Sad for Sri Lanka

 

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is in a dark place right now. Besides the COVID-19 pandemic that is ongoing in both Sri Lanka and throughout the world, there are power cuts, rising food prices, foreign reserves falling to low levels with the risk of it running out, exploding gas cylinders among other issues. The biggest problem facing Sri Lanka is a majoritarian, incompetent government causing damage to the country and concentrating power in one political family. I believe the bad governance is the root cause of much of the bad news coming out of Sri Lanka. The pandemic has exacerbated the bad governance problems facing Sri Lanka making the negative results come faster. 

It appears to me that there is a growing number of long-time supporters of the Rajapaksas who are dissatisfied with the current government’s performance. As Sri Lanka is disunited right now, we can use the common dissatisfaction as one reason to be united. A bad political tactic which is common in Sri Lanka is to divide the communities by rulers as a means to be in power. By uniting together for the country, we will be defying this strategy of the politicians. We will have our differences due to being from different communities or social groups, but we can focus on the type of society we want based on our common goals. 

We can look at the type of government we should be having. We need leaders who will give equal treatment to all communities, take a firm stand against bribery & corruption, have honesty & integrity, work to take Sri Lanka out of the economic mess it’s in into a strong stable economy among other needed changes. 

We Sri Lankans can work to reduce the indecent values and behaviour which stem from the top. Those of us who live in Sri Lanka can strive to take the country in the direction to where it should be. Civil society has an important role to play in this. Business leaders can work to strengthen the quality, ethics and services of their businesses. It’s important to give a good image of the country to the outside world, especially online. 

I’m conflicted as I don’t want to sound very bleak about Sri Lanka’s future, yet I see more bad things headed for Sri Lanka including the potential for ones that are catastrophic. We can do our part to try to prevent potential bad occurrences from happening. While the awful politics is wreaking havoc in our country, we are not defined by it. We are a beautiful island nation with diverse cultures and communities. We offer a lot of interesting different places in a small country. Sri Lanka is a special country and an important part of Asia. Let’s work to make the society we need a reality one day. 

A Plea For Peace and Unity in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka sadly witnessed devastating terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday this year in hotels &

churches which killed over 250 people and injured over 500 individuals. As the country was

recovering from this tragedy, two weeks later racist individuals in response to the Easter Sunday

attacks terrorised Muslim communities in many towns across Western Sri Lanka which resulted in

homes, businesses & mosques damaged and one person murdered. The fact that the terrorists

behind the Easter Sunday attacks are Muslim has led to an emergence of racism against the Muslim

community which I believe is bad for the country. In this article, I’m making a plea for peace and

unity in Sri Lanka which is needed right now. 

It is common for individuals to boycott Muslim owned shops and businesses at the moment. I do not

agree with this action for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is falsely associating the actions of the

terrorists with the whole Muslim community. It is probably a minority of Muslims who support the

actions of the terrorists. This can alienate Sri Lankan Muslims from Sri Lankan society and result in

some Muslims becoming radicalised, thus being bad for national security. Secondly, it is being

disrespectful to both fellow Sri Lankans and Muslims. Thirdly, it is doing damage to the economy as

the employers and employees of those companies go through financial difficulty as a result of the

boycotts. In many cases, it is not only Muslims who are employed by these businesses. The families

of the employers & employees suffer as a result of this.

I think that boycoting Muslim owned businesses and shops as well as racism against Muslims is

playing into the hands of terrorists. This is the kind of behaviour that terrorists want. They want the

other communities to be hateful and do bad things to the Muslim community to further their deeply

deranged cause as a recruitment tactic. When it comes to the economic damage from the Easter

Sunday attacks, they are adding to the already prevalent economic issues facing the country.

