It is indeed a great privilege to pen some thoughts and emotions that ran through my mind on one of the momentous occasions which Lester James Peiris and his wife Sumithra commemorate yearly. Although I am no film critic in the strict sense of the word but I dare say that I am a devoted student of the arts, especially what is depicted on celluloid as Cinema. What Dr. Lester James Peiris achieved as a film director went beyond the celluloid culture of Sri Lanka. Lester James did a lot to change the Sinhala Cinema; he revolutionized it so that the following generations of cinema directors took note of his achievements and tried to imitate him although all, barring none, failed miserably.

No film director achieved the finesse and technical craft that Lester displayed in his films. The only two possible exceptions that deserve mention are Siri Goonasinghe of the Sath Samudura and Mahagama Sekera of Tun Mang Handiya fame. But both Goonasinghe and Sekera were already giants in another field, Sinhala poetry and lyrics and happened to follow Lester than precede him in the field of cinema. Ironically all three, Lester, Siri and Mahagama are supreme artists in the fields they chose although I personally would classify Mahagama Sekera as the “Ultimate Artist’ in Sri Lanka. That’s beside the point.

Lester’s revolution in the Sinhala Cinema originated with the film ‘Rekhawa’. What is even more astonishing was that Lester launched himself into a brand new field of arts when the so-called objective and subjective conditions were not ripe for that kind of revolution and that was vividly shown by the box-office performance of that film. When third-rate movies, carbon copies of South and North Indian popular cinema, were smashing box-office hits, Rekhawa was a total flop as a money-making venture. There alone resides the genius of Lester James Peiris, a man ahead of his time and a man destined to change those times.

To venture into such a challenging task, to accept all the stones and scorn that are hurled at him and yet carry on regardless, one must possess that inner strength and courage, that spirit that Jawaharlal Nehru described as unconquerable. In a sense, Lester had only four other equals and all of them dominated and revolutionized in their own way the fields that they chose to be in. They were: Ediriweera Sarachchandra in Sinhala Theatre and Drama, W D Amaradeva in Sinhala Music and Song, Joe Abeywickrema in Cinema Acting and Mahagama Sekera in Sinhala Poetry and Lyrics. Each of them reached the zenith in his own field and none of them had any equal to match him in that particular field. All, including Lester, created a revolution in the chosen sphere and generations followed them either to imitate them or to strive to equal them without much success at all.

The revolution that Lester created by the making of Rekhawa was immense in that, when all other films at the time were made inside the cozy environs of man-made studios, Lester took the camera to the location of the story and shot almost the entirety of the movie on location, making use of natural light, natural sounds and natural scenery. The galaxy of actors and actresses who were given exposure thanks mainly to Lester were D R Nanayakkara, Iranganie Serasinghe, Winston Serasinghe, Punya Heendeniya and even Gamini Fonseka who reached his pinnacle in acting in the Gam Peraliya movie in which he plays the role of Jinadasa to near perfection. D R Nanayakkara later produced one of the greatest pieces of acting in Sikuru Tharuwa and continued to play at least minor roles in most of the Lester movies.

However, Gam Peraliya stands as the single-most poetic cinema the Sinhala screen has produced. The only other cinematic production that could be compared to the poetic flow as well as splendid acting and sincere portrayal of villager life at whatever level was Sekera’s Tun Mang Handiya that revealed the innocence of folk life in Sri Lanka. Gam Peraliya not only captured the moving drama of a changing landscape while in Tun Mang Handiya, Sekera told a poetic saga through the rustic prism of a village hero and the most striking part of both these masterpieces is that neither made any attempt whatsoever at didacticism. Without trying to teach a lesson to society both film directors, Lester and Sekera drew a poetic drama on celluloid with humanism and folklore. Unlike most other books that were adapted to the screen, both movies, Gam Peraliya and Tun Mang Handiya added more value and credence to the stories told in the pages of the novels. Both movies would stand the test of time like some great films of the West in the genre of On the Waterfront, Godfather and Citizen Kane and closer to our heart, the Apur Trilogy of Satyajith Ray.

One other outstanding feature in the direction of Lester James Peiris was his masterly direction of the actors and actresses. Starting with Rekhawa’s D R Nanayakkara and Iranganie Serasinghe up to Punya Heendeniya in Gam Peraliya and Ran Salu, Tony Ranasinghe in Delovak Athara and Malini Fonseka in Nidhanaya, Lester extracted the best out of all these outstanding actors and actresses. Lester’s versatility is even more evident in direction of acting when one compares the somewhat mediocre acting performances of all these actors’ and actresses’ under different directors. Acting has two major components: facial expressions and dialogue delivery. Most of the good actors do considerably well in facial expressions but when they come to deliver the dialogues, their inadequacies become patently obvious. This is where, both Joe Abeywickrema and Punya Heendeniya excelled among many others. Let’s also not forget Henry Jayasena, Iranganie Serasinghe, Tony Ranasinghe and J B L Gunasekera, the first in Gam Peraliya and the latter three in Delovak Athara who stand out from the rest. One of the most moving frames that captured the intensity, poignancy and emotion of the moment is the one frame or a sequence of frames in Delovak Athara that depicted the confrontation between Nissanka and his parents on the real facts about the accident which eventually places Nissanka precariously between two worlds. All three actors, Tony, Iranganie and J B L made outstanding contributions in facial expressions and dialogue delivery that, taken as a whole, that sequence of frames would stand among the best ever in the Sinhala Cinema.

Lester also had the great advantage of having the pioneering services of Willie Blake in cinematography, Amaradeva and Khemadasa in music, Tissa Abeysekera in dialogue, Reggie Siriwardena in screenplay and his wife Sumithra in editing; truly a magnificent gallery of talent and skill- a dream-team of film-making. Examples and episodes are many but suffice it to say, that the Sinhala Cinema is richer today because such a one like Lester James Peiris decided to paint his masterpieces on its celluloid.

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“I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders.” – Leo Tolstoy

Ghosts from fifty five-years ago

The ghosts of the past, not from very distant one but from an era of exactly fifty five years ago, are invading our confused and troubled psyches that possessed our forlorn childhoods and kept haunting inside our souls. Those ghosts who manifested themselves in the form of nationalism at times

Bodu Bala Sena rally

and more often than not, of blind patriotism, have made a significant and decisive move in the twenty first century, the century of the internet and IPhones, of the 20/20 cricket and Lamborghini racing cars and of Super Stars and Mega Stars. While the wheels of modern scientific discoveries are turning and twisting, the society that is being subjected to the changes that these wheels are causing seems to embrace ever so blindly and ever so unquestioningly all the ill-effects and mayhem that this change leaves behind.

