By Emil van der Poorten –
Emil van der Poorten
If this week’s diatribe drifts beyond the matter of hypocrisy, pure and simple, I make no apology for such a transgression because what we see on a daily basis and which is destroying the fabric of this country is a discourse that begins with hypocrisy at its simplest level and descends into lies and fabrication without missing a beat. As that corny old song had it, in Sri Lanka, it seems “You can’t have one without the other!”
It seems like the self-righteousness of local “Pundits in Defence of the Regime (PiDotR)” has not yet reached its shrill crescendo in playing to the naivete of its audience, advancing the most outlandish accusations against any individual or country even vaguely critical of Sri Lanka. The bedrock of their arguments appears to be the fact that in advancing any principle even vaguely associated with morality or ethics, those doing so, if they have any skeletons in their cupboards, are guilty of that most heinous of sins: hypocrisy. Mind you, this principle is applied very selectively. What the USSR did under Stalin and some of his successors or the huge brutality of Mao Zedong is not brought into this equation since Russia and the modern People’s Republic of China have now become financial fairy godparents to the rulers of our Land Like No Other. The reason for these alliances is very simple: neither Russia nor the PRC apply anything resembling conditions to the manner in which the largesse they dispense is utilized, making it open season for those waiting with open saurian jaws to gobble up whatever is on the gravy train. As long as the strategic needs of the donor nations are met, anything and everything is permissible at the Sri Lankan end. The fact is that there is really no requirement that the “aid” (which has to be paid back, often with commercial interest rates applied to it) being utilized for the purpose for which it is officially allocated. This is, literally, a godsend to the bandits parading as “governments” in the recipient nations. Sri Lanka, leave alone being an exception to that rule, appears to be leading the parade of pirates in that regard!
That the flag-bearers of “western civilization” have a great deal to answer for from the time that Columbus “discovered” a whole continent already populated with millions of aboriginal people speaking a plethora of languages with many of them operating within civilizations significantly more advanced than those that produced their “discoverers” is beyond argument of any kind. However, let’s be upfront about this business: just because the USA or Great Britain or France or Kuomintang China (or the old USSR) were responsible for behaviour that didn’t qualify as purer than the driven snow, did not make their prosecution of that most famous of genocidaires, Adolf Hitler, or Tojo and his government who visited unspeakable cruelty on the people they subjugated during World War II, or Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy any less appropriate. Incidentally, our local Hallelujah Chorus for the Russo-Chinese axis doesn’t miss a beat in talking about the former’s dedication to preventing the partition of a nation such as Sri Lanka while their defender is blithely chopping off pieces of Georgia as “autonomous regions,” and now simply annexing the Crimean peninsula of the Ukraine. Even India, despite its paternalistic attitude towards Sri Lanka, would hesitate to subject its little neighbor to such annexation! Given the absolute control of the media within Sri Lanka, either through blatantly repressive action or through the self-censorship of the remaining pitiful rump, this kind of 21st Century hypocrisy by the ”Friends of Rajapakistan” not only goes un-condemned, it goes basically unmentioned!
Given an opportunity without parallel in Sri Lankan history, to bring about national healing in a country which, even before the near-thirty years of armed conflict, had communal tensions simmering just below the surface, the government of this country has acted in what, in a historical sense, can be described as a totally moronic manner. In this it has had the able assistance of people who had academic credentials and were clever but, thanks to their monumentally corrupt and unprincipled mindset, have done that possibility even more damage than was imagined in the first blush of triumphalism post May 2009 and Nanthikadal. If you want an example of the difference between being wise and being clever, there it is. When one factors in the total lack of anything resembling a moral compass to that “cleverness,” the reason for this behavior is only too obvious. These sycophants, of varying Oxbridge or Ivy League accent, did, initially at least, an admirable job of obfuscation in defence of a regime that lied through its teeth. A prime example of this was the matter of civilian casualties during the latter stages of the war. The bludgeon of high volume and serious threat in tandem with the outpourings of this reprehensible bunch did work for a while. However, the effectiveness of this strategy diminished with the passage of time. The reason for this was very simple: it becomes increasingly difficult to cover an exponentially-expanding posterior with a shrinking hand! That hand has now been reduced to the status of a malnourished fig leaf, though it hasn’t stopped these valiant warriors from vigourously waving that pitiful shield in the effort to compensate for lack of area with not-so-deft movement!
In the matter of hypocrisy, let me make one final comment: is there anything more hypocritical that a government that practices terrorism as a basic part of its governance, on a day-to-day basis, doing so in the name of eradicating that very malady?
