Conscience - මට හිතෙන හැටි

The film has what we call “The first impression”. I’m not a great fan of Sinhala films but I have watched main stream films Agni Daahaya, Guerilla Marketing, Pura Handa Kaluwara, Aksharaya, Aba and a few other commercial films just to keep in touch with local cinema. Unlike other Sinhala films that I have mentioned here, I started watching Machan without any prior prediction. It was like a neutral mind status for me. If you take Agni Daahaya or Aba, marketing campaigns have made the images for those films nudging us to align our imagination with what is being marketed (Same thing as what Obama did). There is nothing wrong in that approach if what is marketed is true. But I noticed Machan never had a strong marketing campaign.

In different times different matters come into play differently. In the pre historic era mobs of people hanged together and worked together for common reasons. Let those reasons be hunting or survival or whatever. Gradually when the human kind started getting organized they started to share what they expertise. Initially it would have been hunting techniques or something like putting up a fire. As the civilization builds up people started developing different skills in various capacities. Evolving for thousands of years we have reached modern era where education is considered a basic need.

Some 100 years back literacy was a privilege experienced by a limited group in the community. People who could read and write were considered educated. Then the world started getting smaller by easy access to any location of the world. So, more and more people started to get introduce to various different cultures, inventions, developments, religions, theories etc. More importantly people started to learn how to do something in different ways. There is another significant by product of this evolution. That is we all started comparing each of us. In that aspect the world we are living today has formed up some basic ground that provides the means of measuring the educational level of a modern human being. Literacy is no more the only measurement. Prominence is given to intelligence and creativity. Even the experience is losing its position. A few decades back experience was a major factor but now people think if you are intelligent enough and if you are creative you can always use your imagination to fill up the gap of inexperience.

For me the primary goal of education is to enhance ones skills to contribute our centuries old civilization in a way that the short term results would keep that person glad while he is alive. The capacity of the contribution depends on the nature of the person. Some contribute more than others. Some contribution are towards the downfall of fare well of majority. Due to different imaginations of different people some stop learning vastly at some point of their life and continue contribution which is commonly called as earning a living. But some people specialize in selected subject area and try to contribute in vast capacity compared to others.

But as always education itself comes with a whole bunch of other external influences and bonds. The complexity of the modern world is not necessarily needed to have a good life on earth. But due to many reasons and facts that are not easily pulled back instantly, we have come to what we call today. So in our world in which we live there is this levels of education. I believe, initially these levels would have revealed the true status of a person. For instance if we say a scientist, he or she could have been easily identified among the general public for his or her exceptional existence. So some time back educated people were well recognized for their work. They had been accepted with gratitude in all occasions and they have had been less in number. These types of contrasting and highlighted qualities have been pumped a certain type of image to the general public. As a matter of fact I have noticed in Sri Lanka there is a generation who are not educated that highly but wants their children to grab that aforesaid glory. To be exact I’m talking about my parents’ generation.

According to the way we live majority of the goods and services are sold at a price. Everything gets a price. To live on earth people who know something sell it and exchange that value to acquire something else he or she needs. When too many people know a single thing due to common availability things start to get sold cheaply. Then complex marketing concepts come into play. To manipulate sources and resources stake holders adopt several different practices. If something is not given easily by some person the seeker may try a different donor. Considering the variation of sources, resources and users this seeking is acceptable if and only if the seeker genuinely feel he or she should continue this.

I’m a graduate. My degree says I’m a Bachelor of Computer Science. So as a matter of fact, I have been in this so called education field and experienced quite a bit of this situation. Some frequently monitored facts lead me to write this article. Because of the social structure we practice irrespective of the talent of a person there are some occasions where certificates get into play. Like I previously said sometime back literacy was the measurement of one’s capacity to contribute towards something that is considered a special skill. But now literacy is just a basic. Likewise I see the BSc is getting into the similar stage of literacy because it is becoming low in quality. If we discuss why it is getting low in quality, this article will never reach its end! The prime fact I see is there is a large number of people who grab an educational qualification just for the sake of its name. They don’t have a real requirement to get that. By means of some external power, say money, they get it for exchange. What happens is when these types of people comes into contribution others discover the incapabilities which often result in damaging the image of the others who are really competent and skilled who come from the same place. There are some bullies who survive from just doing the talking. If we take 100 in Sri Lanka, around 70% is doing something just for the trend.

