The strange case of the Humber dates

Picture by Sanjaya Senanayake

ප්‍රශ්න නැතිවට ප්‍රශ්ණ is an old famous Sinhalese saying. The creation of problems because of shortage of problems in other words. The mysterious case of the ‘Humber’ dates smacks of just this. Unearthed at Cargills, Sri Lanka’s largest supermarket chain’s, now apparently racist, shelves their presence was first alerted (to me at least) by the ever watchful Sanjaya Senanayake.

The word ‘Hamba’ or ‘හම්බ’ certainly smacks of a racist slur. It’s been used enough of times in recent hate campaigns by the Bodu Bala Sena and affiliated groups to bring it permanently out of the rather murky folds of history it had retreated to, giving way to the more civilized slur (if such a thing exists) ‘Thambiya’ (read my post on their origins here).

Anyway, after months and months of racism and hate speech against Muslims in Sri Lanka from a small but loud minority of extremists/jingoists, where we saw everything ranging from attacks against Halal certification, the hijab, animal slaughter, non-existent sharia laws and fictional terrorists in the East, things had finally seemed to subside. And now this happens.

It is not clear yet what form of contraceptives these dates carry, if any, and precisely what age group of Muslim girls’ wombs they threaten, of what bodily organs of Muslim children unlucky enough to eat them. But these darn Humber dates are threatening to inject a new wave of paranoia into what many was hoping were steadying race relations in Sri Lanka.

I jest of course, no one is claiming the Humber dates are lethal to a specific ethnic group yet (strangely enough, only No Limit has so far succeeded in developing confectionery with such precise targeting), but eyebrows are being raised, ears are being perked, there is something in the air again. Epic fail, subtle racism or attempted mass murder?

Vikalpa has tried to get to the bottom of it. But with no results.Their calls have been ignored, and aside from a single name, Cargills has so far been mum on the suppliers. Very strange indeed.

මේ බිහිසුනු බව නිසාවෙන්ම එම නිශ්පාදනය අලෙවි කරන කාගීල්ස් ෆුඩ් සීටී ප්‍රධාන කාර්යාලයට ඇමතු අතර පැයකට ආසන්න කාලයක් උත්සහ කළ මුත් සාධනීය ප්‍රතිචාරයක් අපට ලබා ගත හැකි වූයේ නැත. ‘රටගැන හිතන, ඔබ ගැන හිතන‘ වැනි අසිරිමත් ආදර්ශ පාඨයන් අසමින් දුරකතනය තුළ පැයකට ආසන්න කාලයක් රස්තියාදු කරමින් අපට ලබා දුන්නේ එම නිශ්පාදනය ෆුඩ් සිටී ආයතනයට ලබා දුන් තැනැත්තාගේ නම පමණය. නමුත් අප කල්පනා කරන්නේ වෙළද ආයතනයකට, එයට එහා ගිය, සමාජ වගකීමක් ද ඇති බවය.

For now i’m inclined to agree with Sanjaya and go with the ‘it was an epic fail’ conclusion, though Groundviews remains vigilant to alternative possibilities. For one thing the spellings, ‘Humber’ smacks more of an English Lord than a coastal Moor. The ‘er’ at the end brings it. A packager’s attempt at adding some refinement to the brand perhaps? completely failing due to a lack of cultural awareness and utter ignorance? Or a sinister attempt at a subtle disguise and fallback excuse? And Cargills hedging and dodging the matter could be a simple case of PR paralysis. Sri Lanka isn’t alien to those.

Sermons at the mosque, to me, are a good indicator of the levels of prranoia and fear among Muslims and consequently the intensity of the racism out there. When this whole thing started, it took a couple of months for the ulama to start talking about it in Friday sermons, advising and cautioning the community. Now with most of the extreme voices dying down, preaching is back to timely topics such as Ramadan and exhortations to be better Muslims.

people are still very raw and sensitive however, I hope this blows over soon. Ramadan kareem everyone. 

Azath Salley’s Arrest and the BBS ‘Distraction’

Azath Salley was arrested yesterday. One of the allegations made against him is making comments that incite religious hatred.  Azath Salley in recent months has built a reputation of of sorts of being pretty much the only Muslim politician with the courage to go up against the BBS in public.

