You Can Call Me A Hambaya, But…

Do you know what it means?

Most pejoratives have origins in completely acceptable descriptive words. ‘Negro’ comes from the Latin ‘Niger‘ which means black, ‘Paki’ is shortened from ‘Pakistani’. Terms like Chinaman, Coolie are also derived from relatively innocent descriptive origins. They get their pejorative connotations after being repeatedly used in an insulting manner.  Other names originate directly from a desire to put down and insult, but the word ‘Hambaya’ belongs to the former category.

‘Hambaya’ is derived from the Malay ‘Sampan’. The word for a somewhat flat bottomed boat, also used by the Chinese. Pictured above is an Indonesian sampan, coming back from a fishing expedition. Sampans were frequently seen in Sri Lanka’s South Eastern coast when Javanese people stopped en route while migrating to countries like Yemen and Madagascar. Many of them stayed back here as well. The term was eventually associated with South Indian traders who were also Muslims like the Javan people, and who adopted the same style of boat. And eventually, as ‘Sampan’ became ‘Samman’ in Tamil and ‘Hamban’ to the Sinhala people, a collective term ‘Hambankaraya’ was used to describe them as a whole.

According to ethnologist Asiff Hussein, author of Sarandib: an Ethnological Study of Muslims in Sri Lanka, the word did not acquire its derogatory connotations until the beginning of the 1915 riots, the first ever incident of tension between Sinhalese and Muslims. According to Asiff, the riots were sparked by ‘coastal moors’ of Indian residence temporarily ensconced in the center of the country (the riots started at Gampola) for trading purposes. They were not as accommodating as Sri Lankan moors (the term used for resident moors in the country) and objected to the procession of the perehara (Buddhist festival) near their mosque (contrarily, resident moors were long known to have facilitated and supported perahara activity).

The ensuing tensions spread the  use of the word ‘Hambaya’, shortened from the rather more respectful ‘Hambankaraya’, as a wide derog to describe all Muslims even the ones that hadn’t migrated on a boat. But then again, everyone in Sri Lanka, except maybe for the aadivasi, migrated on a boat, and a lot of us still continue the proud tradition, but I digress. The word ‘Thambiya‘ probably acquired its seedier usage around about that time as well. Just like in ‘hambaya’ the problem is the suffix ‘ya’ which basically turns an endearing term that refers to a younger brother into a racial slur.

Signs that ‘Hamban’ was once a respectable term are everywhere. Take Hambantota for instance, what will probably soon be Sri Lanka’s on-paper capital. The whole place is named after the Hambankarayas or at least, their boats.. Hambantota basically means ‘Port of Hambans’. Further to the East, ‘Sammanthurai’ means exactly the same thing. ‘Samman’ is the Tamil version of ‘Hamban’ and ‘Thurai’ means port.

Many Malays still live in the Hambantota area. My uncle was married to a Malay there. Almost his whole family (and wife’s extended family as well) and nearly the entire neighborhood were wiped out in the tsunami. Malays have more than a passing influence on Sri Lankan culture, language and history. But this is often overlooked because of the small size of the Malay community in the country today. They are usually cast in the same cultural bucket as Sri Lankan Moors, who are themselves a pretty diverse lot to begin with.

Not all of the Hambankarayas were Muslim. Chandrabhanu was a Javanese king who spent some 30 years of his reign trying to invade Sri Lanka. He probably used many sampan in his invasionary forays. He was a Buddhist.

Abroad Yamuda Machang?

Dharmapriya Dias and Gihan De Chickera in a scene from Machang

Sri Lankans have a fascination with everything foreign. Going ‘to the foreign’ or ‘ab-road’ is considered to be the epitome of success. For after you are ‘in the foreign’ life there is going to be all feather beds and high disposable income.

I’ve run into many people like that in my time, who hasn’t? Once i had someone explain to me in great detail how to make a convincing case to seek asylum in Canada. The process involved coming up with a newspaper article/advertisement calling me a wanted man, going through highly exciting cut-throat late night border crossings and conning Canadian judges. I was sixteen at the time.

Just yesterday i met someone who expressed a strong urge to go to Germany. Why? because it is ‘awesome over there’. Praneeth (name changed) is a low level executive at a multinational corporation. In other words, he has a job and background that many would kill for. Initially I just thought he wanted to visit, how naive of me.

A friend of his: “do you know what he did? he’s working in a garage in Germany.”

