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Some deranged people keep hollering that this Resplendent Isle is sadly devoid of thinkers. What unadulterated rubbish. That is an insult to the Sri Lankan people. If UNP chairman Vajira Abeywardena had half a chance he would peremptorily declare them traitors. Whether he applies the term with sufficient or even meagre aforethought is, of course, another matter.

Seriously, how could anybody claim that our political panorama is lacking the combined wisdom of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and such others who once endowed ancient Greece, giving birth to a great civilisation.

Only the other day I read that one bright spark in our political firmament was packing her bags, in a manner of speaking, to rush off to Joe Biden country to discuss with the Walt Disney authorities about opening a “Disneyland” in the wildest Hambantota where native elephants roam and white elephants are stationary and largely inactive.

It appears that even the wild life at the Yala sanctuary went really wild not from the recent four-wheeler invasion which had them running for cover but on hearing that they will have Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for neighbours. Still another asset in the country’s backwaters.

Not since JRJ oversaw tourism as Minister of State with Permanent Secretary Anandatissa de Alwis in tow, that those in charge of tourism have come up with such a gobsmacking idea to bring tourists pouring into Sri Lanka like the thousands of boat people from Africa and elsewhere trying to smuggle themselves into Rishi Sunak land.

Not that Tourism supremo Harin Fernando, now in London does not have equally entertaining thoughts to sell to the gathered congregations of fellow travellers at the World Travel Mart opening tomorrow, like liquor flowing into the wee hours

No wonder then that our illustrious politicians of one hue or another never stop reminding the world that we have our own glorious civilisation that goes back 2500 years or more. Of course, we do. But the more we draw from the past the more we appear to admit that nothing we have done since then is worthy of recognition or emulation, unless our unmitigated corruption, bribery, graft, and voluminous acts of impunity in recent decades deserve a prominent place in some modern Mahavamsa.

One brief look at the concatenation of a cabinet put together from bits of this and pieces of that, is proof enough of the intellectual fire-power that has been assembled to wipe out such obsolete political philosophies as democracy and liberalism and replace them with repressive autocracy garnished with plenty of undiluted hyper-nationalist hypocrisy.

Critics, unfairly one must say, have pointed to what they call a collection of political flotsam and jetsam called state ministers that form a mediocre back-up to that far-thinking forum of Socratic proportions called the cabinet.

With the chorus of execration that accompanied these appointments and unexpected expansions at the expense of a suffering public, one can be excused for looking more closely at what seemed like queer economics and who might be responsible for it.

In the process, I came across the thoughts of an individual called Diana Gamage reportedly the State Minister of Tourism. From where and whence she sprang to political life it is hard to say-certainly not a person of any prominence or import.

But to be a State Minister one needed to be an MP. So one naturally turns to the parliament’s holy grail- its website. Well, it appears she entered parliament on the national list of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) with educational qualifications declared as MBA and LLB (UK).

Sadly it does not state where she obtained her MBA from and which university in the UK granted her the law degree. Not that I doubt her qualifications but keeping the public in the dark could have been easily avoided by adding that extra detail to the biodata.

Only a few weeks back I turned to the same holy grail to ascertain the educational qualifications of Urban Development and Housing Minister Prasanna Ranatunga after reading his comments in parliament on House of Commons procedures. Such knowledge, one thought, must come an institution of higher learning.

The parliament website stated Ranatunga’s educational qualifications–, GCE “A” level and GCE “O” level and a Diploma in Management and Leadership, Orara University Australia.

Curious to find out in which Australian state Orara University is located I did some digging. Lo and behold! There does not seem to be such a university unless it has been lost in the Australian outback.

So Diana Gamage MBA, LLB (UK) should understand why it would have been better all round if she had stated from where she obtained her MBA and which UK university granted her a law degree, especially because not too long ago our parliament staff refused to disclose the educational qualifications of MPs in response to a Right to Information query by the Sunday Times. It provided the stupid answer that this was personal information and cannot be divulged.

Stupid because now the same parliament secretariat carries the information on its website. Whether it checked the veracity of the information provided or just accepted what it was told one does not know. But if it simply accepted what it was provided and published it as gospel truth, that surely was an unpardonable lapse.

When State Minister Gamage mentioned at a media conference recently that she was talking with Walt Disney Company about the possibility of bringing a Disney theme park to Sri Lanka making it South Asia’s first, even the Indian media splashed the news.

Later she was quoted in the media as saying she would be going to the US to continue the discussion with the Walt Disney Company. Well, who would refuse a free ride at tax- payers’ expense? After all, it was to bring subsequently, of course, dollars to our almost empty coffers– her patriotic duty as a true-blooded Sri Lankan though some others might think differently.

Now the story gets curiouser and curiouser as Alice would have said in Wonderland. When the Sunday Times contacted Walt Disney company it seemed as surprised as perhaps the Minister of Tourism himself. There were no such talks and the company had no such plans for Sri Lanka.

That is only half the story. When the Sunday Times asked State Minister Diana Gamage whom she contacted at Walt Disney, she seemed more interested in finding out whom the newspaper spoke to.

When she was told not only the name but details of what it was told by the company, the State Minister’s rejoinder was startling. “I don’t have to give any information about anything”.

Oh yeah? Then what was she doing at the Government Information Department holding media briefings- spinning out fairy tales like her plans to turn Mannar into another Macau so it will provide entertainment without producing “dry fish”. By the way Diana dear, it is dried fish, not dry fish.

Anyway, it appears that Diana’s dream of letting loose Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in Hambantota is turning into a nightmare. But then what would Sri Lanka and the tourism industry do without a Diana come lately?

After all, did she not create Roman history and re-write Shakespeare by claiming in parliament way back that it was Mark Antony, a very close friend of Julius Caesar, who stabbed the mighty Caesar in the back. Perhaps she knew more about backstabbing than we had been taught in our lectures on Shakespeare.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London)