Features
Pursuit of Knowledge The purpose of war and conflict

Seeing through the myth:
An analysis By Dr. R.R. de Silva
Man’s greatest feat has been his constant pursuit of knowledge. Unlike other sentient beings in the animal kingdom who do, to some extent, display momentary interest such as when ‘having to gain entry to a container of food’, man has constantly delved on matters of philosophical interest such as where we hail from and where we are headed. The entire story of humanity then oscillates between not knowing and not knowing.
Within these two anthropological milestones, a few men have discovered a formula for achieving great comforts at the expense of other men. Whether these men come from the East or West, whether they are white, oriental or black (although most often white), they have but one objective – global domination, holding no less than the rest of the population in bondage.
The average citizen has been made too busy to see through the myth. Prof. Herbert Macusse in his essay, titled “An essay on liberation,” explains in the very first few pages, how the masses are being provided the necessary training to become obedient workers. These obedient voluntary slaves then become the fodder that fuels the major corporations. Living a life tuned into a rhythm of never-ending obligations, the average citizen is programmed through conditioning to feel the need to seek employment, earn a fair living, pay taxes and keep their heads down while looking after family and friends. This, the citizen is expected to continue until death with no regard to “the virtues of selfishness” that Ayn Rand had so beautifully and succinctly articulated in a book by the same name. The Media first sets the standards that alters your needs into wants. Then using the smallest social unit – “the couple” – the corporation drills into the psyche of man, the need to follow the prescriptive path laid out into modern financial slavery. Unbeknown to many, the trap is set as early on as conception as antenatal care costs commence and continue until, as in some countries, such as Japan, where the parents’ debt is handed down to successive generations.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourselves the questions – Why does school last 12 years, and not nine years or 15 years? Why are the subjects we study the subjects we study? Who chose and defined the syllabus? Why are we forced to attend a registered school? Why are we punished for truancy? Why are we put into tribal uniforms – when uniforms divide and are the instruments of mass identity culling. There is rarely room for individuality among uniformed individuals.
Meanwhile, we experienced to a great extent disruption of life and lifestyle through the grace of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV -2). Suddenly there was no rush and the most important people around the world spent time at home, washing their hands and hiding behind masks. One cannot but stop to wonder what rush our lives had been until then. People began to experience solitude. Many, could not handle the loneliness, the isolation. Many could not live with the people they had vowed to spend their lives with – till the day death parts them. But others picked up very fast and engaged in gardening, reading, watching movies and if one had sufficient stocks even a booze.
Home cooking became option-less and many despite the shortage of material did experiment. Life and nature, at least for a short while, had a break. But alas, the race is back on with possible truths labelled as conspiracies, governments across the globe acting in concert with numbers that do not appear to reflect the true position.
The Coronavirus has rendered borders closed and time immemorial advice to stay together has made a 180 degree turn with government public health advice now to socially distance ourselves from our normal gregarious selves. The last such epidemic, which may have required face masks and social distancing, took place in 1918 at the tail end of World War 1 – the so called ‘Spanish Flu’. Every war as we know has had a purpose.
In the case of the Covid-19 virus, face masks have rendered us asexual and identity-less minimising any form of human interaction, including sexual attraction. In fact, Public Health guidance forbids social contact through enforced social distancing, in some countries even sex is forbidden. How will this affect our population, especially the young and impressionable? Is this a depopulation attempt? The question should cross your mind! Meanwhile, the situation is pushing people towards a cashless society, digitalising the undigitalised, as more and more people are captured by global digital surveillance systems. Pandemic commotion allowing for uncontrolled data harvesting of vulnerable populations by opportunistic governments colluding with corporates. For instance governments have only hitherto dreamt of citizens volunteering their every whereabout.
The purpose of war has always been commerce. Imperial colonisation was the beginning of the exponential ascent of money and wealth for Europeans, in particular, the British, funded by their Monarchy of German descent. To understand this let us take a look at an article from no less than the BBC – the British Broadcasting Corporation, a media group funded by Her Majesty’s UK Government. Lets review World War 1 because that is what children are most likely to be taught first in world history. I say that the purpose of this war was profiteering as this article by the BBC also suggests. After all the British who are now recognized as the frontline saviours of the world in that war actually have German heritage. This is why the Royal family changed its name to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1917.
