It's been a long time since I have been on the blogosphere owing mostly to educational commitments and other unavoidable but equally important matters... Thus, I felt it would be appropriate to rekindle my love affair with politics...
Sometime ago, my fellow bloggers on MATHAWAADA asked me to prove my claim that everything revolves around politics, though I wanted to put up a post the very next day I was forced to postpone the subject for over a month... A phenomenon that i have begun to notice on the blogosphere is the mushrooming of self appointed social critics... for some reason they take pride in dissing our valiant army, dissing our culture, the religion they are born into and any sense of morality..
True, many of their grievances can be justified, maybe they hate the war on terror coz roads close down for abt half an hour each day,maybe our cultural values and religious ideals prevent them from having a good time...
On the latter point I myself was born to Buddhist parents but I do not follow the faith meticoulously however I try to stick to certain values particularly the five precepts which i beleive are more common sense than religious preaching...
If you don't like your religion don't follow it... brand your self as non-religious and live your life.. there no need to diss what your forefathers believed in right? I mean its not cool for Americans to diss Muslims or for Pakistanis to diss HIndus right? So what makes it ok for u to diss the religions and culture that more than 90 percent of our country believe in?
It is unfortunate that 'DILBERTS' if i may use the word, for i am fond of the cartoon seem to be the self appointed defining factor in deciding social ethics, this seems to be trend in the while of Sri Lanka. For some reason a passable command of the English language, a moderately well paid job in the private sector that involves staring at computer screen for over 8 hours and internet access has made this new breed of corporate slaves know it alls when it comes to politics, morality, art, culture etc.
Unfortunately they have not been able to comprehend that their compatriots sweating it out in university come into contact with the real Sri Lanka and the varied tapestry of Sri Lankan life... It seems impossible for them to grasp the fact that the real world lies beyond their LCD screens, beyond the air conditioned offices and the casual fridays...
Fortunately, this it self is prime example of politics taking it's toll on individuals, there are many in the private sector, many bloggers out there that claim that government spending on education, health is wasteful, there are many who are openly against the massive government welfare schemes in SL yet support Barack Obama's policies in the US...
Why? The simple answer politics... Humans are naturally inclined to live in hierarchical societies, inevitably these societies require a leader and when it comes to the actual process of selecting a leader, politics come into play, therefore it is apparent that politics is second nature to all humans..
Why enforce your view however right or wrong on others? Simple, take for example our previously mentioned office worker, his priorities in life are preserving his way of life, to buy a car, to keep the AC running in his office etc. For this purpose he/she pursues a course of action that is beneficial towards his/her priorities... furthermore they attempt to justify their preservation by tainting these political ideologies as being people friendly and beneficial to the masses...
Take for example the so called jet set in Colombo, they will go to great lengths to describe the virtues of the private sector, about the need to cut down on free education, how it is wasteful, how our health service is plagued by the inefficiency, how the people shouldn't get anything for free... yet they will continue in the same vein about the greatness of Barack Obama as a champion of the oppressed black man, his vision of universal health care etc.
Why these glaring conflict of interests? As I mentioned earlier its all about preserving their way of life and politics is an essential tool in doing so...
Well bawa quite an interesting post..but then again i have to say that its full of half truths and misconceptions..
ReplyDeleteFirst of all blogging is all about that isn't it?? Being a self appointed social critic. Ever heard of blogger anonymity,which you are quite fond of? so i guess its the readers who brings out the hypocrisy or selfvalue in any blogger,though a popular blog doesn't necessarily mean its addressing the issues fairly and accurately..
And its quite unrealistic to relate your university life as being the REAL connection with the true Sri lankan life.
I for myself as someone who made that choice between public education(university life) and a private sector job find this claim to be quite untrue...
Your point is just another aspect shared by less than 2% of the whole Sri Lankan student population...may be its you who have lost touch with the reality??
You also forgot the fact that the private sector forms up more than 60% of Sri lanka's employment??
So yeah there can be those individuals that you talk about, but generalizing the fact in both ways(whether its the university or the private sector) is quite a neglected and a partial way of looking at it..
But yeah i agree with you on one fact, that is "politics". Well its all about enforcing your view on the others..its what you and me and so many people in the bloggersphere are doing rite now....
Lead or be led? Well I guess we'd all agree that the former would be the better alternative...
ReplyDeleteI thought politics is all about taxes.
ReplyDeleteIf this is directed at me, I'm quite flattered.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I know that local uni students are shallow, is because I was one of them.
Your latter part about private sector is true. But the reason for breeding corporate slaves is due to our local slave mentality. Yes, even in the "jet set" of colombo, most men suffer from an inferiority complex. Hence they work for others, not themselves.
Capitalism is about choice. A cumulative of individual choices. The transition from slaves to men will occur if we stop taking choices in groups and start thinking individually.
We not China. We cannot afford cheap labour. Our only option is to create abundant leaders who will take the country forward in many directions, not just one.
Bottom line is, we live in a capitalist society and a way of life. what is capitalism? simply to further our own interests. so even this post of yours tries to enforce your viewpoint on the rest of us. so maybe we're al the same afterall :)
ReplyDelete"for some reason they take pride in dissing our valiant army, dissing our culture, the religion they are born into and any sense of morality.."
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Sounds very much like you... except the word Government is missing.
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"If you don't like your religion don't follow it... brand your self as non-religious and live your life.. there no need to diss what your forefathers believed in right? I mean its not cool for Americans to diss Muslims or for Pakistanis to diss HIndus right? So what makes it ok for u to diss the religions and culture that more than 90 percent of our country believe in?"
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This is just silly. By this logic if our forefathers believed in Slavery, or that all Tamil people should die... since they are the majority we have no right to disagree with it?
Majority = Right is not a good thing to follow. The majority of the World once believed the Earth was flat...
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"Unfortunately they have not been able to comprehend that their compatriots sweating it out in university come into contact with the real Sri Lanka and the varied tapestry of Sri Lankan life"
What a load of rubbish... now you're telling me that all life revolves around the Uni?
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"It seems impossible for them to grasp the fact that the real world lies beyond their LCD screens, beyond the air conditioned offices and the casual fridays..."
It seems impossible for you to grasp that life doesn't revolve around what you see through your extremely narrow specs.
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Lastly your answer to politics is life is somewhat weak. By what you describe two male lions fighting for control of the pride is politics... but that's just nature.
Quite frankly in an ideal world we wouldn't believe the bullshit that politicians parade in front of us in order to get our vote. We'd vote for them based on actual merit.