Around a decade back in Sri Lanka graduates continued higher studies often if they were really up to it. But since of late in Sri Lanka I have noticed fresh graduates are getting enrolled for MScs and MBAs as soon as they get graduated. Some 5-10 years back local universities asked for some work experience and pre requisites prior to enrolling. But due to high competition and survival the quality of pre requisites have dramatically decreased thereby producing educated fools. There are good post graduates among these people. Anyhow the majority just do it as a mean of surviving by providing educational qualification. I also have the intention of doing higher studies. I have a few aspects. I have learnt something for my degree. Irrespective of subjects getting obsolete the best thing I learnt at university was how to learn something by one self. After 3 years leaving the university I find myself pretty changed. The way I look at things, the approach I have towards matters, my new requirements, they all have changed. I have practical experience in what I have learnt with very little practicing aspect. When I go through some MSc syllabus summaries I feel like some parts I already know, but I know I should study them again merging them with what’s unknown to me just to organize my knowledge so that I will be more capable, more competent, more skilled and more efficient. I won’t say that I’m not totally passionate about the qualification. I will definitely use such a thing to broaden my carrier opportunities. What I say is it is not the only intension because I’m not satisfied living a one big lie. I have found hundreds who do MScs just because they need something or just to boast on it as they think it is the same old privilege. On the other hand I have heard thousands of stories on how incompetent some educated people are. So there are two sides of the story. This story is true even for PhDs. Still there are number of people who are really capable and competent just like in old days posing BScs, MScs, MBAs and PhDs. Like in all other fields there are show offs who have earned BScs, MScs, MBAs and PhDs just by some means. These non genuine educated fools see the qualifications as an icon in popular culture. They don’t make their respective fields shine; instead they try to shine themselves with using the qualifications which eventually results in disgusting situations.

An old Sinhala slogan says “Weda kaarayata boru be – Boru kaarayata weda be” (A ‘clever’ never a cheater – A cheater never a ‘clever’)

The world always changes. They say the only thing that does not change is “Change” itself. The earth passes different ages. So does the mankind and our civilization. When we try to live in a community there is always problems due to the fact of mismatches in the way we think. Some problems are solved in the initial grounds but some goes a long way unsolved. Solving matters in the modern world is not easy since the whole world is too much bound together. We are living the information age. So the details reach every corner of the world in seconds. As it has happened throughout our civilization the stronger nations always want to play a role as a matter of showing off the big image which gradually ends up in aggravating the matters of the weaker nations. This way of trying to influence the weaker nations is a nature of our civilization throughout its existence. I think this nature is greatly exposed and discussed by Charles Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution”. The concept “Stronger survives – weaker disappears” says it all. The stronger always tries to influence the weaker. But the nature gives chances to all to evolve. If anybody changes accordingly within the given time even the weaker can become stronger like what happened in the Jurassic age. The strong survivors in the Jurassic age could not hang on because they didn’t change themselves accordingly. But the weaker survived because they changed themselves and became stronger gradually. That’s where my point lies. Sri Lanka is relatively weaker in most of the modern measurements. So we have to play by the brain.

We have a terrorist war that has initial roots to ethnic matters. The majority, minority, leaders and general public, all have been wrong up to different extents. But now most of us have had enough of it. Even though now the matter cannot be solved easily because everybody wants to play a part of it. There are both local and international people who earn their living because of war. They never want the war to be ended. These people include weaponry manufacturers, armed forces, all sort of facility providers to the conflicts, organizations who work with displaced people, even critics who earn by organizing demonstrations, writing articles and holding press conferences. These people are involved directly. There are so many who are indirectly taking advantage of this. They are the real players and they are more vigorous. All the foreign companies and governments fall into this category.

