{"id":40913,"date":"2015-01-18T02:59:13","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T08:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=40913"},"modified":"2015-01-17T19:58:50","modified_gmt":"2015-01-18T02:58:50","slug":"political-symbolism-and-infections-of-the-mind-parallels-between-president-obama-and-president-mahinda-rajapaksa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/01\/18\/political-symbolism-and-infections-of-the-mind-parallels-between-president-obama-and-president-mahinda-rajapaksa\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICAL SYMBOLISM AND INFECTIONS OF THE MIND – PARALLELS BETWEEN PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRESIDENT MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

R. Chandrasoma<\/h2>\n
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The negative things that were done to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, similar things were done to President Obama by those who opposed him.<\/div>\n
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u00a0inherited a mess of a country in 2005 from CBK\/RW. He took the demoralized army and with Col. Gotabaya Rajapaksa refurbished it and defeated the LTTE in 2009. He saved 300,000 TAMIL civilians from LTTE and built them homes and gave them their lives back. Even the LTTE cadre were rehabilitated and allowed to enter society. The West which had been supportive of LTTE right along, started making allegations against MR of War crimes through the UN. The Opposition leader went round the world criticizing MR and his government. MR rebuilt virtually the entire infrastructure of the North and the East and built many high speed roads to facilitate travel in the country. The city of Colombo was cleaned up and became a shining city to be proud of. Yet at the recent election the opposition placed a “meme” in the psyche of the people which spread like a virus and took hold. The meme was that MR was guilty of corruption and family bandyism. The fact was the only person elected by him was Col. Gota as Defense Secretary while all the other members of him family such as Basil, Namal, Chamal etc., contested seats on their own right and won the seats in the Parliament. MR was caught unawares by the “meme” and lost the election.\u00a0It appears that if people use their reason they should have voted for MR but in fact they voted against him due to the negative emotions caused by the “meme”.<\/div>\n
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In case of President Obama they launched a “meme” branding him as a Kenyan and a Muslim. This was actually believed by many Americans and even today about 42% believe he is a Muslim, and some say that he is a not an American ! \u00a0 Recently there was a group demonstrating in front of the White House threatening to pull out the traitor while he is kneeling to Allah and hang \u00a0him. (See attached).\u00a0 President Obama as you know inherited a USA on a verge of fiscal collapse in 2008. People were losing jobs at the rate of 800,000 jobs\/month. Banks were not giving any credit and the economy was in a frozen state. The Republican Congress blocked every initiative he tried to pass to create jobs and even the jobs bill he tried to do like Franklin Roosevelt to build the crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges) in USA was blocked. They tried to prevent him from bailing out General Motors, and Chrysler. He did it in the teeth of their opposition and today both GM and Chrysler are healthy and have paid back the bail out money. President Obama managed to pass the Affordable Care Act and also USA has had continuous job creation for the last 55 weeks. The deficit has been reduced by 2\/3 and yet the hatred towards him from a section of the population is strange. During the last election for Congress many Democrats tried to disassociate themselves with President Obama. He was not invited to speak on behalf of the Democratic candidates and the net result was Democrats lost heavily. It appears that if people use their reason they should have voted for President Obama’s party, but \u00a0in fact they voted emotionally (in doubt about his integrity) due to the “meme” and voted against him and his partly.<\/div>\n
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The article below explains what happens to people when they are infected with a mental virus or a meme.<\/div>\n
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http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/tea-partiers-protest-lynch-obama<\/a><\/div>\n
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http:\/\/www.island.lk\/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=117584<\/a><\/div>\n
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Political symbolism and Infections of the Mind<\/h4>\n

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Island January 13, 2015, 12:00 pm<\/p>\n

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A Symbol is something that represents, stands for, or suggests an idea, belief, action, or entity. In the recently concluded presidential election, the defeated candidate \u2013 Mahinda Rajapaksa \u2013 was viewed in two diametrically different ways by the two major players – the Sinhala Buddhists on the one hand and the Tamils on the other. Let us take the Tamils first. The former President (MR) was viewed symbolically \u2013 rather than as a practical achiever – by this ‘chagrined’ community in the North and East. This translates into the fact that a picture was created of MR based not on direct knowledge of his characteristics (and political agenda) but his place in a mythology of collective self-healing. Thus MR is necessarily the Ogre while Prabhakaran is the valiant hero who would have brought glory to the Tamils but for the untimely appearance of this Southern Fighter. How else can we explain the near-total support of the unknown Sirisena in the Tamil areas that has benefited so much from the uncompromising generosity of MR in recompense for the damage done by a war that was not started by him? Demonizing is a large-sale political adaptation in populations troubled by dilemmas that have no clear avenues of resolution. The overwhelming vote for Mr Sirisena is a turning away from a troubling reality that justifies a vote for the unknown. Vulgarly, the expression ‘Hobson’s Choice’ is most apt.
\nLet us look at the Sinhala-Buddhist voters. A striking fact is that the Anti-MR vote is patchy showing what naturalists call ‘discontinuous distribution’. It is as if a ‘mental virus’ \u2013 called a ‘meme’- appears focally and spreads in regions where a ‘pabulum’ or ‘background’ exists for the spread of this invasive idea. The notion of a ‘meme’ or ‘Mental Virus’ was introduced by the famous evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins to account for the rapid spread across populations of ideas that bring comfort and are easily copied’ but are rarely adaptive. The notion ‘Our troubles are due to the rottenness of the political leadership and the grand larceny of government cronies who rob and cheat shamelessly’ is a meme that spreads rapidly in disgruntled and envious populations. City folk \u2013 ranging from taxi drivers to shop assistants. Constables and barbers on the one hand and professors of learning and legal luminaries on the other were infected with the meme or virus that created a raging fever of hostility towards a regime that had done much good and little harm to the citizens of this country. Those infected shout \u2013’they have robbed cheated, swindled, lied and bankrupted the country’. This is the ‘phenotype’ of the meme or mental virus that has ‘invaded’ large populations \u2013 nobody has been physically robbed or cheated by the maligned class of rulers but truthfulness is not a characteristic of a meme or mental virus. Its success in changing mental states and infecting others in the course of social interactions are alone significant. That this ‘virus’ had such success betrays an underlying meanness of spirit that fosters envy and hatred of a supposed elite. That some Buddhist monks were ‘leaders’ of a hate-campaign against a supposed evil leadership is a matter that must dishearten all sincere Buddhists.
\nLet us cut a long story short \u2013 MR was defeated by the successful spread of a mental virus in the Sinhala Periphery that changed a one-time grateful population into a growing horde of bad-mouthed skeptics and accusers. This virus failed to hold successfully in the rural areas but its conquest was sufficient to defeat MR and change the course of Sri Lankan history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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R. Chandrasoma The negative things that were done to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, similar things were done to President Obama by those who opposed him. President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u00a0inherited a mess of a country in 2005 from CBK\/RW. He took the demoralized army and with Col. Gotabaya Rajapaksa refurbished it and defeated the LTTE in 2009. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}