Justice like charity should begin at home

All is not well with the British economy despite Chancellor Gordon Brown's self- congratulatory demeanour. Beware of recession, warns an economic Cassandra or two.

Ha, snort the Blairites their upwardly tilted noses piercing the ozone layer, haven't we heard all this before.

Sure, say the economists and assorted pundits, but then George W. Bush was not in the White House, they say. And remember the American economy is not in too great a shape either.

The average Brit cannot stand all this yak-yakking any more. The Blair government promised them the moon. But four years later they have only seen stars. The health service is collapsing faster than the patients in the queue waiting for operations, which at the current rate, will probably be performed on their cold bodies. By the time they get to the top of the National Health Service list, rigor mortis would have set in-not in the patient but the long suffering NHS. 

One time the pride of the Londoner, its public transport is currently the joke in Europe. I used to go from Hong Kong to southern China much faster than I now get by tube from home to my office in North London.

Education is not worth talking about. If you listen to the politicians holding forth on the subject, you would understand why. An educational system that can throw up people who talk such arrant nonsense, must be in need of urgent repair. Before long Tony Blair and his Chancellor of the Exchequer who isn't particularly keen on joining the European currency, the Euro, will have to make a decision and hold a referendum (well, no wonder I feel at home even here).

So the Eurocrats and Eurosceptics are still talking their heads off about what will happen to Britain, one way or another. 

A poor grocer learnt the lesson the hard way a few months back when he sold bananas by the pound and got hauled to court and fined. The kilogram is the order of the day and to hell with the pound.

So while the two sides pound away at each other-verbally of course- the media is content to compare everything that Britain has to offer in the way of public services with what is available on the continent.

No wonder then that thousands of Britons have gathered their backpacks, filled their picnic baskets and gone off to the blue yonder across the English channel to continental Europe where trains run on time, where doctors can be consulted without having to write your last will before or ensure that your body parts return with you instead of being secretly deposited in a jar in some nondescript hospital. Stranger things have happened in the British National Health Service.

I ought to know. Today, for instance, I went to my GP for a blood test because on the previous occasion, they had failed to take samples for all the tests. Anyway this nurse kept jabbing me saying she couldn't find a vein (and here I was thinking I had ink in them!). When she finished tattooing me, I casually asked where she was from and what her name was. Her parents were originally from Gujarat but came to England from Uganda. And her name- Chandrika. I would have gladly given a few more pints, if she had only asked! I mean you can't get that from the IMF. 

However much Britain's public services might be qualitatively inferior to those in Europe, there is one area of activity in which the British are second to none-racism.

British politicians and NGOs, like many of those in Europe, will harangue and hector every nation from China to Zimbabwe about its human rights records, its treatment of racial and religious minorities, about political discrimination and the violation of every conceivable right in every conceivable charter.

But when it comes to their own countries, they behave like the three proverbial monkeys- they see nothing, they hear nothing and so they say nothing.

Ever since Sir William Macpherson pronounced, in his 1999 report on the racist murder of a black youth Stephen Lawrence, the existence of institutional racism in Britain's Metropolitan Police, there have been a string of reports into other spheres that have discovered racism at the heart of those services and institutions.

Less than two months back, the media headlined the existence of racism in the National Health Service. The discovery was made after a study conducted by an independent think-tank, Kings Fund, which found widespread discrimination against Asians and blacks.

Another group carried out a study into the workings of its own profession and came out with similar results. The Law Society itself was found wanting recently after a senior staffer filed a case accusing it of racial discrimination.

The most recent case is the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) which has been found guilty of institutional racism at every level.

What is more, the Director of Public Prosecutions who is head of the CPS pleaded mea culpa and admitted to charges of institutional racism.

We need to look at all these findings collectively and in their entirety to realise the danger and discrimination facing racial minorities in Britain.

Those who preach to others might take a closer look at the failures and shortcomings of their own societies. Justice, like charity, should begin at home.

Appreciations

His flight for a final check 

Roy de Niese

"Roy Boy", as aviators of my vintage fondly knew him, was born on July 15, 1916. He studied at St. Joseph's College where he excelled in boxing. After leaving school he joined the Ceylon Police Force. 