WAR, ECONOMY AND US

We all know because of this conflict Sri Lanka is wasting really valuable resources in all categories. They may be labor or material or whatever. The wastage should be really high which means Sri Lanka should have been contributing to the world in much greater capacity than what it is doing at present. For instance if we did not have this conflict our annual exports should have gone much higher and our gross domestic production (GDP) should have gone higher which would result in less imports ultimately building up a stronger economy. We import goods ranging from needles to planes. If we had a better economy all the countries that are exporting goods to us would lose a considerable amount of export revenue. If we take India as an example, they export even the smallest spices to us. They sell us all the clothing, food stuff, vehicles, metal makes, weaponry, stationary etc. So if we solve our internal problems and cut off a great amount of imports it is obvious that these types of countries would feel economic problems. Their whole economy may not shake but they will have some impact. Since we have a huge war expense burden on our economy we are running short of money which results in asking for foreign aid. Everything comes with a price! So does the foreign aids. Even though modern countries vow not to interfere other independent nations they always find some way of interfering. I feel we have to listen to them if we take funds. Let’s say we give loans to a friend several times. First time, second time we won’t mind what he does. But eventually we may feel like we should suggest him what to do because we start to feel it is our money and we have rights to suggest something. We have to expect this interference because it is the nature of it. The best way is to avoid funding and try standing up on our own foot which is no simple process. We have gone astray for a very long period now. Majority of the people like to see subordinates of them. So does the nations. Nations who are capable of that try to hold on to that keeping other weaker nations drowned in trouble so that weakers will ask for help and the stronger will find the play grounds. So there are so many nations who like to see us in conflicts for the betterment of their nations. Other than this I don’t see a huge issue why other countries try to keep us in trouble. There may be religious interests and many other but they come in smaller form. Not in a capacity of a government. I don’t believe that other countries feel Sinhalese should be terminated because they have some specialty. I have heard such a quote but I don’t see any exceptional specialty in Sinhalese. We may have different identity but they are identities not specialties. Deviating from this long hold influence is a tedious process that takes a long time. At least we have to be aware of this so that one day there would appear a leader who would clear this up. Until that day we have to carry the words so that he or she will get to know it. Our country first had King Dutugemunu. He took centuries to appear. After another few centuries the mighty Parakkramabahu the 1st appeared. After another few centuries came the great Parakkranabahu the 6th came. So we have to understand that leaders don’t come easy. Nations should have patience on them.

WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

Let’s merge LTTE and the world. Prior to September 11 attack to USA most of the terrorists had a good time on earth because the world power USA was dumb against terrorism. Most of the terrorists were given the label REBELS instead of calling them TERRORISTS. USA didn’t feel the pain of terrorism because they were so blind with boasting on their nation. Surprise, surprise. They were hit and so did the famous war against terrorism started. It is a different story how the world powers have given birth to terrorists and feed them. Thank god at last LTTE was labeled as terrorists by most of the nations. Better late than never. But still for CNN, BBC and some other renowned media LTTE is rebellions. Although the governments put icing the internal intentions are still the same. Long before the World Trade Center Sri Lanka’s Central Bank tower collapsed due to an LTTE suicide attack in 1996. The world didn’t feel the pain. They took years to recognize the incident. So we have to understand correctly where we live and what we call the world. Long before Newton said every action has an equal and opposite reaction, Buddha said you will get what you deserve due to the action you have done. It may be in this life time or in another. So the others will realize this truth at some point of our civilization. Let’s hope they will not get so late. We have to handle the international community intelligently because they can always make trouble as there are more than enough traitors in any nation who fondly help to prevent betterment of majority looking at personal gains they get. So we need a good interface between us and the international community with a good personality to hold on what we believe and what is truth about things that are of our interests.

