One one things

I was reading Moju this morning and it got me thinking about international collective action in the field of international security. Hotel Rwanda is a good film, it makes a good stab at portraying humanity at its worst. But more than the film production it’s the true story that is shockingly awesome. Moju suggests that it is Rwanda’s lack of international political leverage that saw the genocide (or should I say “Acts of genocide”) continue without external intervention. And Moju is right.

At this point it is quite natural to jump up and down and complain about American intervention in Iraq, (Operation Iraqi Liberation) and highlight the natural acronym. I did that in the comfort of my living room while watching the film. But, the issue is a very complex one. Think for a moment if Sri Lanka was The international superpower, with the grand musthache at the helm. Would we have sent soldiers to Rwanda? I think not. After the initial good will, there would have been plenty of domestic political backlash once the body count of “our boys” started to rise. The political gain is miniscule compared to the political loss. In politics ppl tend to remember the bad stuff and forget the good stuff, I mean ppl still talk about America’s cock up in Vietnam. Look at Iraq today, just over 3 years after the invasion and GWB continues to lick his political wounds. The reality of the world today (and well anyday really) is that you can not expect altruistic behaviour when the costs are high. If the Rwandan crisis could have been solved by humanitarian aid, everyone would have rushed in to give the bucks. But bucks are a lot less costly than lives, as soon as your soldiers’ lives are at stake there jolly well ought to be something tangible to show your voters.

So while it is easy and quite natural to blame the States, I don’t think any other superpower would have behaved differently. So what we need is a strong international solution. There are two ways of doing this. 1) As a club good, like NATO, or 2) as an international public good like the UN peace keepers. The obvious problem with the latter is free riders. It would be unfair to make economically weaker nations like Sri Lanka and Rwanda to supply vast resources for this international army. And yet it is in these economically smaller, less powerful nations that internal conflict is rife. So there is a problem of free riding. Altruism would be required, and this is not always forthcoming. This would severely hamper the implementation of a significant international security force. International collective action is difficult at the best of times. I mean, just look at the WTO, and that’s dealing with dollars and cents. An international security force would be dealing with lives, a far tougher proposition. Option 1 sounds more plausible, but think of this, a Sub-saharan Treaty Organization, strikes fear into one’s heart. But a fragmented system sees duplication of resources, smaller isolated countries left out and the same collective action problems though on a smaller scale.

Noting these difficulties, it is important to remember that international intervention into domestic issues is not always a good thing. I don’t know much about the IPKF action in Sri Lanka, but from what i’ve heard it wasn’t all rosy. Furthermore, what if the internal conflict is government sanctioned, and the government does not request external help. Does the international community watch while massacre takes place, or do they intervene nonetheless. If the option is the latter the implications are potentially undemocratic and there is an allowance for paternalism. It is in response to such concerns (among others) that the UN peace keepers are peace keepers and not peace makers. So there is a case for the argument that domestic problems require domestic solutions.

So where does this leave us. Despite the difficulties of international collective action, incidents like Rwanda ‘94 can’t be ignored with shrugged shoulders. A tentative answer would be to have an international body overseeing regional groupings. So for instance Asia could have her own version of NATO, and if there is some scene in Colombo requiring international intervention, the force would be made up by military support from India, Pakistan etc. but overseen by an international body to ensure there aren’t too many cockups. So if for instance the Sub-Saharan treaty organization is exceedingly weak, the international body can boost it with assistance. The international body I refer to would require less resources than one that is supposed to police the whole world, and therefore collective action problems would be less. Domestic voters would be less averse to mutual protection within a region than their soldiers fighting in some little village in the Ivory Coast. Using the regional input is also important since it is more likely that the government of India would be sensitive to the nature of the conflict and the culture of the people in Sri Lanka than the government of Canada would. The two tiers of power, viz. regional and international, makes the system less prone to blatant abuses of power as there are added checks and balances.

This solution is far from perfect, but it does make some headway in countering the difficulties of the more conventional methods of international collective action.

Today’s been odd. My sarong went all static all of a sudden and there were worrying sizzling noises when my leg came in contact with the material. I also watched Pride and Prejudice (the version with keira knightley), and took another step away from reading the book. It looks less and less like what would make a good thay koappe for me.

