OUR VIEWS/EDITORIALS

COLUMNS

LONG READS

World Views

The Most/Recent Articles

Pakistan: Defence Minister's Pathetic Behavior

Speaking to reporters, the defence minister, when asked to comment on the ghastly crime, said the killing was simply a result of young people being high on emotion and passion.

At a time when millions worldwide are consumed with anger and despair over the barbaric lynching of a Sri Lankan national in Sialkot, Federal Minister Pervez Khattak has uttered words which can only be interpreted as a pathetic justification for murder.

Speaking to reporters, the defence minister, when asked to comment on the ghastly crime, said the killing was simply a result of young people being high on emotion and passion. Indignant at the idea that the government is somehow responsible for creating an environment where such a horrific crime can happen, Mr Khattak downplayed the incident in words that can only be described as ignorant and dangerous.

Not only was he adamant that people refrain from characterising the Sialkot lynching as an incident that shows how society is headed towards destruction, he also appeared to believe that young people, when high on emotion, can kill in the name of religion. He went so far as to indicate that he himself in his youth was emotional and ready to do anything, and that fights and even murders are a result of such a mentality.

Such a statement from a federal minister should come as a shock, but unfortunately, we are accustomed to our public officials being in denial about the realities of extremism and violence in the country. Mr Khattak’s remarks are deeply problematic. They create an impression that such killings are somehow a ‘normal’ part of growing up in a country where religion can be used to justify crime.

Instead of asking the journalist who was quizzing him to change this mob mentality, it would have served the minister better to have recalled that, in fact, he is a member of government who actually has the power to influence large sections of the population. It may be an alien idea to Mr Khattak, but he should have roundly condemned this incident and reflected on why our society has become so brutalised, instead of ascribing this heinous crime to youthful passions.

This piece first appeared in Dawn, a daily newspaper in Pakistan 

Sri Lanka: Law Makers or Wind Breakers!

While the locals watched the fracas in Parliament in shock, Sri Lankans living in foreign countries were forced to cover their faces in shame when the world watched this melee and laughed their hearts out at the ‘uncivilized barbarians, masquerading as legislators!

by S.Sivanandan

Have you watched our Parliamentary proceedings lately?

I feel it must be rated “R” or even “X” like how movies are rated so that our children under 18 should not be allowed to watch the law-making process in that August Assembly, The Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka.

A couple of years ago, we saw our Parliamentarians get into a brawl, hitting, punching, throwing chairs, and even dousing each other with chili powder. However, if you looked at these MMA (Multiple Martial Arts) warriors, they were not dressed in judo, karate, or taekwondo outfits. Instead, they were all clad in a spotlessly clean white national outfit, and each of them carried the Honorable title Member of Parliament!

If you had enough of the visual on TV and listened to the audio, you probably heard words like booruwa, meeharaka, gona, nariya, moosalaya etc. So an innocent, unsuspecting child might get away thinking our Parliament sits in session in a zoo or an animal farm!!

But when a veteran Leftist politician screamed “Pa***ya” at the former Prime Minister, it was a dead giveaway as to what low levels the venerable body of legislators in Sri Lanka has sunk to! 

Baboons are the most loudest, most obnoxious, most dangerous, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates and a collective noun for a group of baboons, believe it or not is called a “Parliament” that pretty much explains!!

While the locals watched the fracas in Parliament in shock, Sri Lankans living in foreign countries were forced to cover their faces in shame when the world watched this melee and laughed their hearts out at the ‘uncivilized barbarians, masquerading as legislators!

Let us look at the snow-white, spotlessly clean collarless shirt and sarong our Parliamentarians wear for a moment. If an average citizen looked like our Parliamentarians, Sri Lanka would quickly join with countries in the west, like the US, where obesity is a problem! These MP’s shirts are bursting at the seams in the abdominal region - thanks to the rice and curry meals lavishly served for them at the heavily subsidized Parliament Cafeteria – funded by taxpayer rupees. These ‘Honorable’ lawmakers are so crass and uncouth; they make it a point to break wind when a critical debate is in progress – such as the budget debate. Or should we compliment them on their impeccable timing and ability to control their gastro-intestinal tract by letting a blast of flatulence go when gas prices are being discussed in the debate?

The subject of gas hit the mainstream news media, and the social media pundits took the ball and ran with it. Some experts in the cooking gas business had recommended that the proportion of gases be mixed in a specific ratio so that the gas mafia can make an additional profit per cylinder of gas sold. But it appears that the step of mixing gases in an unauthorized proportion caused a leak, and an explosion ensued.

The Speaker of the House helped immensely in this front by his insensitive comment “gas explodes” – not realizing the microphone was on when he made his sarcastic comment. As a result, the news media – for a week stopped calling:” Breaking News,” instead called it: “Explosive News”!!

The Speakers Faux pas gave the opposition an opportunity to go to town and started firing in “all cylinders” – holding the government responsible for causing this explosive situation.