Bed to work and work to bed

The actors and actresses in this great drama of life in the twenty first century don’t seem to have any grasp of the ‘inner content’ of the scientific revolution that is taking hold of all aspects of human life, reducing it to a dull and drab routine of ‘bed to work’ and ‘work to bed’. The age-old human values of considerateness and tolerance of another point of view, accommodation of brother human beings as equals and co-partners of one human family, long and arduous struggle that shaped and defined the excellence that was achieved in the respective chosen fields, they have all been drained down the gutters of human folly and crude ambition. The competitiveness that is the mandatory trait of a free society has been used and abused to trample the very friends who once stood by in leaner times.

The forces of the land the race and the faith

It is not due to a conspiracy of circumstances or of historical wrings that these forces of evil are gathering momentum with each passing day; it is the very vileness of man that has taken full possession of his character and molded it into an unmerciful mercenary of the modern world. Ordinary men and women have been transformed into marauding soldiers of fortune and corruption, of nepotism and bribery, of depravity and wickedness. Religion has become their badge of ‘(dis)honor’ and language the one of division and land the badge of ‘(de)fame’. The forces of “the land, the race and the faith” (Desa, Basa, Resa) having taken over the body-politic of Sri Lanka are continuing their unceasing trudge towards their sure destination. The morality of the reasonably-thinking, educated class is being buried under the onslaught of extremism which is dominated by the fringe groups who brandish ‘the land, the race and the faith’ as their defensive armor and offensive arms.

Playing field not leveled

After centuries of neglect and relegation to a second-class citizen treatment, the Sinhalese Buddhist majority have found fresh frontiers; they have discovered their ‘lost pride’ and a self-defeating sense of inferiority to a minority so small in numbers but quite rich in quality and academic achievements. Affirmative action, as it always does without exception, was introduced to reverse and not to right a self-proclaimed wrong and also to ensure reverse discrimination so that the majority sector would get a better and second chance. The playing field is not leveled any more than it was during the times of the British. This sad saga between two communities, Sinhalese and Tamils, in Sri Lanka continues today in its most tragic and heartbreaking fashion.

Overcoming barriers of caste

The continuing division between the two major communities in Sri Lanka is amply illustrated by Dr. G C Mendis in his book, “Ceylon Today and Yesterday”. In the essay titled “The Rise of Sinhalese Communalism”, Dr. Mendis says thus: “The Sinhalese being a majority community had found it difficult to unite. They had no strong opposition except that of the Tamils to make them do so. They had to overcome the barriers of caste and religion. Besides, the English-educated Sinhalese, separated from the rest, had not sufficient sympathy with the Sinhalese educated class to lead them. The result was that the new communalism sprang from the Sinhalese-educated section and those who followed the Buddhist faith…What had to be done was to capture the Government, just as the English-educated middle class had captured it from the British. Their numbers and the aims of the welfare state had made it possible for them to gain control.”

Unleashing the forces of the Sangha

When S W R D Bandaranaike unleashed the forces of the “Sanga, Veda, Guru, Govi, Kamkaru”, in 1956, this phenomenon did in fact materialize in the most potent form and its continuance in the political arena seems unending. The dominance of these forces has come to stay and any attempt to dislodge them from the main arena of political power will meet with sure defeat for any party that has the stupidity to challenge.

Yet it does not have to be a mindless march into the valley of death. One is reminded of the powers that gathered themselves in the wake of the 1956 elections and just prior to the signing of the now-famous Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact in 1958. The organization was called the Bauddha Jathika Balavegaya (Buddhist National Movement), led by Reverend Baddegama Wimalawansa, L H Mettananda and F R Jayasuriya, Sinhalese Buddhist stalwarts of that era. When they performed a Satyagraha at the very premises of the Prime Minister’s private residence, Bandaranaike had no option but to abrogate the Pact and the rest is history.

Rendering any demand of the Tamils a frivolity

What the Sinhalese Buddhists, not only the ordinary folks living in the remote corners of the country but also their leaders who stemmed from the Sinhala-educated class, could not understand or fathom was the utter rejection of the ‘Sinhalese Only’ policy by the Tamils and the intensity with which they opposed that policy. But what was achieved by the ‘war-victory’ in 2009 was given a totally strange and distorted interpretation by these fringe elements who now profess that the war-victory has rendered almost every legitimate demand of the Tamil community as frivolous and without any historical legitimacy.

Tamils in Tamil Nadu a frightening prospect

In a really serious sense, the Bauddha Jathika Balavegaya of the forties and fifties have just been replaced by an organization called the ‘Collective”, a more modern sounding name but connoting in every sense the same old division-ridden communal politics, prophesizing dominance over the minority by the majority. The proximity to India and especially to South India where close to a seventy five (75) million Tamils live in the State of Tamil Nadu lends a frightening prospect to the Sinhalese majority living in Sri Lanka, thus paradoxically creating a minority complex among an overwhelming majority within Sri Lanka. The conglomeration of Bodhu Bala Sena, Rawana Balakaya and other fringe groups along with some well-known protagonists of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist cause, has undertaken to derail the Thirteenth Amendment (13A). Whether they will be successful or not would be known within the coming weeks, if not days.

For Tamil leadership, running to India at every turn is not the answer

The President’s continuance with triumphalism and his overly subservient attitude towards the Maha Sangha is only helping the forces of division so born to further divide the country, not literally but in every other way it is possible. On the other hand, the leadership of the Tamils is not all that prudent nor is it pragmatic. Running to India at a very turn when the heat builds up locally will only aggravate even the moderate Sinhalese in such a scenario. The Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) obedience to the Tamil Diaspora is as destructive and suspicious as the Government mollycoddling the fringe groups in the likes of Bodhu Bala Sena, Rawana Balakaya and the Collective. It is not too pessimistic a view to hold that the gap between the Sinhalese and Tamils seems increasingly unbridgeable. It is indeed a sad story to tell your grandchildren.

In Turkey, an attempt to uproot a public park and build a shopping mall ignited a tidal-wave of protests which is yet to abate.

No balls to stand up an condemn

In Saudi Arabia, innumerable Islamic sites are being annihilated in the name of ‘development’, with nary a protest. “No one has the balls to stand up and condemn this cultural vandalism” laments Dr. Irfan Al Alawi, Executive Director of the Islamic Heritage Foundation; “we have already lost 400-500 sites” .

Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have Sunni-Muslim majorities. But Turkey is a secular-democracy, albeit a flawed one, while Saudi Arabia is a theocratic-monarchy.

In Turkey, there is a strong tradition of community resistance to arbitrary decisions and overbearing attitudes of authorities. Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk in a recent comment drew a continuum between the Taksim protests and a long-ago attempt by his extended family to save a beloved 50-year-old chestnut tree from the municipality’s saw .