Enough about that. Shakespeare was wrong, the question is not To be or not to be, the question is do we need to have faith? George Michael certainly thinks so. I’ve always had doubts about faith, I guess that’s primarily bc many family members were critical of the notion of “blind faith”. They claimed that buddhism did not resort to blind faith and was thus superior in some way. I bought that at the time but don’t buy it any more. Every religion in some way adopts a degree of blind faith, I shall elaborate in due time. Anyway, faith was always associated with the word blind so I used to dismiss it. I’ve considered reason to be far superior and have tried to base my life around reason, resorting to faith as little as possible. I’ve begun to question this manner of thinking of late. The following is bound to be muddled since my thoughts on this are far from clear at this stage.

I just finished reading The Life of Pi, it was alrite. It started off a bit slow, was ok in the middle and got bizarre towards the end and finished with an interesting twist. The writing was quite good though. Anyway, the book deals with faith quite a bit. Not in a explicit philosophical manner, but through implication really. So what happens is this kid ends up on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger, alone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and survives for almost a year until he gets washed up in Mexico. Good for him. The point is, any rational person would have given up hope, I mean what are the chances of surviving that? The kid’s faith carried him through. I’m not saying that faith saved him, but I guess it played an important role. The mind plays an important role in survival of the human body, half the battle is the will to live. Or so i’ve heard. So in this case irrational faith was certainly very handy.

When I say irrational faith, I mean it. Faith in the context I am dealing with refers to what is beyond the realms of human knowledge. Stuff like what happens after death, what our purpose on earth is, how we came about etc. The belief in God, in heaven and hell, in rebirth, all rely on faith. Organized religion tries to deal with things that we cannot explain using existing knowledge, we need to step beyond what we can experience in order to make decisions on these matters. Therefore the answers to any of these questions are irrational.

My doubts about faith began with doubts about organized religion. Organized religion requires irrational faith, and that means accepting one set of beliefs. Now the problem with this is the set of beliefs you accept will be highly contingent on the family your born into. If I was born into a family in Saudi Arabia i would be more than likely have a firm belief in Allah. Similarly if I was born into a Jewish family I’d have a totally different set of beliefs. The fact that one’s set of beliefs is so contingent on things like birth, education, experiences etc. make it hard to believe that by some lucky chance you were born into the “right” religion, the one that really shows the way. Now, one might argue that we do come across other religions and we can decide which set of beliefs to embrace. But that only applies to a minority of cases, I mean, I for one know very little about other religions beyond a very superficial degree. You need a far deeper knowledge of a religion in order to change your beliefs. So you’re more than likely to end up accepting the set of beliefs you inherited from birth. My worry is that I could well have been believing in God, in rebirth, in heaven and hell simply depending on the family I was born into.

My answer to this was to take a step back and try to be objective. To be rational. Reason can provide no answers as to what happens after death, as to why this earth is so perfect (in terms of being a cradle of life) and other questions. The most rational suggestion is that we are here bc we drew the large stick. What are the chances of having such a perfect planet? One in a Billion? Well, there are well over a billion planets, so the maths works. What happens after we die? The rational answer, zilch. Time just stops, no consciousness, nothing; our attraction to an after life is simply an extension of our attachment to life. But this is just a guess, conjecture. As are alternatives like immortal souls, heaven, hell etc. The fact of the matter is we can never know. To use reason, or to use faith are pretty much one and the same, you’re stabbing in the dark, using guesswork. At this point in human history, knowledge of such matters is not possible, bc it is beyond what we could possibly experience.

So what’s better reason or faith? Well, in such matters neither. Reason is not always right. Back in the day it was perfectly reasonable to believe that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the earth was flat. Based on human experience at the time, it sounded fine. But now we know. (Or do we?). If someone at the time had an irrational faith that the earth was round, he would have been duely hooted at. As our set of experiences expand, the realm of knowledge expands. When humans set out to sea, the notion of a flat earth was dismissed. When Copperniccus et al used telescopes to go beyond what the eye can see, we realised that the earth revolves around the sun. Similarly, with the good blessings of technology we might be able to have knowledge of what happens after death in several years time. Then we can make a reasoned judgement. Until such time it’s best to keep an open mind. If we didn’t keep open minds about things like flat earths we’d all be in our little countries huddled like kalaveddhas.

