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| Sunday, 11 May 2003 |
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Sri Lanka whither goest thou? by Ashley de Vos The drastic decision of the Government in 1971, 1988 & 1989 to eliminate in excess of one hundred thousand intelligent and articulate youth and the tragic war that claimed additional Sinhala and Tamil youth in their thousands, has left a lacunae in the intelligentsia of this country. The duty of the intelligentsia of any country is to ask the questions, why? and the obscene sacrifice of those who do, permits the dregs at the bottom baring a few exceptions, a speedy upward mobility to their levels of inefficiency. When the worm-ridden apples bob up, the smoke screen agencies have a field day and the country and its precious resources are available for sale to the lowest bidder. Fortunately, a new group is emerging, articulate but immature, they live in another world. In an Urban space totally alienated from the country at large, the hinterland comes into focus only as an adventure playground, a place for leisure. Colombo the capital of Sri Lanka is not a Singapore, but all are made to think, to treat it as if it were and the country as a whole suffers. The colonial economy followed by most governments since independence shows scant interest in the engines of change, the rural mass, that 80% of throbbing human resource, coerced and ridden to power by all and sundry, soon to be forgotten during the "splurge" that follows. When the incentives are showered on Colombo and the gama is relegated to oblivion. Only to be rudely awakened, at the next beat of the drum. Developed by archaic theories imbibed in foreign lands, Sri Lanka sports an education system that is alienated and disorientated from the problems of the country. A curriculum where school holidays are still celebrated during Easter and Christmas, instead of the traditional reaping and sowing cycles. History untaught, schools that consider teachers as easily dispensable commodities, deprived of even decent spaces to live in and the rural children as fodder for the battlefield. A brilliant health system that has been mismanaged and sheltered from the distribution of talent and a business elite that only sees in the short term. Gun cultures where young Emperors cut dark shadows across that of their fathers. A system that has scant respect for the soil or the environment, but instead offers it tethered, prostrate on a platter to be raped by a new breed of biodiversity pirates. The need of the day is a sea change in economic thinking sans opportunists, to bring back accountability, the rule of the law and take those who have Sri Lanka at heart into confidence. "Sri Lanka first" should be the new buzzword. Oh! Sri Lanka whither goest thou, blindfolded into a visionless future, I weep for thee! |
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