Book Review

On China, by Henry Kissinger

The Penguin Press, New York, USA,  2012

Henry Kissinger, the supreme diplomat and renowned academic, has put out  a book that should be made compulsory reading for current American diplomats.  Unlike the American politicians and the TV pundits who have been ceaselessly  bashing China since the
communist revolution without ever visiting China,  Kissinger has visited China  on 50 occasions, talked with the top leadership of the last half century and researched  the Beijing archives.  The result is a highly informative view of China, with summarised sketches of  its ancient history and culture and its impact on Chinese politics, while the  centrepiece is the historic US-China rapprochement managed by President Nixon  and Chairman Mao in which Kissinger played the key role. Despite its historical  perspective, the book is highly readable and absorbing.

During the period just after 1970, China was just coming out of the  tragic upheaval of the cultural revolution when Chairman Mao sought to  dismantle the bureaucracy and create a pure communist society by destroying  state institutions and the careers of all the leading figures in academia, the  public services and the military by empowering the youth operating as  dictatorial Red Guards. The experiment nearly destroyed the Chinese revolution  but Mao, ever the master of ideological contradictions, ended the power of the
Red Guards and sought a reversal of policy. Meanwhile China faced a greater external threat from its  erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union, as China  claimed ideological primacy over the Soviet Union  in the communist world and became an adversary. Military skirmishes on the  Chinese border went on between the countries for over years. China then needed
an ally against its rival communist state.

President Nixon, despite being later vilified for his authoritarian  style, was one of the most cerebral of modern US Presidents and a clear headed  visionary unlike most of his later successors in office. He had been a  committed China  basher in his politics. The USA  was the strongest military and economic power in the world. The Communist Party  of China, likewise, ceaselessly spewed hatred against the USA which was branded  the “paper tiger” and its allies “the running dogs of US imperialism” in its  daily propaganda for the Chinese people, as the USA had aided the Kuomintang  government and protected them in their refuge in Taiwan. But China was  desperately poor and its economy was hopelessly backward. How this unlikely duo  agreed to cooperate at all is a piece of major world history.

Despite its backwardness and problems, China was a country to be reckoned  with. It had given a good account of its military prowess in Korea against the might of the USA and its allies, as it had earlier against India in the  border skirmishes. It was then the conduit for arms and supplies to the North  Vietnamese fighting the USA  and its allies. But China
needed the USA  to curtail the Soviet threat. The USA  was losing the war in Vietnam  with seemingly no way out of the debacle while it was engaged in confrontations  with the USSR in Europe, the  Middle East and many other parts of the world.  So it was left to two men of outstanding prescience, Nixon and Mao, to leave aside  their ideological differences and collaborate, against the tenor of public  opinion in their own countries, negotiating initially in complete secrecy.

The convoluted politics of the Western powers had hitherto ignored the  existence of one fifth of the world’s population living in China. Taiwan with 16 million people represented China in the UN and its Security Council while  400 million people in China  were non-persons. It was only in November 1971 that China  took its rightful seat in the UN after an overwhelming majority elected it in  the General Assembly of the UN, despite strong US opposition. But Nixon had the foresight  to see that China,  with the background of its five millennia old continuous civilisation, would  become a world power with the creative ability of its vast population. China and the US  agreed that despite the ideological divide, and while each country retained the  right to criticise the other in public, they had a confluence of interests in  confronting the ambitions of the USSR. But China declines to sign any formal agreements  with the USA  and opts for carefully worded joint communiqués that would satisfy political  opponents to their collaboration in each country.

Of great interest to students of diplomacy are the contrasting styles of  US and Chinese negotiators and real life pictures of the Chinese leaders. Mao  himself, whom Kissinger describes as a colossus, does not participate in the  negotiations. He gives audiences like a divinity from his simple book strewn  office room and makes his points through metaphors, epigrams and references to classical  Chinese literature but declines to be drawn into details which he says will be  the work of his ministers. His two great experiments with pure communism, The  Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, were both costly disasters but  the old revolutionary was a cult figure because of his lifelong fight to  restore China’s  dignity after “The Century of Shame” when the Western powers plundered and  humiliated a vast country that was for millennia the greatest world power.

Despite Kissinger’s understanding of China,  he cannot but pay lip service to America’s commitment to promote  democracy and human rights worldwide. This, coming from the man who really  began the calamitous Vietnam War that cost 3 million Vietnamese lives and  master-minded the overthrow of the democratic Chilean government of Allende to
install a military dictatorship which tortured and killed tens of thousands,  must be seen as sanctimony intended for his American audience. But unlike  American politicians and its general public which tends to regard developing  nations with condescension, Kissinger states: “The attempt to alter the  political structure of a country of the magnitude of China from outside is likely to  involve vast unintended consequences. American society should never abandon its  commitment to human dignity. It does not diminish the importance of that  commitment to acknowledge that Western concepts of human rights and individual
liberties may not be directly translatable, in a finite period of time to  Western political and news cycles, to a civilisation for millennia ordered  around different concepts.” (page 426)

Another issue of particular interest is the 1989 Tiananmen Square riots (described as  the Tiananmen massacre in the West) which Kissinger places in its true context.  After one decade of gradual liberalisation of the economy, following three  decades of continuous revolutionary experiments under Mao, sections of the  students were now demanding Western-style political choice and, in the style of  the former left-wing Red Guards, were occupying public places, schools and  universities. The Chinese authorities could not decide how to handle this  situation and the response was debated for almost seven weeks before the  government decided that the movement should be cracked down by force to avoid
more chaos. Force was met with counter-force and led to many deaths. This  incident was highlighted in the Western media which had flocked to China earlier to report on Gorbachev’s first  visit to Beijing.  The Western media and politicians screamed of massacres and human rights  violations and sanctions were once again imposed on exchanges with China. American  politicians could conveniently forget how the peaceful Civil Rights movement of  the sixties and the Anti-War protests of the seventies were brutally  suppressed. Strategically, the US  felt it no longer needed China  on its side as the Soviet Union had crumbled  and was no longer an adversary. In fact, the US believed that China would be the next communist state to collapse: a big mistake.

Despites these setbacks, the policies of Deng Xiaoping continued to move  the country from autarchy to an open market economy linking it to the external  world a dramatic shift for a country which had closed itself to foreign  influences for several millennia and considered itself the “Middle Kingdom”  which was the centre of human civilisation. The aged revolutionary, a hero of  the Long March and the anti-Japanese and revolutionary wars, begins the process  of reforming the Communist Party and the country which enables his successor,  Jiang Zemin, to oversee a two decade development which makes China a world
power and the second largest economy in the world.

