SOMEONE KEEP SCORE!

On the strong recommendation of a friend, I visited an astrologer cum séance whose skills were hailed with words such as “unbelievable, fantastic and amazing”. I went to see this “gifted” person with the air of a certain Thomas with doubts. My meeting with destiny was prepaid, so I happily entered two creaky doors made of Balsa wood and jostled into my seat bathed in incense. My female astrologer revealed that I supposedly had a daughter who possesses a very sullen character, a lack of friends, and a general great distrust for all humans. She couldn’t have been speaking of my favourite lass though, as she is quite the opposite. Then she revealed that a girlfriend was calling out for me. She described the said girl as a “Lioness” with a fine mane of hair, who was now engaged in the oldest profession. At this point my patience was wearing thin. I offered her ten times her fee and appealed to her for the name of the establishment where she practised her craft, only to be told that I wasn’t serious. I was then shown the door. I exercised tolerance, twice in one day. Someone please keep score.  

About ten years ago, I was leaving a restaurant and racing home listening to all six cylinders hitting the top notes. But I was pulled over by the police and had my licence withdrawn for six months. Being a lateral sort of thinker, I hired a driver named Raja and deducted the expense off my profit and loss, coming out trumps with the government paying for my heavy foot. Raja was a Pakistani who wore hillbilly tartan shirts, striped crimson pants and flip flops even in the middle of winter. Apart from his disgusting dress sense, I found out I hired a man who hated the West (and Western women in particular), and who thought Islam should be taught to everybody. His redeeming qualities were that he also thought his mother was an angel from heaven, and that his two sisters were minor cherubs. I had to bite my bottom lip every time he spoke of the merits and magnificence of“Islamdom”. More tolerance. Please keep score.  

Most members of my family are garden-variety “God-botherers”. They believe that Israel is the chosen race, when it’s a country filled to the Plimsoll line with black Ethiopians, Arabs, Europeans, Russians and host of other nationalities who just happen to have popped in for a bit of Judaism. Why God decided to make an illiterate nomadic people in a desert strewn with rocks and broken sandals his chosen flock is as confounding as trying to get your head around a Hawking theory. I have generally bitten my upper lip with my family regarding their views, though at times I have let slip with some harsh words that I am a slave too. But more tolerance has been exercised by me, even though this type of messianic thinking is about as bad as the seventy-two virgins that ISIS seems to think are waiting cross-legged for them. I couldn’t think of anything worse than a flap of Catholic nuns turning up for the orgy. We now find it’s seventy-two raisins. So much for all those fools who have gone to heaven and the interpretation of a faith put into text on bone, twenty years after the death of Muhammad!  

"Every time I meet someone who serves me coffee whose face is like an iron-monger’s workshop (with valueless steel artefacts hanging from their nose, ears, tongue and lips), I exercise tolerance. These metallurgists follow on the heels of the tattoo-strutting pacifists that plague my world. In later life, they’ll find their art will turn into a version of Edvard Munch’s “Scream”

A few years ago, I was tucking into Thai with a Jewish friend, and he brought up the issue of Palestine. I had to keep silent as he attacked their demagoguery and malevolence. When my tolerance dam burst, I replied, “Slingshots vs F-16s across the border. Does Israel have a clearly defined border as every other country does, or does it end wherever the Komatsu stops for the day?” He left the restaurant mid-meal, and I have since been overly cautious about upsetting him. Once again a wagon load of tolerance is applied, as I meet him often.  
Every time I meet someone who serves me coffee whose face is like an iron-monger’s workshop (with valueless steel artefacts hanging from their nose, ears, tongue and lips), I exercise tolerance. These metallurgists follow on the heels of the tattoo-strutting pacifists that plague my world. In later life, they’ll find their art will turn into a version of Edvard Munch’s “Scream”. Tattoos, were meant to be worn by rebellious characters, like pirates with skulls and bones etched into their biceps, not by the tattoo-wearers of today, who are all vegan, wear hemp and swear like mad. Swearing as a practice doesn’t quite count for being a dissident. If it did, the whole world would be insurrectionary.  

I’ve been friends with one of the only right-wing Muslims in the world. He is an anti-immigration, pro-Trump, climate-change skeptic who believes he is a few shades lighter than us brown-skinned devils, and he therefore has aligned himself with the ultra-white conservative mind. Conversations with this individual require very high levels of patience and tolerance. The mental exertion on my part is palpably visible on my eyebrows which I knit when he speaks and my tongue sleeps still when he catches his breath. Recently, I suggested he shouldn’t waste his hard-earned on the right-wing newspaper he reads on Saturday, and instead spend it on bacon and eggs which could be much more beneficial to his health. He stopped talking to me for three months! So, I’m back to keeping my mouth shut and tip-toeing. More tolerance, and this time it’s in container loads.  

The point of telling you my tolerance stories is that as a civilization we’ve become far too tolerant and accepting of things that annoy us. Outdated customs are practised with utter disregard to our sensitivities. Opinions are provided when none are wanted. When as a tribe did we need so many suggestions? Most of what is preached and proffered is drivel anyway. Anson Cameron (who writes for “The Age” newspaper) wrote these words after the Christchurch attack. “His wild act is as denunciatory of the West as of Islam”.   

We have allowed fools to run riot, rule the roost and speak for us. It’s about time we took the narrative back and told them to shut up. Our capacity for tolerance is exhausted. It will make us vulnerable. But we have to speak out. We cannot expect change if we don’t make the effort. Egalitarianism has run its course. Egalitarians are snobs. Ironically, they see themselves as superior while pointing out inequality. A multicultural, poly-religious society like ours needs some boundaries. The nonsensical “borderless, accepting of all cultures” ethos has failed. We might start with severing diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the font of all this evil. It’s about time Sri Lanka stopped standing on the shoulders of maids to pay its bills. Surely our security and freedom is more important than using the hard currency of the madmen. Believe me, these people are the infidels. They are a manner less, barbaric race who have shown themselves to be unsuitable for inclusion in the international community. They have raped our women, mistreated our countrymen and directly funded terrorism to destroy our culture. Lest we forget. They gave us Bin Laden, the 9-11 Bombers and infanticide in Yemen. We should rid ourselves of them and be the first country to do so. It is we who gave the World it’s first female Prime Minister. It’s time to write history all over again.   

SHERHAN CADERAMANPULLE