Amazingly, the Honorable MPs from both sides of the aisle became instant experts in gases, gaseous expansion, butane, propane, methane etc.! A few students from a Leading College GCE O’ level class who happened to be in the gallery made it a point to meet those “expert” MP’s and posed them the question: “have you heard of Charles Law and Boyle’s Law”. Invariably, the answer was – it is some law that came from Roman-Dutch Law and English law that found its way into our legal system. The students got the responses on their phones!!

Meanwhile, average households who live in one room dwellings where they live, cook and sleep are living in mortal terror! They are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are forced to keep the gas cylinders in the room and if they leave it out, and the gas thieves get wind of it – it’s Gone with the Wind”

The average family these days is faced with scarcity of essential commodities, skyrocketing costs and the circus act of balancing the household budget. In fact, the flickering light you see coming out of these houses at night is – someone burning the midnight oil to face these challenges! Santa may have skipped his annual global visit last year – because of restricted airways (result of Covid -19) but may resume this year in the next couple of weeks. 

The hopefuls are wondering if Politicians placed in Ivory Towers would play Santa this time with the issuance of a midnight Gazette Notification!

But the issue is – housewives resorting to wood burning hearth for cooking, and the resulting smoke-filled skies of Sri Lanka would make the reindeer say, O’ Dear and retreat back to the North Pole till next Polls. The folks in North and East are not out of the woods either.  Do they opt for Jungle law – even in these times of Jingle Bells? The diaspora – not at all touched by the miseries of exploding gas cylinders, wood-burning hearths, food insecurities, high cost of living etc. ease their conscience by making calls from around the world to their kith and kin wishing them Jingle Bells – thanks to the invention by that genius, Alexander Graham Bell. The borrowed cradle telephone symbol of the rogue elephants and it’s ringtones from silent mode, signals alert alarms.

Springboard for Revival: Opportunity to Reset

Excerpts from the speech by the author as the Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2021

by Vish Govindasamy

While understanding that the economy is facing numerous challenges at present, we want to also be able to find solutions through a public private dialogue. 

It is said that one must not let a crisis go to waste and we feel this is an important opportunity for the Sri Lankan economy to bring in the reforms needed to ensure sustainable economic growth and development. 

Keeping this in mind, the Ceylon Chamber has brought together a stellar line-up of over 50 experts for the summit, with high-level representatives from government bodies, multinational agencies, tech industry, finance, consulting, tourism, and leading think-tanks to name a few. We are also pleased to have several international experts at the summit, who will be bringing in a wealth of knowledge concerning several key areas of development. We thank them all for taking time of their schedules and sharing their knowledge and expertise with our participants. 

The sessions are designed to openly discuss the environment that will be required to create a Springboardfor Revival and leverage on the Opportunity to utilize this period to Reset. The theme has been suitably chosen as Sri Lanka recovers from the pandemic-related impact while navigating external debt concerns as it rebuilds stronger. The Summit recognizes the need to balance growth priorities and manage debt dynamics, while facilitating more foreign exchange inflows.

We are at a crucial point in our economic development trajectory. The steps taken now by the government and private sector will determine how we emerge from our current challenges and signal the direction for the nation’s economy and the prosperity of its people. As the private sector we have learnt to survive in the face of unprecedented challenges, demonstrating resilience and continued perseverance. It is now up for us to shift gears as we emerge out of the pandemic and start preparing our businesses for the next decade of growth. 

Travel Aparthied – Air Transport and Discrimination

The travel industry has fallen into melancholy and is engaged in a desperate negotiation with tragedy.

by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne in Montreal

We have the instruments to have safe travel. Let's use those instruments to avoid this kind of, allow me to say, travel apartheid, which I think is unacceptable…   Antonio Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations

The United Nations Secretary General, as reported by Reuters, went on to say that travel restrictions imposed over COVID-19 that isolate any one country or region as "not only deeply unfair and punitive - they are ineffective."  Mr. Guterres was supported by African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat at the joint news conference with Guterres after the annual meeting between the United Nations and the African Union recently. Mr. Mahamat  is reported to have said "these travel bans are not justified".  The Guardian quoted Sarafa Tunji Isola, the Nigerian High Commissioner to the UK, who, while protesting vehemently against border closures over heightened concern over the Omicron variant’s discovery in Africa said:  “The reaction in Nigeria is that of travel apartheid. Because Nigeria is actually aligned with the position of the UN secretary general that the travel ban is apartheid, in the sense that we’re not dealing with an endemic situation, we are dealing with a pandemic situation, and what is expected is a global approach, not selective. Omicron is classified as a mild variant – no hospitalization, no death. So the issue is quite different from the Delta variant. I mean, the position has to be taken based on scientific and empirical evidence. It is not a kind of panicky situation”.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised against a first response of a travel ban saying that countries should continue to apply an evidence-informed and risk-based approach when implementing travel measures in accordance with the International Health Regulations. Advocating stringent risk management, WHO says: “ [B]lanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread, and they place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods. In addition, they can adversely impact global health efforts during a pandemic by disincentivizing countries to report and share epidemiological and sequencing data. All countries should ensure that the measures are regularly reviewed and updated when new evidence becomes available on the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of Omicron or any other Variant of Concern”.

