Categories
Foreign Affairs

Weliweriya Shooting, Loved ones Bandyism And The Presidential Program

Laksiri Fernando

Dr. Laksiri Fernando

Presidency, of course is the problem! We are all concerned about the day to day happenings in the country, not so much of the Deraniyagala killing, but mostly of the Weliweriya shooting at present. The latter has overtaken by the former. But we should not lose sight of the larger picture and the key structural issues behind our predicament, if we need to genuinely seek solutions to our problems. Only passing comments on structural issues, either way, might not be sufficient. What we are facing is a systemic crisis without any exaggeration.

The President has not come up with any apology or even a statement after the brutal Weliweriya shooting. After all he is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces (not his brother!) in addition to being the Head of State and the Head of Government. It is unlikely that he would, except perhaps through his Secretary. That is the ‘immunity’ he enjoys under the Presidential Constitution. This is not to say that a statement or even an apology would ameliorate the situation.

‘Family bandyism’ of the Rajapaksas or MR’s split personality (smile and thuggery) might explain the specific nature of the regime, but not the generic character of the regime-system. Anyway, his personality has changed a lot after becoming the President and particularly after the end of the war. Perhaps it has lot to do with the happenings at the last stages of the war. There appears to be a serious deterioration in the ethical and moral premises of the regime and the personality.

The way the regime operates today is not so much different to the regimes operated under the presidential system previously, with some variations, except that the present situation is much worse than before. We are familiar with the way the situation of the ethnic pogrom against the Tamils was handled in July 1983 under JR Jayewardene regime. That propelled the beginning of the brutal war for two and a half decades. We are also familiar with the way the second insurrection was quelled in 1989/90 under the Premadasa regime not to speak of other atrocities. Of course the uprising had to be suppressed but not the killings of Wijeweera or others after taken into custody. The Matale grave yard is supposed to belong to that period. It is only recently that some security personnel of the former President CBK finally were convicted harassing and assaulting two prominent artists those days. Perhaps only sane President was DB Wijetunga for a brief period! But even he was insane in his utterances like denying any ethnic conflict in the country.

Are those just questions of personalities? I don’t think so. I would argue that the presidential system was primarily responsible of course along with the personalities involved. Parliamentary systems also could become degenerated and Prime Ministers also could act like authoritarian Presidents. Margaret Thatcher might be the best recent past example. But that is not a structural condition. It is also possible that ‘family bandyism’ exists even under a parliamentary system unless other measures are not taken and unless the political culture is changed. That is also our past experience before 1978.

Parliamentarianism and Presidentialism are not polar opposites. But there is a fundamental difference in terms of representative democracy and that matters most for accountability, transparency, responsibility and finally for democracy itself. We use representative democracy because direct democracy is not practical and also perhaps people are not interested. In a parliamentary democracy people elect a general assembly called Parliament for primarily legislative purposes and an executive emerges or selected within that which is again responsible for that Parliament. This is the best system.

The executive is crucial in the state structure, whether parliamentary or presidential, because it is the body which guides and directs the bureaucracy and the armed forces which can easily trample on people’s human rights and whose services (in the case of bureaucracy) are crucial in delivering or not delivering necessary services to the people including ‘clean water’ in the case of Weliweriya!

The judiciary could be structurally independent in both systems; however the tendency to trample on the judiciary is high (or almost certain in some countries) under the presidential system than in a parliamentary democracy. Sri Lanka is a clear example for both.

In a presidential system, there are two (confusing) electoral processes. One is to elect a Parliament primarily for legislative purposes. Then there is another process to elect a President for executive purposes directly by the people. Superficially, this may appear more democratic, but that is not the case. The distance between the people and the President is so vast and not punctuated by intermediary process. A President’s responsibility to Parliament is only nominal if at all. This is the dangerous aspect of a presidential system which can easily create authoritarianism or much worse as he/she controls the military and the bureaucracy. I am only outlining the barebones in this article.

In a parliamentary system, the executive functions are pinned down to extensive procedures and these procedures are effective unless there is something basically wrong in party politics. In a presidential system there may be some procedures (i.e. COPE in Sri Lanka) but those procedures may or may not be effective. Most Presidents might be laughing at them.

The main point is that there are inbuilt structural reasons for any presidential system to become authoritarian unless there are strong constitutional traditions in a country. This is the very reason why even the US presidential system was criticised by Woodrow Wilson although he didn’t make any attempt to change it! Presidential system in the US was an evolution, but when it was introduced in other countries the very purpose was to have a strong government or a strongly ruler disregarding the rule of law and human rights. The following was what JR Jayewardene said about democratic freedoms and rule of law when he argued for a presidential system in the country (Selected Speeches, 1944-1973, p. 91).

A democratic system of Government includes what are termed democratic freedoms, the freedom to vote, freedom of opposition, freedom of speech and writing, and the rule of law, among other freedoms. Do these freedoms alone satisfy the people? I do not think so.

Usually there is no denial on the part of anyone who believes or defends a presidential system that there would be a democratic deficit as a result of a presidential system. In the case of Sri Lanka, however, this deficit is colossal. The shooting at Weliweriya and the Presidential system are interlinked. As the popular saying goes, ‘there is no point in shouting that the snake is biting (kanavo, kanavo!),’ if you put the fellow inside your sarong.

There is another constitutional factor relevant to Weliweriya shooting. Who is the Member of Parliament for the Weliweriya area? What was he doing? No one can answer this question I believe. In the previous representative system, it belonged to the Gampaha seat and it was SD Bandaranaike who represented the people in the area in Parliament in 1977. Those days there was a close connection between the people and the parliamentary representative and in any local issue, the MP intervened or mediated. This has almost completely disappeared to the thin air under the present Presidential Constitution. I recollect during my young days in the Moratuwa electorate how close and how responsible the MPs behaved with the people. This is the same where I live now in Australia, the electorate called the Green Way. In Sri Lanka, this has changed to create an authoritarian system even MPs divorced from the people not to speak of the President.