In Saudi Arabia protesting is a crime

In Saudi Arabia, protest is criminalised and people are habituated into mindless-obedience. According to Hatoon Al Fassi, Professor of History at Riyadh’s King Saud University, “….construction work to expand the mosque has already destroyed about two thirds of the sacred mosque’s historic buildings… We have already lost the houses of the Prophet’s companions, as well as smaller mosques around the same mosque that dated back to the earliest years of the Islamic era. And while the house in which the Prophet was born has been transformed into a library, other sites have suffered worse fates: …..the house of Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife and the mother of his children, was destroyed in order to build public toilets” . Since the Royal Family and the Wahabi hierarchy are behind this cultural massacre, any resistance would be not just treachery but also apostasy.

Impending autocracy in Turkey

In Turkey, a localised protest became a national outburst partly as a reaction to a rumoured-plan to introduce a presidential constitution. Mr. Erdogan is in his final term as PM; the new constitution would be a ploy to save his political life. If Turkey is saved from this impending autocracy it

Photo shows Goatabaya with Bodu Bala Sena operatives: According to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, “Misconceptions regarding Buddhists in Sri Lanka are spread worldwide through websites. Now is the time to change those misconceptions which were being spread for the last 30 years” . Once the ‘media ethics’ are legalised, it will be illegal to report anything about the ongoing attacks on churches, mosques and kovils. No wonder the BBS wants Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to takeover Sinhala-Buddhism: “….Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara thero told a news conference that the Buddha Sasana Ministry was currently performing a poor service in protecting the Buddha Sasanaya…. Gnanasara Thera said it could be recommended that the Defence Secretary should be given the responsibility of the Buddha Sasana since he was a person the BBS trusted” .

will not be thanks to its Opposition, which is as weak and as fragmented as ours, but to the courage of her people and their refusal to become anesthetised by religion, patriotism or some other opiate.

In Sri Lanka, we failed the 18th Amendment test and the Impeachment test. Will we fail the ‘Media-ethics’ test as well?

A key reason for the protests in Turkey and the apathy in Saudi Arabia is the presence of a relatively free media in one country and the total absence of media freedom in the other. Many Saudis outside Mecca may not even know of what their rulers – with the backing of their religious leaders – are doing to their priceless religio-cultural heritage.

An ignorant populace is an autocrat’s greatest blessing, even more than a filled armoury and a numerous soldiery.

Media Freedom and Public Good

According to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, a free and an unrestrained media promote the public good in several ways, including ‘disseminating knowledge and allowing critical scrutiny’ and ‘giving voice to the neglected and the disadvantaged’’ . Prof. Sen uses the case of the Bengali famine to demonstrate this nexus. The Bengali famine happened under British Rule, and in the absence of a democratic government and a free press. It was only after the British editor of The Statesman (Calcutta) published graphic accounts of the famine, that colonial rulers were compelled into instituting relief measures. Prof. Sen points out that no major famine has happened in a functioning democracy with a free press and concludes, “The direct penalties of a famine are borne only by the suffering public and not by the ruling government. The rulers never starve…. What makes a famine such a political disaster for a ruling government is the reach of public reasoning which moves and energises a very large proportion of the general public to protest and shout about the ‘uncaring government’ and try to bring it down” .

A government faced with a critical media and a wide-awake public would be more prone to be responsible and accountable than a government with a submissive media and an anesthetised public.

According to a recent survey (sponsored by the American Chemical Society) “of 12 countries in four continents, cadmium levels in rice grain were the highest in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka… For Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, there was high weekly intake of cadmium from rice, leading to intakes deemed unsafe by international and national regulators” . Cadmium is a heavy metal which can have a lethal impact on heart, lungs and kidneys and affect brain-development in children. The Lankan participant in the survey, Dr. Mangala de Silva of the University of Ruhuna, blames the cadmium problem on “substandard phosphate fertilisers….”

Toxic rice

Toxic-rice is a greater menace than the halal or Storm Mahasen. Toxic-rice is a real problem and a lethal one. Yet there is no fear, no concern, no public outrage. The silence of the regime is understandable. The issue of toxic-rice, like famines, does not affect the powerful/the rich because organically produced rice is available, at a much higher price. The regime will move in the matter only if forced to do so. If the media – especially the Sinhala media – can be compelled into muteness, there will be no public awareness and no public outcry.

Once the media-ethics proposal is enacted, revelations about toxic-rice can be made illegal. The general public can be lulled into happy ignorance, until the plague metastasises its way from rice-producers to rice-consumers.

According to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, “Misconceptions regarding Buddhists in Sri Lanka are spread worldwide through websites. Now is the time to change those misconceptions which were being spread for the last 30 years” . Once the ‘media ethics’ are legalised, it will be illegal to report anything about the ongoing attacks on churches, mosques and kovils. No wonder the BBS wants Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to takeover Sinhala-Buddhism: “….Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara thero told a news conference that the Buddha Sasana Ministry was currently performing a poor service in protecting the Buddha Sasanaya…. Gnanasara Thera said it could be recommended that the Defence Secretary should be given the responsibility of the Buddha Sasana since he was a person the BBS trusted” .

Those monks who do not come up to the ‘BBS-standards of Buddhism’ can then be white-vanned; and the media which report/comment on such atrocities legally punished.

A citizenry cannot be transformed into subjects without their consent and cooperation. A democracy can be destroyed from outside, without the complicity of its people, but to destroy democracy from within requires the active and passive participation of its citizenry. Vellupillai Pirapaharan did not become transformed from Thambi to Surya Thevan overnight. Such internal transformations need a congenial atmosphere created by citizens, who are willing, individually and collectively, to forego their rights in the name of an abstraction or a mirage, out of disillusionment or fear.

A dying democracy needs a majority who are mesmerised by a fantasy and unruffled by reality.

Like the proverbial crab in the pre-boiling pot.

Are we that people?

It is the first substantive lawsuit following reports in The Washington Post and the Guardian last week that detailed two vast surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency under laws authorized by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Members of Congress and the White House are defending a top-secret NSA program that continues to collect data from millions of phone records, but civil liberties supporters remain skeptical. The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima explains.

The ACLU suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenges the legality of the spy agency’s collection of customer “metadata,” including the phone numbers dialed and the length of calls. The lawsuit asks the court to force the government to end the program and purge any records it has collected, and to declare that the surveillance is unconstitutional.

The program, details of which were first disclosed by the Guardian, collects such information, used by intelligence analysts to detect patterns and personal connections, on every phone call made or received by U.S. customers of major American phone companies. The once-secret program was acknowledged last week by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., who is named in the ACLU lawsuit.

The disclosures of the NSA’s operations have generated concern across party lines, illustrated Tuesday by sharp criticism and new requests on Capitol Hill from members of President Obama’s party.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which she chairs, has asked the NSA’s director to declassify some information to better explain the programs. Senior intelligence and Justice Department officials also briefed House lawmakers late Tuesday on the NSA’s phone-tracking program, according to lawmakers who attended.