Boycotting these businesses and shops causes even more economic damage to the country. I’m

sure that those who are involved in these boycotts would feel distressed, disappointed and

saddened by negative news of the economy. I plea with you not to cause more negative news to Sri

Lanka’s economy. The economic problems of these shops and businesses will likely further extend

to the country as a whole. It could make the already difficult cost of living issues get worse. No one

wants to hear of Sri Lanka experiencing negative economic growth. 

If you’re engaged in boycotts, think back to the kind of people these Muslim owners you previously

interacted with were like. Think logically about how they compare with extremists & terrorists based

on how they behaved and what they did. Recall the positive and good memories of them, e.g. if

there were acts of kindness, good quality of service, discounts they gave you etc. If you know of an

instance of them speaking against extremism and/or terrorism in their own community/religion, recall

those remarks and think about it. 

I was focusing mainly on shop and business boycotts, but I what I say does apply to the problem of

racism, terrorism, extremism and hatred in Sri Lanka right now. Work to make Sri Lanka the country

you want it to be. In the same way that negative actions by a group of people can disrupt society,

positive actions by a group of people can enrich society. Think of things you can do to make Sri

Lanka more safer, secure, united, tolerant among many other improvements needed for the country.

Sri Lankan Twitter Showcase: September 2018

On the Internet, people discuss and share happenings of Sri Lanka. One platform where this occurs is on social media. I decided to showcase a collection of tweets about Sri Lanka from the social media website Twitter covering the month of September 2018 in sequential order. If you don’t use Twitter or are unfamiliar with it, you can still read this post. The tweets (a message of 280 characters or less) are featured on this blog post. I selected a group of tweets that I like. Issues covered include politics, economics, pictures and positive occurrences. I’m including positive occurrences as there is usually more talk about the negative occurrences than the positive ones and hearing positive news can make us feel good.

Sunsets in Matara pic.twitter.com/i2VKwvWMzq

— Kalani Kumarasinghe (@KalaniWrites) 1 September 2018

This is a good picture of Matara by Kalani Kumarasinghe. Sorry, but the image embedding doesn't do it justice. I recommend clicking the picture link above to see it properly.

#SriLanka #Finmin @MangalaLK says  “the government needs to undertake more difficult and challenging #reforms in order to drive future economic growth and development”, given higher debt and unproductive mega infrastructures like port & airport

— Shihar Aneez (@shiharaneez) 2 September 2018

I think this is a good statement from Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera. What ultimately matters is if the government takes these reforms and how successful they are if carried out. I am of the opinion that Mangala is one of Sri Lanka’s better ministers so that gives some hope.

After falling to 10% of the average World GDP in 1978, Sri Lanka's GDP per capita has now climbed to 38% since the liberalization of the economy, and most of this boom happened in just the last 15 years!
Our last post will show you how this has reflected in Sri Lankan households. pic.twitter.com/SH3q7hxU8h

— Frontier Research SL (@FrontierResSL) 3 September 2018

These statistics show economic growth of Sri Lanka, particularly since the start of the 21st century.

Power limitation is an overriding concern in democratic constitutions - one way of ensuring this is through term limitations @welikalaa#19A #constitution #lka

— Verité Research (@VeriteResearch) 6 September 2018

This is a good point made by Dr. Asanga Welikala at his recent Verité Research talk titled “The Presidential Term Limit After The Nineteenth Amendment”.

Sri Lanka's per capita GDP 1820-2016. From Angus Maddison's brilliant dataset. pic.twitter.com/WictyrGbmO

— Daniel Alphonsus (@danielalphonsus) 7 September 2018

This is an image of Sri Lanka’s GDP per capita as shared by Daniel Alphonsus who got the figures from English economist Angus Maddison. The reason this is different to the previous Sri Lankan GDP per capita figures that showed GDP decreasing from 1960 to 1978 is because that one was in comparison with the rest of the world. This shows tremendous growth Sri Lanka has undergone and gives hope that as the GDP per capita has gone up in the past, it will go up again in the future to bring benefits to Sri Lanka.

