If immigrants look back at Sri Lanka! - EDITORIAL

How can we make Sri Lankans think differently with the beginning of a new year being just around the corner? One way of thinking in these lines which hasn’t been pursues much is to go to another country and look at ways of developing this island. One book which can help us achieve that is the present Booker Prize winning novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’. Its author Shehan Karunatilaka won this prize through his writing probably because he saw different details of Sri Lanka while living abroad. 
There are so many promising writers in Sri Lanka who don’t travel overseas; hence the experience they possess to write with being very limited. This is despite most of them living in the thick of disasters like the island’s civil war.

Most Sri Lankans promote state enterprise and through it concessions for people. Sri Lanka at one time promoted socialism and boosted this theory by taking over private enterprises that weren’t performing. However countries like China, despite holding on to its communism badge, have promoted privatization in their urge to grow as nations. Sri Lanka still largely waits for the investor to surface with ideas. Most of these ideas and business proposals are shot down by the trade unions of state enterprise. This is done to keep working less productively and secure the jobs of the average performers. A classic example for this is the objection the Sri Lankan government encountered when attempting to strike a deal with the Indian Adani Group in selling much of the stake of the Colombo Harbour’s East Jetty. The Indian company was eventually given 85% of the stake of the West Jetty of the harbour instead.  In a country like China it’s the state that decides on how much and what state enterprises are privatised. In Sri Lanka it’s the workers represented trade unions and priests that influence such crucial decision making. When the Rajapaksa regime won the war in 2009 the people of this country saw the emergence of a Demi God- the then president. The then president Mahinda Rajapaksa was considered as the next able leader after King Dutugemunu. The Rajapaksas promoted nationalism and patriotism and the thinking was to remind everyone what a great nation we were and that people had forgotten about that! The Rajapaksa regime obtained massive loans and chunks of it went on making roads and highways. When people travelled on these facilities they started believing much of the propaganda which rolled out of the then president’s media machine. People were overwhelmed by what they saw as development which came in the form of massive structures. China however read the situation differently. Their (China’s) alternative view showed that Sri Lanka’s then regime (Between 2005-2015) was more in the line of being predictable rather than being great. China observed that Sri Lanka would continue taking loans not knowing how to repay them. Much of the misery we are experiencing is because of that period of rule. 

These are days when qualified professionals and ambitious youth are migrating in hordes. But this is also the time when ambitious foreign business entities are sending their representatives to consider investment; because the island still has much potential given its geographical location and natural resources. One thing that potential investors would do is get rid of unions and underperforming labour if they start business here. Why can’t the government do the same given that it has more power than all the island’s thriving limited liability companies put together? 

If Sri Lanka needs to come out of this financial mess putting these unions in their place is as important as getting rid of corrupt politicians. 
With the dawn of the New Year more people will immigrate. More Sri Lankans living outside the nation would perhaps read ‘Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’. But how many would remember Sri Lanka and want to return and do something for this lovely country. 

We have lovely smiles which capture the hearts of visitors and foreigners. But the island’s savage mentality surfaces when people see opportunity and with it competition. This is why people who want to leave Sri Lanka must read Shehan’s masterpiece. It’s easy for Sri Lankans who immigrate to fathom the author’s wish regarding the book. Shehan wants his book moved from the present location in bookshelves to the fantasy section in the years to come. We hope that much of Sri Lanka would have changed by then!