This affidavit penned by the General Secretary and Leader of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne, gives a bit of broader context to what Salley was up to in the run up to his arrest. The NSSP, Salley’s NUA and several other parties were part of a “Movement for Unity with Power Sharing” with a mandate that involved tackling racism.

According to the Defense Ministry, Salley has apparently said that Muslims must start an armed struggle like the LTTE, and that they are actually ready and waiting to be armed. Salley is also suspected of having links with the LTTE. No evidence has been brought forth to prove these allegations as yet.

After some heavy drama where he was denied medical care and had to resort to a hunger strike he was admitted to hospital on Friday afternoon. Where his case will proceed is still not clear. Hopefully we will see a fair and transparent legal process. Anything else could be a serious setback to perceptions of government support for ethnic harmony.

But double standards are not nice. For instance, the Bodu Bala Sena has clearly engaged in hate speech and incitement of ethnic hatred. Yet the BBS has only been allowed to grow and prosper. They seem to have quietened down lately, and rumors of anti-BBS foreign pressure have been heard on the grapevine, but there is no telling if the BBS is now a thing of the past; a mere spike in the long line chart of public distractions giving away to the next (Duminda perhaps?); or in fact a sleeping dragon.

The BBS bias though, begins to make clear sense in the murky twilight of Sri Lanka’s realpolitik. Sinhala Buddhist supremacy is nothing new to the country. It has always been there and maybe it always will.

What is worrying to me is not that the government is responsible for unleashing the BBS, because that would imply that it was actually capable of controlling it. What is worrying is that the government, if those that allege that it is behind the BBS are right, is only trying to appease it. Because it plainly poses fatalistic threats to near term stability in Sri Lanka.

From an economic angle, Sri Lanka has a consistent savings to investment gap, so the only way to seriously grow the economy is to attract solid foreign direct investment (or to borrow, but that way lies disaster). But foreigners are notoriously sensitive to political instability; and ethnic strife along with human rights allegations, the Chief Justice fiasco and sudden price hikes just add to the list of cons when it comes to investing in Sri Lanka, especially given enough safer options in the region like the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia etc.

So the argument that this is merely another ‘distraction’ pre-supposes an extremely short-termist, even stupid government. Because for it to invent ethnic disharmony out of thin air as a distraction from a flagging economy, a tactic that can only worsen the economy’s prospects would be a very stupid thing indeed.

But I don’t think the Rajapakse’s are short termist, in fact, they could just be one of the most long termist entities in power we’ve had. But they are still playing a balancing act, despite their outward show of power. Mark Juergensmeyer has a few great passages on Sri Lanka in his “The New Religious State” (the whole of it is well worth read). This was written in ’95 but still sounds coldly relevant today.

The present rulers in Sri Lanka face the same dilemma as their predecessors: they need Sinhalese support, but they feel they can not go so far as to alienate the Tamils and other minority groups. They have been attacked viciously by Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists for attempting to achieve what might be impossible: a national entity that is both Buddhist and secular. The use of Buddhist symbols is meant to appeal to the Sinhalese, and the adoption of a secular political ideology is supposed to mollify everyone else.

With elections approaching and Sarath Fonseka back on the campaign trail, powers are converging against the status quo. To take Juergensmeyer’s view, this rise of extremist nationalist forces could be the Rajapakse’s first ‘attack’ at the hands of  “Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists” for trying to achieve a “national entity that is both Buddhist and secular”.

I still think that the Rajapakse model of government, while far from ‘good’, is the best we can have in our current context. We can help improve it, but if it is toppled we would probably descend into disarray. From a policy and historical perspective, and in line with examples of East Asian success stories, a ‘benevolent autocracy’ is probably the only model of government capable of giving Sri Lanka the stability it needs to grow in the longer term. Maybe what John Kotelawala said in 1974 is still largely relevant.

Sri Lanka is not ready for democracy. In a country like Sri Lanka democracy becomes government by bloody mugs and idiots.

But how benevolent is this autocracy? Evidence so far has proven that it can be quite belligerent and reactionary. But is that due to this balancing act, this need to keep all sides happy? And now, how autocratic is it? With movements like the BBS emerging, the stranglehold the Rs have on power is beginning to be questioned as well.

