Seeing beyond bullets and ballots

By Upul Arunajith

For the past three decades or in my adult life, daily I have heard of the war, and its cost. Politicians of every colour shape and size were elected with a slogan “Peace to All” by the peace seeking but naive voters. Unfortunately though, as demonstrated despite their best efforts, we have failed to see sustainable peace. What is evident is all these elected politicians come to office to bring peace to the nation but they leave office at the end of their term with the country in pieces!

Then comes the subject of the national economy. Once again the same outfit comes to office with buzz words “Poverty Elimination”, “Reduce Cost of Living” “Eradicate Corruption” and the like. We have seen and heard this enough since independence. These politicians profess to be experts of their own right to be elected to office. Sooner or later they will prove otherwise and the concealed personal agenda revealed to the utter frustration of the voters. In the past we have had good orators running the country, but oratory skills alone will not develop our Sri Lanka.

What ails Sri Lanka?
Here is a summarized version of observations:

•Terrorism.
•Bad Governance and over politicization.
•Total absence of a progressive and sustainable national development policy.
•Inability to put country before self at policy making levels.
•Demonstrated absence of accountability, transparency and initiative at all levels.
•Demonstrated resistance to new thinking and reluctance to assume calculated risk with new initiatives at a policy making level.
•Overall attitude of the general population of Sri Lanka.

Terrorism:
In the recent years it is true the war / terrorism have had a direct bearing on the economic activities. There are two interpretations to this story. Poor economic management or economic mismanagement since independence laid the foundation successfully and created the right conditions for the current social turbulence. In recent history, in 1971 we missed to identify the signs. This insurgency was labelled as an uprising by the “misguided youth”, predominantly from the majority Sinhalese.

The ruling class of the day pointed fingers at the peasantry and labelled this uprising as a “misguided peasantry” backed revolution when the real cause was economic mismanagement. Few years later we saw yet another uprising - this time by the minority Tamils. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Sinhala majority (again the ruling class) at the controls conveniently gave this crisis an “ethnic mask” this time thus aggravating the situation while deliberately concealing the root cause that lead to two social uprising once by the Sinhalese and then by the Tamils.

No matter what interpretation we strive to give this crisis, all efforts to suppress the cause evidently has been proven to be a futile endeavour. At the end of the day, collectively our continued failure to come to terms with reality and identify the root cause behind this crisis will only lead to more of the same turbulence. Keep feeding the bear, they keep coming back for more! It’s a vicious circle. By the same token, our failure to put the economy in order for the common good of all Sri Lankan (benefits cascading to the grass-root level) we will see a repeat performance of 1971, 1988 and the subsequent minority Tamil-led turbulence.

Governance
It is fair to say, as I have heard in many a social and economic forum, what we see today in Sri Lanka is the net result of “Bad Governance” over the last 50 years. Even at this late stage we must recognize “poor governance” and “over politicization” as the primary causes for the current situation in Sri Lanka.

Over the years we have elected parliamentarians, then turn around and point fingers at them at the drop of hat. We have been trained to expect everything from the parliamentarians as we sent them to the parliament to “Serve the Voters”. Elected parliamentarians alone cannot develop a country without the participation of the citizens. The role of the elected parliamentarian is that of a facilitator. It is therefore incumbent upon the citizens to serve the country zealously with the assistance of the elected parliamentarians.

In Sri Lanka we have had a political culture where the politicians pay little or no heed to the impact of their haphazard decisions on the average person. There has been no properly defined policy guidelines that will give transparency to the decision making process.

National Development Policy
Over the last 60 odd years, we have seen governments come and go. With the change of every government we have seen CTB buses change colour from Blue to Green and then to Red + Blue! The vicious circle continued while the economy was going down an abyss. To say the least, this changing of colour of the CTB buses was the icon of Sri Lankan thinking among the policy makers of the day. The same thinking extended to other sectors as well taking a huge economic toll.

In recent years, various economic polices were brought covering all the banners from “Towards a Self Sufficient Lanka” in the early 1970s that forced the populace to take austerity measures to the introduction of an “Open Economic” policies in the late 1970 that saw an influx of wanted and unwanted cheap foreign goods resulting in the natural death of some indigenous industry thus far progressed well under a controlled economy.