Fareed Zakaria on his program GPS on CNN recalled the words of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown, who, in October had cautioned the world of a mutation coming out of Africa or Asia and implicitly called for widespread vaccination across the world.  In Mr. Brown’s words: “we in the West may feel safe and blessed at the moment because we've had the vaccines but we may find a new variant that comes out of Africa or Asia, where people have not been vaccinated and are not protected, and it obviously isn't susceptible to the vaccines that we have at the moment”. 

In his usual take at the beginning of the program, Zakaria got to the root of the problem – the issue of iniquitous vaccine distribution: “But the world is now producing 1.5 billion doses of vaccine monthly. The problem has been one of distribution, or to put it bluntly, of the rich world hoarding vaccines at the expense of the poor. According to the health analytics company Air Finerty, by the end of March 2022, the G7 and E.U. are projected to have a surplus of 880 million vaccines, and this is assuming 500 million more donations to poor countries are made and every adult in these countries, the G7 and the E.U. are fully vaccinated plus receiving a booster. It's estimated that 51 million of the doses stored by Western countries will expire and have to be thrown away by the end of this year if they are not used, and yet they sit stockpiled while the poorest 1.6 billion people in the world have about 5 percent of the world's vaccinations”.

At first, the travel ban against air transport from African countries was seen mostly from North America and countries in Europe, as I mentioned in an earlier article. However, the practice of shutting down borders as the first response has spread to other parts of the world.  For instance, CNN Travel reports that Angola announced that it will close its borders with seven countries in southern Africa; in Argentina, passengers entering the country who have been anywhere on the African continent within the last 14 days before their arrival to the country must undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon landing; Australia has suspended all inbound and outbound flights to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa and Zimbabwe for at least 14 days and has banned foreigners with a travel history to these locations within the previous two weeks from entering. These are just countries at the top of the alphabet and the list goes on enumerating 44 countries so far.  Included is Sri Lanka which has banned the arrival of any foreigners who have been in South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Eswatini in the past 14 days. Sri Lankan citizens arriving from the listed countries must spend 14 days in quarantine at home.

The travel industry has fallen into melancholy and is engaged in a desperate negotiation with tragedy. Zane Kerby, President and CEO of American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) is reported to have said that the new bans are “inflicting additional economic damage on the already-crippled travel industry…Country-specific travel bans are too blunt an instrument and often create unintended but substantial economic and societal damage.”

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) - the UN specialized agency handling issues of international civil aviation - also urges States to follow the best available scientific evidence in handling the new variant of concern. In a special statement on the Omicron crisis ICAO has urged “a more measured and evidence-based approach to countries’ national air transport restrictions due to the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant”. This statement is reported in Trade Arabia which goes on to say: “  Until more detailed assessments are available, the UN aviation agency is encouraging countries to continue combating the spread of Covid-19, and specifically the Omicron variant, using the recommendations and guidance contained in the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Task Force’s (CART) Take-off Guidance for Air Travel through the Covid-19 Public Health Crisis, in addition to the third edition of ICAO’s Manual on Covid-19 Cross-Border Risk Management.

Speaking of apartheid, it is interesting to note that the ICAO Assembly, at its 17th Assembly in 1970/71 adopted a Resolution condemning Apartheid in South Africa based on the Preamble to the Chicago Convention. Aviation and peace are glued by the practice of diplomacy, which ICAO has had to employ to resolve ongoing as well as potential disputes. From the inception of regulated civil aviation in 1944, diplomacy has been inextricable from policy making and dispute settlement in affairs of aviation.

Varied and chronologically sequential instances where ICAO has been requested by its Member States to address contentious issues relating to civil aviation are reflective of the importance of political considerations that underlie such disputes. Although political contentions may exist between states, which is a natural corollary of Statecraft and international politics, it is not the purview of an international organization to address political motivations of individual states when considering issues referred to it or adjudicating disputes between states. In this regard, ICAO has trodden a delicate line between diplomacy and objectivity.

Perhaps it would be opportune for both ICAO and WHO to issue a strong joint statement on this so called “travel apartheid” that would nudge States to cooperate better in a spirit of equity and understanding?

The pessimist in us might say “dream on”.

Dr. Abeyratne is a 40-year veteran in the aviation industry and currently teaches aviation law and policy at McGill University.  He is a former senior professional at the International Civil Aviation Organization. His latest book Post Pandemic Facilitation of Air Transport is due to be released in early 2022.  Aviation and Pandemic Law authored by him was released by Springer in July 2021.

