Sunday Times 2
Whither Sri Lankans: Coming, going or gone?
Developments or rather events, both national and international, appear to be moving so rapidly that in Sri Lankan terms, we can say: ‘We don’t know whether we are coming, going or gone’
Donald Trump, the world’s most unpredictable and most powerful leader appears to be ‘gone’ but now comes Joe Biden of a more stable variety which our international grapevine says could be more susceptible to Eelam lobbyists. Diplomats, diplomatic strategists of varied sorts could say that bridges should have been built to the Biden camp some time ago but all that has been said before power shifts in Washington took place. It couldn’t be easily done then nor can it be done now. Certainly, it was difficult with the record of some of our earlier dramatis personae in Washington who are alleged to have attempted real estate deals with our embassy premises.
Trump’s then UN representative called the United Nations Human Rights Council a ‘Cesspit of bias’ and pulled out of the UNHRC but the US pressure on Lanka did not ease at the Geneva sessions of the organisation and remains so, even though some key players such as a former US ambassador went beyond the call of duty to give the Rajapaksa party a boost before their return to office.
Do we now expect India, Washington’s recent Asian strategic ally against China, to persuade US and influence its Western allies to go soft on the Sri Lankan issue at Geneva?
The Americans have not been hesitant to show their opposition to China’s influence in Lanka. But State Minister Nivard Cabraal has confidently spoken of Chinese direct foreign investment amounting to over 4 billion dollars coming into Lanka. At the present level of Sri Lanka Chinese relations, more assistance and investments could be anticipated.
America has already announced sanctions against a key Chinese company operating in Sri Lanka. With America and the European Union being the main markets for Sri Lankan exports, the inevitable question is whether our growing links with China could affect export markets.
Funeral politics
The issue of the disposal of bodies of Muslims who die of the Covid 19 virus — like all other communal or religious issues in history — is dragging on with a resolution not in sight. It has now gone beyond our shores and international organisations are taking it up.
The Government states it is going on the expert medico-legal advice while Muslin organisations point out that their demand for traditional burial is being supported by world authorities on viruses and even the WHO. As in most Sri Lankan issues, burials/cremations have got embroiled in religious-communal politics and are threatening the political stability.
President Rajapaksa’s election mandate was based on think tanks alleged to comprise the country’s foremost intellectuals but this issue along with other issues on minority demands remains unresolved. Pronouncements made last week by the Health Ministry appear that the Government will go ahead with its decision to cremate but Muslims are seething with anger and the problem seems far from being resolved.
The forgotten heroes
The third immediate issue in our opinion is the plight of hundreds of thousands of expatriate Sri Lankans who have been cruelly hit by this Covid virus. Thousands of them are still abroad having lost their jobs, without means of subsistence. The others have scraped enough to buy their air tickets and arrived cent-less after labouring for years. There are stories that they have been booked into tourist hotels (strongly denied by the Government authorities) while others have quarantined in centres managed by the armed forces
It could be pointed out that this is the plight of most expatriate workers of poor countries hit by the pandemic, particularly in Asia. But unlike most other countries which banned women from working abroad, particularly in Middle East countries, a large proportion of Sri Lankan workers are women.
They are poor young women and mothers who wanted to help their families escape from the poverty orbit by earning a few thousand rupees and sending it home for their families to build a modest house and provide better education for their children. The heartrending stories of their suffering are too well known and need not be repeated here.
What cannot be ignored is that when their foreign exchange earnings were pouring into the depleted coffers of the Sri Lankan Treasury, we all acclaimed that they were National Heroes. They became the highest foreign exchange earners of Sri Lanka.
These poor workers sent all the money earned—every cent—back to their country in contrast to the better educated professionals who kept them in bank accounts of Western nations and built up the bank balances for their brood to study abroad, which they could have well done at home. Others forsook their motherland, took the oath of severance of loyalty to their country and even pledged to take arms to defend their new found homeland.
In this blessed island there are national heroes and also national heroes who are now reduced to zeroes. Some national heroes deservedly are well looked after, continued employment, salaries, pensions and excellent health facilities—even for their families. But why not these humble workers from whose contributions the country kept going during the 30-year war?
They worked each day perhaps for 18 hours amidst torture and harassment and even warding off rapists. At home their families cracked up in the absence of a mother at home. Children went astray and even committed suicide.
Thousands of them are knocking on the doors of Sri Lankan embassies for months, perhaps a year, to come back home. They deserve much more than media statements that do not seem to materialise.
Toilers of the soil
Lastly, the generations of traditional ‘goviyas’—the cultivators of rice and vegetables mostly in the dry zone who have kept the nation alive for the much celebrated 2500 years or more. How many of them are above the poverty line even 64 years after that great 1956 Revolution that is said to have liberated the peasantry? They are still unable to sell their produce at a fair price — and the mountains of rotting pumpkins in their fields and at marketing centres only a few months ago were symbolic of the poor who eke out their existence by tilling the soil.
Another group of cultivators, the Chena cultivators at night still leave their family shacks and climb trees to watch out for marauding elephants which damage their cultivations, homes and even kill them.
The strategy of prosperity and splendour has still to have an impact on these desperate people.
Whether these desperate people can see the towering Lotus Tower in Colombo at a distance or they can be seen from the Lotus Tower high up in the trees with their torch lights (pandang), we do not know.
True, it is only a little more than a year since Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected the president and his strategy of Visions of Splendour and Prosperity was supposed to go into action. The COVID-19 virus would have retarded much of proposed progress of action. But now he has the two-thirds majority to steam ahead.
But do we see that happening as the country rids itself of the Covid shackles?
Should we keep watch over the progress of Lanka or keep singing that everything is wonderful in this paradise isle?
(The writer is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and former consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)