Claudia, please tell the truth

Claudia. That’s her name, I think – the name of the woman who was with Senasinghe when he was allegedly beaten up by Malaka Silva and his men. According to news reports, Claudia had told to the police that she did not see a beating up or a pistol in Malaka’s hand.

How did Senasinghe got beat up so bad? Come on Claudia, surely you must have seen something. Please tell the police what you saw, so that there can be a fair trial, fair by the public who want to live peacefully.

You can go back to wherever you came from but we have to live with this shit. Please do your duty. Give a full account of what you saw.

martin wickremasinghe, my father and unicode

Writing in Sinhala used to be practically impossible but I had no intention of learning the Wijesekera keyboard, a relic of type writer era. Then I discovered University of Colombo’s Unicode converter on the Web.

දැන් මම වතුරේ දාපු මාලුවා වගෙ. මහප්පරාන නැති නිසා අකුරුවල පෙනුමෙ පොඩි ප්රස්න තියෙනව, ඒත් කල්පනා කරලා බැලුවම මතක් වුනා මාර්ටින් වික්රමසින්හ මැතිදුන්ගේ ලිපියක්, ජන වහර සන්ස්කුරුත කරපු නාගරික උගතුන්ට බැට දීලා ලියපු. හොයාගන්න ටිකක් වෙලා ගියා ඒත් මෙන්න උපුටනයක් ඉන්ගිරිසියෙන්.

Martin Wickramasinghe (1975) in Sinhala language and Culture, 1997 edition. Chapter 15, Science and Dead Languages, page.98.

“The majority of the words of the spoken language of the Sinhalese people are derived form three dead languages: Prakrit, Sanskrit and Pali, which is a literary Prakrit. The words derived from Sanskrit and Pali, which is a literary Prakrit. The words derived from Sanskrit and Pali have been instinctively modified by the common people to accord with the genius of their mother tongue, which is now an independent living form of Prakrit developed over a period of two thousand years. The common Sinhalese people, naturally disciplines by the phonetics of their mother tongue, adapted the Sanskrit word [vidya with the yansaya] to විද්දියා. The scholars and educated people of the cities who sheepishly imitate Sanskrit treat විද්දියා as a crudely vulgar word.”

Wickramasinghe goes onto develop his argument further but I like take this blog to reminisce about another person from whom I should have learned long ago.

Back in my school days I used to be slightly uncomfortable when my father said පුරස්නය හෝ චාරිත්තරේ in front of my school principal. Little did know I was sheepishly imitating Sanskrit and looking down on a living language. Forgive me, dear Thaththa.

relative rights

An email I received under the title “Should our heritage be used to buy minority votes” implied that minorities in Sri Lanka can not have full rights as citizens. The email referred to the news item on Colombo, 04 July on Asiantribune.com about Sri Lanka Government donating land from Colombo 12, for “All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama” the Council of Muslim Theologians and the apex Islamic religious body in Sri Lanka.

I wrote the following in response. The title was added later.

Citizens and their rights: minorities in Colombo v. sinhala buddhist expats in Australia

Open letter To those of you who are alarmed by the gift of a land to a Muslim religious organization:

I find the email sounding the alarm and two responses to that email more alarming than the original story. I am a Sinhala Buddhist who wants live in this country in peace. It is sad to read the sentiments expressed in those email because knee-jerk reaction such as those expressed by seemingly educated people will do great harm to the cause of Sinhala Buddhist culture in the long run.

According to the initiating email and the discussion that follows, the crown land in Colombo 12 is seen as a Sinhala Buddhist heritage. How can a country’s crown land belong to only one race? Does that mean that other religious groups or races have no rights as citizens, say, to have crown land given to them for a legitimate public purpose? Look at Israel and the perpetual chaos in that part of the world. The only way to live in a world with diverse races, religions and cultures is to live together. There is absolutely no other way out.