Resisting the Gatekeepers of Hell: Gandhi, ‘Vaccine Passports’ and the Great Reset

National societies and the international community currently lurch rapidly towards a world in which individual identity, freedom, rights, privacy and even volition are destroyed as the Global Elite implements its long-standing plan to create a New World Order in which the very meaning of the word ‘human’ is under threat.

by Robert J. Burrowes 

In 1906, in response to the British Administration in the Transvaal, South Africa passing the Asiatic Law Amendment Act designed to enforce registration of the colony’s male Asian population, Mohandas K. Gandhi led a group of fellow satyagrahis (nonviolent activists) to defy the just-introduced ‘pass law’: they publicly burned their passes. In the seven year campaign that followed, thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi himself) and activists were flogged or even shot for striking, refusing to register, burning their registration cards, or engaging in other forms of nonviolent resistance. Nevertheless, the campaign was eventually won. 

More than 100 years later, citizens the world over (not just in one country or region) are already being required, or will be shortly, to carry a ‘pass’, this one ostensibly signifying vaccine status but, beyond this, to be used as part of a sequence of measures designed to track movements and control behaviours. Given its role in the package of measures launched as part of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, including those critical to implementation of the fourth industrial revolution along with the associated measures in relation to transhumanism, cyber polygon and eugenics, the ‘vaccine passport’ threatens an intrusion into the lives of citizens vastly more heinous than the passes the Transvaal government intended and to which Gandhi objected so strenuously. 

Hence, national societies and the international community currently lurch rapidly towards a world in which individual identity, freedom, rights, privacy and even volition are destroyed as the Global Elite implements its long-standing plan to create a New World Order in which the very meaning of the word ‘human’ is under threat. Moreover, we have been promised that, by 2030, we will own nothing and we will be happy about it! See ‘You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy’. 

So why isn’t everyone vigorously resisting the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ and its related measures? 

What is Happening? 

Misunderstanding what is happening around the world at the moment is understandable. Misrepresenting what is happening through misunderstanding it is also understandable. 

However, it certainly makes it difficult to get the truth out there when blatant and persistent lying is being used by relevant international organizations (notably including the World Economic Forum, the United Nations and the World Health Organization), national governments, the pharmaceutical and medical industries, and the corporate media to terrorize people into believing that a ‘virus’ that has never been isolated and proven to exist – see ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’‘Statement On Virus Isolation (SOVI)’ and No Record Found: FOIs reveal that health/science institutions around the world (137 and counting!) have no record of SARS-COV-2 isolation/purification, anywhere, ever – is killing substantial numbers of people and that we need several experimental gene-altering injections (that are, in fact, killing substantial numbers of people), for the rest to survive! See, for example, ‘The Truth about the Covid-19 Vaccine’A Final Warning to Humanity‘COVID Shots to “Decimate World Population,” Warns Dr. Bhakdi’,  Finally! Medical Proof the Covid Jab is “Murder”’ and ‘Abstract 10712: Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning’.

 

As Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945 noted: ‘If you tell a lie, tell a big one.’

 

Of course, on the surface it may appear that it is simply ignorance of the evidence and relevant data that has most people unaware of what is really happening. But this is only true in the most superficial sense.

 

After all, given the monumental nature of what has taken place over the past two years – with virtually everyone’s life profoundly upended, ostensibly because this was necessary to combat a ‘virus’ – claiming that people submitted to government direction out of ignorance and/or trust in the relevant authorities is to miss something fundamental.

 

People who are being deceived by the elite-driven narrative almost two years into this crisis are, in fact, terrified. This terror is invariably unconscious: that is, it is suppressed below conscious awareness. But it is the true explanation of why a narrative that is so fundamentally flawed, with extensive evidence available to those who seek it, continues to maintain its dominance over the truth.

 

So why are so many people so terrified of investigating what is really happening, and responding accordingly?

 

The Dysfunctional Psychology of Victims

 

Because each human being is unique, the individual is born with a powerful evolutionary gift: Self-will. This means that the individual has an incredible range of tools, including the capacity to apply sensory perception (sight, sound, touch…) to observe what is happening, the emotional capacity to feel what this means (is it satisfying, enjoyable, frightening, infuriating…), to consider evidence and think for themself about the significance of it, to compare and contrast it with relevant memories, to gauge it against one’s conscience and so on until an integrated sense of how to behave in response is formulated and then acted on.

 

If a person is doing this then we might describe them as ‘Self-aware’. And they are, truly, an individual.

 

However, in the name of ‘socialization’, parents terrorize children into obedient submission to those people identified as ‘authorities’ and this ranges from the parents themselves as well as teachers and religious figures in the child’s life to those institutions that will later play vital, if largely invisible, roles in profoundly shaping the adult life of every individual: international organizations, governments and corporations (including corporate medicine and the corporate media), as well as legal systems, all of which are controlled by the global elite. 

As just one outcome of this terrorization – which I have elsewhere labeled, with comprehensive explanations, ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence: see Why Violence? – the individual who can genuinely think and investigate for themselves, critique society in any meaningful way, engage emotionally with the ramifications of what they learn, and then act to resist injustice courageously and strategically is all too rare. 

