This year will see the 25th anniversary of Black July.

    There were some people who didn't realise this till I pointed it out to them. At which point I asked myself if I was the only one who remembered that it had occurred at all. Why do I remember it?

     I remember it because I was born in July in 1983. I remember it because I know what happened and I think it is important to remember such things if only so that we ensure it never happens again.

    And no matter what, that's what most people agree on. They agree that they don't want it to happen again but then there are some who are against any sort of violence, some who are completely jaded and then there are some who have clearly taken sides and make it clear that the only outcome they want at all is one where their side wins.

    Are you scared yet? Because I am.

    Let me tell you what happened. We were all for independence. We got it from the British. Then we proceeded to draw up a constitution that was frankly very unfair and left the Tamils out almost completely. This of course did not sit very well with them and the nex tthing you know, the youth were forming militant groups. Then in the late 70's the constitution was reworked to include Tamils (not entirely but progress was made) but by then there was a group known as the LTTE. Prior to the constitution being amended someone in Parliament had brought forth the point that if the Tamils were not included in the constitution they would lose their culture and therefore it would make more sense for them to have a seperate nation. The man had a point. Someone took him very seriously. The LTTE claimed they wanted their own nation-state within the island. Did I leave anything important out? Let me know if I did.

        The LTTE decided to ambush fifteen soldiers near Jaffna. The bodies were brought to the capital to be buried quietly but word got out about the ambush and some of the Sinhalese formed mobs and went on a mad rampage killing Tamil people. Tamils fled the country. This was Black July 1983.

      Now I understand how this would not make Tamil people feel particularly safe. I can understand why the Sinhalese were enraged. I can also understand how this can make the Tamils want to hate Sinhalese people and any other group. And I can understand how and why they want to be patriotic and protect themselves and their culture and so on. And I can understand how this would apply to any other ethnicity. But supporting any more violence just because you hate an ethnicity or feel a certain way is not going to solve any problems whether you are Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim or any other ethnic group. If you feel this way go ahead support whichever side you want, encourage them to fight, let more people be killed - does that sound like it is solving anything to you? It just perpetuates this war.

       Not all Sinhalese support the Sri Lankan government. Not all Tamils support the LTTE. People from different ethnicities can get along. And it is shameful that thousands have died during this civil war on both sides. It is shameful and stupid.

       By being scared of the other side enough to want to have a nation-state exclusive to people just like you and people like you alone, you are just giving in to a history of paranoia about ethnicities and so on. About people who are somehow different from us. Because they speak different languages, do different things - are you really that scared of that sort of thing? Why?

      And so now we continue in this state of affairs - where one side must be ready to retaliate in case the other attacks. Why do we do this? Haven't enough people died already for no real reason other than an idea some people hold to be dear to them? So many people have managed to live together, get along together, civil war or no civil war. Why must we perpetuate this idiocy of "they did this, so we must do that"? Or the "we must do this so that they cannot do that"?

    In the end, I want to live in a country where I can raise my kids and have them play with the neighbours' kids regardless of any ethnic differences and so on. Because honestly ethnicity, race or religion has never been a big deal to me or most people my age that I have met. We manage to mix well with each other - we don't even think about it and no one seems afraid or judges anyone by such things. Are we paying a price because people older than us believe in perpetuating this conflict? Or because they are too jaded to believe that they can somehow help to change things?

      I am quite happy to coexist with people of different ethnicities. I am anti-war. I am against choosing a side. I am against people dying when the next generation in my limited experience does not seem to have any issue with people of different races, religions or ethnicities. I just want it to stop even though I have no idea or solution to offer in order for that to happen.

      But there are people who cannot forget. And there are people who cannot forgive themselves or others. And there are people who cannot see that there is no collective reason to fight any more.

       I remember Black July with regret that it had to occur at all. I have no answers for you. You have to find them out for yourself.

  - Marisa Wikramanayake

      It's obviously a list week as you can tell. I am really good at this listing thing. Maybe my column should be called Lists From Perth. Perth Diary is an awful name. I am not even technically living in Perth - just in it's Greater Metropolitan Area in Fremantle. And just a note: I am sure my supervisor is a great person but he is also possibly as scatterbrained as I am. Or just busy and I am just paranoid.

1. My supervisor seems to be totally uninterested in what I am doing at the moment or in anything to do with my Honours. I send him panicking messages about the status of the GIS mapping component of it and all he replies back with is: "Thanks for the update." Obviously he is thinking more about his archaeological dig or is swamped under examination grades or is plain not interested. Guess which option my paranoid mind is picking?
   