And I say, wow yeah that’s great. Praneeth gets a wistful look in his eyes as I ask him ‘so you want to get a work visa?’ But apparently there are no work visas for Germany, which  brings us to the thorny question; “how is your friend working in a garage there?”

His friend (let’s call him Channa) ingeniously played the system. He didn’t go all ‘Machang’ and escape the hotel the night before the big handball game, but he still lied and connived for all he was worth.

He went there for a holiday, stayed with a monk he knew and somehow negotiated a deal with a local restaurant which produced a letter attesting to the German immigration authorities that ‘Channa is absolutely the best, and pretty much only, cook in the world capable of cooking at our restaurant and it is absolutely essential that you help him come work for us”.

This enabled him to get a five year stamp the next time he applied. And now Channa works in a garage, painting cars and doing other garagy things, cooking be damned. His education is wasted, but he tells Praneeth during his frequent visits home that he feels “very secure” and wouldn’t give it up for the world. And now poor Praneeth wants to quit his corporate job and do the same thing.

If you thought Channa was quite the ‘arch bugger’, let me tell you about Praneeth’s other friend Nimal who is some kind of an ‘international player’. His life involves shuttling between several high profile foreign countries every five months or so. He’d work for five months in the US, come to Sri Lanka, and go work for five months in the UK. I am fascinated, how in the world does he manage this?

Nimal, like Channa, initially went for a holiday. He then came back to Sri Lanka and applied again, and this time got a much longer stamp on his visa. He used this to surreptitiously get a job being a waiter, cleaning stuff or like Channa, working in a garage. Unglamorous, but it pays the bills for a glamorous image back home.

Actually, he is part of a whole network of such ‘international players’ who simply switch jobs with each other when their visas begin to expire; ensuring a constant supply of international jobs that will not cause them to overstay their visas and impinge on the hospitality of their hosts in any way (other than by stealing their jobs of course).

So for example Nimal would give his job in the US over to his friend Riyas as Riyas leaves his job being a street cleaner in the UK which he gives to Nathan who gives up his job as a logger in Scandanavia to Kamal who in turn will leave his job as a shop assistant in Italy just in time for Nimal to come back from a short intermediate stay in Sri Lanka to claim it. And they keep switching ad infinitum. Praneeth thinks its brilliant.

No wonder us unambitious Sri Lankans get so much shtick from Western visa authorities. I don’t blame them either. We enter their countries by the boatload, clog up their social security nets and even contribute with our own brand of organized crime, with raging chain gangs in countries as diverse as Canada, UK and Italy hailing from places like Ja-Ela and Wattala (town names just an example, nothing personal if you live there).

I’ve spoken to others who are a lot more honest about this kind of living. And apparently, hard labor is hard labor whether you are in a developed country or not. Some work three jobs and barely get enough sleep. They show a pretty picture to everyone back home, but they live on the fringes of society and become anonymous automatons with no identity. No life even. And many regret ever leaving home.

*Abroad Yamuda Machang?: Shall we go abroad, mate?

The Pax Rajapakse

image from JDS Lanka

The Pax Rajapakse is almost four years old. In that time I’ve gone from being a relative tortoise in my own country to having a degree of freedom that I never imagined possible. I’ve traveled now to virtually every place formerly torn up by the war. And can travel anywhere else I please should I wish to do so.

But the Pax Rajapakse is just that, peace. It has no moral identity. It has no moral pretensions even though it likes to pretend otherwise. Dreadful things are done to preserve the peace. But in all objectivity some might say that the end justifies the means. Peace is its own reason.

But a once universal peace is now fragmenting into varying degrees of peace; different categories of peace now exist. There is a lesser peace and a greater peace. The greater peace is being able to move around your country with freedom, the lesser peace is demarcated by invisible lines drawn through society with labels saying things like ‘Do Not Cross’, ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot’ and  ‘Sycophants Only’.

The country, as it strains under the forces of development, churns society like the roiling Indian Ocean and casts up new oppressed classes and facilitates the surge of new elite. Apparently there is ‘good’ corruption and ‘bad’ corruption. So say some, justifying the regime’s steamroller approach to progress with a substantial personal cut. But where is the line, I say?

While people leave on boats, and put up with heavy abuse for want of jobs and are kicked out of their homes to make way for high rises in the midst of Colombo; a whole new class of wealthy and powerful Sri Lankan is emerging. Closely connected to the country’s powerbrokers, they wield high influence that cuts through social and legal infrastructure like butter. Any justice is we have here is highly skewed in the favor of these elites.