WHERE WE GET HELP

All the nations in the world are not like this. Let’s consider the countries that are involved with Sri Lanka in a deeper manner. USA and countries from Europe union will never sell us weapons because their law says “Cannot sell weapons to armies which involve in internal conflicts”. They will never help our war. If we get a little help from them that may be just to mark their presence among other helping nations and may be to get what they can get from our armies. We get armed trucks and amphibious vehicles from Czech Republic, China and Russia. We buy majority of guns from China and Russia. China, Israel and Russia sell us war planes. Some talks so passionately about purchasing junk planes from Russia. Who else sell us planes when USA has banned us from their weapon purchasing list? People just try to shout and direct people towards their personal gains because most of the citizens don’t know the subject and they are easily misguided. Sometimes people are not much worried about these issues other than their daily battle to earn some living. Pakistan helps us very much with weapons like mortars, RGPs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and all that. India provides us radars and other types of weapons. Dora high speed boats are from Israel. All these countries provide us very valuable training to us as well. If we lose India due to any reason Pakistan would always fill the gap. So we don’t need to worry about western powers because they have never done anything more than just shouting on what to do next. We would never lose any foreign fund because it is the major tactic how they keep us influenced. They would continue to fund us. Even the history holds witness for that. This tactic is very nicely exposed in the book “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins (ISBN 0-452-28708-1). Another reason why we would get enough funding is western world is feared of us getting fallen into the hands of China, Russia and Iran. So they try to grab most of us as much as possible as soon as they can.

One more thing should be come up here. The cost of the army maintenance. There are more than 100, 000 new recruits. The navy makes new small boats in vast scale. Fighter jets are newly added equipment from Israel and China. Soldiers and their families are given better facilities including medical, food, housing, schooling etc. Sri Lankan soldiers are now fighting for passion on motherland. They no more fight for the salary. That is why we have sacrificing small commando teams who sneak through LTTE territory in help of providing open ups for the fellow soldiers. Even though, the stories of these true heroes hardly reach our society. It is pure sacrificing of life for mother land. They are not doing it for money. That is the professionalism of our army. In a site I read on our army supplies. One Czech made amphibious vehicle article said Sri Lanka has purchased something around 250 where the original maker had 350s. So to keep an army up to this standard there should be a lot of money. I don’t want to clear up the dirty people who try to grab commission from every deal. There are people like that. But everybody is not so. So it is obvious that our cost of living goes up. Government cannot defend criticism with showing the military details because it may result in disasters like that have happened in the past. But I don’t agree with the visible wastage of public money by the government of Sri Lanka. That is another story. We should not change tracks when addressing matters!

USA, UK, JAPAN OR INDIA?

Other countries can hardly solve our problem because each and every conflict has its own nature. It is very hard to understand the background of a problem if the analyzer is from a totally alien culture. But monitoring the matters for a long time in a neutral mind would open up better ways to address the problems. There is a simple truth about solving matters. The solver has to practice the advice and set it by example. That’s why it says “Owa denu para hata – Thamaa sammathehi pihitaa sita” (Before advising others – Set it by example). If we take USA they are totally failed in Iraq. No matter how big they boast on their military and intelligence power they are unable to stop the daily blasts and killings. With less high tech gadgets and weaponry our army is much more practical and competent than the army of USA. USA is still struggling to find a proper solution to Afgan matter. No matter how high they think of themselves they are not as that capable. If we take United Kingdom, who is another stake holder in this matter, they had a critical problem with Ireland up to the recent history. IRA guerillas continuously asked for a separate country. Anyhow they managed to solve the matters with the aging leaders of IRA but still they pose incompetent in Iraqi and Afgan matters. Another key role player is Japan which suggests us something that is prohibited in Japan. Japanese envoy Yashushi Akashi suggested us solutions which are highly unsupported by Japanese constitution just to keep the integrity of the country. These people act in such a way thinking that we poor fellows don’t know anything about their country. These people see us like a bunch of dumb idiots who haven’t seen the world. The other major remaining player is India who has more than enough problems of its own. For more than 6 decades they are trying to solve the Kashmir matter with Pakistan. Chain bombs go off inside their parliament and capital. Indian leaders are still unable to find a proper solution to Hindu Muslim conflicts in the country. With all the nuclear power and technology they took more than 30-40 years to capture a jungle thief Veerappan. More significantly India is the country who made this problem worse by training terrorists like Karuna Amman, Pottu Amman, and Prabakaran. They provided training, weapons and even air supplied food. Anyhow India got its gift with the assassination of their Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber. LTTE still smuggle weapons from south India. The RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) had to close up its Sri Lankan wing due to their unsuccessful attempt to influence Sri Lanka. Indian army lost some 3000-4000 lives occupying Sri Lanka. India has so many racial, cultural, religious and political issues to address. But still they try to show off the world a big picture of themselves. It is not the country we see in Bollywood films. India once ended up in nowhere and it is better to concentrate on their own matters before thinking of trying to solve matters of others.

