🌾

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

While 🇱🇰 was busy burning down libraries 41 years ago, what were some other countries in Asia up to in May 1981? 🧵 #JaffnaPublicLibrary #EconomicCrisisLK #lka

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Pretty much all of these are (a) self-inflicted problems or (b) problems the rest of the world is also dealing with.

What is unique is Sri Lanka's extraordinary malgovernance over 78 years, along with the public's eager support of it due to pride, greed, and genocidal bloodlust.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Sri Lankans act as though they're hapless victims of random fate rather than reaping the fruits of deliberate decisions made over eight decades.

One can conclude many things looking the history post-1948, but the country being stable and prosperous as a result isn't one of them.

[Rakhitha @RHemawardana]

💔🇱🇰 I am 33 years old… and honestly, I do not even know what kind of life this is anymore.

From childhood until now, it feels like we Sri Lankans have never truly been allowed to breathe in peace.

⚫ We went through a 30-year war
⚫ Then came the 2019 bomb blasts ( 1/6 )

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

@RooftopTiger "Ceylonkaar" vs. "Yaazh Gaanam"

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

What would be immediately apparent to anyone who visits Jaffna (to say nothing of the Vanni) is all the soldiers and military encampments, with as many as 1 soldier for every 3 civilians.

The Gaza method ended after 2009. Now the North gets the West Bank treatment.

[Adhishtanaka Kulasooriya @adhishtanaka]

@GoodVibePolitik Dear James, If you think we're just like Israel, go visit Jaffna. You'll never see another Gaza there. You'll see a town full of Sri Lankan people. You can ask their nationality if needed and confirm it or do deep research idk.but don’t mislead peoples.please

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

These posts are really meant for Sri Lankans than they are for anyone else. No investor cares about Sri Lankan twitter, but many Sri Lankans need to believe that the economic basket case on its 17th IMF bailout has a pot of gold waiting for it on the other side of the rainbow.

[සංඛ චන්දිම අභයවර්ධන | Sanka Chandima Abayawardena @SankaChandima]

Colombo is the best.
safety and stability for investors.
Guarantor of peace and stability in a zone of peace. World class infrastructure, airports and ports, great work force for any business looking for a better greener safe location to move from the volatile gulf region.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Typical absurd delusions aside (long-term, stable investment lol), and the usual preening to be the 'next' something (next Singapore, next Dubai, etc.) the Colombo hype edit is literally just the same half a dozen buildings in Galle Face.

[Yasiru @YRanaraja]

Dubai is done.
Colombo is the next Dubai.

The gateway for free capital seeking long-term, stable investment outside the major geopolitical fault lines

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Sri Lankans are concerned that the Iran war will lose them tourist money - their main source of revenue - as well as remittances from domestic workers and their ability to trade tea for oil. But sure, go off about AI startups, microprocessors, med/space tech, etc. Embarrassing.

[Amali @BizColombo]

Oh! bakery right? I am sure the French baking heritage which created baguette is benefiting from immigrant peelam bakers😅

I thought the peelam boys would be cooking start-ups on AI, microprocessors, med tech, space tech...

Nope... just a few bakeries folks😂

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

@StudentofTE @Jeya2002 @sanjiva There's something very curious about Sri Lankans (many of whom don't want to be 'Sri Lankans' and migrated or wish to) claiming the achievements of Tamils who also didn't want to be Sri Lankans, and whom they would reject as being 'Sri Lankan' if they didn't like their politics.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Better instead for Sri Lanka to send its people to work for Israel right?

[Jamila Husain @Jamz5251]

Sri Lanka should now close its borders to Israelis who will attempt to flee here and take refuge! If they enter these Zionists will not go back!

#IsraelTerroristState #Israel #MiddleEastConflict #Iran

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

"over 50 per cent of state university graduates, rising to 80-90 per cent in critical fields like medicine, engineering, and agriculture, are migrating permanently"

Resignation that the "economic and social realities" can't be addressed. Only thing left is to recoup the losses.

