Sri Lanka EXPO 2008

by: Clara Seo

Fiction Analysis

In The Mouse Maiden, folklore from Sri Lanka, we can find a number of clues that shows the lifestyle, values and beliefs, and climate of Sri Lanka. Firstly, from ‘the girl apportioned and gave cooked rice and vegetable curry to the prince, and covered up the cooking pots containing the rest of the food,’ it is clear that Sri Lankan people ate cooked rice and curry, and they used cooking pots to keep or serve the food. And it can be assumed that there was hearth in the house, as the hearth was mentioned in the story. In the story, the prince and the princess were arranged to marry and no one made an objection, so it can be interpreted that the arranged marriage was common. From the fact that even the prince worked to cut the paddy in this story, we can conclude that agriculture was the most important industry in Sri Lanka. The part where it says ‘afterwards the prince came back, and, saying “Let us go and collect and stack the paddy,” collected the men, and stacked it, and threshed it by trampling it with buffaloes. Then they went and called the women, and, having got rid of the chaff in the wind, brought the paddy home,’ it is significant that Sri Lankan people did not have much technology; instead, they did all the work by hand and used buffaloes. Furthermore, from the mentioning of paddy and curry, it can be interpreted that the climate of Sri Lanka is hot and humid, because paddy grows in war climate and curry comes from the Southern Asia, where its climate is hot and humid.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0402.html#parker

The fictional text I chose is the Bahirawa: Legend of a dreaded demon, this is a legend from Sri Lanka. It is re-written by S.S.M Manayakkra. This story is probably first written in the ancient times, where people couldn’t use science to explain the things that they were seeing, such as how they will see a faceless demon when they walk alone in the jungle. Quote: “Many were cautious in speaking of the faceless terror.”  Quote: “The king in his anxiety to beget an heir soothsayer the king decreed that a virgin of noble birth be selected as the victim.”  That little text also says a lot about their government. The time back then was probably controlled by the monarchy because the king gets to decide who to be sacrifice. It also proves that women back then was treated as a minority because they were the ones being sacrificed to the demons. Quote: “Human sacrifices were made to propitiate the demon of Bahirawakanda” That quote says a lot about their believes in gods or mystical creatures because, I would think that they are truly devoted to really sacrifice a person for them. Quote: “Monastic sanctuary for Buddhist priests.” Through that quote I also can tell that the people under the rule of the king was mostly Buddhists because, it is a monastic sanctuary for the Buddhist monks and they would greatly influence the people in that kingdom. Quote: “Its breathtaking panoramic view of the hill capital is today a far cry from what it was a few generations back. It was then a jungle encroached green belt where lesser denizens of the wilds roamed at will.” After reading that text I can tell that this legend is set in the thick jungles of Sri Lanka and on the hill of Bahirawakanda. Through this I can tell that the weather is pretty humid, because it is set in the jungle.

Analyzing Short Story

By: Rabia Shakeel

ARTICLE 1: BOMBINGS MAR SRI LANKA’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF STATEHOOD

QUESTIONS ON ARTICLE 2

1. Why would the LTTE want the ceasefire? Would the ceasefire really give any advantages to them?

2. Why would the government ‘crush’ the Tamil rebels instead of finding a negotiating point?

3. Why are Norway, Japan, the US, and EU concerned about ending this war? Does the peace of Sri Lanka give any advantages to them?  

“Sri Lanka Blast Kills 26.” CNN 16 Jan. 2008 23 Apr 2008 <http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/15/srilanka.blast/index.html. >

The Associated Press, “Bombings Mar Sri Lanka’s 60th Anniversary of Statehood.” New York Times 5 Feb 2008 23 Apr. 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/world/asia/05Lanka.html.

ACROSTIC POEM

BLAST KILLS SRI LANKAN MINISTER 

Tamil Tigers are attacking everyone to get their point across.

Everyone is in danger no matter where they are in Sri Lanka.

Respect between Tamil Tigers and the government has not been established.

Roughly 65,000 people have been killed in this war against terror.

Outrageous numbers of people are being killed every year.

Repeating the methods of Al-Qaeda, the Tigers are a threat to Sri Lanka

Innocent people being killed by the Tamil Tigers rebel group.

Suicide bombing is a big threat all over the country of Sri Lanka.

Terrorism is affecting everyone including the government and the civilians.

Sri Lanka is in a state of anarchy because of the Tamil Tigers.

PERSONAL RESOPNSE:

In the article, it talks about how the government minister was killed in a suicide bombing attempt along with 14 other people in Weliveriya, a small town 30km outside Colombo, Sri Lanka. The minister was lifting a flag up and was ready to drop it to start a marathon race when the bomb went off. The situation was blamed all on the Tamil Tigers but the Tigers have not responded to the event. This event is the most recent one that has been reported to news casters. My response to this article is that the bombing is just an event that could not have been avoided at all unless there is a chance someone could go back in time and rewrite the past but otherwise, there would have been no knowing of the event at hand. The article gives a good coverage of how the event happened and some background information as well like the part about what he was doing right before the bomb went off and how he was the 2^nd minister to be assassinated this year, so it does give a good coverage on the scenario.  