In the Colombo municipal area, the Sinhalese Buddhists are a minority. It is a fact. Hindus and Muslims have congregated into clusters where they feel safe. In many cities you would notice this trend. The presence of the well-to-do minorities gives a wrong picture of Muslim and Hindu population in Colombo. Many of the minorities are poor people who live in tenement gardens under very difficult conditions. They are not foreigners. These are people whose parents and their parents have lived in this country for generations. They are Sri Lankan. They are us.

The sensible response is to further develop these enclaves and treat them as assets not threats. The commercial vibrancy of these place is good for our economy. If the minorities are sending money outside of the country illegally that is a legal matter, not an ethnic issue. Wellawatte or Colombo 12 can be places we all visit to enjoy the diversity offered by another culture. If the Muslim religious practices are a disturbance let us deal with that and bring about new municipal ordinances. I live in the heart of Colombo. In fact, I find the chanting of Pirith at busy intersections at inopportune times as a disgrace to Buddhism and more of a disruption. The call to prayer by Muslims has so far not been a disturbance but a chance to take a few minutes to close my own eyes, meditate and re-energize. The reaction of Buddhists has been to compete with others to put up their own religious structures and try to make louder noise than them. This has hurt Buddhism not helped.

I am sure many of you live in other countries or have kith and kin living there. How would you feel if the majority in those countries were to treat you or your descendents the same way? Even if they did treat you badly, your humiliation should not be a reason to humiliate minorities here who have lived among us forever. If you truly subscribe to this notion that a country’s heritage should belong to the majority, apply that to yourself. Don’t make overly demonstrations of your religion or express your culture if you are a minority. Better still bring yourselves, your grand children and great grand children back here. Why try to live a life that you want to deny for minorities in Sri Lanka. Some of you may even have to move the whole brood back all the way to Kerala or Andra Pradesh or wherever because there apparently has been a lot of migration from those parts in our near history.

Open your eyes and look among yourselves. Do the features of Sri Lankans suggest any racial purity. In some regions in India you can see distinct physical features among people living there. Not so in Sri Lanka. The recent population in Sri Lanka must be a mix of Vedda and other aborigines who lived here and many others who landed on this island in more recent times. The population in the Anuradhapura period may not have looked anything like the mix we have today. If there was North Indian blood in us Sri Lankans it must always have been minuscule. We need to do a lot more scientific research about our heritage, not base ourselves solely on a book written by monks for their own purposes. For a start look among yourselves and then go to North India see how you compare with the locals there.

Your previous email was about somebody’s call to end multiculturalism based policies in Britain. The more pertinent matter, I believe, is the separation of the state from religion. Mixing religion with government is a disaster for both government and religion. For a start, in Britain they may remove the special privileges given to the Anglican church by the state before they take away recognition given Islamic schools. Let religion be where it belongs–in our hearts or in communities of practice

Finally, please don’t use Buddhism to divide people. This call is especially those of you who live outside of the country. Buddhist fundamentalism is as bad as any other religious fundamentalism. I am a Sinhala Buddhist who wants live in this country in peace with others. We don’t want to further push our minorities into fundamentalist positions. The first step is to stay away from fundamentalism ourselves.

 

a deadly sermon

This Vap poya day of Novermber 05, 2006, I attended the ‘Seela Vyapara’ at my old school with great expectations, but I had to cut short my day and return home in deep distress after hearing a mean monk’s mean sermon, which later turned out to be more than mean.

‘Mavalare Bhaddiya’ Thero, a priest from the Kuppiawatte Temple, Colombo, took undue advantage of the respect given to a Buddhist monk in the sermon seat, to come out with some strange material. He repeatedly said that those who do not think that Sri Lanka’s heritage is a Buddhist heritage should go to the land of the dead (paralowa yanna ooni). He continued on with words of hate invoking the Vaddhaki-Sukara Jataka in the grossest manner to glorify the killing and eating the flesh of your enemy.

I sat there in disbelief. It was difficult to judge reaction of others. I came home intending to write a letter to the Old Girls Association but was too depressed to anything the whole day.

