Christmas amidst doom and gloom

Saturday 25th December, 2021

A blessed day dawns today, when the birth of a messenger of peace is celebrated the world over. The prevailing global health emergency has caused celebrations to be low-keyed again, but the spirit and meaning of the holy occasion remain undiminished. There is much more to Christmas than heavily commercialised festivity. Christmas is about giving and sharing. A line from a beautiful poem on Christmas spirit by the late Fr. Marcelline Jayakody, OMI, comes to mind: Mage naththala dugiya bath kanadaya—’my Christmas is when there is food for the poor’).

This year’s Christmas has come while people are undergoing untold hardships, especially in this country. Worse, there is a possibility of not only the poor but also the rich having to starve here, we are told; some agricultural scientists have warned of an impending food shortage. The kneejerk reaction of the powers that be to the dire warning in question has been to turn hostile towards those who have sounded it. They lost no time in sacking Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture Prof. Udith Jayasinghe, who warned of a food scarcity. This is not the way to set about managing the food crisis!

In fact, there is no need for agricultural experts to tell you there will be a food shortage soon. Anyone can see it coming thanks to the government’s disastrous fertiliser experiment, which has led to a drastic drop in the national agricultural output. If the country’s food production drops with no dollars being available for imports to meet the shortfall in supply, there will be a food scarcity. It is as simple as that.

This sorry state of affairs has come about because the rulers have rendered unto themselves everything including what should be left to experts. Absolute power has on politicians the same effect as hell dust on junkies. It gets the better of them, and the arrogance of power blinds them to reality. Like the druggies high on drugs, the politicians intoxicated with power take leave of their senses. So do their lackeys in the garb of public officials. Otherwise, the government would not have imposed a blanket ban on agrochemicals at this particular juncture instead of choosing to implement its organic fertiliser drive, which is certainly welcome, in stages. Its leaders should have ‘crossed the river by feeling the stones’ as the Chinese say, but they, in their wisdom, plunged head first into the experiment, and the country is where it is today.

Why the government has stopped short of removing Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage, who has become failure personified, is the question. Sackings, however, will not help resolve the multiple crises the country is faced with on all fronts. Problems in the agriculture sector are far too complex to be tackled with sackings and new appointments. The entire government has to take responsibility for bungling and make a course correction immediately if disaster is to be averted. The solution may be for the government to realise that the country is not yet ready for a switchover to organic farming, and act accordingly if food security is to be ensured. Commercial crops have also suffered extensive damage due to the government’s extreme action on the agriculture front, and it is feared that the tea yield will also drop drastically, affecting the much-needed foreign exchange inflow. This is also an extremely worrisome proposition for the country struggling to avoid a sovereign default.

Government leaders usually issue Christmas messages praising Jesus and extolling the virtues exemplified by him. This year, too, they will do so. It would be much better if they could emulate Jesus, overcome arrogance, and act rationally and boldly without being emotionally overwrought when trying to find solutions to vexed problems like the impending food crisis. One can only hope that what is feared will not come to pass.

We wish our readers a merry Christmas!