It is hard to think about Sri Lanka without recalling [0] that this is the country which recently attempted to institute a fertiliser ban. My default assumptions about their general infrastructure management are unflattering.
I like to think folks who know what they're doing, AND pushing dramatic change know that HOW you get there is as important as anything else. Behave recklessly and you've got no support anymore and you've undone your whole plan.
Not really, the government tried a short term solution to a lack of forex, which caused a drop in agricultural productivity which lead to much worse consequences about an year later.
This story keeps rising from the dead as if it was a simplistic anti-technology action when in fact (as has already been mentioned in this thread) Sri Lanka's economy had collapsed to the point that it could not afford to pay for inputs to industrialised agriculture, including chemical fertilisers.
I'd addressed many of the usual specious claims made on this in a thread from 2022, here:
As for the civil war, things could have ended differently, except Prabhakaran seemed to have been gripped by arrogance.
Though he was fighting for Tamils, paradoxically, Prabhakaran also became the big killer of Tamils. He annihilated all competing Tamil militant groups ...
... it all led to [Prabhakaran's] last apocalyptic decision to fight to the last day — and the last Tamil. Through Kumaran Pathmanathan, KP, the LTTE ‘foreign minister’, we offered to bring out all the combatants and civilians from the war zone. When KP went to finalise the deal, Prabhakaran refused. The rest is history.
Unfortunate for the Tamils how it all played out, with little intervention or pressure from other regional powers. The past violence and pogroms were already indicative of the State's intent; they didn't need a second invitation.
It's the story of most warlords / strong men types. Ultimately anything less than full obedience makes them the enemy, even (sometimes especially) the folks you are presumably fighting for.
Little intervention? Literally every world power and some of the minor ones went out of their way to support the nationalists. The United States being a major reason why it was kicked off. We eventually incorporated the Sinhalese nationalist strategies in Afghanistan.
This is absolutely insane. It's almost cartoonishly monstrous.
Why isn't this better known? The way the Tamils were treated is so pure a representation of evil that I can barely get through the Wikipedia page. This was the work of Buddhists, too! I've been taught that Buddhists were peaceful and non-violent by creed, but clearly not if the only Buddhist majority nation is capable of such abomination.
Westerners rarely associate Buddhism with extremism or violence, but Buddhist movements in Asia have often raised few qualms about the use of force. Buddhist authorities have, at times, justified violence against the faith’s enemies and supported authoritarian regimes.
Most westerners are woefully misguided in their interpretation of eastern religions.
We are still people.
I'm always shocked when Europeans or Americans single out Christianity as some uniquely malevolent force.
People are like this. We have always been like this. Being atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan, heathen, etc -- it doesn't make you superhuman. We're all capable of this and the sooner everyone realizes this the sooner we can work to prevent tragedy.
Much religion depends on magical thinking and/or blind appeals to authority. IME it facilitates bad behavior that's less likely to be tolerated by more rational belief systems.
The worldview of many atheists I know seems to depend on magical thinking, holding of contradictory beliefs, and blind appeal to authority when it comes to the government.
I don't think there is clear cause and effect when it comes to religion and irrational behavior.
Certainly exceptions exist to every rule or trend.
Having visited over a hundred churches (for thousands of services), they are the only place I've consistently seen people teach and accept things that what everyone can plainly see is false. Children are taught that fallacies are better than critical thinking, wherever it serves their belief system.
People often easily conflat religion, theology and theocracy. But an atheist dictator that would put death sentence for anyone that engages in a religion would obviously not be more ethical than some religious zealtoth doing the same for atheism. I'm not aware of any politically powerful atheist in history that went this path. I mean, most likely Stalin was atheist, but I doubt it ever was a matter to send people to gulag. Atheism is just rare as an ontological belief, so it makes sense most faith intolerance happened between religious dévots.
Note that strictly speaking, atheism is just rejecting the existence of any god. That doesn't necessarily make magic out of the equation. Though certainly atheism is generally associated to the rejection of any superstitious belief.