When the presidential system was introduced to Sri Lanka it was mainly defended on the basis of an economic argument. I happened to interview President Jayewardene in April 1993 and he opined that it was also created to defend the country from possible separatism that time. He said that there was a call to ‘do a de Gaulle.’ But the experience has proved otherwise. The country became ripped apart after the introduction of the presidential system. One may argue whether this is a direct result or not. It may be true that the presidential system perhaps facilitated the defeating of the LTTE quickly, but at a particular cost to democracy. The saying goes that ‘when you fall into the pit you have to come out from the same opening.’

President Rajapaksa has gone beyond de Galle or Jayewardene. In fact he has virtually ‘done a Mugabe’ with the 18th Amendment. With the massive military and the bureaucracy under his beck and call he hopes to continue to be the ruler of this country like President Mugabe in Zimbabwe unless it is stopped through a broad and a strong opposition through democratic campaigning. What is important is to end the vicious cycle of violence and violations by terminating the presidential system by an authentic parliamentary system with a fair system of devolution of power.

Print Friendly
Follow @colombotelegrap

Categories
Video

එහෙකුටවත් නොමිනේෂන් දෙන්නේ නැහැ

بازداشت روزنامه نگاران و وبلاگ نویسان را متوقف کنید. http://www.facebook.com/zendani.siasi.

Categories
Foreign Affairs

Sri Lanka: Beware Of A Quasi-Military Rule!

Laksiri Fernando

Dr. Laksiri Fernando

The Rajapaksa regime increasingly appears to consist of twin forces within it, one civilian and the other military. The so-called UPFA government or the Cabinet is only a façade for the regime which is based mainly on the military and the bureaucracy. The UPFA even with the old left parties within it only have a decreasing influence on the civilian part of the regime. The Parliament with a feeble opposition appears to supply humour and entertainment to the cynical public these days. These are the culminating results of the presidential system and the recent subjugation of the independence of the judiciary as part of that same culmination. Just recollect how the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) behaved on the question of the impeachment of the Chief Justice. It was farcical and demeaning to the hilt.

The most alarming immediate development is the deployment of military troops in quelling a civilian protest in Weliweriya on 1 August without any justification or the backing of even emergency regulations. In a protest of villagers, asking for clean water, the military intervention has killed 1 civilian and injuring 15 others. The question has been rightly asked who gave the orders. There is no point in asking even the person responsible to resign because that will not happen in current Sri Lanka. A participant in the protest explained the brutal behaviour of the troops equating it to the LTTE attack on the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy in 1988, reminiscent still in the public mind.

The military intervention in civilian life is reported to be a daily occurrence in the Jaffna peninsula very much pervasive and brutal. As the civilians have been so much subdued without much room to engage in peaceful protests like the Weliweriya villagers there has been no much opportunity so far for the military to use its fire power at least openly. One occasion to the contrary was when the university students peacefully engaged in remembrance or heroes day celebrations in December 2012. The harassments and brutality were quite extensive.

What has to be realized in the current context is that the people in the North or in the South are facing the same common enemy and that is the emerging danger of a military or a quasi-military rule in the country destroying all norms of human rights and democracy.
These are developments particularly aftermath of the end of the war and hopefully there would still be possibilities of turning the situation around peacefully and resurrecting democracy with the international good will and even assistance. After all, Sri Lanka is a member of the international community and the United Nations with obligations on human rights, democracy and rule of law. No one should shy away of working towards international solidarity on the Sri Lankan question.

It was understandable when the military strategy dominated the civilian affairs prior to the end of the war in May 2009 and after the LTTE completely broke away from the peace process in July 2006. The country was fighting against a ruthless menace of terrorism. However, as a democratic country, even during the war there were certain international norms that the government and the military should have observed. If the declared ‘zero civilian casualty’ was a genuine proclamation, then after the war that should have been accounted for through independent and reliable investigations of the alleged and obvious deviations from the international humanitarian law. That was not done.

It is a known fact that during the period between 2006 and 2009, the military in the country became doubled in numbers and equipped with high-tech equipment and training. What was obviously neglected was the education or training on human rights and humanitarian law. After the war there was no effort to demobilize the military. Instead it appears that the ordinary soldiers are being politicized and used for other missions. Although in the past the military in Sri Lanka has been a professional army with high professional standards, it is obvious that these have deteriorated especially among the middle and the lower ranks thereafter.

If the government wanted to maintain a disciplined and a professional army after the war, the first thing should have been done to investigate the slighted allegation against any wrong doing during the war particularly between 2006 and 2009 and punish or discipline the perpetrators accordingly. That is the period that matters most for the discipline and the calibre of the military at present. It is also a well-known fact that although the President gave promises to the UN Secretary General on the subject of accountability in May 2009 that promise was not fulfilled for some reason and this reason can be identified as the influence of the military wing of the regime over the civilian leaders.

Weliweriya is not the first occasion that the defence establishment unleashed its strong arm tactics against the civilians in the South not to speak of the much concealed military oppression in the North. In February 2012, the STF was deployed against the protest of fisher folks in Chilaw and killed one, seriously injuring 8 others. The most alarming was the military deployment for the prison riot at Welikada in November 2012 killing 27 and seriously injuring 40 others. It was a gruesome operation violating all international norms on the treatment of prisoners.

