Let us stop this decline, devastation

Sri Lanka at 50- QUO VADIS? was the theme of the Organisation of Professional Associations' (OPA) annual sessions recently. We publish excerpts of the speech made by Lionel Dassanayake,Chairman, Technical Committee

The OPA annual sessions were started in 1988, during Deshamanya Surath Wickremasinghe's term as the President of the OPA.

The format, that has since evolved, has the OPA bringing together its considerable intellectual resource, comprising 32 professional associations with a collective membership of over 30,000 per-sons, to focus on important areas of public policy.

This year the theme of our annual sessions, the eleventh in the series, is "Sri Lanka at 50 - Quo Vadis?". Professionals, by their learning, training and practice, are equipped to examine things critically, evaluate results, identify strengths and weaknesses, and prescribe corrective action. We, as professionals, on whom the nation has invested a considerable portion of its resources, to train and equip, feel that we have an ethical and moral responsibility to pro-vide leadership in the task of nation -building. We believe we have a lot to co-ntribute in building a nation free of strife and assured of a peaceful and contented future - a quality of life for our people that fulfils their aspirations in a free and independent Sri Lanka.

We recognise that we have achieved some progr-ess since independence in 1948. Statistically, and stat-istics do provide us some objective indicators in evaluating progress despite the fact that our subjective responses do not necessarily coincide with what the statistics reveal, we can be justifiably proud of some of our achievements.

What are these achievements?

• A high degree of literacy?
• A good, "quality of life", index which compares favourably with the developed world. A life expectancy, that indicates reasonably good health care and delivery systems.
• A democratic system of government, based on a system of governance, that allows the citizen to select political and social leaders.
• A resilient economy, which has withstood the pressure of globalisation, insurrection and terrorism
• An independent judiciary.

But we have to admit, although reluctantly, that all is not well.

Sri Lanka - then and now

• At the time of independence, Sri Lanka was one of the richest countries in Asia.
• The country's per capita income was second only to Japan, when compared to other Asian countries.
• Other countries were attempting to emulate Sri Lanka.
• But today, 50 years after independence, Sri Lanka is languishing as one of the less developed nations in the world.

Notwithstanding our achievements which I have just stated, Sri Lanka's present record is not one which will give us much to boast about as, we have:

(a) A considerable amount of malnutrition among the less privileged, particularly children
(b) An Inequitable distribution of wealth leading to many social disparities
(c) A long drawn-out ethnic conflict with an ever increasing escalation of violence and terrorism
(d) Unacceptable levels of poverty with nearly half the population below the poverty line
(e) High levels of indisci-pline in every facet of society
(f) Acute politicisation of society, government and public institutions resulting in political victimisation and violence
(g) Rampant bribery and corruption
(h) Waste and extravagance in public life;
(i) A non-responsive educational system, which churns out, supposedly educated persons, who are not fit for the jobs that are available
(j) A poorly planned and poorly structured economy
(k) A lack of accountability in many spheres of society
(l) Barring a few, a servile media which serves its masters, and not the public interest.

Why is it, that the fruits and benefits of freedom and development have only marginally touched the majority of our population?

Why is there such intensive politicisation of our society, that a discussion on any matter of national policy, ends up in intensive confrontation that, more often than not, results in violence and destruction?

It is to find answers to these vexed questions, that we decided on a theme with a question mark "Sri Lanka at 50 - - Quo Vadis?"

Who is responsible for this state of affairs ?

Every facet of society has to take the blame. Although politicians appear to be the primary culprits, there are others too, who are responsible.

We, professionals have to take our share of the blame. For too long, the professionals have left governance of the country to politicians only and have been sitting back and criticising. In the meantime, politicians while in the opposition listen to professionals, and forget about them when in government.

In the final analysis it matters little, as to who is responsible; the damage has been done, and is continuing to be done.

Can something be done, to change the present direction of decline, dev-astation and depression?

We have to, if we are to survive as a nation with our heads held high. If so, all sections of the society have to play a role.

In that context the responsibility cast upon professionals is immense.

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