President Obama

The debate surrounding the surveillance has revived an unresolved question of post-Sept. 11 American life — how much privacy should be sacrificed to enhance security. It has also brought new scrutiny on Obama’s promise to better strike that balance after what he has called the national security excesses of the George W. Bush administration.

Early Tuesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, accused Clapper of failing to give a “straight answer” about the scope of the NSA’s surveillance programs during a committee hearing in March.

During that open hearing, Wyden, a longtime critic of the administration’s surveillance policy, asked Clapper whether the NSA collects “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.” Clapper responded, “No, sir.”

But the recent disclosures of the NSA surveillance initiatives, which the Obama administration says are separately authorized ­under the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), has focused attention on the truthfulness of Clapper’s response.

In addition to the phone records collection, The Post reported on a surveillance program known as PRISM, which allows the government to collect video, photos, e-mails, documents and connection logs for the users of nine leading Internet companies. The government obtained the data through orders approved by the secret court established by FISA.

In an interview with NBC News over the weekend, Clapper, who complained at the start of his March appearance on the Hill that “an open hearing on intelligence matters is a contradiction in terms,” said that his answer to Wyden was the “least untruthful” he could provide given the secret nature of the program.

Asked Tuesday whether Obama believes the national intelligence director had been truthful in his testimony, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “He certainly believes that Director Clapper has been straight and direct in the answers that he’s given and has actively engaged in an effort to provide more information about the programs that have been revealed through the leak of classified information.”

Wyden was one of eight senators, including two Republicans, who proposed legislation Tuesday that would force the government to declassify “significant” rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret panel that rules on NSA requests.

The ACLU lawsuit will bring the phone-data collection program into federal court, setting up a challenge for Obama, who pledged during his 2008 presidential campaign to bring more transparency to national security policy.

According to a classified court order to Verizon Business Network Services, published by the Guardian, the NSA directed the company to turn over “all call detail records” of customers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Clapper said last week that the NSA does not receive phone call content or a subscriber’s identity under the program. He also said that before the data can be searched, the NSA must have a “reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization.”

The ACLU challenged that modest characterization, saying in its lawsuit that the program’s scope is “akin to snatching every American’s address book — with annotations detailing whom we spoke to, when we talked, for how long and from where.”

“It gives the government a comprehensive record of our associations and public movements, revealing a wealth of detail about our familial, professional, religious and intimate association,” the lawsuit states.

The ACLU asserts that it has standing to sue the government over the program because it is a Verizon customer, overcoming a hurdle that has blocked previous attempts to challenge secret programs.

The organization also contends that the NSA’s surveillance will have a “chilling effect” on whistleblowers who would otherwise contact the group for help.

Carney defended the administration’s treatment of whistleblowers, saying “there are established procedures that whistleblowers can employ that also protect, or rather ensure protection of national security interests.”

The collection program, officials said, began in 2006 under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Feinstein said Tuesday that she asked Gen. Keith B. Alexander, who leads the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, to declassify some program information “so that we can talk about them, because I think they’re really helpful.”

Feinstein noted that she has already publicly discussed two incidents in which, she said, the NSA programs helped stop attacks in 2009 in New York and Mumbai.

“But there are other things that are also classified that would be helpful since this has all exploded for the American public to know,” she said. “If we can get that declassified, we can speak much more clearly.”

Washington Post 

Former Republican Presidential Candidate, Ron Paul

government may send drones or a cruise missile to kill the 29-year-old, who has fled the United States.

“I don’t think for a minute that he’s a traitor,” Paul told Fox Business’ Melissa Francis.

“Everybody’s worried about him and what they’re going to do, and how they’re going to convict him of treason, and how they’re going to kill him, but what about the people who destroy our Constitution?” the former Texas Republican congressman asserted. “What kind of penalty for those individuals who just take the Fourth Amendment and destroy it? What do we think about people who assassinate American citizens without trials and assume that that’s the law of the land? That’s where our problem is.”

Paul said that “our problem isn’t with people who are trying to tell us the truth about what’s happening” as in the case of Snowden, and he fears that the U.S. government may try to kill the former contractor.

“I’m worried about somebody in our government might kill him with a Cruise missile or a drone missile,” Paul said. “I mean we live in a bad time where American citizens don’t even have rights and that they can be killed, but the gentleman is trying to tell the truth about what’s going on.”

Paul added that there are no signs Snowden is trying to sell U.S. government secrets to Russia or another foreign government, otherwise he wouldn’t have made himself so vulnerable.

“He’s not defecting, there are no signs of that happening,” Paul said. “It’s a shame that we are in an age where people who tell the truth about what the government is doing get into trouble.”

He pointed to the case of a CIA agent who was imprisoned for acknowledging that torture takes place at Guantanamo.

“This is not good that the American people are spied on and the secrets are kept in government,” he said. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”

Prof Tissa Vitarana

minority political parties that are part of the government have said they need to discuss the matter further. Ironically, the main proponents of reducing the powers of the provincial councils are two small nationalist parties whose voter base is considerably smaller than those of the ethnic minority parties. The division within the government on the issue of devolution of power can also be seen in the comments by Senior Minister Tissa Vitarana who headed the All Parties Representative Committee set up by the President several years ago to find a political solution to the conflict.

Prof. Vitarana has said that “It is sad that extremist elements have emerged that seek to achieve political power by whipping up not only anti-Tamil but even anti-Muslim sentiments among the Sinhala Buddhist majority. The genuine fear of separation is being fed by raising the spectre of separatism… The solutions offered, rather than preventing separation, are feeding the separatist agenda. There is a danger of history repeating itself but in a more tragic form, as international public opinion will support the move for separation…” One of the tragedies of post-war developments with regard to Sri Lanka is the loss of international support due to the government’s failure to convince the international community that it is serious about finding a political solution together with the political representatives of the ethnic minorities.

During the war, government leaders gave assurances that after the war they would implement a political solution that went beyond the existing scheme of devolution of power and made it effective. But now, after the government announced that elections to the Northern Provincial Council will be held in September, government leaders have also been warning of the perils associated with setting up a provincial council for the Northern Province, even to the extent of advocating the abolition of the entire scheme of devolution. Those government leaders who seek to emasculate the provincial council system are eloquent in making their case that the devolution of power becomes a great danger when it is given to the ethnic minorities. However, the government has also made promises to the international community that it would work to formulate a political solution acceptable to all communities, which makes it difficult to repeal the 13th Amendment in its entirety as advocated by some of its members.

Envisaged changes 

There are two changes to the 13th Amendment that are being considered for immediate action by the government. The first is to remove the provision for two or more provinces to join together. The merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces is an article of faith with all Tamil parties. Even the Tamil parties working with the government have said they are in favour of this merger. The merger would create a Tamil-majority in a territory that accounts for over 30 percent of the country’s land mass. However, such a merger is unacceptable to a government which is mistrustful of the Tamil people, and believes that separatist sentiment is more likely to arise in those who govern a larger territorial entity than in those who govern a smaller one.