There are arguments that the regime or its security establishment is intervening in this manner to maintain and establish law and order in the country. This is not at all a reliable argument. If that is the case, then at least the police should have been intervened in preventing over 75 well- orchestrated goon attacks on religious places of the Muslim and Christian communities in the country during the last three years. At least the perpetrators should have been punished. The newest attack was on 19 July in Mahiyangana. There are all indications that there is close association between the defence establishment and the Sinhala extremist forces that are unleashed against the religious minorities.

These are also the two sectors that have been agitating against the holding of the elections to the Northern Provincial Council. Although the civilian political wisdom has prevailed on the question of holding of the NPC elections for the time being it is not clear in what ways that the attempt would be scuttled by the military wing of the same regime in the future. The most bizarre phenomenon in the current situation in Sri Lanka is that both the civilian and the military wings of the regime are led by the same family! It is most unlikely to perceive a serious split within this family given its past and its kinship cohesiveness.

Therefore, while the regime and with it the ruling politics will oscillate between civilian and military directions from time to time, the general course until the regime is democratically changed would be more and more towards a quasi-military rule in the country.

Print Friendly
Follow @colombotelegrap

Categories
Foreign Affairs

Facing Death Threats Ahead Of Check out To Commonwealth Meeting

Callum Macrae

Callum Macrae

When you announce that you are going to apply for media accreditation for a routine international political event like the bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) you don’t normally expect a rash of death threats – or to find a senior diplomat from the host country threatening on twitter that he will “make sure you don’t get a visa”.

But this year’s CHOGM is no ordinary event.  It is being held in Sri Lanka – whose government is accused of some of the worst war crimes of this century.  A country marked today by increasing repression of its Tamil minority and a brutal clamp-down on any government critics, particularly among the press and the judiciary.

When David Cameron controversially announced that he would be attending CHOGM despite calls for a boycott, Alistair Burt, the foreign minister with responsibility for Sri Lanka, went on record to say:  “We will make it clear to the Sri Lanka Government that we expect them to guarantee full and unrestricted access for international press covering CHOGM”

The omens for that “guarantee” do not look good.

I have now directed three films looking at the events of the last few months of the civil war.  The first two were commissioned and broadcast by Channel 4, building on the work of Channel 4 News.  The latest, effectively the culmination of three years of investigation, is No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, a 93 minute feature documentary, supported by C4, BRITDOC and others. The films have had a huge impact, winning a number of awards, being cited by the UN and even seeing the team nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In No Fire Zone we use some of the most disturbing video evidence ever recorded, to chronicle how, just four years ago, the Sri Lankan government announced a series of grotesquely misnamed No Fire Zones, encouraged hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians to gather there for safety – and then systematically shelled them, also denying them adequate food and medicines.  Perhaps 40,000, perhaps – as one UN report suggested – 70,000 or even more civilians died, most killed by government shelling.  The predicament of the civilians was made worse by the Tamil Tigers who also stand accused of  committing war crimes and of preventing civilians from escaping the No Fire Zones.

It is fair to say the government of Sri Lanka does not like me – or others who have reported the truth from Sri Lanka, including C4 News foreign correspondent Jonathan Miller or former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent Frances Harrison, author of a book of Tamil survivors stories.

But when I revealed that I intended to apply for accreditation to CHOGM (as I did when it was last held in Australia in 2011), it provoked an astonishing series of attacks.  Comments published online included a series of clear death threats. One of the mildest, in response to my remark: “I trust the Sri Lankan Government will welcome me” read: “Absolutely white van is waiting at the airport.”  White vans are notoriously used in the abduction of government critics and are seen as a weapon of terror associated with extra-judicial killings and disappearances.

Another comment said I was welcome in Sri Lanka “only to go back in a coffin”.  And another said: “Callum Macrae – do not come to Sri Lanka. You will be abducted in a white van, and sent to meet Lasantha Wikremasinghe (sic).”  Lasantha Wickrematunge was the editor and founder of the Sunday Leader – a respected newspaper critical of the Rajapaksa regime.  He was shot and killed by unknown assassins in January 2009.

Then – a week ago, as I was touring with the film in Australia – Ambassador Bandula Jayasekara, a senior Sri Lankan diplomat in Sydney and former Chief media advisor to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, issued a series of threatening tweets in which he said he would “make sure you don’t get a visa” and accused me of being “hired by (Tiger) terrorists as a full time propagandist for the blood thirsty terror group overseas”.

Indeed, far from condemning the death threats against me, he seems almost to be encouraging the climate of hostility and suspicion which lies behind them.   Then last week the Sri Lankan government’s own media minister echoed his words saying: “press freedom… cannot be something that can be framed inside aiding terrorism or being a propagandist for terrorism. So, we will be 100 per cent cautious about who comes to Sri Lanka for CHOGM.”

As I write this the Sri Lankan government has issued a rather more conciliatory statement, suggesting that they will issue visas to those given accreditation by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

We shall see – and the world’s press will now, I hope, be watching very carefully.

*Callum Macrae – Director – No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, www.nofirezone.org Twitter: @nofirezonemovie

Print Friendly
Follow @colombotelegrap

Categories
Video

Bhathiya & Santhush (BNS) Interview – Element 04

Bhathiya & Santhush (BNS) Interview - Part 04

Bhathiya & Santhush (BNS) Interview – Element 04 Much more Videos at http://www.spot.lk/video.html.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Categories
Foreign Affairs

Double Requirements A New Definition By The UGC

Sankalpa

Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe

The phrase ‘double standards’ has been given a new definition by the University Grants Commission (UGC). This feat was achieved by the inconsistency in decision-making with regard to a very important function vested by the University Act in the UGC i.e. the granting of “Degree Awarding Status” to institutions of higher education.

