As the rebels "silence" their weapons, the Sri Lankan conflict is far from over.
As the Sri Lankan government closed in on the last Tamil Tiger stronghold, the rebels surrendered with a statement saying they have decided to “silence our guns.”…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
26 - roger nowosielski
I wonder what STM would think of this link.
27 - Cindy
#20
Thanks for the recommendation. I went there. His idea of non-coercive is a bit different than mine. Mine doesn't support national interests and lying. I tend to shy away from guru-y 'everyone is good but suffering' wisdom-y eastern philosophies. They didn't work real well for me.
Did I ever tell you about the time I went to an ashram and got hit with peacock feathers by a guru? (James Brolin was there..he got a special front row seat...you know because we are all equal-- only those who are movie stars are little more so...even with 'wise' gurus.)
When I asked how will we know if this guru touch thing worked, I was told--if good things happened it was proof. I asked, what if good things don't happen? I was told--then it would be my doubt that was at fault.
Pretty nice scam.
28 - roger nowosielski
That's hilarious - a peacock feather? But the first video in the cited article is worth watching.
29 - Cindy
haha! It was a whole bunch of them. Looked like a feather duster.
30 - roger nowosielski
Just looked up that Brolin guy. A good looking dude. Reminds of the English actor who did James Bond later.
31 - Clavos
Roger #13:
If there was oil in Darfur or any other place where genocide is a daily occurrence, we'd be the first there in the name of "democracy." But since that's not the case, we just turn our blind eye.
Uum, Roger,
Not only is there oil in Darfur, its existence drives the genocide.
32 - roger nowosielski
Then we've made a wrong choice. I guess the Chinese beat us to it. Goes to show how little I know of that part of the world. Thanks for the link, Clavos.
33 - Dave Nalle
I was talking of NATO if at all.
Someone needs to be reminded what NATO stands for. The first two words are NORTH ATLANTIC. If Sri Lanka is in the North Atlantic area I'll eat my hat. Afghanistan and Pakistan are at least a couple of borders away from countries which have interests in the North Atlantic, but Sri Lanka isn't anywhere near it.
This, and many other horrific stories, confirms that Afghanistan is not a “good”, or “just”, war."
I'm constantly bemused by those who try to make the argument that war can be "good" or "just." Their logic is inevitably remarkably twisted. War is evil. Sometimes it is a necessary evil. Sometimes it is fought in self defense against evil. It is never good, and it is only just to those who use the term as an excuse for wars of vengeance.
Dave
34 - Somik Raha
Cindy wrote:
His idea of non-coercive is a bit different than mine. Mine doesn't support national interests and lying.
Mine doesn't either. I am curious to know which post gave you a different impression.
I tend to shy away from guru-y 'everyone is good but suffering' wisdom-y eastern philosophies. They didn't work real well for me.
When I put labels on people and demonize them, that is the best way to make them close their ears. The proof lies in the response to such rhetoric around the world.
I was reading a book last night called Be the Solution, which is very non-guruyy, so you might be able to access the wisdom in it.
One of the interesting points there is that study after study on tribal people shows that people gain higher status by sacrificing for the greater good. They also develop a self-righteous anger against those who are seen as free-riders (taking without giving back) AND those who do not take action against free-riders. Our society is quite similar, with those who have a sense of social good developing a higher standing and great anger against those who don't seem to care so much.
While tribes of 100-150 people can survive with such anger, in a global connected world, there are often terrible consequences. If I allow this anger to fester, I start going after people who are simply trying to lead their lives and accuse them of all kinds of things (racism, apartheid and what not). And after all this anger has been allowed to drain me, I have no energy to constructively make a difference.
Gandhi's solution was simple - be the change you want to see in the world. Instead of lecturing people, put all your energy in love - we will be surprise ourselves with the solutions that emerge.
We can talk all we want about how crazy people are, how bad governments are, etc. and it won't make any difference (we can glance at the newspapers over the last fifty years if we are not convinced).
So, what can we do for the Sri Lankans and the Tamils in this situation?
Here is a concrete idea: what if some inspired soul registers a website called SinhaleseForTamils.org, and another called TamilsForSinhalese.org. These two sibling websites will give people an opportunity for restitution. For every Sinhalese (or Tamil) life lost in the conflict, Tamils (or Sinhalese) will contribute restitution. Restitution will be decided by the other side. In some cases, it might be a monetary amount to support the surviving family members. In others, if the entire family is wiped out, it would be to start a school or hospital in their name. But every life will count. Imagine if this happened using the internet and allowed peer-to-peer support lie this to develop, how much healing would be possible?