Whatever happens at the Human Rights Council’s deliberations in Geneva this month, the local end result will be the same: a veritable pogrom against any and all critics of this government either on the grounds that they are “enemies of the state,” or, in yet another bout of kiributh-eating trumped-up hysterical triumphalism, “teaching these b…s a lesson now that Geneva has let us off the hook.” In any event, the orchestrated publicity campaign, eerily reminiscent of that preceding the (foregone) culmination of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, requires an appropriate climax and this one promises to top anything in that field, even that usually associated with that particular term!
Truth Teller / March 16, 2014
There are many who keep trying the devious tactics of the international tribal collective on us.
We are not interested in the efforts of George Soros, Paul Wolfowitz or their paid operatives in securing our “human rights” as defined by them. We do not want them to “free” us from the so-called “oppression” of our local rulers.
We are perfectly happy to put up with any minor flows our rulers might have, and to develop our country so that we dont have to sell our culture and independence, and our harbours for foreign miliraty bases, just to survive.
Those who claim to hape superior morals can keep those to themselves and they shouldn’t even think of imposing those on our people. Their masters should be taught some morals first.
On your slander on Stalin, again, native Russians do not consider him the criminal your lot’s black propaganda has been trying to do for the last 70 or so years. Stalin just worked out the true composition of the Bolshevik movement and decided to address the problem.
All accusations of murder and ethnic cleansing are just black ropaganda the “international Bolsheviks” level against anyone who contest their approaches to overpower them. Any murderous dictator becomes ‘alright’ as far as they obey the dictates!
We end by saying “THOU SHALL NOT SUCCEED”.
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OutRider / March 16, 2014
Emil van der Poorten
Okay, the Sunday driver is back, and it is a no brainer who your intended interlocutors are. So let me go for it. Hey….tell me, have you ever written anything positive in your entire journalistic career? Were you always a curmudgeon? As I mentioned before, you are full of negativity and resentment. Now you’re also turning into an alarmist bordering on sedition. Last week you were instigating the great unwashed to take up trap guns. Now you are trying to create anarchy in our beloved land by predicting a dystopian scenario in the near future. I can understand your going haywire with the Geneva campaign almost certain to fizzle out …. sort of an anti-denouement. So it is ironic you talk about “climax” in your ultimate sentence betraying your allergy to seeing any celebration by ordinary rural people. This brings to my mind a marginal note we have in our file on you.
Hey Emil, it seems you used to frequent the (in)famous pet store run by one Mr.Buhary right across from Trinity on Trincomalee Street. Remember, it was right next to the Dosai Kaday, Luxmi Bhavan. It was an open secret among school boys in Kandy at the time that Mr.Buhary was a great connoisseur of Durians. Do you remember his pet tortoise?
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Emil van der Poorten / March 16, 2014
Outrider (and the rest of the hacks):
Would it cause a collective mental breakdown for you lot to deal with the issues? And if that happens would we be able to tell the difference?
Apropos Mr. Buhary (and his pet store?)I do recall some business establishments on Trincomalee Street which had rather unsavoury reputations for what allegedly happened in their back rooms and which most students avoided like the plague for that very reason. Unfortunately, since you appear to be one of those who frequented such places, it’s left to you to regale readers with what occurred within those establishments. If such goings-on are not too pornographic for reporting in CT, that is!
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K.A Sumanasekera / March 16, 2014
Poorten finally put out something which is relevant to the current situation in the country, although it is a sort of a fig leaf for the LTTE proxy Sambandan and his TNN outfit.
Hitler was killed long before the great majority of the Srilankan population were born.
German’s can’t even mention his name to date because the Americans and Jews wouldn’t allow them.
Terrorist Prabakaran’s followers not only now rule the whole of the Northern peninsula of Srilanka but they want a TNA Police Force and total rights to Govt land so that they can keep non Tamils away from the North..
And who are helping the LTTE proxies to achieve this racist segregation ?.
It is none other than Poorten’s idols who would;nt allow the German people to mention even Hitler’s name let alone build memorials and celebrate his birthday as Mahaveera Day..
Poorten has to get a cold shower and get his brain in to gear to see what the problems are if there are any and who is or are responsible for them?.
Ms Pillai on behalf of the Diaspora wants to know how Prabakran was killed , Not why he was killed. Right.
And Poorten’s lot, who now enjoy total freedom to enjoy their Western life styles are still not happy because the Govt wouldn’t bend over to Pillai . .
Wonder whether they still want to see ,Suicide Attacks, Roadside Bombs, and Mass Massacres of poor innocent Sinhala and Muslim villagers as part entertainment and mostly to keep them under control?..
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Emil van der Poorten / March 17, 2014
K.A. Sumanasekera:
Couldn’t resist drawing readers’ attention to your, “Hitler was killed long before the great majority of the Srilankan population were born. German’s can’t even mention his name to date because the Americans and Jews wouldn’t allow them.”
1.Just for the record: Hitler was NOT killed, he committed suicide.