As the bodies piled up in a war known to have been fought in the trenches, technological advancement saw the development of tanks and aeroplanes develop rapidly to be tested on the field while money was being made. However, not enough people were suspicious of this. Why ? The reason is education – the brainwashing that schools undertake on behalf of their corporate masters whose proxies in legislative bodies around the world prescribe for the average citizenry. To understand this let us dig deeper. According to Elizabeth Bruton of Leeds University, what a lot of people did not see was how the war drove technologies that we are using today like the development of communication technology. The Marconi Company, whose founder was Guglielmo Marconi, led the way with transatlantic broadcasts. They developed voice over wireless. Subsequently Mark Harrison, an economics professor at Warwick University, describes the war as a driver for production. According to this professor, the allied forces/ nations out-produced the Germans. On the other hand businesses, such as shoe-makers and shoe polish producers, had done immensely well according to Terry Chairman the historian at the imperial war museum.
Though seen as the ‘war to end all wars (referring to World War 1)’ The BBC article cites Smedley Butler then a US marine corps Major General who had written in 1935 that “war was far too profitable to be impossible again” points to the profits of steel and weapons manufacturers. Munitions maker du Pont had had the value of its stock rise 374% from 1915 to 1918 and had consequently distributed dividends worth 458% of the value of each share. Shipping companies also paid dividends of 44.7% in 1915 and 47.5% in 1916.
Meanwhile, in the public space media promoted the idea of righteousness and noted that outright profiteering that hurt people would be punished heavily. As a result one article in the Western Daily Press reported in November 1917 that Henry Thompson, a Lincolnshire farmer, was fined £1,800 (about £90,000 in today’s money) for selling potatoes above the maximum allowed price. Does this ring a bell? We certainly do not live too far from that.
Finally, the sweeping meant disconnecting from the other side. For example, “Having a German-sounding name like Schweppes was bad for business and lots of firms made a declaration that they were British through and through. “Lyons Tea sued Liptons for suggesting its board were German. Bovril had it in its adverts that it was all-British and always was British,” he says, while hotels and restaurants stated that they had fired their German and Austrian waiters.
And this then is but a part of World War 1’s commercial interests. Did anything in the above paragraphs sound familiar? Well if it didn’t, read on.
According to a research article on the website of the National Bureau on Economic Research, one researcher points out that when World War I began the US economy was in recession. But a 44-month economic boom ensued from 1914 to 1918, first as Europeans began purchasing US goods for the war and later as the United States itself joined the battle. “The long period of U.S. neutrality made the ultimate conversion of the economy to a wartime basis easier than it otherwise would have been,” The researcher adds that “Real plant and equipment were added, and because they were added in response to demands from other countries already at war, they were added precisely in those sectors where they would be needed once the U.S. entered the war.” Moreover, Entry into the war in 1917 unleashed massive U.S. federal spending which shifted national production from civilian to war goods. Between 1914 and 1918, some three million people were added to the military and half a million to the government. Overall, unemployment declined from 7.9 percent to 1.4 percent in this period, in part because workers were drawn into new manufacturing jobs and because the military draft removed many young men from the civilian labour force.”
Today, a few friends who have had difficulty with their payments on leases for their vehicles have shared with me the institutions from which these leases had been sought had not honoured the so called ‘Moratoriums’ that news telecasts across channels in Sri Lanka have spoken so highly of. Yet in another case several individuals are now having to pay even more so than they had had to. Building owners continued to earn albeit in some cases at discounted rates the rent due for the curfew days of March to June, and now for October and possibly November.
But essentially, people dug into their savings, as their fixed deposit interest diminished and interest rate drops have not been passed on to people’s debt as credit card payments, loan repayments as well as leases pile up with no recognition of the situation.
“Minimisation of life’s volatilities is the secret of long term survival”—Dr. R.R. de Silva 2010
References
https://www.hnb.net/media-center/2020/hnb-group-posts-rs-3-3-bn-pat-for-q1-2020
https://www.ndbbank.com/investor-relations/reports
https://www.combank.net/newweb/en/interim-financials
The writer is a doctor of medicine & invites feedback via email to rds001@protonmail.com
Features
Kashmir terror attack underscores need for South Asian stability and amity

