Social media as the engine of revolution

(Photo courtesy http://www.digitalaboratory.it/ )

Social media is the collaboration between people in the means of exchanging content virtually via networks. There are many definitions about social media but I shall emphasize on the definition given by Merriam-Webster dictionary. It defines social media as

“forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)”

There are several conditions that need to be satisfied for any collaboration method to be called as social media. They are (1) The exchange of information or content, (2) A virtual community, (3) An online gathering place such as a social networking site, blog or a forum. Despite the differences between mainstream media, many think that social media is similar to conventional media if not an extension f the former but the core concept of social media being the direct involvement of people make it differ from others. It is a well-known fact that in the recent past, social media is recognized if not accused as the main reason to brewing revolutions throughout the world.

The concept of social media started when humans begin to communicate. They express their ideas in cave paintings and ancient stone scripts. Although it is obvious that the first form of social media didn’t involve the internet or any other sophisticated communication methodology, it was similar to modern social media in terms of the exchange of ideas and community interaction. However the social media we called today came with the introduction of the internet as a place to collaborate. With that, new methods of sharing information are born. First, there are internet connection places such as chatrooms and online forums. With the social networking sites such as facebook, google+ and myspace, the whole concept of social media came to new heights. Social networking sites are powerful tools for the growth of social media. Blogging is a relatively new concept allowing anyone to write your ideas in a virtual diary for the whole world to see. The microblogging site twitter has become immensely popular social media tool. It facilitates sharing ideas, news or anything you like on the internet but with only 140 characters. Although, it seems not to be enough for anything to be published, by far twitter’s contribution to the social media exceeds all other internet based platforms. Photo and video sharing sites such as youtube, Picasa, Pinterest Instagram [need to give inks]also play a crucial role.

Although it is not a mandatory thing for a social media to be based on the internet, being on the internet itself is the main advantage the social media have. It has a large number of audience. Internet users are growing exponentially so internet based social media always gains popularity. Social media is not tightly regulated or not regulated at all. Access to that is not restricted allowing free information flow. Social media is free (at least the internet based ones) if not cheaper than the conventional media. Most of the social media contributors being community organizations provide access to new ideas in a free environment. The main advantage of social media is the people getting directly involved in getting information. Most of the time social media acts as an active way of providing information. News providers, as well as the audience, engage in conversations. The audience may give feedback and their opinion regarding the information they have received from social media. The above interaction may happen instantly so timewise it is efficient. 

Social media was now famous (or infamous) for its contribution to fuel revolutions. For revolutions to happen, an exchange of new ideas needs to be put up. People who need a change should get together. Gaining popular support nationally and internationally is a must. Social media provides all those. 

General public may have discontent over the social, economic and political situation of a country. A discussion can be put in the social media. People who are sympathetic to the course will gather. With the ideas of change looming ahead, sooner or later the bubble bursts. People take to streets either to topple a government or urge authorities to solve the problems. Social media can also be used to influence civil organizations or even foreign governments to intervene and help them. If a crackdown or a civil war happens, social media may provide front row seats for the whole world to see the atrocities and the suffering or people.

This scenario proved to be true in many parts of the world in the last couple of years. The popular uprising against dictatorships in middle-eastern countries (often called ‘The Arab Spring’) is the best example of how social media help the birth of revolutions. Especially in Egypt and now in Syria, the role of social media is prominent as never before.  A fight for change in a monetary system ruled by large banks and multinational companies has swept across most parts of the western world. That was called ‘The Occupy Movement’. Thousands of protesters were gathering at the financial centers and government institutions urging for a change. Social media, mainly social networks and microblogging sites were used to send messages to people directing them to protest places and gathering active support.

A popular uprising in Ukraine to overthrow its president is another example of the successful use of social media to direct popular uprisings. For example, the youtube video below shows a young lady speaking in the midst of a protest (probably a standoff with the police) urging the international community to actively support the revolutionaries.

Sri Lankan context;

Sri Lanka has an active social media presence. Social networks such as Facebook are the main player. A small but growing twitter community, online forums, and active bloggers publishing in both Sinhalese and English play an active role.

Independent media organizations, NGOs use social media to influence people. Since there is a popular conception that the mainstream media is infiltrated by the government, for an unbiased representation of opinions, people are turning into social media.