2. Hitler has been discarded by the German generations that came, though not by the racist anti-semites to whom you very obviously pay Pooja.
3.Perhaps those who pay you to write this bilge will fund some Mahaveerar Day that you’d organize for Adolf. The circle will then be complete and you can, literally, put that Nazi Swastika back on your arm, rather than walk around imagining that it is already there!
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K.A Sumanasekera / March 18, 2014
Mr Poorten,
Hitler borrowed the Swasthika from the Brahamin Aryans, to show Europe that he was different to the Neanderthals..
It is sad that the poor Jews people copped the worst from Horrible Hitler, ‘
It is particularly so, as the Jewish people also have a long History and culture as same as the Sinhala Buddhists in Srilanka.
It is fact that the Sinhala Buddhists are closely related to the Aryans.But they have nothing to do with a Swasthika
Sinhala Buddhists were also subjected to some horrible treatment by the Neanderthals who started visiting our shore in the fifteen hundreds.
Those Neanderthals and their collaborators went about merrily marginalizing the Sinhala Buddhists, depriving them education and treating them like animals because they wouldn’t convert to Christianity.
This treatment continued even after the so called Independence,
And to top it off, the Sinhala Buddhists were bestowed with thirty years of Terrorism courtesy of the Aryans and the Neanderthals combined.
Now that the Sinhala Buddhists are trying to crawl back to gain some of their lost ground over 500 years,they are under attack again.
And guess what? .
It is none other than same Neanderthals and their collaborators , the same sweet combination as in the past.
But this time they have another collaborator brigade in the camp.
And it is non other than the Raja Raja Chola descendents, who gave us the three decades of Good Governance and absolutely perfect Human Rights.
And Mr Poorten is working his ass off to help them
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Emil van der Poorten / March 19, 2014
Sumanasekera:
You’d best stick to real estate, rather than delve into history, anthropology etc.
Like your buddy Adolf, every time you open your mouth, you display little but significant stupidity and malice. The swasthika was an Aryan or Buddhist symbol which Hitler, your idol, in his efforts to display the connection of Nazism to what he thought was a a symbol of racial purity got ass-backwards, the arms going clockwise rather and counter-clockwise as in the original!
Certainly reminiscent of your “logic” and intelligence!
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Spring Koha / March 17, 2014
The legendary pachydermatous hide of our politicians have saved them blushing cheeks as they go about their self-aggrandizement. As for our attraction to our latest new ‘best friends’ – we may not be pretty, we certainly are not rich, but we do have a vote in the forum that matters. That is why we are indulged in the parlours of new money. As for Geneva, you have called correctly; the ledger has been kept and, as certain as day follows the night, there will proper balancing when the final damage is known. Hypocrisy is seen throughout the global political class; in Sri Lanka, with some very rare exceptions, it runs rampant.
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ramona therese fernando / March 17, 2014
Too many Lankans of modest economic means cannot see beyond their own niche (nice modest house for several generations even if the floor is still has red polish, a servant or two, servant to sweep the garden, laid back job with salary not of much consequence as there’s no house mortgage, free public education, free hospitalization with servant to do the bedside cleaning, nice cosy relatives and cosy friends of same-set : typical of persons who are not the “Colombo-set” rich but live Lankan laid-back lives, rat-a-tat-tating to servants in colonial accented Sinhalese).
For goodness sake, can’t they see beyond the millions of the common Sinhala folk who live in desperation with no jobs, no houses, and future money mostly in terrible ME jobs (if they are not involved in the thieving and other shady professions), and looking up to the Gosl to help them live productive lives (common Tamil folk included). And the only way that could have been done was by getting rid of the terrorism other governments created.
I mean fellows of “our set” dislike the common Sinhala folk turning up their noses and quoting Mahavamsa rhetoric, and talking about their right to the land, and Govigama things. Tamil common folk on the other hand are truly low caste according to their Hindu culture, with all their elite out as the terrible diaspora. Tamil common lot is so very easy to deal with, and people in “our-set” are not intimidated at all by these complying common person Tamils. Big shot Sinhalese are revered of course, but most big shot Sinhalese will keep politely quiet to have peaceful relations with their class and circles, though some big-shot Sinhalese will attempt to justify their polite quietness yet knowing that it is so lame.
Out of the 16-million Sinhalese, 8 million or more are in this very poor condition. And those who are in a similar spoor condition in the Tamil population would be about 500,000. Surely the 16:1 ratio should tell you that the main component of Sri Lanka that needs to be helped is the Sinhalese population.
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ramona therese fernando / March 19, 2014
~correction : …..can’t they see beyond, *AND AT* the millions of the common Sinhala folk who live in desperation with no jobs, no houses, and future money mostly in terrible ME jobs…….