Kissinger makes the pertinent observation that US foreign  policy is not consistent and also suggests it is not always working in its best  interest because it is often driven by domestic political agendas. Further,  with every change of administration, the key personnel in the State Department  up to Assistant Deputy Secretary are replaced and there are long intervening learning  periods. On the other hand, the operation of the Chinese government through the  communist party (with a current membership of 90 million) after Mao does not  present a monolithic structure with an unchallenged supreme leader as many are
led to believe. After Mao, the communist party acquired a diverse  representation and issues are often hotly debated between the more liberal right  wing and the traditional Mao inspired left wing before major policy decisions  are taken. Major policy decisions are taken after long and careful analysis  that takes into account the impact of current strategies in the long-term.

Sadly, the Western democratic system relies on politicians concerned with  short-term interests that enable them to grab power and the consequences of  this are evident in the crises facing the West today.

For thousands of years, Chinese leaders had learnt how to handle  powerful and hostile “foreign barbarians” and absorb them into their system.  But the “Century of Shame” (mid 19^th to mid 20^th centuries) had shown that China  could not now stand up to the military might of modern Western aggressors. This  book is essentially the story of how China re-invented itself to learn  what was useful from the West and once again established itself as a dominant  power in the world.

Kenneth Abeywickrama

26 August 2012.

The Dumbing of the West and the decline of  Democracy

In the early 20^th century, West European historians  contemptuously referred to the declining Ottoman Empire  as “The Sick Man of Europe”. After its defeat in World War 1 the empire was  dismantled and divided between Britain  and France.  Today, the sick men are the Europeans while the unquestioned world leader, the USA, is not far  behind. The world is witnessing an astonishing phenomenon: the West which ruled  most of the world for three and a half centuries is anaemic and sick while the  former non-Western colonies and dependents are on the rise and are making  tentative thrusts to challenge the old order.

Imperial powers do not quietly give in to a new order rationally: they  will fight to the last using all the powers and the cunning they possess to maintain  dominance through international disorder to divert attention from their own  problems and attempt to destabilise upcoming rivals for power. China, which once imagined itself to be the Celestial Empire, did likewise when confronted by the technologically  superior and more modern European powers in the 19^th century.  Since the USA  under President Eisenhower demonstratively humiliated Britain and France  for its imperial actions during the 1952 Suez  invasion and punished them in the UN councils, the US  remains the unchallenged leader of the West with a subservient Western Europe willing to do its bidding.

The world is more dangerous than ever before, not because of the nuclear  threats from minor states like North Korea and  Iran  (which are still unsubstantiated) but because of the decline of Western  economies, the breakdown of their social order and their inability to dominate  the world through their financial institutions and powerful militaries. In
former times, the US  repeatedly overthrew socially progressive governments in South America, Asia and  Africa under the guise of eliminating  communism and established friendly military dictators to ensure the dominance  of their business corporations which controlled the natural assets of those  regions. Now, after the demise of communism, some of the military  interventions, like in Libya  and Syria,  seem more irrational and without economic sense. Is there any economic sense in  placing trade embargoes on Iran,  the second largest oil producer in the Middle East,  when the West is in economic crisis and in need of cheap oil? Is there any  sense in placing crippling taxes on solar panels from China (265%) when the US desperately needs alternative  energy sources?

Today’s wars pretend to be ideological: the need to propagate Western-style  democracy for the good of the whole world. Democracy, like the former Soviet communism  is a metaphysical concept, akin to an all powerful ruling God who cannot be  denied The Christian Church once accompanied and justified Western imperial conquests while
today Western ideologues claim to establish democracy by bombing civilian  populations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, not forgetting Vietnam where more  explosives were dropped than in the whole of World War 2 while the deadly  chemical, Agent Orange, poisoned the land and people for centuries to come. In  reality the West has created more dictatorships than democracies from which  countries in South America, Africa and Middle East  are freeing themselves despite continuing Western opposition.

Democracy is never precisely defined but is described in grandiloquent  and meaningless terms as “government of the people, for the people, by the  people” and as “freedom and liberty”. Its practical application is more meaningfully  described as the right to choose the government through universal adult  franchise. But its application in the greatest democracy in the world, the USA, leaves  room for doubt. According to the Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1885),  and subsequent American theorists, the political and social structure of America  embodies the very essence of democracy. But since 1796 till the Civil Rights  Movement of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People  (NAACP) in the 1960s, the Afro-Americans and other non-white people, including all  Asians, were deprived of basic democratic rights legally and treated socially  as inferior people. Slavery in it most brutal form persisted in America, which  the Civil War did not eradicate except for a legal fiction, long after all  other countries had abolished slavery. Officially, women got the franchise only  in 1919, but many devices are still being created by some states in the USA to  disenfranchise minority community voters. But most importantly, the gigantic  transnational corporations and financial institutions that dominate the  commanding heights of the Western economies have taken command of the politics  of the West.

The real purpose of a nation state is to ensure the well being and  prosperity of its entire people. When 400 Americans own 35% of the national  wealth, nearly 20% of working people are unemployed or under-employed, 45  million are without health benefits, and hundreds of thousands are homeless in  the richest country in the world, democracy is irrelevant. The US corporations  collected a massive US$ 11 trillion in profits in 2011 (leave aside the  undisclosed profits in tax havens) but still wants lower taxes even after  actual tax payments were revealed to be between 11-16% while the ordinary  citizens paid 30-35%. Unrestrained corporate and billionaire funding of  politicians in the US  has made a mockery of the electoral system where politicians depend on funding  to gain elected office.

A recent study by an American NGO, the Tax Justice Network, found that  the rich of the world had secreted around dollars 32 trillion in tax havens  (http://saints.catholic.org/business/story.php?id=47032) while the GDP of the world is only $60 trillion. In Europe,  recession has driven sections of the population to advocate fascism and  propagate hatred of non-Europeans. While European unemployment and social  conditions are even worse than in the USA (they do not have the same  ability as the US Federal Reserve to create new money to keep the economy  afloat), the EU leaders are mainly concerned with bailing out bankrupt bankers  while punishing the ordinary citizens with austerity measures.

How do the corporate elite in Western societies flourish and dominate  the political system to the detriment of democratic values? It is primarily  with marketing propaganda. Widespread surveillance of the public, the break up  of trade unions, secret arrests and imprisonment without trial, and violence  against street protesters, all under the guise of national security, are the  last resort. But marketing propaganda is the key.

Historically, the greatest marketing organisation in the world since the  medieval age in Europe has been the Roman  Catholic Church. Through a combination of state power backed by immense wealth,  it created a mythical universe of heaven and hell, God and Satan, miracles and  divine wrath for disbelief and rewards for obedience to church dictates. The  great God could be accessed only through the church. Throughout the Middle
Ages, the church invented the most gruesome tortures the world has known to  punish heretics and bought over kings and emperors with its wealth and promises  of divine salvation while the priests often indulged in unholy immorality. Its  successor today is the alliance of giant Western corporations and financial  institutions.