All this has not gone unnoticed. The people are restless and feeling the brunt of ever increasing cost of livingn. Straight talking journalists are still in danger. And the briefly stable peace is now crumbling at the edges with this latest drive of racism. The people are hungry for something to blame. A few decades ago it was the Tamils, and now it is the Muslims. 

But peace is profitable, war is not. And the last thing the government needs is another conflict. And therein lies the problem. Sri Lanka is a corrupt animal. This corruption is like a cancer, but it can still grow within it. Most forecasts still place our economy with prospects of around 6-7% of GDP growth per annum. On a global scale this is huge. This means we double every ten years or so. And if we’re patient enough and do not over reach, we can still become a rich country in our own time.

There are however, serious glitches that can ruin everything. Since Sri Lanka stopped being a low income country, it has stopped receiving aid which basically allowed us to spend more than we earned without worry. And over the years a strong parasitic class developed that benefited and prospered from this surplus, the result; a bloated state sector, crazy inefficiency and high levels of corruption. And now it is this transition from being aid dependent that is really killing us.

Finding itself forced to cover up its various deficits (budget and current account) by taking loans, Sri Lanka is realizing (I hope) that it is mixing a recipe for disaster. We need solid foreign investments to replace these loans and they will not come in until the political, and by extension business, environment is made investor friendly; until budget gaps are sorted out sustainably;  until capital expenditure is focused on projects with long term benefits like education, infrastructure and health.

Currently the government is trying to cover its behind by putting the burden on the public. It should be cutting dead weight and increasing its efficiency by turning state corporations (like the cash bleeding CPC and CEB) profitable, instead it is reducing much needed public expenditure and increasing prices of essential goods and utilities. This burden on the public, ever increasing with the latest round of fuel price hikes, is what is contributing to unrest. There is a continuing laxity in addressing post war issues, and fiascos like the Expropriation Bill and the impeachment of the Chief Justice are poorly handled and reflect very badly internationally.

The Rajapakse regime still has my support. Most East Asian giants grew up under pseudo democracies; Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. And the fact that we lack a better alternative has never been more obvious in the light of the UNP’s recent feeble opportunism in attempting to capitalize on racist propaganda. The Rajapakse’s have huge potential to bring something the country has not had for a long time; political stability and long term growth. But they cannot do this by cultivating a parasitic social sub-strata of sycophants and dependents.

Hidden agenda lurks behind this fresh wave of racism, trying to distract from pressing issues at hand. What we should be doing is figuring out the real problems and then campaign for reform, especially with the limitations of our reality in mind. This is undoubtedly hard to do in the current context; the corruption is the cancer and it is within all of us, if you will permit me a bit of drama. If the Rajapakse regime had a big role to play in creating the pax, average Sri Lankans have an even bigger role to play in keeping it.

In My Grandma’s Time

Shamrock, Nawalapitiya. Nawalapitiya came up in colonial times as a town built around a British railway hub, as far as I can tell.

My grandmother grew up in tough times. She was born in 1926, whence ignorance was rife and widespread. Women died of childbirth because their families did not want them exposed to doctors who were invariably ‘strange men’. Babies were delivered by midwives who would walk straight in from the tea estates, and wouldn’t really bother with washing their hands. Umbilical cords would be cut with anything handy; yes that rusty old scissors will do fine. Unsurprisingly, infant mortality was high.

My great grandmother died of childbirth; her immune system was weakened and welcomed a fatal attack of malaria, which overtook her newborn as well. They remained at home until they died. Never seeing a doctor. My great grandfather was rich, but money had nothing to do with it. She was a woman, and in those times there were certain things women weren’t eligible for. He married again and his second wife suffered the same fate. (Nonplussed, my great grandfather married for the third time, but thankfully she survived. He had altogether 18 or 20 surviving children.)

A newborn came into a wild place. For every family sporting ten healthy children, there were two or three that died; still births, disease; people just took it in their stride. My grandmother delivered seven of her six children at home, but by her time she access to qualified midwives.

Of a keen intelligence is my grandmother. And she has a PhD, in the school of life. But in those days girls were not educated. Muslim girls, especially, were not exposed to strange eyes and they were mostly kept at home; one reason why she enjoyed school so much.

Because even though her father refused to educate her, her grandmother, who was another rock a linchpin just like my grandmother would become, would not stand for it. My great-great grandmother took over the care of her son’s first flock after their mother died, and with her the rules were somewhat different.