And finally we have moved. I spent the better part of last weekend shifting my life from North London to a more central area. A new flat where hot water runs from taps, where the raditors emit heat, where boilers work. Gone are the days of kettle heated baths, of pissing icicles and of standing near the fridge whose 4 degrees is an oasis of warmth. The electric heaters brought some solace, but they didn’t have a chance against the freezing conditions outside. It’s been a tough term. Had someone told me that I had to live in a house without heating or hot water through January and February, I would have asked him what he’s smoking. And I’d have asked him to give me some of that shit if I really had to go through with it. But looking back, it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, it wasn’t fun by any stretch, but we got used to it. It’s amazing how well human beings adapt to situations and learn to make the best of what is available. You just got to bite the bullet and get on with life.

Living with two girls is fun. For one there’s an endless supply of Cosmo and other magazines which provide a perfectly legitimate excuse to look at girls in lingerie, and learn other useful things like “10 ways to make her scream” (and there I was expecting some appropriately scary pranks). That said, it has its disadvantages. I had to do the bulk of the heavy-duty lifting when it came to suitcases, desks, cupboards etc. during the shifting process. Whilst I was carrying a massive desk up the stairs I quietly cursed everyone who was working out at the time. They ought to be helping me, not lifting weights for the fun of it, bloody time eating devils. Don’t join a gym, help somebody shift house, now there’s a business.

On Saturday the moving van came home and we finally packed away the last bits of our life. The journey was uneventful until we came towards Hyde park where there was a massive traffic block bc of some parade. The driver and I didn’t exchange much conversation all this time, mainly bc I was too tired to say anything. He then received a phone call and said, “434?! Is it a one day game?? Faaarking hell.” Shit shit, I thought, our record. I asked him to clarify and he said that Aussie had scored 434-4 against South Africa, a new world record team score. We spent the next 40 mins or so talking about cricket, it’s very rare to see an Englishman so fascinated by the game. His knowledge was very impressive too, he knew about the Sri Lankan team and even about the not so prominent guys like Malinga Bandara. It was amusing to find that he had the same problem as I when it came to bowling leg breaks, we both end up producing only googlies and toppies. With an average male in India, Sri Lanka or Pakistan such a conversation would be expected, but in England with a young white Englishman, it was truly surprising. He took my phone number and invited me to play for his club up in Mill hill. We ended the day comparing our bowling actions on the main road, run-up and all.

We didn’t move all the furniture so more DIY was in order. My early attempts at DIY were an utter failure. I fixed a toilet seat in our previous flat which towards the end of its tenure wobbled like an octopus on skates. At least I learned to shake that booty. My flatmate’s bedside table ended up with half its drawers collapsed and the legs of her table clearly had the hibbery jibberies. So I wasn’t looking forward to doing the same again, specially after all that lifting. After much fuss we set about it, and fixed up a TV stand, 2 desks and a couple of storage boxes. Not a bad effort at all, they all seem in pretty good condition. DIY isn’t all bad once you get the hang of it. But that’s what I said last time. As my wobbly ass reminds me.

Half way through the DIY process I get a text from the moving van dude (I never quite caught his name, though moving van dude would be a good name for a dutch baby) saying that South Africa was 270 odd for 3 in under 30 overs, and that they had a chance of winning. I scoffed and went back to work with the hammer. A couple of hours later I get another text saying they won it off the last ball. I was in a state of shock, I had just missed the greatest ODI ever. The next day I went and watched the highlights at a friend’s place and came off in a stupor. So many of our inhibitions and constraints are in our mind. Almost anything is possible if you put your mind to it and if you want it bad enough or if you really really have to. We lived through an English winter without heating or hot water, South Africa chased 434 in 50 overs. Common sense would suggest both are near impossible, and that entertaining such thoughts would be stupid. But the human will is something that is insurmountable. Well done RSA, take a bow. Well done us.