Sri Lankan Islamophobia: Encroaching the Mainstream?

In this Daily News article penned by one Shenali Waduge on Muslims in Sri Lanka and why Buddhists should be scared of their ‘encroachment’, she displays a high level of confusion, connecting disparate events in the Muslim world (fabricating where it suits her), taking them out of context and then applying them to Sri Lanka.

Particularly absurd is her apparently iron clad statistical theory of Muslim’s 4 phased strategic and collective effort to ‘take over’ the locality, wherever they are, and install an Islamic ‘theocracy’ whatever that may mean.

Ms. Waduge, I WISH the Muslim community was as united as you appear to think it is. Even if you appear to think that such unity is always used for nefarious aims. I WISH our leaders were half as focused on the problems affecting the community as you appear to allude. At least you seem to have more faith in their selflessness that I.

While she appears to think that Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf States are synonymous with Muslims everywhere in the world, as if they are the ideal representation of what Sharia law and collective Muslim life is like, when it suits her, she likes to equate all of us with ‘extremist terrorists’, taking an about turn, since most of these ‘extremists’ are extremely anti-Saud. I wish she’d make up her mind.

She also doesn’t seem to have heard of a little event they call the Arab Spring where millions of Muslims stood up to depose tyrannical rulers, oppressing them since their so-called independence from the West. There’s a lot of dissent against existing rule in Gulf States too, but this writer doesn’t seem too interested in specifics, sweeping generalizations are her forte.

Around 1400 people have liked it on Facebook. And at least two of them are people I actually know. This is almost as hard to stomach as the fact that this bit of rubbish journalism was actually published in the Daily News. Which, while not exactly a journalistic stalwart, is significant in its position as the closest thing we have to a state sanctioned English language newspaper; are we to assume that this anti-Muslim vitriol is also state sanctioned? Or at the very least published with the assurance that no one up there is going to seriously mind?

The Daily News is legitimizing this garbage by publishing it. Is this is a glimpse of the next wave of erosion in Sri Lanka’s print media, heralding the advent of anti-Muslim sentiment from the underground world of pithy Facebook groups and into the edges of the mainstream? Stuff like this is dangerous, when you have a climate of growing social unrest. People susceptible to hate are not going to verify things that confirm their bias, especially when it’s published in a leading newspaper.

Conspiracy theories that gain a widespread following don’t just pop out of nowhere. If anti-Muslim sentiment finds an ever broadening audience it’s because it actually perceives what it takes to be a very real indication of ‘Muslim supremacy’ happening in society. But this can be based on misinformation and bias.

I was chatting to Indi about this, and he talks about this a little in his post as well. He thinks Muslims have increasingly appeared to distance themselves from the rest of Sri Lanka. Case in point the niqab or the veil.

While I sympathize with his argument; I do think that without the veil’s modern connotations (a misconceived notion that it symbolizes gender abuse, repression and Islamic extremism) it would have been much easier for people to accept it as a personal choice of consenting individuals in society. Indi to his credit, doesn’t think this warrants racism against Muslims.

Halal food does not mean that some secret chemical compound is inserted into all items certified Halal in some underground plant in the Empty Quarter (although admittedly this would make for excellent dystopic fiction). Halal just applies to the way food is prepared, according to certain standards of religious guidelines which include hygene and ethics.

Paying to obtain the Halal certificate is a decision purely based on choice and the profit motive. No one is compelling anyone to eat Halal. There’s plenty of non-Halal choice out there. No one is shoving Halal meat down feebly protesting throats.

Quite the contrary to what Ms. Waduge states, non-Muslims have full legal rights in Sharia courts by Islamic law. In fact, just consider that in the UK, non-Muslims are also turning to Sharia courts to settle some disputes in certain cases. If anything, it is a parallel system of law, and does not contradict the integrity of the country’s main legal system in any way.

In Sri Lanka, Sharia courts are merely a legal support structure for the Muslim community. There are no widespread plans to convert everyone to Islam and forcibly make them accept sharia law. And neither is here any such thing happening in France, England or anywhere else with a minority Muslim population.

