Why Does It Feel So Different?
By R.A.Ratwatte -September 11, 2013 |
R.A.Ratwatte
For 7 seemingly unending years I struggled for survival under the Rajapaksa regime. Feeding my family with nourishing and uncontaminated food was a real problem. Paying the Electricity and water bills was well neigh impossible. The banks squeezed harder and harder and pawning jewellery became a real option.
All the time I had friends abroad who were praising this Government. They are people I respect for their intellect and they are no catchers’ of this regime. They kept saying that the roads were now fantastic, there were new Airports and Ports, the city of Colombo has never looked cleaner. When they arrived from abroad they would marvel at the number of brand new and expensive vehicles on the roads. They simply couldn’t understand what I was whinging about!
Now that I have lived and worked abroad for a while I UNDERSTAND how they feel. When your family is eating real meat and not processed sausages, when it doesn’t matter if you keep the air conditioner on or the computer is used to watch a movie or two. When you can afford to run your vehicle without feeling bad about excessive mileage. When you don’t have to watch Government catchers with absolutely no qualifications doing top jobs and decimating the organizations they work for. Basically driving state assets into the ground. The corruption, the robbery, mortgaging future generations with crippling loans that have to paid back forever!
When those things are out of the equation, you understand what these expatriates are talking about. They look at the external view. They may even be thinking of what this will be (from an external viewpoint) a few years down the track, when they are ready to retire with their hard currency pensions. Their children would have grown up strong and healthy and could choose if they wish to come back or live abroad. They would also have been educated under a properly structured system not the parody of an education system that exists in Sri Lanka.
Successor To The Ugly American: Is China A Candidate?
Charitha Ratwatte
Readers will recall the novel ‘The Ugly American,’ published in 1958 by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. In 1963, a hit movie was made starring Marlon Brando. The novel became a bestseller and greatly influenced American and worldwide thinking.
The novel presents in a fictionalised guise the experience of American expatriates in South East Asia and allegedly represents, by pseudonyms, several real people, living and working in Viet Nam at that time. The novel describes a fictional country called Sarkhan (meant to allude to Viet Nam) and details how the Americans lost the struggle against communism in Viet Nam. Much later, this aspect was referred to as the ‘Battle for Hearts and Minds’.
The need for enhanced capability in this area has been reinforced by the recent debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, faced by foreign armies. General Petraeus, the famed overall commander in both those wars, who later headed the Central Intelligence Agency, before having to resign, rewrote the Counter Insurgency Strategy and Manual of the United States Army, building around the hearts and minds aspects of security, community and social development.
The novel ‘The Ugly American’ details the failure of the Americans in Viet Nam, allegedly due to innate arrogance and the failure to appreciate and respect the local culture. This has been the bane of armies of occupation, throughout history. Read More