Then this morning we hear Mr. Vignarajah is assassinated. It was only last night he spoke against the disappearance of Tamils in Colombo and the suffering of Tamils in Jaffna.  Was he was sent to the ‘land of the dead’ because he did not subscribe to the idea of a Sinhala Buddhist supremacy? It sends shivers up my spine to think I heard exhortations for similar actions at a sermon in my old school.

I did finally write that letter – my puny reaction to an act of violence that is just mind-boggling.

In my letter to OGA I was able to say some good words too. That day, after the bomb shell of a sermon, I was too shocked to move even and just sat there. Another sermon followed and I did not have much hope, but Venerable Athkandure Sumanasara Thero’s words were like balm. He gently chided us to think of what ‘ata sil’ means. He said that some may say man’s ultimate duty is to serve others. He said, no, the Buddha teachings tell us that our prime responsibility is to save ourselves from the cycle of clinging and suffering. On Poya day we give ourselves room to practice. Other days we are too busy living.

One good thing about terrorism

One good thing about terrorism is that it makes conventional war look stupid.

The true weapon of terrorism is collateral damage. When terrorists consider people collateral they don’t become any worse terrorists because they are already at the bottom. When governments consider its own people collateral it is reprehensible. It is of the highest order of reprehensibility when a government uses its minorities as collateral.

Fights with terrorists begin with governments as the good guy and terrorists as the bad guy, but invariably, the governments begin to look like the bad guy and the terrorists, well, they stay terrorists. A government may actually take back its real estate in their war with terrorists but the win will not last, because the relatives and friends of the collateraled will not forget.

A few days after 9/11 I met an older friend in a café in Washington, D.C. We had arrangedto meet even before the terrorist attack on America. Bush had just said he was going to hunt down the terrorists in Afghanistan. I asked my friend, He was a retired senior civil servant, a democrat and a good Christian, something I would have been embarrassed to ask anybody else but family or friend. What if, I asked, America was to say to the world: We respect human life and we will not endanger a single life to seek revenge; Join with us to eliminate terrorism. My friend said flatly that Americans can’t do that. Later, I posed the same question to my husband and then my son, both gave a flat no.

They are all going to be proven wrong, because conventional war is becoming just too untenable.

Five years after Afghanistan was carpet-bombed the Taliban is creeping back. Iraq is a mess with Arabs and Americans dying every day. Americans are being hated more and more around the world, when in actual fact the average American’s respect for fellow human beings would put many societies to shame.

Terrorism can only be fought with good will, and sooner or later the guys will figure it out.

A Quiet Poson Celebration

There is nothing prettier than a lighted Atapattam lantern against a dark sky. Driving from Rajagiriya to Battaramulla the streets are lighted up by pairs of yellow, orange, green lanterns. There is street lighting along that road but no lights. The contractor is Sumal Perera, I have been told. He lives in the neighborhood on Tickell road. Should drop by sometime and check but that is another story.

For Poson it works out. Rain clouds are keeping the moon out and the lanterns stand against the dark sky giving a soft light. It is almost as if Colombo is celebrating quietly because the North and East has become a killing field and it hurts too much. Unfortunately that is not the reason. Vesak was louder as ever. We live in the city the rest of the country we want to own but we don’t care about them big city south celebration. In contrast Poson seems to be quieter and regional.

Lalitha went home for Poson. After the new-year break she opted out of the Vesak holiday to get a longer break for Poson. Her sister and her husband had bought a new van and invited the whole family to go to Mihintale for Poson. They always go to Mihintale for Poson, but usually it is bump bump all the way in a tractor trailer.