The second issue being considered by the government is to do away with the requirement that the consent of all provincial councils be obtained if there is to be constitutional change that impacts upon the provincial councils. This was a safeguard to prevent the central government from legislating on subjects allocated to the provincial councils without first obtaining the consent of all of them. In the event where one or more provincial councils do not consent to a proposed bill, the central government has the option to either pass the bill by a simple majority, in which event the bill will become law applicable only to the provinces that agreed to the bill, or to do so by a two thirds majority in which case the bill will become law applicable to the entire country. Removing this safeguard will permit the central government to take away any or all powers vested in the provincial councils by passing legislation with a simple majority.

There is also a third issue that is on the table, but which has not yet been presented to the cabinet of ministers. This is to remove police and land powers from the list of subjects that have been devolved to the provinces. Government leaders are making out that leaving these two subjects with the provincial councils presents a grave danger to the country’s unity as these powers can be abused. One government leader has described police and land powers as the two fangs of the provincial councils that ought to be de-fanged. It is noteworthy that for the past 26 years, since the establishment of the provincial council system, these powers have not been given to any provincial council. It is both ironic and discriminatory that only when there is a possibility of a Tamil-administered provincial council being established, that the government has decided to act to remove police and land powers from the devolved list of subjects.

Hidden motivation

It is in this context that Prof. Vitarana has critiqued the notion that an elected provincial council under the existing 13th Amendment can push for separation. He says that “Even if the TNA is elected to power it can only exercise the very limited powers devolved under the extensive control of the central government as in all other provincial councils. The police and land powers under the 13th Amendment, at present, are effectively under central government controls with the Governor appointed by the President as the chief executive. But even these limited powers in these two areas are not exercised as the President has not permitted it. So even if the TNA is elected to power in the Northern Province, there is nothing it can do to further the cause of separation.”

The provincial council system has been denigrated as being akin to white elephants. Chief Ministers of the provincial councils themselves have complained bitterly about the weakness of the devolved institutions they presided over. A key source of weakness has been the near total dependence of the provincial councils on the central government for finances. The provincial councils are severely restricted in their power to raise their own funds which has made them hopelessly dependent on the central government. Another serious weakness has been the existence of a concurrent list of subjects which are shared by the central and provincial administrations. In practice, where there are such shared powers the central government has had no reservations about monopolizing those powers.

Hence, there appears to be another motivation in the government’s determination to push ahead with the proposed constitutional changes. With a defeat at the Northern Provincial Council almost certain, the government might prefer not to have those elections at all. They would want to see the provincial council system emasculated first so that no provincial administration can be a check and balance to their writ. The mindset of the present government leadership is in conformity with democratic practice only to the extent that they believe in the need for victory at elections in order to legitimize their rule. But their actions fail to conform to higher democratic norms of behaviour which requires respect for institutional checks and balances.

In the case of the provincial councils, the government leadership would not want their writ to be challenged in any way by an opposition controlled provincial administration. As the leaders who won a war that most thought not possible to win, they see it as justified to have their writ prevail without question over the entire country. But for larger political reasons, including promises made to India and Japan, they must have those elections. It is important that the government hold free and fair elections for the Northern Provincial Council which will be symbolic to Sri Lankans and to the international community that the government has committed itself to providing democratic rights to its ethnic minorities.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The pillar of success?

With the total flop of the one-day Island-wide strike of May 21, 2013, organized by the so-called joint-Opposition, the air went out of the balloon,

Sarath Fonseka (L) and Ranil Wickremesinghe

deflating the huge imaginary bubble that the Opposition had been blowing. Why and how it failed was explained in detail in one of my recent columns but I thought it fit to pen some thoughts that ran across my mind for the sake of their sheer authenticity and validity in the current context for one, and secondly as I truly believe that a little pontificating on my part would do no harm either.

National traitor

In 2004 American Presidential Elections, incumbent President George W Bush faced Vietnam War veteran John Kerry (Kerry is currently the Secretary of State under Obama) as his Democratic opponent. John Kerry had many stories of heroism to tell, yet the Republican juggernaut led by Carl Rove who at the time served as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bush and the chief architect of the Bush campaign, swift-boated Kerry and that operation was so successful in that, the war-hero Kerry was diminished to be a ‘traitor’ and Bush who dodged going to the Vietnam warfront was made to look like a real ‘hero’ and ‘patriot’. This reminds one of the 2010 Presidential Election campaign in Sri Lanka when the real war-hero General Fonseka was made out to be a national traitor and those who did not fire a single bullet in the war against the LTTE terrorists were made heroes beyond all recognition.

Rove’s maneuvers

But what stood out as a masterpiece of political maneuvering by the architect Rove in the Bush campaign, was identifying some one or two key issues that were placed on the ballot paper as special measures in State elections, measures that would really galvanize the hardcore Republicans in these key States and thus bring them out on the day of the elections to the polling booth. He did this so brilliantly: the key issue- gay-marriage-that was identified as crucial for the diehard Republicans who would not otherwise gone to the polling booth in a second term Presidential Election, catapulted the average Republican to the polling booth and while voting his or her preference on the issue found the time to vote for their Party candidate for Presidency. However, the gay-marriage issue did play a diametrically opposite role in 2012 elections and it did work for the election of Barak Obama in that year.

Thirteenth amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment to Sri Lanka’s Constitution is the issue identified by the Rajapaksa Re-election Team as one single issue that would not only unite almost 95% of the Sinhalese-Buddhist voting bloc in the country, but would also propel the unsuspecting voter belonging to this bloc to the polling booth against any candidate that would oppose the chief protagonist of the abolition of or any amendment to the13th Amendment. In other words, any talk on or even a slight reference to the 13th Amendment keeps the ‘patriotic’ fires burning inside the otherwise cold and chilled insides of the average Sinhalese-Buddhist voter. The thirteenth Amendment alone would ensure a clear way to electoral victory for the Rajapaksas and the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA).

Arch-racist Ranawaka

When the Jathika Hela Urumaya led by arch-racist Champika Ranawaka and the National Freedom Font led by its demagogue-in-chief, Wimal Weerawansa launched a campaign against the Thirteenth Amendment, at the behest of the powers that be, it pushed the main opposition Party, the United National Party (UNP) into a most uncomfortable corner-‘to be or not to be’. Could the UNP extricate itself from this entangling web that the Rajapaksa clan has woven around it or would they be trapped inside it forever awaiting its certain demise, not knowing what to do or not do?

How did the UNP fair so badly in the hustings?

This is exactly where J R Jayewardene found himself in after the electoral debacle that his Party suffered at the hands of the Sirimavo-Felix-Marxists axis in 1970. What did J R do? He went back to the drawing board. With such a charismatic leader like Dudley Senanayake holding the reins of the Party- Dudley’s acceptance as a ‘loveable leader’ was immensely manifest in the hundreds of thousands who attended his funeral in 1973- and being the main political party that introduced, among others, free education, massive development schemes like Gal Oya and Minneriya irrigation projects and as the Party that won ‘Independence’ for the country in 1948, how did the UNP fair so badly at the hustings?

