Bleak start here but matters move overseas both for good and bad

I started my Cry on the morning of January 1, 2024. The date is propitious, calling for kiribath at breakfast and much communication in friendship and bonding. The group of four digits depicting the year has a good appearance to it of even numbers and a zero. But do these two prophetic signs hold good for Sri Lanka? Not at all! We Ordinaries are in for a hard time. We have suffered different difficulties since the onset of Covid-19 – four years in all; the worst being the total mismanagement of government, security, education and health services.

We have suffered economic criminals: those deciding the financial state of the country who almost willfully let the country slide to bankruptcy, aided by self-centered political high-ups who went on spending sprees. We further suffer seeing them live very well while too many of those they directly affected have not the means to have one nutritious meal a day. We mourn the death of children in Gaza.

What about our little ones? Hundreds are getting more malnourished by the day.  Cass had better switch off her mourning and groaning. That’s not her traditional job. Coming from the first Trojan Cassandra, who according to Homer’s writing was, at the end of the Trojan War, captured and taken to his home in Mycenae by Agamemnon to prophesy. She cried “blood. I see blood!”  Bloody murder did occur in the palace itself.

This present-day Cass’ task is to look to the future, foresee, and warn. Too foggy, steamy and dismal to see any silver lining, is her judgement. The unelected President of the Dem Soc Rep of SL has proclaimed the year 2048 as the start of the age of stabilisation and recovery of this country. Aney, how long to wait!  Many Sri Lankans will be dead by then, or have brought death unto themselves.

Glimmer of hope – local

But hold it! Let’s not be typical Sri Lankans and squat down and complain and extend the begging palm. Or poison and pollute the air with CO2, venom and noise in useless mass protests. Let’s do what we can do without causing upheaval et al. Let’s use our vote. The unelected Prez has declared presidential and general elections will be held this year – 2024 AD.  We hope he won’t do a U-turn like he did earlier and say state coffers are empty and hence no elections can be held. This after and before a couple of grand govt tamashas and overseas sojourns – himself, retinues and MPs globe-trotting. Also denying essential services while wasting money on so many embassies all over the globe, for example. Also paying fab salaries to chosen heads of institutions like SriLankan, incurring massive losses. These lists can run into pages.

We are exhorted to vote sensibly by decent politicians, religious leaders and sincere roadside protestors who are seen again.  Cartoons and comic strips do the same, like a song by the Gypsies that is being sent around with Ranjan Ramanayake making a handsome chorus. Thus, the onus is on us, the voting public to change those at the top and also systems, if at all possible. Leap frogs have started leaping. Avoid voting for them: b….. rats leaving losing parties and jumping over to likely winners for personal benefit and nothing else.

Glimmer of hope – global

After two weeks of deliberation, world delegates at COP 28 in Dubai agreed on decisions which are as follows:

·  Nearly every country agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. That meant a kind of blow to the host country and oil producing East Asia and coal producers. What will Sri Lanka do? Will its Ministry of Power and Energy agree to move away from coal and promote more solar power? The Minister is apparently educated, knowledgeable and progressive. Will the so-called mafia within the CEB allow change and closing down of coal power stations eventually?

·  The Loss and Damage Fund was approved with a mutual pledge of US$ 725 m to help   countries respond to the impact of climate change. Economically less sound small islands impacted are prioritized to receive funds. Thus SL, highly vulnerable to climate change, has formulated a Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on loss and damage.

·   COP 28 included its first ever global stock-taker on the world’s progress toward climate action.

Many organisations and institutions like the Commonwealth Secretariat paid for young delegates to attend COP 28, also journalists from developing small nations so they could give their readers back home a correct picture of climate change and what the UN is attempting to undertake to mitigate adverse effects of global warming.

Backward step

The US of America leaves us Ordinaries stunned at certain happenings over there. Lots cannot understand how Donald Trump has such a backing. These are white supremacists of the gun lobby, etc. But to have so many followers/supporters that Trump intends coming forward as Republican Prez candidate. Many predict that he will win against ageing Joe Biden. That is of course if he overcomes the latest desisting force against him from the State of Maine and others.

   Cass read of another inexplicable action of banning books, some of them accepted classics. In Iowa a federal judge, a couple of days ago, temporarily blocked the enforcement of a law backed by the State’s Republicans that banned books describing sex acts from public school libraries. “In granting the preliminary injunction, Judge Stephen Locher said that ‘the (State) law makes no attempt to target such books in any reasonable way. Instead, it requires the wholesale removal of every book containing a description or visual depiction of a sex act regardless of context. The underlying message is that there is no redeeming value to any such book even if it is a work of history, self help guide, award winning novel or other piece of serious literature. In effect, the Legislature has imposed a puritanical pall of orthodoxy over school libraries. It’s one of the most bizarre laws I’ve ever read.’”

Among those who challenged the ban were the publisher Random House and best-selling authors John Green and Jodi Picoult, on grounds of free speech. Personally, Cass thinks this is a most absurd and backward move on the part of the State govt of Iowa.

Derision demonstrated

The worm is turning. After being mostly docile, polite and listening to political pontification, the public is evolving. Loaded with tax burdens; physical hunger within and mental worries, a group of citizens broke out in anger and hooted out S M Chandrasena MP and his brother who is a political figure in Anuradhapura. Pent-up resentment burst its civil dam and thus the jeering leading to the two political brethren leaving in their luxury vehicle.

Cass could not but cheer viciously at seeing shots of the incident shown on TV news. Coming colour? She was not sure whether Chandrasena held a ministerial post so she Googled and found this bit of info. Education qualifications listed as G.C.E. (A/L); G.C.E. (O/L); Registered for Post Graduate. How come that last bit? How come he has jumped from GCE O/L to post – university degree?

Second recent shocking titbit: Carbon dioxide administered apparently to a post-surgery patient needing oxygen. Still to be determined. So, if you wish to commit suicide, as many do now, enter a general hospital is Cassandra’s prognosis.