I think a family history is that much richer if it can boast an impressive family feud. I was reading Micheal Ondaatje’s “Running in the family” recently and was continually amazed at how exciting and spicy the Ondaatje family life seemed to be, specially the feud between the Ondaatjes and the Bandaranaikes. It reminds me of a quasi-feud that our family had with our neighbours a long time back, at the time it was more fun than anything else, and I remember taking part with glee as a 8 year old right until we left the neighbourhood when I turned 16. When I look back on it now it’s even more amusing than it was at the time.

It all started back in 1992 when my parents had started building our house in Kollupitiya, they were relatively young (in that they were just out of postgrad) and aiya and I were 8 and 10 respectively. We’d visit the building site regularly and mess around with Amarasekara bass and his wheelbarrow. One time there was a bit of a hullaballoo outside. To see, thaththi was having an argument with this old lady about our gate. Now, our main entrance was on a private road, and under a strict reading of the law the house opposite us has a claim on the land immediately in front of our gate. But nobody really makes a fuss except for this old lady. This particular issue would be the cornerstone of many an ensuing skirmish. So thaththi that was apparently trying to convince her that having a gate there isn’t really going to change anything bc they weren’t using that land at all in the first place. Unfortunately old lady wasn’t impressed and decided to set the dogs on my father, diplomatic dialogue at its best.

Things went downhill from there. A few weeks after we moved in I opened the gate to see that pissu aachchi had decided to plant a coconut tree bang in front of the gate, making it impossible to take any cars into our house. The tree was quite small and as soon as thaththi got home he was fuming and went about removing the tree with his bare hands. Naturally it didn’t quite work, and the ever looming threat of the dogs had him hurrying back indoors. The next morning however the tree was forcibly removed, and another squabble took place. We’d watch from the balcony as pissu aachchi and her daughter engaged in verbal warfare with my parents. It was hilarious.

Pissu aachchi had 4 grandkids, and most of them were around our age, and naturally the familial politics spread across the generations. At first we didn’t do too much other than stare and give gal looks across the balconies, but later on us kids had our own skirmishes. It started when I used to ride my bike on the road and they’d leave obstacles to trip me. Coconut husks (the coconut tree was one of their formidable weapons at the time), large rocks and bricks were placed strategically along the road whilst they watched from the balcony. It would have been pussy of me to just avoid them and ride somewhere else, so I’d usually try and ride over them, and sometimes i’d get past and turn around to give a triumphant, smug look, and other times i’d tumble and walk home with my tail between my legs to endless sniggering. I found a worthy ally in pissu aachchi’s tenant, a boy of my age from Vavuniya. Pissu aachchi’s grandson had dropped a brick on this bugger’s head from the balcony, so we had a common enemy.

Every 31st night we’d get together with the boys on the other side of the road and have firecracker wars with the fronthouse kids. This entails sending ahas kooru along the ground towards the other camp, and throwing ali dons and thummulas into their garden. Every single year we’d blow up pissu aachchi’s mail box by filling it with fire crackers and exploding it. The next day pissu aachchi would be scream at us about the litter, like a prayer.

The little buggers were utter snitches as well. One time Vavuni Ally and I were messing about with an old badminton racket and some stones, seeing who can hit a stone further. Unfortunately a van decided to stop in the middle of the junction and one stone went crash through the window. We hooked. We hid behind some bushes while the van driver came around looking for the culprits. The idiot kids next door pointed us out to the driver who threatened to call the cops, luckily we managed to get out of it by inventing some sob story. Another time when we were playing cricket on the road, the ball went next door and one fellow in sarong climbed the wall to retrieve the ball. The next door kids decided that this fellow was flashing them (3 of the 4 kids are girls, damn terrors) and told their mother. Aunty ran straight to my mother to complain in the customary dramatic fashion. Happily enough my mother knowing their track record wasn’t too bothered about the accusation. In retaliation to the lack of response, Tarzan (the only boy next door, who gets his name from running around in his undies when we was small), wrote a nasty note about the alleged flasher, calling him a kukul betta. The note was dropped in our letterbox, and I came across it. Fuming, I composed a response, mustering all the filth I had learnt in my 10 years of life. Unfortunately I didn’t quite understand the meaning of a lot of the words I used, and didn’t realise that it was pretty hardcore Sinhalese filth. I dropped my response (on the same paper) in their letterbox and awaited a reply. A couple of days later they made a brilliant tactical maneuver. Instead of an angry retort, aunty brought the piece of paper to my mother’s attention with the intention of apologising for her own son’s note, knowing full well that my mother would see my response and look like a fool.