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Spring Koha / March 18, 2014
Dear Ramona, you’ve opened up a can of worms with this 16 to 1 ratio. I would just say that that is about the ratio of Tamil/Sinhalese on the boats trying to escape our miracle of Asia. The ratio screams out the resourcefulness of our Tamil brethren. The lackadaisical gene within our poor Sinhalese folk was identified a long ago when our colonial masters hit on the wacky idea of growing tea in our highland wilderness. God, how the suddha complained about the unwillingness of the Sinhalese to take the job opportunities going. In the end, it was the Indian Tamils who rallied to the call and helped in the development of our estates. That same rogue gene still keeps Banda tied to the village and dreams of a ‘nice’ job in government service with a guaranteed pension to take him through to nirvana. And, Ramona, you know what, it takes a brave soul to fault that!
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ramona therese fernando / March 18, 2014
Lame, Spring Koha……..just lame ! Blasted Suddhas wacked the daylights out of the privately owned properties of rural self-sustaining, ecologically-flawless, economically-sound, Buddhistic virtuous, market-gardening, farming-raising (sans for flesh), refined and cultured Lankan rural dwellers. They blazed and razed to the ground, centuries old legitimate property of the sovereignty of Lanka, and brought in Indian untouchables whose sole reason for life in Tail Nadu was to suffer ignominy whilst pondering their past life misdeeds. Their past-life-misdeeds seemed to have been atoned for quite a bit, for they were rounded up by the British with whips, and transported in chains as slaves to Lanka to work amongst beautiful tea estates (and their progeny have since moved up quite a number of evolutionary scales in the tea estates of Buddhist Lanka). Former respectable and contented traditional Lankan estate-owners thus became beggars overnight. Whole families roamed the streets of Colombo taking up any menial work that could hardly sustain them. For generations they have lived as such – in beggary, thieving, prostitution, and despair.
Thus forced to accept the modern Western system of commercial enterprise, Sri Lanka had no other way but to try, hail or shine, to reach up to the Western standard. If those lands had not been blazed and razed by the damned British for tea and rubber plantations, Lanka would have been a dignified nation moving quietly into the global order of the Western economy, and without the terrorism that plagued us for many a decade.
What the Gosl is doing therefore, is most appropriate and appreciated, given the historical context and emotional and corporeal turmoil Lanka has undergone for so, so long.
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Spring Koha / March 19, 2014
Ramona Theresa FERNANDO – I cannot fathom what your ancestors would make of your diatribe; delivered with the passion that comes from your Portuguese heritage. The living converted remnant of one colonial master haranguing the behaviour of another – so colourfully visualised, I almost imagined you were there. Here we are, two non-Brits, going hammer tongs at each other in the language of the long departed master. Quite surreal! Just one parting snippet of advice; don’t give up the day job.
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ramona therese fernando / March 19, 2014
Hey,…… I have a lot of Tamil and Sinhalese blood in me ok…….truly care, especially for Sinhala persons suffering poverty in their own natural land…..I speak on what is apparent to me……also have a great sorrow for the 12-million Dalits in Tamil Nadu.
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Emil van der Poorten / March 18, 2014
ramona therese fernando:
For someone who apparently seeks to champion rural (Sinhalese) people you do it in a rather strange way by referring to them as the dregs of the city streets, inclusive of calling them prostitutes!
There is a simple and accurate word to describe these blatant lies, fabrications and utterances of a diseased imagination and that word is “ABERRANT” in its most complete and absolute sense.
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ramona therese fernando / March 19, 2014
Emil van der Poorten, but 8-million Sinhalese persons are indeed that, for no fault of their own. Indeed, 8-million Sinhala persons are no longer referred to as rural Sinhala-persons. They have, for a long time, been referred to as scoundrels, hooligans, cut-throats, blaggards, and vassies. They permeate all towns and cities of our land. Yet in the midst of their miseries, they attempt to maintain normal family life- their pride and determination in themselves and their heritage can never be erased. They go to the ME and build up slowly. They still end up with little job-opportunity in Sri Lanka – class-division being too defined in Sri Lanka (very similar to caste system in India, but without the race and religious dimension as India has it).
What you call the wilderness that the British razed for tea plantations, was the habitats of these persons. They were not involved in commercial enterprise on their lands for to build up the assets for any higher power (of their own or foreign). Their lives were contented and sustainable lives of Buddhist virtue, that the British and those of capitalistic mindset (the neo-feudal form), couldn’t abide with, and were seen as useless, unproductive and uncivilized.
For Sri Lanka’s civilization at that time, while yet of Monarchs, was one of Buddhist socialism, environmental and ecological friendship, sustainable, and of equanimity and morality – such which the Western world has always aspired to, but could never quite fathom out those elusive and mysterious principles, qualities and virtues.
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