But just believing that ZFC make a sound mathematical foundation doesn't make you an advanced flawless logician. People stay mere humans, whatever they believe might be the most relevant foundation to use their more or less weak reasoning ability.
Mathematics is seen a formally grown, logical system, that has features that are "discovered" rather than invented .. "Given some {X}, {Y} follows without question".
It is understood that one can tweak an axiom, the fifth posulate for example, and get a different logical ediface - a non Euclidean hyperbolic geometry in that case.
The ZFC "Axiom of Choice" has bearing on infinities and other things, including many proofs that depend on reduction by absurdity.
The arc of history simply does not show that. We can point to the various issues in communist states (not criticizing communism but all the communist states are undoubtedly atheist).
Was it the absence of religion that created issues in communist states? Or perhaps authoritarianism, hero worship, overly centralized planning, low trust culture, or some other combination of factors at play?
History's arc is much longer than communism, and religion is tied to some pretty horrific events.
Given that some of the hatred was targeting specifically religious people (for example, the CCP bans religious people from their ranks), then I think it's safe to say that it is driven by a dislike of religion
You can agree with their take on religion or not, but their motivation remains the same.
The big genocides and mass murders of the twentieth century were motivated by non-religious (the holocaust) or atheist (in the Soviet union, China, and Cambodia) ideologies..
Even historically religious motives for "bad behaviours" were rare.
Were those genocides really motivated by of a lack of religion or other factors like racism and authoritarianism?
> Even historically religious motives for "bad behaviours" were rare.
Doubt. Still, even if that's accurate, my point was that raising people to be easily manipulated sheep doesn't produce a robust society. It just makes them easier to exploit. MLMs are common in predominantly Mormon communities for a reason.
> Were those genocides really motivated by of a lack of religion or other factors like racism and authoritarianism?
You misunderstand what I said. I was refuting the idea that religion caused genocides, rather than claiming lack of religion caused genocides.
I think religion per se is too generic and varied to correlate with anything. Sometimes the lack of a particular religion or variant of a particular religion may either cause or oppose genocide - there is a reason, for example, that the Nazis wanted to replace Christianity with new religions, (Positive Christianity and new-paganism - both very different from the originals they drew on/pretended to be), consistent with their ideology.
I mean... We constantly hear that European colonization was due to Christianity and yet that cannot account for the treatment of the Syriac Christians of Kerala by the European colonists supposedly driven by Christianity.
This is the heart of the matter: any ill by an atheist is determined to be caused by something other than atheism. Meanwhile any motivation of an evil doer who professes a religion is pinned on that religion.
> I mean... We constantly hear that European colonization was due to Christianity ..
Who is "we" and why do they hear that?
Eg: Australia was colonised to take land possession ahead of the Dutch and the French, for finnancial gain, and to utilise the prisoners piling up in hulks on the river flats once the thirteen colonies in North America stopped taking them.
The thirteen US colonies were largely established as hard nosed business ventures with substantial private investments that looked for an eventual return.
The South and Central American colonies were pretty much all established to support plantations for sugar and other goods.
In these examples religion came along for the ride and provided a carrotof comfort in contrast to the sticks and guns of the military who also rode in.
> It's constantly used in polemics of Christianity.
Doesn't make it true though.
> Whereas actions of atheists are unable to be used against atheism
Why not, aside from the obvious observation that "atheists" are not as homogenuous in their belief as, say, "Catholics".
In general the actions of, say, Nazis, can be used against them (ie Nazis) but not against humans globally or atheists in Australia, that's nonsensical.
> Why not, aside from the obvious observation that "atheists" are not as homogenous in their belief as, say, "Catholics".
Only if people are doing something because they are Catholics.
Atheist polemicists often treat the actions of any (supposed, in many cases) Christian as an objection to Christianity in general, which is just as nonsensical. That is what is objectionable in their argument.
I'm sure some do .. I'll even grant that most online that engage in such arguments likely do.