In fact, because of the experience of childhood terrorization, virtually all children are compelled to surrender the essence of these various capacities, and hence their Self-will, by a very young age. In these circumstances, the child becomes a malleable instrument, easily transformed into a victim who is now devoid of the capacity to look deeply within themselves to make sound judgments about what is taking place and to behave powerfully in response. 

Instead, they simply obey the will of another: parent, teacher, religious figure, employer, corporate executive, political leader…. and act more out of habit than consideration. Given the endless violence (usually labeled ‘punishment’) that is inflicted to ensure that children are obedient to others, rather than allowed to follow their own self-will, it takes an extraordinary child to survive with even a semblance of the potential with which they were born.  As a result, most human behavior lacks consideration, conviction, courage and strategy, and is simply driven compulsively by the predominant fear in each context. 

For elaboration of this explanation, see The Disintegrated Mind: The Greatest Threat to Human Survival on Earth’‘The Psychology of Victimhood: Obama, Cameron, Netanyahu, Clinton, Kissinger’ and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice. 

A primary outcome of this childhood terrorization experience in materialist cultures is that the child learns to suppress their awareness of how they feel by using food and material items to distract themself. By doing this, the child rapidly loses their emerging self-awareness and learns to consume as the substitute for this awareness. Clearly, this has catastrophic consequences for the child, their society and for nature (although it is immensely profitable for elites and their agents whose Self-awareness is non-existent). For a fuller explanation, see ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’. 

In essence, a victim is utterly terrified and powerless. These feelings are unconscious to the victim, which is why they are incapable of intelligently seeking out and personally assessing evidence (such as that in relation to Covid-19 and how it is being used) and they simply submit without protest once told to obey. 

An equally important outcome for the victim is that they have little, if any, capacity to see beyond themselves or their immediate concerns (which might include an activist preoccupation). They are incapable of perceiving and considering the wider ramifications of what is taking place – the ‘big picture’ – such as the impact on those millions of people who are experiencing mental health problems, sexual and/or other forms of violence, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, starvation or even being killed outright by official responses to the non-existent pandemic. Any sense of a ‘wider self’, of human solidarity beyond the most superficial kind, is incomprehensible to them. 

Moreover, among those who can penetrate the elite-driven delusion in relation to the injectables, the most significant effort is dissipated in petitioning and lobbying governments as well as protesting against governments, as the elite intends. Of course, governments, elected or otherwise, are simply the tools the elite uses to control the various national populations (either by deluding most people into believing that they live in a ‘democracy’ or simply by subjecting them to dictatorship) so effort directed at governments is the equivalent of treating the puppet as the puppetmaster: virtually always, a complete waste of time, as the historical record demonstrates. See ‘Killing Democracy Once and for All: The Global Elite’s Coup d’état That Is Destroying Life as We Know It’. 

Of course, it is this terrified submission to authority that the elite is relying on to compel the bulk of the human population to submit to the ‘death needle’, given its crucial role in implementing their depopulation agenda. See ‘Killing Off Humanity: How the Global Elite is using Eugenics and Transhumanism to Shape Our Future’. 

However, for those left alive, the intention is to use their submission to turn them into transhuman slaves who are even more readily monitored and controlled. See Beware the Transhumanists: How “Being Human” is being Re-engineered by the Elite’s Covid-19 Coup’. 

Hence, as the global elite progressively implements its agenda to kill off a substantial proportion of the human population and turn the bulk of those left alive into transhuman slaves, it can rely on those who are submissively obedient to act as its agents against those who are not. And this is crucial for its agenda to be achieved. 

Why? 

Simply because, in the end, it is not just the technological measures at its disposal now or in the future that will enable the comprehensive surveillance and behavioural control they desire to be achieved. It is because the Global Elite can rely on those too terrified to critique what is happening, and to act powerfully in response, to monitor and try to control the behaviour of those around them. Whether by requiring businesses to have us wear masks, register QR codes, prove vaccine status, pay with plastic cards and not cash, and so on, governments are effectively using certain sections of the population to control the others. And, often, unwillingness to do so is neutralized by threat of financial penalty or imprisonment for non-compliance. 

Even more deeply,  governments are requiring members of families to discriminate against each other on the basis of vaccine status. 

And this is how it has always been. Just ask the Nazis in Germany in World War II whose relative lack of technological means was no impediment to social control. Managing how people’s fear is projected is always the key, just as elite propaganda is used to project people’s fear to support deployment of the US/NATO war machine against an endless sequence of ‘enemies’. 

Jews, ‘Gooks’, Muslims, a virus, unvaccinated… it doesn’t really matter what. Just identify where the fear is to be projected and use propaganda to focus it. There are plenty of unconsciously terrified people out there who won’t challenge the narrative. 

Unfortunately, then, those around us, ranging from family members and friends to our employers and the businesses we visit, become the gatekeepers, effectively deciding who can visit whom, and who can or can’t go about their daily routine. Aldous Huxley and George Orwell would be impressed with how easily their dystopian visions have been realized. 

And this will jump a giant notch upwards with the introduction of ‘vaccine passports’, far more intrusive and controlling than the ‘passes’ that Gandhi found so objectionable more than a century ago. Hence, ever more draconian measures by governments will ensure greater levels of submission by those who are terrified: The gatekeepers of hell. 