 QUESTIONS:

1. What will become of the government in the future after having all these political icons being assassinated?
2. How will the country coupe with all of these bombings and attacks coming from the Tamil Tigers?
3. What will the government do now that they have had 2 ministers being killed only this year?
4. What will be the government’s next step towards peace with the Tamil Tigers after the bombing attempt to kill the minister?

“Blast Kills Sri Lankan Minister.” 6 Apr 2008 30 Apr 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7332952.stm.

SUMMARY AND RESPONSE

VARIABLE RAINS AND FLOODING IMPACT ON RICE HARVEST

SUMMARY 

            This article talks about the problems being faced to the farmers in Sri Lanka due to severe annual rains and floods. The article mentions that this year about 400,000 people have been adversely affected by flooding, who are mainly from the Amapara, Mannar, and Batticaloa districts where majority of farmers grow rice. The article says that 3.3 million metric tons of rice was earlier growing annually, but frequent flooding has destroyed 2.5 percent of the rice production, which has greatly affected the livelihood of poor and the overall national economy.

            The article explains that farmers usually plant rice in the beginning of October, but now, they have to wait till the end of the month due to heavy rains and resulting flooding. Likewise, farmers generally harvest the rice and other crops in February, which is supposed to be a dry month. But things have changed, and because of the frequent rains, farmers are harvesting in mid-March causing delays in arrival of rice in the markets and as such shortage and problems to the people of Sri Lanka.

                      Of course, as a result of all the above problems, there occurs high pricing of the rice. Because of the high pressure on markets and the large demand for the rice, the prices have risen between 60-90 percent in the past year, which has accumulated problems for the people and the Government. This is an unrest and rise in poverty and import bill for the country.

 PERSONAL RESPONSE

This article clearly describes how a natural disaster can cause multiple problems in multi dimensions. It also talks from many people’s point of view; the farmers, the locals and the traders. This article also explains how such problems adds difficulties for the government such as reviving people’s livelihood by managing food and shelter for them through imports, fixing of damages, arranging foreign exchange, and on top of all controlling political unrest.  The article also uses proper language and does not take any side. I think that this article is also a call for help for the people who live on affected areas, and the people who are starving because of the rising prices and inflation.

QUESTIONS 

1.      What are the available options for the government to manage the crisis after natural disaster like heaving rains and flooding?

2.      How can the increase of rice prices be controlled for poor people?

3.      How could the farmers’ revival be achieved after flooding?

“SRI LANKA: Variable rains and flooding impact on rice harvest .” IRIN Asia 1 Apr 2008 30 Apr 2008 http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77549.

Sri Lanka puts cap on rice prices 

Summary

In this article, it talks about how rice has affected everyone especially the rice traders. Since the government has put a new price limit on most of the varieties of rice prices, some of the rice traders have lost millions of dollars. Rice is the main food source of Sri Lanka; therefore if the price of rice price goes up many people will be in trouble. Many wholesale shops have also been closed in Colombo due to these new price limits, which made their business unprofitable. Other countries in Asia have also suffered the same fate of bearing rice prices. Angry laborers have also reported that rice traders have hidden their stocks due to the new price control. The farmers were also made scapegoats by the rice mill owners. It takes the farmers at least Rs. 22 to produce a kilogram of rice but are only paid Rs. 30 by the rice mill owners in the past, but now they are only paid Rs. 25-26 due to the cap on rice prices.

 Personal ResponseThis article really made me think, Sri Lanka is just like other countries in Asia facing the issue of rice, the supply we have just can’t meet our demand and therefore increasing the value of rice. This has resulted in major chaos in the society, because no one can afford much anymore causing crime rates and violence to increase. I wonder how the poorer people will survive with this kind of food price. I think the government should subsidies some food products for these poorer people. If the government has not enough money due to their war with the Tigers, they can borrow from the Asian development bank or World Bank, so less people will have to starve. I also think that LTTE and the government should have some sort of agreement or road to allow food stocks go in and out of their territory, so that people under LTTE control can also be fed. Through this first step of agreement, the government and LTTE can somehow in the not so distant future stop fighting. Questions

Clara Seo

Analysis Text: Many Dead in Sri Lanka Bus Blast This text is a new article of BBC, written on 25 April 2008. The article, as it was written after the event happened, shows no hindsight of the author. Its author’s name is not shown, but it is evident that the author is from the outside of the country, as he narrates the event relying on the interviews with the Sri Lankan spokespersons and the witnesses. He is not emotionally involved in the situation, so he did not express any of his opinions in the text. This article was mainly written to inform and educate people who are interested in Sri Lanka and the world affairs and to sell more copies of the newspaper and make more profits. In this article, the author was being objective; the quote “The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state for the Tamil minority, have not commented on the blast.” shows that as he did not only focused on the government’s side but also on the Tamil Tigers. However, because the author did not provide enough interviews with the Tamil Tigers, and because people who were interviewed had negative opinion on the Tamil Tigers, the readers can be positioned to have negative ideas on the Tamil Tigers. Therefore, it can be considered that this article is a little biased. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7367468.

