I do believe in Sri Lanka
I do believen in Sri Lanka, even though I haven't even set my foot on its soil yet. Just reading about the country, its roots, its religion and its life nowadays is enough to prove that it is a good place for any young person to develop and flourish - themselves and their future organizations. Still a couple of things bug me. 1) Media and 2) Government's inability to solve the diversity issues within a country that has two main strands of ethnicity; Tamils and Sinhalese people.
1) Whenever I mention to someone that I'm going to Sri Lanka, their first thought (and voiced opinion) is "Oh, Tamil tigers. Isn't that dangerous?". I'm sick and tired of answering the same question and I feel really sad that a beautiful country like Sri Lanka is only able to produce bad news to western countries. I also feel sad for the ordinary Tamil population who get a bad reputation because of LTTE's actions. Why there are no documentaries to try and explain the Sri Lankan history, to show that LTTE is just a small pissed off part of Tamil population, to show that there are better things in the country than the age old vicious circle of strikes and counter strikes? Is this a taboo in Sri Lanka or why no one takes action?
2) I've come to understand that the government in Sri Lanka is strongly influenced by the Buddhist clergy. "Isn't this like corruption?" I thought and browsed to the Transparency International website. Ok, I know nothing about the local governance but it seems to me that something should be done on this sector, too. The results of past surveys are here and show that bribery is a real problem too.
I don't know who is funding the media but for some reason I feel these two are interlinked. For some reason, the news that reach European countries are almost demonizing the Tamils - if not all, at least the Tigers - in Sri Lanka. Depending of the source, the tone of news is completely different. See for yourself and check out the daily news in the Sri Lanka links section (on the right pane).
But how should I know. Please, contribute to the discussion and educate me and the rest alike! These are exactly issues I want to tackle and see if we together can have some kind of positive impact.
posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Monday, June 26, 2006
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