Lalitha carried a light bag for the trip and was dressed quite tastefully. She is very frugal but does not mind spending a little for fair &lovely cream, nail polish and lipstick. She has enough clothes to last a life time. She bought them when she worked in the middle-east. She owns several gold chains, pendants, bangles and rings. Most of those are buried in the backyard ready to be pawned if she needs cash. She also has fixed deposit with the bank. She married a cad on her return from middle-east and he promptly stole her stuff. She separated from him after nine months and the divorce was finalized last month. The court ordered him to pay her several lakhs for the jewellery he stole. There is another suitor but he sounds fishy too. For now she is happy to be by herself. Lalitha will buy two tickets for this trip home, one for herself, and other to put a bag between her and cads who would harass her or steal from her.

Oldest brother died of drinking. The wife was in the middle-east. She came back and married another man but went back again leaving the daughter and son with the step father. The girl told the teachers about troubles at home and the teachers found the boy at home with a concussion. Lalitha and mother went to the police and brought the two children home. They went through a the process to adopt the children in Lalitha’s name. The magistrate explained her responsibilities in detail and warned her that the courts will be watching. Our justice system seems to actually work, sometimes.

The boy is not quite right. He stares into distance but the girl sounds chirpy and normal. She is the older one at thirteen. She sent me a card for Vesak. There was a heart and a sprig of roses in the cover. Brother Valentine clearly had a hand in the design, but the verse said roses were ‘meth mal’ or flowers of loving kindness. Works for me. Her card stands on my desk and heartens me everytime I look at it.

The second brother was ordained when he was about eight. Left with eight children after her husband’s death, Lalitha mother entered the son into monkhood against his wishes. She wanted him to get an education. Education he did get. He got his degree from Rajarata university to make the mother happy and gave up the robes soon after. He managed to keep his teaching job at the pirivena and continues to looks after the guru-teacher priest with devotion, but is relieved to be out of the robes. For New Year he saved up and bought gifts for the whole family, mother, siblings, their spouses and children. It cost Rs: 19,000. He comes from Anuradhapura once a week to see the mother.

The mother is alone in the house with three grand children, because Lalitha is the wage earner for this remaining mother-daughter part of the family, and Lalitha’s works away from home. Apart from the two children Lalitha adopted, there is a third who was sent by the sister who lives in Kebethigollawa, a border town, for fear of tiger attacks. The grandmother wakes up early to pack lunches for the children. The children eat rice for breakfast also. When they come back from school they are hungry again and a make a beeline for the kitchen to eat the leftovers from lunch. They do their chores, study, have an early dinner and go early to bed. There is a TV but they are not allowed to watch teledramas. The children bike to school. The bikes were given by PanLanka or some such NGO that seems to be quite active in the area.

The youngest brother works in a government farm in Anuradhapura. He never came home for the last three years. There is something strange about his behaviour that the family can not quite figure out. An older sister seems to be a fixture in the middle-east. She comes back home, runs out of money and goes back. She does not seem to manage her money as well as Lalitha. The most interesting one is the youngest sister. She is the entrepreneur in the family and the van that the family will use for the trip is hers. She and her husband collect produce from the neighborhood and sell them in Kurunegala, and many more enterprises. All except the sister in ME will join the trip. Everybody will chip in. Lalitha and mother will make Imbul Kiribath and rice packets for the trip. It is going a quietly happy Poson for the family.

Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.

Why Sri Lanka?

 

 

 

Why does anybody want to live in Sri Lanka, if there are other choices? Why deal with corruption, stupidity, headless bodies and bodiless heads, if you have a choice.

These are questions that seem to come up more often than I like.

What did the great sage of India have to say about location? I turn to the Mangala Sutra, A discourse on blessings, in Buddha’s own words, and translated to English by Henepola Gunaratana Thera.

To reside in a suitable location

To have past good deeds doneTo set oneself in the right direction

This is a blessing supreme

(Patirupadesavaso ca; Pubbe ca katapunnata;

Attasammapanidhi ca; etam mangalam uttamam)

 

There it is. The second verse in the Mangala Sutra. Buddha did not go as far as realtors to say location, location, location, but he did say to get your location right. First decide what is suitable for you.

