Beyond Borders Sri Lanka

Poetry with Teeth

23Jun09

Poetry has long been a form of activism. From the early Greek philosophers who wrote promoting their thoughts and ideas in the form of the acclaimed dialogue, contributing to the reshaping of their societies, to the greats of the Enlightenment that helped shape the Industrial Revolution to modern day activists and slam poetry, poems have always been used to play a role in identifying the connection between the material world around us and the relating emotions that run through our collective conscience.

Human beings are primarily creatures of emotion living in a society structured around the assumption that we are in fact, logical. Therefore we first and foremost examine our feelings with questions to make sense of the world around us. So all our standings in relation to external events are ultimately based on emotion and feeling, ‘rationality’ is simply what arises as the ultimate result of this examination, it’s roots are invariably plugged into some base ideology that is held as belief.

Poetry delineates emotions and can inspire raw feeling in people that can change their outlook. And, like any form of activism, poetic activism also changes and inspires society into taking new directions. It taps into people’s core feelings, identifies with them and exposes them. It inspires action sometimes, or sometimes just an understanding nod, but there is a message, and its usually enough if it is communicated.

Now we don’t need to get all hoity toity about it. You don’t have to be a Ph.D in philosophy or decked out with the finest wordplay of a slam poet’s arsenal to engage in activism. Poetic activism is everyday, its everywhere, its in blogposts, facebook notes, you tube. Anywhere there is creativity, emotion and an appeal to a change of norms, there is poetic activism.

If you haven’t already, check out Def Poetry Jam. If you haven’t already seen or heard of Def poetry then its time you did, they sound like rappers minus the bling bling and pro drug advocacy. Artistes like Steve Coleman, Lemon, Suheir Hammad, Rives etc. explore themes as diverse as racism, love, terrorism, nationalism and most other isms that you can think of, and then some.

Political tension and repressed emotions like fear and anger etc cause a lot of people to speak out. Sri Lanka has been a hotbed of fear, anger and suspicion especially over the past few months, when the war came finally crunching down to its bloody stop. From introspections of ‘water filter’ warriors fearing armed attacks on the way to work, to musings on the nature of the national flag, to the denouncing of barbaric practices, to patrotism and the spilling of blood, to my humble attempt at describing my feelings of dependence on independence day, to attempts at distilling freedom, individualism and control; poetic activism is all over the place. If you’re reading this, just click through some blogs and see what you can find. Or start writing yourselves.

There has been an increasing surge of poetry as a form of activisim throughout the last century, complicating W.H Auden’s claim that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’. Poetry, or poetic literature has influenced history throughout its existence. Or some like to think so. Significant events throughout history have always been accompanied by their own unique brand of literature and poetic activism, the most recent the African American uprising of the last century. But did these artists actually change societies with their craft? or were they simply a symptom of changing times? And are poets and poetic activists simply another brand of armchair/notebook/facebook warriors?

Halik Azeez

“poems are bullshit unless they have teeth” Amiri Baraka

Halik is a poet who blogs here, and occationaly graces Open Mic. He wrote a piece for the BB blog a while back here, and we’re still quite eagerly awaiting his abduction, so that we can blog about it. He is also in charge of the Communications section of BB, which would explain a lot about how talkative we are.

Filed under: Media, Opinions, Youth-Culture-Society | Leave a Comment
Tags: Activism, Media, Poetry

Engaging Youth in the Post-Conflict Process

19Jun09

YaTV speaks to Mohomad Hisham, a national steering committee member of the Sri Lanka Youth Parliament and a good friend of Beyond Borders. The interview is below:

Filed under: Peace-Conflict-Governance, Sri Lanka, Youth-Culture-Society | Leave a Comment

“The Best cup of Nestomalt I’ve had in my life!!!”

15Jun09

Let alone Nestomalt, it was the best cup of anything I’ve ever drunk in my life. Honestly speaking, it was the first cup of Nestomalt I’ve ever drunk, cos’ I hate the stuff usually. Enough about me and Nestomalt, let me tell you why it was the best cup I’ve ever drunk!