We have seen economic policies in the more recent years “Rata Perata” and the latest catch of all “Mahinda Chinthana”. Were they good? Sure, they were all excellent policies with a political flavour.

Unfortunately though, a review of these policies reflected that these policies were designed and intended to win the ballot of the populace rather than bring about a sustainable development and prosperity to all segments of the society in Sri Lanka. These national development polices in the past were all skewed towards “Green” or “Blue” and were politically affiliated. That was the common thread in all our national development polices. Such policies are short lived as demonstrated and are an abject failure.

The mandate of the political leadership who controls the levers of the nation’s economy is to provide leadership to the right professionals to have the polices formulated. Incompetence, total absence of sustainable development policies and politicization over a prolonged period since independence got our nation to where we are today. Continued failure to identify the root cause of our failure as a nation will lead us in the path of a failed state.

The People
Given the level of politicization we have seen in Sri Lanka it is right to say that it has become a disease. Politicization has reached alarming proportions in Sri Lanka. This situation has only got progressively worse and in the minds of the general population who use the ballot to send their preferred candidate to the parliament does so in the false belief that they use the ballot to elect the candidate to serve them. This collective thinking leads the nation on the wrong path with the notion that it is within their right to expect political favours for the kith and kin even when they are not suitably qualified. This thinking is putting square pegs in round holes and recipe for disaster.

It is the duty of all Sri Lankans regardless of their political affiliations to support the incumbent government. Unfortunately though, even with a high literacy rate in Sri Lanka, we certainly lack the political maturity at every level. This is explicitly demonstrated by the Oppositions we have had in our Parliament. Our inherent thinking is that the Opposition’s role is to oppose any and all progressive initiatives of an incumbent government. There is no rhyme or reason for this.

Further, in Sri Lanka we still think in terms of Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Aristocratic Kandyan, staunch UNPer, SLFPer, a practicing Buddhist, a devoted Hindu or a Catholic.

Taking stock
Can our past and the present parliamentarians be blamed for poor governance? That is a whole different discussion. If our voters were savvy and used their ballets prudently by sending competent people to office these problems could be potentially averted. The problem lies with the voters. Perpetually we have used our ballot to send the wrong political outfit to office.

Then lately, we see and hear that our politicians are corrupt. Universally, we see corrupt politicians. This is not confined to Sri Lanka. Though no one is lily white and pure, it is not fair to say that all politicians in Sri Lanka are corrupt. A corrupt few besmirch the parliamentary process and makes democracy a mockery. Voters must assume responsibility for electing the unscrupulous.

As well, we have heard this term “failed state” synonymous with Sri Lanka. Is it a failed state? It has all the hallmarks of drifting towards a failed state but we are not a failed state. Poverty, homeless people, malnutrition, poor health care, un-employment, and crime these are nothing unique to Sri Lanka. These integral social issues are rampant in the so called developed world as well. In North America (G8 member nations) 1/3 of the population lives below the poverty line and depends on the food banks.

As the Western countries refer to Sri Lanka very poignantly and strive to brand Sri Lanka as a failed state, I see infinite potential in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s economy has been resilient while we face an engineered terrorist situation. Our remarkable and sustained economic growth (inflation adjusted) makes our economy a model economy.

Self-Sufficiency within a Global Economy
Indian economic re-awakening was based on the foundation laid by Mahatma Gandhi who advocated the concept of ‘Self Sufficient Village’. The modern Indian economic miracle was driven by the solid foundation of a Self-Sufficient India. Even during a time when we see so much emphasis placed on economic theories that advocate “Economic Inter-dependence”, the concept of “Self-Sufficient Village” as advocated by Mahatma Gandhi stands tall. Community Self sufficiency insulates the people from external economic downturns. With the impending global food crisis, localization of the economy is not a utopia. It will be the only viable future for Sri Lanka.

Evidently, Sri Lanka has perpetually taken the path of least resistance. This was demonstrated when one of the ministers recently stated that Sri Lanka must piggyback on the Indian success. Regrettably, this explicitly reflected the Sri Lankan thinking. Piggybacking on the neighbour’s success is recipe for continued failure. Even after 60 years of independence as a nation, we still think in terms of “piggybacking” on the neighbour’s success!!