35 - Kalugu
The core issue is the belief by Sinhalese based on their holy book Mahavamsa that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese. Tamils who are minorities are seen as foreigners and are discriminated for being so. LTTE was a byproduct of this discrimination. However the recent carnage could have been avoided if only the international community viewed it as a humanitarian crisis rather than a war on terror.
The role of Chinese deserves mention also. Chinese arms and dollars helped Sri Lanka ignore the little western voices for humanitarian concerns. In essence Sri Lanka is the begening of China as "The" super power. My country India has been a spectator due to internal politics.
36 - Jordan Richardson
Somik, marvellous idea with the use of technology to lead towards restitution. Using the internet as a web of support for those victimized is tremendous stuff.
Thanks for stopping by. Truly enjoyed your piece and it is an honour to hear from you here.
Kalugu,
However the recent carnage could have been avoided if only the international community viewed it as a humanitarian crisis rather than a war on terror.
Precisely. Well put.
37 - Cindy
#34
Somik,
I was hasty regarding the gov't authority. It wasn't reading closely. You seem more of an agorist or anarcho-Capitalist. Something like that? It's all the same to me--gov't or private business lying to people to get their land isn't my sort of thing:
Let’s say Reliance plans an oil pipeline that needs contiguous areas of land. If any one of the landowners in the path of the pipeline hold out, the project will not take off, leaving Reliance with several non-contiguous pieces of land and a large hole in their pocket. In an alternative scenario, instead of buying any plot of land, Reliance could choose to buy an option from the landowner. The option will give Reliance the right to buy the land at the prevailing market (or agreed upon) price within a period of three years (for instance). This option can be valued easily using simple decision analysis tools and would be an order of magnitude cheaper than acquiring the land itself. Reliance could then plan multiple pipeline routes and try to acquire options on each of the routes. The moment they have all the options on a particular route, they can exercise the options on that route and acquire all the contiguous pieces of land.
There are several benefits to this approach. First, as Reliance is a private party, they are not required to reveal the purpose of the acquisition. They can send out agents who don't even need to reveal that Reliance is behind the acquisition.
Thank you for your book recommendation. But, really, you have the wrong person. I am anti-capitalist. I'm not really going to be looking in a book where I think it starts out with such wrong thinking.
Gandhi's solution was simple - be the change you want to see in the world.
Yes, I love Gandhi. And I agree this is the best advice there is. I often quote Gandhi on this point as it reminds me continue to work toward doing that.
Instead of lecturing people, put all your energy in love - we will be surprise ourselves with the solutions that emerge. When I put labels on people and demonize them, that is the best way to make them close their ears. The proof lies in the response to such rhetoric around the world.
Forgive me, but I don't recall either lecturing or demonizing anyone.
I agree with you--closing ones ears might result if one were to lecture people and give them unsolicited advice. The presumption made by lecturers is that they have the aswers, you know--for everyone. Whereas they also presume the lecturee doesn't and is in need of their wisdom. And when the lecturer has never even spoken to the lecturee, one might say, the lecturer must think he is quite an expert in life altogether, enough to guess what others do and think, and know what advice to give them--all without even knowing them or even having a conversation with them. I generally would never take advice from such a person. I think lecturers generally need to learn quite a bit more before they are prepared to advise others.
You seem like you have a big heart. I appreciate your sentiment. Even if you aren't prepared following your own advice. Thanks for the lecture. :-)
38 - Somik Raha
Cindy,
I am piqued by the use of the "socialist" (or anti-capitalist, but maybe you have another label here) and "capitalist" labels in general, pitting one against the other, very similar to the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" debaters, as though those who are pro-choice don't care about life and those who are pro-life don't want to make decisions about their children. Similarly, the term socialist seems to imply to many capitalists that people who subscribe to this label do not respect individual freedom. And the term capitalist seems to imply to many socialists that people who subscribe to this label only care about greed and personal aggrandizement without regard to ethics.
You find what you believe, so if you start out believing all in the opposite camp are liars, you will get the evidence for it. But if you start out believing they are good, you will get the evidence for it too. So, why take on an experience that makes you bitter, and why not take on an experience that makes you feel better?
On the label that you settled on for me, you are partially right. I am a socialist and a capitalist (maybe a social capitalist and a capital socialist) at the same time. I reject the coercion in socialism and accept the caring for the community that lies at the heart of socialism. I reject the greed in capitalism and accept the respect for individual freedom on which capitalism is founded.