The best part of all is none of the above countries is the main investor in Sri Lanka. It is China who gives us the largest funding and it is China who invests the biggest amount in Sri Lanka.

SOLUTION - HAVE WE ONE?

People change with time. So does the nations. In Sri Lanka around some 20-30 years back there were people who called themselves UNPers. Some called themselves SLFPers. Even the artists were like that. So when one party wins renowned people of the other party are made uncomfortable throughout the life time of the new government. When there was a racial issue or such a small quarrel others could take advantage of it and aggravate the problems because the mindset of the general public had been somewhat relatively primitive just to consider the sayings of a pretend to be a leader like person. Sri Lankans have learnt from the past. Look at the southern cities. Look at the offices in southern cities. Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils live and work in harmony. There are very few concerns left like learning Tamil and Sinhala by everybody which I think is possible. Now a days even politicians change their parties regularly. So people don’t consider it a must to stick to a single party. They change the views and parties as and when they feel to do so. So do the artists and that make it difficult to dirty leaders to take advantage of the isolated incident occurring. At present even for a trade union action people don’t enthusiastically participate because it has become just a show off of a few political characters most of the times. So Sri Lankans are ultimately heading towards a state where they would consider it before taking any action which is good in preventing the wrongdoings that has happened in this country in the name of race and religion. A very good example is the way Sri Lankans react when a terrorist act takes place in a southern town. Unlike in India we don’t have civil riots now. Even in sentimental occasions people keep cool and calm. So now the matter is LTTE terrorism. The matters they claim do not exist now but they can’t give up terrorism because it seems like their leaders are feeling like humiliated to do so. They are used to war and they feel like they can’t give up. As a matter of fact they live a one big lie.

Sri Lankan government has taken proper action to annihilate terrorism and it seems the plans are working alright up to now. By looking at the social status of current Sri Lanka it seems we don’t need a big change to absorb minority groups because we are already living in harmony. It is the northern cities that have done ethnic cleansing chasing away all the Muslims and Sinhalese. Every day is not Christmas. We did not have Christmas for a long time. So it is time to celebrate Christmas. This is the best time to wipe out LTTE terrorism as most of the other facts are fulfilled. Majority of us need to be a bit more aware about the true facts so that it would help us face the things to happen with more strength and less fear.

As a small kid and as a grownup I have wondered several times what made different nations practice different daily routines. I mean not the rituals and religious practices but the basic activities in daily life. Different religions, clothing styles, education, politics and things like customs may have developed due to natural reasons like climate, nature and the specialized circumstances occurring in that particular area. No matter how different the inside is basic is almost the same. If religion it is a belief. If food it is for the hunger. If politics it is for controlling and being controlled. Likewise all these have a basic foundation.

But some things in a nation are exceptional. Say for instance Japan. I have never found any cheap quality product made by Japan. I have come across hundreds of broken Japanese equipment but I never met a single person who claims Japanese items are bad. I believe India and China have good stuff. Otherwise they cannot emerge as world powers. Anyhow due to some reason the image is not that good because people have found their recommendations inaccurate and unreliable. If Japanese say you have to throw this car away in 10 years time, he means that. If an Indian says the same thing it may mean you may have to throw it away tomorrow itself or more often he may never say things like that! That is the identity of different nations.