Jungle and his book

The only book that details out the J R-campaign in the seventies is T D S A Dissanayake’s (popularly known as Jungle) “J R Jayewardene of Sri Lanka”. In the pages 6 and 7 in that book, Dissanayake writes thus: “Hence by a process of elimination J R concluded that his fundamental assessment was correct. The major flaw in the UNP was in its policies. The UNP just did not reflect the aspirations of the masses which the SLFP did so magnificently…J R was indeed convinced that the basic defect of the UNP was that it was out of step with contemporary times.”

In the name of God go

How true are these words today, particularly in relation to the policies and postures adopted by the UNP and its frontline leaders? J R even went much further; on March 21, 1971, while addressing a meeting at the New Town Hall J R stated: “If I were a youth, I too would join with them and utter the following words of Oliver Cromwell. “You have stayed here too long without delivering the goods. In the name of God go!”

It was an open challenge to Dudley and his close comrades who were wallowing in their own ‘comfort zones’, fearing to take the daring first step, for they knew not where the stairs may lead! On the contrary, J R in his infinite knowledge and foresight was willing to take that ‘daring first step’, first to wake the UNP up from its sleep and then to inject a fresh sense of urgency and immediacy into the quagmire his Party was enmeshed in. The untimely death of Dudley Senanayake solved many issues for the UNP.

Game changer

It thrust J R to the helm of the Party and he wasted no time in effecting the changes in it. Making R Premadasa its Deputy Leader when the seniors of the caliber of E L Senanayake, E L B Hurulle and Montague Jayawickrama were eying for the same position, changed the image of the Party overnight from one representing the ‘privileged class’ to that of the ‘commoner’. Giving prominence to the urban young such as Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali and rural-based youth like G M Premachandra, Samaraweera Weerawanni, Loku Banda and Wijeratne Banda painted a picture of a political party intent on reaching every segment of society including the remotest of remote villages in the country. J R changed not only the rules of the game, he changed the game itself and the people realized that they had a ‘game-changer’ in their midst as against a status quo-ridden ‘Radala, Kandyan Kumarihamy’ with a flock of corrupt yes-men and women around her.

A flock of YES men and women

The parallels are incredible. One might say that the situation and objective conditions of that era are so drastically different from those of today. Yes they are different, but the fundamentals have not changed. On the one hand is a Government so buried in nepotism, corruption and inefficiency and an Opposition divided along policy and personality lines making any reconciliation impossible. The fearlessness that J R displayed in his campaigns against the Sirimavo-Felix-Marxists axis was infectious. What he began with the Lake House newspapers boycott until he reached the zenith of agitation in the Satyagraha in Anuradhapura and the sheer audacity, courage and raw personal bravery J R exhibited ensured in his supporters a sense of bravery and daring which did not diminish until the day of the General Elections in July 1977.

The only chance the UNP has

Unfortunately there is no ‘game-changer’ in our midst today. The war-victory has changed the political culture irrevocably and each politician and party are being measured and judged only through that prism of war-victory. The sooner the UNP leadership realizes it, the better for its own future existence. In such a despairing context what can the UNP leadership do? It can gather a set of experienced men and women who had the rare privilege and honor to have served in the J R era. Get them around and add a few new faces of the academia, rural youth and business executives. Ask them to work for three to four weeks and not to retire until they arrive at a plan of action with fresh policies and executions spelt out lucidly and with clarity. That might be the only chance the UNP has, or for that matter the country has.

(US Supreme Court on Pentagon Papers)

If the Rajapaksas succeed in turning their ‘media ethics proposal’ into law, Sri Lanka will have her very own Minitrue (Ministry of Truth). And the role of Lankan media will be redefined, from ‘watchdogs of democracy’ to ‘lapdogs of the Rajapaksas’.

In the consequent Orwellian reality, it will be permissible for Mervyn Silva to tie a public official to a tree and Rohitha Rajapaksa to hammer a

President Rajapakse

referee, both in full public view. But it will be impermissible for the media to report/comment on these (and other innumerable crimes and transgressions by power-wielders and their kith and kin) because that would “offend against expectations of the public, morality of the country or tend to lower the standards of public taste and morality” .

It will be permissible for China to build a power-plant using systems unsuitable to Lankan conditions and outdated technology. But it will be impermissible for the media report/comment on it, because that would be “criticism affecting foreign relations” .

It will be permissible for Sinhala-Buddhist fanatics to attack churches and mosques . But it will be impermissible for the media to report/comment on such crimes because that would be making “derogatory remarks on religious groups or communities or promoting communal or religious discord which may affect religious and communal harmony”.

It will be permissible for Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to fume and froth in public, against perceived traitors and enemies. But it will be impermissible for the media to call his outbursts ‘temper tantrums’ because that would be “obscene, defamatory, deliberate falsehood and suggestive innuendos and half-truths or wilful omissions”.

It will be permissible for the Rajapaksas to conduct a savage, unjust and illegal impeachment-offensive against the Chief Justice. But it will be impermissible for the media to report/comment on it because that would be “information which could mislead the public”.

It will be permissible for the military to engage in land-grabbing in the North and the East; or for the Ranaviru Seva Authority to submit a fraudulent audit report . But it will be impermissible for the media to report/comment on it because that would “encourage or incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which may promote anti-national attitudes”.

It will be permissible for the Rajapaksa Supreme Court to give punishment transfers to honest judges, en masse, or promote bribe-takers but impermissible for the media to report/comment on it because that would be “contempt of court”.

It will be permissible for the President to lie about devolution, his CJ to lie about Prageeth Ekneligoda and his brothers to lie about everything from development to national security. But it will be impermissible for the media to call them mendacious because that would be against “the integrity of the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative”.

It will be permissible for the JHU and the BBS to incite anti-minority hatred but impermissible for the media to accuse them of hate-mongering because that would be “criticising, maligning or slandering any individual or groups of persons such as ethnic, linguistic or religious or such segments of the public”.

It will be permissible for Duminda Silva, his doctors and his lawyers to lie about his medical condition but impermissible for the media to question/expose those lies because that would be publicising “details of a person’s family life, financial information, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability and one’s home or family and individuals in hospitals unless it has a direct relevance to the public interest”.

It will be permissible to hail Mahinda Rajapaksa as the ‘Sun’, the ‘Moon’ and the ‘Universal Lord of the Three-Sinhala Lands’ but impermissible for the media to defend a minority-religion because it would be encouraging “superstitions or blind belief”.

