Should we be eternally subservient?

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Though responding to those who criticise cloaked in anonymity may be considered an act of futility, after much thought I decided to respond to Interested Woman’s opinion piece “Ranil’s undiplomatic DW interview” (The Island, 9 October) as there are many inaccuracies and, more importantly, her concluding remarks raise a vital issue. First and foremost, let me point out that there are differences in our mode of perception; whilst my analysis concentrated on what Ranil had to say during the Deutsche Welle interview, the learned lady explored in detail how he did it, criticising him harshly every step of the way.

I am thankful to the learned lady for making suggestions to improve my journalistic skills which I do not mind as I am no journalist whilst, judging by the style of writing, she is an experienced journalist. She has stated: “To comment on Dr W’s title. I say it should have additions inserted: Ranil seems to have seen sense at last, ‘but became insensible and intolerant in the Berlin interview.’ His article carried not much critical comment on the interview per se but praised RW and digressed to UNHCR and Mangala Samaraweera.”

In fact, I was critical but diplomatic in doing so, stating “Admittedly, it was not the most diplomatic of interviews”, as the sole purpose of writing my piece “Ranil seems to have seen sense, at last!” (The Island, 6 October) being to direct his attention to an extremely important issue: exchange control regulations. I was hoping that his staff may bring my opinion to his attention, even though it is only a remote possibility. I must point out that whatever I write is for no personal gain but simply because I still feel strongly for the country of my birth even though I have settled in the relative comforts of a foreign land.

May I repeat that during Yahapalanaya, Mangala and Ranil committed two vital blunders that had very severe adverse effects on Sri Lanka, internationally and economically. Though the ultimate responsibility should lie with the then president Maithripala, I did not care to mention him even, for it serves no purpose as he lacks the basic capacity to differentiate right from wrong and continues to behave in the most absurd manner.

It is pretty obvious that cosponsoring the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka did very significant damage to our international reputation, a fact reiterated in many editorials as well as in many writings of Neville Ladduwahetty and Shamindra Ferdinando. It was rewarding to see Ranl’s reversal of stand and the categorical statement that he refutes UNHRC allegations.

The other big blunder was the repeal of the exchange control act which resulted in exporters parking their earnings abroad. In addition to numerous editorial comments, Shamindra Ferdinando has written extensively on this subject. The minister of justice has recently told parliament that USD 56 billion has been stashed away as a result and no one has disputed it. Whilst such a huge sum is stashed away, we are going behind IMF for a mere pittance! IMF is forcing the government to heap more misery on the poor and this could be avoided if the president takes action. My appeal to Ranil was to support the Minister of Justice.

The learned lady states: “About the BBC Channel 4 documentary: “Why do you treat C4 as sacred?” Uncalled for remark and accusation since the interviewer just asked his question, not loaded at all with blame or accusation or even innuendo.” She has got it completely wrong as the programme has nothing to do with the BBC. The documentary was produced by Channel 4, which is a commercial channel partly owned by the British government. BBC is fully funded by the government through a licence fee and is advertisement free in the UK though BBC international works in a different way.

Coming to the C4 documentary, Ranil was more than justified in his comment as the documentary is more fiction than fact, as stated in my piece “How will this drama end?” (The Island, 13 September). Even a conspiracy theory should be plausible. What the whistle-blower stated would have been plausible had the ‘Easter Bombings’ being just bombings. They were not; they were suicide bombings! Would Islamic terrorists kill themselves to bring Gota, categorised by some as an arch Sinhala Buddhist to power. What would happen to them when they reached the equivalent of the ‘Pearly gates’?

What surprised me most was the very curious conclusion the learned lady has arrived at; might is right and we should be subservient. She says, “One further point. No one must claim that if Modi brought down an interviewer, our Big Boss can do the same. So different are the two countries and respective leaders. India is sought after by the most important nations, while Sri Lanka is looked askance at as a miserably failed, bankrupt country that allowed its past leaders to set the rot in.”

Having read this, my good friend Dr Upali Abeysiri, Plastic Surgeon who treated many service casualties in the theatre of war, sent the following comments:

“The last paragraph sums it up. As a bankrupt nation we need to be subservient (unlike Modi) to offensive unsubstantiated comments of channel 4, agreed by the interviewing journalist because he hails from the West mostly depending on the votes of minor expatriates to maintain their democracy.

To put the blame on politicians when the whole nation is corrupt and not concerned about the country is the slogan of these subservient members of our nation hoping for handouts from wealthy nations for survival. They worry about rich countries not helping out if anyone stands up for the truth.”

I cannot better his comments except to add that Sri Lanka is not the only country that faced bankruptcy. Nearly a decade ago Greece, a member of the European Union, went bankrupt and is recovering. May I also remind the learned lady that we are not a miserably failed country. We are facing a difficult period, partly due to politician’s faults but also due to external factors like Covid pandemic and the unfair sanctions imposed by the West on our trading partners but we will recover.

In the meantime, should we be eternally subservient simply because we are a small country? Definitely, not!