[DailyMirror @Dailymirror_SL]

Over 80% state university graduates are migrating
Read more 👉 https://t.co/1OKf8T6aJt

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Do these people ever get tired of writing the same exhausted talking points year after year? Seems like they do. Some frustration that even after 17 years, genocide can't be laundered into respectable opinion as "the nation cannot afford to be held hostage by selective memory".

[DailyMirror @Dailymirror_SL]

Hypocrisy of the Tamil Diaspora
Read more: https://t.co/uKlygd74Gp

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

A complete lack of self-awareness. That the ignoramus nepo-baby has any political currency, even after his corrupt, genocidal father and uncle bankrupted the country just four short years ago, is a reflection of the depraved state of Sri Lankan society and nothing else.

[ARUNI @aruni_t]

People forget that Namal Rajapaksa is the son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, a master of timing, PR, and turning any moment into political capital putting his opponents to shame. Namal has clearly learned from that playbook. This will be leveraged strategically for maximum mileage. It’s not the “win” some in the Tamil diaspora think it is, if anything, it’s the opposite. A real challenge would’ve been putting him on the floor at the Cambridge Union or Oxford Union and debating him there.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

According to Dayan Jayatilleka, although the war resulted in a 'post-war crisis' that persists to this day, Nandikadal was "desirable, positive and progressive" but that 15 years later, the situation is such that the North-East must be cut off from the diaspora and Tamil Nadu.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

The previously deleted post included the name of the exhibit's creator, "Radhika Hettiarachchi", now conspicuously absent.

No doubt Ms. Hettiarachchi and her exhibit are a totally organic development, that is representative of the attitudes and interests of the people of Jaffna.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Not exactly wise to endorse unsustainable military solutions and genocide as a good outcome considering the economic and political disaster that has taken place in Sri Lanka since 2009 - 3 IMF bailouts, regular political crises, economic meltdown, massive brain drain, etc.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

The columnist Nillanthan poses these questions:

Should a small people who have been scattered be brought together or not?

Should a sense of collectivity and national unity be strengthened among them or not?

Is it not nationalist politics to mobilize them as a nation?

🐚 ❎

[nillanthan @Nillanthan]

தமிழ் மக்கள் தங்களைத் திரட்டினால்தான் உலகத்தைத் திரட்டலாம் https://t.co/wQUCzWUNqF

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

It was not long ago when May 18th passed with little note outside the Tamil community as the day of the war’s conclusion.

Yet with each passing year the #TamilGenocide commemorations are larger and more widespread. Now there are even more perfunctory remembrances of 'all lives'.

[Agnes Callamard @AgnesCallamard]

I attended today Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day. Standing in solidarity with all those who have lost loved ones and are demanding answers and justice. Ensuring that Sri Lanka 60 to 100,000 disappeared do not fall off the international agenda. Justice and Truth must be served.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

Scathing comments in The Sunday Times on #IndependenceDaySL:

"Reduced to nothing more than baboons in a zoo. For Indian tourists to pump up morale-boosting national pride and get a kick out of feeling better to their inferior primate brothers next door."

https://t.co/QbbjB7N7x1

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

There is no realistic option that inspires informed confidence in the country's long-term prospects. That certain actors have no other thought than to dress up option (3) with initiatives like the Himalaya declaration shows how bereft of choices and ideas 🇱🇰 and its backers are.

[🌾 @paddyfieldrice]

The choices facing 🇱🇰 laid out here: (1) a pluralistic island, (2) the status quo, and (3) some sort of settlement, shows the bind that 🇱🇰 is in.

(1) is a non-starter; (2) is unsustainable; (3) would further entrench the malgovernance that brought the country to this state.

[Mario Arulthas @MarioArul]

My take on the Himalayan Declaration in tomorrow’s @FT_SriLanka:

“There is nothing Himalayan about this declaration. The Tamil path of resistance is littered with the corpses of such initiatives – all of them much more significant than this one,”

https://t.co/ptyPNL2swX