Dancing Sanna and waltzing Matilda

Monday 22nd August 2022

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, 36, has come under heavy fire over a leaked video, which shows her cutting the rug at a friend’s shindig. Her political rivals have frowned on what they call her carefree ways, claiming that someone at the party is heard saying ‘cocaine’, but there is no certainty the term was used; some of them even asked her to take a drug test, and she has done so to clear doubts. Test results are expected shortly. Insisting that she has never taken drugs, not even as a teenager, she has said she should not deny herself fun in her free time. After all, the World Happiness report has ranked Finland as the happiest country for the fifth consecutive year. If one cannot let one’s hair down and step it during one’s free time, what is the use of living in or leading the happiest country in the world? What do people do when they are extremely happy? They burn up the dance floor, don’t they? What is this world coming to when the leader of the happiest country in the world is criticised for dancing at a private party?

Problems that the Finns have! This is what most Sri Lankans may have said in response to the brouhaha over Marin’s dance. The Finns are not languishing in fuel queues or worrying about the next meal. The fact they do not have serious problems to contend with seems to have become a problem for PM Marin, who has had to live under the microscope.

What do PM Marin’s critics want her to be? A frumpy mess wearing a matronly look and poring over government documents all the time? Don’t leaders have to maintain the so-called work-life balance? As for the dancing controversy, doesn’t the fault lie with the person who released the video of a private party?

Meanwhile, an old video has resurfaced on the Internet, where President Ranil Wickremesinghe is seen dancing, but nobody has cared two hoots about his dance, which we find quite entertaining. They obviously have many other things to worry about. They are struggling to keep the wolf from the door. It is feared that the workers’ superannuation fund is going to take a haircut; the government has hinted at the possibility of restructuring domestic debt. If what is feared comes to pass—absit omen—the future of millions of workers will be at stake, and some local banks are likely to go belly up. Besides, even the profit-making state ventures are to be divested, and there will be job losses. Many people will be waltzing Matilda across the country in such an eventuality.

Even anti-government protesters were seen singing and dancing at the Galle Face Green so much so that their Aragalaya looked like Mardi Gras, according to their critics. But the fact remains that there arise situations where exorcists have to dance wildly to banish evil spirits, devil dances being a case in point. Having bankrupted the country, Sri Lankan leaders are performing the dance of seven veils, as it were, before the IMF and other international lenders in a bid to make the latter loosen their purse strings.

While the PM of the happiest country finds herself in hot water over partying and reference to cocaine supposedly heard in a leaked video, politicians in this unhappy land are free to do as they please; they can even chase the dragon or go places by importing drugs. They have got off scot-free despite their association with drug dealers coming to light.

In 2013, the then Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne was embroiled in a drug controversy. A freight container released from the Colombo Port, on priority basis, because of a letter issued by his office, on behalf of a businessman, was found to have 250 kilos of hell dust concealed therein. The issue raised a public furore, but the PM did not face any probe. Ranjan Ramanayake dropped a bombshell on the floor of Parliament in 2019, when he was a Deputy Minister in the Yahapalana government. He did not mince his words when he said some ministers were drug addicts. Subsequently, he told the media that he had submitted a list of drug addicts among the MPs to the Speaker and the police. The Provincial Council members and local councillors also had druggies among them, Ramanayake said. Strangely, his damning allegation went uninvestigated. There is reason to believe that he told the truth. One may recall that the SLPP local government members who set upon the Galle Face protesters on 09 May looked like zombies; they were either drunk and/or drugged. Politicians and junkies have many things in common, the main being that they are given to stealing and do not scruple even to cheat their own mothers if there is money in it for them.

Lucky are the politicians in this unhappy land!