The most urgent need for the South Asian region right now, in the wake of the cold-blooded killing by gunmen of nearly 30 local tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir two days back, is the initiation of measures that could ensure regional stability and peace. The state actors that matter most in this situation are India and Pakistan and it would be in the best interests of the region for both countries to stringently refrain from succumbing to knee-jerk reactions in the face of any perceived provocations arising from the bloodshed.
The consequences for the countries concerned and the region could be grave if the terror incident leads to stepped-up friction and hostility between India and Pakistan. Some hardline elements in India, for instance, are on record in the international media as calling on the Indian state to initiate tough military action against Pakistan for the Kashmiri terror in question and a positive response to such urgings could even lead to a new India-Pakistan war.
Those wishing South Asia well are likely to advocate maximum restraint by both states and call for negotiations by them to avert any military stand-offs and conflicts that could prove counter-productive for all quarters concerned. This columnist lends his pen to such advocacy.
Right now in Sri Lanka, nationalistic elements in the country’s South in particular are splitting hairs over an MoU relating to security cooperation Sri Lanka has signed with India. Essentially, the main line of speculation among these sections is that Sri Lanka is coming under the suzerainty of India, so to speak, in the security sphere and would be under its dictates in the handling of its security interests. In the process, these nationalistic sections are giving fresh life to the deep-seated anti-India phobia among sections of the Sri Lankan public. The eventual result will be heightened, irrational hostility towards India among vulnerable, unenlightened Sri Lankans.
Nothing new will be said if the point is made that such irrational fears with respect to India are particularly marked among India’s smaller neighbouring states and their publics. Needless to say, collective fears of this kind only lead to perpetually strained relations between India and her neighbours, resulting in regional disunity, which, of course would not be in South Asia’s best interests.
SAARC is seen as ‘dead’ by some sections in South Asia and its present dysfunctional nature seems to give credence to this belief. Continued friction between India and Pakistan is seen as playing a major role in such inner paralysis and this is, no doubt, the main causative factor in SARRC’s current seeming ineffectiveness.
However, the widespread anti-India phobia referred to needs to be factored in as playing a role in SAARC’s lack of dynamism and ‘life’ as well. If democratic governments go some distance in exorcising such anti-Indianism from their people’s psyches, some progress could be made in restoring SAARC to ‘life’ and the latter could then play a constructive role in defusing India-Pakistan tensions.
It does not follow that if SAARC was ‘alive and well’, security related incidents of the kind that were witnessed in India-administered Kashmir recently would not occur. This is far from being the case, but if SAARC was fully operational, the states concerned would be in possession of the means and channels of resolving the issues that flow from such crises with greater amicability and mutual accommodation.
Accordingly, the South Asian Eight would be acting in their interests by seeking to restore SAARC back to ‘life’. An essential task in this process is the elimination of mutual fear and suspicion among the Eight and the states concerned need to do all that they could to eliminate any fixations and phobias that the countries have in relation to each other.
It does not follow from the foregoing that the SAARC Eight should not broad base their relations and pull back from fostering beneficial ties with extra-regional countries and groupings that have a bearing on their best interests. On the contrary, each SAARC country’s ties need to be wide-ranging and based on the principle that each such state would be a friend to all countries and an enemy of none as long as the latter are well-meaning.
The foregoing sharp focus on SAARC and its fortunes is necessitated by the consideration that the developmental issues in particular facing the region are best resolved by the region itself on the basis of its multiple material and intellectual resources. The grouping should not only be revived but a revisit should also be made to its past programs; particularly those which related to intra-regional conflict resolution. Thus, talking to each other under a new visionary commitment to SAARC collective wellbeing is crucially needed.
On the question of ties with India, it should be perceived by the latter’s smaller neighbours that there is no getting away from the need to foster increasingly closer relations with India, today a number one global power.
This should not amount to these smaller neighbours surrendering their rights and sovereignty to India. Far from it. On the contrary these smaller states should seek to craft mutually beneficial ties with India. It is a question of these small states following a truly Non-aligned foreign policy and using their best diplomatic and political skills to structure their ties with India in a way that would be mutually beneficial. It is up to these neighbours to cultivate the skills needed to meet these major challenges.
Going ahead, it will be in South Asia’s best interests to get SAARC back on its feet once again. If this aim is pursued with visionary zeal and if SAARC amity is sealed once and for all intra-regional friction and enmities could be put to rest. What smaller states should avoid scrupulously is the pitting of extra-regional powers against India and Pakistan in their squabbles with either of the latter. This practice has been pivotal in bringing strife and contention into South Asia and in dividing the region against itself.
Accordingly, the principal challenge facing South Asia is to be imbued once again with the SAARC spirit. The latter spirit’s healing powers need to be made real and enduring. Thus will we have a region truly united in brotherhood and peace.
Features
International schools …in action