I'd suggest the bulk of atheists don't spend much time pointlessly going around and around in such circles.
The "common tactics" of "Atheist polemicists" presented here so far are just daft - they're more the hallmark of obsessives that engage in oline forum textfests.
> Only if people are doing something because they are Catholics.
The statement I made was that "atheists" are not as homogeneous in their belief as, say, "Catholics".
I stand by it.
I would also suggest that Mormons are more homogeneous as a group than "atheists", the Greek Orthodox are more homogeneous as a group than "atheists", etc.
If people engage in activities under the organisational overwatch of the Catholic Church, eg: the Christian Brothers in Bindoon, then the Catholic Church bears responsibility for allowing those actions to proceed unchecked.
> I'm sure some do .. I'll even grant that most online that engage in such arguments likely do.
Its pretty common to do so.
For example, blaming the Spanish inquisition (an arm of the Spanish monarchy) on the Catholic Church, or people claiming that Hitler was a Catholic (without adding the important "as a child" qualifier).
> would also suggest that Mormons are more homogeneous as a group than "atheists", the Greek Orthodox are more homogeneous as a group than "atheists", etc.
Going back to what I said earlier, the original point was religion vs lack of religion - and I would argue that religious people (Christians, Hindus, pagans, ....) are a less homogenous group than atheists.
You do understand that the Coran state very explicitly that apostate should be killed, and while this is nice to pretend holy books are all about metaphors, it won't change much to the mind of those who think they are acting in good faith with divine commands when they murder heretics.
Of course, atheist compatible doctrines too can can be taken as reason to go kill those who dare to believe otherwise. But they can't pretend they have a book directly inspired by some super being that justify their actions. That is, one can also adulate Marx and kill random dudes because that's fair within their interpretation of das Kapital.
The external affair minister of India, Mr Jaishankar, recently excoriated a European politician over Indians handling of Ukraine. He said 'Europe needs to get past the mentality that Europe's problems are the world's problems, while the world's problems are not Europes problems '.
And this is where that attitude comes from
India has dealt with genocides at its borders in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and yet most Europeans and Americans have no idea. The United States of America criticized India for helping Bangladesh during it's Pakistan sponsored genocide, and actually understood military action against India to protect Pakistan's ability to slaughter Bangladeshis.
Again, in Sri Lanka, no one cared
Yet the moment India undertakes it's strategic interests regarding cheap Russian oil, suddenly the whole world starts pointing fingers
There's a lot that goes on in Asia that is simply not reported. If you read American media it's almost like that part of the world doesn't exist
Somewhat related and tangential, there’s this concept/subreddit of “it’s always the same map” [1] where basically some counties/regions have most/neutral coverage (US/Canada, Western Europe, Australia, Japan mainly), some have limited/biased coverage (India, China, Russia maybe), and many (mainly Africa or smaller Asia/Oceania countries) have none at all. An earthquake in some pacific island killed 150? Never heard of it. Two dead in a school shooting in Arizona? Straight to Reddit’s frontpage.
Mind you, I’m not saying deaths anywhere are good of course - but the reporting is terribly biased in a way that many may not even realize, especially if you live in one of those “western” countries and primarily consume English media/news. Heck, just look at what is commonly considered “core countries” [2]?
I grew up in the US and considered myself relatively worldly and educated, and when I started visiting Sri Lanka and India and reading papers published there and so on, when I heard US press discuss news from India or Sri Lanka, I was really shocked at the deep level of general ignorance; and I am not talking Fox here but NPR and Washington Post.
The shocking part to me is that Indian news is usually conducted in English so it's not even inaccessible. It's written by English speakers for English speakers, yet everyone seems mystified at what goes on in the subcontinent
Like I get why people find it difficult to understand Mandarin. But this is English news we're talking about ...
If you want the CCP propaganda in English, you have plenty of material out there I think, you don't even need those trivial to use machine translators.