To dissect the full scale of half truths, convolutions, blatant fabrications and outright lies in Ms Waduge’s article would take reams of text, and the question arises if it is actually worth refuting, as most of what she says in my eyes reeks of hate-speech and blatant fabrication, hardly the sign of a person looking openly for honest feedback. But if anything, it’s a good place to go for to get a gist of the prevalent misconceptions that are driving this new wave of Sri Lankan Islamophobia.

To My Sinhala Friends

For minorities to know their place in this country all they have to do is to look at its national flag. Here’s a picture. There are the minorities colored in green and orange, and the Sinhala have a big patch of red.. Hey that’s fine, proportional representation ain’t no crime, but what’s that there in the red patch? is that… A lion? wielding a drawn sword..? Roaring in the general direction of the minorities? Keep out, its saying. This is my turf I’ve pissed all over it, one foot where it doesn’t belong and you’ll soon be ingesting several feet of sword.

No matter.. Minorities here know their place. The Muslims especially have always known their place. In Sri Lanka it seems to me that it is patriotism that is the opiate of the masses. and the Middle classes the biggest consumers. The rich are too busy getting richer, the poor are too busy being poor, but the middle class is upwardly mobile.. Asiff Hussein the anthropologist mentioned this in passing once and the thought has been running around in my head and gelatinizing and taking shape.

The middle class want wealth, the politicians and oligarchs steal that wealth and direct middle class anger towards the Muslims. It’s a classic strategy. Take the USA that stronghold of democratic justice, despite all the problems its people face what do they argue about the most come election time? Gay marriage, abortion and yeah, Muslims. Everything else is secondary. The whole political-media mechanism gears itself around these issues and the people are nicely distracted from the real issues. The wars the corporate abuse the widening wealth gap.

The war here is done.. The upwardly mobile middle classes are hungry, educated and success has been long in coming and now they won’t let anything stop them. They’re really starting to chew on what’s stopping them but it would be disastrous if they start chewing on how their leaders are screwing them out of so much money and opportunity.. So the Muslims, probably the most peace loving people in this country are painted black.

Easy job right? global propaganda is already helping them along. All they need to do is translate books of Ayaan Hirsi Ali or of some incident of barbaric cruelty perpetrated against a woman that has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam and sell them on the pavements of Nugegoda. All that needs to be done is to channel the appropriate funds to bhikkus and organizations willing to sell their souls and you’ve got a racist ‘movement’ that operates in increasing legitimacy.

Facebook statuses I see, pictures being shared around by educated Sinhala youth, sometimes even my direct friends and people I like and who I think like me.. They are all wasting their youthful exuberance. Muslims aren’t the enemy. Muslims in Sri Lanka have made it a habit of living off local prosperity. If you the majority aren’t rich then who will buy our goods? We’ve never had any political ambitions that threaten your sovereignty. If you prosper, we prosper and vice versa. In the past we both prospered by working together against the Portuguese, Dutch and English. Crack open a history book, a real history book, not the one you get from school.

Something is sucking your energy, young people here have always been activists, always headstrong and now something is trying to make you blind. The drug that does it is patriotism, in a context far removed from any form of economic prosperity, which is to say a bastardized form of patriotism. You are blind to the social injustice around you.. That effects you everyday. That shuts you out and closes the door; that invisible barrier beyond which true power and wealth lies in this country.

So wake up and smell the plain tea… It’s got a coating of grime on it called patriotism, but actually it’s just trickery.

The Great No Limit Toffee Genocide of the Sinhalese

Is already underway. As we speak hundreds upon hundreds of unsuspecting Sinhala shoppers are being innocently handed colorfully wrapped pieces of candy. Pieces of candy which, when consumed, will abruptly abort the fetuses of any Sinhala women unfortunate enough to be pregnant at the time and destroy  the kidneys (and all other organs) of any Sinhala kids unfortunate enough to try it.

And why is No limit on this despicable rampage to annihilate its biggest market? Well it seems that its all a part a wider Muslim agenda to secure dominance in the island. This is not the first time the clothing chain has exhibited such impertinence. Sometime back they had the gall to actually give Sinhalese customers (who keep them fed and yes, even clothed) free calendars callously (unbelievably!) printed in certain areas with actual Arabic script. Sacrilege! These people are obviously capable of and bent upon mass murder.