These are some of the established myths created by decades of clever  marketing by the corporate dominated politico-economic system that passes for  free enterprise capitalism and democracy.

• What is good  for big corporations is good for the country. So corporations need tax breaks  and huge subsidies.
• When the  giant financial corporations that largely control most of the world’s
  finance go bankrupt because of corruption and speculative deals, they must
  be bailed out with public money or the economy will collapse.
• Financial corporation  managers should not be prosecuted as they play an important role in the  economy.
• Corporations  should not be taxed to prevent them from moving production to China, even though China has more restrictions on  business than any Western country.
• Corporations  are there to create jobs. If they manufacture abroad in China and India  and Mexico  it is because they are taxed too much, not because they are greedy and unpatriotic.
• The wealthy  should not be taxed as they create business by investing – even though  they invest mostly in stock market and commodity speculations.
• Social  benefits for the under-privileged – education, health care, social
  security benefits – undermine the economy.
• Poverty is  due to laziness, not the denial of opportunity.
• If people are  homeless because their homes have been foreclosed by teaser mortgages,  they must suffer the consequences of their imprudence.
• Democracy and  free speech demand that billionaires and big corporations should be  allowed to fund political campaigns without revealing their names and the
  massive funds employed in politics.
• The 35,000  lobbyists working on Congressmen, mostly hired by corporations to promote  their agendas, are a sign of freedom of speech.
• Fundamentally, “The Government is the Problem” (President Reagan’s favourite) – it exists to primarily to maintain a large miliatry, police, prisons and assist large business corporations.

When less than 50% of the voters care to exercise their vote, it is a  sign that people have opted out of their democratic system. The leisure time  most people have is used to watch sports and corporate news on TV. Only a  fraction of the educated class of people has the habit of reading and economic  and political analysis. Others could buy into the system for their gain. Half a  century of corporate media propaganda has dumbed the minds of the masses in the  West. Would that Vance Packard (1914-1996), who wrote The Hidden Persuaders in  1957, about how marketing created unwanted needs, lived today.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka.

06 August 2012

Economists as Fortune Tellers

“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist.

Prof. Luis Garicano, Director of Research at the London School of Economics, was explaining to Queen Elizabeth on 05 November, 2008, the origins and effects of the current financial crisis, during her first visit to the world famous academic institution to open a new building, when the old queen asked the simple question:

“If these things are so large, how come everyone missed it? Why did nobody notice it?”

The baffled professor’s explanation is very revealing: “At this stage, someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing.” The Queen, one of the richest people in the world, had lost 25% of the value of her blue chip stocks in the London Stock Market[1]. Around the European Union and the USA, hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens would lose their life savings, their homes or their jobs.

A rational public may then well ask: “If that is the state of your knowledge, why do we need economists to help national policy decisions, and even our private investment decisions?” It is not true that everyone was unaware of the impending crisis caused by an out of control unregulated Western financial system. Many US economists who were not in the mainstream had been warning that stock markets and speculation through derivatives had created a casino financial market resembling Las Vegas style gambling. They warned for two decades that the system was unsustainable and a crash was inevitable. But with top financiers in New York and London making personal fortunes of billions of dollars and buying governments in the West, the truth was the last thing politicians wanted to hear.

People paid $10,000 for a seat at one time to listen to the pontifications of Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, revered for two decades as the wizard of economic development. By persuading governments under Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush that de-regulation of the financial markets would create an efficient system of resource allocation and at the same time creating immense amounts of new money for the financiers and bankers to speculate, he presided over a gigantic national Ponzi scheme that created a false prosperity for two decades. New borrowings and new money was created to pay interest on existing debts and spend lavishly for expensive military adventures around the world. When asked at a Congressional hearing why he did not anticipate the crash, he blithely replied: “If we had known then what we know now, we would have acted differently.”

Prof. Luis Garicano, in response to the Queen’s question, explained: “There are billions of people in the world making their own decisions so it is difficult to predict market movements.” That is the trouble with modern economics which is based hugely on complex mathematical formulae based on unverifiable assumptions. It makes the economists and academics seem very clever when they use complex software to work huge mathematical equations and arrive at certainties when a perceptive non-academic could use common sense to see a more realistic picture. In no branch of science would practitioners come to firm conclusions on the basis of unverifiable data. At least they would qualify the result with a caveat: “Conclusions subject to error because of unverified data inputs.” And these predictions are not dealing with private decisions: they involve policies governing the health of the national economy and the livelihoods and fortunes of hundreds of millions of citizens.

At a hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission appointed by President Obama, on 07 April 2010, Alan Greenspan admitted making mistakes but defended himself saying “One cannot always be right. I was right 70% of the time, I was wrong 30%.” The Chairman, Phil Angelides, a former State Treasurer of California, shot back at him: “The Captain of the Titanic was 99% right and 1% wrong. It is the size of the mistake that matters, not the numbers.” The 70/30 formula has a historic background which Mr. Greenspan may not have been aware of. When Mao Zedong was asked about the many crimes of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, he defended him saying “Stalin was 70% good and 30% bad.” Now modern capitalist China defends Mao Zedong using the same 70/30 formula.

So what is the difference between mainstream Western economists and Gypsy fortune tellers? They both make a living by using mumbo-jumbo to please their clients by telling them what they want to hear.

Kenneth Abeywickrama

15 October, 2011.

Turmoil in the Indian Ocean

Ever since Vasco da Gama and his small flotilla of ships rounded South Africa (which became for them the “The Cape of Good Hope”) in 1498 to enter the Indian Ocean, Western imperial powers have poured into the Asian region and created six centuries of turmoil, making this vast ocean the most militarized piece of water in the universe. In the European Middle Ages, Asian powers like China and India were the richest nations on earth. Earlier, traders from the Middle East, India and China had plied these waters and exchanged goods even with Rome from pre-Christian times without any major conflicts. But Europeans, with their superior military organisations and weaponry, and their insatiable quest for military conquest and booty, spelled disaster for most of Asia. Within a few centuries, the Portuguese, Dutch, British and French had destroyed most of the great nations of Asia whose civilisations are traced to many millennia before the West reached that threshold.

The Second World War, where the imperial powers of the West as well as their Japanese imitator and the USSR fought their life and death struggle for dominance, created the catalyst for the subject nations of Asia and Africa to gain their independence after centuries of oppression and domination. But the struggle for Western dominance of this region continued with their constant interference in the internal affairs of newly independent nations, now operating as agents of “regime change”, to oppose those governments that were not cooperative with Western interests and establish others who would be more accommodating. In Indonesia, the Western plot to oust President Soekarno in 1967 and install Suharto was achieved by the brutal massacre of over half a million “communist sympathisers” between October 1965 and February 1966 and in Vietnam the war against the country to install a puppet regime and frustrate communism cost over 3 million Vietnamese lives and an enduring environmental disaster still haunting Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos that will last many generations.