On the other hand, differences of opinions are appearing from the Sri Lankan social media. A rise of nationalism (some depict that as racism) and religious revival of Buddhism and Islam can be seen via social media. Recently, a surge of Sinhalese Buddhist revolutionary ideas and talks of a conspiracy by minority religions to destroy Sinhalese Buddhist identity are immerging from social networks. This is leading to an all-out cyber war between different religious factions. 

More and more people are getting internet access. Technology literate young people are using social media as a place to share ideas. With social media more openness and transparency are created, we are no longer a passive entity gobbling anything the mainstream media serve us. We have become investigative and social media change the perspective from which we look at the world forever. Although there are immense benefits of social media, it should always be considered as a double-edged sword. For example, the same discussion forum or social network that used to create intellectual ideas can also be used to spread religion hatred and fanaticism.

Social media is always here to stay and get evolve with the people. The best and wisest thing is to use social media for the benefit of the entire human kind.  

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Climate Change and the Future of Mankind

(Photo Courtesy: http://climate.nasa.gov/ )

Since the beginning of mankind, humans tried to master the environment around them. Now thousands of years later in the 21^st century it seems that the humans have finally conquered the Mother Nature. Humans have habitats in all possible places in the earth ranging from freezing Antarctic ice caps to scorching deserts regardless of their hostile environment. It is apparent that human race is unstoppable and they are the master of plant earth. Is it? New developments of how environment behaving now proves otherwise. Is it possible for humans to hold nature’s wrath any longer?

Human population was well under 1 billion until 1804* and the natural environment was relatively intact until the industrial revolution in the 19^th century. Since then, man made his print on earth exploiting its resources and filling it with his offspring. It is true to say that man has altered the global landscape once in for all during the last 2 centuries.

Humans thrive when they have all their basic needs such as food, water and shelter fulfilled. The complexity and sophistication of human needs also increased steadily. All those needs costs energy and natural resources. Those resources need to be extracted in industrial scale. Energy is the key to human success. Starting from coal burning steam engines to electric motors and diesel engines all of which needs energy of some sort, human dependence on energy makes oil, natural gas, coal precious commodities. Timber, metals and water from aquifers also adds to the mankind’s growing resource need. Land is also had to be reclaimed from virgin lands for dwellings and farming not to mention the sea, which is used to fulfill countless needs. Burning fossil fuels and adding nuclear waste as a byproduct of energy generation is inevitable. Humans have littered the environment with waste which is mostly toxic to the environment. Even the space is not left intact by filling it with space junk originating from thousands of discarded spacecrafts and satellites

Early warning signs of the fact that the earth can no longer sustain the beating it gets from human presence was disregarded. Even the melting of the South Pole ice cap was dismissed of having any connection with human activities. Even the scientific community was turning a blind eye to the climate change and the changing environment. Sometimes there were confusions in identifying natural phenomenon such as “El Nino” and “La Nina” different from man made changes. Most of the people well in to the 1980s thought that earth can take anything we throw at her.

With the global temperatures getting higher, natural disasters happening at an alarming rate and with sea levels rising, finally mankind gets a taste of what it is to come. Only now the scientific community and the general public started to see a connection between climate changes and human activities.

It is lucky to see the environmentalists educating the public and lobbying for politicians and policy makers to seriously think what we do to the environment in the so called process of industrialization and development. Still rapid alternation of our way of life is needed. We either have to slow down our impact on earth or find ways to reduce if not reverse our negative effect on the environment. With the growing population it is impossible to slow down the development activities so only option left for us is reducing human footprint on earth. We should be smart and efficient. The technology which made the negative effect on the environment itself can be the savior of both the mankind and the environment. New technologies which help to achieve maximum growth with less environmental impact may hold the key to future. It is true to say that there is no silver bullet to save the planet from eminent destruction in the future. People need to gather at personal level, city level and country level to battle this problem. It is apparent that we only have the plant earth to fulfill all our needs. If we destroy it, our industrial might, growth opportunities and above all our material wealth will be on jeopardy so number one priority should be given to reduce harmful human impact on earth and keeping Mother Nature calm and quiet. 

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Population Crisis; What shall we do?

World’s population is now more than 7 billion and rising rapidly. It has reached that point one year ago in October 2011. As humans, we have an immense impact on planet earth so complications arise naturally with the rising population. Overpopulation is now a major challenge to the long list of obstacles faced by humankind.

