The concept of having a day for a great international labour demonstration, was centred round the demand for an eight-hour working day. The 1880s was a period of many strikes, unrivalled in size, discipline, organisation and duration. This was true of France, Germany and Belgium, but especially so of the United States, with its historic national eight-hour working day strikes in Chicago in 1886. Here a demonstration was fired at by the police and several men were killed. This led to widespread indignation and served as an impetus for the agitation demanding an eight-hour working day.
The decision to have the 1st of May as the day for the international labour day demonstration, was taken by the Congress which established the Second International, opened in Paris on July 14, 1889, on the 100th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille in the great French Revolution.
In Sri Lanka, the first association of workers as a trade union was formed in 1922. This was the Ceylon Labour Union, inaugurated in Colombo on September 2, 1922 and founded by A.E. Goonesinha. It was his Union which held the first May Day demonstration and continued to have May Day for many years thereafter. For about a decade Mr. Goonesinha was the undisputed leader and champion of the urban working class movement. But after that the Leftists took over and his influence waned off. It was in 1956, after S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike became the Prime Minister, that T.B. Ilangaratne as Minister of Labour, Housing and Social Services, declared May Day a Government Holiday. It is now a Public, Bank and Mercantile Holiday.
M.G. Mendis and I have participated in May Day demonstrations, practically every year since 1936. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was founded in 1935 and I was elected its Literature Secretary. We participated in the Party’s first May Day demonstrations, with Colvin R. de Silva presiding. I remember a May Day meeting held under a tree at Price Park, Colombo, with about 100 persons participating. At that time a May Day demonstration and procession was going along the road. This procession could be seen from our meeting place. There were thousands of demonstrators dancing and shouting, with bands, drums and trumpets playing.
In 1940, the majority in the Central Committee of the LSSP came under the influence of Trotskyism and expelled a number of leading members, including comrade M.G. Mendis and me. These Communists formed the Colombo Workers’ Club in early 1940. . The Club’s first May Day demonstration is described in the book “CFTU and the Working Class Movement”:
“The first May Day demonstration organised by the Club was in 1940 and the procession, which started near the office of the Club and went to the venue of the meeting at Price Park, consisted of about 15 participants. But, despite the then existing conditions, the 15 comrades had the courage to step out on to the streets, carrying red flags inscribed with the hammer and sickle, and shouting slogans calling for united action of the working class and for national independence for the country. The confidence they showed in their cause and the correctness of their call, brought tens of thousands of workers to join them within the next three or four years.”
Of those who participated in the Club’s first May Day demonstration only M.G. Mendis and I are among the living. The book referred to above was written by me, and it was the first book published (1966) in Sri Lanka on the working class movement.
We are quite appalled to learn there are plans to set up a golf course in the Pelwatte area in the Moneragala District (readers will remember the area well because this is where the famous - or infamous - Handapangala elephant drive took place last August). When the whole world is talking of environmentally sustainable development, that the Southern Development Authority would condone, let alone support, such an undertaking in this forested dry zone/intermediate zone area is quite beyond belief.
Constructing a golf course means -
1) De-afforestation. In this area the competition for land is between the forest including the animals who inhabit the forest and the humans who need more land for development of agriculture. To convert this precious commodity into a golf course for the mega rich of South East Asia on the premise that it is going to provide thousands of jobs is carrying credulity too far.
3) There will be further de-forestation for the air strip, hotels etc. This means the aggravation of the human-elephant conflict. It means driving these tormented beasts from yet another part of their home into live wire fences and trap guns. Perhaps the golf course was why there was such enthusiasm to drive the Handapanagala herd of elephants away from this area and not the interests of the villagers at all.
4) Golf courses need an enormous amount of water every day for maintenance. According to various sources about 150,000 gallons of water per day is required for a golf course (a golf course in Asia may be around 150-200ha) and the golf course will be accompanied by hotels and condominiums and an air strip. Where will the water for these come from? There is a shortage of water for agriculture in the south. Most of that water is supplied by the rivers which flow from the Uva hills through this area - the Kirindi oya, the Menik ganga and the Kumbukkhan oya. In a competition for water between golf course complex and farmer there is no doubt as to who will win.
Surrounded by the glittering waters blue;
Lies Indian Ocean’s Pearl
radiating a glorious hue,
The Hand that formed thee: That Hand Divine
Thus
Undivided Perfect as an Island you shine.
The fate of our country let’s
think deep;
Unrest, unrest whereever we peep
To the future citizens of
our land let’s go,
Peace and unity instill in them so.
A peaceful
weapon a language could be;
To join various nationalities in peace and
harmony
In the school room it must start,
To help children to live
together: Not part.
Segregation of children of different races
Our
classrooms today full well faces.
In different camps they stand; Not
together
Thus from childhood they learn to oppose one another.
It’s
a war that goes on within each heart;
From childhood; until from school they
part.
Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim schools what are they?
Can they bring peace
and unity our way?
Down memory lane let us tread;
To the schools of the
past era gone ahead.
Sinhala, Tamils, Burghers, Muslims, Japanese, Eurasians
all
Side by side did study in one great hall Peacefully, happily, with no
ill feeling whatever,
Passed the days rapidly: Will they come back ever, or
never?
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