So what can we do? 

Fortunately, among those who are more courageous, there is considerable resistance already. However, we need to expand this and also get it onto a more strategic footing so that it functionally undermines the power of the Global Elite to conduct this coup. And don’t assume that the Global Elite will back off. It is criminally insane. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’. 

So, once again, our liberation strategy must thwart those key measures of their coup that would give them the control they want. This will not be easy because we must mobilize millions to act strategically. Mass mobilizations, like most of those that have been conducted so far, can have no impact against the Global Elite unless they are used to identify and inspire strategically-focused acts of nonviolent resistance that are ongoing. 

For an integrated strategy to defeat the elite coup, see the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ campaign, which has 29 strategic goals for defeating the coup including meaningful engagement with police, military forces and mercenaries to assist them to understand and resist, rather than support, the elite agenda. If you want to read more detail, you can do so at Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. 

But for a simpler presentation, see the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ 7 Days Campaign to Resist The Great Reset. One-page flyers in English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish, outlining essential nonviolent actions that we must undertake, can be downloaded from this link. Other languages are being added as they become available. 

The Telegram group is here. 

In addition, it will be invaluable if you make yourself increasingly self-reliant as the mechanisms that you have been seduced into becoming dependent upon are progressively and rapidly being taken away. See ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. 

And if you have the chance to ‘talk’ to someone about what they think is going on, try listening! See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. 

Conclusion 

We have a choice. We can choose to resist, strategically, now, while we can still make choices. 

Or we can watch as homo sapiens continues to be decimated and those left alive lose those very qualities that define humanity. 

There is no third option. 

Gandhi and his fellow activists resisted passes far less intrusive more than a century ago. Are you going to resist these now? 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of Why Violence? His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Sri Lanka: I Was Born into War : Story of Thamizhini

Excerpts from the book, In the Shadow of a Sword, written by author

by Thamizhini

The broad spreading paddy fields, the water channels that snaked between  them,  the  gravel  paths,  the  sheltering  portia  trees:  my  birthplace  of  Paranthan  caressed  you  with  its  show  of  beauty.  Paranthan  was  a  small  village  where  the  great  A9  highway  met  the  two  important  roads,  the  Poonakari-Mannar  road,  and  the  Mullaitivu road. It was the people from Jaffna who came here to do cultivation in 1936 who eventually settled down here permanently. Free of luxuries, they lived a life of simplicity. About five kilometres south  of  Paranthan  is  the  town  of  Kilinochchi,  and  six  kilo-metres north is the Elephant Pass lagoon. In the old days, in order to prevent the smuggling of ivory and lumber, the Portuguese set up a guard there; then the Dutch built a fort here in 1776, which was taken over by the British, and from 1952 on, the Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) police set up a check point there. Paranthan was well known in Sri Lanka as the site of the Elephant Pass salt flats, and the Paranthan Chemical Corporation.From the early days of the war, Paranthan began to change into a  strategically  key  battle  site  as  well.  As  a  result,  the  lives  of  the  people  in  Paranthan  were  gradually  disrupted,  and  they  became  like  fledglings  displaced  from  their  nests.  It  was  at  such  a  time  that  I  was  born.  My  father,  Kanthiah  Subramaniam,  was  from  Jaffna. My mother, Sinnamma, was born and raised in Paranthan. I  was  born,  the  eldest  daughter,  when  my  mother  was  17.  My  maternal grandfather, Swaminathan, was an experienced cultivator. 

My  parents  told  me  that  my  grandmother,  who  was  a  staunch  Amman devotee, had named me Sivakami.As I was born when the Tamil people were being engulfed by war, my  childhood  was  spent  absorbing  its  impacts.  My  father  was  a  humble  man,  of  a  gentle,  loving  nature.  He  was  also  a  habitual  reader.  He  would  read  everything  from  history  and  purana  (religious) stories, to political doctrines. He would turn the things he  read  into  children’s  stories  and  narrate  them  to  me  at  night.  As I was born when my mother was very young, and had several siblings,  I  was  raised  mostly  in  my  grandmother’s  house,  as  her  favourite.  The  oldest  grandchild  in  our  family,  I  was  loved  by  everyone. My uncle, my mother’s only brother, chose to stay home and  farm  instead  of  looking  for  a  government  job,  even  though  he had completed his A levels.

 My grandfather’s younger brother, Sethupathy, never married, but lived as a member of his brother’s family. A tireless worker, and a stern man, he managed the welfare of  our  large  extended  family.  I  am  amazed  even  today  at  their  character and disciplined way of life, even though they were not highly educated. They raised us children as if we were their lives. I had never been punished by my parents or elders or ever heard a harsh word from their mouths.The sweetest moments in my memory are of travelling in a bullock cart tied to a pair of buffaloes whose bells made a jingling noise as  we  travelled  to  Karadipokku  Junction  to  watch  films  at  the  Eswaran or Parasakthi theatres. There we would sit as a family on mats set out over straw and watch ammamma’s favorite Sivaji or MGR films halfway, and spend the other half curled up sleeping on our elders’ laps; we usually arrived home fast asleep. 