   
2. I sent off my methodology chapter to my supervisor three weeks ago. Still no response in terms of corrections despite the fact that I see him about once a week at meetings. Not even a verbal reference. It does not make me inclined to write any of my other chapters.
   
   
3. The ratebooks list lot numbers and subdivisions in this format: Lot No 59, Lot No 59a etc. GIS data links every lot number to it's geographical boundaries - if you subdivide it you change the boundaries and thereboy change the lot numbers. This is why I cannot match my historical data to my GIS mapping data using lot numbers. There is no other way to match it up unless I create GIS data by walking around and mapping every boundary of 400 properties with a GPS. It took a call to LANDGATE for me to figure this out - where is my logical commonsense these days? So I can't use GIS for spatial analysis of my data or to provide maps.
   
   
4. My back up for maps is to scan maps from the 1880s-1910 that have the lots marked out on them and use Photoshop to digitally alter and colour in the lots to show changes in landuse and so on. I have Windows Vista, the university computers have Windows XP. The current version of Photoshop for Windows Vista costs $400 US and I have no idea if I can use the version of Photoshop that the XP computers in the university use on my Windows Vista laptop. Whether Vista will throw a fit when I try to install it.
   
   
5. My sleep pattern has gone wonky yet again. This means I am waking up at noon and I am getting thoroughly annoyed because unfortunately most of my research at the moment entails being in libraries which as you know do not open during the night (though I think they should.).
   
   
6. People who have written about what I am researching have done so in very vague terms. It is hard to find out a) the criteria they used for their conclusions and b) the information for that criteria and c) their ideas presented in a qualitative format because....
   
   
7. ... I need to evaluate the data I have to determine whether these people are correct in their theories. I need to do this statistically but statistics require two sets of figures: expected results and actual results. I have the actual results which is what my data tells me but I don't have any expected results which is what the other people who have researched this topic should be giving me. Expect that instead of discussing their ideas in terms of words and figures, they just use words. Very vague words.
   
   
8. It's winter. I am a tropical girl. The weather is just one more thing I really don't want to have to deal with right now but I have to.
   
   
9. I am panicking. I set a deadline for myself of having most of my stuff done and written by the end of June (even though my supervisor said end of July instead) because I am panicking a lot about the draft stage where I send it back and forth between me and my supervisor for several months. Now I am exceedingly more panicky about that because he is not sending me the drafts of anything I have already submitted despite the fact that I sent it in three weeks ago. I extended the period of time for editing the thesis just so I could get more drafts out of it but now I might be lucky if I get one. I am losing faith in my supervisor.
   
   
10. I have two coursework essays to hand in this year - one has already been handed in. Each one is 20% of my final Honours grade. So I might have a wonderful thesis but if I have horrible essays I will not get a First Class grade. My first essay personally I don't think was upto scratch - I have got it back but not my grade on it. So I am pretty sure I have already lost out on the Dean's Prize for Best Honours. At this point I think I might just scrape through with a First Class but if my draft editing period doesn't work out with my supervisor, it's going to hell in a handbasket.
    
    
11. People are already asking what I plan to do next year after Honours. I don't have time to think about or worry about that. I am already too anxious, panicky and nervous.
    

   *sigh*

      "Que sera sera, whatever will be will be". Anyone remember that song? I personally hate that song. Probably because the child asks a question and the mother prevents any further discussion of the topic.

    Someone asked me the other day what I was going to do once Honours was over. She seemed to be afraid that I would continue studying instead of finding a job.

     The truth is that I have no idea.

     When I chose my degree and major, I wanted to study something I was interested in. Something I enjoyed. Something that would not make me want to die horrible deaths come exam time. At that point, picking a major or degree based on the job I wanted was not possible. I did not know what job I wanted to be in. Nor could I have decided on one right then and there. And I very philosophically decided that if I personally wanted to be happy that was not the way it would work.

     So now I have one degree, two majors, and possibly an extra couple of letters tacked on afterwards by the end of this year. Last year this time I thought that perhaps I would attempt to get into the publishing industry. That thought has got a bit swamped. Apparently in Australia the requirements are along the lines of "Do an editing course but you don't need to go to university." That seems a bit odd to me and a bit frustrating as it means I will have to enroll in another year long course somewhere else just to get a piece of paper that indicates that I can spell. And with the way all this set up, panicking about Honours has probably made me miss any enrollment deadlines for such courses that would have started next year.

