SRI LANKA HOLIDAYS: Good things

Good things come in small packages, and Sri Lanka, the island itself is a compact yet peerless tourist package. {Click here to read the complete article}

Sri Lanka offers a wide variety of locations, which the Academy Award winning director, Sir Carol Reed after shooting his film in Sri Lanka said, "The whole of Sri Lanka is a film set".

Ceylon's Rosetta Stone

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In 1826 George Turnour, British civil service officer in Ceylon while excavating an ancient rock temple site at Mulkirigala, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka found an unexpected treasure; a stack of palm-leaf parchments. It provided the means to decipher archaic Pali script of the Mahawamsa, the great history of Lanka, the priceless chronicle of 2550 years of unbroken civilization of the island of Sri Lanka.

Collective Civic Responsibility Vs. Individual Freedom in the Third World

Collective Civic Responsibility Vs. Individual Freedom in the Third World

B. Upul N. Peiris (bunpeiris), Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

To: <info-27537065@bounce.colonize.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: bunpeiris, Your opinion could be worth...$1,000.00!
never collected a penny for writing from Americans or for that matter, from anyone else. Never mind. A man has to do what he has to do. His has to give his two pennies worth. All must contribute to the humanity, hell or thunder.END

BEGINNING So I see you have bothered to ask me of an opinion of mine. A top of the rack punk; the lead hack of the pack. There is no doubt this is a part & parcel of your American advertising & propaganda. You are purely driven by commercial interest. Americans, for sure, know how to make money: they would collect everything ranging from our opinions to our garbage, recycle, repackage, brand & market it. They have all the Imagination & all the courage coupled with vast resources of a continent to follow up with tremendous innovation. From Asia only Japanese could stand with them.

But there are many others who are willing to lend their ears to the opinions of the Romans, Citizens, & friends. Let's add Indians too, after all they are one billion now. Nobody listen to Chinese but they have their way & say & get others to say very sorry even when no offence was intended. That's Chinese Chop Suey cum Kung Fu dish for you to be seasoned with American produced Soya Sauce. But then again, those that are willing to be simply polite & others who are genuinely sympathetic to the opinions of others are partly responsible for the chaos of our world. Everybody with an opinion end of taking up arms & causing violence: murder & mayhem; destruction& chaos & then others say that ex-marine thought different. (sorry for American slangbang English) Thought different my bum. The baby killer. May you burn in hell Bloody McVeigh!

Bring prosperity by killing 1.7 million. The 1.7 million Killer of Killing Fields himself was killed by a mosquito. John Lennon sang “Imagine”. Imagine no races, no religions, all for all & all are all. Lennon was gunned down. Today we are faced with million mutinies.. About a decade ago I happen to read a book review of a book written by one of the finest writers of our time. Even before start reading the article it dawned on me what it could be all about. The Name of the Book is

"Million Mutinies " & the name of the writer was V. S. Naipaul. It is only in January 2001 that I got a second hand copy of the book by American second hand bookseller powells.com. Thy Pax Americana, the kingdom of Dot.Com lands on your desk. Yet your heart is a blank book: your so called new world order is in wherever you can stand to your advantage with no ethic of consistency at all. Nobody wish to have a leaf of it. Having said that, we mustn’t forget philanthropists of the caliber of Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates & numerous others.

Now to drop a big brick & drive the Indian friends mad, allow me. Indians with their passion & penchant for taking up colorful language named the last civil disobedience against then ruling British, "mutiny ". They were clamouring for their bounty: India. With all that long civilization & all those pretty maids-Miss Words with such sexotic faces & exotic names such as Aishwarya, Sushmita, Diana, in a row, with all those unashamed ancient erotic carvings on, with those epics, Mahabaratha, Ramayana with only Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to take up the gauntlet, the land of Kama Sutra among million other magic, India is a divine bounty indeed.

Nevertheless, if it was then a mutiny, now in India are million mutinies of many colours & patterns. Naipaul explored his life long love, Indian society: opinions & views of multitude of races; innumerable frictions & fractions within the caste systems; contradictions & compromises of religious faith; whims & fancies of political forces; heat & passion of the idea of an one country called India although it had been one nation only twice in the history, first during King Asoka & then the British bloody colonialists

Naipaul's world was India & his million mutinies were confined to India. Once one is absorbed & then freed from Naipaul’s India, it wouldn't be difficult to see the whole world in million mutinies. And that was partly thanks to those who propagate opinions & giving way to individual freedom of expression without impressing upon all bums & mutts it would be better idea to adhere to the basic conception of collective civic responsibility. Then again, once again, this is an opinion. But then again it would suit the Third World, given the billions in China & India & exceedingly high density of population in other undeveloped countries with limited natural resources.