Throughout the human history, overpopulation has never been a problem before. Humans like all the other species need resources to survive. If a species have access to plenty of resources, it thrives while that species is starved of resources, its population declines or probably faces extinction (like what happened to Dinosaurs). Usually balancing the population of species is done by nature itself. Story of human population is somewhat different. Until the first half of the last century, the human population stayed under 2 billion. Due to the rapid growth it only took another half a century to nearly triple that population.

We generally think that adding more and more members to our huge human family is a good thing but as any species needs certain resources such as air, food, water and habitat to live, humans also needs those basic necessities and much more to survive and human needs and expectations are getting bigger and bigger every day. Throughout the last 50 years, expansion of quantity and quality of necessities such as energy, transportation, housing leads to perfect condition for a human population boom. Although population rise started with the industrial revolution in the 19^th century, only after the World War 2, it started skyrocketing.

Humans to generate wealth industry, production and economic activity are needed. Those needs more people. With additional wealth humans can breed and feed a new generation which helps to create more and more wealth. This cycle continues to function perfectly until couple of decades before the last century ends.

Above mentioned economic model is obsolete nowadays due to two reasons.

1.       We don’t need much labor and human skills to generate wealth. Smart technologies, industries and production don’t need much labor. The way we create wealth is also changed. World relies more on smart technologies, financial industry and service sector which requires less human participation that age old industry and agriculture
2.  Depleting resources; Humans entirely dependent upon natural resources such as minerals, metals, oil and arable land. Now humans don’t have the steady supply of resources to generate wealth which helps to keep and increase population

Problems

Large population consumes lot of natural resources which took thousands of years t naturally form. Production of those resources can’t keep up with the rising population.

This earth is not only designed for humans but we take the whole world for granted. The truth is humans are mere part of the world’s Eco system. Natural resources and generally the environment are used by every other plant and animal. Over-consumption and rising demand puts strain on the environment as well. This leads to environmental pollution which dangers not only humans’ future but also the whole worlds’ future.

Human standard of living was rising with the increasing population. This means people can live longer. But most of those old people don’t contribute anything to the creation of wealth; it becomes the duty of young to serve their elders from their wealth. This practice is highly appreciated in some cultures, especially in Asia but beyond this duty of safeguarding senior citizens lays a heavy burden in younger generation’s shoulders.

With the rising global population, especially in 3^rd world countries, an emigration boom is created. People are trying to migrate to rich countries in search of opportunities. Most of the Asian and North African people are trying to migrate to Western European countries and to United States. This mass migration creates disruptions between the immigrants and local people. Nowadays when people migrate to other countries they don’t embrace the local culture. They tend to communalize in their own religious or racial segments. Since western countries have lower birth rates compared to immigrants, immigrant community grows faster and creates its own sub cultures. Most of the time immigrant and local cultures don’t jell with each other well. Sudden demographic shifts are dangerous for a county’s future for example, in United Kingdom, immigration and immigrant cultures have become a big problem which has led to racial and religious conflicts more than once.  

Global population is rising in a way that the nature can’t control. Population boom may explode one day but it puts the entire humanity in jeopardy. Experts have found out that the ideal population which should be living in earth is 2 Billion. We have two solutions with us. Either find another plant to put the extra 5 Billion humans or reduce the population.

Since science is not able to find any plant suitable to us other than earth, the one and only option is population reduction. Even with that solution, we may encounter some social problems.

1.       We can’t move population to less populated countries because of cultural problems

2.       We can’t kill old people or reduce health benefits due to social and ethical issues.

3.       We can’t selectively give the chance to live for the healthiest babies like ancient Spartans did (Which sounds like a good idea) but not a single mother will like the idea of killing her baby even for the benefit of entire humanity.

We need a world-wide systematic reduction of births like the Chinese did with their one-child-policy. Like valuation and devaluation of a country’s currency, governments should have a plan specifying how many people are needed for the future to plan the birth policy. If the country can sustain more people, less restricted birth policy can be enforced. If the population is growing, strict laws regarding number of children can be brought forward. While making policy changed, the scientific community should be able to find ways to sustain large population from limited resources without affecting the environment.