 

For me what makes Sri Lanka unsuitable as a location is not the usual list of corruption… etc., but the Buddhist monks who are calling for war, and the chanting of pirit that nobody understands and pansil nobody intends to keep. Mixing of Buddhism and Nakshtra can be added to the list.

 

What attracts me also has much to do with Buddhism. Picking Sepalika flowers off the meadow on a poya morning and visiting Mihintale on Poson night. Those associations tie me down to this place. [Sepalika is the only flower (?) that you might offer after it has fallen. So delicate with a fragrance so subtle.]

 

If a truly Buddhist community is the object, one is perhaps better off in Los Angeles, USA or other foreign place where there are communities of true practitioners. To me, somehow, the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha there fail to connect with the sounds, smells and sensations that I associate with Buddhism.

 

What else does Sri Lanka offer or not offer?

 

 

Mangala sutra begins with,

 

Asevana ca balanam panditanan ca sevana;

Puja ca pujaniyanam etam mangalam uttam

 

To associate not with the foolish

To be with the wise

To honor the worthy ones

This is a blessing supreme.

 

To find a monk worthy of obeisance or a friendship worth sustaining is indeed a blessing supreme. As a returnee home after many years I have much to discover. At first glance I saw all monks here either as hate mongers or mudalalis, but, then I found you need to look deeper. For example, until recently I did not know that the very old monk I have seen round the temple I visit is the most venerable Davuldeniye Gnanissra thero, the chief incumbent of Amarapura Nikaya. One of these days I might get a chance to talk to him.

Interestingly, the Mangala sutra, [according to my limited understanding], has very little to say about social action. It essentially says to care for ones mother, father, spouse, children and relatives. Be good and do good to those around you.

 

Fourth and fifth verses in Mangala Sutra:

 

To be well caring of mother, of father

Looking after spouse and children

To engage in a harmless occupation

This is a blessing supreme

 

Selfless giving, living the just life

Open hands to all relatives

And blameless action

This is a blessing supreme

 

 

 

But take the last set of blessings. It is that set that grabs me most and makes me want to repeat it day after day, moment after moment, hoping the real meaning would sink in.

 

Last set of blessings, Mangala Sutra:

 

A mind unshaken

When touched by the worldly states

Sorrowless, stainless, and secure

This is the blessing supreme

 

 

How can you remain unmoved by corruption, stupidity, headless bodies and bodiless heads? Apparently, in later years, the Buddha watched his Shakya clan get decimated by the Kosala kings and did not intervene [Pankaj Mishra in, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World]. Buddha intervened in a fight over a river but at some point he had to give up, I suppose.

 

Michael Ondaatje got it right. To me, the running theme in his two seminal works—English Patient and Anil’s Ghost—is about finding inner strength through your craft when the world around you is falling apart. In the English Patient, the young Canadian nurse Hana saw her best friend blow up in a land mine and decided to opt out with one hopeless patient and care for him. What I remember most about Kip, the young Sikh mine sweeper, is his almost robotic attention to his task.

All the characters in Anil’s Ghost find solace in their craft and in each other in the middle of a strange war. Anil, the forensic anthropologist; Sarath, the archaeologist; Ananda the artist, and lastly Gamini the doctor even as he tended to the body of his brother’s body, a victim of the same war.

 

Mangala Sutra, third verse:

 

 

Great learning and craft

And a discipline well-trained in

And whatever utterance is well-spoken

This is a blessing supreme

 

 

Difficult times or not Sri Lanka is the place for me and the Mangala Sutra tells me to stay put, apply my craft as best as I can, take care of those around me, speak kindly, speak well, and above all, stay unshaken or try at least.

