Columns

Another independence day – the 68th since we gave the British the brush off or so some say – has come and gone. The bugles are silenced. The swords are back in their scabbards, the soldiers back in their barracks. The high and the mighty who sat on the stage on Galle Face Green have returned to their state – provided homes in Colombo or wherever, their duty seemingly done. The country’s freedom and sovereignty are in safe hands.

A Mirissa resort that refuses to serve local customers

There was some early flutter in the official dovecotes when it was deduced that the sun’s rays would get in the way of public appreciation of the nation’s great leaders as they sat on stage with the solemnity the occasion demanded or when they sang the national anthem in two languages for the first time since the days of Don Stephen Senanayake, independent Ceylon’s first Prime Minister.

The public of course might have a different view of things. The public might see it as a blessing in disguise had the faces remained unnoticed or unrecognisable. For then the citizenry would be spared looking at those who pledged from other platforms a year or more ago they would ensure the greatest good for the greatest number.

The rhetoric in independence day speeches would wish us to believe that the country is on the march to the sound of horn and drum to greater glory as a united nation where every race and religion and every individual would be treated equally and with dignity, in which the law will prevail over the lawless and political delinquency would be replaced by adherence to a strict code of moral values.

But as T.S Eliot said about the plays of John Webster one must look at the skull beneath the skin. Alas, the skull on view is not a pleasant sight. It seems that independence is not just a highly misunderstood term but deliberately twisted and turned to suit the cravings and desires of individuals and groups. Freedom to perform some actions is often equated with the independence to do anything.

Some days ago the Daily Mirror, the sister paper of the Sunday Times, carried two news reports of hotels and restaurants in southern Sri Lanka that cater only to foreigners and refuse to provide service to Sri Lankans. Last Sunday this newspaper carried a further report of the national/racial discrimination that Sri Lankans suffer in their own country at the hands of owners and staff of hotels and restaurants, especially in Mirissa which was the local area in the spotlight.

Maybe it is happening elsewhere too but has not been highlighted in the national media. There was a time when local people complained they had not been admitted to some tourist hotels and cafes located in the Galle Fort.
The most recent news reports were accompanied by photographs which displayed the names of the businesses that refused to serve local customers. Incredibly the picture of a place called “Ram’s Surfing Beach” carried with the Sunday Times story unashamedly stated on its name board by the roadside that it was for “foreigners only.”

While the leaders of this country join hands to celebrate our freedom from colonial rule, they seem unable to free their people from national (one presumes) entrepreneurs who are permitted free rein to turn Sri Lankans into second class citizens in their own country.

This is apartheid of a special kind where presumably local owners of these establishments refuse to serve local people while pandering to the needs of foreigners. This type of discrimination against Sri Lankans has been practised for several years. But it was mainly in the first two or three decades after independence. There was a time when the Colombo Swimming Club in Colombo 3 would not admit locals as members.

If I remember correctly this issue of discrimination against local citizens was raised in the old parliament by the sea. After much agitation when the doors of membership were finally thrown open to all it was W.P.G Ariyadasa, who was then either the Minister of Health or Local Government who became president under the new dispensation.

The Queen’s Club on New Bullers Road was another exclusive club that did not admit locals. Eventually that too had to change its colonial ways, white faces giving way to an occasional brown/ coloured one. If my memory serves me correct the Queen’s Club premises was later the venue for the sittings of the Criminal Justice Commission trying the JVP leaders of the 1971 uprising.

It was understandable that in post-colonial times there would still be a club or two (the Nuwara Eliya Hill Club was one such I think) that were the exclusive preserve of the white business community, the planter class and western diplomats. But under political and social pressures they underwent change and adapted themselves to the new circumstances. What is happening at Mirissa and other such places is to reverse history by once more establishing preserves for foreigners to the total exclusion of the people of this country.

It is shameful and disgusting that 68 years after freeing ourselves from Western rule some Sri Lankans are still bowing and scraping before foreigners under one dubious excuse or another. It raises a very fundamental issue. The Sri Lanka constitution forbids discrimination on grounds of race, religion, gender, colour etc. If that is so, how are those who run these tourist places allowed to violate the very basic law of this country with such impunity that they could advertise their discrimination so publicly or at the doorstep when locals seek service?

The state institutions that are mandated to supervise the tourism industry in this country and ensure that they adhere to a code of conduct seem to be looking the other way if they look at all.
If these authorities argue that there is no code to prohibit hotels and restaurants from declining to serve a particular class of persons or that they are not parties to such a code if it exists, then should they not be required by law to fall in with a code of conduct that should be established to prohibit such blatantly unacceptable behaviour?
How such hotels and restaurants, because they cater to foreign tourists, can be allowed to brazenly violate the constitution without any state institution hauling them before the law is shocking and is an insult to the people of Sri Lanka.
If nothing else at least fundamental rights cases should be filed against the owners and managers of such establishments to stop them from getting away with such despicable conduct.
There are also those in saffron-coloured robes who use the sanctity of their attire as a convenient cover to sow mayhem on the streets and the law courts. They exploit the respect that local people have for the robes of a monk to violate not only the sanctity of the teachings of the Buddha himself but also the laws of this country in the name of freedom and the independence to act as they wish because they belong to the monkhood.
One is constrained to ask what value could be attached to such freedom if those who are supposed to preach the value of moderation, non-violence and compassion as taught by the Buddha actually preach hatred and engage in violence by word and deed while others in the name of protecting Sri Lanka’s image openly discriminate against the majority of its people.
As for the trapeze artists, jugglers, clowns and others who somersault with such dexterity performing on the political stage the less said the better for the mental health of the nation.