The snip of the article that you quoted is out-of-context. It was written in response to a very heavy-handed response by a Communist government in West Bengal, India, where they had attempted to forcibly industrialize farmland (talk about ironies). In the forcible acquisition, many farmers protested and were died. While everyone was criticizing the protestors (and not the communists, surprise again), I wanted to suggest an alternative that did not involve the government, neither did it involve lying, but you seem to have interpreted it otherwise. To get to the heart of the matter, if I want to buy a torch that you make, am I obliged to tell you if I will use it in my home or for gold digging? And would you make the case that if I find gold with it, I ought to share some of it as you made the torch?
Land can be acquired in a manner where there is no coercion but a meeting of the minds. This is hard to do currently as most land transactions are run by mafias in India that run hand-in-glove with the government. So, I can see why one might be cynical about this.
Thank you for your book recommendation. But, really, you have the wrong person. I am anti-capitalist. I'm not really going to be looking in a book where I think it starts out with such wrong thinking.
Mackey actually starts out with socialism, and how he hated big corporations for all the right reasons, and then he started a corporation to do it right. To his surprise, he too got slammed by other socialists even though he was ethical and wanted to do good.
If you love Gandhi, we stand on common ground, for he is the greatest example I have found of a social entrepreneur, who never vilified the capitalists or the socialists of his time, but inspired them to serve. His seminal political treatise called "Self-Rule" would probably be called libertarian in our times, for it has little use for large central government and planning and focuses instead on village self-reliance (with a depth greater than the political self).
I agree with all the stuff you said about the evils of lecturing, so thanks for calling it out and please call me out again if you see it slipping through this post.
39 - daleandersen
Like the Palestinians, Ceylon's Tamils have had bad luck in their choice (or in most cases, non-choice) of leaders.
Prabhakaran was a Hitler. A small Hitler on a smaller stage, but a Hitler to his very bone marrow. Even down to the very end, when everyone else in the known universe knew it was over, his bunker mentality mirrored the last days of Der Fuhrer.
Hopefully, the next Tamil leader will have a basic understanding of the words "compromise" and "negotiate," but you never know. The BBC printed the comments of some British Tamils who, from their plush London flats, want the war to continue in a nastier, more suicidal mode. With fools like those free to blather on far from Ground Zero, Prabhakaran need not roll over in his freshly-dug grave just yet...
40 - roger nowosielski
Somik,
Thanks for visiting this site. It's really refreshing to hear a different point of view. I like your passage:
"I am a socialist and a capitalist (maybe a social capitalist and a capital socialist) at the same time. I reject the coercion in socialism and accept the caring for the community that lies at the heart of socialism. I reject the greed in capitalism and accept the respect for individual freedom on which capitalism is founded."
You know of course there is a tradition in Western thinking that reverberates some of your main ideas. For example, we become what we behold.
Most people don't appreciate the extent to which their emotions affect and rule their rational thinking. The obvious result is that either they experience an unresolved conflict between the emotional and the rational, or simply end up using reason and logic to justify their unexamined emotions - which is to say, they rationalize.
The obvious way out, of course - get your emotions in order first, and then the right kind of thinking will follow: Christ, Buddha, Gandhi, all the saints in fact, offer the prime example. The right kind of emotion - empathy, love, compassion - should be the first order of business. Since emotions rule anyway, why not make them the foundation of being?
Again, thanks for visiting.
41 - Somik Raha
Roger, Jordan,
Thanks for the kind words.
You know of course there is a tradition in Western thinking that reverberates some of your main ideas. For example, we become what we behold.
Western thinking has transformed so much in the last hundred years. I sincerely believe that the West is more open to Eastern philosophy than the East itself. Most of my learning on Eastern philosophy has been from Western people :). Whereas, if the West needs a reminder on the importance of freedom of the individual and free markets, you will find great champions of these ideas now in India.
The obvious way out, of course - get your emotions in order first, and then the right kind of thinking will follow: Christ, Buddha, Gandhi, all the saints in fact, offer the prime example. The right kind of emotion - empathy, love, compassion - should be the first order of business. Since emotions rule anyway, why not make them the foundation of being?
Well said! In the language of decision-making, to make these emotions the foundation of our being, they will have to be treated as decisions and not conditions. Freedom of the individual at the deepest level is a recognition that we are truly decision-makers of our mental states, irrespective of what happens to us externally.
42 - Cindy
Somik,
That is an interesting combination you put together--a socialist capitalist. Would that mean that you would approve of a system like a social democracy?
I am an anarchist not a socialist. I support egalitarian relationships, freedom, access to all in decision-making, individual liberty, access to all in advancements (medicine, information, technology, etc.) I reject government, free market, Capitalism, private property, hierarchy, authority, coercion. As these things nurture what I call "crises of empathy" and promote conditions from which all problems basic to human life arise: poverty, war, crime, environmental destruction, objectification of others, many types of mental illness, aggression, hostility, etc.
