Wicked Lessons to Remember

Last night as a birthday treat for my wife, I took her to see the hit musical Wicked in London.

Needless to say, I loved the whole story and the interconnection it has from the original story 'Wizard of Oz' especially as it tries to provide some insight into the origins of some of the main and original characters. However, what I really loved about it was the 10 lessons of life that I gleaned from the production (in no particular order as such):

Lesson 1 - There are two sides to every story. Someone whom you perceive to be bad might have an explanation as to why they have arrived at where they are especially as circumstances might have pushed them there. So never judge a book by its cover. Also seek to first understand.

Lesson 2 - Society has a part to play in condemning someone as a 'radical' or an 'extremist' simply because they choose to buck the status quo. Someone who thinks differently to us or simply outside the box should not be feared.

Lesson 3 - Just because the powers that be classify someone as as extremist, doesn't make it so. The truth is often what people want to believe and not what it is. So we should see the world as it is and not as we think it should be.

Lesson 4 - what is given as 'fact' for public consumption may be farther than the truth. Always choose to look beneath the surface before making a judgement

Lesson 5 - do not judge someone who dresses differently, looks different, talks different and thinks different. Difference is not bad. Diversity is the hall mark of humanity and should be embraced.

Lesson 6 - never under estimate the power of sibling love or even friendship. This is what will get you through the darkest periods of your life.

Lesson 7 - be cautious of people who 'claim' to have your interests at heart, especially people that you work with. It is often that they have something to gain from you as well

Lesson 8 - never discriminate between your children despite the many differences that may arise with them. Each one of them is special in their own way and will eventually excel in their own uniqueness.

Lesson 9 - people come into your life for a reason. always value and learn from your encounters with them

Lesson 10 - opportunities come across your path every day; your life is determined by how you respond to them. never regret the choices made

So there you have it. 10 lessons for life from the musical on how we can be better at doing things.

Worse come to worse, just go to enjoy some good music and a good laugh.


Amjad Saleem

Channel 4 Documentary - A Case of Moving Backwards

The recently telecast C4 documentary on ‘war crimes in Sri Lanka’ sheds no new light, in terms of groundbreaking evidence, regarding the incidents related to the end of the war in Sri Lanka, 2 years ago.  If anything, it will seek to entrench already hardened attitudes and decrease the ever reducing space for dialogue and reconciliation. 

From the government’s perspective, it will just seek to feed into the insecurity that it surrounds itself with, of a perception that the west has been influenced by a highly successful pro LTTE lobby and will therefore secure its ‘credibility’ especially as a ‘victim of an external conspiracy’ consequently rallying the people’s sympathy.  This means that making any genuine attempt to hold the government accountable for anything will be considered as part of this ‘conspiracy’.

On the other side, for the pro LTTE lobby (largely represented by their supporters in the UK, US and Canada) this will be a ‘vindication’ of their claims regarding the Government and its conduct of the war, thereby serving to boost their movement and support whilst ignoring the part that they have played in fund raising and supporting the LTTE. This has been helped by a sympathetic media which so far has tended to focus on the government’s part in the end of the war rather than attempting to hold LTTE representatives, sympathisers and fund raisers in the West, who have garnered support from MPs and International organisations (despite the proscription of the LTTE as a terrorist group), accountable for the crimes committed by the LTTE.  Unfortunately, this minority of voices tends to silence the majority of the moderate Tamil voices who whilst upset at the death of thousands of civilians and the internment of relatives in refugee camps, nevertheless do not subscribe to the LTTE line.   What this has meant in practice is that the pro LTTE lobby has hijacked the Tamil cause and intimidated and harassed those who seek to have any meaningful dialogue on post conflict Sri Lanka.

The fear in places like London is that these differences will also be used for political propaganda purposes and will play out on the streets.  There are reports of houses / shops belonging to Sri Lankans being vandalised and activists being sent death threats in the aftermath of the 2009 conflict.  Already in the lead up to the screening of the  C4 documentary, there have been email and sms campaigns being waged in an attempt to convince people to watch ‘the brutality of the Sri Lankan government’ or to encourage people to ‘protest against the bias of the one-sided coverage’.  The fear is as one Sri Lankan activist told me “We are preparing to once again be intimidated and unfortunately there is very little we can do”.

It is this decrease in the space to explore mutual understandings that lie at the heart of most people’s disapproval of moves like C4 or the UN to talk about the conflict. For those of us who have been and are active in trying to move forward, it is not about defending the indefensible.   We are not here to deny or  justify abuses. Even though war is never just or civil, especially when it is fought against a proscribed terrorist organisation that has a history of forcible child recruitment, ethnic cleansing and using their own people as a human shield, this is not an excuse for abuses to be meted out and if it has happened then those responsible on all sides have to be brought to task.  Therein lies the problem.  Whilst blame is very often vociferously laid at the feet of the Sri Lankan government for its actions, the welfare camps and so on, nothing is said with the same intensity about the atrocities committed by the LTTE such as: the ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Muslims from the north (who still live in refugee camps today in the north west of Sri Lanka); the assassination of key political and intellectual leaders (of all ethnicities); the forcible recruitment of child soldiers or the perfection of suicide bombing.  The reports do not carry any discussion of how most of the LTTE combatants  mingled with civilians and forcibly conscripted many civilians to fight for them in the final stages. Nor do they discuss the phenomenon that Mark Meadow’s 2010 book ‘Tea Time with Terrorists’, describes of how  former LTTE fighters have explained LTTE tactics such as “LTTE cadres dressing up in Sri Lankan army uniforms, then firing at unarmed civilians to put false blame on the army”.  For those of us who may have opposed how the war was conducted by the Sri Lankan government, we are equally if not more opposed to standing shoulder to shoulder with people flying the LTTE flag.