It will be permissible for power-wielders and their kith and kin to resort to murder and torture, rape and white-vanning but impermissible for the media to report/criticise those atrocities because it would be promoting “atrocity, drug abuse, brutality, sadism, sexual salacity and obscenity”.

It will be permissible for the regime to impose economic burdens on the poor but impermissible for the media to report/comment on the consequent effects on their living conditions because that would be “denigrating the poor”.

The media will be free to hail the Rajapaksas and to ignore the stench of crime and corruption emanating from the ‘Miracle of Asia’. They will be free to rise to the heights to sycophancy or to plunge to the depths of apathy.

But they will not be free to ask who doctored the cabinet report on the kidney-failure plague , to report that Sri Lanka has extremely high levels of cadmium (a toxic heavy metal) in rice , to wonder when the President will impose some ethics on his law-breaking acolytes or to question why state enterprises which were making profits (Rs.32 billion) in 2005 made looses amounting to Rs.107 billion in 2012 .

The new Media Ethics will redefine all such reportage/commentary as unethical and illegal.

In the consequent drab grey media-scape, Orwellian ‘Reality Control’ will reign.

“All of us always approve what the Führer does”, proclaimed Hermann Göring . A version of this will become the new operational principal of Lankan media – it will resound with hosannas for the Rulers and their acolytes, invectives for regime-opponents and silence about everything else.

Everyday, in everyway everything is getting better: that will be the message of every media outlet, public and private.

Dying Democracies

The category ‘emerging democracy’ is a familiar one. But there is another type of country, one which is experiencing an antithetical form of transition, from a democracy to a non-democracy, a country which can be deemed a retreating/submerging/dying democracy. Sri Lanka belongs in this category. Sometimes these transitions can be halted before they become structurally entrenched; sadly Sri Lanka reached and breached this point with the 18th Amendment. Once the Independent Commissions were turned into presidential appendages, presidential powers were enhanced and term-limits removed, the narrow and rugged path to familial autocracy became a super-highway.

The next task is to create an unthinking, unresisting, apathetic populace; this necessitates a submissive media.

According to a new study by the Michigan University, “countries with higher levels of press freedom enjoyed better environmental quality and higher levels of human development, both of which also contribute to life satisfaction (due) to the watchdog function of the press, which helps expose corruption of all levels in a community” .

The nuclear spill-over from Japan’s Fukushima plant is reportedly creating mutant-butterflies. The Fukushima disaster could have been minimised if the operating (private) company did not subvert safety measures due to greed. But in open societies such criminal deeds become known; they cause mass outrage, compelling authorities to implement correctives. In closed societies state (and favoured private actors) can minimise information-leaks and repress any expressions of outrage, thereby rendering the adoption of corrective-measures unnecessary.

Without a free and critical media, the citizenry cannot be pre-warned or informed about disasters. People will be free to live and make merry on the slopes of Vesuvius, ignorant of the gathering fire beneath their unconscious feet.

-Daniel Webster –Speech

Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the UK Dr. Chris Nonis with Prince Charles

On the question of an international independent process to assess progress as called for by the UN, the High Commissioner said that one needs to draw a distinction between an international process and an independent process. “We do have an independent inquiry and many people who initially criticised the LLRC process changed their views when they actually saw the 388-paged document.

A sovereign state has been described as a political organization with a centralized government that has supreme independent authority over a geographic area. It has a permanent population, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither dependent on nor subject to any other power or state. The existence or disappearance of a state is a question of fact. While according to the declaratory theory of state recognition a sovereign state can exist without being recognized by other sovereign states, unrecognized states will often find it hard to exercise full treaty-making powers and engage in diplomatic relations with other sovereign states.(Wikepedia)

Sovereignty has taken on a different meaning with the development of the principle of self-determination and the prohibition against the threat or use of force as recognized in jus cogens norms of modern international law. The United Nations Charter, the Declaration on Rights and Duties of State, and the charters of regional international organizations express the view that all states are juridically equal and enjoy the same rights and duties based upon the mere fact of their existence as persons under international law. The right of nations to determine their own political status and exercise permanent sovereignty within the limits of their territorial jurisdictions is widely recognized.

State recognition signifies the decision of a sovereign state to treat another entity as also being a sovereign state. Recognition can be either express or implied and is usually retroactive in its effects. It doesn’t necessarily signify a desire to establish or maintain diplomatic relations.

There is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations on the criteria for statehood. In international law, however, there are several theories of when a state should be recognized as sovereign. The constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person of international law if, and only if, it is recognized as sovereign by other states. This theory of recognition was developed in the 19th century. Under it, a state was sovereign if another sovereign state recognized it as such. Because of this, new states could not immediately become part of the international community or be bound by international law, and recognized nations did not have to respect international law in their dealings with them. In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna the Final Act recognized only 39 sovereign states in the European diplomatic system, and as a result it was firmly established that in future new states would have to be recognized by other states, and that meant in practice recognition by one or more of the great powers.

One of the major criticisms of this law is the confusion caused when some states recognize a new entity, but other states do not. Hersch Lauterpacht, one of the theory’s main proponents, suggested that it is a state’s duty to grant recognition as a possible solution. However, a state may use any criteria when judging if they should give recognition and they have no obligation to use such criteria. Many states may only recognize another state if it is to their advantage In 1912, Oppenheim had the following to say on constitutive theory: ‘…International Law does not say that a State is not in existence as long as it is not recognized, but it takes no notice of it before its recognition. Through recognition only and exclusively a State becomes an International Person and a subject of International Law.’

By contrast, the “declarative” theory defines a state as a person in international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. According to declarative theory, an entity’s statehood is independent of its recognition by other states. The declarative model was most famously expressed in the 1933, Montevideo Convention.Article 3 of the Montevideo Convention declares that statehood is independent of recognition by other states. In contrast, recognition is considered a requirement for statehood by the constitutive theory of statehood.A similar opinion about “the conditions on which an entity constitutes a state” is expressed by the European Economic Community Opinions of the Badinter Arbtiration Committee, which found that a state was defined by having a territory, a population, and a political authority.

The state practice relating to the recognition of states typically falls somewhere between the declaratory and constitutive approaches. International law does not require a state to recognize other states. Recognition is often withheld when a new state is seen as illegitimate or has come about in breach of international law. Almost universal non-recognition by the international community of Rhodesia and Northern Cyprus are good examples of this. In the former case, recognition was widely withheld when the white minority seized power and attempted to form a state along the lines of Apartheid South Adrica, a move that the United Nations Security Council described as the creation of an “illegal racist minority régime”. In the latter case, recognition was widely withheld from a state created in Northern Cyprus on land illegally invaded by Turkey in 1974. Most sovereign states are states de jure and de facto (i.e. they exist both in law and in reality). However, sometimes states exist only as de jure states in that an organization is recognized as having sovereignty over and being the legitimate government of a territory over which they have no actual control. (Source:Internet)

It has to be noted that Sri Lanka is an independent sovereign state ruled by a legitimately elected government. No other state has a right to interfere in the internal affaires of a sovereign state under international law subject to certain United Nations mechanisms. The diaspora influenced by certain disgruntled elements of the LTTE presently organized under the TGTE is hell bent on destabilizing Sri Lanka by inviting foreign intervention in our motherland in order to establish a State of Eelaam in the North and East of Sri Lanka which endeavour is opposed even by the Sri Lankans living in the North and East of our country.