We too need to change and adjust their high-end, energy-consuming lifestyles. That surely be uncomfortable since we are too comfortable with our life but if we keep on going like this, the end is painful than ever. Overpopulation is created by us. Before it consumes us and reduce humanity to rubble, we should act bravely and take drastic measures to prevent that from happening. 

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Once Upon a Time in Syria; Analysis on Syrian Conflict.

The human civilization was never free of problems and chaos in which war and destruction was common. In human history, there is no point in time which was free from conflicts and warfare. In the last century, the world was plagued with two world wars, struggles for independence, cold war which was fought as a set of proxy wars and countless other internal and external conflicts. In the turn of this century, a new form of war; international terrorism has emerged. The newest ongoing conflict is the conflict between the government of Syria and its opposition groups. Although it can be categorized as a civil war its effects are anything but confined to Syria. It is now evolved in to a regional conflict and who knows; it can be the spark for the World War 3. Most of the public got to know about the Syrian conflict because of the involvement of opposition group, ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or commonly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and their actions such as kidnapping, beheading, burning and drowning but, there is far more to the Syrian conflict than ISIL thus it is important to go into the  root of this conflict to get a clear idea of why Syrians had turned against their ruler and why factions such as ISIL are so successful. As the ISIL had wowed to carry on their struggle to control much of the middle-east and a substantial portion of Europe and Asia, it is for everyone’s benefit to understand what had happened in Syria and the neighboring Arab world.

This all started with the Arab Spring, the popular uprisings against leaders in the Arab World. Started in Tunisia, it swept across a good portion of the middle-east. It starts with small protests in the name of democracy and usually escalates in to armed conflicts between the government forces and the opposition groups and eventually leads to the downfall of the government and leaders. The outcome of the subsequent power vacuum is different from country to country. Having overthrown so called oppressive dictator was no guarantee for democracy or stable government. Only a handful of countries had transformed in to the state that the protesters hoped for while the majority slid in to chaos and anarchy. Libya, Yemen and Egypt are examples.

Like the other Arab Spring affected countries, in Syria, the opposition backed by Syrian opposition started as a wave of protests against the President Bashar Al Assad. It soon escalated in to an armed conflict where countless rebel factions (both pro-Assad and anti-Assad) fighting each other only to further erupt in to a regional conflict where even the world’s superpowers involve.

Syria is now a melting pot of different rival factions fighting each other for achieving their respective goal broadly categorized in to pro-Assad, anti-Assad and Kurdish. The anti-Assad can further be categorized into secular/democratic and religious ideology.

Even though we tend to look for the starting point for the civil war in Arab spring, the root is not there but further back in time for more than a two millennia. This whole area of middle-east containing Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Israel/Palestine is unique. It was influenced by Islam (both Sunni and Shiite), Christianity and Judaism. Moreover due to its changing hands several times starting from Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and Franco –British to Baathist, Secularist and Islamic forces.

Originally occupied by the nomadic Bedouin people, Islam had swept across the region and managed to unite majority under a one religious ideology, but this is not without problems. Ideological sectarian tensions between Sunni, Shiite and Alawite were common throughout the middle-east. It had multiplied in the second half of the 20^th century. There is a particular reason; almost all of the countries in this region were claimed from the Ottomans after World War 1 by either French or British. When those countries became Independent, the ruling elite of those countries were the minority in most of the cases. Absolute monarchies in some of those countries were abolished either by armed conflicts or leftist revolutions lead by the minority communities. This was apparent in Iraq where Saddam Husain who was a Sunni took control of the Shiite majority Iraq and where the President Bashar Al Assad who is an Alawite Muslim controls Sunni Majority in Syria. This had happened in Libya (tribalism took hold there, not sectarianism). In Lebanon, after the independence from the British, the rule went to Christians who were the minority in a Sunni and Shite majority state resulted in a bloody civil war in 70s and 80s costing thousands of lives and brought the country to an irrecoverable anarchy which still plagues the country. Not to mention Israel where the Jews who were the refugees consisting only about half a million where given the best portion of the land of Palestine from the partition plan of 1948 leading to the biggest crisis the middle-east.

The occupying Franco-British colonials had done an irreparable mistake of alienating the rule from the Majority and giving privileged positions to the minority communities. It seems that this had happened in most of the countries under French or British colonial occupation. If that occupied country couldn’t build a nation state after independence due to various reasons including the divergent ethno-religious factions, soon the majority discontent on the governing minority emerge. This has to do with economic factors also. The ruling minority groups will get wealthy while depriving the majority with economic opportunities. Above situation is no other than a ticking time bomb.