Unfortunately, in the midst of this flurry of interest once again in what happened in Sri Lanka, the real discussion is becoming sidelined, for whilst it is important to look at the past, it is vital that an eye is placed towards the future.  How can Sri Lanka learn from the mistakes of the past that sidelined the minorities and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians? Successive governments have always hid behind the pretext of winning the war and defeating the LTTE militarily without addressing some of the fundamental key issues concerning minorities. Now with the defeat of the LTTE, there is a real opportunity to address the legitimate grievances of the minorities to ensure that the country is not subject to a repeat of the conflict ever again.  How can  Sri Lanka, despite more than sixty years of independence, develop a constitutional framework that will satisfy the aspirations of all its citizens and deliver an environment of peace and harmony to engage its human and natural resources for the development of the country? Moreover at a grass roots levels, how can people work towards reconciliation between polarised communities (growing increasingly suspicious of each other thereby encouraging inward looking clannish tendencies)  and ensuring an environment of peace, justice and equity whilst holding politicians accountable for good governance?

Those involved in conflict resolution and peace building will often talk about a period of healing.  The bloody Sunday acknowledgement by the British Government took xx years to be done.  Poland and Germany only normalised strained relations after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The period of healing for Sri Lanka is still in an infant stage and this is what is not addressed in these various reports regarding the end of the war. As it stands it is doubtless felt that such endeavours will in fact damage efforts being undertaken to achieve reconciliation.  What is critical for Sri Lanka is the rebuilding of trust

Trust can only be rebuilt when a space is created for effective dialogue and understanding.  Rebuilding trust is about honouring unity and celebrating diversity, working towards equity and justice and ensuring the eradication of social prejudices in building a collective identity.  Rebuilding trust is about decreasing suspicion  and  infusing human values with an understanding of the need to move away from apportioning blame for deceit and destruction.  Sri Lanka needs this space in order for it to move forward.  It needs time for its people to go through the healing process.  Its people need to come up with their own locally developed solutions. I have always been confident that Sri Lanka has the answers to its own problems and does not need outside interventions.  After being involved in providing/organising humanitarian relief for four years post-tsunami and during the concluding stage of the war in Sri Lanka I have been touched by the  strength, passion and willingness of people to rally round and  work for a common purpose at times of adversity. This I believe is a unique Sri Lankan trait that is an asset to the country.  Yet passion without purpose can be misguided as the empty rhetoric of politicians without any substance can lead to irrelevant actions.

Michael Henderson in his book No Enemy to Conquer, talks about the journey of forgiveness and reconciliation as  the need to move beyond the concept of a clash between each other to reaching out and developing an alliance with ‘the other’.  This journey means to take an individual  responsibility to create a safe space for people to talk and share ideas.  This safe space entails not only moving beyond victimhood but also being cognizant of the past (accepting and facing up to the past honestly), the past should not become a ball and chain for the future.

Sri Lanka’s Expatriate community in the west also have their share of the responsibility to challenge the normalisation of the narrative regarding the conflict and reconciliation, and to rise above their apathy to be ambassadors of good will for their country of heritage. Those who are anti Rajapakse and who oppose the government not on principle but on party lines find themselves as natural ‘bed fellows’ to the pro LTTE camp who are also intent on ousting the government, in order to keep their movement alive. What this means is a lost opportunity to hold the government accountable on real issues of governance such as the rising cost of living or allegations of corruption whilst securing the credibility of the government especially as a ‘victim’.

Sri Lanka is now at the cross roads of moving forward, cleansed of the past and with a chance to develop a common vision shared by all towards collective nation building and prosperity or to plunge back into another unknown era of bitter interethnic rivalries fanned by divisive politics .Regardless of whatever different situations may demand, reconciliation has to ultimately work through the hearts of individuals who harbor pains from the long years of their inability to meet basic human aspirations or from loss of loved ones and properties as they became innocent victims of calculated and indiscriminate violent attacks between fighting forces. Constitutional amendments and projected development are not enough to make hearts to forget or forgive. It needs a platform for genuine and objective discussion to hear all sides of the argument in hope of moving forward towards achieving reconciliation and a new direction for the country. Sri Lanka’s expats have to step into be ambassadors of goodwill to provide the guidance for this platform to be nurtured. 

