A Blast From The Past: Time to give up on Sri Lanka

Going through my hard drive, I found this article I wrote back in 2006, before I even thought of writing a blog.

Here it is for your delectation.

My father was a civil engineer in Nigeria. When the coup d'etat happened in 1983 his employer made him an offer – stay on with the company, and he'd get citizenship in any country he wanted. He chose to come to Sri Lanka and work here. For almost 23 years after his arrival he never worked in the engineering field.

Fast-forward from 1983 to 1999, I too chose to leave the US and come back to Sri Lanka. If I had so chosen I could have stayed there. I too, inspired by my father's example decided that I would help my country and returned.

I often wonder what things would have been like if we had not done so.

For better or worse both my father and I had a dream, that one day we would be able to make a difference in Sri Lanka, that the things we do would help make this country a better place. Dreams die hard under the harsh glare of reality, but die they do. And the more important that dream is to you, the more it hurts when you finally let it go.

The final nail was hammered into the coffin that houses what remains of our dreams a few weeks ago. We have a plot of land by the Bolgoda Lake. We have had that plot since 1980. In 2002 we applied for planning permission to build a wall in front of it, instead of the easily bypassed barbed-wire fence. It took almost a year for permission to be granted for a fence instead of a wall, because that is what the law allowed. Meanwhile, on both sides of our land, walls were being put up with impunity.

We finally started building the fence a month ago, only to have petitions brought against us. There was a lady in the authority who felt that we had enough of a case to fight the petitions, and helped us do so. She also made it plain that she wanted her pound of flesh. The dream died when my father finally gave in and paid her.

My father is an honourable man. He doesn't take bribes and he doesn't give them. When he finally decided to pay the woman, it was the end of his belief that if you are in the right, you don't have to worry about the law.

I admit that I am not as naïve as my father is. I have passed a folded note or two into the waiting hand of a policeman. I have applied what is euphemistically referred to in China as hyeung yao or "fragrant grease" when the wheels of bureaucracy seem to stall at the axle. Yet I firmly believed that this was not what the people wanted. That people were giving bribes because it was demanded, not because they wanted to. I honestly thought that under the right impetus you could actually get rid of the bribery and corruption.

Looking back, my naivete amazes me.

A bribe is not about money any more. It is the exchange of power and privilege for money. "Privilege" - now there is a word that has no ambiguity of meaning. Take the Latin roots of the word privus and legis, private and law. Your own personal law.

Bribery affects those who bribe as well as those who do not bribe. When the de facto rule is to bribe, then even the honest people who have no reason or wish to bribe, end up having to pass "a little something", a "small support", a "summa santhosam", a "podi udavva" to get what they want done. The people holding out their hands range from the beggar on the street who threatens to embarrass you if you don't give him something, to the garbage man who now expects a payment every month, all the way to the top.

The problem is like smoking. The first fag (and I mean a cigarette here) is the hardest one. Your head spins, your lungs burn, your body and mind rebels at this unnatural deed. Fast-forward a bit - you light up and take a drag and not only does nothing untoward happen, but you actually enjoy the sensation!

And people like it this way. A politician is not chosen on his abilities, but on "what can he do for us?" Can this man get my kid into a school? If I serve him will I get that fat contract? If I run around with his thugs, will I be able to get a few crumbs that fall from his table?

Unfortunately the entire nation is corrupt. The politicians bribe the people with promises of free this and free that to get them to vote. The politicians bribe the public servants with offers of more money in the form of salaries to make sure that things happen the way they want them to. The people bribe the politicians and the public servants directly or indirectly in order to get what they want. Everyone is bribing everyone else.

Near my home there was a housing complex being built. This was not your average complex, this was serious business. Immediately the politicians in the area were up in arms about it. The ecological and social integrity of the area was suddenly the most important thing in the world. The screaming, the shouting, the posturing and the postering was a sight to be seen. Yet this was as standard and ritualised an event as combing your hair and checking your fly before you ask a girl to dance. The performance was masterful, and the audience was appreciative. The money was paid, the construction went on.

The war goes on in the North. Many thousands die, many millions suffer. The ones who give the military contracts teach their children in international schools, send them abroad for their studies. All on a government servant's salary.

We used to have leaders of integrity in this nation. People used to be ashamed to give or take a bribe. This too has passed.

The problem is, like I said before, people actually enjoy giving bribes. It actually gives you a good feeling, that you can do something that the other guy can't or hasn't thought of yet. That you're actually getting away with doing something that you know is wrong. Its a rush, a high.

And there's the rub. Sri Lanka is, pardon my French, fucked. "Sri Lanka Matha" is the victim of a brutal gang rape. Her mind gone, her spirit broken, she sells herself on the street for a few rupees a shot. And she was made that way by the society that depends on her. The politicians sell her to anyone they can as long as they can get a cut for pimping her. Many of her illustrious, and not so illustrious, offspring are willing to sabotage any attempt to revive and rehabilitate her in exchange for a mess of pottage.

There is no honesty left here. No honour. Those concepts are dead. Dead like my father's dream of living in a society where if you did things right you could actually go forward and succeed.

What works here is money. Remember Al Pacino in Scarface? First, you get de money. When you get de money, den you get de power. When you get de money and de power, den you get de women.

Power is cheap in Sri Lanka. A few hundred bucks gets your trash hauled for a month. A few thousand and you don't have to go to court and face charges for drunken driving. Society as a whole is corrupt and likes it that way.

Many of us came back thinking we can help this country. That we can clean it up. I, for one, found that you can't clean what everyone wants to keep dirty. You can't free someone who keeps his chains on himself. You can't carry out an "intervention" in an addict's life when all he wants to do is see the pretty colours.

I'm here, still fighting. I run a small company and spend my time doing what is essentially volunteer work. What money I get comes from teaching. I make less than one tenth of what my friends who are in the same field make.

Even I can see the writing on the wall. Even if I try to ignore it, it's still there. Sri Lanka doesn't want to be saved. We the, dare I say, "intelligentsia" of this country don't have a hope. We come in with great dreams, and sooner or later we watch them get thrown in a pauper's grave.

Lets face it, the Sri Lanka we dream of is dead. The priests are performing the last rites, all we are doing is performing CPR on a corpse. Time to give her up. Time to walk away. Time to let our dreams die with dignity.