The Institute of Technological Studies and the OASIS Hospital (Pvt) Ltd

In 2008, the above institute applied for “Degree Awarding Status” in order to establish a Medical Faculty which grants the MBBS degree. The application was forwarded to the UGC and at its 768th Meeting held on 20.11.2008, a subcommittee was appointed to make recommendations on the proposal to the UGC.

The Committee

The committee comprised the following most distinguished academics.

  1. Prof. M.T.M. Jiffry, Vice-Chairman, UGC (Chairman)
  2. Prof. Rohan Rajapakse, Member, UGC
  3. Prof. Sarath Abayakoon, Member, UGC
  4. Prof. Janaka de Silva, Member, UGC
  5. Prof. Rajitha Wickramasinghe, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya
  6. Dr. H.H.R. Samarasinghe, President, Sri Lanka Medical Council

Appointment letters were issued on 08.12.2008 and Dr H.H.R. Samarasinghe who was the President of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) back then declined to be a member of the subcommittee citing “Conflict of Interest”.

The Recommendations

The committee convened 4 times and subsequently forwarded its recommendations to the UGC. The UGC at its 772nd Meeting held on 22.01.2009, considered the subcommittee recommendations and made the following decisions.

The Commission having considered the recommendations made by the Committee decided that the application for establishment of a Medical Faculty attached to the Institute of Technological Studies and OASIS Hospital [Pvt] Ltd cannot be approved in the present form and the shortcomings of the application be conveyed to the Director-General, Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka.

The Commission also decided that the proposed degree programme should conform to the guidelines given in the documents published by the Sri Lanka Medical Council and the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council.

Shortcomings

It was further decided to convey the following to the Chairman, BOI, and the Chairman of UGC conveyed the same with a letter dated 11.02.2009

(A) The application does not give enough basic details regarding the following areas;

  • Whether the course is a traditional or integrated course.
  • Facilities available for teaching and learning, specially for clinical and para-clinical training, Library facilities.
  • Qualification framework and procedure for assessment.
  • Fees structure.
  • Quality Assurance guidelines and mechanism.

 

 

 

(B) The submitted names of the lecturers for the course are inadequate.

(C) The proposed degree programme should conform to the guidelines given in the following documents published by the Sri Lanka Medical Council and Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council.

  • Document on minimum standards required for medical schools in Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka Medical Council)
  • Benchmark statement for Medicine (Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council)

Deficiencies in Clinical Teaching

The Committee appointed to appraise the proposal cited the following as “shortcomings” in the process of reaching their conclusion.

a) The patient spectrum in private hospitals is much narrower than in government teaching hospitals. Hence methods to be adopted to ensure adequate coverage of medical conditions for undergraduate clinical training should be considered.

b) Private hospital patients may not be willing to be used for clinical teaching — i.e. examined by medical students (including internal digital examination of rectum and vagina, training in management of childbirth). The minimum number of such procedures required by a student and the feasibility of achieving this should be considered.

c)  Although there appears to be several medical and surgical units in the document, there are only two Paediatric units and one Obstetrics & Gynaecology unit. One unit in each of these disciplines will have to be reserved for final year training (equivalent to Professorial units in established medical faculties). The others are required for third and fourth year clinical training. If this is the case:

  • Where students will have the third and fourth year Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Paediatric clinical training should be specified.
  • There are only a few full time specialists in the private sector. It may be difficult for the private sector to find sufficient high quality specialists with academic credentials to cover wards/units in all the specialties required in a fully fledged teaching hospital. Most specialists who work in the private sector are employed in the government sector and are available in the private sector only after 4 pm, and too only in the OPD. Methods to overcome this problem should be considered.

d)      It is suggested that academic posts and qualifications for academic posts conform to those approved by the UGC.

e)      A significant part of the bedside teaching is done by Senior Registrars and Registrars (postgraduate trainees of the PGIM, Colombo, preparing for MD and MS degrees and Board Certification as specialists) in state teaching hospitals as consultants cannot be expected to be available around the clock: Such grades of full time “consultants-in-training” do not seem available in the private hospital. Details of such positions should be given serious consideration.

f)        Private hospitals usually do not receive the number of acutely ill patients seen in a casualty ward in a state hospital. Private hospitals also lack fully fledged set ups for accident and emergency care. The facilities indicated in the document seem inadequate. Consideration should be given to admission of adequate numbers of acutely ill patients and provision of adequate infrastructure for clinical training.

g)      The teaching of Community Medicine is field based. In a setting where primary health care is exclusively delivered by the state sector, the manner in which this subject is to be taught should be detailed.

h)      Forensic Medicine is a specialty that is almost exclusively under the purview of the government, sector. How such services will be accessed for clinical training should be considered and outlined.

Consistency and persistence

A revised proposal was submitted by the Institute of Technological Studies and the OASIS Hospital (Pvt) Ltd and a subsequent panel which comprised the following distinguished members denied the requested “Degree Awarding Status” on 2nd September 2010, yet again.

  1. Prof. Rohan Rajapakse         Vice Chairman UGC
  2. Prof. H. Abeywardana          Member of UGC
  3. Prof. Janaka de Silva             Member of UGC
  4. Prof. Lalitha Mendis              President SLMC
  5. Prof. Rajitha De Silva             Dean Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya

It is pertinent to note that the Institute of Technological Studies and the OASIS Hospital (Pvt) Ltd had the OASIS Hospital which was a fully functional private hospital at the time of applying for the “Degree Awarding Status” and it had not just an OPD with less than 15 patients per day but many disciplines including Surgical, Medical, Gynaecology and Paediatric wards. But it is evident that the high-profile academics of the committees appointed by the UGC were of the opinion that even such an institute is inadequate for an accepted undergraduate training for an MBBS degree.