The secret ingredient (which is printed boldly right there on the wrapper, the devils!) that causes all this carnage is Malic Acid E296. Now don’t be fooled by the fact that nowhere in the internet does it indicate that Malic Acid E296 is bad for human consumption. The internet is also owned by the Muslims. This is all just a part of their grand, diabolical scheme to kill every non-Muslim in the world.

So what must patriotic Sinhalese do in this festive season? Why, stop digging the graves of your own race of course! Buy clothes from Sinhala business, its for the good of your children, the good of your unborn fetuses and the good of your country and race. Yes come give US all your money instead of those Muslim traitors. At least this way it stays within the family. Who cares if the actual clothes are imported from Pakistan?

*saw this pic doing the rounds on FB, I’m just having a laugh. Whoever created it had a pretty low estimate of the average intelligence level of your standard Sri Lankan Facebooker. But more scarily, judging by the exposure its getting, was that estimate correct?

#OccupyEducation

Student loans are crippling Americans. Education in the US is expensive because education is privatized, not that community colleges with cheaper education don’t exist. But the better jobs and opportunities go to students from more expensive universities because the perception is that these universities are somehow better.

Students will do almost anything to get into an ‘Ivy League’ or equivalent school. But this is only possible if either you are extremely brainy or extremely rich, therefore this creates a very nice balance where the extremely rich students subsidize the extremely brainy. It’s a free rider problem, but here both sides seem to be profiting. However Newton has laws, and there is no free lunch, so who loses? All we have to do to figure that one out is to follow the money.

The losers are the students who are not exactly brilliant but not exactly stupid. They are not exactly rich but not exactly poor. They are the horde, the majority, the bourgeoisie, destined to always be spectators, playing second fiddle. They are the people on the bench, the water boys and girls, always waiting for their big break. 

Never is this divide more apparent that when an economy is suffering. A rise in unemployment always sees the underprivileged suffer more. Even at the best of times the elite get the best jobs and the rest get what is left. The difference is that ‘what is left’ is usually enough to keep people happy, because a superpower like the US inevitably feeds off the rest of the world and therefore even its less fortunate are more fortunate than most of the fortunate elsewhere.

But in a recession the skeletal body of the economy is not fleshy enough to feed them all, and this is when the, wait for it, seedy underbelly of the education system exposes itself. The brainy and rich always have a way out, more or less. The rest however, gather at Zuccotti Park, ‘Occupying Wall Street’.

Modern capitalism, like a column by David Kristjanson-Gural put so nicely, is simply a system where wealth perpetuates wealth. It was George Bernard Shaw who said “all professions are a conspiracy against the laity” and this is just as true today as it was then.

The Corporatocracy own the universities and ultimately use them as breeding grounds for employable people, and the next generation of greedy elites. The system shuts out all thought that is hostile to it and reduces all dissenters to bar room intellectuals or doomsday prophets, devoid of money and success and therefore effectively devoid of influence.

And so students are hell bent on acquiring the best education (read university) possible. The vast majority who isn’t super smart or super rich proceed to take massive loans. They are then stuck with these loans for years and years after they start working and consequently can’t afford independent thought. Disillusionment with the system is effectively controlled because they all need to keep working for the corporates in order to keep the loan sharks from their door.

They refinance their debt and gradually graduate to bigger loans as they buy houses and cars. All the while slaving away in a materialistic haze that helps perpetuate their illusion of success, shutting out all metaphysical, spiritual and introspective thought, digging themselves deeper into a meaningless life, supporting war efforts and giving their implicit approval for their forces to kill thousands of unarmed civilians worldwide. This state of affairs is also loosely known as the American dream.

The Occupy Wall Street protests were a brief uprising of the laity. It was entertained as grownups entertain the tantrums of toddlers. Now the harsh winters and pepper spraying police have driven the toddlers back inside, and will hopefully turn them into good little robots again as the Corporatocracy, Israel and America prepare for yet another war, starting by antagonizing Iran, and there is nothing like a war to keep the internal peace.

Are Grease Yakas An Excuse To Militarize?

