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Marketing Sympathy

The latest canard that is launched on behalf of the "Tamil cause" by you-know-who, is always better than the canard that preceded it.

What's new on the canard-cranking machine is the assertion that "genocide is being practised against our people in Trincomalee." (!!)

If anything qualifies to be genocide, then its worth the ask "who caused the genocide of the Sinhala people in the Trincomalee market by placing explosives rigged to a bicycle in the Trincomalee market premises."

How is genocide 'accomplished' against the Tamil people? Well, we daresay it must be easy. Place a quantity of explosives rigged to a bicycle in a marketplace that's frequented by Sinhala people, and then hope (....or as they say colloquially, 'hope like hell'...) that these explosives cause maximum carnage, and loss of human life. In turn, hope that the Sinhalese people in their shock and desperation will take it out on the Tamils, thus causing genocide of highly marketable proportions.

It's until this 'genocide' stops that the Liberation Tigers do not want to bring themselves to the negotiating table in Geneva. So they have said, in a statement issued by the hilarious Mr. Pulidevan. With this kind of genius for genocide, or to be more precise, for causing what is described as 'genocide', the Liberation Tigers seem to have a particular yen.

If there are certain markers in the international lexicon of human rights, 'genocide' is one of them that's particularly marketable. Manufacture as much 'genocide' as possible, no matter how many Sinhala people are killed in their markets in the process, and the Tigers hope that they have a machine for cranking international sympathy and schmaltz for their cause.

They read the 'marketability' factor as well as they read the stock market reports in a London exchange, these Tigers. They are aware that words such as genocide have a certain amount of saleability due to the fact that people expect a certain sacrosanct quality attached to these words. In general, people do not expect words such as genocide or holocaust to be used as if they have been taken out of the magician's hat or the sombrero of a bullring-addicted Mexican.

But, Tigers use 'genocide' in a way that makes some people who are neophytes to these matters wonder if "there is some truth to what these chaps are saying" when they use words that have a sacred quality words that are generally not used flippantly, or at the drop of a hat, by others.

It's this same general expectation of a certain orderliness, a fealty to system and basic canons that is exploited by the Tigers.

They know that though some people will be incredulous when they cry 'genocide' a lot of others are bound to be gullible as well, because the latter's expectation is that 'genocide' (the word, not the act...) is used by everybody the way its meant to be.

Fuel Frustration

Sri Lanka's dependency on fossil fuels for meeting energy needs is chronic, but so is the oil-dependency of almost every country on planet earth. But saying that is small comfort for the housewife who had her kerosene bill ratcheted due to the dizzy prices of the global oil market.

Bus fares are going up, and the housewife is not about to analyse the per barrel prices of crude when she buys her 'boomithel.' She would see a horrendous dent in her finances, and a homemaker with stretched purse strings is almost combustible material.

Eventually the fallout could be on the government. Its reason enough for Sri Lanka to find ways of buffeting itself against the fluctuating prices of crude. Incremental price increases could be galling.

If the state cannot afford to subsidise oil, maybe prices should be rationalised once and for all, so that there won't be the psychological blow for people via sporadic increases.

It's worth the reminder that this is a problem that's endemic to all energy consuming nations.

Translation: everybody is susceptible to the problem of oil price hikes, and hopefully, the world over, people will find ways of being resilient in the face of crude prices that reach for the skies.

Lock The Tiger

The Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States, Bernard Goonetillke said that the "international community should lock the Tamil Tigers into the negotiating process" or words to that effect. His words uttered a fortnight ago in the U.S. went barely noticed.

After almost an eternity of effort trying to get the Tigers to the negotiating table in Geneva, now his words suddenly ring so true, you wonder if the man had strange prescience. Tigers have the Houdini effect.

They get themselves out of any negotiating effort notwithstanding that these negotiations are secured via sanction and by means of threat. But, international sanction could be able to secure any kind of escape artistes, in a globalised world in which such sanction cannot go entirely by the board.

It's worth a try, said Bernard Goonatilleka, in effect, and that's the crux of his message. The international community has been too lenient and its attitude has been lackadaisical and almost distracted, even detached.

In a time of "war on terror" this could not be entirely due to a double-standard. To some extent, the international community has been remiss, purely due to its prior commitment to weightier concerns. But tolerance of a rouge 'regime' that terrorises people (..read Tigers in the Wanni) could begin an unhealthy trend of tolerance of intolerance, and the international community may be inviting a syndrome of slippery-slope indifference.

Its time they used that 'key' that's available to them, as ambassador Goonatillka said, and locked these Tigers over that table.

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