They were sent to school; the car and by extension wealth, enabled them to remain secluded. A cloth separated the rear and front so that the driver could not see them. But in those days they used to say; ‘girls need only be educated until they have learned to sign their name’ and eventually this saying came back to haunt my grandma as it did thousands of other girls at the time, and many girls to this day. She was taken out of school when she was fourteen, and at sixteen she was married.

This is slightly unbelievable now, but back then the bride and groom really weren’t allowed to see each other before marriage. The parents would close the deal, and my grandparents only met on the day of their wedding.

My grandmother didn’t mind, marriage offered the only way out of her secluded, pampered existence. It was only after marriage that she saw the world, spoke to people at large, and took a train ride. My granddad was in the Police, and they traveled far and wide for his work. My uncles, mother and aunt were born in places as diverse as Jaffna, Kalutara, Colombo and Nawalapitiya (which is where, decades later, I was born as well).

I like hearing stories from that time. Most of it makes me nostalgic, but some of it shocks, like the denial of basic rights of education and health to women, and the acceptance of this as a part of the cultural identity of being Muslim, carried out by people with good intentions. I guess its a testament to how far corruption can spread so as to seem normal, a lesson for today perhaps.

This ignorance was a sad reality of the community back then. But it is not a reality of Islam. Ignorance started to disappear as religious knowledge spread. And cultural practices long adhered to in an age where colonial invasion had all but destroyed active religious life (many would not attend Friday prayers, let alone pray five times daily), were slowly abandoned as the community gradually modernized. Back then going against customs so set in stone would have called upon the wrath of society, today Sri Lankan Muslim society accepts most of those customs as relics of an age of ignorance.

That is not to say though, that we are completely rid of faults. Muslims continue to do things in the name of religion that would make the Prophet (may peace and blessings be upon him) raise his eyebrows at the very least. We bicker and fight among ourselves, and we fail to stand up for justice. And yes some of our women still face abuse, even though that abuse may not always be in the same form the outside world paints it out to be.

These are not the faults of Islam, but they are the faults of Muslims, and not all Muslims either. We are much better than we used to be, but there are long ways yet to go. But there is hope for me in the story of my grandmother. Let’s have patience, and persevere.

Krrish; Getting Crushed? (Infographic)

The Krrish project has been making waves, if only for its absurd proportions. The complex’s tallest tower is going to be the third tallest residential tower, are you ready for this? In_the_world. I hear three quick bangs on a bell; the crowd goes wild as the fighter in the right corner shrugs off his glittering robe. All hail the Krrish project, destroyer of third world woes.

But seriously. I snooped around a bit (and by now this is relatively common knowledge) and found that Krrish doesn’t really have any completed real estate projects anywhere in the world. Closest thing they have is a few projects underway in Guragon, India. As a company laying claim to such a massive venture, Krrish has virtually no media mentions in India, and its only ties to solid listed corporate are a claim to own a stake in Cobra Beer. And in fact Krrish is better known for its brewery business than anything else.

It’s projected to bring about $560mn into the country. But that number exists only on paper. In reality these projects bring a fraction of that amount, usually 10%, and try to source the rest locally. Krrish, which hasn’t started building yet, is rumored to only have brought in $5mn, as a 10% down payment for the value of the land. The completed project will have some 750 apartments plus equal amount of office spaces, each of the apartments are priced at roughly a million dollars.

The plan is to pre-sell them to raise money to build.  But as you can see from the chart below, demand for apartments hasn’t exactly been booming. If demand does not meet supply, the project will have to be abandoned. Far worse though, is the prospect of the project being bankrolled by a country eager for any kind of investment (especially something with a result so grandiose) ending up with the local banking system owning roughly $500mn of bad loans. And this will probably at the very least result in a major banking/debt crisis for the country. Just putting some thoughts out there. What does everyone else think?

I Am An Armchair Activist; Hear Me Roar

This post was originally published in The Platform

I dislike the label ‘activist’, armchair or otherwise. To be defined as an activist is to be defined by the inactivity of others. Armchair activism, as I see it, is a constant struggle against (to paraphrase Milton Freidman) ‘the tyranny of the status quo’; that dread inertia that prevents people at large from forming the critical mass required to propel decisive solutions to social issues that affect them all.

