True New Year-metamorphosis

Three more hours and it's yet another "new" year. But will there be anything actually new and hitherto unforeseen? For that to happen, a complete paradigm shift in man's political involvement with the environment is required. As Zizekian philosophy points out, we constantly meet the very elements we want to deviate from. Nevertheless, let us be hope driven.

The psychology behind rape

The latest outburst of rape as a violent incident has taken over cyberspace and the world, with its attention drawn towards the death of the rape victim, a medial student, recently. Ever since this gang rape in a bus in Delhi was reported, and now after her subsequent death, people have awakened into a phase of blasphemous anger towards the six men who have allegedly committed the crime. What we seem to have forgotten is the fact that there were many other women in India who have died of sexual abuse, unfortunately, unlike in this incident, out of the purview of the media and public attention of this manner. Violent sexual outbursts as such are an outcome of several meta factors in human existence. This incident should not to appeal "to run away from the female factor" or to merely insist upon the  "protection women" but should reach out for a fundamental change in the view of the female body and subject. We require a paradigm shift in the way women are to be perceived in the world. It also requires a downright and fundamental change in the approach we have towards our surrounding environment. Key words that boost the world nowadays and its nations such as protection of the environment, green revolution, co-existence, mutual harmony (and so the list extends) have forgotten that there should be fundamental link to the human aspect as well, in which both man and woman are indispensably linked and seen as cohabitants of existence in the surrounding material, and environmental world. Like the death drive with which man is said to be innately associated with, and cultured away from, factors that pressure man into such violent acts should be removed into order to actually better society.

Life from outer space?

The recent red rain in Sri Lanka has hit a disharmonious chord, shaking the very assumptions on the formation of life on Earth. It has suddenly awakened our fantasies of the unexplained, our psychic interest in believing that life beyond Earth could be more than a phenomenon; an actual reality. According to Sri Lankan born British astrophysicist and astrobiologist Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe, it is possible that the heavy red pigmentation in the rain experienced in several parts of the country over the last few weeks is a result of the Earth crossing a comet debris, and meteors which contain life enter our atmosphere and its clouds. What is unique of these red cells is that it contains a life form, whose DNA is not identified as yet. It is said that November is a time when meteor showers frequently occur, and I too remember enthusiastically observing several shoot in the night sky. Incidentally the red rain showers too occurred roughly during the same period. This new "invasion" shakes our long standing belief of life forming and evolving on Earth billions of years ago. Did life come to Earth from outer space? For a believer of God and his Catholic/Christian religious doctrine, life was God's creation. Yet another sector of Buddhists believe that Earth is being visited by aliens, and the only reason that they do not harm us is that Lord Buddha preached all worlds...Which are we to believe? Religious dogma, human scientific proof (limited within human capacity mind you), Big Bang Theory or Darwinian philosophy?

   

The Motive of Education

It has happened yet again. We in Sri Lanka have witnessed yet another "failure" in the system of education. The leaking out of the 19 short questions in the O/L Science examination paper has proved to be yet another sequential failure of our dependency on the education system in the country. The Minister of Education's simple response to bring justice to the incident was to allocate 19 marks to all students who sat for the paper, thus nullifying proper weight into the root cause of how the competent student actually lost 19 marks in this judgmental exam. The incident exemplifies the Foucaultian view that knowledge is indissociable from the regimes of power. This contradicts Paulo Freire’s notion of “emanicipatory education” where the so called subject overcomes his/her oppressiveness, by venturing into critical consciousness via education. What has happened to the students who faced this situation at the exam is that they have been trapped in a dilemma within the fatalistic system, which is originally created to liberate and surpass them out of their class miseries. Apart from changing caste names (this has become a current trend for Lankans, particularly for the majority Sinhala Buddhists, for moving up the social ladder), education is still esteemed to be the dominant and most feasible means of erasing one’s caste and creed and positioning oneself comfortably as a cog-in-the-wheel within the treacherous capitalistic framework, the pit hole that guides the country to its doom today. It is true that Freire’s revolutionary method of education, as opposed to his “banking system” encourages a partnership between the teacher and the taught for the betterment of the system itself and its outcome. However, Sri Lanka is way behind realizing a solution through education for the betterment of its humanity for the headlights of power have obliterated the regime’s ability to see far. Ultimately, its subjects, in this case students will continue to remain diabolical calculations of the statesmen. One needs to question why the government’s printing press man arrested for the leakage of the paper and the private tuition class master who gave the questions out in black and white to his students did what they did. Wealth, fame, popularity and power have become the reduced milestones of human existence, beyond which an articulation is not tolerated or heard. This is true for rulers and the ruled, elite or otherwise. Constructive criticism or dialogue for human progress, which education should commend to is far off from our reach. The two men’s act in this scenario is a mere subversive reaction, form of survival and resistance to an unfathomable system which has no other alternative.

Legendary Sachin

An icon in Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar's retirement is symbolic. None, including Sachin himself, can beat his record set in ODI cricket, and he has already signed the books of cricket history, in his own style and trademark. Sachin is a good example for other fellow beings; of how one should excel in one's own capacity, and leave that respective field in its ultimatum. Years of dedication, study and practice made him what he is and was, and it is a lesson for any other in any field to be the "sublime object" of one's own ideology, if I may use Slavoj Zizek's words as interpretation.

Life after the Mayan calendar

Let us face the truth- we are, or at least should be, newly born after the Mayan projection of doom's day on 21st December. The entire world lived in fear on the eve of 21st, repenting for their misdeeds, and praying that they would live to see the sun yet shine on another 22nd December, hoping to see the world calendar move onto 2013.

