Nisadas

It’s election time. Time to make promises, shake hands, pay people to throng at your speeches and wave majestically. It is a time for many things. Perhaps even a totally irrelevant and irreverant post on something that came to mind (these kind of thoughts occur very often, but very few are ever published). Before reading the rest of this post, please ensure that you’ve got a sense of humour and most importantly, an open mind – I can be very confusing sometimes, which can be a good opportunity to laugh at me. If you lack the two – I hope that you have free will. This entails being able to understand that No, I Don’t Need To Read The Rest Of This Stupid Post And Get All Hot And Bothered About It. If you find yourself lacking in all three departments – please don’t read any further. If you’re still reading this, you’re implicitly agreeing that you posess the first two qualities yadda yadda yadda yadda…

So anyway. I watched Ms Nisha Pillai on BBC speak to Lord Naseby of the British-Sri Lanka Parliamentary Group with regard to the issue of the EU travel ban on the Tamil Tigers. It was quite interesting to watch the conversation and the reactions of the two individuals concerned.

However, for details and discussion on matters re: LTTE, GOSL and the “ethnic” conflict in Sri Lanka – might as well check Mephistopheles or Nittewa. Nothing on those lines here. Sorry, Politics is a subject that I refrain from discussing (specifically) or debating in public – as someone once said, “It’s like wrestling a pig – not only do you end up getting dirty, but the pig actually enjoys it”.

Rather, much in line with the strange ways that my mind works – watching that little tete a tete cultivated a (rather weird) vision of the future. A glimpse of the world as it soon could (will?) be.

A quick trip to the Wikipedia (don’t we all love that site) will show just how many separatist movements are at work in the world today. I will not discuss the validity or the idealogy behind these movements.

Rather, I will say this – today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, we are living in greater proximity to each other. Something of a global village. If not physically, then virtually. Advances in technology such as the Internet and satellite broadcasts have brought cultures diverse and different in contact with each other. People who only 20 years ago would have led lives that hardly strayed beyond the borders of their little hamlet in the border villages in Sri Lanka may now watch various american television shows on their solar powered TVs. What does Siripala make of “Sex and the City”? (Okay, so its a dumb example – please provide a better one)

So in this modern Babylon where races, religions and cultures are continuously confronting each other, I see people getting increasingly anxious about their individual identity. This is followed by perceived or (sadly) actual social/political/economic disadvantages that tend to frustrate people and cause problems. Hmmm….

Sure – I’m unique – but so’s everyone else. Oh dear, I’m feeling a little – just a little – bit insecure now. How come those other people are getting a better deal than I am?

So lets all gang up depending on what our most common factor is. Let’s get Tribal. After all, the Tribe knows whats best for its members. Or rather, the head of the Tribe knows what is best.

So lets assume the Tribes are set up. These will be split along the usual lines of race first. Perhaps religion can be a secondary distinction. Caste, Social status, Job satisfaction, Sports involvement and voluntary services provided can be used as filters afterwards. Being of mixed racial background can be a hindrance. Best to go with the secondary distinctions then.

So what does that give us? Hypoythetically, we’d have The Sinhala Bauddha Govi Madhyama Panthika Rekiya Wirahitha Upadhidharee Pakshaya (translated: The Sinhala Buddhist Govi-caste Middle-class unemployed-graduate party) could be set up, where it would find itself in polar opposition to the Sinhala Bauddha Govi Madhyama Panthika Rekiyalabhi Upadhidharee Pakshaya (as before, but employed-graduates), on the grounds that employment was given out by central government on a purely arbitrary basis that discriminated them.

But why stop there? Let’s get geographical. We can get these various groups to agitate (first peacefully, then violently – subject to actual weaponry and training available) against whatever central government is around, asking for a separate state. This would enable the different parties to pursue their various agendas independently.

But where do we draw the line? Is the setting up of separate states the solution to problems brought about by globalisation? Where do we draw the line and say that separatism by the Horton Place Progressive Front, the Mirihana People’s Alliance or the Melbourne Idama Liberation Kangaroos are people with serious issues as opposed to other separatist movements?

The planet we live on is like an island in an ocean of stars. Until there are viable alternatives (like the proposed colonies on the moon and Mars), there’s little we can do. The world population has been growing at what seems to be a dangerously unsustainable rate. This leaves all of us with increasingly less land to live on, much less die on. Are we to keep splitting it up into tinier and tineir pieces?

Do we really need to go back on millennia of evolution, technological and social progress to relive the ways of our ancestors and their tribal feuds (“My grandfather offed your grandfather 100 years ago, so the fact that your father offed my father is no reason for you to claim ownership of this piece of land”)?
If we keep splitting up the land we have based on the various labels we give ourselves – what will be left of us as humanity?

Have we as humanity grown up? Or do we still dwell in our little individual wells, admiring the sky above and ignoring the world around us?