     I am glad that I decided to write an Honours thesis. Right now, my information is coming together, my research is paying off and even the setback of not having reliable data available for my GIS mapping is not annoying me. Most of all I am glad I am doing this right now because I am improving my writing and research skills and hopefully my time management ones as well. I got a paper back from my supervisor covered in red ink corrections and it didn't annoy me - I was thrilled. The fact that I got thrilled about something that sends other students running for the hills in terror should indicate that a) I am obviously not from this planet and b) I should be an editor.

      But just because I don't have a clue what to do next year, doesn't mean I am unaware of the possibilities. If I hand in an excellent thesis, I might be asked to do a doctorate or further post graduate work. It's also possible that I could publish what I find in book form - given that it's about Fremantle, if written well it should prove very lucrative. Fremantle history books sell like crazy here. I have no idea why though I am sure it has to do with the fact that a) there are lot of older people who live in Fremantle who seem to love geneaology and archeaology and b) books about Fremantle make good coffee table decor, last minute gifts and extremely handy doorstops to keep out the horrible wind during winter. So perhaps I could make a living for awhile off that.

      I could also just get a part time job that I am sufficiently good at and enjoy and then research and write the rest of my novel for an entire year. Maybe my plot will finally string itself together and make an effort to look more decent. Maybe I will make it to the Vogel submission date finally. If accepted for publication then all I have to do is ensure that my friends and every single person related to them buy the book. $20 for one book is not a big sacrifice to make and all I need is enough people to buy the book to make the publishing company think that I am profitable enough to take on the second time around.

      The point here is that I don't know what is going to happen. I will be keeping an eye out for jobs and sending my resume and other such stuff but honestly I really don't know. I might take the first thing that crops up, I might not. This is a situation of my own making and I understand that but I still think that I'd be unhappy if I had decided on a career first and then found myself studying something I didn't really enjoy halfway through. I'd be unhappy if I ended up with a job that I didn't enjoy getting out of bed to go to in the mornings. If I had landed in an office setting that gave me a great salary but was filled with the most annoying co-workers in the world, I'd be frothing in rage. Trust me, the last thing I want to end up with is almost everyone else in the office acting like they haven't left kindergarten yet despite their age. It happens so much in almost every work or school situation that I have been that I have just decided corporate life is not for me. Besides, I am blunt (as I was told by more than a few people recently) and I like to make things more efficient. Would you like to have me in your office environment constantly telling you exactly why things do and do not work and how to fix them? The answer is no. I'd be rocking the boat.

      People at home in Sri Lanka - there's another issue. They are all fully oblivious to the kind of person I am. Some of them expect me to finish my degree, come home, get a job, get married, have kids and so on. I'd love to get married, I'd love to have kids, I'd love to have a job I enjoy doing but the kind of person I am means that I have somehow become very inflexible and picky. It means I want a job I enjoy, that I want to have kids when I want to (adopted or otherwise), and that I want to get married if I want to because it's a personal committment and decision not because it's the normal thing to do. Especially not because it's what "good girls" do. Sometimes the way people judge how good or evil other people are is seriously flawed. Why not judge them on what they do to other people? How they treat others? That is a better indicator.

       Some of them don't expect me to come home at all. Here again, we have poor judgement. They might be right about what I do but not why I do it. They assume that I don't want to come home because I don't have enough pride or love for my country of birth or because I think I am better than that and want to somehow become assimilated into Western culture and so on. If you think hard enough, I am sure you can point a few imaginary fingers at people you know who think this way.

      I am trying to make the most of my existence by actually thinking about what I am doing instead of just going through the motions. I am trying to experience as much as I can. I don't know how long my life is, I don't know what is around the corner and I am not going to foolishly prepare for the outcome I hope I will have to the point where I can't sufficiently make use of the outcome I will actually get. And I don't believe in the norms of the society if there is no inherent logic behind them.

      I don't want to be known as a good mother, a good wife, a good employee/employer etc because I know I will be all those things. I want to be known as somebody who thought about things before acting. Ideas like equal rights and so on - I want to be remembered as someone who really truly believed in them because if I don't believe in them enough, they won't occur in my reality. If I don't believe that I am equal and demand to be treated as if I am, I won't be. If I don't point out logical flaws, other people will continue to apply illogical thinking to what I do and say and hence everything I intend to express will be misunderstood. I may not change the world but if I don't get on my personal soapbox, I have not really helped at all.

      My job doesn't matter to anyone except to me on a personal level. All it needs to do is be something I enjoy doing that I believe in so that I can stick with it and support myself long enough for me to be just one thing.

       Just long enough for me to be me. Whatever that may entail.

   - Marisa Wikramanayake