Since this region is once belong to the Ottoman Empire and was a melting pot of different ethnicities and religious groups. Those differences were highlighted when the French and British took control and more prominently after independence. Creation of modern nation states from the former Ottoman Empire was mostly under the British and French discretion making the European colonials, the architects of the middle-east. The problem was that the Europeans had hardly any idea of the Ethnic composition and culture of the people when creating new states. One of the best examples was creating Kuwait from the historical Iraqi territory. They might have done that considering its massive oil wealth and it was easier to manage and make post-independent relations with a small country with virtually homogeneous population. Iraq always claims Kuwait as their territory. This led to the first gulf war in 1991.

Let’s turn our attention to Syria once more. Minority Alawite faction is controlling the state and economy. Assad, like many other Arab nationalistic leaders tried infrastructure development and religious tolerance. It is the only secular state in Arab world. Christians in Syria felt relatively safe. Assad has a strong eastern bloc inclination like Gamal Abdul Nassar in Egypt. When the Arab Spring started, from the beginning Syria was a targeting point. People driven by economic and social inequality was to riot against the regime. Demonstrations were about to happen but, what wasn’t expected is this kind of full time armed insurgence but either a peaceful transition like in Tunisia, riots and violent civil uprising not amounting to armed conflict like in Egypt or a small scale insurgence only by the opposition within that country like in Libya. None of that happened in Syria but a civil war dragging sovereign countries, opposition groups, international terrorist organization and home-grown militias. USA and its allies want Assad to go while Russia wants Assad to prevail. Kurds in Iraq and specially Syria want to win autonomy from Syrian regime. Meanwhile the ISIL want everyone to lose and to establish an Islamic Caliphate spanning from Syria and Iraq into global domination. It is natural that in Arab Spring many rival factions clash to grab power but in Syria, the outside influence from USA and its allies in the name of ‘humanitarian aid to restore democracy’ has led to the escalation of this problem. Russian president Vladimir Putin accused USA directly for creating ISIL, it might not be so but a failed US foreign policy surely helped the ISIL to gain lot of support from neighboring countries. Even though USA didn’t directly supply ISIL any aid, the factions who got US support granted or sold provisions to ISIL. Since ISIL controls a considerable amount of oil production throughout their territory, those petro-dollars can surely be a steady income. USA had and still has an unsuccessful foreign policy in the middle-east. They fund a faction to grab power in a region then those who gained US support double-cross them every time. This had happened with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.

Whenever USA directly support a government in the middle-east regardless of how oppressive or how blackened its human rights record or how undemocratic it is, USA stays in the winning side. Best example is Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. Whenever they support the opposition, they tend to lose. It cannot be said that the USA didn’t anticipate the consequences for backing an opposition who surely turned in themselves in to oppressors and fanatics more fearsome than the previous regime in terms of religious tolerance and democracy.  They took a risk in supporting the Syrian opposition because, Assad is a close ally of Russia and Russia has assets in Syrian. Toppling Assad would surely weaken the Russian presence in the middle-east greatly. That would have been the US plan but now it had backfired. Russia is now determined to keep the opposition at bay from toppling Assad and with the recent air strikes possible ‘boots-on-the-ground’, they will surely succeed. The difference between Russian and US decision making is that the boldness in Russian decisions. USA has much to lose in taking rash and unpopular decisions than Russia. USA is a democracy after all!!!

However, what was done has been done. Syria was in turmoil. Half of the Syrian population is either internally or externally displaced. Mass immigration resulted in the worse refugee crisis in Europe after World War II; not to mention the incoming long-term demographic changes and cultural imbalance in the European Union. ISIL will continue to gain support unless they are defeated once in for all. Even Assad took control of Syria eventually, ISIL threat will not pass. They’ll operate as a global terror force much fearful than even the Al-Qaeda. They will gain supporters worldwide including countless followers in the western world.

Now it is too little too late! If USA stayed out of the trouble in Syria, none of this would have happened. The opposition might topple Assad eventually. ISIL would not have born even if they, they will be a mere shadow of the power they are now. The resulting government would be religious fundamentalist like the succeeded government after Egypt’s Mubarak but it would never have escalated in to the brink of World War III.