Today, Western interests in the Indian Ocean region spans the East African littoral states, the Middle East, South Asia, the island nations of the Indian Ocean and East Asia (which it fears will come under Chinese influence). While NATO forces led by the US still fights a major decade long war in Afghanistan which has drained Western government Treasuries, strained military resources and tired their publics patience, it is also carrying out covert military operations in Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, apart from the massive operation in Pakistan mainly using remotely operated attacks by “drones”.

In the light of these developments, people in the small island nation of Sri Lanka are wondering what to make of the latest Wikileaks revelation that the US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake, had tried to persuade the Secretary of Defence of that country on 08 December 2009 to send Sri Lankan troops to support NATO operations in Afghanistan[1].

Sri Lanka has been on the cross hairs of the West for over two decades, since the Indian government under Indira Gandhi nurtured and unleashed the LTTE terrorist movement which cost untold suffering to the people of that country. Being ever ready to seize an advantage when a non-European country experiences internal divisions, the West played it hot and cold during the internal conflict. It proscribed the terrorist group and yet provided them space to operate and raise funds in the West for the war in Sri Lanka while placing an arms embargo that applied to the government. While condemning terrorist violence, Western NGOs and Norwegian peace makers provided covert support for the terrorists at times. So there was consternation in the West when the Sri Lanka government which they had marginalised defeated the LTTE in May 2009 after a two and a half year war which the self confident LTTE initiated. While the terrorist leadership was holed up fighting its last battle, the West took the unprecedented step of trying to negotiate the rescue of the terrorist leadership and their repatriation abroad to fight another day.

Since then, the Sri Lankan government has been the focus of a massive Western-led smear campaign as a human rights violator based on unsubstantiated (and unacknowledged) evidence produced by un-mentioned sources which is regularly shown in the media in the form of gruesome horror videos put together by British Channel 4 TV and copied by other Western media, condemnations by the NATO powers that are endorsed by the UN Secretary-General and repeated ad nauseam by Western NGOs and political leaders in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia. The Sri Lankan military has been denounced as being a brutal organisation that intentionally killed 40,000 civilians (some others put the figure at 100,000) due to sheer lack of concern for innocent lives. Books and articles on the brutality of the Sri Lanka government and military are proliferating and courts of law in the USA, UK and Switzerland are contemplating legal action against selected Sri Lanka leaders.

If all this is true, why would a top US diplomat want these same human rights violating soldiers to fight alongside NATO troops in Afghanistan, whose soldiers presumably have not committed human rights violations by wantonly killing innocent civilians in distant Asian lands?

Now the motivation becomes a little clearer. Let it be said that most Sri Lankans consider Mr. Robert Blake as a sincere friend of their country, and for good reasons. He is a public official while policy decisions are made by the political leadership. But wherever possible, he has shown goodwill towards Sri Lanka. So was his request a possible path to bail out Sri Lanka and rescue it from its tormentors? It is common knowledge that non-European countries that are allied with NATO in its direct or proxy wars, like Ethiopia, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, are redeemed and never criticised despite being conspicuous rights violators.

Sri Lanka is a highly vulnerable nation because of its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, commanding all the major sea routes, and its natural harbour in Trincomalee, is the best in the region. The major US/NATO operational bases, Djibouti and Diego Garcia (where Britain committed an atrocious human rights violation be expelling the entire Chagossian population to create the military base), are farther removed from the war zone in Afghanistan. In 1958, the Sri Lankan leader, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike (himself the subject of Western vilification even now), reclaimed through diplomacy the British bases in the country, including Trincomalee. If not for his foresight, Sri Lanka, like Guatanamo Bay in Cuba, would have become a key centre for NATO military operations and its independence would have long since been compromised.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka.

25 October, 2011.

Democracy: USA vs. Sri Lanka

by Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka

Democracy is the holy political mantra of our times. Most countries of the world claim to be democracies, whatever their political systems and practices and some, like the USA, claim to be the greatest democracy. It has gone to war and occupied countries on the justification that it was to replace tyranny with democracy. So this form of democracy needs to be examined by comparing it with what Sri Lankans are familiar: Sri Lankan democracy.

Universal adult franchise

Universal adult franchise, meaning the right of all citizens to be allowed to freely vote at an election for a political representative of their choice, is considered the litmus test of political freedom and democracy. The US had voting rights for most White adult males by 1850 by eliminating property qualifications. The 15^th Amendment to the Constitution of 1870 gave voting rights to Afro-Americans but many states denied coloured people voter registration. The 19^th Amendment of 1920 gave women the franchise. But since voters need to be registered and each state had its own registration laws, many Southern states instituted ad hoc literacy tests and a poll tax and denied coloured people the franchise. As a result of Dr. Martin Luther King’s campaign, the 1966 Voting Rights Act tried to eliminate literacy tests, the poll tax and other state imposed barriers to voting rights against coloured people. Still, people charged with a felony are denied the vote and over 5 million people are disenfranchised on this ground[1]. Some states still make it difficult for the poor coloured citizens to merely register as voters. Currently, some Republican controlled states are trying to deny the poor and the coloured people the vote by stipulating that those registering to vote must produce their birth certificates, instead of the usually accepted government identity which is either the driving licence or state issued identity card, knowing that many poor citizens do not have birth certificates. The long history of racial discrimination against minorities negates the idea of true democracy for all citizens in the USA.

Sri Lanka (Ceylon, at the time) obtained universal adult franchise in 1931 after the Donoughmore Commission’s recommendations while it was still a Crown Colony. It was the only Crown Colony of the British to have this privilege. India got the full franchise only in 1947, with independence. There are no barriers to voter registration which is the responsibility of the Elections Commissioner’s Department. This department sends out tens of thousands of investigators to every household before an election in the country to register all adult voters. These voter lists are then available for scrutiny in every electorate at post offices so that anyone left out can request to be included. All recognised political parties also have access to these lists so that they can make sure that the names registered are genuine and also get the department to include people whom they know have been omitted or added by error.

Multi-Party elections

The existence of several competing political parties is said to be another proof of democracy. So China, with its one party system, is condemned. But the US has only two political parties, which are not very dissimilar in their basic political philosophy. The high cost of elections (it took the current President an expenditure of $750 million to win the election in 2008) and the dependence on heavy corporate funding for candidates ensures that newcomers and small-timers are effectively barred. In Sri Lanka, on the other hand, there are a dozen political parties at any election, including communist parties that would be prohibited in the USA.