We, Sri Lankans on the other hand have so many unique identities. A very significant one is throwing junk on public places to keep private property clean. This has no difference in remote areas or urban areas. The situation is the same. The problem arose in no time as the town councils asked to keep garbage bags in front of the homes to be collected by their service agents. People took advantage of this and started dumping rotten food stuff in front of homes. Gradually dwellers got used to this and started to keep garbage bags only on the days that garbage truck is coming for collection. Since the truck does not go in the small by lanes people started to put the bags at entrance of the roads which gradually ended up in forming a rotten junk mountain. Stray dogs and cats mess up the places more and more. People who dwell near the collecting points are facing a real trouble because the rotten bad smell is always disturbing the daily life. Places are really made dirty and it is hard to pass the way through. It makes disturbing scenery with all the garbage, worms and everything. Personally I know a handful of occasions where home owners have involved in quarrels regarding dump. So most of all it is even creating social issues apart from health problems. Stray dogs, stray cats, mosquitoes and flies are multiplying adding up uncalculated waste expenditure such as funding for pest controlling, medicine for rabies, malaria and dengue. Apart from these a considerable amount of money is spent on educating people to take precautions on these. So it must be quite a lot of labor, time and money spent on these.

I have wondered why people behave like this. I mean not everybody. I don’t know much depth in other religions but in Buddhism this is violation of some basic teachings. Buddhism always asks to treat the others well and behave yourself in a manner that will never make others uncomfortable in any means. Further it says keeping public places clean is a merit which would result in good gains in this lifetime or in another lifetime (It originally says “Malu peth emadeema pinaki”). So this is a good measurement to find out how many people have understood Buddhism properly because it is not about preaching. Buddha has said “Sunaatha – Dhaaretha – Charaatha Dhamme” which means “Listen, Memorize and Practice the Principles”. So even though the country says majority is Buddhists ultimately they are pretending to be so. This small thing is a very good example. People very hardly make their own places dirty. Instead they always try to throw away their garbage to another’s place. I see this act as a social irresponsibility as well as an act of jealousy to make others uncomfortable (unfortunately this is the nature of some of our people).
So where lays the solution? Enforcing legal body? I don’t think so. Because the legal body of Sri Lanka has more than enough work to do. The town council, the police and the courts have more critical matters to address. But if we wait until all these are solved to address this garbage matter we won’t see that day in this life time. But we can do one small thing. We can start it from schools. We first have to convince the upper level. Administration of the education sector should be first convinced. Once they are thorough believers we can educate the principals and teachers. We have to start from year one and continue teaching them the better values irrespective of where the students come from or where the values come from. Year by year we have to renew students’ attitude on these. Read the biographies of well reputed people and find the influence of their teachers and schools. Unlike homes, schools are central locations that can be reached. Unlike parents teachers are in a certain level of development.

I’m suggesting this is feasible not because this is imaginable but because of I have seen a similar incident. Once we had a vice principal who had an agricultural degree. He thoroughly believed in himself and converted a total boys’ school into a green land. We had all sorts of vegetable ranging from cabbage to brinjols. We made compost out of waste materials collected in class rooms. The school even had small cattle. We created yoghurt as well. There was a bio gas section that functioned with garbage. The entire pest controlling was done with natural stuff. That vice principal got promoted and went to another school in Colombo (Isipathana College) where he did the same. Then he moved to Royal College where it is the same even now. The name of the maestro is Mr. Upali Gunasekara who poses a very good example on how to influence people and how to manage garbage problem. Our school was a community of 5000 students plus 250 teachers. So this is a practical solution to brainwash the next generation to hold better values. Likewise it may be too late to clear up the polluted minds of adults; in any case the next generation can be prevented from drowning. There are countries that have done that. But we need a handful of better leaders who do not pose for personal gains so that people will have a drive towards better practices. Selfishness should have limits. We all have a feeling for our property. But we don’t feel this is our country. We don’t feel that it is our money that is spent on maintaining public property. Nations who have that feeling properly are eye cooling scenery to watch. Clean and tidy free of junk and corruption.

So let’s do whatever we can to keep our country clean (This includes not throwing away bus tickets everywhere we get down from). I don’t have to be an important person, still being an ordinary person we can contribute to the betterment of our country. This small matter shows a great collapse of a country even though we don’t see it directly. First we have to be a good person, and then have a good family, then a good village, then a good country. It is better to start small. Have a look at world leaders. All the good ones have good family lives. That is why Dr. Mahathir Mohammed the front runner of Malaysia’s development has admitted “Start from home”. So let’s start from home!