Now, it is not sure where the Syrian conflict is heading. USA will now stay out of the trouble after all they have done to ignite the kindle. ISIL should be prevented from pouring in to Lebanon or Jordan at all cost. With the incoming US Presidential Election, Syrian policy of major candidates both Republican and Democratic should be closely scrutinized. One of the possible candidates in US election, business magnet Donald Trump expressed Assad is a person with whom they can ‘do business with’.

                                

Middle-east was and always will be a violent and volatile place. With its oil, its influence is crucial in global politics. The best strategy for middle-east is dealing with the legitimate governments regardless of how oppressive, undemocratic and religious extremist they are. Let the people of middle-east handle their own problems. The only thing the rest of the world can do is to contain the spread of fanaticism is to keep a close watch and help the governments who keep the terrorists at bay and to resist all temptations for a regime change regardless of how profitable for western foreign policy is, given that helping the opposition will always be counter-productive for the west in the long run.

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Women's Day Special: A soft hearted masculinist's guide

Woman is the most amazing creation of the God

The enigma which the man can never understand

Like an unpredictable thunderstorm with a mighty force

A force to be reckoned with and respected by all

She showers us with warmth of a mother

Respects us with a tenderness of a daughter

Be with us with an eagerness of a sister

Keeps our heart locked away in a chest of a lover

It is amazing how with nimble touch

They move mountains and melts solidified hearts

 When every other remedy is useless

But only femininity survives

Today the day is yours

A day to celebrate and be proud

To stargaze beyond the horizon

For an era of equality harmony and freedom

It is with a great difficulty I've been able to sum up my ideas on women. Many questions are looming ahead. It is a deliberate lie for anyone to say that they were not being soothed by a women's touch. Femininity is the driving force behind the humanity. The would will surely be a barren land without feminine elegance. 

No matter how strong as men we are, our guards may torn off, our vulnerabilities get exposed and our humanity will be brought forward by femininity it may either by the affection of a mother or a love of a sweetheart.

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Battle in Geneva; Sri Lanka at the UNHRC Session

The Geneva season has begun. Every March for the last 2 years had been a busy period for Sri Lankan diplomats and politicians. At the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), resolutions against Sri Lanka were brought up and voted. Now for the 3rd time, another resolution has been drafted. Voting has yet to be called. Both the Sri Lankan government and western countries backed up by United States is preparing for a fierce battle at Geneva. Especially the government has said that they are confident in getting the support of the majority of UNHRC countries to vote against the resolution. Today, Sri Lankan foreign minister Professor G.L.Peiris addressed the UNHRC session rejected the resolution as well as the high commissioner's report stating that it is fundamentally flawed.

After the 30 year bloody civil war was ended in 2009, the international community came up with doubts to whether the conduct of the Sri Lankan army in the last months of war is complying with the international humanitarian law. Although, Sri Lankan government had labeled the operation as a humanitarian mission, most of the international community was skeptical about this. In the eve of war in 2009, United Nations raised questions about the number of civilian deaths which was suspected to be nearly 40000. It had raised concerns about the post war situation in Sri Lanka on violation of human rights, execution of POWs and deliberate attacks on civilian targets.

A report was submitted to the UN called Darusman report pointed out allegations of human rights if proven, raises war crimes and crimes against humanity accusations against Sri Lankan military and leaders. Sri Lankan government had rejected the Darusman report. [1] They implemented its own inquiry called Lessions Learned and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in which the LTTE was blamed for carrying out almost all of the atrocities however it has accepted that there were some "isolated" incidents involving armed forces. LLRC recommendations were made public in 31st March 2011.

Almost an year had passed from LLRC report publication when the United States raised alarm on Sri Lankan government failure to implement LLRC recommendations. Since LLRC being an internal investigation and one being directly ordered by the President himself, the Sri Lankan government must have been responsible for its immediate implementation. At the UNHRC session, government has insisted saying "we need to be given time to further consolidate the clear process that has been achieved in a short period of 3 years". It seemed to be that the Government is buying time. 

 A second resolution was backed up by the western powers in 2013. It urged Sri Lanka to set up a truth seeking commission but it doesn't explicitly suggested an international inquiry. Now for the 3rd time, another resolution has brought up before the council. Although it acknowledge the progress made on implementing the some recommendations made by LLRC, it has accused the government again for failing to ensure credible investigation in to past violation of human rights. It also focuses on the attacks on religious minorities, lawyers, human rights activists and journalists. It recommends to establish an independent international inquiry if domestic mechanisms failed. 