Management and conduct of polls

In the USA, the registration and the polls are conducted by officers under the Secretary of State of each one of the 50 states. This official is an appointee of the political party governing the state and can be a partisan manager. In the 2000 Presidential election, the State of Florida falsely removed the names of 600,000 Coloured people, from the voting register, claiming they were felons, before the polls to ensure a Republican Party victory[2]. In many states voting machines managed by private companies are used and the public have no access to the manner in which votes are counted. They have to accept the figures given by the company hired by the State Secretary. In some states, voting machines have been found to be faulty, giving inaccurate results. Another expedient is to locate very few polling stations where the opposing party had the most supporters so that many prospective voters could not enter the polling booths before the closing hour. State government also take the chance to change electoral boundaries so that the concentration of voters for the opposition can be fragmented to the ruling party’s advantage. The Supreme Court of the USA also entered the fray in the 2000 Presidential election by prohibiting a vote recount in Florida when it seemed that one candidate would lose as a consequence.

The Sri Lankan system, inherited from the British, is far more transparent and is designed to eliminate this type of corruption. There is only one authority responsible for organising national or provincial elections: the Commissioner of Elections. This office is an independent non-political office. Once he is appointed he is answerable only to parliament, and cannot be removed by the government in power. This department is responsible for registering all adult citizens as voters. The department is responsible for the electoral boundaries. It conducts the polls and sets the rules of conduct for the participating parties. All political parties have access to his office in case of a grievance. If there are incidents of voter fraud, the Commissioner has the power to annul the results in an electorate and stage a new election, and this has been done at times. The Commissioner will instruct the Police Department before the elections to ensure the observance of election guidelines and security. Up to now, there have been no charges that a Commissioner has been openly partisan or corrupt.

In Sri Lanka the polling stations allow each political party to have its representatives to be present during voting hours to ensure that the poll is conducted fairly. Paper ballots are used and the counting of votes is also done in the presence of the representatives of the political parties. If the results are close, a candidate can demand a recount of the votes.

Influencing the government on behalf of special interests

Governments are elected to ensure the best interests of all its citizens, not partisan groups. In the USA the system is seriously flawed by the officially recognised position of registered lobbyists working for special interest groups that can afford the high costs of lobbying firms. There were 12,964 active political lobbyists in 2010, mainly centred in offices in K Street in Washington, D.C., who officially spent $3.51 billion to gain the attention of the 435 Congress representatives and the 100 senators[3]. The biggest lobbyists work for the multi-billion dollar corporations that funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians to secure advantages for themselves. If anyone needs to get the attention of the political leadership, a lobbyist is a necessity: an individual voice or that of an indigent group will not get a hearing. Congress representatives also regularly send out letters to different local voters and groups asking for political donations ranging from $100 to $10,000. Even the Government of Sri Lanka has paid out millions of dollars to lobby groups to get the ear of the Washington political establishment, though it appears the anti-Sri Lanka LTTE lobby is better funded and thereby more successful!

Lobbying, paying for political campaigns and hosting politicians in return for special favours are considered an egregious form of corruption in Sri Lanka and all other democracies. There is no doubt that there are businessmen and companies in Sri Lanka who fund for politicians in return for favours. Sri Lanka has never been short of corrupt politicians, as is the case in almost every other country in the world. But it cannot be done openly and if these deals are exposed, they are open to charges of corruption in the courts of law.

People participation

The test of democracy is the level of citizen participation in framing the government and its policies. Of the number of registered voters in the USA, the number actually voting is around 43-63%. In Sri Lanka it would be on average 65-75%. Lower numbers were recorded when the terrorist group, the LTTE, prevented citizens in their areas from voting. Voters in the USA are not given a day off from work to cast their vote as in Sri Lanka. They may ask for two hours of unpaid leave from work to vote. Voter apathy is common in the USA, indicating many people have no confidence that their vote can make a difference to their lives.

In Sri Lanka, people are highly conscious of their rights and are demanding of them. If the prices of essential food items increase for some reason, even beyond government control, tens of thousands will fill the streets in cities to make their protest. Trade unions are often organising strikes for higher wages, university students are making special demands and university graduates tend to believe that it is the duty of the government to give them employment in the state sector. The trade unions in the USA have been progressively emasculated and reduced over the last decades. In the USA, with increasing unemployment, increasing shifts of wealth to the richest class and about 10 million families losing their homes because of rapaciously designed mortgages, protests are hardly seen.

Concern for the ordinary people

In a vibrant democracy, the government will show a concern for the long term development of its citizens, especially the more vulnerable population at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. In this respect, Sri Lanka has been outstanding. As far back as 1944 the government introduced free education in public schools and universities. This has resulted in the country having a large literate population, comparable with many developed countries. The country also established free health care through government hospitals where even a poor person can obtain a heart operation without charge. Midwives in every small grama sevaka division will visit households to advice mothers on maternity care and ensure timely immunisation of children against childhood diseases. This accounts for the levels of life expectancy in the country that mirrors that of developed countries.

In the USA, even the limited social services are now being reduced to trim public expenditure. The public school system run by states is free but university education is hugely expensive and beyond the reach of many. Medical services are the most expensive in the world and health services account for 18% of the GDP at present. Without insurance there is no access to medical care and since insurance is expensive, 45 million Americans are without medical insurance. There are ominous demands from the Far Right politicians to attack even the existing Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Sri Lanka is a poor developing country, which is now among the fastest developing countries in the world. The USA is the richest country in the world which is right now in a continuing economic decline. Democracy pays in the long run.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka.

10 October, 2011.

6^th International Student Conference of COSEC, Ceylon, 1956

1956: A watershed year

In September 1956, the 6^th International Student Conference of the Coordinating Secretariat in Leiden, Holland, was held in the idyllic setting of the Peradeniya campus of the University of Ceylon. At the time, it was billed as the largest and most representative international student conference held outside Europe.

1956 was a memorable year for Ceylon and also for me. I was elected President of the Peradeniya Student’s Council by an overwhelming majority because I was able to win over most of the opposing factional groups and unite them. It was an eventful year for Ceylon as Sir John Kotelawela, then Prime Minister, a figure despised by a majority in the campus, suffered the worst election defeat in the history of the country and left office. A mass
movement by the social under-class had changed politics in the country. Unbeknown to us, the British Cabinet had also made a very insightful assessment of him and his type of government after his defeat. “The result is probably a vote against the previous government than for any new policy. In some ways this is a healthy sign. The previous regime had become corrupt and autocratic; its leaders were wealthy landowners who were not averse from rigging affairs to suit their own convenience. Sir John Kotelawala,
their leader, was a vain, ambitious self-advertiser, determined to “put Ceylon on the map”. In one sense it is salutary that the Ceylon public should have “seen through” Sir John Kotelawala and their vote can be regarded as a sign of intelligent democracy.”(British Cabinet, C.P. (56) 107, dated 01 May, 1956)

Internationally, the struggle against Western colonialism was gathering momentum in Asia and Africa and 1955 had seen the first Afro-Asian Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in Bandung, Indonesia, where the heavy-weights Chou Enlai of China and Jawaharlal Nehru of India gained international stature while a light-weight from Ceylon, Sir John Kotelawela, made a fool of himself.