 

 

—————————————————————————-

 

Mangala Sutra or Great Discourse on Blessings

(Translation, by Dr. Henepola Gunaratana Nayaka Thera, Bhavan Society, High View, West Virginia, USA)

 

Thus have I heard. One time the exalted one was living near Savatthi, in Jeta’s Grove, the monastery of Anathapindika. Then, in the middle of the night, a certain deity of astounding beauty, lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove, approached the exalted one. Drawing near, she paid homage to the Exalted One and stood to one side. Standing thus the deity addressed the Exalted One in verse:

 

Many deities and humans have pondered on blessings,

Desiring their well-being. Tell me the blessings supreme.

 

Buddha’s reply:

 

To associate not with the foolish

To be with the wise

To honor the worthy ones

This is a blessing supreme.

 

To reside in a suitable location

To have past good deeds done

To set oneself in the right direction

This is a blessing supreme

 

Great learning and craft

And a discipline well-trained in

And whatever utterance is well-spoken

This is a blessing supreme

 

To be well caring of mother, of father

Looking after spouse and children

To engage in a harmless occupation

This is a blessing supreme

 

Selfless giving, living the just life

Open hands to all relatives

And blameless action

This is a blessing supreme

 

To cease and abstain from evil

Complete restraint from intoxicants

To be diligent in virtuous practices

This is a blessing supreme

 

To be reverent and humble

Content and grateful

To hear the Dhamma at the right time

This is a blessing supreme

 

To be patient and obedient

The seeing of recluses

To discuss the Dhamma at the right time

This is a blessing supreme

 

To austerely and purely

To see the Noble truths

And to realize Nibbana

This is the blessing supreme

 

A mind unshaken

When touched by the worldly states

Sorrowless, stainless, and secure

This is the blessing supreme

 

Those who have fulfilled all these

Are everywhere invincible

They find well-being everywhere

Theirs is the blessing supreme

 

 

terrorists, the unborn and metta for all

I was pondering the gender issues in the suicide bombing of the commander of the Sri Lankan army when it came to light that the suicide bomber was indeed pregnant. An editorial in the Divayina, used the news to take a jab at women activists. Where are these so called women activists, the editor asked, when women are used so blatantly by the tigers. What women’s issue? It is a ‘means’ issue stupid. Whatever it takes to get the job done–women, children, and now the unborn.

Terrorism did have its gender issues, but then those were the good old days of terrorism, if there ever can be such a thing.

Remember Leila Khaled?

If you were school girl in the 60s you would. I was one and I do. Leila Khaled was the 25-year old who high-jacked a plane in 1969 for the Palestinian Cause. It was the TWA 840 bound to Athens from Rome. Leila was slip of a woman, beautiful, with high cheekbones, an Arabic Audrey Hepburn. She immediately became a pin-up for revolutionaries as well as for school-girls in comfortable boarding schools.

She underwent plastic surgery and tried her second high jacking but was wrestled down by a crew that was prepared. She held two hand grenades but did not use them because the instructions were to use them only to threaten or defend but not harm. Today she lives in Jordan, not active as she likes but involved enough.

There was no doubt Leila was committed to her cause but her gender certainly had something to do with her being there. Another Palestinian man with a dark beard and piercing eyes would have made the high jacking of the TWA just another act of terrorism. But Leila made it sexy.

Anoja, the suicide bomber, was apparently chosen because of her looks and her middle class appearance. Her sexuality and class were used to ward off suspicions. But there end similarities. Anoja’s instructions were to kill her unborn and as many as it takes. She ended up with her head on a tree-top, a limb on the road and the rest of her body with its growing life, blown up into pieces. Good old days of terrorism are no more. No subtleties. No more image building. What ever it takes—men, women or children or even the unborn.

It is time to look beyond Prabaharan and focus our attention on those who are in his grips. Let us negotiate peace with terrorists, and above all, reach out to the people. Buddhists have a way of reaching out to anybody, even the invisible! As the Buddha taught us,

What ever living beings there may be,
Without exception; weak or strong;
Long or large; medium, short,
Subtle or gross;

Visible or invisible;
Living near or far;
Born or coming to birth;
May all beings have happy minds!

