Back to protests after the Avurudu holidays
View(s):As street protests subsided over the past 10 days owing to the Sinhala and Tamil New Year season, Sri Lanka’s business community braced this week for a return to the now, routine but extremely uncomfortable street demonstrations by university undergraduates and other protestors in the city of Colombo.
While one business chamber issued a statement this week raising alarm bells over the increasing street protests that have a huge impact on the economy, another chamber said protestors should also recognise the rights of freedom for other road users.
“While we respect the rights of people to protest in a democracy there is also the issue of other people’s rights and freedom of movement which are affected by these protests,” said Dhara Wijayatilake, CEO /Secretary General, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC).
The National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) in a statement this week said that while it respects the right of people to have legitimate reasons, in some instances, for street protests, the regular street protests of university undergraduates, is unacceptable behaviour, because as “prospective future employment seekers, it reflects their attitudes, leaving a question mark on their competency level of meeting job demands”.
Former President National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, Sujeewa Samaraweera, while noting that the larger majority of undergraduates are not involved in public protests, said students are supposed to be an educated lot and “we look at them as taking over the country and society at some point”.
He said this has a direct impact on the economy, traffic congestion, inconveniencing the public who have an unfettered right to move freely without hindrance, foreign investment and tourism. “This also reflects badly on the administration of a country and its advanced education structures, and shows a lack of discipline in the country,” he added.
Most of those whom the Business Times spoke to for comments on this issue, agreed that a special area like London’s Hyde Park Corner should be designated for public protests so that it doesn’t inconvenience people.
CCC’s Wijayatilake noted that there is a huge economic impact when vehicles are stranded and people can’t get to their meetings or do other work on time. “If this continues and movement in Colombo becomes unpredictable it could become a factor in foreign investment and tourism,” she said.
Prof. Sirimal Abeyratne from the Economics Faculty of the University of Colombo, said that while there are no calculations on economic costs of increasing protests, the underlying reasons of poor economic performance of the country, could be the reason for this crisis.
“It also shows the failure of the system and the gross negligence of the issue. On the one hand, the focus of the students is on a ‘certificate’ regardless of its relevance; even the governments have carried out a precedence by providing public sector jobs to all graduates irrespective of what they have learned, encouraging the students to study anything. On the other hand, the private sector is too tiny and economic performance is too slow so that there are no job opportunities opening up. Beside all that, I think we are used to cross the boundary line thinking that in a ‘democracy’ we are free to act in any way as we think right – a failure of our political culture,” he noted.
The NCE said that the authorities should adopt new approaches to develop a proper mindset of students beginning from school-going age, to prepare them to be worthy future employment seekers, with adequate knowledge of subjects, which impact on the economic development of the country, over and above the knowledge they acquire under standard educational streams. “This is particularly relevant to students whose education falls outside STEM Subjects, (Science, Technology, English and Mathematics), and who are less prepared for productive employment. It is also felt that the agitation of undergraduates may be partly due to the tensions arising out of their uncertain future after completion of university education,” it said.