A different Fortune

However, another institute which was established at or around the same time period had a “different turn of fortune”. Yet another BOI approved project, the South Asian Institute of Technology and Management (SAITM) which also incorporated the word “Technology” (strangely) applied for a Medical Faculty with “Degree Awarding Status” to grant MBBS degrees. The fortunes of SAITM were such that it was granted “Degree Awarding Status” in 2011 by Gazette notification. This was of course way before the institute even started an OPD service in April 2013 which the institute called the “Teaching Hospital”. Unlike the unfortunate OASIS hospital which did not recruit students before it was given recognition, the second institute had already recruited four batches by the time it was granted “Degree Awarding Status”. The four batches, however, were not included in the Gazette notification as the law cannot be applied retrospectively.

Many are wondering what made the very UGC which denied the OASIS hospital in 2009 and 2010 “Degree Awarding Status” was so “convinced” to grant the same to SAITM. Questions are being asked how the latter had fulfilled the same requirements raised by the two expert panels with regard to facilities and training. It is pertinent to know how an institute which still does not have a functioning hospital, can provide the correct “clinical mix” of patients for 10 batches of medical students?

How has the said institute overcome the “obstacles” cited by the two subcommittees with regard to patients and compliance in private sector?

It was revealed at a recent submission to the Supreme Court (SC/FR/512) the actual permanent teaching staff of SAITM comprises many non-medical professionals (A/L teachers, paramedics etc.) and many of the doctors were either MBBS or MD (Russian) qualified doctors. Even some senior lecturers were without post-graduate qualifications. What happened to the suggestion (d) of the subcommittee which specified that It is suggested that academic posts and qualifications for academic posts conform to those approved by the UGC.”?

Questions to answer

Were there any new “strategies” proposed to be employed by SAITM to avert the obstacle of providing clinical teachers without the services of Post Graduate trainees such as Registrars and Senior Registrars?

What were the proposals to overcome inadequacy of teaching in Forensic Medicine and Community Medicine?

In the face of the Health Ministry’s stern decision NOT to allow government hospitals to be used by a private business venture to profit and the GMOA very clearly and rightfully objecting to the use of state hospitals jeopardizing the teaching of state university students, it is unlikely that the said shortcomings are fulfilled by this institute.

The only possible answer would be that the wisdom of those who “recommend” such institutes to be granted “Degree Awarding Status” would have been much, much higher than those who made the former.

*Dr Sankalpa Marasinghe; Medical Officer, Castle Street Hospital For Women

Print Friendly
Follow @colombotelegrap

Categories
Video

Lakshman Yapa on Fonseka’s release

Lakshman Yapa on Fonseka's release

මහනුවරට ගිය ෆොන්සේකා

මහනුවරට ගිය ෆොන්සේකා.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Categories
Foreign Affairs

Gehanu Gathiya And Pirimikama: Desegregated Gender Relations In Rural Sri Lanka

Arjuna Seneviratne

Arjuna Seneviratne

Over the last nine years, as a facilitator, activist and developer working with rural communities in Sri Lanka on systemic environment management, agriculture, fisheries, rural climate response, rural disaster prep and mitigation, aid effectiveness and development sustainability through civil, government, private, media, academic organizations and  trade unions, I had, for quite some time, been looking for a rather elusive link. As each year slid into the next, I began to feel the same type of frustration as scientists searching for the missing link between man and African tree frogs whose DNA apparently most closely resemble ours. I also began to lose hope. Until that is, I realized I was searching for the wrong thing in the wrong place.

This particular Dodo I was after is so deeply entrenched as being real in the minds of people that its existence has almost been taken for granted. It’s called masculinity and femininity and their classic associative links to males and females respectively. You see, a whole barrel load of development paraphernalia from funds to expertise to beneficiaries to goals are supposed to even out real or imagined disparities and inequalities and equip human beings to acquit themselves equitably. One of the more vociferously articulated differences was supposed to be those between men and women with women generally assumed to be sitting on the lighter end of the balance due to the said associative links and the power dynamics that supposedly arise from it with men snarling and drooling like tigers over women who were cowering and whimpering like rabbits beneath them.

Now, since its existence is so universally taken for granted I should have at the very least been wading knee deep in the stuff if not actually drowning in it.

However, the fact of the matter is that I walked the length and breadth of rural Sri Lanka over a decade without coming across any evidence of it at all. This, to put it very mildly, was a cause for great concern on my part. That I, and many kindly, well meaning and completely silly donors and experts were fighting a mirage was not only obvious but also the least of my issues.  I was more worried that that sort of shadow boxing against an invisible or even unreal opponent could do some serious damage to a very large number of very real human beings completely innocent of the desire for differentiation, contention or outright war over an artificially enforced schism. This Hutu-Tutsi-itis or Blueeye-Greeneye  Syndrome or whatever silly else one wishes to call it, was downright dangerous so I explored the  actual dynamics of male-female relationships in rural communities in the country to find out how their heads were wired or disengaged with respect to their specific anatomies and the way those anatomies interacted with each other in socially cohesive groups.

Well, simply put, masculinity and femininity, matriarchies and patriarchies as they have been classically defined have little or no meaning in Sri Lanka.

Instead, what we have here are two qualitative factors “pirimikama” (positive attributes associated with the male principle) and “gehanu gathiya” (negative engagement strategies associated with the female principle). Both arise not from cultures or traditions or as resultants of interactive modalities but rather from Buddhist-Hindu karmic theory. Two very important facts that need to be noted here are a) that there is no concept of “gahanukama” (positive attributes associated with the female principle) or “pirimi gathiya” (negative engagement strategies associated with the male principle and b) that “pirimikama” and gehanu gathiya” are used when talking about the characteristics of both males and females with no tying of “pirimikama” to men or “gehanu gathiya” to women.

