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| Sunday, 9 May 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The politics of roofing sheets Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake Roofing sheets, whatever material they are made of are usually associated with housing and shelter. But of late roofing sheets have taken on a wholly new significance in this country, because of the close link it has with politics. One could justly say there is always something significant if it has any political connection. But roofing sheets have suddenly taken a special significance, especially those given free for distribution among the deserving. Recent incidents show more than a touch of physical danger and even death in these roofing sheets. This is not by being blown away during gusts of wind. A politician in the Matara District had received his quota of metal roofing sheets and had announced they would be given free to those in his area who were genuinely in need of them. But when the distribution took place it had been not done on the principle of each according to one's needs, but rather each according to the connections with the green politician concerned. Many a needy person who looked forward to this free aid to shelter had been disappointed. At a later propaganda rally of this politician of the green party, one of these disappointed people had got on to the stage in the presence of the politician concerned and made public his complaint. He had hardly finished and got down from the stage, when the politician too got down from it, and gave the man a good beating, breaking some of his teeth too. Can you see how roofing sheets can invite danger causing a bloody political storm? That was in Matara. Further away at Medirigiriya, the chairman of a Pradesheeya Sabha, also of the green party, had announced the distribution of free roofing sheets to the needy. The people had gathered at his office located at his home on the appointed day. But here too they realized that kissing with roofing sheets went by favour and not according to need. Several people began protesting against what they thought was an unjust act. It was then that a mother came there with her 16 year old son in the hope of getting some free roofing sheets. By this time the politician had been so angered by the protesters that he had gone into his house, brought out his gun and fired at the crowd. The victim of the shooting was that 16 year old boy. The mother who came to get free roofing sheets had to return home with the body of her dead son with no roofing sheets even for the funeral. You see how roofing sheets can be really deadly, when mixed up with politics? Sale to hardware merchants Closer to Colombo, in the Wattala area the police have recently seized a large stock of roofing sheets, again meant for free distribution to the needy, at the stores of a former MP, once again of the green party. The sheets were neatly stacked for sale to hardware merchants and not meant to be given to the poor or those with no shelter. It is recently reported that the police are on the look out for more roofing sheets at different locations, to which this politician had transferred them, prior to putting calling for bids from hardware dealers. Politicians who have enough and more shelter may be excused for not understanding the need for shelter of others. But to play politics with roofing sheets, spilling blood in the process on the one hand, and seeking personal enrichment from what is meant to be given free to the poor on the other, is something that has no cause for excuse. This is the corruption of power and politics, and it is not only the greens that are guilty of such behaviour. However, being in power for the past two years the greens displayed an unusual proclivity for such corrupt behaviour, almost knowing by instinct that they will not have very much time to make merry with the people's assets. Although not about roofing sheets, there is another interesting story from the Gampaha District, dated to the recent general election campaign. It is about a prominent green member, who had a rapid rise in some questionable groves of academia, to gain emeritus professor status no sooner the greens were elected in December 2001. He had a special bent towards rehabilitating his own family especially in the award of road building contracts. He liked to keep things in the family, believing it to be the safest place to keep them. The story is that with considerable access to items for the rehabilitation and resettlement of displaced and homeless people in the North & East, this religiously loud green voice was busy distributing a range of material from mats, pillows and blankets to water filters and even kitchenware to the voters of the Gampaha District, who made no fuss as to ask from where it all came. Some of them did not need the stuff at all, but why refuse a free political gift? This is a good example of an attempt at pre-emptive rehabilitation of one's own self, having read the writing on the wall about the fate of the greens. His politics of rehabilitation was such that the man escaped the fate of most other alleged green giants at Gampaha. He must be thankful for those donors from foreign lands who helped him secure his own political success, even at the expense of the people from the North & East for whom all this aid was intended. There is no record of his having distributed any roofing sheets meant for the poor. When one thinks of roofing sheets and the plight of those who don't get even the free sheets that are on offer, one is forced to acceptance of the statement that corruption has gone well above the roof in Sri Lanka. The tiles on both the floors and roofs of the mansions of many a politician, whether in Colombo or in remote rural areas, who has held office have all come largely at the expense of denying the poor of what they deserve or corrupt deals that have helped raise the cost of living far above the roofs of the ordinary citizen. No ceiling Quite apart from roofs and roofing sheets it is the correct judgment of the people that many a politician today has no ceiling on the corruption and fraud one can be engaged in. They drag their senior officials also along this path of corruption, and in turn these senior officials too have their own range of corruption that have now shot above their own roofs, with the blessings of the politicians they are linked to in an unbroken chain of corruption. The free roofing sheets and the tragedies and corruption attached to their distribution, are only examples of the state of corruption we are mired in as a society. It's funny how the unfair distribution of roofing sheets can hit the headlines or even front pages, when all the while it is the unfair that is having a best of things and times. Be it admission to an "A" grade government school, or a place in a government assisted private school run by a religious order, employment in a state corporation or authority, it is always politics and/or money or both, that will produce the necessary results. Especially about the corruption in school admissions, politicians, government educationists and Christian churches maintain a sanctimonious silence. Can anyone say why a politician who hails from say Kurunegala, Hambantota or Kekirawa, who also studied at the same town, gets a particular itch to have his or her son or daughter to Royal College, Visakha Vidyalaya, D. S. Senanayake College or Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya, Isipathana or Gothami Balika in that order, the moment one is elected to parliament? It is always the principle of the roofing sheet that is at work. They may not deserve it but places are set apart in these schools for the offspring of politicians and also the children of higher officials in the education ministry or department. The story is the same wherever there are benefits to be gained for the people. They will always go to the people who the politicians prefer to kiss. And the kiss of the politician is known to come with a "something" that will please him or her. It is the kiss of betrayal of the people, as bad as the kiss of Judas. One can only hope that the promises to curb corruption that are spoken of today don't suffer the same fate of that 16-year-old youth who came with his mother to get free roofing sheets for much needed shelter. We all need a great deal of shelter from the typhoons or corruption swirling around us, thanks to the politicians and our own tolerance of their way of governance. |
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