Military flexing muscles in post-trouble Puttalam

Is the president really in need of several pints of blood of people who don’t eat pork? Are people in specific districts of Sri Lanka undergoing simultaneous mass hallucinations possibly brought on by the collective effects of coastal winds, fasting and being of a particular ethno religious persuasion?

Like the beggar killings, we might never know for sure. Anyone remember the beggar killings? No. Poor souls.

Excuse or no, grease yakas have resulted in increasingly militarized coastal districts. People there have no love for the armed forces, rather they’d just like the police to buck up and start acting like the police thank you very much. Instead, fear and public unrest have had the undesired effect of increasing the presence of the army in these locations.

Grease yakas themselves, though widely pooh poohed as a ‘myth’, are no lie. The people I’ve spoken to and the consistent fantastic facts that keep popping up from different parts of the country testify to this; spring boots, Wolverine like claws, slippery black clothes, high athleticism etc. They are also silent and operate solely to scare, actual injuries having been caused by them being kept to a minimum. Separate incidents from all the districts in the country have produced witness accounts that corroborate with some, or all of these details.

Mauled. His jaw is broken and due for operation

Last week I spoke to a man that fought a grease yaka. He was overwhelmed when the guy he was fighting was joined by two others, and heavily injured.

Like all scary myths involving creatures that draw blood, the GYs come out at night. They target women, and seem to love targeting Muslim women in particular. Perhaps because it is ramadan and they assume that the men of the house must have gone to the mosque, or that breaking fast would have left the people lazy and less inclined or capable of prolonged chase.

Like all good fear mongering tactics, the damage that the greased yakas have caused have been perpetrated purely by enraged crowds and retaliating armed forces. No evidence of foul play. No greasy fingerprints on dead civilians or cops. All that remains of the actual cuprit are stories of shadows that sound slightly ridiculous in the daytime and a clinging fear that has spread like well, greased lightning.

The cops are free to call the people crazy, and the people are free to go berserk with fear and because no one seems to believe them. The people protest, the forces retaliate, someone dies, military presence is increased to provide ‘more security’. This has been a repeating cycle.

The army gets more excuses to set up checkpoints and continue wielding weapons at poor people.; controlling and monitoring their movements. This is not especially strange to the people of these areas, and they’re generally OK with this, having suffered more during the war. Emergency law is more a concern of the international community and liberal intelligentsia in Colombo, these people just want to be left alone, to live in peace.

Ironically though, they are smack dab in the middle of a geopolitical conflict, and are now pawns. Pawns must die. Unrest here serves the purpose of sending a powerful message, that of the continued need for Control. Emergency has now been removed, but that could just be legislative lip service. The army can’t all start cleaning the roadsides.

Meanwhile, Colombo laughs, is slightly shocked, morbidly fascinated and engrossed in cricket by turns, avidly ignoring the steady uptick of taxation and the Colombo Consumer Price Index.

It’s a zero sum game. But who is winning?

Sri Lanka plays hardball with IMF

Sri Lanka will not accept any conditions on a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the island’s president has said.

“We will not pawn or sell our motherland to obtain any monetary aid,” said Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Sri Lankan government is in talks with the IMF about a $1.9bn (£1.4bn) loan to help combat the economic downturn and pay for reconstruction.

The IMF usually insists on conditions for any emergency loans.

No forced measures

These involve taking steps such as cutting public spending or raising interest rates.

But Sri Lanka has made it clear…. (more at BBC)

Hmmm.. no  I have not got many thoughts there. As of late the West seems to have simpered a bit to the war efforts and have indicated a lot more support than they used to. With Hillary Clinton’s call to the president and her supposed ‘support extended with regard to the ‘humanitarian improvements’ and the elimination of terrorism etc. I still have the Derana News Alert on my phone.

Except she didn’t. Well she did call him but internet news reports seem to deny the fact that she had anything good to say, while some others agree a little more with the Temple Trees version of the tale. This phone conversation and what was really said and implied could play a big role on our future relations with the West and entities such as the IMF and World Bank.