The conclusion is quite clear: Men and women are just that. Men and women. There are no classic attributes tied into the specific anatomies. The female and male principle as yielded up by karmic theory is applied without favor to both anatomical males and anatomical females with respect to individual occurrences of each entity. I must stress this. The application is individual – not collective. In the minds of rural communities, every human being displays specific trait combinations and the composite determine the personality of the individual, the type of strengths and weaknesses they have, the types of abilities they can use as a community and failings that need to be understood as a community. These types of individual dynamics shape the way in which the community optimizes the use of their individuals for the sustenance of the community which in turn is supposed to sustain the individuals that constitute that community. Rather than blanketing a specific set of SWOT results to an anatomical division, they SWOT the individual against the requisites of the community and the weightage of the composite male-female principles perceived in each individual that the community have to work with.

Does this essentially mean that rural societies are free-for-alls akin to urban communities where anyone can be anything in any situation with respect to anyone? Not at all. While attributes are not specific to gender, responsibilities and roles are and these are classic.  The two most important are based on the principles of protection and equity which are the core drivers of social cohabitation in rural communities and they are primarily passive in nature.  These have morphed into security and equality for urban communities and are primarily aggressive in nature. The one leverages individual strengths for collective good and the other leverages legislative mechanisms for individual good.

The responsibility of protecting the family socially and economically is assigned to men and the responsibility of protecting and educating the children to young adulthood is assigned to the women.  Men earn and women utilize what is earned. Women support men in their livelihoods and men as a group takes communal decisions on advisement from the women as a group. Responsibility of educating young males in livelihoods is for the men and educating young females for marriage is for women. Men do not attempt to look after the young and women never take on the task of protecting other women since both of these are considered beyond the innate skills sets of men and women respectively.

No rocket science here.

It is all pretty common knowledge except for the fact that there is a naiveté amongst urban segregationists who firmly “believe” that it is the men who exclusively control the family purse, that it is men who exclusively determine the course of a community and that inequality is equivalent to inequity. All three are observations that have arisen in the minds of people in the process of urbanization and despite their validity with respect to urban communities they are fallacious when applied to the rural populace.

Seems pretty cool but  does this mean that rural populations are a benchmark, a baseline, a valuable real-o-meter to measure sustainability or stability of social groupings?

Emphatically no. No on two counts. One, it is just one system and not the only system. Two, that system, like all systems fails as well under specific circumstances.

That the rural system, which has withstood centuries of internal and external impacts and upheavals, is under serious threat, shuddering and breaking apart at its seams is a fact. Climate, energy, food and money crises and their packaged outcomes – conflict and war have had rather charming impacts of the stability of these communities. None of these were of their making. Like gender segregation, all of that can also be laid squarely on the shoulders of urbanites that haven’t lifted a finger to plant a cucumber or catch a mackerel but have eaten their way through almost all of that which was produced by rurals and pastorals. Be that as it may, restabilizing it would require using its own system of checks and balances – not external interventions. The core silliness is to attempt to apply the rules of one social system or order to right the wrongs of another system. This where this imposition of alien ideas such as masculinity or a femininity to Sri Lankan rural cultures fails and fails miserably.

Where then lies the problem with rural communities? While there are many issues that are internal (such as migration, loss of resources, destabilized environments, loss of livelihood options etc.) and external (war, consumerism, development initiatives, resource capture etc.) arising out of the multiple crises that cause those communities to destabilize, going by the testimony of the Afghan woman in my previous post, chief among them is the weakening of the ability of men to fulfill their roles and responsibilities.

Clearly, there is recognition amongst women in rural communities of the mediocrity of their men these days. Maybe it’s gambling, non-traditional enforcement of monogamy, alcoholism… whatever… but the lessening of the man has put a lot of unfair and uncalled for pressure on the woman. Additionally, and dangerously, when a woman steps into the shoes of a man who is weak it makes that same man react in accordance with his frailty, spitting and foaming at the mouth, kicking and screaming, condemning, judging, manipulating, subjugating, raping, murdering, revealing his inadequacies in naked, inglorious silhouette for the world to see and condemn. However, it must be noted that the fact that this occurs, at least for rurals and pastorals in Sri Lanka results less in a sense of emancipation and more in a sense of tragedy. It is not a situation that calls for women to overtake men but one that calls for both sorrow for their lot and shame for the lot of their men. For these people, a weak man is not to be condemned, ignored or marginalized but rather, to be worried over … and over… and over. Reading between the lines of that brutally honest Afghan woman warrior, the reversal of this tragic situation is laid squarely on the shoulders of men. If they are strong in their maleness the women can be equally strong in their femaleness resulting in resilient, united, strengthened, sustained societies.

That, is a tough ask for both men and women given the spectrum of issues that assail them these days in rural Sri Lanka. However, it is when it is darkest that there arises the highest qualities of human beings amongst such societies. For example, it is when such a resurgence or re-enabling of a man is impossible to engineer that there rises in Sri Lankan rural communities the “dhiriya katha” (courageous woman) who takes on a large number of the attributes of “pirimikama” because the men have been overtaken by “gehanu gathi”.  Or, it is when the entire system is compromised that there rises the “yugapurusha” (the man of the era). This particular phenomenon is highly lauded in rural communities and the “diriya katha” is awarded the same level of recognition as a “yugapurusha” and both of these have historically led their communities. That leadership is vested in them for the qualities they depict and the enabling energy they bring towards stabilizing their communities and ensuring its protection and equitable interrelationships – not for the type of anatomy they possess.

Again, there is nothing very special here. Everyone knows all of this.  The danger lies in the fact that such dynamics are in the process of being forgotten to the detriment of the country as a whole.