The Cold War between the Western powers and the Soviet Bloc was at its height and student organisations were also drawn into this by the main protagonists. The Soviet Bloc had an organisation known as the International Union of Students (IUS) where students from around the world, but mainly from the developing countries and colonial states, were invited in their hundreds for a massive celebration coupled with anti-Western propaganda. To counter this was the Coordinating Secretariat (COSEC) of the International Student Conference, subsequently revealed to be a US Central Intelligence Agency front, headquartered in Leiden, Holland. They were dubbed The Cold Warriors.
Student leaders participating in both events had all expenses paid for by the hosts. In 1956, the COSEC had decided to have their 6^th International Student Conference in Ceylon, no doubt influenced by the uncompromising anti-communism which was the only political philosophy of Sir John Kotelawela. By the time the Conference, lasting two weeks, was held in September, 1956, in the Peradeniya Campus, S.W.R.D Bandaranaike was the Prime
Minister of Ceylon and gave the inspiring opening address. It was the first truly international student conference held in Asia.

All conference arrangements were made by the host organisation in Holland in collaboration with the government and university authorities and were undeniably done with professional expertise. We had no hand in it except to pose as the host team.
There were participants from 56 countries, each sending 2-6 members, 8
representatives from other student organisations with Observer status and about
10 others. The conspiratorial political nature of the event manifested itself even before the conference started. About a dozen sturdy young hippies of American and European origin were seen around the campus befriending student groups. They hung around the campus, went with the students on short bus trips to Kandy and the villages and were integrated with the students. Their true identity began to emerge when one student asked a young woman whether she felt safe travelling alone in a strange country. Instinctively, she opened her hand bag and showed her a loaded pistol, remarking “I can take care of myself.”

Student high jinks

The Cold War is now long over and the debates are now mostly forgotten, except for the memory of student pranks. Many African countries were still in the throes of wars of liberation from Imperial Britain or France and sought to introduce resolutions condemning Western imperialism, while the large number of Europeans students sometimes heckled such speeches and cleverly diluted or voted them out. They had come prepared in advance to introduce resolutions condemning Soviet imperialism in Eastern Europe and communist systems and were much more successful in their tactics than the
Afro-Asians. Another episode that rocked a session was the confrontation between the Indian and Pakistani students over Kashmir. The leader of the Pakistani group, a friendly man otherwise, was so overwrought by an Indian comment that he stood up in a paroxysm of rage and threatened to kill the Indian delegate and had to be placated by us.

Our students union had created small student committees with special responsibilities to handle the foreign guests and keep them comfortable. One day I came to Jayatillake Hall at lunch time with some of our foreign guests when I noticed a police presence. About half a dozen policemen were talking to some students in one corner and questioning some of the labourers who were trimming the lawn outside. On inquiry, I was told with some agitation that outsiders had entered a room and stolen the property of our South African
delegate (I believe his name was Trevor A Coombs) and they had brought the police to find the culprits and the stolen goods. We all agreed it was a shame that this had happened and that an apology was needed. At the moment, I was too busy with other matters and left the problem in their hands.

About a year and a half later I was the recipient of a three month UNESCO Youth Travel Grant to travel to Western Europe on a youth leadership programme. This was an award for my work in successfully building the UN Students’ Association under the umbrella of the UN Association of Ceylon, a project sponsored and supported by a great Sri Lankan gentleman, Mr. T. Sri Ramanathan, whose memory I still cherish. Before my departure for Europe, many of my student friends gathered in my room in the campus and wanted to know how I was going to equip myself for the trip. Did I have an overcoat? Good sweaters? Proper suitcases for airline travel? I did not have any of these things. We are going to equip you they said, and produced these items of the finest quality. I was astonished and demanded to know how they came by these. There was a lot of laughter and then it was sheepishly revealed. “You remember the fellow who came from South Africa for the conference. Well, we were intrigued by his views on apartheid and asked him whether he
actually believed black people were inferior to whites. He said categorically that he believed this was true. We congratulated him for his candour and then punished him by concealing his property! We did not tell you at the time as you would have been very angry.”

Another incident was connected with the Cuban delegation which arrived several days late for the conference. Our host committee had greeted them at the Colombo airport and inquired about the delay. Their leader, Jose Antonio Echeverria, was a large pink man with little knowledge of English to converse with our people. He had waved his arms in agitation and hysterically shouted, “Police attack us, we fight police, we fight dictator, we come for the conference.” He made spirited speeches in Spanish at the conference. Our people had by then decided that he should be classified as a harmless joker. The entertainment committee had organised an elephant show during the week-end for our guests at the Trinity College grounds in Kandy. The mahouts showed off the skills of the elephants putting them through various obedience tests. Then a mahout brought an elephant that knelt near Echeverria, a manoeuvre clearly orchestrated by our friends, who then started cheering and shouting for Echeverria to mount the elephant. The mahout helped him up and he rode triumphantly for a short distance when the elephant, unaccountably it seemed, responded by going to a hill side and pushing himself to stand on his two rear legs. The burly Echeverria started slipping from his high perch and finally clung on to the elephant’s tail before landing heavily on the ground to the cheers of the crowd.

Postscript on participants

Jose Antonio Echeverria was dead by March 13, 1957. The US Time magazine carried the story about Echeverria from Cuba. He was no ordinary student, he was the leader of the Revolutionary Student Directorate that was associated with Fidel Castro in the fight against the brutal US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Echeverria had led a body of 40 armed students who stormed Batista’s Presidential palace. While they fought the palace guards, Echeverria had captured the national radio station and broadcast that the hated dictator had been overthrown. Leaving the station, his team ran into army troops, who had by then killed the co-conspirators at the palace. In the ensuing fire-fight, Echeverria was killed, sub-machine gun in hand. There was a picture of this burly revolutionary lying dead in the street. I can say that all of us were conscience stricken and grieved by our treatment of him. We all agreed that here was a true revolutionary and national hero and we had become the jokers.

Three decades later, I was contacted by the Cuban embassy in Colombo and asked whether I had met Echeverria at a student conference in Ceylon. I said that I had. Did I have any memorabilia from the event? I said I had the list of participants and a message of goodwill from Echeverria in my old autograph album. A high official of the embassy came to my house and wanted to make copies of these. He told me that Echeverria was one of the highest national heroes of Cuba and the Institute of Higher Studies was named after him. There was also a museum dedicated to his memory where my little contribution
would be displayed. He asked me my impression of their hero. Foolishly, I related the story of the elephant ride and said we were unaware of the man’s stature at the time. The embassy official was upset by the story. He never contacted us again.