Pissu aachchi continued her antics on a regular basis. One day she had decided to dig a massive ditch just next to our gate. Ammi’s brother is a lawyer, so we called him up and he came to put his 2 cents. Maama walked upto the ditch to see pissu aachchi busy digging. “Mrs. S, are you digging your grave by some chance?” Fireworks. Annoyingly we were sent inside but I heard stories about an udella wielding pissu aachchi, redda hiked up, threatning maama from across the ditch. Later on pissu aachchi had some heart trouble and spent some time in India, during this time there was a lull in the action as we actually thought she might have died.

The kids remained a pain, disrupting our cricket matches by throwing stones, riding their bikes through the pitch and generally being annoying. One day a bunch of friends from school came over to play some cricket and the girls next door were walking home from some place, and as usual we halt the game till they pass. This was during the time of the major pitch invasions in England by Pakistani and Indian supporters during one NatWest series. One of my friends said to another “we’re also having pitch invasions”, and someone else said “not pitch invasion bitch invasion” This wasn’t too clever, but he didn’t say it for them to hear. Unforunately they did hear something and complained to their aunt. Now their aunt is a bit of a battleaxe who probably never quite let the ’60s pass. She summoned me and threatened to complain to my school principal about this. I said sorry, and that they were joking around and didn’t mean for anyone to hear, let alone get offended. But in true feud spirit, I called her bluff and told her to tell anybody she wants, and walked off. Looking back, it really was quite stupid of those buggers to have said that, joking or otherwise.

The kids had taken on a new craze of adopting stray dogs. One of these dogs was an utter pain and kept growling and putting part to ppl on the road. One day the stupid dog decided to attack Vavuni Ally and we knew something had to be done. The two of us got together and got some beef, laced it with chillie and laxative and left it for the dog. Two weeks later it died of a car accident, and I still feel a bit guilty though I don’t think the spicy beef had much to do with it.

As we got older we began to tolerate one another better. One day Tarzan came home with a peace offering on Christmas, and since then we didn’t have any problem with the kids. We started talking and even hanging out together and chilling on the road. That last 31st night we didn’t even blow up pissu aachchi’s mail box, and spent most of the time lighting firecrackers with the kids. In the end they were quite sad when we left. I never told them about the spicy beef though.

Pissu aachchi continued her antics right till the end though. The last incident I remember was when we were playing cricket on the road, as always, and the ball rolled into pissu aachchi’s garden, as was usual pissu aachchi was tending the garden with her helper. Due to our more cordial relations of late, the guy who hit the ball went upto the garden and asked pissu aachchi’s helper to pass the ball. Pissu aachchi wasn’t impressed and told the girl not to lift a finger, and told Mani to not dare order her servants about. Mani shrugged his shoulders and started to walk into the garden when pissu aachchi stood up and told him not to come in, and muttered under her breath “pita rata demalu”. This pissed Mani off bc he’s an upcountry Tamil. He started towards her and I had to run and hold him back. Pissu aachchi, not to be outdone was up and at him, idella in hand. It was a classic scene, me dragging back Mani on the middle of the road with pissu aachchi threatning him with a large idella. She followed us all the way up the road, heart condition and all.

Recently I saw two of the front house girls at coffee stop, but only exchanged smiles and said hi, but I was pleased to see them. Vavuni Ally, who also moved out at the same time as I, met them last year and apparently they’re doing good. Even pissu aachchi is still alive and kicking. We left that house in 2000, and despite the feud I love the house and the neighbourhood to bits, it was an amazing place to grow up.