In a recent news item the Speaker, Chamal Rajapaksa stated the following to the women’s parliamentary group:  “Women taking the lead sometimes obstruct work in progress. This is not something I am saying. When women take the lead there is a tendency to not listen to anyone else. It is like this in a lot of places. It becomes difficult to work. If a woman is in charge of a District Secretariat or Divisional Secretariat or any other high office, they have a tendency to exert their authority over that place. So because of that, sometimes justice is not done”.

What the Honorable speaker says it correct.  Over the last nine years, I’ve seen examples of this nauseating condition in many females hailing from all sorts of social settings from urban to rural and all sorts of institutions from international donor agencies, academic institutions, CSOs, PSOs, TUs etc. and their chief victims have been other women. However, I have seen it more these days among men in high office in all institutions both state and otherwise. One doesn’t need to be the coming genius of the 21st century to clearly understand that the men in positions of power in Sri Lanka these days obstruct work in progress, do not listen to anyone, exert their authority over a place and make it difficult to work. Also, their chief victims are women as well. While it is convenient and fallacious to attribute such mindsets exclusively to women, what the Honorable speaker should remember is that in Sri Lanka, there are many “pirimi” (men) with “gehanu gathi” controlling many of the socio-economic aspects of the nation and the reduction of the potency of Sri Lankan society as a whole could very well be tagged to this state of the collective national psyche.

*This post is somewhat of an anecdotal exposition of continuing research into gender relationships in Sri Lanka. I need to also thank my wife, Manju Dharmasiri, who earns four times as much as I do and is the chief breadwinner of the family who contributed invaluable insights into gender realities in Sri Lanka and whose insistence on not taking high office in her workplace and  her rationale for it that started this line of inquiry on my part

Print Friendly
Follow @colombotelegrap

Categories
Foreign Affairs

Role Of Religion And Religious Men In The Method Of Reconciliation

Ven. Prof. Bellanwila Wimalarathana thero

Ven. Prof. Bellanwila Wimalarathana thero

There is perhaps total consensus that religion is one of the major factors that exerts influences on the people: nurturing, moulding, and contributing to the development of their character. But religion by itself is not able to exert this influence. This happens depending on how it is communicated to the people. This religious communication is done by the religious men. Therefore, in discussing the issue of reconciliation, which involves both inter-religion and inter-religious harmony, the role of religious men has to be examined very carefully.

There are many religions in the world, and among them there are a number of world religions. I am not focusing my attention on all religions and all religious men, but on Buddhism and the Buddhist monks. This is mainly because I am a member of the community of Buddhist monks.

Buddhism is one of the world religions. It has influenced peoples of different nations and cultures throughout a very long period of over two and a half millenniums. From ancient times Buddhism has served as a reconciliatory force bringing together different factions divided on various grounds and issues: political, ethnic, social, economic, and so on. Sri Lanka itself bears evidence to this. It is with the introduction of Buddhism that the country became united and commenced its forward march to progress in all spheres of life. The world history shows similar histories in countries like Myanmar, Korea and Japan. This shows that Buddhism is a teaching that unites people. It is very necessary to understand this factor when communicating Buddhism.

There are certain factors that contribute to make Buddhism a unifying force. Basically one has to understand that Buddhism is for the ending conflict and for establishing peace. In Buddhist technical terminology these two objectives are explained as dukkha and its nirodha, which means cessation. Dukkha, usually translated into English as suffering, is in fact a term impregnated with different nuances of meaning. The term ‘Dukkha’ covers all human problems: pain, discontentment, dissatisfaction, dejection, conflict and so on. Hence, Buddhism can by simply explained as a teaching dealing with ‘human problems’. Though nonhumans, including animals, are not left out, the main focus is on the human being and his problems. This has to be born in mind when communicating the Buddhist teachings.

While Buddha claims that his teachings present an assured way of completely terminating and bringing about the cessation of all human problems, he explains how difficult it is to attain this state. This is the highest ideal; yet there are states below this ideal level which are harmonious, peaceful, and satisfying. While Buddha says that he presents an assured way to peace, he does not say that what he says is the only truth. He knows very well that if he said so, that will lead to conflicts and disputes. Such a claim would not be conducive to the peace, harmony, and well-being of the masses for which he urged his clergy of disciples to disseminate his teachings. Such a claim would be very divisive; leading to religious fundamentalism and even leading to destructive wars as evidenced by history.

The Buddha spoke about the separate identity of Buddhism. Yet he never attempted to impose Buddhist identity on other religions. Instead, he strove firmly to keep the masses in the track of religion without using discriminatory methods to veer them away from non-religion, especially pure materialism which denies all morals and ethics. In one of the very well-known discourses in the Majjhima-nikaya, namely, the Alagaddupama Sutta, he makes the following insightful observations:

“Some learn the teaching only for the sake of criticizing others and for winning debates, and they do not experience the good for the sake of which they learned the teaching. Those teachings, being wrongly grasped by them, conduce to their harm and suffering for a long time”.

To explain this wrong grasping of the religious teachings and consequent harm that befalls, he cites the simile of one who wrongly grasps a snake by the tail. When grasped in the wrong manner, the person who grasps it is bitten by the snake which causes his death. This is quite an effective simile to all religious men who wrongly grasp religious teachings, perhaps being inspired and urged by misconceived ideas.

Such grasping nullifies the purpose for which religions are preached. Religions are for unity, harmony peace, understanding, trust, and so on. It is mostly through wrong communication by over-enthusiastic, perhaps, well-meaning communicators of religious teachings that religions turn into destructive forces. The Buddha said in the already quoted discourses, that religion should be considered as a ‘raft’ that helps to tide over the numerous problems of life, or dukkha, as Buddhism puts it. One is admonished not to carry the religion on his head, or to load it on his shoulder, but to use it as a device to solve problems.

