‘Doormat’ nations

Monday 15th March, 2021

Sri Lanka has decried an online advertisement of doormats and slippers with its national flag printed on them. Amazon has withdrawn the advertisement, and China, where the controversial products were manufactured, has condemned the desecration of Sri Lanka’s flag and promised action against the errant business. It beggars belief that a manufacturer can stoop so low as to denigrate the national flag of a nation.

Amazon, the largest online retailer, ought to act responsibly when it permits products to be advertised on its platform. Last year, it drew heavy flak for selling shorts with the image of Lord Ganesh printed on them.

Attempts are being made in some quarters to pin the blame for the desecration of the Sri Lankan flag on China, but they are sure to come a cropper in that China has always stood by this country as a true friend; it is one of the few countries that treat Sri Lanka with respect and defends it at international fora.

National flags of all nations deserve respect, and despicable acts such as burning them by way of protest must be condemned unreservedly. Likewise, the deplorable practice of big nations treating their smaller counterparts like doormats should also end. We have seen some overbearing envoys of powerful nations overstepping their diplomatic limits to meddle with the internal affairs of this country. How they behaved during the 2018 constitutional crisis is a case in point; some western diplomats even cheered from the VIP gallery in Parliament when the result of a vote in the House was announced. The then President Maithripala Sirisena complained that the envoy of a powerful country had brought pressure to bear on him over Cabinet appointments. The US and the UK are using Sri Lanka as a doormat to wipe their blood-soaked boots on, in Geneva, having killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. This kind of doormat treatment Sri Lanka receives at the hands of the western bloc is perhaps more demeaning than the image of its national flag being printed on doormats and flip-flops.

Patriotism has reached fever pitch over the doormat matter, in this country. Social media is full of patriotic rhetoric, but why Sri Lanka receives doormat treatment has gone unaddressed. The blame for this situation should go to political leaders and other self-proclaimed patriots responsible for having ruined the country and made it heavily dependent on other nations so much so that it cannot even fix a sewer without foreign assistance. According to a report we publish today, the Sheikh Zayed Foundation (SZF), Dubai has, in response to a request from the Sri Lankan government, agreed to help provide clean drinking water and toilet facilities to some rural schools here. The SZF deserves thanks for its generosity because many schools in Sri Lanka are without proper sanitary facilities and clean drinking water. We are burdened with a bunch of politicians who pride themselves on having done a lot for this country, but their appeals for toilets give the lie to their claim of having rendered so great a service.

Besides, computers for Parliament have come from China and funds for setting up the parliamentary media centre from the US. Government leaders go cap in hand begging for funds, and one sees hardly any difference between these grandees, arrayed in finest clothes and moving in about in super luxury vehicles, and the panhandlers near the Colombo Town Hall! It is only natural that foreign powers treat Sri Lanka and its leaders with contempt. Ordinary Sri Lankans, however, are not blameless. Many of them are averse to hard work but lament lack of national progress and the attendant pecuniary difficulties while doing precious little to increase national productivity, which alone can help salvage the country from the depths of poverty and indebtedness. They expect gain without pain, and have no desire to learn from the success stories of South Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, etc. No wonder Sri Lanka is receiving doormat treatment.