Their loving guidance gave me a sense of independence even from an early age. Though I was an ordinary girl from a farming family, they never tried to control me, or force their opinions or habits on me.  On  the  contrary,  they  wanted  me  to  study  well  and  reach  a  higher level in life. That was their dream as well.I began my studies at Paranthan’s Hindu Maha Vidyalayam and went as far as the Advanced Level. Up to the point where I did my Ordinary Levels, the railway was still operating, and teachers from Jaffna and from our area taught there. There were many teachers in my school who cared for their students as if they were their own children. They nurtured great ambitions in their students for their future lives. I was determined to study and go on to university. I did not know at the time that the cyclone of war that was germinating in the country would sweep away our modest hopes.

From  the  time  I  had  any  understanding  of  what  was  happening  around me, the tranquil life of our village was frequently disrupted. It  became  the  norm  to  hear  gunshots  on  the  street  every  day.  The elders would secretly discuss who had fired the gun and who had died. Sometimes these kinds of incidents would happen during a school day. At those times the parents would come by, even in the  middle  of  the  day,  and  take  the  children  home.  The  teachers  would  announce  that  the  school  was  closing  and  leave  as  well.  The shops were closed, the streets were empty, and we would stay shut in our houses for so many days, not knowing what was going on, fearing for our lives. At an age when we couldn’t understand what was happening and why, our tender shoulders bore the heavy burden of this war.

When I was in the sixth grade, I had gone one day to the neigh-bouring village of Kumarapuram for an afternoon class. My school was situated there as well. Shortly after classes began, loud explo-sions were  heard  from  the  direction  of  the  Paranthan  Junction.  The teacher stopped the class immediately. Everyone was in shock. Some students began to cry. As soon as the explosions ceased, the teacher asked us all to run home as fast as we could. When I got home, frightened and in tears, I discovered that the sounds of the explosion had reached the front yard of our house. The neighbours had gathered in our front yard reeling from the shock. Our house was beside the A9 road. Two young men belonging to some group had  been  putting  up  posters  on  the  walls  in  front  of  our  house,  when some military personnel who had been doing their rounds in civilian clothing, began shooting at them at random. When this happened, the young men had jumped the wall and begun running toward our house. One youth was shot in the head right in front of our house and died then and there. The other youth ran to the back and escaped by way of the railway track that ran behind our house. While this was happening, ammamma had been winnow-ing  rice  on  the  verandah.  She  walked  about  in  a  daze  for  a  few  days,  from  the  shock  brought  on  by  this  unexpected  incident;  it  frightened us to see her this way. She told us that a living boy had died twitching in front of her, and that the body had been dragged away by the army.

It was customary for the Movement’s representatives to organize gatherings  for  the  senior  students  at  my  school.  They  would  not  include children from my grade in those gatherings. They would dismiss us and chase us away saying that we were only going to be noisy. But we were so curious to find out what was going on there that we would hang on the low walls and peer in, without going home.  Every  day,  different  annas  with  new  and  different  names  would  come  by  to  organize  a  gathering.  They  would  speak  with  great anger and passion. The annas and akkas in our school would ask  them  questions.  Some  days  there  would  be  heated  debates.  Even  if  we  didn’t  understand  all  of  it,  the  weapons  they  carried,  and their serious faces left a deep impression on us.In the times following, many of the older students from our school kept  disappearing.  The  students  whispered  among  themselves  in the classrooms: ‘These ones went to train with this Movement, the  other  ones  went  to  train  with  that  Movement.’  Sometimes relatives would gather at the homes of the youth who had left for the Movements from our village, and lament loudly, as if they were at a funeral.It  became  the  norm  to  put  up  posters  for  Movement  groups  on  the tall water tank at our school. The students who were divided in their support for different factions became so competitive that close friends fell out over this. They were often engaged in arguments and fights.When some of the youth who had gone for training returned to the village, they would be completely altered in appearance. They were so highly esteemed in the community that even the village elders treated them with respect. They would advise students like us  in  the  lower  grades,  saying,  ‘We’re  going  to  fight  so  that  you  can study well and advance in life.’ The young boys and girls hero-worshipped  the  youth  who  walked  around  with  their  weapons  more  than  any  film  stars.  Seeing  them  and  being  friendly  with  them elevated you in the eyes of others as well. They too behaved like family, referring to everyone as either ‘amma, appa, thambi or thangachi’ and mingling with ease.

The Kilinochchi police station had been transformed into a military camp.  It  must  have  been  1986.  One  day,  that  camp  was  attacked  by  one  of  the  groups  around  midnight.  The  fire  burned  bright  as  the  afternoon  sun  in  the  middle  of  the  night  and  could  be  seen  as far away as Paranthan. The villages surrounding Kilinochchi were startled out of their sleep. A helicopter circled overhead, firing occa-sionally. Paying no attention to the stalks that tore at our legs in the harvested fields, families fled together in the dead of the night.