To get to the heart of the matter, if I want to buy a torch that you make, am I obliged to tell you if I will use it in my home or for gold digging? And would you make the case that if I find gold with it, I ought to share some of it as you made the torch?
Here is the heart of the matter for me. The system you support pits people against one another--each trying to gain advantage (take advantage) of each other. Typically the one with the most power gets the advantage.
... as Reliance is a private party, they are not required to reveal the purpose of the acquisition. They can send out agents who don't even need to reveal that Reliance is behind the acquisition. The government, on the other hand, is required to reveal the purpose of their acquisition, resulting in landowners realizing that they can make a lot of money if they hold out. The cost of acquisition will now be based on a good deal between the private party and the landowner.
A good deal for whom? One party is taking advantage of the other. I consider that deception. It is knowingly holding back information to deprive the landowners from their rightful 'market' price (because it is worth more--a business wants to buy and use it for making a profit, therefore the land is more valuable)--after all this is land, not an axehandle or a torch--it is used as an investment by people who often have not much else by way of assets. This is in addition, of course, to my objections to private property, etc.
Would you, in the position of the oil company, tell your children you are buying their land and give them a fair price or would you not tell them and get their land for a lower price?
43 - Clavos
Would you...tell your children you are buying their land and give them a fair price or would you not tell them and get their land for a lower price?
I would probably not tell them. It would be a valuable (albeit at a cost) lesson for them about the ways of the world and the nature of humanity.
44 - Cindy
Clav, you bastard! lol
45 - Clavos
But I would leave the profits to them in a tax-proof trust when I croaked...*
*see, I'm not such a bastard after all, Cindy :>)
46 - Cindy
Ahhh, redeemed. :-)
47 - Somik Raha
[2] When I use the term socialist-capitalist, it is more to challenge the rigid positioning of the two labels. My position on legal systems are better described by the maxim "Peaceful, honest people have the right to be left alone."
Peaceful is defined as those who have not used physical violence or threatened the use of it. Honest is defined as those who have not defrauded on a contract. People does not include children (with some caveats).
Cindy wrote:
That is an interesting combination you put together--a socialist capitalist. Would that mean that you would approve of a system like a social democracy?
A democracy is clearly incompatible with the maxim as it relies on coercion. It is a good step forward but we have a long way to go to achieve freedom.
[3] My ideal of freedom: Here's a poem Tagore wrote a long time back...
WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
48 - Somik Raha
This comment should have appeared before the previous one..
Cindy,
I think what you are describing is an ethical position. When discussing legal frameworks (democracy, dictatorship, socialist democracy, republican democracy etc.), the frame is, "What portion of my personal ethical code am I willing to impose on others by force."
So, you might consider a transaction driven experience to be inconsistent with your values and therefore choose a different path. But would you apply this on others by force, like the socialists have tried so many times unsuccessfully? I doubt it, from the rest of your post, as you are against coercion as well.
There are deep philosophical issues that we can debate for long, and I can't do justice to all of it in one response. Here are some random thoughts:
[1] Have you heard of the gift economy, where people pay-it-forward without expectation of anything in return? Sounds a lot like where you'd want to be. I like it very much. An organization that is spearheading a revolution in this area is CharityFocus, which ships out Smile Cards, that encourage anonymous acts of kindness. Check Smile Cards and Help Others, and Karma Kitchen, a restaurant that runs on the gift economy. The founder of CharityFocus has an inspiring talk online.
I am very happy to drink from the cup of anarchy, just as I like drinking from the other cups of life.
49 - roger nowosielski
Somik,
"When discussing legal frameworks (democracy, dictatorship, socialist democracy, republican democracy etc.), the frame is, "What portion of my personal ethical code am I willing to impose on others by force."
Excellent point, Somik. Which points to the obvious fact that individual consciousness is usually always higher than mass consciousness - although it's our responsibility as moral/ethical individuals to expand everyone's horizon to the extent possible.
It points to another obvious fact about human societies - why the laws are but an imperfect expression of the highest consciousness/morality. An allowance has got to made, in other words, for those who haven't got there yet; which means being able to allow the diversity among the members of differing opinion. Again, you can't coerce the non-compliant or make them "measure up."
Perhaps you can check my BC series, "Quantum of Solace: The Making of Modern Consciousness" (three parts) in the BC Politics section, still on the current page. I'd be most interested in your feedback.
Roger