Jiri Pelikan was another whom I vividly recall. He was president of the Soviet sponsored International Union of Students (IUS) and came as an observer. He brought a suitcase full of sports material as a gift for our students and was a quiet affable fellow. He clearly seemed too mature to be a university student. He was 33 years of age and was then a prominent member of parliament in Czechoslovakia. He had been a resistance fighter against the Nazis in World War 2 and had been in a Gestapo prison. Before he left he told me that IUS celebrations would commence soon in Prague and invited me to attend, all expenses paid. I did not take the offer as I had to be present in Peradeniya to conclude the conference arrangements. We corresponded for a while.

Years later, in 1968, I read in the international media that Jiri Pelikan was a close associate of Alexander Dubcek during the Prague Spring, which tried to create “Communism with a human face.” He was then head of the Czechoslovak national television. The liberation movement was brutally crushed by the Russian Army and Jiri Pelikan fled to Italy for his safety. He became an Italian citizen and was elected to the European Parliament as a Socialist Party member. He passed away in 1996.

Gaston E. Thorn was the most famous of the conference alumni who came as President of the Luxembourg Students’ Union and was subsequently President of the International Student Conference. He was already 28 years when he was in Peradeniya as his studies had been interrupted by a spell in a Nazi reform camp during the war. He took to politics in his country and became Prime Minister of Luxembourg in 1974-79, President of the UN
General Assembly in 1975 and was the 7^th President of the European Commission from 1981-85[1]. He married Liliane Petit who was his fellow delegate at the conference
and who became a journalist. He died in 2007.

Efraim Halevy of Israel later joined the Israel intelligence services and became the 9^th Director of Mossad, the famed Israeli secret service, from 1998-2002, and was also the 4^th head of the Israel National Security Council in 2002. He is famous internationally and in
the USA as a security expert and has written a best-seller, Man in the Shadows, based
on his personal experiences as one of the ablest intelligence experts in the world[2].

Frank H. Copplestone, then President of the British National Union of Students, took to banking and became Managing Director of Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets Division. Redha Malek from Algeria was another participant who gained some prominence. He took to politics and was briefly Prime Minister of his country during 1993/94. William E. Abraham from the former Gold Coast became a Professor of Philosophy, was briefly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, and later migrated to the USA and taught in several universities there. Tissa Vitharana of Ceylon went on to become a medical doctor, took to left-wing politics and is even now a senior cabinet minister in Sri Lanka.

Demetrius Perricos of Greece was Chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq prior to the US
invasion of 2003 looking for “weapons of mass destruction” which he didn’t find. He complained that the US was trying to influence the inspections. He succeeded Dr. Hans Blix as the head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from 2003-2007.

Many delegates from Asia are traceable as academics and writers. Some of the delegates from South America “disappeared” in the “dirty wars” of the nineteen seventies when American CIA sponsored military coups set up fascist dictatorships that carried out mass killings of liberals and political opponents. Several of the African delegates are also untraceable as a result of the subsequent freedom struggles and the numerous civil wars in Africa. But the fate of Basil K. Bataringaya[3] who came as a delegate from British East Africa is well documented. After Uganda gained independence in 1962, Bataringaya became the Minister of Internal Affairs in the government of the Prime Minister Milton Obote. After Idi Amin’s took power in 1971 in a military coup, Bataringaya was captured, tortured, executed and his head was put on display in the Mbarara military barracks.

Kenneth Abeywickrama

20 September, 2011

An American Giant in Sri Lanka:

Colonel Henry Steele Olcott

by Deshabandu Olcott Gunasekera

The significance of the contributions made by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, agricultural scientist, academician, lawyer, war veteran and a person of integrity, from the time he arrived in Sri Lanka in 1880 until his death in Adyar, South India, which became the centre of his theosophist activities with Madam Blavatsky, is best appreciated when studied in the context of contemporaneous history.

Colonel Olcott arrived during the heyday of British imperialism. By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901) the British Empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth’s surface and nearly a quarter of the world’s population owed allegiance to her at least notionally. It was the World’s superpower and its naval might ruled the waves. It was also a time of peace and prosperity, pax Britannica, when social, political and religious
movements flourished. Along with the nobility was an emerging middle class, which was a combination of an educated elite and a newly rich commercial class. Whatever the antecedents of a person, wealth and/or education was becoming the key to upward social mobility. To send one’s child to be educated at Eton, Rugby or Harrow was the ambition of many parents both in Britain and her colonies.

Sri Lanka, which withstood the military onslaughts on her independence by the Portuguese, Dutch and British invaders since 1505, finally lost her independence in 1815 with the fall of the Kandyan kingdom. The struggle for independence immediately began
and attempts were made to regain her independence in 1818 and 1848, but failed.
During the period of Portuguese and Dutch rule of the maritime areas there were many attempts to oust them from the Sri Lankan soil and every failure was followed by ruthless vindictive measures against the Sinhala Buddhist people, Buddhist monks and the Buddhist temples. Monks had to disrobe themselves for safety reasons and to the best of their ability tried as lay persons to meet the religious needs of the people.

Because of the warring conditions and the suppressive policies to curb any nationalist movement, the Buddha Sasana had reached its lowest ebb. The gravity of the situation was such that five higher ordained monks could not be found in the whole of Sri Lanka to perform the higher ordination ceremony and consequently a mission had to be sent to Thailand (then Kingdom of Siam) to obtain a minimum of five higher ordained monks to re-establish the Sasana. Buddhist revival started in 1753 with the re-establishment of the Sima and the higher ordination of Samanera Welivitiye Saranankara, who became famous as Venerable Asarana Sarana Pindapatika Welivitiye Saranankara Sangharaja of Sri Lanka. However, this revivalist movement had a major setback with the loss of total independence in 1815.

Although a solemn undertaking was given by the British Government to protect and support Buddhism according to the terms of the Kandyan Convention, the British colonial rulers, under the influence of the Christian missionaries, had to retract and sever such connections. Supporting a heathen religion was criticized as a heinous crime that compromised its obligations as the Defender of the Christian faith.  Buddhism that had been enjoying royal patronage from the time of its official introduction to Sri Lanka by
Arahant Mahinda in the 3^rd century B.C. lost all such privileges and had to fend for itself.

Spread of Christianity was a corner-stone in British state policy and, therefore, much encouragement was given to the activities of the Christian missionaries. Most prominent among the different Christian Missions were the Church Missionary Society, the Wesleyans, the Baptists, the Roman Catholics, the Methodists, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the American Board of Missions. The American Mission worked predominantly in the Jaffna Peninsula and the first missionary came as early as 1813.Venerable Dehigaspe Pannasara Nayaka Thera of the Vidyodaya Pirivena in his Foreword to a reprint of the book “The Great Debate – Buddhism and Christianity: Face to
Face” by J.M.Peebles, has made the following observation: “The Christian Missionaries overran the Island like a great flood. Buddhism was subject to criticism from all quarters. When it was in such a lamentable state, that James de Alwis, a scholar and gentleman of high renown, had said in one of his articles in 1850, that ‘before the end of that century Buddhism would disappear from Ceylon’.” At least that was the wish of the Christian missionaries and they worked indefatigably to make it a reality without any scruples, even twisting the arm of the Colonial Office in London.

