60TH INDEPENDECE DAY: TALES OF FOUR COUNTRIES :

Peace and prosperity in the horizon

by Indeewara Thilakarathne and Ranga Chandrarathne

February 4th 2008 is an important event in our national history not only do we have plans to celebrate our 60th Independence Day but it also provides us an opportunity to examine the importance of this title beyond usual celebration and associated activities on this year.

"Independence Day" signifies the fundamental meaning of any nation around the globe and should not be considered a day to relax.

Almost six years ago, Ajith Samaranayake wrote in his famous Sunday Essay, on Independence. If we begin with the granting of independence we can say broadly that the idea which inspired the movement towards independence was liberal and democratic in essence. But an almost immediate qualification seems to be called for.

This idea derived from the British liberal democratic tradition was mixed up with and almost overlaid by patriarchal and backward-looking elements derived from the country's feudal past. The leadership which inherited independence was patriarchal and easy-going in its attitude towards people at large. They were intellectually flaccid and had no vision of how the new Ceylon should be built.

Inspired by Samaranayake's essay, we reflected whether one of our favourite past times of 'looking elements derived from the country's feudal past' would help us to move forward.

It is pertinent at this juncture to reflect upon three countries that have gone through similar processes (as former colonies of the British Empire or part there of) with a view to understand where Sri Lanka is at, in a crucial phase of Sri Lanka's progression since Sri Lanka celebrated first Independence day 60 years ago.

In a comparative study, three countries were done by visiting them in mental and fact-finding journeys through a cyber space and other few sources.

First entry point of the journey is Ireland. The preliminary figures from the 2006 census indicate a further 4,234,925 for the Irish Republic. Ireland gained its independence from the United Kingdom in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Since then Ireland has transformed herself into one of the great success stories of modern Europe.

During this period Ireland had the fastest growth rate of any OECD country. Ireland's per capita GDP is now 10 per cent above that of the four big European economies in the European Union.

In 1948, Ireland withdrew from the Commonwealth and joined the European Community in 1973. Since its Independence Irish governments had to face upto separatists movement: After fighting for long years, they sought peaceful unification and have cooperated with Britain against terrorist groups. The parallel for Sri Lanka with which country we are going corporate with in order to address our internal issues with regards to the ethnic issue.

In 2006, the Irish and British governments developed and began to implement the St. Andrews Agreement, building on the Good Friday Agreement approved in 1998.

The average Irish citizen is now wealthier and has a longer life expectancy. There is a similarity when it comes to health indicators of Sri Lanka and Ireland . Since the independence, Sri Lanka's life expectancy has improved dramatically.

Life expectancy at birth increased from 43 years in 1946, to 70 in 1981, 72 in 1991 and 73 in 1996. The life expectancy in 2001 for males was 70.7 years; for females, it was 75.4 years.

We can also boast about how our economy has performed since the independence. The annual growth rate of the Gross National Product (GNP) increased from 4.6 per cent in 1991 to 5.9 per cent in 1995.

The GNP per capita increased from US $ 345 in 1989 to US $ 856 in 2000 and to US $ 1000 in 2004. According to the United Nation's Human Development Index (HDI) Sri Lanka has a score of 0.743, which gives the country a rank of 99th out of 177 countries under the category of Medium Human Development countries for 2007-2008.

On the other hand, The HDI for Ireland is 0.959, which gives the country a rank of 5th out of 177 countries. In the literary scene, Ireland has produced some great literary giants including Nobel Laureates.

The other country which also had a similar past as that of ours is Australia ; our cricket rival and home for many of us who had gone their looking for greener pastures. Australia is the world's largest island, with a land area only slightly smaller than that of the USA but not as rich as it's favourite western ally in terms of GNP.

Australia achieved its independence over a century ago when the country moved from a self-governing colony in 1901 to a fully sovereign nation state by the 1930s.

Australia still remains a constitutional monarchy, with the Queen Elizabeth 11 as Head of State, and like Sri Lanka is an active member of the Commonwealth.

Australia is one of the world's most urbanised nation states with almost three quarters of the population living in the 10 largest cities. Since 1945, over 6 million people from 200 countries have settled down in Australia as economic migrants and the country now has a population of over 20 million people very similar to Sri Lanka except they have a very large land mass to house her people , (even helpless Aborigines) fighting to claim a home land.

More than four million of these immigrants are bilingual giving Australia a crucial competitive edge, although a few of Sri Lankan writers who are domiciled their complaint that they can't publish in their native language in multi-cultural Australia.

Australia has flourished since becoming an independent nation despite the fact they have Third World issues such as the health issues and life expectancy of their native people, the Aborigines.

The HDI for Australia is 0.962, which gives the country a rank of 3rd out of 177 countries. According to the UNDP website, the life expectancy of an Australian at birth based on annual estimate for 2005 is 80.9. However, there are no special data on the life expectancy of Aborigines which is very low compared to the average population.

The per capita income is US$ 31,794 for the year 2005 and now we can justify why those Sri Lankans want to jump the queue of the richness indicator from Sri Lanka's 99th position 3rd in the world rank!

In the Literary field , Australia has only one Nobel Laureate (Patrick White) but Australian literature which is just 200 years old is studied from China to USA and Canada going westwards and were able to attract just one text of one native (Sinhala) writer (Martin Wickramasinghe at the 2008 Galle Literary Festival!

No one is bothered about our Sinhala literature which is a written language and dates back to 2,500 years.

The last county which had the same legacy as that of Sri Lanka at the time of independence is Singapore whose famous Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had once said that his dream was to work to increase the prosperity of the country to the level Sri Lanka achieved after independence. That's an old story!

Singapore was founded as a British trading colony in 1819. The country joined the Malaysian Federation in 1963 but became an independent nation on August 9, 1965. Singapore is one of the world's most prosperous countries with strong international trading links with per capita GDP of US$ 29,663.

The HDI for Singapore is 0.922, which qualified it to be the 25th country out of 177 countries in the UN system.

Singapore is yet to produce a Nobel Laureate but some what hitherto unknown literary tradition of Singapore is studied around the globe. The beauty of the country is that any recognised writer of all major ethnic origin is capable of publishing their work in any of the four national languages, Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil) in a national anthology of prose or poetry, a capability either multi cultural Sri Lanka or Australia has failed so far!

The moral lesson that Sri Lanka can derive from the three nations is not to imitate one of them or all of them in a foolish manner but to reflect upon our fate as a nation. It is important to note that Sri Lanka has ample room for improvement. It is also home truth that although nationalism has reached the Pidurutalagala heights, in a global economy, Sri Lanka is a negligible actor.

At this crucial juncture, Sri Lanka should realize the fact that many factors that are beyond its control are influencing the course of the country in its march towards a prosperous nation; perhaps, regaining its age-old prominence as a granary of Asia, not as nation plagued by terrorism, corruption and inefficiency.

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