Upon declaration of World War II he was one of several young men of the Commonwealth who volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. Roy learnt to fly at Ratmalana under the watchful eye of Flt. Lt. Robert Duncanson, then proceeded to Canada for further training as a Flight Navigator. After the war he obtained his Australian Flight Navigator's Licence, becoming the first Ceylonese to do so. Roy de Niese then worked as Ground Instructor of the Ceylon Air Academy at the Ratmalana Airport with the late Capt. C. H. S. Amaresekara. When the Air Academy subsequently closed, he joined Air Ceylon as a Navigator.

Roy was Flight Navigator on the first Air Ceylon DC-3 flights to Male (Maldives). In those days navigation aids, as we now know them, were non-existent, so it was purely left to the skill of Roy de Niese to locate those minuscule coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. In the Sixties and early Seventies, Roy navigated all the photo survey flights over the Mahaweli development areas, in the Survey Department's Beechcraft E-18 (4R-AAU), an airplane of pre-war design but fitted with sophisticated photographic equipment. Almost every day, the crew would get airborne in the wee hours of the morning, hoping for clear skies. 

Today, when flying over the green fields in those areas, one cannot forget the pioneering work done by that photo survey team, which also included the late Captains Simon Rasiah, J. A. Jayawardena and Anil Rambukwella along with Captains S. R. Wikremanayake, P. Nadarajah, Dudley Ranabahu and Errol Cramer as pilots of the Beech 18.

Roy de Niese was an excellent Ground Instructor-a teacher who was the best of the best. Since the advent of commercial aviation in Sri Lanka, until his retirement in the mid-Seventies, every civil aviation pilot went through Roy's hands. His students were taught not only the basics of air navigation but also everything they had to know about weather patterns and "climatology". Even after retirement, Roy remained involved in training. Some mornings would see him explaining the "nitty-grittiest" of a navigational procedure to a budding airline pilot, by walking the hangar floor and assuming the roles of airplane and pilot. I can safely say, without fear of contradiction, that all of today's senior SriLankan Airlines captains owe Roy a great debt. 

Roy served the then national carrier, Air Ceylon, for 17 years as Ground Instructor, Link (basic instrument flight simulator) Instructor, and Flight Navigator. He was also the Navigator for the Hawker Siddeley Trident 1E (4R-ACN) when it was introduced in 1969. When Air Ceylon was contemplating getting rid of the Navigator's position, it was Roy who fought long and hard for its retention. I recall that at one time he was the only active member of the Ceylon Air Line Pilots' Association (CALPA)! The rest had all joined the "Jet Pilots' Union", officially known as the Air Ceylon Pilots' Guild.

Roy de Niese was also a champion of the underdog. Because of his mastery of the English language, many an errant airman, who needed to put together some form of defence to a "show cause" letter from management, would consult Roy for assistance. Rumour had it that sometimes Roy himself had drafted that very "show cause" letter on behalf of the Management! 

Roy had an endearing way of frequently using the word "boy" in the course of conversation. He also had pet catch phrases which he uttered often, such as "the gomma end of the stick", referring to someone getting a bad deal. "A different kettle of fish" was another, as was "sticking out like a sore thumb", referring to some ground feature while flying. But his favourite was "B...s..t baffles brains", along with arguably more flowery and interesting figures of speech that cannot be mentioned here! I know that many of these phrases are now part of the lexicon of most Sri Lankan commercial pilots.

I was indeed privileged to have worked with "Roy Boy" as a fellow crew member. May his soul rest in peace. 

"To fly west, my friend, is a flight we all must take for a final check." 

Capt. G. A. Fernando 
Singapore Airlines

The good will say that was his way

Oscar Pereira

I came to know Mr. Pereira in 1949 when I joined the National Bank of India Ltd., which subsequently became the Grindlays Bank Private Ltd. Oscar was about three years senior to me. We had both been educated at St. Peter's College, Colombo 4 and a common affinity grew among us and many others within the bank when it was discovered that there was a large coterie of young men from St. Peter's. Inspired by the college anthem "Lend a Heart and Lend a Hand", we got together to improve and enhance the welfare and working conditions of workers of the banking industry and to serve society.