There is no transitional value except to hold Collective Civic Responsibility over & above ndividual Freedom in the Third World. Until the undeveloped land become developed countries, so called Universal Values of the Western Counties may best stand behind.

As Rodney King asked subsequent to Los Angeles Black American riots a decade ago, "can we all get along?'' Would it be possible for us to be magnanimous to the extent that we ourselves would suffer instead of making the others, even errant others suffer? One man did exactly that a couple of thousands years ago. Once I happened to view a part of a wonderful, beautiful film based on IRA. The young Irish Catholic, a would be terrorist argue with his mother in favour of taking up arms. "What else can we do if our grievances aren't redressed?" “Suffer it".

Other than your mother & your father there was only one man who had the right to say that. That was our man in Nazareth. Those people who had him killed are still waiting for their saviour: Waiting for Godot. It's 2001. If Ten Commandments aren't good enough, what is the option? To go with the blood & thunder, sword & fire, chaos & mutinies? So we will continue to have Million Mutinies.

The again, perhaps another man could say the same: the man who stood on the path of column of battle tanks in the Tiananmen Square during the civil protests of 1989, The silent hero is the icon of the century; a man standing down a tyrannical regime; frail flesh against unbending steel, mortality against on rush of terror, the very stuff of courage. That is the Right Stuff, indeed.

“There is no way that you can create a just society by wounding people, maiming people, and killing people”
Former IRA terrorist, the master bomber Shane Paul O'Doherty, renouncing violence

bunpeiris

B. Upul N. Peiris

Forked Tongue of Anaconda: USA

Dear H.
It's nice to hear from after such a long time. So your daughter Naveen recovered & everything is fine & all are in fine fettle. Please convey my regards to all.

So you weren't pleased at all with Malaysian civil servants who deprived you of the chance of giving better quality education to your son. If you are furious there is no other way than working all alone in fury itself. Says a famous novelist in his latest best seller : Life is a fury-sexual, Oedipal, political, magical brutal- drives us to our finest heights & coarsest depths. This is a what we are, what we civilize ourselves to disguise-the terrifying human animal in us, the exalted, transcendent, self destructive, untrammelled lord of creation. We raise each other to the heights of joy. We tear each other limb from bloody limb.

Don't get disheartened at the stepmotherly treatment from Malaysian beaurocrats. Southern Asia too is in the same league in this context among other things. Far East, that was far to the bloody British empire, yet not to the southern Asians, but closer than any other geographically as well as culturally. Speaking of getting closer, oh! yes Yemen Airways spread it's wings in the right directions. East & Far east. Air traffic , specially of holiday makers are bound to West to East rather than West to West across Atlantic following 11th September tragedy. Having taken the disastrous licking, the largest & the most vibrant economy of the world is bouncing back : productivity 5.2%, labour costs fall 2.7%. In the very words of Guardian of the Greenbacks, Mr. Greenspan US economic expansion is well under way. Our major political & social differences not withstanding, if the land of bounty prosper, the after effects or rather direct effects will definitely turn around the world economy. Yet we are in an unpredictable world. Perhaps chaos again, Bush is already threatening Iraq once again & his henchman Blair toe the line. We disagree. And agree with French Foreign Minister Hubert Verdine. The United States of America, he said acts "unilaterally, without consulting others, taking decisions based on its own view of the world & its own interests...refusing any multilateral negotiations that could limit their decision-making, sovereignty & freedom of action.

If the U.S. is really fighting a 'war against terrorism,' then the most suicide bombers are in Sri Lanka. This is not a war against terrorism. It is a war against America's enemies," said Karim Raslan, a young Malaysian lawyer and writer who is currently a Fulbright scholar in the U.S. Spokesman of the Embassy of United States, Colombo, referring to the 11th September tragedy told the newspaper Sunday Times of Colombo " We are fighting against terrorists who are not asking anything, they are not demanding anything, & not coming for negotiations, they want only to kill Americans. The Sunday times carried a front page cartoon of Tamil Tiger saying to Osama Bin Laden: Take my word, demand a separate state in the U. S. Then you can negotiate"

Didn't Embassy spokesman know whole Arab World & Bin Laden whom they accused of being the mastermind of 11thSep attack has been demanding Israel adhere to united Nations resolutions passed decades ago yet so far treated with utter contempt ? Forked tongue of the Anaconda.

Best Regards

bunpeiris