Our boiler Henry has been dead for a while now, and that has meant a distinctly colder house and very distinctly colder showers. Though cold showers have their merits on some occassions, British winters are not among them. But you get used to it, I’ve got used to carrying the big basin of kettle heated water up and down the stairs, and though I fear for the safety of my skin, it’s been so good, so far. That said, I’d be thrilled when we eventually leave this place for the greener pastures of a different house. There are two things i’ll miss about our current place, the Italian shop, Amici Delicatessan, down the road and the proximity to Camden town.

There are few better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than to stroll around Camden market. Camden town has several markets, the best of which is the main camden lock market just beyond the bridge on your left (from the tube station). The canal market (on your right) is a smaller less impressive version of the lock. Camden market is amazing. It comprises of hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of nonsense from World War II newspaper clippings to Didgeridoos. It’s the sort of place you want to go if you haven’t been to places like Africa, Asia and South America, and yet want to see what sort of stuff tourist shops in those places might have. If you want to make your uni dorm that much cooler by adding a set of Indian tablas, a South American dream catcher, a persian carpet, a carribbean voodoo mask or some Himalayan incense, Camden market is the place to go. Most of these things are fake, which is reflected in the dirt cheap prices, but they’re still very very cool. You get a good range of CD shops selling non-mainstream music that you won’t find in your local HMV, excellent second hand book shops, vintage clothing and even furniture.

Besides these touristy things, the market is also a showcase of creativity. Some very clever and entrepreneurial ppl have made camden their home. For instance there is a shop which has all sorts of things made out of old circuit boards, from key tags to note books to wall clocks, it’s amazing and unique. This afternoon I saw a stall with some remarkable computer generated art work, the artist depicts the character traits of ppl born under different star signs by using colours and form. You also find more mainstream art like photography and painting on sale. Throw in an excellent photo gallery currently displaying a fantastic collection by David Rubinger, a historical photo essay of the life of Isreal, and Camden has it all. There’s a good collection of witty T-Shirts, mugs etc. available too, the “Dolphins are gay sharks” T shirt being a personal favourite. The majority of creative stuff in camden is the result of doing clever and pretty things with simple elements and good ideas, and that’s certainly worth seeing.

More than what you can buy in camden, what I love is the atmosphere and vibrancy of the place. From the time you leave the underground station it feels like you’re walking towards a carnival, the streets are packed with ppl, there are vendors everywhere, music screaming from the high street shops and general mayhem. As you enter the market everything becomes even more intense. There is variety in everything in the market, be it the ppl, the music, the food, the stalls, it’s like its own little world. On any given Sunday you can find goths, punks, rasthas, hippies, Germans, the works really. Every store has its own little music set going, contributing to its own unique identity. You could find a shop selling Indian meditation products with Hare Krishna chants right next to a Jamaican stall selling assorted herbs and cannabis lollipops with a big dreadlocked Rastha swaying to some classic Bob Marley. The food is awesome too, not in terms of quality but in terms of variety. Not that the quality is bad, but it’s not gourmet by any stretch. Today I had curried goat with vegetable rice, apparently a West African favourite. It was all cooked in these big steaming pots which gave the whole thing a quite authentic feel.

One slightly dodgy thing about Camden is the extent of thieving and pick pockets, though I haven’t had anything lifted i’ve seen it happen to ppl. Happily enough there are plenty of Market coppers to beat up the thieves. That’s not the only reason to avoid taking loads of cash. The first time I went I busted almost £40 on all sorts of stuff from Dali prints to a mass produced wooden statue of an African woman. If you take cash you end up busting it. I also tend to attract the attention of the weed peddlars, usually when i’m walking off back home I hear the hushed call of “grass man, 10 quid for a nice big pack”. Naturally I walk away with my head held high.

I think I saw Sean Paul today, there was a familiar looking dude on the road and I thought hmm, and I looked again and there were two body guards next to him. I still didn’t take much notice until I heard this tourist ask one of the body guards “hey that’s sean paul isn’t it?” and then i looked more carefully and what do you know, it was him. I think. But yeah, camden market, go there, do that.