Now that the apocalypse is no more, at least we should be purged by the effect it had on us. What are we now? We still live as we are- with the crimes and vices committed all round, the injustices, rapes, murders, shootings, only to name a few. In truth, the last few days after "doom's day" should have shown a lesser count of such incidents, and we should have been the "dialectic other" by now.

The "Pharoah's" Decree

The pro-democratic surge in the recent week in Tahrir square against Egyptian President Mursi's constitutional decree that would award him "absolute" powers, is yet another symbolic public uprise in the name of democracy. It signifies the fact that the public is conscious of and still believes that the judiciary must precede over constitutional positions and its manipulations, including Presidential powers. 

It is obvious that the very workings of democracy itself has the capacity to feed and lead its representatives into absolute authoritarianism. The space has been created within democracy itself. Moreover, the process is boosted through the capitalistic system which has engulfed "underdeveloped" nations like us, as well as the more rich Middle-East nations such as Egypt. Like venom in the bloodstream, it soon engulfs the system and numbs its subjects, ultimately killing the mass public in favor of those who hold the strings of power, of course, nominees of the mass, pathetically leading the public on, like the pied piper, from pitfall into a much bigger next.

Interestingly, society works backwards, though physics proves and claims that time moves forward- the best example being Egypt's case. Pharaohs of ancient Egypt had absolute power. Will President Mursi be the next is the question. Democracy has its dialectics in intricate ways. The people of Egypt who gathered at Cairo's square and its mass "occupy movement" have taken the right way of pro-democratic protest, and confirms to the rest of the world that democracy in its true sense still lies in the hand of the masses, not in those who have become objects of power. Blind Lady Justice should remain blind.

Hands off Palestine

The UN’s recognition of a Palestinian State is the latest validation of those who so far had “imaginary homelands” as Homi Bhaba would put it. The jubilation of thousands of Palestinians upon the vote is mass public victory and huge defeat for imperial nations such as the US and of course for Israel. The “insider’s” victory may not exactly be that of the “outsider's”. Nevertheless, obviously, the UN’s decision would be a turning point for the making of Palestine’s future history.

CJ's Case-what is democracy?

As a democratic nation (at least in its wording), we in Sri Lanka have witnessed crimes and injustices of the most undemocratic state, from war crimes to the present scenario in which the government accuses Chief Justice Shirani B. and has brought in an impeachment. Traces for CJ's current situation leads back to the supreme court decision on the governement's "Divineguma" bill, which refused it on the basis that it severely destabilizes the authority of the provincial councils and gives indefinite powers to a single cabinet minister of the government. According to a public statement, this is the reason why a parliament MP handed over an impeachement against the CJ to the parliament spokesperson.

 

Yet, given the above mentioned consequences of the bill, one should most probably expect such a decision by the supreme court. Yet, the government today, as has been its practice in its dictatorial regime, is not ready to receive or actually bear with difficult decisions by even the supreme court on its implementation stategies and networks, despite the fact that the sovereignity of the law must be situated above its subjects and must have a say of its own.

 

CJ Shirani B's case has been yet another eye opener towards the miraculous feat of undemocractic occurences in the country, towards which all opposition would be, I believe, nullified and subdued at whatever cost. So much for democracy, law and voice.

 

The government's effort to bring forth an impeachement and send CJ away should be deplored by all citizens of the country, if not the world, who value and still believe in the autonomy of the judiciary. As former President Chandrika Bandaranaike has said issuing a statement on the issue, it is the responsiblity of a country's citizens to protect its judiciary, for its protection translates and means that we, as citizens, are protected and our human rights are ensured and validated.  

Nimble Fingers

Want to share my thoughts on my experiences with the women in garment factories- their stories that were shared with me, will always haunt my conscience and question today's capitalism and its misconduct, the daunting difference of the abled and wealthy and the weaker less abled and poor. The difference that would widen to infinity by the seconds we pass through each day.

I could only but capture a glimpse in the following lines...

Bunk bed to factory line,
you sweat each day for kith and kind.
Your finger tips run over cloth,
stands high a nation with wealth you brought.

Your parents rest in their old age,
strong is the house made with your wage.
Five pitiful years you had to pass,
and still your hunger has to last.

Your sister, young, was given as bride,
with pride no second to any kind,
you made her dowry mighty high,
and hushed the in-law vanity tight.

Young brother, he too graduated soon,
with nothing less, a first class too.
Happy tears ran down your cheeks the day
you saw him grab the medal away.

Your sacrifice did pay off well,
yet still you sew, when they excel.
Thank God he dropped you out of school
Subversive fate- remorseful hell.

Moving out of the dilemma of our situation

What is understood or what we have to inexplicably understand as the basic human dilemma is the fact that we, as humans, exist in (voluntarily or not) an inescapably binary world, in which we are caught and are being simultaneously pulled, in opposite directions. This is true of both the physical and material world as well as of our inner-most, darkest thoughts that we would not want to share with the outer world.

A typical example of the state the human being finds him or herself in at this moment is to be in the chalk circle, expecting a verdict under King Solomon's judgement as in Bertolt Brecht's play Caucasian Circle. On the one hand Azdak, the true mother has reason to pull you to her side, while Grusha has an equally valid and weighted reason to pull you to hers. Both forces simultaneously pull and claim you to be on their side.

What we should comprehend of this diabolical status is that, since we are not abominable children who have to be merely "ushered" into a circle to be deiced one's position in future, we can simply walk out of the circle, taking a stance as to where we want to be.

My conclusion is that we, as humans, always have the space to simply walk out of the dilemma, a choice that is voluntary, but has its own consequences ever after.

Let us move out. I am determined to do so, even though the after implications may seem gruesome or sordid.