Comments on: So THAT’S the Domain of the Sri Lankan Police

By: Nandalal Rasiah

Nandalal Rasiah — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:33:32 +0000

vivek,

i'm not sure if it was your intent but the tone in this post comes off as the not-ironic Dave Chapelle portrayal of the stereotypical white suburban homeowner finding out about police brutality in Newsweek, "honey they're beating up negroes like hot cakes!"

the military as backstop to the organs of state that normally guarantee law and order is a phenomena of long duration in south asia and SL is no exception.

By: Nandalal Rasiah

Nandalal Rasiah — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:27:21 +0000

i hate to say it like this but if you read blogs written by actual sri-lankans (try those aggregated in kottu.org as a start), you’d see that distaste for the police and disregard for whatever ‘proper’ role they might have in SL is widespread. You don’t have to sit in an a/c’d room at the asia society with Ratna to know that all the police and STF exist to do is extract bribes from people without enough influence to know the highest necessary phone number in the police hierarchy. When elderly relatives were kidnapped for bribes by the STF a few years back, we had to call a vacationing superior to get them out. I think that has to be addressed before the faux puritanism.

this is why the police in SL have the conceit that they do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Task_Force

and for the lazy butts:

http://indi.ca/2010/06/public-displays-of-abuse/

By: vivek

vivek — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:11:05 +0000

Michael, I’ve been reading the story you posted on your blog in bits and pieces this morning when I’m able to take a few minutes from work. It’s very moving, thank you for sharing!

By: vivek

vivek — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:08:59 +0000

respect, I don’t know what the norm is, but the relative statement you just wrote makes much more sense to me than the absolute “there is no cultural anti-muslim bigotry among tamils in tn,” which is what you wrote in the other post.

By: Darth Paul

Darth Paul — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:56:38 +0000

your Tamil agenda

Threatened much?

By: respect

respect — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:55:10 +0000

apologies for deviating from topic, but, vivek, in the previous post, you seemed surprised by my statement that tamils in tn have no greater animosity to muslims than the norm. why do you think that?

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:39:15 +0000

To the writer of this post: Good point. Increasingly, the government down here seems to be missing out on whose responsibility is it to do what. Policemen are becoming rapidly redundant over here. That's probably how a whole bunch of convicted criminals escaped right under their noses just this week. They are out there apprehending teenagers making out, and drug leaders and thieves just take them for a ride.

Last year, a couple of weeks into May, I saw a couple of soldiers punishing a pickpocket, in Ratmalana. They made him kneel down in the middle of the road, and balance an empty Sprite bottle on the top of his head. They were pointing guns and all of that. I was like "Whaaaat???" People surrounding the scene were cheering.

About making out, it's sad that Sri Lankans don't really put much by personal liberties (or democracy, fot that matter). I just read the BBC report out loud in my office, and everybody around me were like "Ergh serves those kids right. PDA is disgusting." Don't be surprised if next week you get a report about 12 nose-pickers being arrested in the heart of Colombo for "public indecency."

By: arun

arun — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:28:22 +0000

After your failed attempt at using Pass the Roti to push your Tamil agenda, you’re now using sepia mutiny Vivek? I guess you’re moving up in the world though. Keep up the good work.

By: coconut republic

coconut republic — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:22:33 +0000

Sri Lankans, at least the Sinhalese population, always seemed a bit more liberal than Indians to me. Is all this moral policing the result of the JVP/JHU’s greater influence in government?

By: Malibu Stacy

Malibu Stacy — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Some years back when we were tourists in SL, our driver took us to a park in Colombo and it was filled with couples in tight embraces, this was a weekday mid morning. What was shocking to me was that the girls and boys were in serious makeout sessions out in the open. I have seen couples in parks in India but it is usually the more benign and discrete, holding hands kind of behavior and trees or bushes offer some screens at least.