{"id":48676,"date":"2016-09-26T16:42:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T20:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48676"},"modified":"2016-09-26T16:44:49","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T20:44:49","slug":"48676","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48676","title":{"rendered":"Re-defining Racism and Identifying Top Five “New” Racists in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Eranda Ginige
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

When asked from Morgan Freeman (not Nelson Mandela) \u201chow are we going to get rid of racism?\u201d he answered in his god-voice \u201cby not talking about it\u201d. <\/p>\n

People use racism senselessly and often as a weapon to silence others with different views, therefore has lost its real power. Calling somebody a racist is the easiest way to silence them. If you don\u2019t like what the other person is saying and you know you can\u2019t disprove them with facts, just call him or her a racist, you instantly win the argument. <\/p>\n

From petty Facebook feuds to parliamentary debates, it\u2019s an overly used tactic. While you are at it, you may also add words like sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and Islamophobic. You don\u2019t need to know what they actually mean. Just go for the kill.<\/p>\n

A racist is somebody who believes their group is better than another group of people. Traditionally, that distinction was based on a combination of biological, geographical and social-economical constructs attributed at birth or acquired later. Your skin colour, facial features, location of birth, parents\u2019 occupation, language, religious beliefs, customs, traditions and the list goes on.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sinhala vs. Tamil vs. Muslim; Buddhist vs. Hindu vs. Christian vs. Islamic or like some old school Kandyans who believe they are better than the Southerners; or the Tamils from Jaffna who believe they are better than the Tamils in the estate sector; or the Thawheed clan who believe they are better than the moderate Muslims; or the Roman Catholics who believe they are better than the Christians\u2026<\/p>\n

All those traditional forms of racism have been there for a long time and frankly the narrative is getting really boring. So it\u2019s time we define the 21st century version of racism. Racism that is based on your school, university, level of education, occupation, annual income, the brand of the car your drive, length of your penis, size of your breasts, the operating system of your phone and so on.<\/p>\n


\n So here are the top five new racists in Sri Lanka in no particular order.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. Doctors who believe they are better than other professionals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay, we all know medical doctors naturally tend to believe they are better than others. What do you expect when you keep calling them the \u201cLiving Gods!\u201d? But it looks like they\u2019ve taken it literally and are now getting very aggressive about it. In a recent interview their leaders surgically threatened that the Government should consider them as more important than any other professional, and therefore should be given preferential treatment when allocating perks including unrestricted access to the best schools for their children to study! <\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing asking for a car permit for yourself, but asking privileges for your children is eugenics! And if we don\u2019t give them that, they\u2019ll stop treating patients and will leave Sri Lanka because other countries are supposedly waiting for them with open arms and the best schools for their deservingly superior children. So much for the Hippocratic Oath!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2. University students who believe they are entitled to a government job<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Lankan university students have a mega sense of entitlement. They got the highest marks in their university entrance exam, and therefore should get a free ticket for everything for the rest of their lives. Free education, free accommodation, free food, free books, free Wi-Fi, free this, free that and of course free jobs. <\/p>\n

They collectively protest on the roads, go on hunger strikes for months (it\u2019s amazing how they survive without food for the 59th day of a continuous hunger strike), have press conferences and even end up in jail asking for immediate government jobs. And they don\u2019t like entry level jobs, no\u2026 no\u2026 they want managerial posts or higher. <\/p>\n

They also believe they are far more superior to the students who study at private higher education institutes. So superior, they think nobody else should have access to higher education other than themselves! They are like Nazis, they don\u2019t just believe they are better than others, they actually have to eliminate the others altogether.<\/p>\n


\n3. Politicians (yeah, all of them!)
\n<\/strong>
\nLankan politicians by definition believe they are better than the people who actually vote them in. They collectively believe they deserve to be treated as royalty simply because they got the people\u2019s vote. There was a time when the common man was supposed to step down to the gutter when he would see a white-skinned colonial master. <\/p>\n

Today the common man must step away or stand still while their politicians pass them with their wild security escorts. They believe 17-erangathey need multi-million-rupee super luxury cars to drive in to their constituency because they should be driving far better cars than the normal people. <\/p>\n

They believe they are more powerful than others because people come to listen to them, stay in queue to meet them, invite them for every goddamn opening, fall on their knees to get a job, and as a result they treat others as inferior to them. Worst of all they use racism to create tensions between groups of people just so that they can win elections. <\/p>\n


\n4. Students of popular schools who believe they are better than other school children<\/strong><\/p>\n

There you go, I said it. Our school system is the primary breeding ground for racism. Once I met a former minister of foreign employment for an official meeting. I together with one of my British colleagues were asked to take seats at his table. After a while the minister emerged from inside his dining room (inside his office!) rubbing his wet hands.<\/p>\n

While shaking his curry smelling hand, he looks up to me and ask \u201care you from ***** College?\u201d I smiled and said \u201cNo\u201d. He then said \u201cwell then you have lost the opportunity of studying at the best school\u201d. My British colleague was twisting in disbelief. I said \u201cwell this is awkward\u201d, although there was nothing awkward about it for him. <\/p>\n

We all know the type. Most (not all) students and most old boys and gals of the so-called \u201cbest schools\u201d apply the title for themselves literally and believe they are indeed the best and therefore are superior than others. And sometimes you see these popular school kids gang up to bully the kids from the \u201cnot best schools\u201d. It extends beyond the school and into the workplace where candidates from certain schools get preferential treatment in recruitment and promotion.<\/p>\n

5. Anti-racists<\/strong><\/p>\n

A great way to get a job in the UN or some NGO is to promote yourself as an anti-racist. They just love that type. If your parents or if your spouse happens to be from different ethnic or religious groups, you hit the jackpot. You can use that trump card and self-promote yourself as the embodiment of the perfect Sri Lankan who transcends all forms of racism. <\/p>\n

But there is a fundamental problem in this \u201cracists vs. anti-racists\u201d scenario. If the so-called anti-racists believe they are better than the racists, then wouldn\u2019t that make them racists too? If you think a \u201cSri Lankan\u201d race is better than Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher, then by the same definition you too are a dangerous racist. Perhaps this is what Morgan Freeman actually meant. Racism and anti-racism are the same inherently flawed human construct. <\/p>\n

As long as we believe we are better than or less than others in any way, from your religion to your choice of mobile phone (you know how the iPhone users think of other phone users) we will never be able to understand \u201clack of racism\u201d, I like to think that\u2019s the true meaning of the word \u201cunity\u201d. <\/p>\n

The closest alternative we have right now is to embrace \u201cdiversity\u201d and uphold \u201cequal opportunity\u201d. The intention of this article is to demonstrate the absurdity of the whole concept of racism. <\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Eranda Ginige When asked from Morgan Freeman (not Nelson Mandela) \u201chow are we going to get rid of racism?\u201d he answered in his god-voice \u201cby not talking about it\u201d. People use racism senselessly and often as a weapon to silence others with different views, therefore has lost its real power. Calling somebody a racist …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Re-defining Racism and Identifying Top Five “New” Racists in Sri Lanka’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48678,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48676\/revisions\/48678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}