Armchair activism is different in nature from ‘on-the-ground’ activists who have a gamut of other responsibilities, like standing in front of tanks and bulldozers should the need arise. (Raashid Riza has an excellent post on contemporary activism, armchair activism and cynics of all forms in the light of recent events here.) Armchair activists are more specifically involved in spreading the word in the domain of public opinion – they are in the fight against ignorance, cynicism and apathy.

The goal of the armchair activist, conscious or otherwise, is to convince OTHER people of the need for altruism and moral consideration. Theirs is a sustained effort at tipping the balance of this inertia, at creating that critical mass. Social media has contributed to a phenomenal rise in armchair activism. The ability to influence public opinion is now at our very fingertips.

But armchair activists are rendered outcasts in an environment still dominated by  the primary tyrannical force, materialism. Materialism breeds selfishness, and selfishness is protected by cynicism. Cynicism denies responsibility for the actions of others, even individuals the cynics themselves have elected into power. Cynics deny that one can make a difference, but know that many can. However they doubt that enough will overcome their own cynicism in order to join together convincingly, thus building a self fulfilling philosophy that makes selfishness always comfortably right.

This is played out in social networks, both real and virtual, everyday. People cannot understand why other people get all up in arms about things that happen thousands of miles away. These others can’t understand how some can idly sit by and look at pictures of kittens when not only kittens but children are being slaughtered indiscriminately ONLY a few thousand miles away. Vocal cynics resent being reminded of the latter. And say so. Scoffing at idealists is a popular pastime when idealists get active.

And then there is the silent majority, too caught up with its own affairs to even bother with vocalising its cynicism. To all of them, the ‘voice of the people’ is a myth. Or if it exists, it only exists in order to elect the next American Idol, or president.

This disillusionment with the power of the ‘voice of the people’ is the primary source of conscious or unconscious ire for the armchair activist. Forever trying to influence and educate, shock and engage the public at large, armchair activists capitalise on critical events they see as having the ability to finally tip the majority in their favor. These are the times when they get really active, because to them it is all about critical mass.

And they help. Public outrage in the wake of Israel’s illegal Operation Pillar of Cloud helped accelerate the ceasefire agreement; public outrage at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill sparked investigations debating BP’s drilling practices, the risks of oil spills and key environmental issues in general. But have they done enough? I’d say no. The underlying causes of these issues remain, ready to burst forth in some new form of violence in the future. Change more radical than this would need to happen for a permanent solution, the kind of solutions that all activists, everywhere, ardently hope for.

But, unfortunate as it may be, this kind of critical mass manifests only when a major crisis is imminent. Only when the disease spreads to the very foundations of the materialism that breeds the cynicism, that breeds the apathy of public opinion, will the majority awaken from its inertia. But when this does happen, to paraphrase Friedman again, their actions will depend on the ideas that are ‘lying around’, the discourses, social infrastructure, alternative policies and theories of change that have been kept alive by activists of all kinds, waiting until the ‘impossible’ becomes the ‘inevitable’.

This is probably why activism and armchair activism appear futile in the short term and only superficially effective in the medium term. For long lasting change to occur, whatever that may mean, the efforts of activists are not enough.  It takes the efforts of non-activists as well, in the process converting everyone into someone who acts, removing the need to define what an ‘activist’ is altogether.

How Can Sri Lanka Grow?

What Growth is Good Growth?

Standard Chartered’s 2010 report titled ‘The 7% Club’, examined how merging nations can achieve sustained 7% growth levels. Any economy growing at 7% a year on average stands to double its economy in roughly ten years. And if your domestic economic mix is good enough to hit 7% on a sustained basis, you’re on the path to the big time.

Since the second world war, all countries known for outstandingly rapid development like China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have recorded growth levels of 7% or more for 25 years. Botswana and Vietnam have growth at 7% for more than 15 years.

Before we start slavering at the prospect let’s start by looking at how Sri Lanka can get this ‘mix’ right. There are four ways an emerging market can reach growth levels of 7%, based on historical evidence.

One is through a commodity boom, Angolia, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan are examples of countries that joined the 7% club this way. But reliance on commodity exports can often cause negative effects on other parts of the economy. Although rumors that Sri Lanka could hit oil next year are beginning to excite certain circles, the discovery of oil could just as easily become a curse as a blessing if it is badly managed (and similar experiences in other countries, most famously in Africa, show that it doesn’t really take much to badly manage a resource windfall).