Jay Leno used to make fun of the fact that Al Gore had allegedly claimed to have invented the internet during his election campaign against GWB. I laughed at this and thought what a fool, but I didn’t know who actually invented it, and looked around sheepishly hoping nobody would notice. I had a hunch that Billy G (Bill Gates’ gangster name, I think everyone should have a gangster name) had something to do with it but it doesn’t look like it. This morning I was browsing (scrolling) through the economist and found out that there is somebody who “invented it”, a dude called Jon Postel (apparently techies refer to him as God, those damn atheists). He apparently coordinated the network’s underlying protocols and addressing system (whatever that means) between 1968 and 1998. Talk about responsibility. And I had no clue the internet is so old! I thought it came about in the late ’80s. Anyway all this was paid for by the US dept of defence, but the US government maintained a pretty much hands off role. Since ‘98 the job has been done by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private US firm that the US govt keeps an eye on but doesn’t do much else.

I still know sod all about the Net, I just use it, and until there’s some problem that can’t be fixed by restarting my comp I probably wouldn’t care too much. But it’s rather surprising and quite undemocratic that this whole system is coordinated by one private firm. And the fact that it is a US firm makes me go ooh you hegemonic bastards. Of late there have been some rumblings by other countries, China in particular. The fact that the majority of the world’s internet users do not claim English to be their mother tongue makes it a bit unfair that web addresses and stuff are only in English (correct me if i’m wrong). As a result countries have called for the internet to be coordinated by an international intergovernmental body with more government oversight, to make the system more internationally friendly and democratic. Two days ago China moved ahead and with three new internet-address suffixes in the Chinese language, as national variants to .cn, .com and .net. So Chinese ppl can now use Chinese characters for website and e-mail addresses. It’s likely that a bunch of others will follow suit, and this will make the internet more democratic and could reach out to more ppl. A good thing.

But, there are complications, this democracy comes at a price. Apparently the move by the Chinese (symbolic as they are) could potentially undermine the possibility of every computer to communicate directly with another computer, a bad thing. There would also be a requirement for several separate naming systems, duplication of effort, a bad thing, a clear case of natural monopoly maybe. So one naming system would be the best way to go about it, but which language should be used? English seems to be the obvious choice, but that’s easy for me to say bc I speak English. Since the current system uses English, continuing on this path is the rational, practical choice, however undemocratic it maybe.

But what of the coordination of the internet? The system, as far as i know, has worked ok so far, so why change? It’s a political thing really, it’s all about the distribution of power. Big international egos are at stake. The fears of ICANN getting a megalomaniac as a CEO are i’m sure secondary. The costs of having an international, inter-governmentally run coordinating body are simply the costs faced by any non-private body, bureaucracy, lack of innovation and increased costs. So it probably wouldn’t be worth it. Certainly not in the name of international egos. Democracy is a good thing, but sometimes practicality trumps the calls of democracy. I think the status quo should remain in place, it maybe undemocratic but it’s the most practical and efficient system, and that works well for all of us, at least that’s democratic.

I spent the evening watching Sinatra at the London Palladium and was struck with a flash of inspiration. The following is a tribute to driving in Colombo, it is sung to the tune of New York, New York.

Colombo, Colombo

Start tooting the horn
I’m on Galle road
You got to run for cover
Colombo, Colombo

These drivers on booze
Are here to stay
And make our drive a living hell
Colombo, Colombo

I want to drive through this city, as if on weed
And dodge the private bus, the copper’s jeep

These little trishaws
Are making me pee
I’ll get my driver’s licence
In good old Colombo
If I can drive it there
I can drive it anywhere
It’s up to me, Colombo, Colombo

I want to drive through this city, and try not to weep
And find i’m in a pot hole, up shit creak

Where crooked kossas
Are bending the rules
I’ll get my driver’s licence
In good old Colombo
If i can drive it there
I can drive it anywhere
It’s up to me, Colombo, Colombo

Hehe composed in half an hour. For those who would like to see the extent of the bastardization, the original lyrics of New York New York are copied below.

New York, New York

Start spreading the news
I’m leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York

These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I’m king of the hill, top of the heap

These little town blues
Are melting away
I’ll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I’ll make it anywhere
It’s up to you, New York, New York.

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I’m king of the hill, top of the heap

These little town blues
Are melting away
I’ll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I’ll make it anywhere
It’s up to you, New York, New York.

P.s. Am grateful for one line and general quality control from housemate.