The bank union was founded and led by A.F. Goonesinghe in the final days before independence. Goonesinghe and his Labour party, gradually faded from the scene and the vacuum thus created gave the opportunity for a bank worker to lead the union. It was here that Oscar rose to the occasion and proposed that outsiders be debarred from holding office in the union and that a bank worker should lead. 

His proposal was unanimously adopted. His sincere devotion to the cause of the worker was the ladder that latterly helped him to become the President of Sri Lanka's most powerful union, the Ceylon Bank Employees' Union.

He was an ardent sympathiser of the left movement though not a card bearing member of any of the Marxist parties. His disenchantment with the Socialists came with the jettisoning of the famous 21 demands, the crushing of the 1972 bank strike and the dismissal of 900 bank workers from the National Savings Bank by Dr. N.M. Perera, the then Finance Minister.

When I met Oscar two months before his demise, he said the left movement needs a new vision and a new life taking cognizance of the unbridled, damaging effects of globalization with corporate capital that is sweeping the country and dumping the poor below the poverty line. The footprints he leaves behind will show that he made his life sublime and these beautiful lines from Alexander Pope say much about our thoughts of him:

Of manners gentle, of affections mild; 
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation in a low estate,
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours! Not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms- that's his way

Malcolm A. Pereira

Your memory will never die

Al-Haj N.M. Zavahir

Uncle Zavahir was born in Malgamandeniya in Kandy district and had his education at Zahira College, Matale. He served as an English teacher at Bulugohothenna Zahira College, Akurana from1958-1966. From 1967-1991, he assumed duties as a Grama Sevaka in Galhinna, Theldeniya, Bulugohothenna, Malgamandeniya, Kurukohogama and Udawela where he performed his duties diligently. 

We will surely miss this great man of noble qualities. He was deeply religious. He never missed his compulsory prayers, performed the prayers very piously and cautiously and lived faithfully according to the rules and regulations of Islam. 

He devoted much of his time to the betterment of the people around him and was loved and respected by everyone.

His memory will never die in our hearts. In life's journey we get to meet a few special people and undoubtedly he was one. May the Almighty Allah bestow on him the Jennathul Firdouse. 

Ms. Rinoza Riaze 

A distinguished civil servant

G.V.P. Samarasinghe 

Mr. Samarasinghe was born in 1917 as the second son of the famous Pandit Veda Mudaliyar Samarasinghe of Borella. After excelling in his studies at Royal College, he entered the University of Ceylon and obtained his B.A. with first class honours in Western Classics. Thereafter, he sat for the 'elite' Ceylon Civil Service Examination in 1942 and topped the batch. He then went on to be one of the most distinguished civil servants produced by this country. 

Among the important positions held by him were Government Agent of Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa and Kegalle, Director of Rural Development and Commerce, Chairman of CWE, Cement and Oil and Fats Corporations and Secretary to the Ministry of Industries. He reached the pinnacle of his career when he was appointed Permanent Secretary to the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs in 1965, which portfolios were held by the then Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake. He also held the powerful position of Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting simultaneously. He retired prematurely in 1970 and concentrated on personal matters in the next seven years. 

In 1977, Prime Minister J.R. Jayewardene hand picked him to be Secretary to the Cabinet. Special powers were attached to this post so that he could supervise the functions of any ministry or secretary and report to J.R.J. Further, he was also appointed Chairman of the Committee of Development Secretaries which had the powers to authorise any purchases of capital expenditure for the public sector. 

He was also appointed Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence with the direct supervision of the Police Force, Secretary to the newly created Ministry of Emergency Civil Administration, a Director of Air Ceylon and Vice Chairman of newly created Air Lanka. All these positions he held with distinction until his sudden demise in 1986. 

Mr. Samarasinghe earned respect of all for his integrity, intelligence, impartiality and balance. This was why eminent statesmen of the calibre of Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake and President Jayewardene relied heavily on him for advice. He was also appointed Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the United Nations for a brief period in 1980 at the personal request of President Jayewardene, to overcome a sensitive issue at the embassy. 

May he attain Nibbana.

Managala Herat Gunaratne 

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