The other is through a ‘Recovery Bounce‘.Basically coming off a ‘low base’ from a very bad situation. Take Sri Lanka’s growth over the last two years; above 8%. That was a recovery bounce. Emerging solely from the end of the war, increased optimism in investment and productivity gains from the North and East. However, that kind of growth is largely a thing of the past. Most predictions put Sri Lanka’s growth in 2012 around the 6-7% mark, our ‘Recovery Bounce’ might keep us afloat for a little while longer, but unless we enact the measures needed for serious sustained growth, it’s only going to be a temporary bubble.

That brings us to the next two methods of growth,‘Overheating Booms’ are purely debt and spending driven nightmares, guaranteed to crash and burn and bring about Apocalypse Now.

However, what Sri Lanka can aim for is a model based on ‘Industrialization oriented for exports‘. That is, fast growth based on mobilizing savings towards manufacturing and exports. The idea is to start off with basic products and then gradually move up the value chain. At the high end of the value chain you have industries like electronics, shipbuilding and cars. Japan, the Asian Tigers and more recently China and Vietnam have followed this model with great success. But Sri Lanka’s manufacturing share of GDP is just 16% and the sector is plagued by high protectionism, dominant State Owned Enterprises and ranks behind regional competitors in ‘technological readiness’ for FDI and technology transfer.

How Does Sri Lanka Get There?

Standard Chartered’s October 2012 report ‘Economic Reform: The Unfinished Agenda’ highlights a few key areas for Sri Lanka to improve on. However, it’s rather positive on Sri Lanka’s reform trend so far and actually says that with speedier reform Sri Lanka will grow at 8%, as opposed to the 7% growth it is already forecasting for us.

A lot of this has to do with a stable government. Say what you like about the autocracy of the Rajapakse’s, but they’ve bought one thing that Sri Lanka has been lacking for ages; political stability. By effectively converting the Sri Lankan government from a faux public owned entity to a privately owned entity it is setting itself up for the long term. And so is less likely to use up current resources at the expense of their long term benefit. And hopefully, its degree of economic exploitation will tend to be much less than that displayed by the several short termist Sri Lankan governments seen over the few decades after the war.

Though Sri Lanka’s economy continues towards greater freedom (Sri Lanka is the 97th freest out of 179 countries) taxation (both rates and regulation), inflation, bureaucracy, transparency and policy instability, corruption, lack of sufficient infrastructure, access to financing and labor issues are still a major problem. The government is making clear progress on some of these issues, but is stagnant on others.

Anyway, we still have a few worrying areas to fix. The primary factor is trade and domestic investments. Trade has been on a declining trend as a share of GDP and domestic investments which are at roughly 29% need to increase to at least 35%. The biggest hindrance here is high state involvement in the business sector, painstaking bureaucracy and corruption is turning away many domestic and foreign investors who would otherwise be contributing to long term growth.

Though Sri Lanka’s economy continues towards greater freedom (Sri Lanka is the 97th freest out of 179 countries) taxation (both rates and regulation), inflation, bureaucracy, transparency and policy instability, corruption, lack of sufficient infrastructure, access to financing and labor issues are still a major problem. The government is making clear progress on some of these issues, but is stagnant on others.

How the government approaches these problems in the next few years will be key in determining Sri Lanka’s growth.

#Firstworldproblems (Are Not Problems)

Water Is Life is carrying out a play on a twitter hashtag that is usually considered to be satirical. #firstworldproblems tweets are usually self effacing guilty admissions of how people have it so good but they still complain.

Water is Life however have voted to take it seriously. I don’t whether on purpose or not. Their campaign features poor kids complaining of how much they hate it when their leather seats don’t heat up, when they leave their dirty clothes lying around for so long that they stink, or when they say no pickles but they still get pickles.

The whole effect is quite jarring. I don’t know how many first worlders would donate after seeing it though, especially those first worlders who might have at some point tweeted something with the hash #firstworldproblems, who might be a little too guilt tripped to look at it with any favor. Apparently some think it in bad taste. But perhaps not as bad as the tweets themselves, which, taken in context of what people have to go through in Haiti and other places like it, can seem downright cruel.

Supporting Pakistan in Sri Lanka (Cricket and ID Politics)

Nice guy Pakistan fan at Pallekale

Halaal Sri Lanka tweeted the below this morning. The ACJU already sent what i think is a mass SMS via dialog saying the same.