We just romanticize some things we know less (eg buddhism) to somehow be more noble than the things we know more (eg christianity). The noble savage (aka dances with wolves syndrome) is just as much a fallacy as the savage savage
> I've been taught that Buddhists were peaceful and non-violent by creed, but clearly not if the only Buddhist majority nation is capable of such abomination.
There are a couple of Buddhist majority countries; Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Laos and more. Also, judging a religion from its adherents worst atrocities is a mistake - for example, look at history. It is hard to rank them given the high level of sickening background brutality but if we're just commenting on religions not living up to their values the crusades (particularly #4) are difficult to top.
The wikipedia page is one sided and only puts the case for calling iu a genocide. As a mixed race and entirely ethnic minority Sri Lankan who lived there for much of the civil war I do not think genocide is an accurate characterisation, although there were certainly many atrocities.
It was also made possible by the populations fear of the other side who were extremely nasty ethnonationalists, "ethnically cleansed" areas under their control, and were the inventors and most prolific users of the modern suicide bomb (the type the west associates with Islamic terrorists). A common response to criticism of the killing of civilians during the war were things like "we are fighting fascists".
I read your comment because I thought it would provide another perspective on the situation, which is always a good thing. However, the link you shared as well as your rhetoric only made me more sympathetic towards the Tamil minority.
Here's my understanding on the conflict.
1. The Sinhalese majority were given mandate by the British.
2. They used this mandate to apply incredibly discriminatory practices towards the Tamils.
3. Constant rabble-rousing by Sinhalese politicians intermittently led to race riots, in which Sinhalese mobs carried out pogroms and murders against Tamils.
4. Due to almost laughably blatant policies targeting Tamils, such as an affirmative action policy designed to reduce the number of Tamil students at universities, a group of Tamil students formed a league to protest the matter. These students would become the forerunners of the tamil militant groups.
5. Further barbarism from the Sinhalese majority, such as the destruction of culturally important Tamil heritage (for instance, the destruction of an important library), seeding racial tensions.
6. A rebel group carries out an ambush against the Sri Lankan army, seemingly as retaliation for the assassination of one of their commanders. The result of this was a week of rioting where innocent Tamil civilians were murdered, raped and tortured by Sinhalese mobs. This event is known as Black July. To readers: do not view the wikipedia page for this event if you're sensitive. The first image depicts a Tamil man being stripped and beaten before being murdered by grinning Sinhalese youths.
7. War starts, and the rest is history.
I don't blame the "other side" for being extremely nasty ethnonationalists. In fact, I'm very surprised they didn't become violent militants earlier by how badly they were treated. Whilst I can't condone the ethnic cleansing they carried out, I can on a human level understand why they'd carry out such crimes when they'd been so viciously treated by their victims in the past.
The sexual violence that seemingly became routine for Tamils is some of the most sickening that I've ever read. I had to take a break and go for a walk after reading some of the accounts.
My job requires me to have some level of awareness to the subtleties of conflict. Having studied the aspects of international relations that pertain to war, I've learned how complex a lot of these internal struggles can be. As such, I try to be fair in my assessments of ethnic conflicts. It's usually not straightforward to charactise one side as villainous and one side as victorious.
Having pored over accounts from government affiliated sources, the only consistent perspective that Sri Lankan commentators seem to provide in their support for the killing of civilians is their strong belief that Sri Lanka must be a Buddhist nation and that Buddhism has a special place in the state constitution. That's literally the only thing that they have to support themselves without circular reasoning (and is ironically a key feature of fascist polity). Otherwise, it's "We treated the Tamils like subhumans, actively discriminated them into poverty and kept murdering them and rioting in their areas. Now they're fighting back, so we're justified in committing genocide". How on Earth do you justify that without having a revisionist stance, or claiming that the clearly documented discrimination against Tamils didn't happen?
What happened to the Sri Lankan Tamils is a travesty beyond reckoning. The fact that it has been forgotten and that the Sri Lankan government that stirred this conflict is still at large is a miscarriage of justice so severe that it calls into question any legitimacy of international law and human rights.