I’m going to be starting with the end this time…it was approximately 7 pm and two of us were just finishing off our last distribution of some tea, sugar and “Nestomalt,” to the last ward. Once we were done, we decided to sit down and have a little chat with some of the patients and their families. We barely had any time to have a chat with anyone this time, because distribution was an absolute “logistical nightmare!” Anyway, as a direct result of a part Sinhala, part Tamil, part English and part sign language chat I had with one of the families, they discovered that we hadn’t had lunch as yet. And to make matters worse, I told them that I was “setthu poochi” (dead)! After having a good laugh possibly at my heavily accented Tamil, and also what I said, I guess, I moved to another group of patients, and as far as I was concerned, that was the end of that. That was of course until, around 10 minutes later, I get a little tap on my shoulder and a little girl hands me a little stainless steel tumbler full of piping hot Nestomalt!

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Filed under: Events-Activities-Announcements, Peace-Conflict-Governance, Sri Lanka | 1 Comment
Tags: AID, Colombo, Help, IDPs, Sri Lanka, Story

YATV takes to the air

02Jun09

Hilmy Ahamed, CEO of YATV speaks about the new venture at the event held to celebrate YATV hitting the airwaves, or rather, cabled and the internet.

Young Asia Television, or YATV launched it new venture YA Sri Lanka last week with a view to provide interactive programming on a wide range of programming from Entertainment to Education and Business.

YATV has been in the forefront of value-based programming in the Asian region and has been a pioneer in changing the look and feel of the television screen, the television experience, in Sri Lanka and many other countries in the region. YATV introduced younger programme producers, a wider range of perspectives, new programme formats and used innovative computer graphics and animation, adopting cost-effective production processes through affordable technology. YATV’s programming provided the space for a diverse group of people – and not just young people – to express their views.

YATV relies strongly on its youthful human resources who are equal to any in the global Television industry. Their out-put has been of superior technical and content quality.

With the launch of YA Sri Lanka, YATV takes another significant step in the progress of television in the Sri Lanka by partnering with SLT’s PEOTV to bring interactive television programming for education information and development.

In addition to catering to urban youth audiences, YA Sri Lanka is committed to reaching out to the audiences in rural areas.

YA Sri Lanka hopes to entertain, but more importantly, facilitate wide-ranging discourse among people -exchanging information, bringing awareness, enabling understanding.

The value of media, especially television, as a tool for learning has been proven time and again. Its capacity to inform, educate and encourage behavior change has made it an indispensable tool of most social campaigns. With respect to youth audiences, research has shown that TV has the ability to create powerful touchstones, enabling young people to share experiences with others. So it seems a logical step for YA SRI LANKA to harness the potential of this powerful and influential medium.

YA Sri Lanka’s partnership with PEOTV will be an opportunity to provide an alternative to the mainstream, An opportunity to reinvent the usefulness of the medium of television. An opportunity to share ideas and knowledge, gain skills and capacities, build communities and bridges.

Editor’s Note: YATV has been a one of the strong pillars that has helped Beyond Borders grow, and we pride ourselves in the long and warm relationship that we share, running beyond a mere a work relationship into sphere of friendships. Beyond Borders extends our hearfelt congratulations to YATV, and wishes them the best for the future. And we would obviously look forward to YATV, and now YA Sri Lanka helping us more.

To see a the instances in which Beyond Borders, or BBites were on YATV, click here. You can see the YATV YouTube channel here, and YATV can be found here on their official website.

Filed under: Media, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: Media, Sri Lanka, YATV, Youth Activism

Fixing educashun

20May09

I was not a student who academically excelled in School. Whilst scoring high in subject such as Maths and Science, I was horrible at the subjects that required one to “study” for them. And even though I find writing absolutely enjoyable now, it was not so when I was in school. My teachers made me hate the subject.

A lot of people have been arguing for comprehensive reforms in Sri Lanka’s education sector. This would have to come in the form of reforming the methodology of teaching, reforming the systems of learning, and a complete revamp of the curricula.

Looking at how state funded schools are being used, we have to realize that schools are useless things, most of the time. Let me explain.