Muslims are requested to avoid deliberate support/overjoy in today’s match arousing the feeling of hatred among our Sri Lankan brothers-ACJU

— HALAAL Sri Lanka (@HalaalSL) October 4, 2012

Interesting. I think the ACJU message was a little blunt and slightly tactless. But in the context of the recent protests i suppose they rightly thought to quell any antagonistic behavior from more disruptive elements that work not out of any loyalty to the Prophet (peace be upon him) or Islam but for their own/inciteful reasons. So maybe we should applaud the ACJU for taking the initiative, but also one wonders if they couldn’t have done it in a more subtle manner. Indi has a post on it here.

As for why some Muslims in Sri Lanka support Pakistan over Sri Lanka. Personally i don’t know. But i can make a few guesses. Number one it is pretty much the only Muslim country that plays cricket. And if you look at the Muslim psyche there is a strong affinity towards Islamic collectivism (since Islam in essence doesn’t subscribe to nation statism). But Muslims in Sri Lanka identify themselves both as this global community of Muslims as well as Sri Lankans.

When it comes to cricket, almost every Muslim i know, including me, will support Sri Lanka over Pakistan. But i have known some Muslims who have opted to support Pakistan. Most of them come from communities that are very tight knit and isolated. So i’ve known this to happen in certain parts of Panadura like Sarikkamulla. I’ve heard of open and defiant support for Pakistan being expressed in towns like Maradana, Thihariya etc. Or at least, i think i have. Some of these displays have been very in-your-face. Like crackers being lit etc. Not very nice.

Muslims openly supporting Pakistan, to me, is quite a dated phenomenon. If you were to ask me what i think, based on my experience, i would say that i used to be aware of this a lot more when i was younger. But as time progressed, especially after the ’96 world cup, a lot less Muslims supported Pakistan over Sri Lanka. So i think it also has something to do with having a strong team in Sri Lanka to support. If your national identity doesn’t work for you, you switch to the alternative. Its an easy way of finding a winning team to root for.

My enthusiasm for cricket also changes with the Sri Lankan team’s performance. Although I’ve never supported anyone against our team, after the world cup throw away i got so dejected that i didn’t really start showing any interest in cricket until Sri Lanka’s last two matches in the World T20. Let’s face it, our team has an uncanny knack of never failing to disappoint. At the most crucial moments. So much pain.

Anyway does Pakistan’s team even represent Islam? I don’t know. Most of them are Muslims that is true. But i don’t even always support Pakistan when they are playing against another team. Truth be told to me cricket is not about religion. Cricket is about cricket. Entirely a different thing. And honestly i think this is the case for most Sri Lankan Muslims. I was at Pallekale for the Pakistan-New Zealand match. I was supporting Pakistan. But there were hundreds of Muslims in the crowd from Kandy. And most of them were cheering for both teams. Some of them even only for new Zealand.

So i don’t know how sports here in Sri Lanka mixes with identity politics. Indi says that even Prabhakaran supported Sri Lanka, but then again did he really have a lot of reasons to support India? If Eelam became a reality would they be sending a team to the SLPL? One thing i have noticed though is antagonism viz India. So much hate for India. I wondered why and asked around. People apparently don’t like their team members’ ‘arrogance’. And there’s also the perception that India has been historically always interfering with Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.

Generally speaking though. Sports is a major outlet of dissent. Take Scottish soccer for example. So if there are elements supporting other teams against Sri Lanka, it’s probably prudent to check why these elements apparently feel so disenfranchised.

Nathan

I met Nathan on a bus bound for Hatton. Nathan lives in a shop at pettah. A hotel. He’s a career hotel worker. Having worked in Nawalapitiya. He now juggles three jobs in pettah in order to raise his kids of which he has four. He is also a karate master. Owns five cows. And farms a small patch of land of about 90 perches in Bogawantalawa. His pet peeve is hating on Muslim Tamil, he thinks we bastardized it. For example, our word for ‘eat’ is what real Tamil speakers use when feeding dogs. So when a group of Hindu priests from India arrived at his shop in Pettah and the Muslim waiter boy asked them if they want to ‘eat’ they looked at each other’s faces and got up and left.

On young men and the pitfalls of living ‘alone’…

Nathan gets up at 5am and starts work at his uncle’s hotel, making roti for about an hour or two. He gets free lodging there and also a salary of 1000 bucks a day for making rotty. I asked why he doesn’t get a proper room with some privacy. But apparently it costs too much. Like 10k. And also being alone. It’s not good for your head. Apparently you get all sorts of ideas. One young man who lived alone, he says this as if that young man was indulging in some extravagant luxury, started smoking ganja and got caught to the cops.

