Sunday Times 2
The price of paradise
Travelling through the capital, you become aware that Colombo is a city of contrasts: regal colonial architecture stands frozen in time next to decrepit shops and streets, whilst ever expanding glittering glass and steel high-rises spiral into the sky. Beggars come up to gleaming new four-wheelers, a woman dons her designer sunglasses to avoid making eye contact. In the last few weeks, I have witnessed petrol strikes, medical school protests, the extremities of a climate wavering between floods and droughts, a deadly fever which claims the lives of many, and an encroaching sense of disruption beginning to take hold of a sweltering city, whilst from the distance, the North too begins to stir with unease.
People protesting about the samurdhi scheme’s inefficiency in Hambantota.In the last few weeks, I have witnessed petrol strikes, medical school protests, the extremities of a climate wavering between floods and droughts, a deadly fever which claims the lives of many, and an encroaching sense of disruption beginning to take hold of a sweltering city, whilst from the distance, the North too begins to stir with unease.
A controversial new port is being built, an emerging economic hub representing the vested power of foreign interests, stirring strikes and bringing the city to a standstill. Hidden inside the humidity and the discontent and the people trying to get on with their everyday civic lives amongst all this activity is a sense of resignation, a weary acceptance that for all the claimed change Colombo remains the same.
I am assailed by the constancy of this landscape: that things remain the same, that people don’t change. A long legacy of corruption has followed the chameleonic Cabinet, impossibly remote from the small towns and villages that see the fantastical scene reflected on their small screens.
Money filters in through distant foreign corridors, the established elites preach of their commitment to public service and then proceed to buy penthouses in the sky. An expenses scandal breaks out, who or what it concerns is interchangeable with the past – the bipartisan backing of unscrupulous behaviour perhaps the only thing the coalition can agree upon – as before there will be court proceedings, and as before things will settle back to how they stayed.
We see this sad story mirrored throughout the world – just this week Brazil faced its largest corruption scandal yet, and the Prime Minister of Pakistan stepped down amidst calls for his resignation following revelations of fraud. Is this the way things should continue?
The problem of inequality is represented in two different worlds that lie parallel to each other. The ordinary citizen – the doctor, the teacher, the office worker, the bus driver – inhabit one world, abiding by a different set of rules, whilst those wielding power live in a plentiful paradise where everything seems possible. The empty dream of desire is realised in this world. There is no right or wrong in this place, no law that holds one accountable, only the wish to have and fulfil your heart’s contents. And yet it is a selfish world, a small world, lacking in any meaning or magnitude, despite its abundant riches.
For far too long, politics has been synonymous with power and corruption, the realm of the richest whose lavish lifestyles are made possible by the hard labour of the working and middle classes.
In a recent report by Transparency International, ranking countries according to the perceived level of public sector corruption, Sri Lanka was placed 95th out of 176 countries.
The uninhibited pursuit of power and reputation, rather than commitment to principles, has been what determines many of the representatives of this country, politics a gentlemen’s club devoid of honesty or integrity, backed by wealthy sponsors and backroom dealings, where the interests of the few, rather than the many, determines who is heard and what is done.
Injustice breeds injustice. A failure to stand up for a single violation of law and order is a tacit approval of the next one, a lack of courage and determination to stand up for what is right here and now, an acceptance of the indefinite continuity of corruption, which runs unhindered by the bogged down bureaucratic inquiries that lead to exactly nowhere. The continuity of corruption has repercussions beyond its immediate injustice – it undermines the legitimacy of the new administration, whose very identity was premised on righting the wrongs of the former, moreover, a disheartened and cynical younger generation witnesses the despair of a history repeating itself, of a politics that inspires no hope in any except those aspiring to reputation and riches. This in turn leads to a disengagement with civic life, perpetuating the sense of powerlessness and fracturing society further through the insidious solitude of individualism.
A politician is foremost a public servant, rather than the career advancing strategy it is to the iniquitous individuals that engage in shameless self-seeking, at the expense of commitment to the improvement of a nation still convalescing from a war that has left many wounds. The importance of an ethic, a moral framework, is necessary at a time like this, in building a sense of community and togetherness, that what people do and what people say matter. Care and compassion for the country and regard and recompense for those who provide the valuable services that make it function is vital for good governance. The wave of momentum that swept in the new administration arose because poverty and inflation alongside prevailing corruption and abuse of power spurred the people to vote for hope of a better future, daring to dream that democratic change was possible.
These days, this hesitant hope has turned mostly to disenchantment, with recent revelations by the Presidential Commission concerning the misconduct of government. Although the Commission inquiring into these allegations has taken positive steps to address these issues, the problem of governing as a coalition which possesses fundamentally different ideologies also threatens to paralyse a parliament which struggles to move forward with the pledges it promised to the public. Before democracy descends into kleptocracy, and the disillusion of people turns from simmering resentment to anger, the government must seek to take actions to eradicate the systematic corruption which plagues it and categorically distance itself from the amorality of its present and past.