ETCA needs patient explanation-Genuine concerns must be separated from xenophobic prejudices
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by Kumar David-March 12, 2016, 8:53 pm
ETCA is receiving much coverage, some rational, a lot ignorant, and a not insignificant portion simply to stir up anti this-government sentiment. My piece last week ("Dealing with the elephant next door") despite its title, was not about ETCA but generic about international economic and technical cooperation. Nevertheless it attracted e-mails, phone calls, a TV debate and even a seminar. Perhaps this was because it appeared on the page facing Kishani Jayasinghe’s dignified response to the flood of hateful vituperation heaped on her for singing Danno Buddunge in operatic style. Whether one is a fan of some style of rendition is beside the point; what is alarming is the depravity of the verbal abusers. Ms Jayasinghe did right to bring this to our notice and set off alarm bells about dastardly compatriots who resort to vileness when their prejudices are transgressed.
The relevance of this is that though I suffered no verbal abuse, some commentators were narrow-minded, xenophobic and frog-in-the-well about Lanka’s place in the world. My opponent in a recent TV debate, with dead-pan face, labelled ETCA a dark and dangerous US-Indian plot, hatched in cahoots with Sirisena-Ranil, to push through an imperialist economic takeover of Lanka. He knew full well this was all bollocks, but his aim was to take the gullible in the TV audience for a ride. Painstaking explanation of investment and technical cooperation basics is therefore indispensable since, for historical reasons, visceral anti-Indianism is ingrained in the Lankan psyche.
Complaints
The most frequent complaint about trade with India is that our products suffer unfair obstacles at the hands of bureaucrats who wish to prevent penetration of Indian markets. The categories most mentioned, tea and garments, are not examples that can take India by storm overcoming competition in price and quality. One or two Lankan supermarket chains have broken into India in a small way; possibly they had to first face an uphill battle. Be all this as it may, let us take the complaints of our exporters at face value, as our ETCA negotiators are obliged to, and demand that attention be given to ensuring that obstacles are eliminated and negative lists minimised. What we need is firm constructive engagement if we are to get the best out of ETCA.
