ETHNIC POLITICS -

Fed up with the general consensus that I am an empty head with a loud voice box, I have decided to edufycate myself further in my current field of work (Current Affairs ) by drawing on the books in my library, at least on the odd rainy days when I cant take a bike to work.

This weeks read was a book by Dr Vellaithamby AMeerdeen titled : ETHNIC POLITICS OF MUSLIMS IN SRI LANKA, a subject about which I think not that much has been written.

Let me hasten to add, I did not have time to read the book from cover to cover but did one of those new age speed reads within about 45 minutes ,which coupled with the motion sickness brought on by my 140 bus winding around in Maradana and Norris Canal road, (whopeeeee!) may have given me not the entire picture but I do have a ROUGH idea of what the book is about and I can recommend it.

Dr Ameerdeen’s presentation and language is GOOD: plain, crisp and straightforward, and Im not just saying this because I ve met him personally and he’s got lots of charisma, but because I could actually UNDERSTAND what I was reading without having to read sentences thrice. This is his Phd Thesis and it’s written in plain English! some of you Policy Maker Academics out there should try doing that for a change!

There are chapters on the Muslim culture in Sri Lanka (pretty much on par with any of the other cultures we have here, what with dowry issues and women being left uneducated etc muslim’s apparently are not too thrilled about marrying their sons to their sisters’ daughters which is such a relief. This leads to inbreeding and imbeciles which may explain us Sinhala) a lot about the Muslim Congress,(bit stodgy) lots of useful statistics (if you are doing your own thesis on anything remotely similar) one or two interesting documents like a SLMC –LTTE MOU in 2002(where they agree on a few mundane day to day things but rather fundamental things like “we agree not to kill Muslims” have been surprisingly overlooked- ….anyone else want to sign an MOU with the LTTE? ) and admittedly a lot of interesting facts on recent political history of Sri Lanka from a Muslim viewpoint.

What can I say , I found the book good and I would read it more thouroughly if I had time.
But Im at work , it’s a busy Wednsday morning and I have just got news that my beautiful ancestral town of GALLE IS CURRENTLY UNDER ATTACK , so I shall stop blogging for now. What a life.