Self sufficiency
The need for self sufficiency is more than ever before. As a nation when we have to depend on outside forces for our basics, we become so much vulnerable to shifts in the market dynamics. This was amply demonstrated recently when we had to depend on imported dry milk powder for our consumption. When our own diary industry infrastructure was destroyed over the years due to mismanagement and over politicization, we had to depend on imported milk powder, placing a strain on our limited foreign exchange. The multinational corporations were calling the shots holding the nation to ransom.

In the case of the milk shortage, this again is nothing but an engineered problem and a clear reflection of lack of proper policies. The beneficiaries are a few multinationals who take advantage of the situation.

We cannot be self sufficient in milk when we close down the “Milk Bars”, start “slaughtering the cow” and depend on “imported milk powder”.

In Ambewala, we have one of the largest milk processing facilities in Asia. Still we have to import dry milk powder for our consumption. We send our mothers to the Middle East to earn foreign exchange and we import dry milk powder to feed the infants while advocating breast feeding. Something is fundamentally wrong. This is nothing but a mockery! We can easily save the Rs 18,000,000 annually spent on imported milk powder by investing that on the local diary farming infrastructure development. We have been blindly playing into the hands of the multinational corporation in the absence of policies.

When as a nation, we have to depend on imported goods, on the long term this kills the local industry. Over the years, the local consumers demonstrated resistance to local products (i.e. milk) due to the availability of cheap imported alternatives (i.e. milk powder). As a result, progressively the local diary industry lost traction and failed to compete with the imported milk powder. The situation further aggravated when the “Milk Bars” once a common sight was abolished.

We send our females to the Middle East to work as housemaids for minimum wages of US $150, when our per capita income is US $1300! We take tremendous pride that we get $3.billion annually from the Middle East employees. This money comes to us at a terrible cost that is non-economic and forms the subject of a whole different discussion.

Sending our mothers to the Middle East to serve as housemaids is not the only solution to our unemployment and foreign exchange situation. Once again, the solution leads to other social problem.

The government must introduce a scheme where they can make better and more meaningful contributions to the local economy by collectively getting involved in diary farming and similar initiatives. Such project initiatives will give them the opportunity for improved cash flow while making contributions to the economy. Initially there will be problems. Refinements will come with the passage of time.

In 1991 the Indian economy was dependent on the remittances from those Indian nationals employed in the Persian Gulf. Unfortunately the Iraqi Army’s infamous invasion and the following turn of events lead to the loss of employment in the Middle East and remittances from the Persian Gulf dropped. Armed with this experience India launched an ambitious programme to have the youth trained in other sectors where they needed skilled professionals. The result is there is a new generation of software engineers and Indian nationals are in the forefront in software engineering sector. This experience gives us reason to shift gears and look into other untapped areas where we can train our youth with some skill that is in demand.

Strategy for Progress - Battle for new Ideas
We should be receptive to new thinking. My personal experience is such that in Sri Lanka at a policy making level, if they lack knowledge in a certain subject, there is reluctance to acknowledge the situation. Policy makers must be receptive to new thinking.

I see a lot of potential in Sri Lanka. We have a literate work force. We have over two million Sri Lankan professionals scattered around the globe. These two million expatriates with international exposure is a great strength to Sri Lanka in its nation building endeavour. They have the knowledge and the capital. But the question remains, can the nation garner their support in this nation development exercise. While I cannot speak on behalf of the Sri Lankan Diaspora, it will be fair to say that the present economic and social conditions certainly precludes them from getting associated with any such initiatives. The government should make a clarion call to the Sri Lankan professionals around the globe and make the conditions right for their return. For the right conditions to be in place there has to be proper policies that are transparent and progressive and implemented by those who will put the country ahead of self interest.

Regain lost glory
Finger pointing is a national past-time in Sri Lanka. Opening a new era, in this new-year, we all must hold hands in solidarity and walk towards one goal. We Sri Lankans from coast to coast owe it to our mother land. No matter in which corner of the globe we are in; we are the sons and the daughters of Sri Lanka, the country with infinite potential. This is our finest moment to serve our mother Lanka! Real change has to come from within the individual. That’s where the real impact is going to be for sustainable development.

The writer is based in Canada and could be contacted on uarunajith@can.rogers.com