> 1. The Sinhalese majority were given mandate by the British.
No. They were a simple majority so took control through elections. They felt discriminated against, and that the British favoured Tamils and Christians..
> 2. They used this mandate to apply incredibly discriminatory practices towards the Tamils.
True. mostly over language. Minorities in general were disadvantaged.
> 3. Constant rabble-rousing by Sinhalese politicians intermittently led to race riots, in which Sinhalese mobs carried out pogroms and murders against Tamils.
True, but this was on a small scale until after the war actually started. Other groups (such as Muslims and Christians) were also targetted.
if you read the article about the "progrom" it was preceded by the LTTE murdering a Tamil policeman, and intimidating others.
> 4. Due to almost laughably blatant policies targeting Tamils, such as an affirmative action policy designed to reduce the number of Tamil students at universities, a group of Tamil students formed a league to protest the matter. These students would become the forerunners of the tamil militant group
True to an extent, but the affirmative action was also targetted at helping poor and rural students vs affluent ones. The core of the system was basically giving extra points to those from schools and areas that did not historically get students into university. For the language based part, how is this different from race based affirmative action in the US? The idea was to boost numbers of historically underrepresented groups.
> 5. Further barbarism from the Sinhalese majority, such as the destruction of culturally important Tamil heritage (for instance, the destruction of an important library), seeding racial tensions.
Mostly the burning of Jaffna Library. Horrible, but not an excuse for atrocities.
> 6. A rebel group carries out an ambush against the Sri Lankan army, seemingly as retaliation for the assassination of one of their commanders.
That is roughly right. The race riots were horrible. I know a lot of people who were affected and traumatised by it. That does not justify doing the same back.
The LTTE was also utterly ruthless to Tamils who failed to support it. They completely wiped out other Tamil militant groups to consolidate their hold on power, they raised money from abroad by threatening people's families in Sri Lanka, they targetted Tamils in the armed forces.
Most ethnonationalism is a reaction to some real or perceived wrong. You will end up justifying everything on those grounds.
> The only consistent perspective that Sri Lankan commentators seem to provide in their support for the killing of civilians is their strong belief that Sri Lanka must be a Buddhist nation and that Buddhism has a special place in the state constitution
You are only reading bigots then. Most people who do defend it will tell you killing civilians was an inevitable result of war - collateral damage.
I know very few Sri Lankans from ethnic or religious minorities who support the LTTE or even feel that their actions were even remotely justified. I am mixed race (entirely minority, Tamil on my mother's side ) and Christian (as are most of my family). I have worked in a Tamil suburb of the capital city and many people there felt that they were oppressed by both the Sinhalese and the LTTE. I know people from all the major ethnic groups and religions and everyone opposes the LTTE.
You also need to take into account that the motive for the LTTE's violence was also racial oppression with Tamil people - the low castes by the high castes. I think this is why Tamils (both Hindu and Christian) turned to violence, while Christians from other ethnic groups did not (apart from the 1962 coup attempt) and Muslims (apart from the Easter bombings which were an exception there was the odd riot) rarely did. That opinion comes from talking to people who know Jaffna well (including my father who used to run the civil service in the peninsula).
> The sexual violence that seemingly became routine for Tamil
What makes you think it was routine? There is no evidence that it was encouraged as policy or a weapon or war (as say happened with Bangladesh broke from Pakistan, among other instances).
> We treated the Tamils like subhumans, actively discriminated them into poverty and kept murdering them and rioting in their areas. Now they're fighting back, so we're justified in committing genocide
That is a gross exaggeration. My mother would have laughed at the idea that she was treated as subhuman, as would my relatives on that side of the family, or my Tamil friends.
Discrimination is no excuse for terrorism or ethnic cleansing. Would black Americans be justified in bombing white majority areas, driving white people out of black areas etc? it is far more true to say they were historically treated as subhuman than that Sri Lankan Tamils were!
[0] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d...