Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Ukraine, Crimea and Lessons from Sri-Lanka


Below is an extract to show how deeply divided the people of Ukraine are.

Orange Revolution-From WikipediaBy the time of the presidential election of 2010, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko — allies during the Orange Revolution — had become bitter enemies.
Tymoshenko ran for president against both Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych, creating a three-way race. 

Yushchenko, whose popularity had plummeted, refused to close ranks and support Tymoshenko, thus dividing the anti-Yanukovych vote.
 

Many pro-Orange voters stayed home.   
Yanukovych received 48% of the vote and Yushchenko less than 6%, an amount which, if thrown to Tymoshenko, who received 45%, would have prevented Yanukovych from gaining the presidency; since no candidate obtained an absolute majority in the first round of voting the two highest polling candidates contested in a run-off second ballot which Yanukovych won.

I do not think there is Unity in this country, which the interimm government is trying to portray.

So America, EU and Russia are trying to fish in troubled waters.
That is why I am inclined to state and think there are sane guys and girls in world politics.
They only want POWER and delivers very little after coming to power. 

Ukraine, Crimea and Lessons from Sri-Lanka

It is sad to see what is happening in Ukraine.

There are lot of similarities to what happened in Sri-Lanka (over the past three decades) to what is emerging in Ukraine.

I hope it will not sink into that level of what we sank in the not so distant future.



1.We obtained independence from England in 1948 without any violence or freedom struggle and from that point onwards we embarked on a rapid downhill course.

Ukraine obtained its freedom, probably due to falling and failing Soviet Union.

There was no freedom struggle and people born after 1994 did not underestimated its true value and its own free choice.



2. We had to struggle to live soon after independence (British destroyed our base Rice agriculture for Tea and Coffee) due to food shortages.

USA stopped aid (never trust USA) and only poor CHINA helped us with Rubber-Rice agreement in 1954.



3. We trusted India in our foreign policy and in return they trained terrorist on their soil and still harboring them in parts of India.

They had the “big brother big bully” mentality.

Our nation had to suffer for over 35 years.

They send their foot soldiers in the name of PEACE to Sri-Lanka and in return the “Pavens” raped our women.

The achieved nothing in the process.

That was the reason for taking the life of the young Prime Minister by a suicide bomber.

In actual fact the plotters of PM assassination were released or pardoned due to political reason, recently.

That is to show how fragile the present day politics in India.

Due to its involvement in neighboring countries India lost its credibility and the status it had in the region.

It is happening now in Ukraine and “big brother big bully” mentality is reenacted there by Russia.



4. It was an uphill task to get them out of the country.

It was a comparatively easy and political task for Sri-Lanka but in Ukraine Russia is going to dig in deeply.

How they can solve this is open to question and USA and European Union will not be able to help Ukraine.

Russia knows this very well and that is why they waited till Ukraine politicians made blunder after blunder with European inciting.



5. We had to build a massive army to overcome our problem created by India and Terrorists.



Ukraine did the biggest blunder by de-commissioning nuclear capability.

Unfortunately, Ukraine forces cannot match “eye to eye” in an arm conflict.

UNO peace keepers that are sent to Africa from the time of CONGO Crisis is impotent and useless.



6. Banki Moon who comes to Sri-Lanka with the drop of a hat to help the “terrorist rump” but he is totally impotent in his capacity in Ukraine.



UNO is a wasteful organization.

All the odds are against Ukraine in spite of it signing pacts with Russia.



7. We had few friends in the religion, China, Pakistan and Russia and our cricketing connections were stronger than the foreign relations.

Ukraine has nobody, except perhaps Poland.



8. In spite of the war we got our economy running and food items were cheap and people did not over reacted to the ground situation like in Ukraine.

That was the biggest mistake Ukraine did, those who were born free after 1994 took to streets in a very disorganized street protest just like in Thailand.



Discipline and resolve are necessary ingredients and our people had it in the last decade of the war.

Unfortunately, current politicians are ruining our economy and food prices are going up faster than a rocket after the war.

Corruption, nepotism and lack of law and order are evident 5 years after the war and is rising in Sri-Lanka.

Unfortunately, that is the way the modern world behaves.

Why this is, I do not know but I think human race is SELFISH when in power.

Out of power they are disorganized.

That was probably what happened in the last 20 years in Ukraine.

We have not evolved a full proof political system and in my understanding there is no country in the “Free World” which is not corrupt or that will resist corrupt practices.

It is only in books and never in real practice.

In Ukraine they were exposing the corrupt leader and fast forwarded the remedy or ousting of him, and did not allow the natural forces and patience of the nation to bring the status core of the system to a new equilibrium.

That is my analysis of the politicians and politics in Kiev.

We are eagerly watching you and want to learn from your experience.

Tactics and Strategy are important and unfortunately our land do not have any at the moment to offer you.

Both Sri-Lanka and Ukraine need a good friend to guide us through this difficult period but there is nobody in the whole of the UNO, as at present.

We have to search and train them in our own lands and importing any from outside will lead us to a “Blind Ally”.

That is what America, Russia and European Union are waiting for.

Freedom Revisited (my book on Evolution of Sri-Lankan Freedom) is something Ukrainian should read.

We have have abused our freedom to the core and now we have Poli-Tricks instead of real politics.