#Citra, #SriLanka's first Social Innovation Lab, recently entered into a partnership with the Mount Lavinia Municipal Council to develop a citizen-centred open source platform for dengue prevention and control. pic.twitter.com/Io78H6dtgp

— Sri Lanka Times (@SriLankaTimes) 8 September 2018

It’s good to see technology being used to work on dengue prevention and control.

Commission to Investigate Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) has received 1968 complaints during the past nine months of the year, according to the commission. #Srilanka

— Thuvaraki Thuva (@NilaThuva) 11 September 2018

These are interesting statistics regarding CIABOC. It’s good that they are getting these complaints. I hope that CIABOC will get more complaints and that it will get more effective in the fight against corruption.

Sri Lanka Navy rescued a Whale Shark (Rhincodon Typus) that was stranded to Alampil beach area in Mulathivu and supported it to swim deep waters, yesterday (10th Sep). It weighs about 9000 Kg and about 9m in length. pic.twitter.com/uRHQ8scnOi

— Sunil Jayasiri (@sjayasiri) 11 September 2018

It’s good to see a story of a whale shark being rescued. It’s interesting to note that whale sharks are not harmful to humans.

RTI Commission has received 951 appeals of which 690 have been completed hearing and 4% of received appeals have been rejected by the commission, DG of RTI Com. Piyathissa Ranasinghe says. #lka #srilanka #RTIworkshop #RTIsrilanka

— Piyumi Fonseka (@Piyumi_KF) 17 September 2018

This is a good example of the Right to Information (RTI) law functioning with all the work on appeals by the RTI Commission.

#NuwaraEliya #SriLanka

Photo credit: @rovinovic pic.twitter.com/6RD38giHwY

— Sri Lankan Trends (@SriLankanTrends) 18 September 2018

This is a great photo of Nuwara Eliya taken by Rovin Shanila featured on the Sri Lankan Trends Twitter account.

Price of a 400g Milk Powder packet to be reduced by Rs. 25 - Cost of Living Committee #LKA #SriLanka

— Sri Lanka Tweet 🇱🇰 (@SriLankaTweet) 18 September 2018

The Sri Lankan economy functions in a way where the government sets prices for certain goods. As it’s very unfortunate that prices of goods frequently rise, it’s worth noting that there are also some price reductions such as this one.

Sri Lanka will celebrate RIght to Information week from 21st to 28th September, 2018 says Ms. Tilaka Jayasundera, Addl Secy (Development), Minister of Finance and Media today while declaring open the RTI week today. #RTI

— Sudarshana Gunawardana (@Sudarshana_RN) 20 September 2018

It’s good to note that Sri Lanka is celebrating Right to Information week this week of writing as recounted by Director General of Government Information, Sudarshana Gunawardana. It's also worth noting that today (28th September) is International Right to Know Day.

This year #lka's #PenalCode was amended increasing the min. age of criminal responsibility from 8 to 12 years. According to the #UN Committee on the Rights of the Child a min. age below 12 years is not acceptable #CRC #children

— Verité Law (@VRlawSL) 20 September 2018

This is information of the Amendment to the Penal Code which was passed earlier this year that increased the minimum age of criminal responsibility as reported by the Verité Law Twitter account (part of think tank Verité Research).

Sri Lanka's  @DailyNews_lk  is 67 years younger than the NYT, but the Sri Lankan daily got on the internet a year before the prestigious New York publication! NYT went on line on January 22, 1996, when the Daily News of Colombo was already on the World Wide Web. https://t.co/MeJJDWNTGk

— M A Ratna (@maratnasiri) 20 September 2018

M.A. Ratnasiri shares recent contrasting facts alongside the New York Times of Sri Lanka’s paper the Daily News. It’s good to know that the Daily News went online before the internationally acclaimed New York Times.