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Filed under: Kids, Opinions, Sri Lanka | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beyond Borders, Colombo, Education, Identity, Reform, Social Change, Sri Lanka

Is AIDS a poor people’s disease?

18May09

Hans Rosling takes a look. Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet and Director of the Gapminder Foundation. Gapminder developed the Trendalyzer software that converts international statistics into moving, interactive and enjoyable graphics. The aim is to promote a fact based world view through increased use and understanding of freely accessible public statistics. His lectures using Gapminder graphics to visualise world development have won awards by being humorous yet deadly serious, like this one.

Filed under: Media | 1 Comment
Tags: Africa, HIV/AIDS, Poverty, TED

What are you dying for?

05May09

You may question if it’s worth creating a commotion about the single death of a promising young life when hundreds more are dying due to the effects of the three decade long war that has plagued the nation? I believe it’s worth every word of it as identifying and advocating for a solution to a potential problem is the key to the actual solution of the problem itself.

Sri Lanka has slowly but surely evolved a gun culture of its own. This adversarial trend is making it more and more apparent that a local version of a Columbine High School type shooting is not too far away. So what are the reasons behind this sudden phenomenon? How did it start and when will it end? I don’t have the answers for all these questions, but I would try to shed some light on the issue to the best of my ability.

“Youth” by nature have been gifted with abundance of energy which should be effectively dispersed in order to attain social stability. The country’s development lies on the strong shoulders of this element of society as does the countries downfall. This makes it important to empower the youth with correct resources and tools to foster their energy into channels which could yield benefits for all stake holders of a society.

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Filed under: Youth-Culture-Society | 1 Comment
Tags: Culture, Socety, Sri Lanka, Youth

The first AGM

04May09

Since we are now a registered legal entity, and that requires us to have an AGM, we did. It was held last week at the British Council Auditorium, with the participation of present and returning BBites. Current General Secretary Nooranie Muthaliph was re-elected, as we agreed that he was doing a good job.

Niranjan de Silva of Toastmasters fame was invited as a guest speaker on the subject of Young People and the Economic Downturn. His opening remarks were on how, when there is an economic boom, there does not seem to be many discussions on how to capitalize on the boom.

For us, it’s a time to look back and see what we’ve done, and at the same time look forward. We have a new strategy in place, and with the turn of events and the current situation of the country, our role as an agent for young people, and a voice of change has also evolved. We however, are all geared up.

Filed under: Events-Activities-Announcements, Sri Lanka | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beyond Borders Sri Lanka

You know you’re patriotic when..

01May09

When? You tell me. ‘Cos I don’t know. Obviously in the current context, if you are still cheering for the tigers then that not only makes you extremely unpatriotic it also by default makes you a cold blooded killer. Also being patriotic to Eelam right now is not so cool seeing as at best they only have five square kilometres of land left. Hah, let’s see them set up a cricket grounds in there. If they get to keep it that is.

If I call the President a dufus, then would that make me unpatriotic? Technically no but then I’m sure the vast majority of this country wouldn’t really care much about technicalities, more used to worship of leaders than rational thought. Not that I think the President is a dufus, but my point is that I should still be able to denounce the leadership of this country without my ‘patriotism’ being questioned.

The ultimate point that I am driving at is that ‘patriotism’ as a concept does not exist, meaning that it does not have a fixed, non-superficial meaning. Sure ‘patriotism’ the word can be used to indicate a love for one’s country but ‘love’ takes many forms and what form of love patriotism should take is largely dependent on the person that expresses that love. You cannot standardize patriotism.

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Filed under: Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Disabled, Differently-abled or Super-Abled?

20Apr09

I once had an argument with a friend, whom the most of society would recognize as being disabled, about the acceptable terminology for someone like her. She didn’t seem to mind being called disabled, and I wasn’t buying it.

I argued that we all have different disabilities and abilities. It’s just that society expects that we be somewhere around most common standard. She said she knows the arguments, but some just preferred to be identified as disabled.

Those were the thoughts running through my mind as I watched this wonderful Ted Talk by the beautiful Aimee Mullins, who’s dozen pair of legs give her super abilities. A must watch.