Unfortunately, the entire world is lacking visionary politicians and most of the guys and girls (including) in foreign services are mediocre.
That is why individuals like Navi Pillai (all these guys and girls are interested in pay pack and the fringe benefits that go with it and has no idea in how to "shape world politics" at a time when information superhighway is open for all and not to a few powerful selected nations) thinks she is like "a big bully" and has no diplomatic ways and means to end a crisis.
They create crisis after crisis for their own survival of the rein in the post they hold onto like gold.

The Indian  diplomat abusing a domestic aid (in fact 21st century slavery) is a case in point how poor their obligations and training.
I believe nobody should go beyond three years in the same post including post of secretary of U.N.O.

They should be recycled into less important posts, if they do not show their mettle and clinical acumen in solving a given problem or problems.

I think they need lot of training and in depth understanding of history and geopolitics.

Below is a little glimpse of my latest book "Freedom Revisited".
Do not read it if you are a tech kid, enjoy the tech now and read it later when Kindle is available in this blessed land, which is very unlikely, with so much hype against all America, American / Americans.

Incidentally, all citizens want the dual citizenship, which is paradoxical paradox!

Glimpse of Freedom Revisited.

The Future Unpredictable

Unfortunately we have not reached this stage since there are enough legal barriers like 2/3rd (two third) majority etc;
We have to go behind a Bo Tree and Pray for Divine Intervention.
Unfortunately foreigners including Indians and Westerners can do sweet nothing since we are a Sovereign State and one has to leave sovereign bars (Gold) in front of the altar of Demo=Crazy.

Social media will make it a mockery of any personality becoming established since one incident like throwing eggs (in this country throwing rotten eggs is a pastime) at a neighbor after a few sniff of pot of grass, causing minimal damage to a neighbor's residence might flare up massive Internet instances that would effectively stop the Internet impotent in mid air, like an aircraft without fuel having a nose-dive.

Who might emerge as a celebrity in this period is anybody's guess.


Ending of the war towards the end of the decade was the highlight and many volumes would be written about it and me writing something on it, would be rejected like a resume that I may forward to the foreign office of ours, after retiring from the academic activities for re-entry into worthwhile service again. 
The foreign office is filled up with ex-servicemen and edging any one of them will be near impossibility, once this book is published, anyway.

I think it would be easy for me to enter the off-gravity space on a space walk with a Chinese astronaut, in a Chinese built spacecraft, since my knowledge and skill in English would be useful for them to broadcast the event live, of a Sri-Lankan in space.

I think it would be advisable to live in space in my retirement while having a global view instead of a myopic view of the real cost of living of Sri-Lanka.

Most significant trend is money laundering, it looks like there is a parallel black currency. 
How this operates I have not got a slightest of a hint or an idea. 
My gut feeling is it is prevalent, each one scratches the back of another and nothing comes out of the closed system.
It is a mafia type of operation well oiled and well guarded without any guns. 
I have reason to believe even the paper and electronic media are involved.

Once in you are in, there is no way out.


This period will produce artists who hide behind the technology. 
A male singer would sing like a woman behind the tech-microphone (masking the real analogue voice) or a woman like a man. 
This ambivalence will continue until youths of this decade decide to move away from the high tech industry (which is highly unlikely) and discover their true identity in a time scale on par with the technological hype.

What way the dress will change is also difficult to predict and rising cost will determine the outcome. 
Youth will be hard pressed due to technology eating up the job market and also due to artificial adjustments made (reshaping of it indexes) to the stock market in action or once it is in a suspended state of collapse due to heavy borrowing.

It is the period of belt tightening and trying to float in a sinking economy.

Loss of identity of the work force is the inevitable result.

Tech kids will almost take over the non tech kids carrying cellphones and tablets.

Sports will try to catch up with the youth and focus its attention on dwindling interest on sports and sports personalities.
Olympics, football and baseball will be tech-events barring few exceptional sports personalities.

Media will lose its catchment base to social media. 

There will be few professional media men / women taken over by the mediocre personalities. 
All is not honky dory but media will have less and less impact. 

There will be very few media men / women who will be engaged in investigative journalism.

The whole digital world will come to an almost incredible stalemate with news running faster than the actual events.
Newspapers and TV will have less and less impact to the emerging youth, carrying tablets and cellphones. 
The easy accessibility of too much data on the web will kill interest in deciphering fact from fiction.
Science and mathematical skills may die a natural death and universities will function like a link to mass server dishing out enormous amount of data without proper filtering.
Everybody who is somebody will have a degree of some sort without job opportunity. 
Experience and maturity will count less and less and people will expect the computer to find solution for even a simple problem. 
Something like finding. how many fingers or digits one has, one may have to look in the web server, instead of looking at the real hands using the typeface. 
Dependence on computers will make the human brain (more likely) to function, less and less, in a practical or analytical way, which automatically and easily will become bored by the routine and the video images.

There will be lot of video clips in the You Tube and the film industry will die a natural death, unless of course they embark on special effects like 3 D and simulations (earth quake, flying an air craft, space walk). 
I am suggesting ideas for them to work on.

There is no real politics but there is ample poli-tricks.
I won't be surprised if even a referendum of some sort might come out. 
Read this again,  even Mr.Putin has read this piece.  
Certainly, it is not going to be consensus but deep polarization.

Conservative religion will die a natural death but extreme elements will hold sway.

There will be no environment for the biodiversity to be maintained, if the temperature goes above 40 degrees centigrade. 
The bees will be the first to go with that the pollination (this is already happening). 
The Australian open tennis tournament is showing us a preview of this scenario, with global leaders of today looking, the other way.