UNHRC has 47 seats which are distributed among United Nations regional groups for a three year term. Lets look at the voting outcome for the last 2 resolutions[2]

YEAR	VOTED IN FAVOR OF RESOLUTION	VOTED AGAINST RESOLUTION	ABSTAINED
2012	1.     Benin 2.     Cameron 3.     Libya 4.     Mauritius 5.     Nigeria 6.     India 7.     Chile 8.     Costa Rica 9.     Guatemala 10.   Peru 11.   Mexico 12.   Uruguay 13.   Austria 14.   Belgium 15.   Norway 16.   Italy 17.   Spain 18.   Switzerland 19.   United States 20.   Czech Republic 21.   Poland 22.   Hungary 23.   Moldova 24.  Romania	1.     Congo 2.     Mauritiana 3.     Uganda 4.     Bangladesh 5.     China 6.     Indonesia 7.     Kuwait 8.     Maldives 9.     Philippines 10.   Qatar 11.   Saudi Arabia 12.   Thailand 13.   Cuba 14.   Ecuador 15.  Russia	1.     Angola 2.     Botswana 3.     Burkina Faso 4.     Djibuti 5.     Senegal 6.     Jordan 7.     Krygystan 8.     Malaysia
2013	1.     Benin, 2.     the Ivory Coast,  3.     Libya, 4.     Sierra Leone,  5.     India, 6.     Korea, 7.     Argentina, 8.     Brazil,  9.     Chile, 10.   Costa Rica, 11.   Guatemala, 12.   Peru,  13.   Austria, 14.   Germany, 15.   Ireland,  16.   Italy, 17.   Spain, 18.   Switzerland, 19.   USA, 20.   Czech Republic, 21.   Estonia, 22.   Montenegro,  23.   Poland, 24.   Romania, 25.   Moldova.	1.     Venezuela,  2.     Ecuador,  3.     UAE, 4.     Thailand,  5.     Qatar,  6.     Philippines  7.     Pakistan,  8.     Maldives, 9.     Kuwait, 10.   Indonesia, 11.   Uganda, 12.   Mauritania, 13.   Congo (Rep not DR)	1.     Ethiopia,  2.     Angola, 3.     Botswana, 4.     Burkina Faso, 5.     Kenya, 6.     Japan, 7.     Kazakhstan,  8.     Malaysia.

 India despite of being our neighbor voted against Sri Lanka in the past two resolutions. It may be because of the pressure from Tamil Nadu. At the 2013 resolution, Japan's move to abstain from voting is a clear sign of USA's power to persuade her allies to go against Sri Lanka (at least by retaining from voting). Whole Europe (Eastern and Western alike), most of the Latin American countries and some Asian countries have voted for the resolution. The only allies Sri Lanka had were a handful of South East Asian countries and Muslim nations.

Government has long been preparing for the worse in this year's resolution. Powerful countries such as Russia and China have extended their support to Sri Lanka. Government was on a lobbying campaign across the world persuading Latin American, African and Asian nations to vote against the resolution. There are talks about a counter resolution by some countries in favor of Sri Lanka. Today (05-03-2014) Sri Lankan delegate, Professor G.L.Peiris slammed the High Commissioner's report by telling that the report's recommendations are "arbitrary, intrusive and of a political nature, and are not placed within the ambit of the LLRC, as demonstrated by the call to establish an international inquiry mechanism."

In terms of voting, there may not be a difference from the last two resolutions because East and West European block and countries under American influence. Surely India will vote for the resolution but Sri Lanka may have a chance of getting the support from Japan, South Africa and some countries who abstained in 2013 session. Even that will not be enough for the resolution to be rejected.

Sri Lankan government doesn't really care about the resolution. They are in a habit of ignoring international pressure as long as no direct economic impact such as sanctions are implemented. Instead of complying with the recommendations, the government is using UNHRC session as a means to gather votes in the upcoming provincial council election. 

Now almost two years has passed but the reconciliation process is still not up to standards. There are handful of silver strokes in this gloomy sky such as the infrastructure development in North and East but they alone can't turn the tables in favor of Sri Lanka . Failing to implement a substantial amount of recommendation on time may show the grim reality that the government has no real interest in reconciliation and accountability even to their own investigations.