SL is very much an import dependent economy for many of its basic essentials and therefore foreign help in terms of loans, exports tariffs, trade deals etc are essential to its survival. And these rarely come completely devoid of conditions. It seems in a polarized world, the only way to maintain true independence is to have a completely closed economy or be the strongest player around. Since we’re nothing of either, it looks as if we will have to go through some changes based on the whims of others soon enough.

But obviously, the government will not make it look like they were ‘conditions’ when they implement them in the economy oh no. And since we seem to have pretty much of a dormant opposition it looks like the real news of what is going to happen in the in the future may not be too clear till months later. By which time it’ll be too late to do anything about it. Not that anything much could be done about it anyway. But at least we’ll know.

Big Brother

The Island wants you to live! Linc, The Company is after your son! Hiro, the virus! It was unleashed in the future by The Company. You need to save the bloody world. Again.

The Big Brother is watching you. Wiretapping is scary…they are LISTENING!!!

Damn. What is this thing about popular culture that simply ices your testicles? Or at least my testicles cos ‘The Company’ (pronounced with full emphasis on the capitals and the inverted commas) is all I’ve been hearing about lately. ‘The Company’ is unleashing a virus, ‘The Company’ wants you dead. I mean, ‘Lost’ is a Robinson Crusoe-esque shipwreck (ok, planewreck if you will) story and it turns out that the very island they are stranded on has got a hidden agenda, and uses all the stranded people as pawns to achieve its goals. I’m talking about an Island here. I mean it’s an inanimate object.

I don’t know exactly why, but the notion that there is a higher unseen entity controlling your every move and attaching strings to you every way you turn, has reached a level of mainstream popularity that to me is quite novel. Think about it, not so long ago it was only the stoners, the UFO people, and my A/L english master who waxed lyrical about ‘hidden agendas’, things that are ‘not what they seem’ and ‘they have got you fooled’ etc.

I was, and am one of those people mind you, no not a stoner or an english master. Well correction, not always a stoner, and as for the UFO’s well, all I can say is that i believe in the possibilityof aliens existing. Another post on that maybe  But i’ve always been a conspiracy nut. If being intrigued by a possible conspiracy makes me a nut.

Someone once told me that the American people were being ‘prepared’ for a black president. He was of course referring to the black president seen in the first season of 24. This post 9/11 trash TV show if you ask me. The first season was great and Elisha Cuthbert was hot but then the whole thing got boring. Kind of noticed that the black president disappeared rather quickly in the following seasons too, I don’t know, maybe Obama should watch out.

‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ is a great book. And a must read for all you ‘Company’ skeptics and fanatics out there. It sets out the true story of an ‘Economic Hitman’ working for big corporations involved in exploiting mainly third world/developing counties. Read that, and you’ll get some good insight into how the whole thing worked (this mainly concerns the mid to latter decades of the 20th century), and possibly get an inkling as to how modern mega-powerful corporate interests work too.

Popular culture reflects general sentiment among the larger public. So this is really where Wall Street meets Main Street, inside people’s minds. People are increasingly suspicious about big organizations and corporate interests controlling goverments and are increasingly wondering how much privacy and control they really have in their lives. Obama is popular in the polls and Obama is the one promising to cut down the power of Big Organizations. The world is caught in a Big Brother frenzy.

All that of course is primarily in the Western world right? You may ask or you may not. Here is SL, we peacefully navigate our ways through the occasional military checkpoint and avoid the occasional drunk driving rap by refusing to ‘blow the balloon’ and casually slipping the ‘ralahami’ a few hundred bucks. But nevertheless, we too are caught up in the whole global corporate game. Just how do we think we are funding our war? Just how do you think those politicos are getting their filthy hands on billions of dollars? This money has got to come from somewhere right? And the people giving it to us obviously know we are not going to pay them back. So what have they already reserved as collateral? Our natural resources? Our UN votes? Its anyone’s guess. Existing governments can simply sell the country’s soul to the devil (read, The Company) and temporarily live it up and then transfer the debris of their spoils on to the poor chaps who come into power next (who will probably in turn carry on with the grand traditions of the first) but I digress.

So has capitalism fuelled this and presented to us a world where governments are mere pawns on a chessboard ruled by the multinationals? I don’t know, I haven’t found out yet, I’m still waiting for Lost Season 5, and the rest of Heroes season 3 and Prison Break 4.