(From the Karaniya Metta Sutra or Discourse on Loving Kindness)

Let us hope and pray this is the beginning of the awakening of the metta in the Southern Buddhists, specially the angry robed ones. Metta is like the right-of-way in driving. It is something to be given, not taken or expected of others, if we want safety on the road for all. Same for peace.

see ‘north country’ curtsey SL women center

See “North Country” country today, March 22, at 6p the Russian Cultural Center, 10, Independence Avenue, Colombo 7. This movie is the last in the series celebrating International Women’s Day. Entrance is free. The movie has some heavy hitters with Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand and Sissy Spacek. Should be a treat.
Too bad I missed the other three in the series 15 Park Avenue by Aparna Sen and Kamosh Pani and Page 3 by Sabina Sumar.

Typically I would not know of these things if they were not on the net. The Women and Media Center need to a get better internet presence .

take back the night

Sunday I received this sms from Dilshani, a young free-lance reporter at the Times. It said –read “zipper men” story in financial times today. come to Katunayake. She must have read my mind. I have never been to women’s events in Sri Lanka or anywhere but lately I’ve been thinking I should. By 4:30 in the afternoon that I was on my way to Katuanyake with a group from the Women and Media Centre in Rajagiriya. We were going there, optimistically, to ‘take back the night’ from zipper-men and other harassers in the streets of free-trade zones.
Zipper men are not new. When I was in school many years ago we had these guys lurking on the road leading to the school. What makes these new zipper men stories different is the whole cultural phenomenon that it represents. Garment workers in the free trade zone are going home after a long day in the factory. As Sharmala Daluwatte put so well in her speech before the march, these garment workers are part of a new holy triad of Lakshmis-migrant workers, tea pickers and garment workers-that we should worship. Instead they are harassed in their own communities.
The march was really well organized. Unfortunately there did not seem to be much media coverage. The street drama was really good. Apparently ‘Mahasona’ and ‘Reeri Yaka’, the traditional yakkas (devils) are running scared of the new devils on the streets. After some pep talk we were given lighted torches and the march proceeded with three abreast. They expected 400 people but the participation would have been double that or more. We covered the major streets and several side streets of Avariwatte. People from Colombo were only a handful. Local participation was huge and prominent. Slogans were fiery but they were not anti-men, reflecting the complexity of the situation.

The Avariwatte free-trade zone area that we were in is densely packed with garment workers, shop keepers, three-wheel drivers and many who lived off the garment economy. There were a few cute couples doubled-up on bicycles but everywhere else men and women were clustered separately in small groups. I did not see any public places where men and women could interact. Every inch of space was taken up by boarding houses or other structures. Even if there were venues, how would these young or not-so-young men and women interact? Transplanted from their villages, are there new norms of behavior for these men and women? Are we seeing the consequences of a lack of norms? Sandya Hewmanne in “Performing ‘Dis-respectability’: New Tastes, Cultural Practices, and Identity Performances by Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zone Garment-Factory Workers, Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 15, No. 1, 71-101 (2003)” looks at the new norms of culture that these women have defined for them selves.

This article describes and analyzes how female garment-factory workers in Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zones collectively express their difference from dominant classes and males and articulate their identities as a gendered group of migrant industrial workers by cultivating different tastes and by engaging in oppositional cultural practices. In the urban, modernized, and globalized areas of the FTZs, women develop unique tastes in the realms of music, dance, film, reading material, styles of dress, speech, and mannerisms. By performing subcultural styles that are subversive critiques of dominant values in public spaces, they pose a conscious challenge to the continued economic, social, and cultural domination they endure. But while workers’ participation in a stigmatized culture is explicitly transgressive and critical at some levels, their demonstrated acquiescence to different hegemonic influences marks the inseparability of resistance and accommodation.

What do these developments mean for relationships? (I have reached my limit here with google and can go no further.) At the end of the day these women will have to define those norms for themselves, I suppose, but, they could use a little help like economic growth that bring decent jobs for their men. As for me, gender dimensions are sure to be in my own work in the future.