 Analysis Text

The informational text I chose to analyze is news article published in the online edition of the news magazine, Time. John Stanmeyer, who is a journalist for Time, is the writer of this article. He is giving a perspective from outside the country and I know this because since he is only a reporter that is not a native of the country or even knows much about the country itself, he is really not that affiliated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) but has gathered perspectives from the natives and from the people who are being affected by this group.

The audience that is mostly targeted in this article are people who are interested in this issue or for people who are researching this group of the incidents that have been happening. But I thought the real reason why this article was written was to tell people that even though we thing that it’s good that these Tamil soldiers are being killed, hat there are people who are being affected by the incident because they may had lost someone that they loved or someone that was really close to them.

I personally think that he is trying to be objective in the article because he is not trying to say that the Tamil Tigers need to be stopped or that he thinks that the Tigers will keep fighting till the government will give them what they want, he is being neutral, or unbiased so he would be objective. I also think that he isn’t emotional about this issue because this isn’t something that will be affecting his life forever, this is something that he is only writing about for the people who are personally interested or who want to know about this because it is affecting their everyday lives so he doesn’t get emotional about this. I can say this because in the article, the fact that he doesn’t have any personal comments about this backs me up and gives evidence why I would say this.

This article was written on February 12, 2006, and the significance of the date is how it’s written so long after the start of this so called war between the Tamil Tigers and the government of Sri Lanka and how this war would probably never end if they both just talk something out with each other.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1158999,00.html

Fausti Preysler

Analyzing Informative Text          I have an article on how the Sri Lankan military killed 49 rebels; this is a news article from Reuters. I would think that educated people and people who informed about current events would be interested in this article. The age of the people who are interested in this article would be around their 20s or 30s, this article is to inform people about the problem and conflict in Sri Lanka.  This article is written by a journalist named Ranga Sirilal, I would think he’s from outside the country therefore the information might be bias to one side, depending on his sources, people from outside the country might also have a different perspective on the situation from the locals. Since all the conflicts are happening in deep forests, it’s really hard to gather information on the casualty count. This article is mostly objective because it is using quotes mostly from the military, air force and analysts. But all the information are from the government’s point of view, therefore I think it would be a little bias to the rebels. The writer also doesn’t have a strong opinion in this article because he used mostly quotes like, “They (the rebels) are desperate,” from Lakshman Hulugalla, the director general at the Media Centre for National Security. This text was written in Apr 7, 2008. Hong Kai Tan  http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKCOL21887920080407       

The article on the Tsunami in Sri Lanka  This article talks about the implications of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka. It discusses the positive reactions of the government and the people. and how they have made their country better. This article is not written specifically from one person. This may be why the article takes no side very severally. However, it is clear that it is persuading the readers that Sri Lanka is doing good because they are rebuilding affected areas from the tsunami. This is proven when the article mentions; “Mr. Jayantha Samarasinghe of the Sri Lanka reconstruction agency told MEPs of how reconstruction efforts were proceeding. Among the figures he cited were that 134 of the 183 damaged schools were back in action, 80 railway bridges had been rebuilt and 75% of the fishing sector had been restored.”  In this quote, the article writers are showing a positive look at how the government is actually responding to the destruction that took place in various parts of Sri Lanka, which seems to be very positive. This article also takes the side of the citizens of Sri Lanka because it mentions how well the people of Sri Lanka co operated during the difficult times, and up till now. This is proven when the article mentions; “Margrete Auken for the Greens/European Free Alliance asked if there had been any caste discrimination in distributing aid. Mr. Samarasinghe replied that ‘everybody helped everybody’. Dutch PSE member Max Van den Berg – who saw the aftermath of the Tsunami in India – said he was “very impressed” by the way the authorities and civil society had pulled together”  I believe that this article was written by someone not from the country because the article is on a European site. This does affect how it is written. Because this is not written from someone’s from the county, it does not strongly offend someone. When written from a Sri Lankan citizen, it could be blaming the government that it has not helped all the victims, instead of writing that the government did its best in taking care of the victims with the limited supplies that the country had. This article mainly focuses and is written for the people who are interested in the after-math of the Sri Lankan Tsunami hit. This text was written to inform these people that the Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka was good at re constructing its country. This article was written very recently, it was written on 07-06-2007. This has affected the content very greatly. If this article was written on the time of the tsunami, it would discuss the negative things such as death tolls, government control, international aid, victims and their placement. But when you look back at something, you have a greater and better perspective of things. Overall, I think that this article focuses on the positives of Sri Lanka and gives them something to be proud of. Rabia Shakeel http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/story_page/025-7351-156-06-23-903-20070601STO07342-2007-05-06-2007/default_en.htm  

2 Artistic Traditions of Sri Lanka

In this article, it said that Sri Lanka have delayed bidding for two oil fields in the northwestern offshore Mannar basin, because they will have to evaluate their competition first. Sri Lanka has eight exploration blocks in the Mannar basin, three of which are to be given for exploration once the government decides on a successful bidder. the article also talks about which oil blocks belong to which country and company. Sri Lanka expects it first crude oil production by 2010, and how the oil field can produce 1 billion barrels of oil, but still not proven yet.

 Click here to see the article.