APRÈS MOI, LE DÉLUGE! In the aftermath of the Great Flood of 2016, if Sri Lanka is to Build Back Better, the political leadership must be instrumental in syncing Government actors and State agencies in working together with greater integrity and cohesion to more comprehensively insure people potentially affected by hazards from becoming victims of happenstance in times of disaster
Friday, 27 May 2016
You might be sick at heart by now of hearing news regarding Sri Lanka’s recent deluge woes. But there are a few comments left to be made and a handful of suggestions to be acted upon in earnest to leave it there in silence unsaid. For there is a tide in the affairs of men (and women and children), which, taken at the flood, leads on to fame, to fortune-hunting, and filibustering of the most deplorable kind…
Fame
The first, for once, for a welcome change, is a positive spin that can be rightly placed on the people of our country in response to national tragedy. Once before, in recent memory, islanders from every walk of life rallied round to lend more than the proverbial helping hand when the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 ravaged our shores. Years later, nothing much has changed as regards the incredible generosity and good-natured willingness and ability of Sri Lankans to wade into troubled waters with their arms laden with goods and good-natured succour. So move over – Ceylon tea, Sri Lankan cricket, and sundry attributes that foreign folks have characterised as our essence; it is our sense of exceeding, abundant, charity that has come to be our epitome – and, if disaster continues upon disaster, our epitaph.
Fortune-hunting
This is not to say that the aftermath of the flood has been all sunshine stories. A cloud of concern has been cast over the actions of at least two sub-demographics and their response to the plight of fellow human beings in dire straits. One is the parasitic life on the seedy underbelly of urban and suburban culture, which creeps and crawls out of its slimy places of concealment along canal-banks and in shanty-towns, to exploit the good-natured generosity of donors as much as the naïveté of afflicted recipients of contributions in cash and kind. These criminal elements hovered on the fringes of the tsunami aid and rescue operations. They are still alive and well as much as slimy slugs can be said to be alive and well, seeking sordid nourishment from the scrapings off charity’s weeping table.
The other is an equally unscrupulous – if not more dastardly – element in Sri Lanka’s political subculture which feeds off the tears and sorrow of flood-wounded folks whom they were elected to serve. A case in point – the splashing of a rising young star’s mug across sacks of aid and assistance to the affected – almost defies reporting with a straight face… except to say that the sun has as good as set on some aspiring politicos’ meteoric (meteorological) careers – shame!
Filibustering
The political response to the overflow of misery, as perhaps was to be expected, has been the most egregiously unsympathetic. On the one hand, president and prime minister and parliamentarians alike have been out there amidst the still raging tidewaters where stranded flood victims were trapped as late as early this week… and, for sure, happy to be captured for posterity lending their electorate a sturdy shoulder to sob on for the benefit of photo-opportunists and political-opportunism. On the other, sterling statesmen have (even in jest) made political capital out of the situation, suggesting to august assemblies (which might have grown in character had THEY been flooded out) that it was the Joint Opposition’s erstwhile dashing of coconuts that caused the cyclone in the first instance!