We collected over 200 sacks of garbage cleaning up Preethipura beach this morning. Thanks to everyone who participated from @EU_in_Sri_Lanka @UNOPS and the Marine Environment Protection Authority! #BeatPlasticPollution #lka pic.twitter.com/NnOYREHiIe

— EU in Sri Lanka (@EU_in_Sri_Lanka) 21 September 2018

It’s good to see a beach clean-up effort by the EU in Sri Lanka, UN agency UNOPS and the Government entity Marine Environment Protection Authority.

UPFA MPs Wimal Weerawansa and Prasanna Ranaweera were suspended from parliament for two weeks and four weeks respectively for unparliamentary conduct and breach of parliament standing orders.

— K.T.Rajasingham (@KTRaja) 21 September 2018

At the end of last week, two MPs were temporarily suspended from Parliament. I suspect that this is a result of the new Parliamentary Standing Orders adopted in April.

The constitutional council (appoints indep commissions) requires 3 "persons of eminence and integrity who have distinguished themselves in public or professional life and who are not members of any political party" -any names that should be top of the list for consideration? #lka

— Asoka Obeyesekere (@asokao) 24 September 2018

This is from Asoka Obeyesekere (Executive Director of Transparency International Sri Lanka). My suggestions are Priyan Dias, Nishan de Mel and W.A. Wijewardena.

I hope you enjoyed reading my selection of tweets on Sri Lanka. I am on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sumith90 in case anyone is interested. I would enjoy hearing people’s thoughts on any of the issues and happenings featured here.  

The Sri Lanka I Dream of

In this article I am providing a list of good qualities I wish to see in Sri Lanka, as Sri Lanka being a

developing country unfortunately has many problems. The point of this list isn’t to be very

pessimistic, but to look forward with what could and should be the case for Sri Lanka with optimism.

Let’s begin.  

I dream of a Sri Lanka

• Where we have a new political culture not known for bribery, corruption, nepotism, lies, etc but to serve the nation with honesty and integrity.
• Where election related violence no longer occurs. 
• Where we don’t have several issues of crime allowing citizens to relax for both serious and minor crimes.
• Where the rule of law applies equally to all.
• Where there’s a fast and efficient independent judiciary that doesn’t allow rich and/or influential people to tamper with the system.
• Where the Government departments are fully digitised, thus giving an efficient way of operating.
• Where citizens don’t face bribery in their dealings with the state and elsewhere.
• Where the Government can implement projects and policies fast and effectively with most of what was promised delivered.
• Where the attitude of doing something wrong is OK as long as you don’t get caught is replaced by a desire to do the right thing.
• Where there aren’t serious issues regarding the cost of living.
• Where there aren’t so many heavy protectionist taxes that cause difficulties for the citizens.
• Where there is a balanced tax structure not focused heavily toward indirect taxes.
• Where the average salary is significantly higher than what it currently is.
• Where the tragic racist incidents stop occurring.
• Where all citizens are treated equally.
• Where our exports have been diversified into a much wider range of sectors.
• Where we have a high flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) coming in.  
• Where the garbage management is effective. 
• Where the country is clean.
• Where the majority of citizens are law abiding.
• Where the country is not on reactive mode (most noticeably seen regarding disasters), but on preventive mode instead.
• Where services and support exist for people with special needs.
• Where the road rules are enforced with the drivers obeying the rules.

I hope you enjoyed reading this list. I’m sure that others will have more issues of their own to add to this list, so I invite others to share their own list of what they dream of for Sri Lanka. I am aware that making these changes to Sri Lanka is a very difficult thing to do, but I’d like to point out that the country does improve over time, comparing the country’s position with what it was ten years ago to now. We’re in a better position now then we were then, as improvements include no longer facing a civil war, the achievements in media freedom which include the ability to openly discuss and debate Government policy, the Right to Information law that has been active since last year and the improved tax structure under the new Inland Revenue Act that came into effect this month. It is likely that improvements will continue, thus making us in a better off position ten years from now and going forward.