Harry and Mixed Race Meghan

I wrote this in my facebook wall on 18th of May:

 I am not a fan of the establishment called Royals as many of you know. However, I still remember the day when Princess Diana died. We were holidaying in a caravan park in Cornwall. I immediately thought about her young boys, sons. Now, I know how difficult sometimes to marrying into a different culture, or race and having mixed race children. Sometimes you get a slack from the both side of the divide. Luckily we live in London, magnificent city with loads of mixed race children and with really easy going, tolerant crowd. Unfortunately sometimes you come across some tribal people coming here from four corners of the world, while enjoying the cultural benefits and tolerance provided by Londoners, still trying to force their tribal rules on us.
So for me, Prince Henry Charles aka Harry from the a leading family in UK has real guts to go for Meghan. Well done man. Good luck to both of you for tomorrow.

Then I got a reply from a friend like this:

Can you clarify what you meant by tribal?. It's quite funny kids with money get so much sympathy from the public not the kids just because they marry women with high level of melanin. It's just these royal idiots are still in the 1800 and they have so much catch up to do . Start it with cutting down British public tax money now that's guts. Mute marrying a girl with higher melanin.

I replied to him:  Because there are people who are still looking at mixed race marriages disapprovingly.

Then my mixed race daughter replied to him this way. I love this reply. So I am posting  it here.

It seemed like some clearing up was warranted and I apologise in advance if some misunderstandings occur, mainly due to the fact that this conversation wasn’t the best example of ideal spelling and grammar. 

Firstly, I think ‘tribal’ was supposed to refer to the result of an upbringing and experience in an environment that wasn’t diverse and tolerant for a person of that community to easily learn and be able to reciprocate these values of acceptance, individual liberty and mutual respect to the extent that you and me would expect. 

Secondly, there has been a previous point that Meghan’s ethnicity and culture in relation to her marriage into the Royal Family is a symbol of societal progress in terms of the difference between the general attitude to interracial couples in the past and nowadays. You seem to have reduced this point to nothing but Meghan being a ‘girl with higher melanin’. Of course, this is true and I also believe that many racial prejudices and forms of discrimination are absolutely absurd and disgusting due to the fact that we are all just humans with varying amounts of melanin.

 However, the problem is that you have used this phrase as a classic example of the ‘straw-man fallacy’ by completely dismissing everything behind what being a ‘girl with higher melanin’ becoming the wife of Prince Harry means in our society. Melanin doesn’t determine who you are as a person, but it is determined by who your parents are, who, in turn, are a significant factor in determining your culture, upbringing, behaviour, etc. Meghan’s melanin level determines how people behave towards her, and if they decide to feel hopeful and enthusiastic about the fact this symbol of British culture – the position of Duchess – is now filled by a woman who happens to have lived her whole life knowing the struggles and jubilations of a biracial person, why not just let them be happy about it? 

Thirdly, this wedding may be a ‘mainstream vanity stunt’ but some people like it and they, most importantly, have the freedom to like it. A lot of those people also don’t just forget about other pressing international issues overnight, but they do welcome the idea that as well as terror, devastation and fighting, we must not lose sight of the joys of life that we fight for in the first place and maybe it’s nice to see an event based on love in the news just for one brief moment, instead of one based on pure negativity. Also, the complaints about the ‘£32 million’ spent on the wedding seem rather meagre compared to the expected boost to the UK economy that varies from £500 million to £2 billion as long as we’re not being too specific. I understand your point but I would be considerably more sympathetic to it if the Royal Family didn’t actually benefit our economy in some ways.Just remember, this is just a wedding and the family is just bunch of fancy people. 

In the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal at the end of the day. 
- this was written by a family member with a slightly differing opinion on the subject btw

A Management Lesson

A friend sent me this.


A father left 17 ducks as asset for his Three Sons.

When the Father passed away, his sons opened up the will.

The Will of the Father stated that the Eldest son should get Half of 17 ducks,

The Middle Son should be given 1/3rd of 17 ducks,

Youngest Son should be given 1/9th of the 17 ducks

As it is not possible to divide 17 into half or 17 by 3 or 17 by 9, the sons started to fight with each other.

So, they decided to go to a wise man who lives in a cave.

The wise man listened patiently about the Will. The wise man, after giving this thought, brought one duck of his own & added the same to 17. That increased the total to 18 ducks.

Now, he started reading the deceased father’s will.

Half of 18 = 9.
So he gave 9 ducks
to the eldest son.

1/3rd of 18 = 6.
So he gave 6 ducks
to the middle son.

1/9th of 18 = 2.
So he gave 2 ducks
to the youngest son.

Now add this up:
9 + 6 + 2 = 17 &
This leaves 1 duck
which the wise man took back.

MORAL: The attitude of negotiation & problem solving is to find the 18th duck i.e. the common ground. Once a person is able to find the common ground, the issue is resolved. It is difficult at times.

However, to reach a solution, the first step is to believe that there is a solution. If we think that there is no solution, we won’t be able to reach any!

Picture from this site:https://www.varagesale.com/northwest-orlando-fl-buy-and-sell/i/dm2tfjnn-muscovy-ducks-for-sale

Hundred years to the Russian Revolution

Kremlin

It is one hundred years to Russian Revolution today. When I was around 17 or 18 I read John Reed's "Ten days that shook the world" and it gave me goosebumps. It was like reading a thriller.  Then Gorky's "Mother", Ostrovsky's "How to temper the steel" to  Sholohov and Yuri bonderyev's stories make me admire the revolution more and more.

I told my daughters today morning.
"you know if Lenin did not do that revolution in 1917 there would be no Soviet union. I probably would not have got that scholarship and went to study in Soviet union. That means I may never have come to England. I may not even met your mother, my wife. You would not have been born. That's how it affected us."

But then, I had another choice to study in Sri Lanka. I may or may not ended up doing higher studies in another country and I may have met german wife there and then.My wife ia avid traveler and she may have  come to Sri lanka we could have ended up meeting each other. We may or may not have met in any of these places.

Difficult to guess really what would have happened. But I always know what happened. But, does my individual choice is important in this? Not really. This whole event and subsequent 70 years were bigger than one person. Bigger than entire nation. It affected the whole world. It changed the cause of the history.

Dmitri Volkogonov says this in his book "The rise and fall ofthe Soviet Empire".

"For seven decades of the twenties century, the soviet union followed the path mapped out by Lenin. it became a military superpower feared by the rest of the world, and it built a mighty technological, industrial, military and scientific economy. But it failed to make its people wither happy or free. It was the first country to send a man into space but it did nothing to improve human rights for its citizens.the people who carried out the 'Great October Socialist Revolution', who won the 'Great Patriotic War' and who advanced towards the 'Great Constructions of Communism' gained neither liberty nor prosperity for their efforts. 'Shoulder to shoulder' they marched along the Leninist path which had room for the masses only, elbowing the individual out of the way.

- Dmitri Volkogonov