Transparency, accountability and social justice are the pillars of a mature democratic society.  Sri Lanka’s journey is still very early in trying to achieve this, but nevertheless it has started.  Where abuse has taken place, people will be held accountable, BUT this has to be on the terms and the time scale that has been determined by the Sri Lankan people themselves.  The release of this documentary and other supplementary reports provides unwarranted distraction from the main issues that the government (and any government in a post conflict country) should be held accountable for including: steps taken towards reconciliation, stemming the rising cost of living, tackling corruption and trying to ensure law and order.   By demanding it from outside, it also abrogates responsibility from all the stakeholders within Sri Lanka to play a part in this reconciliation and development process.

Spirituality: The Glue that Binds Us

As one gets older it is not surprising that one’s thoughts turns to how life was so much better in one’s youth. It just seems that the world is a much more different place today than it ever was. Some of it is really exciting in terms of the progress made in technology but there is still room for improvement, with poverty still rampant in some parts of the world, wars still raging and an inequality that separates those that have from those that do not have.

We live in an era of globalisation and technological change, cutthroat politics, and culture conflict. Many will argue that in this current globalising world such rivalry, competition, conflicts, and violence are a necessary tool to preserve the ‘values of freedom’.

However such violence is only perpetuated from deeply delusive and divisive assumptions of single exclusive identities by sectarian activists who want people to ignore all affiliation and loyalties in support of one specific identity. Such exclusive identities are often negative, stressing difference rather than belonging, ‘opposition to’ rather than ‘support for’ something.

Whatever the source of conflict, we know that conflict starts in the minds and hearts of people and when people shut themselves from reasoning, prejudice overtakes and communication breaks down. Conflicts reinforce rumour, hearsay and generalization which are the first steps that lead to the stereotyping of people (their faith, their culture and identity) and the denial of a diverse, lived reality, the opposite of respect, understanding and acceptance.

It is as a result of this that the world is experiencing turmoil and as such needs a new solution, new vision and new understanding which takes into account ways of relating with each other especially in an increasingly interdependent community. This new solution should involve the recognition of our plurality and the searching for commonalities within this pluralism that will lead to greater respect and ultimately greater understanding.

However we somehow don’t seem to possess a shared language with which to discuss this recognition, much less the tools to arrive at a consensus as to how we as a community and society and nation might work together, to bring this about.

This shared language can be the language of spirituality which will allow us to recognise the common space and substance amongst all doctrines that will provide the fuel for social change and trigger action for the unity of humanity.

This shared language will enable us to develop a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes this improbable experiment of reconciling and rehabilitation of communities at disagreement. These are living values and ideals which cannot find expression on paper or monuments or in the annals of history books. They remain alive in the hearts and minds of people and they should inspire us to pride, duty and sacrifice. We need these living values to build on shared understandings. Much of what ails us involves a breakdown in culture, respect, understanding and acceptance. This will not be cured by money. Values and spiritual life matter as much as GDP. These values are the glue that binds every healthy society.

Spirituality thus is an awareness of the interconnection of all things to provide the fuel for social change. It is the ability to recognise that diverse doctrines have a common space and substance as we all belong to this world and we need to live in peace with everything and everyone and protect it for those who come after us. Spirituality is about a sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of those who are voiceless. Spirituality is a faith in something bigger than ourselves whether it is formal religion or way of life or ethical precepts. It is this faith that allows us to value behaviour that express mutual regard for one another, honesty, fairness, humility, kindness courtesy and compassion.

Spirituality is not religiosity or preaching your religious values, although these form components of a lived spirituality. It is about something greater. We are not here to preach to anyone or convert anyone. We are not here to denigrate someone and their ideals.

The Famous Victorian Explorer Sir Richard Burton once wrote that

‘All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strewn In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own’ where he meant that you will find parts of the truth everywhere and the whole truth nowhere.

What he meant to say was that we all seem to think that we have the ultimate truth, yet, it is a truth that is part of a greater truth. So if we think in the grander scheme of things (beyond theology and ideology) to unite humanity with peace, respect and understanding, then each of us (with our faith and spiritual teachings) have a bit of that shard of broken glass. This can be pieced together on issues of commonality, as opposed to focusing on our points of difference. Then we would have made the first step towards spiritual reconciliation between communities.

Thus our task as change makers is to try and see how we can piece these broken bits of the mirror. What is the glue we will use? What are the tools? What does the final mosaic look like?

In such a climate as we have today, any assertion of shared ideals or common values might seem unrealistic or hopelessly naive- an attempt to gloss over serious differences or worse or a means of muffling the complaints of those who feel ill served by current institutional arrangements. The point is that we have no choice. We need a new alternative to what has been done so far. We have got to a position where something new needs to happen. Narrow interests have vied for advantage with ideological minorities seeking to impose their own versions of absolute truth that we are left cynical and unsure. It is time we reassembled the pieces of the broken mirror.

Tan Sen, the master musician at the court of the Moghul Emperor, Akhbar, had some fifteen musical instruments in the Emperor’s chamber, which he had tuned to one frequency. Upon playing just one instrument’s musical note, the other fourteen started to resonate, to the astonishment and delight of the audience

Ideally this story can serve well as a metaphor for how communities can work in harmony to achieve an enlightened result and serves as a lesson for how we can move forward.