The ‘Jungee’ PM
Ranil Wickremesinghe’s mother is late Nalini Wijewardene, the benefactress of the supreme hub of Theravada Buddhism, the Kelaniya temple. His father is late Esmond Wickremesinghe, the Editorial Director under Ranil’s grandfather DR Wijewardene’s Lake House. Ranil is the recipient of a free honorary doctorate in law from Deakin University, Australia in 2017, orator at the Oxford Union and the biggest proponent of liberal democracy. He is also the Prime Minister of our republic. And he has delivered his most distasteful, shameless hee-haw on 4th March 2019.
At an event organized for the launch of Export Supplies Zone of Bingiriya, to an audience consisting predominantly of women who are working in the garment sector, PM Ranil Wickremesinghe in his characteristic delivery of Sinhalese thought it fit to insult the underwear of women referring to them as ‘jungee’ – a slang word used to describe the lower body garment used by women. Whilst the word ‘jungee’ is not considered a ‘dirty’ word, its use by the PM of our nation in a derogatory manner contributes to compound the already existing stigma for workers in the garment sector, particularly, women.
His exact words were: “the best female ‘jungees’ are manufactured in Sri Lanka. Ask Victoria’s Secret where those ‘jungees’ come from! The women know”. In all fairness, Ranil said this in the context of referring to the initial views on the garment industry in Sri Lanka calling these factories ‘tailor shops’, ‘under garment shops’ etc.
More than his words it is his derogatory facial expression, jeering laughter and mocking body language, reducing his audience to a state of humiliation that hurt. Here is a cultural ignoramus, the PM of our nation, who thinks it’s funny to infer to our garment workers as ‘jungee stitchers’.
Is he brain damaged, senile, or plain arrogant?
May be he thought it fashionable to use the word ‘jungee’ on the same week Donald Trump thought it fit to use the work ‘fuck ‘ in his Conservative Political Action Conference address? Would he use this debasing language on his Colombo elite cousins and wives of friends? Would he use the word ‘jungee’ when referring to his wife Maithree Wickremesinghe’s wardrobe – yes, the same Maithree Wickremesinghe, the gender researcher and Professor? The same ‘classy’, ‘educated’, ‘simple’, ‘sarala Maithree’, ‘reincarnation of Elena Jayewardene’, who was following Ranil like a jenny in Thirupathi, kissing the kovil walls- lots of class, lots of intellect! (We cringe, Prof, we cringe).