The  Sri  Lankan  army  continued  to  strengthen  their  base  in  the  Kilinochchi  area.  The  Movements’  fighters  launched  counter-strikes against the soldiers coming out of there. At this time, our family, who lived so close to the A9, suffered untold misery. Every time  we  heard  the  news  that  the  army  was  coming,  we  dropped  everything as it was and ran through the paths in the paddy fields. We would only return home in the evenings, when the sound of explosions had stopped. Until then, the elders struggled to staunch the  children’s  hunger.  Often,  we’d  be  running  with  our  school-bags  in  hand.  Our  sinnathaatha  would  carry  whatever  food  was available  and  go  with  us.  I  was  at  an  age  where  I  could  under-stand a few things, and I hated losing our peace and having to run around like this.The  army  began  launching  shells  in  the  direction  of  Paranthan  from  Kilinochchi.  One  afternoon,  sinnathaatha  went  to  put  out  water  for  the  bullocks  that  had  been  tied  up  for  grazing  in  the  morning.  Suddenly  we  heard  the  crash  of  shells  landing  near  where he was. There was a cloud of smoke. When the rest of the house  ran  out  screaming,  they  saw  him  hobbling  back,  holding  his shawl to his stomach. A piece of shrapnel had torn through his stomach. Part of his intestine had come out through the wound. Even though my uncle had his own car, we could not drive him to  the  hospital,  because  an  air-force  helicopter  kept  circling  the  Paranthan area and attacking continuously. That day I cried with anger and frustration. I was shaking with the fear that we might not be able to save our thaatha. I was resolved that if such a thing happened, I would immediately enlist in the Movement. A little while later, when the helicopters had left the area, we were able to get him to the hospital and save his life. After losing my father in an accident, it was my uncle and maternal grandparents who had raised us. We had such great love for them.

There were now frequent clashes between the Movements and the army in Paranthan Junction. On top of this, the Movements also clashed  with  each  other.  I  could  not  understand  why  the  annas  who  so  clearly  explained  the  need  to  fight  against  the  army  in  all  those  gatherings  were  now  warring  amongst  themselves.  The  things I saw, because I had to pass by the Paranthan Junction to get to school every day, made me lose hope that a peaceful future lay ahead for us. Instead it paved the way for deeper fear and anxiety.

It was during this time that the Indian Forces arrived. I was in the tenth  grade  at  the  time.  The  elders  said  among  themselves  that  this would be the answer to all our problems. Like everyone else, we too stood in the streets and waved our welcome to the Indian Peace Keeping Forces.The  Indian  Forces  set  up  a  massive  base  on  the  site  of  the  Northern  Region  Grain  Research  Centre,  between  Paranthan  and  Karadipokku,  taking  up  the  huge  storehouses  as  well  as  the researchers’  quarters.  They  spoke  many  languages  that  we  had  never heard until then. The long-haired, bearded Punjabis, and the turmeric-skinned  short-statured  Gurkhas  paraded  the  India  we  only knew from schoolbooks before our eyes. Our tuition centre, ‘Science Centre’, was situated in Karadipokku. The students from Kumarapuram and Paranthan would go there in crowds. As soon as  they  saw  the  girls,  the  Indian  soldiers  would  shout  out:  ‘Hey  kutti, hey kutti, shall we “get married”?’ and other obscene things in  several  different  languages.  We  were  so  terrified  of  them  we  couldn’t even turn our heads.In  this  way  the  brief  time  of  peace  we  had  was  disrupted  again.  The  people  said  the  Liberation  Tigers’  Movement  had  begun  a  war with the Indian Forces. It had become a dangerous time for young women. Word began to spread that the Indian Forces has sexually  assaulted  young  women  in  some  areas  in  Jaffna.  I  did  not  know  if  such  incidents  had  also  happened  in  Kilinochchi.  Periyappa  brought  his  daughter  to  our  house  and  left  her  there  night after night because they feared it wasn’t safe to keep akka in their home. It was quite the struggle for our grandparents to take care of us young women, and to send us to school and for tuition classes.  At  that  time,  I  was  preparing  for  my  GCE  Ordinary  Levels exam.One day, during school hours, we were frightened by the sounds of heavy  gunfire.  The  whole  town  of  Paranthan  was  surrounded.  We  students huddled under our desks in fear. Shortly after, the Indian Forces  who  had  entered  our  school  grounds  poured  into  every  classroom.  They  asked  our  principal  some  questions  and  began  beating  him.  When  we  saw  our  revered  principal  being  beaten  where  he  stood,  in  front  of  us,  his  lip  swollen  and  bleeding,  the  students began crying out loud. Then the people of the town, men and  women,  were  brought  into  the  school  playground  with  their  hands above their heads and made to kneel on the ground. Their task of  searching  for  the  Tigers  who  had  escaped  after  attacking  them  stretched out into the evening.