When questioned on refugees and persecution by the BBC at the interview referred to at the outset of this piece, Dr Nonis said, “I would say there are many people who for various different reasons come and seek asylum, and I think what we have to separate, is those who seek asylum as economic refugees, from those who seek asylum as political refugees” – You must remember the demography of the country, the majority of Tamil people actually live in the Centre and South of Sri Lanka, if you look at Colombo, its roughly a 30-30-30 percent split between Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim. We have a huge dichotomy or disjuncture in perception between what is portrayed here and the reality of contemporary Sri Lanka”. It is about time that the international community learnt the ground realities existing in Sri Lanka at the present time without being misguided by the adverse propaganda disseminated by the TGTE and its allies.

Lakshman I.Keerthisinghe LLB, LLM.MPhil,

Attorney-at-Law

Ellis school girl’s at work

I’m honoured to be here with you on this fantastic day. Today, we celebrate your achievements, and, your perseverance. It is a magnificent time. You’ve done it!

Those of you graduating, have completed, an important chapter, in your own story, and in doing so, have become, a part of the rich heritage, of this great academic institution.

You have become, part of the Ellis story. It is a story, that started 97 years ago, with a commitment to excellence in the education of girls and young women.

But perhaps even more significantly, you have become part of the story of women and girls everywhere, who have fought, and are still fighting, for equality in education and opportunity.

As you go forth into your future, holding hope in one hand, and infinite possibility in the other, I also urge you, to give pause, and be thoughtful, of the struggles of women and girls everywhere.

I have had the privilege of meeting many of you and I have enjoyed learning about your lives and families.

Today I also want to tell you some stories about my childhood.

My father, was a senior police officer in Sri Lanka, where I was born and lived most of my life, together with my five siblings.

One of my father’s favourite singers was Ned Miller – you can ask your parents…no, perhaps it’s safer to say, grandparents, who that was….

Ned Miller used to sing a song called ‘Do What You Do Do Well.’

My father made that one of our family mottos. Whether we were ironing our school uniforms, tidying our bedrooms or taking an exam, this was his refrain. All my father wanted was for us to do the best we can, dictated to, not by mood or feeling, but rather by perseverance, effort and sense of duty.

So as you go forward into the world, and into adulthood, remember, whatever the task, be it small or large, give it your all.

Do what you Do Do well.

My father was a doing man, and had little patience for silver-tongued flakes, who spoke about freedom and equality and didn’t live it.

“Walk the talk,” he told us. “Don’t be a member of NATO.” No, not the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation….The No Action Talk Only group.

I grew up in a country marred by violence, race riots, and an ethnic war that lasted 27 years.

As a senior police officer my father wielded considerable power. He was formidable and strict in some respects and compassionate and fair in others.

I watched him as he handled situations like race riots.

He was strict and unrelenting with the rioters and compassionate with those who were victimized.

Yes, my father led by example.

You are a group of young women with great intelligence and sensitivity, and tremendous leadership skills. This, is the kind of leadership, I urge you towards: leading with compassion, with strategy, and with courage.

Like you, I was young, when I watched my father lead in this way. Watching him work, inspired me to be brave as well, and I, became a journalist who advocated, for the rights of all beings to be respected.

I encourage you, to always feel your own power, and act to create change.

I now want to tell you a story of romance. About my first kiss.

My first kiss I shared with a book.

Books were so revered in our home that if we ever dropped one my mother would make us pick it up and respectfully kiss it.

And so years and years before I ever kissed a boy I had possibly kissed a hundred books – I had started young – I was little, my hands were tiny and books are pretty large…they drop.

When I was about 14 years old I came across in my mother’s bookshelf a historical novel – a best seller in my mother’s youth in the 1940s – by American writer Marcia Davenport titled The Valley of Decision. I immediately recognized it as one that I had kissed many times in my youth. It was 788 pages.

The book, a family saga, was set in Pittsburgh and chronicled the story of four generations of the Scott family who were owners and operators of a Pittsburgh iron and steel works.

I read about the economic panic of 1873, the dramatic rise of American industry and trade unionism, immigration, class conflict…..and I was transported to Pittsburgh, and came to know its industry, its architecture, its geography and its bridges.

Imagine! At 14, I had still not travelled outside of Sri Lanka, and yet 9000 miles away from Pittsburgh I read about a time in your history that really defined this area.

So three months ago when I came to Pittsburgh for the first time, I felt an affiliation with the city, as if I was coming to meet an old friend I had first met when I was fourteen years old.

But even as we celebrate the power of words and education, there are 775.4 million people in the world who still cannot read or write. Sixty-four percent of them are women.

I tell you this, not to dishearten you, but to inspire you to ACT.

In South and West Asia, 55 percent of girls, who are old enough to go to elementary school, are kept at home–that is 7.3 million girls.

In Arab States, 61 percent of girls are not given even the most rudimentary education.

I want to conclude with a very personal story. As many of you already know, I came to this country as a journalist in exile. I fled Sri Lanka after my husband, also a journalist, was killed by government authorities, due to our work as human rights journalists, and because of threats to my life.

I had to leave everything I had built up: my home, my friends, my career, and my dreams. I had to start from scratch. I fled only with a small bag of my personal belongings, and four very old but beloved books including a biography of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr and a copy of the Prophet by Khalil Gibran.

These books, have kept me strong, reminding me, that whatever life throws at you, if you stay strong, not compromise your principles, work hard, and have faith, things will get better.

When I ask you to be courageous in the face of adversity, I can tell you that I have done it, and it is possible.

When I was in your school three months ago, I met dedicated, enthusiastic, intelligent, community oriented girls with a world view that demonstrated, an eagerness to do their part for society.

Carry that enthusiasm with you. Do not be discouraged, by what my generation, and generations before mine, have done to the world, to the environment, to humanity.

Do not become apathetic, go forward with the same fervor to do good, that I saw in you then and see in you now. It is my hope, that whatever life may fling at you along the way, you will be defined, not by how hard you fell down, but by how courageously you picked yourself up, and by how readily you extended a hand to others, to raise them to their feet, once again.

I launch you now, with the wish, that you will always,

‘be, rather than merely seem to be’

Esse Quam Videri

Congratulations!

Thank you

Lawyer, journalist and Human Rights activist Sonali Samarasinghe delivered the commencement address at the Ellis School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 6 at the School’s senior graduation ceremony Class of 2013.