The British School in Colombo celebrated the 2025 Sinhala and Tamil New Year with the traditional rites and rituals and customs unique to the island nation, during a special Avurudu Assembly held at the school premises.
Students from all over the world, who are part of The British School in Colombo, gathered to celebrate this joyous event.
The special assembly featured traditional song and dance items from talented performers of both the Junior and Senior Schools.
On this particular day, the teachers and students were invited to attend school in Sri Lankan national costume and, among the traditional rituals celebrated, was the boiling of the milk and the tradition of Ganu-Denu.

Boiling of
the milk
In the meanwhile, a group of swimmers from Lyceum International School, Wattala, visited Australia to participate in the Global-ISE International Swimming Training Programme in Melbourne.
Over the course of 10 days, the swimmers followed an advanced training schedule and attended sessions at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (MSAC), Victoria’s Nunawading Swimming Club, and Camberwell Grammar School.
In addition to their training, the group also explored Melbourne, with visits to key landmarks, such as the Parliament House and the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), along with city tours and cultural experiences.

Traditional dance item

Tug-of-war contest

On arrival in Melbourne, Lyceum International School, Wattala, with Sri Lankan officials
Features
Perfect … and healthy

Got a few more beauty tips to give you … for a perfect complexion, or, let’s say, a healthy skin.
* Honey Face Mask:
Take a tablespoon of raw honey and then warm it up by rubbing it with your fingertips. Apply the warm honey all over your face. Let this natural mask stand for about 10 minutes and then wash it off gently with warm water.
* Coconut Milk Face Mask:
You need to squeeze coconut milk out of a grated raw coconut and apply this milk all over your face, including your lips.
(This will help you gain a glowing skin. It is one of the best natural tips for skin care)
* Orange, Lemon, and Yoghurt Moisturiser:
To prepare this moisturiser, you need a tablespoon of orange juice, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a cup of plain yoghurt.
Mix them together and apply the paste all over your face, leaving it as a mask for 10 to 15 minutes. Next, take a damp handkerchief and use it to clean your face.
(This moisturiser brightens the complexion of your skin)
* Cucumber and Lemon:
Apply equal parts of cucumber and lemon juice on your face before taking a bath. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes before rinsing it off. This natural face beauty tip will brighten your skin tone and lighten blemishes if used on a regular basis. The best aspect is that it is appropriate for all skin types!
* Healthy Diet:
Aside from the effective home remedies, there are certain other factors to consider for skin care – and the first of them is your diet. Without the right nutrients, your skin cannot reverse the damage it suffers every day.
Eat fruits that are high in vitamin C because they contain antioxidants.
Adjust your diet to get the right amount of protein and unsaturated fats, as well as fresh green vegetables. All of this provides the right amount of nutrients so your skin can heal and improve itself naturally.
* Sun Protection and Care:
Another thing to keep in mind is not to step out of your home without sunscreen, especially with this awful heat we are experiencing at the moment. The hard rays of the sun can do you more damage than you could ever imagine.
By the way, you can prepare your own sunscreen lotion with glycerin, cucumber juice and rose water. You can also keep this lotion in the fridge.
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