Lots of young men, fresh from the mountains so to speak, fall into various traps. Like women. One guy from Nuwaraeliya met a girl from Batticaloa and was ‘carrying on’ with her four about for years. Whereupon she left him with about four lakhs of his money. He got ‘mental’ and eventual drank ‘medicine’ which is probably weedicide. He didn’t succeed in killing himself but Nathan and others eventually returned him to his village. Four lakhs is a fortune. Four lakhs is four cows. But before I elaborate on the cows, another young man who met a girl from Anuradhapura while working as a waiter in a shop. She eventually stole a gold chain from him and left. All these girls are sluts, says Nathan. They are no good. They come to shops to eat, flirt with the waiters and ensnare them in their putrid honey traps.

On working in tea plantations…

But Nathan is self assured. He’s been through a lot and wears the experience like a generalissimo. Both his parents were estate workers but he refused follow in their footsteps. His wife works in the estate however and he says it isn’t that bad. You don’t get paid much. Rs 500 a day. But the estate gives you 10kg of flour for just Rs1000. There’s also a one time payment of 15k per child. They also cut a little bit for the Employee’s Provident Fund (EPF). The EPF is the best thing about the whole deal. At the end of a long lifetime if plucking tea, the worker can look forward to about 5 to 10 lakhs to retire with.

Cows…

I’m guessing some of his parents’ EPFs were used to buy Nathan’s cows. He has five. But minister Thondaman gave them two on an easy payment scheme. These cows aren’t like the ones in Colombo, they’re imported from Australia and can deliver about 20 liters of milk a day. His five cows earn him about 60000 a month. He has to spend about 20000 on punnakku. So 40000 is clean profit. A cow can typically give birth to 13 calves in its lifetime. So having a cow says Nathan is better than having gold. It earns and earns you money. So how can you even think of eating its flesh? A man who eats a cow’s heart and does so for six months will soon find his own heart getting bigger, too big for his chest. He will have trouble breathing and will have to go to a clinic. A cow is sacred. It is like a mother. Eating its flesh will make humans cows by nature. Cows are allowed to die in peace and are then buried. No such care is taken with bulls though. Male calves are allowed to grow upto full size and promptly sold to a butcher.

On surviving…

Nathan juggles his life between Pettah and Bogawantalawa. He has to do a lot of work in his small plantation. He has to cut grass to feed his cows. Which are kept locked up in a shed 24/7 because ‘that’s how you’re supposed to breed them’. Also cattle thieves are everywhere. In addition to this, his job making rotty in pettah Nathan also makes short eats. After his two hours of morning rotti making he grabs a bit of sleep and uses his uncle’s kitchen to make all sorts of short eats which he sells by about 3pm. Then once in every two days he does Nataami work which is hard labor lifting and carrying sacks of produce. Nataami work typically starts at 12 midnight and lasts for about 90 minutes. It’s not easy work, Nathan must be in his mid to late thirties. But you get paid about 1500 rupees. And you have four kids to raise.

He told me a horrible story about something that happened to his wife. Who he refers to as his Samsaram. She went last year to Saudi for work. And returned after one month and seven days. She lived in the third floor of a four story house with a family of three. The son was vey abusive and would touch and fondle her and cut her hair. She eventually escaped from her third story room by tearing her bedsheets into strips and using them as a rope to climb out of the window. Many housemaids return to Sri Lanka as corpses says Nathan. In the house his wife lived in a Sri Lankan girl had been killed previously.

and wrapping up with a conspiracy theory..

It is obvious that Nathan is well liked. Especially among the residents of the Gunasinghapura koreas where he lives. He likes to make fun of their Tamil and they return in kind. When his daughter attained puberty a whole load of them came to Bogawatalawa and he took them to see Siripada.

Nathan shares my ambivalence for bus music. Ok he fair well hates it. The only song he liked was the Hindi dam arey dam.

Oh yeah. Apparently in the US the authorities have imposed a new kind of ID. It is a microchip. They implant it in your arm if you’re a man, forehead if you’re a woman and at the top of your skull if you’re a child. They can track all of your movements and actions. He doesn’t seem quite clear on whether this is already happening or is still at some experimental stage. Anyway it’s somehow connected to the number 666 and 18digits like the barcodes you find in products everywhere. Somehow this long number will become the ‘last number in the world’ just before apocalypse hits. I didn’t get that bit either.