It is just blind and dogmatic clinging to religion that makes one veer towards religious fundamentalism, decrying all other religions, and communicating religious teachings in the wrong way, inciting the ‘faithful masses’ to all kinds of destructive and disruptive activities. This is happening all over the world.

Religious communicators have to perform their role with caution and insight, without being tempted and misled by personal considerations. Religion should not be made a political instrument nor should religious men become politicians or tools of politicians. It is true that it is very difficult to be above politics in the present political contexts. All have political views, mental inclination towards a particular political system, political views etc. But such views and inclinations should not be mixed up with religious teachings, especially with Buddhist teachings. The Buddha was never a politician, though he presented a political theory for the good of everyone to assure all the enjoyment of all main human rights and privileges.

Emperor Asoka of India adopted such a tolerant religious policy that was conducive to forge unity among all peoples of different faiths. He explicitly stated in his Edicts that one who disparages other religions is disparaging his own religion. Politicians should not entice religious men to serve their political needs. Such an attitude is very harmful in the long run. This makes the Buddhist monk’s role as communicator of the Buddha teaching a very tricky and a difficult task.

Religious men should realize that their task is to bring about unity among those who are divided. This role of the clergy, communicators of the teaching of the Buddha, has been very vibrantly described in a discourse called the Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya. This description explains the proper way such bhikhus should use their speech and says that “he should be one to be relied on, dependable, not a deceiver of the world, …a reconciler of those who are disunited and one who encourages those who are united, one who is delighting the unity and concord, and speaking up for peace”. Such should be the role of a good religious teacher.

This very clearly shows how Buddhism serves reconciliation and how a monk should work for the reconciliation of the divided if they really wish to be the sons of the Buddha. When the Buddha sent out the first sixty missionaries to communicate his new founded teaching, he requested them to preach the teachings for the good, well-being, and happiness of all.

This, ‘happiness for the many’ does not mean the happiness of the majority. Those who wish to follow fundamentalism and also wish to work under particular political directions could interpret this admonition in this narrow sense. But, the Buddha has made it very clear that all our actions have to be for the good of oneself and for the good of others. This morality goes far beyond the ‘narrow’ political interpretation of democracy. Buddhism is a democratic teaching, but this democracy does not mean the imposition of the majority view on the minority.

There is no question that the Teaching of the Buddha, his Dhamma, should be for the good and benefit of all. Buddha has shown that this could be done by getting hold of the dhamma in the proper manner, not as a political slogan, not as a propagandist cry, but as a message of peace and harmony. The Buddha has intervened not as a political negotiator but as a spiritual teacher to avert war between clans. It is well known that when the two clans, the Sakyans and the Koliyans, arrayed themselves, fully armed, to wage war against each other over the issue of sharing water of the Rohini river, the Buddha intervened and explained the futility and dangers that follow war. His attempt was to drive sense into warring parties and reconcile, and advice them not to act in a partisan manner that would further ignite the issue.

The Dhamma communicators have a duty to protect the Dhamma. But the protection of Buddhism should not be extended to the imposition of Buddhist identity and sentiments on other religions and religious men. Desecrating Buddhism and showing violent disrepute to Buddhism has to be stopped, and the members of the Sangha have a duty to do so. But this has to be done not by using force, violent behavior, and engaging in disruptive activities, but in a Buddhist way; in a peaceful way. If Buddhist clergy takes the law into their hands, totally disregard natural justice, rule of law and such other basic principles, the whole society will gradually break down, plunging the whole country into darkness and into a miserable state. To protect Buddhism is to live according to Dhamma. Living according to Dhamma itself is an inbuilt kind of protection for those who follow the Dhamma.

Religion is not the only factor of conflict and disunity. There are many other factors. So, in a multi- religious, multi-ethnic society beset with such conflicting issues, all are stakeholders in this process of reconciliation.

It is not only the majority population that bears the responsibility of working for unity and harmony. All minorities are duty bound to cooperate and integrate themselves with the majority. And, of course, the majority merely on the ground of the majority, should not try to dominate or impose their will on the majority or deprive the minorities of their due. Extremism and fundamentalism should be shunned by all, including the minorities. The majority should behave in a way that will not make minorities feel that they are being oppressed and deprived of their legitimate dues. Similarly, the minorities should not make undue demands and use their minority positions as a ruse to gain extra mileage.

It is in this state of conflicts that religion and religious men of moderate thinking and views can effectively play their roles. While properly communicating the essence of the respective teachings to devotes, they should specially impress upon the politicians regarding the role they also should play as ‘reconcilers’. If politicians fail to play their role properly, but use religion and religious men to achieve their own ends, then the whole process of reconciliation is bound to fail. With this observation, I conclude.

Thank you very much for your patient hearing.

*Ven. Prof.  Bellanwila Wimalarathana thero, Chancellor, Sri Jayewardenepura University. Speech delivered by Ven. Prof. Bellanwila Wimalarathana thero at the National Conference ‘the Role of Religion in Reconciliation’ on July 23, 2013.  

Print Friendly
Follow @colombotelegrap

Categories
Video

වෙඩි නොවැදු JVP නායකයා සහ හෙණරාජ තෛලය

මේ හෙණරාජ තෙල පාවිච්චි කරන්න ඉස්සෙල්ලා තවත් අත්හදා බැලීමක් අපි කළා. ඒ භීෂණ කාලෙ. මේ කතාවට සම්බන්ධ වෙන්නෙ මගේ ඥාතියෙක්. read more http://www.mawbima.lk/e-pape…
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Video Rating: 3 / 5