital utterly difficult to Tamil people. Destruction of Tamil business did not make Sinhala business any better or successful, if not worst. All it did was, kept Tamil people out of mainstream success. I can’t pass all the credit to Sinhala nationalist alone for their success. They could not do that without tremendous support they received from LTTE again and again. They provided enough fuel for Sinhala racist to run while they themselves kept Tamil people suppressed and unsuccessful.

When the war is over, we have to open up the commercial capital to all Tamil people, who are very hard working and capable people. Tamils are the people who fought with Sri Lankan army for more than a decade and assembled their own airplanes and own ships, while Sinhalese tried to do exactly the same thing two times without what so ever success and could not assemble anything more than a “gal katas”. I’m not praising LTTE’s distraction power or barbarism, I’m just pointing out Tamil people are capable and when put the mind in to productive things too, they should be able to do wonders. When the war is over, when LTTE lost its military power, Tamil people will not go in to a dark corner and fade away.

My commonsense tell me they will be very successful once again, even more than before the war. And I wholeheartedly wish that. Even it may possible for them to have the backup of the same finical machine that funds the world most profitable terrorist organization, but for development of Tamil people this time. Growth of Tamil business will help all the business, big or small, Sinhalese or Muslims. But that will indeed create new problems to Sinhalese Nationalists, by making Tamils + Muslims business becoming proportionally larger than Sinhalese business, in this capitalistic society, if it is not already so. Most importantly, it will make Sinhalese business tied with Tamil business in a trading web, making it difficult to Sinhalese to live without Tamils in long run. Economical success always comes with political power and cultural significance and other things. Minority political parties already have significant political power, and that will increase further more.

As you see, end of the war cannot be a good thing for Sinhala nationalists. They will lose everything they build so far and they wished. And most impotently they will lose the platform they are working on – war and separation of north and south. America won the Cold War, just like how Sri Lanka going to win the war against LTTE. But that made countries like Russia, India and China opening up their economy to the world and rise higher and stronger than America, beating America in its own game. Colombo elite who ran the country for so many years, won the southern rebellion, but by doing so, they lost their power to southerners. Same thing will happen, exactly the same way, with this war too. Tamil people will achieve larger share of democratic power and success, and north will rise again. North will rise higher than ever before.

Sinhalese nationalists, get ready to lose.