Whether we like it or not, we need a long term plan for reconciliation. First an independent local investigation is needed at least to show the world we are doing something. The government or the armed forces no need to be afraid because they haven't committed any war crimes. Almost all the servicemen in the armed forces and police did their job with utmost professionalism so no harm will be done to the armed forces if perpetrators of some isolated incidents are brought to justice.

Economic development is merely not enough. Even economic development without empowering people's lives is useless. Growing economy should bring benefits directly to the masses. Economic development is a great way to build peace and prosperity. 

Finally political system need to change. Everyone regardless of the race and religion need to get involved in political system. Strengthening provincial councils or other opportunities should be promoted. The government needs to start genuinely talking to the minority politicians and make room for a peaceful solution. Both the minorities and the majority may have compromises to make but they should be done without hesitation by setting aside the Ego for a while. 

This session in Geneva will be a golden opportunity to steer Sri Lanka towards long term peace, prosperity and reconciliation. Are our leaders going to take this opportunity or simply reverting to back to the same routine after this resolution as they have done in the previous two resolutions ?  

  

[1]http://www.mea.gov.lk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2746&Itemid=75

[2]http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2014/03/04/sri-lanka-scores-preliminary-moral-victory-at-unhrc-2014/.








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Cyber World, Its Future and Challenges

The world has become a global village. With the emergence of the Word Wide Web and Internet, information has become an essential commodity for humans like food, water and shelter. People collaborate like never before making way to a digital revolution. Computers and communication devices are getting smaller and more powerful. General notion that a computer is a lager device which is to be stored in a large room has long been gone. Today's ubiquitous computers and mobile phones (now we call them smartphones) have become a part of human body. Communication between those devices themselves outsmarted human collaboration.

Computing power, development in communication technology and internet created a parallel word; a society withing the large human society. We call that "Cyberspace". Cyberspace is a virtual community consisting of people connected to the internet. Internet is noting but a set of computing devices connected together by communication media so it is not wrong to say that the Cyberspace is filled with people who operates the above devices. Note them as cyber-community just for the reference. There are collaborating places for the cyber community starting from internet chat rooms and forums. Cyberspace collaboration reached its pinnacle with the introduction of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google Plus and so on. Facebook in particular is the largest online community in the world. The fact that one in 7 persons in the word being its member shows how popular social networking is.

To live in the online world, a person needs a new online personality but it doesn't need to do an exact copy of his/her real life. Anonymity is guaranteed in cyberspace up to some extent so one can create a brand new personality just for being in the cyberspace. Most people have entirely different personalities ranging from using aliases for names to changing their behavior and even gender. For example a shy and fearful mama's child can become an internet hero. A person who can't even look at girls in the real life can acts as a playboy in the internet or a virgin in real life can even have cyber-sex.

We may sometimes face with question of what will happen to the alleged cyber personality when a person die for real. The person will be physically dead but his/her cyberspace personality may remain. Cyberspace personality is always linked with an online account for which only the owner has access to so no one can access to that account making the online personality freeze in time as a memory to the dead person. It is obvious that those cyber personalities of dead people always cause problems. Online bank accounts and other internet money related accounts may create legal problems. Intellectual property rights issues are common for online content because of the lack of legal framework for cyberspace content. Many social and ethical problems arise when dealing with a dead person's social networking accounts. A third party can hack into a dead person's account and control it. Imagine receiving a Facebook message from your brother who is already dead for couple of years. It may give an unimaginable trauma for you and your family members.

Some social networks hand over the control of a dead person's account to his/her relatives upon a court order but this varies from country to country. Law relating to cyberspace is still in its infancy. Although laws against cyber crimes are strong, the lack of legal framework covering the entire cyberspace and information sharing is a daunting  problem. In developing countries this problem is severe but the irony is that those are the countries which has a rapid expansion of cyber community.

It is not easy to develop a universal law applying to all the aspects of cyber community ranging from internet monetary transactions to digital intellectual property rights and social networking conduct. Giving legal recognition to cyber personalities and linking them with their real persons may sound controversial but we have to take bold decisions and innovative strategies to keep our foothold in this vast and rapidly changing cyber front.  

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