Managing Change and 'Reconciliation in a Nutshell'

Managing Change and 'Reconciliation in a Nutshell'

Current unwelcome long non-working holiday (except for the staff of the election commission) in the beginning of the year made me 'home bound' not working on the fly.

That made me to organize Linux box, hard disks and Pendrives.

In the process I erased MultiSystem Linux Utility.

After three days of searching in my disconnected hard drives, I almost gave up and then to find now there is a Live MultiSystem CD.

In any case, I downloaded the MultiSystem Utility using Peppermint Linux as the base.

The election day download speed was at international level, I took the liberty to download all the distributions I needed for my daily work including Skolelinux and Debian.

I must tell you that I am now almost convinced that for my mission critical work, I would use Debian (in spite of the recent Linux political split of two developer camps on init and systemd) and promote Skolelinux in academic environment.

All this took a tall and I am in the last stage of configuring the 16 GiB Scan Disk (it is unbelievable I started with mere 512 MiB and PCLinux and Unity and finding a Live CD was like finding a needle I a haystack with Microsoft and MacOS dominating).

I love the Pendrive Linux an its site.

My first adorable Live USB was Pendrive Linux, which I still have as a souvenir.

This took me away from the election heat but quietly confident that LOVE will win over HATE.

Not with a comfortable but by a paper thin margin, even needing a second count.

All well, 'that ends well' but the Sri-Lankan political Mafia is alive and kicking the back door hard in a shadow boxing contest.

In actual fact, I love Microsoft of its failures on Win 8 and 9.

If not for the political arrogance of Microsoft (I could afford it not pirate it like an ordinary Sri-Lankans and Indians) I wound not have ventured into then unheard and unknown world of Linux (Redhat and Debian).

Microsoft has made me to practice Metta Meditation (currently of course Moment Meditation) on a daily basis at workplace.

There was nobody using Linux in the workplace.

I was alone and fell into the Minority Party, practically became a bit of a laughing stock (but my laugh on Microsoft guys/girls was pugnacious and often hilarious) among my colleagues.

But they fear me like a Linux Python.

They knew I could gobble Microsoft in seconds.

From my Metta Meditation Mode (3M), I spontaneously graduated to Reconciliation Mode (RM) in dealing with Microsoft.

That practice in the beginning of this millennium makes me a proper advocate of Political Reconciliation (PR) Mode.

The long preamble is for you not to read beyond this point, if you are a longterm convert of Jathika Chintanaya Mad (JCM) guy/girl who practice HATE Philosophy.

I had being conducting the knowledge and Practice of Reconciliation of Nelson Mandela fame, Reconciliation, if not of Mahatma Gandhi's (he had to die by an extremist but Mandela had to live incarcerated but delivered the goods in style by his Rainbow Coalition of politically diverse mindset) Ahihinsa among my students in the University.

I am sad to say that many of them did not know what is meant by reconciliation.

I was so shocked, I deferred the content of them being published in Google Drive Survey Form in full (a sample is there already).

In fact students were reticent, indifferent and unemotional to the simple inquiry of mine, once they left the sphere of my academic influence (most of them were selfish, self-centered and did not care a bit).

That was the sad point.

That culture is not there even in the University Setup.

So I can finish the entry point to reconciliation in brief.

1. We are not ready even after five years of ending the WAR of Attrition.

2. In fact the ruling party was hell bent on suppressing it.

3. They used their firebrand to nurture more and more HATE in the name of diaspora.

4. They are still doing it, BBS is a case in point.

5. It is an uphill task.

6. It is a long term task and a long term strategy, may need a decades of hard work.

7. Military cannot do it.

8. Majority of Politicians including the OLD Dead Left are not ready but their strategy is to come to power, like a beggar using a festing wound to survive.

9. People are not ready.

10. Clergy is not ready.

11. I think even the Pope cannot achieve it but he can ignite the genuine interest in reconciliation in Religion, to begin with.

So we have to form Citizen's Forums, just like Linux Forums which deliver solutions to most of the problems in the IT world which Microsoft or MacOs cannot.

I firmly believe we can achieve it with hard thinking, hard training in mind not to give into emotion, give and take, not asking pound of flesh like Sherlock.

The way forward is common ground and common communication skill.

I think only English can deliver it, neither Sinhala, Tamil nor Arabic.

It has to start in Schools, like in International Schools with multi-stream schools while giving parents the choice of language of instruction (if they want neutral English, so be it).

It is a hard road but it can be achieved with 10 year program (not six years like I politics, I want it to be 4 years for politics - 1st year for planning, second year for executing it, third year for consolidating and finding rough edges and the fourth year for campaigning for the next term.)

In Reconciliation one needs to be on a neutral ground, just like the neutral umpires in cricket.

I used English as an example.

Cricket or sports is another example, where talent should be given the due place not connectios like the son's of the executor.

Team selection should not be done by ex-cricketers, becoming politicians.

It is time for Sanath to go.

If he is there we won't make any headway in the World Cup 2015.

This an indirect reference to Ranatunge.

He should not take Ministry of Sports, ruined by Mahindananda.

He should take a portfolio without strings attached.

Shall I say, portfolio without politics but management for him to prepare for the slow climb up the ladder to the top.

He is still young, even though he has gray hair like his father.

I want him to be on top long before my demise.

He has leadership qualities.

I always believed that he was a potential Prime Minister (whether he can deliver goods like in cricket is a different kettle of fish and a different point of view.).

I have differed from discussing 'sore points' like (but only touched the soft points in my brief discussion) land, police and foreign relationships, specially India, China, EU and USA (I do not trust any but have a little soft corner for UK but not the guys like, Fox, Miliband and even Cameron, they are too, amateurish).

 

To begin with, we must try to win the World Cup in Cricket without political interference like Ma Ra did.

That will unify the country.

I will withdraw all my adverse comments on cricket politics, if the deliver the goods in style.

I still have my doubts.

If we are to win one area we have to improve is our fielding.

We have all the skills in batting except the firepower of pace balling (we must go for accuracy.)

Even in spin balling we are below par.

The current going in New Zealand is an eye opener.

Mind you I support New Zealand indirectly.

I worked there for a while long time ago.

I still remember the good guys/girls except in the Immigration.

No country has good guys in the immigration.

They make it a point to appoint the guys worse than politicians to immigration.

That is my personal experience.