The Christian Missionaries won the first round of successfully getting the Colonial Government to sever all ties with Buddhism. Then they attempted to break the backbone of the Sinhala Buddhists by ridiculing Buddhism through books and pamphlets written in Sinhala. These were freely distributed by the Christian preachers in propagating their faith. This was in addition to the mass proselytising of Buddhist children through the
school system and the conversions made by dangling the carrot of government jobs to the faithful. These resulted in an open challenge being made by Ven. Mohottiwatte (nee Migettuwatte) Gunananda to the Christians to defend their faith. The challenge was accepted by the Christian clergy. This led to five public debates: first at Baddegama in 1865 followed by public debates at Waragoda(1865), Udanwita(1866), Gampola(1871) and the most famous at Panadura(1873). The defeat of the Christians in debate, more than anything else, “broke the myth of the infallibility of the Christian Church and was one
of the major contributing factors to the Buddhist revival in the country”.

Another tangible result of the public debates was the coming of Colonel Olcott to Sri
Lanka in May, 1880. The Ceylon Independent of February 25, 1907, reporting on the Memorial Service in memory of Colonel Olcott, carried this paragraph. “In 1862 the famous Migettuwatte, the silver-tongued orator, went over the island of Ceylon, preaching
Buddhism; thousands flocked to hear him and in 1873 came off the great discussion between him and Rev. David de Silva, the proceedings of which appeared in the daily newspapers. Dr. Peebles, on one of his journeys around the world gathered from the Press the reports of this discussion and published them in book form of about 100 pages, with lengthy criticisms and comment, favouring Buddhism rather than the old time orthodox Christianity. This brochure-book by some happy coincidence fell into the hands of Colonel Olcott of America, this being the first link connecting him with Ceylon.” The book referred to is ‘Buddhism and Christianity – Face to Face’ with Introduction and Annotations by J.M. Peebles M.D., M.A., Ph.D. (Published 1878 by Colby and Rich in Boston)

Coming of Colonel Olcott to Sri Lanka is generally believed to be fortuitous, as was also reported in the paragraph above. Dr. Peebles who happened to be at the Memorial Service has this to say. “It gives me great pleasure to state that I personally knew Colonel Olcott for about 35 years; knew him as a spiritualist, sitting in spiritualist séances; knew him as a
medium influenced by Indian spirits to heal the sick. Later I knew him as a Theosophist and I spent with him and Madam Blavatsky, two weeks at the home of the Eddy Mediums in Chittenden, Vermont.” Dr. J.M.Peebles, an international lecturer, prolific and talented author and journalist, was himself a spiritualist. He had his home at Hammonton, New Jersey. From the above statements one could conclude that Dr. Peebles has known Colonel
Olcott from around 1872 and most likely Dr. Peebles’ book could have been a topic of discussion between them. Peebles further states that “on three of my journeys around the world, I met the Colonel in both India and Ceylon. Once I remained two months with him at Adyar, a magnificent place …” According to the biography of Peebles, he has even helped Colonel Olcott in establishing educational facilities in India and Sri Lanka.

Hence it could be said that Colonel Olcott came to Sri Lanka with a mission in hand. He would have had a feel of the plight of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka from his discussions with Peebles. He also had direct communications with the scholar Buddhist monks, and more particularly with Venerable Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Maha Thera of the Vidyodaya Pirivena, Venerable Piyaratanatissa Thera of Dodanduwa, who started the first Buddhist school in Dodanduwa, and Ven. Migettuvatte Gunananda Maha Thera of  Dipaduttaramaya, Kotahena and with them he had regular exchange of letters. In a letter dated June 15, 1878 there is a reference to the book of Peebles. Other notable monks of the period with whom he had very close contact were Ven. Walane Sri Siddhartha Maha Thera of the Paramadhammacetiya Pirivena, Ratmalana, Ven. Ratmalane Sri Dhammaloka Maha Thera of the Vidyalankara Pirivena, and Ven Waskaduwe Sri Subhuti Maha Nayaka Thera.

Because of these contacts, there was much preparation in Sri Lanka before his arrival and when he arrived at the Galle harbour accompanied by Madam Blavatsky there was much rejoicing. They were taken in procession to the Vijayanada Pirivena in Galle, where they were cordially greeted by an assembly of distinguished monks and Buddhist laymen. Colonel Olcott had already embraced Buddhism while in New York. It was confirmed in public when he observed the five precepts along with the tisarana, been administered by Venerable Akmeemana Dhammarama Nayaka Thera of the Vijayananda Pirivena. By this act he won the heart and confidence of all Buddhists in this country and overnight he was accepted as a trusted servant who could spearhead the Buddhist cause. His fame spread
throughout the length and breadth of Sri Lanka and wherever he went he was received with great warmth. He had many admirers and one of them was the firebrand Don David Hewavitarane, who even changed his name to Dharmapala and became an Anagarika. He accompanied Col. Olcott in his travels in Sri Lanka and even abroad. The Buddhists of this country needed a ‘white-skinned’ mentor and a good advocate who could face up to the colonial rulers. Colonel Olcott matched this requirement admirably and, hence, was able to make a lasting contribution to the Buddhist revivalist movement.

He had a clear mind as to his role and what has to be accomplished. The following excerpt from a letter he wrote to Venerable Weligama Sri Sumangala Thera on 10 February 1880, i.e. before coming to Sri Lanka, will give an inkling of his profound thinking. “…..Joyful will be the day when Asian people shall properly reverence their own religions. All we Western people can do is to start the idea, encourage them to effort, defend them from
Western influence and leave them to work out the problems themselves. The
regeneration of Asia must be effected by Asiatic men …….”

A good organizer as he was, even before he set his feet on Sri Lanka’s soil, he had created the necessary environment to found the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society, which was the first Buddhist lay organization at the national level. There were about 40 Buddhist leaders that assembled at the founding ceremony on June 1880. Its headquarters were at Maliban Street, Colombo, and still continues to be so with entrance from Norris Road, renamed Olcott Mawatha in 1965, in memory of Colonel Olcott. It is aptly called the Bauddha Mandiraya or the Buddhist House.

A clash at Kotahena between the Buddhists and Catholics when the Catholics violently protested against the beating of the tom-tom in a Buddhist procession from Borella to Dipaduttaramaya in Kotahena in 1883 aroused the Buddhists to action. One person was killed and many Buddhists were manhandled. The protests made by the Buddhist leaders, including the leading Buddhist monks to the colonial Governor fell on deaf ears. A five member Buddhist Defence Committee was formed to protect the rights of the Buddhists
and Colonel Olcott who was summoned from India was made an honorary member.
There were six demands made from the colonial Government and Colonel Olcott was
given the onerous task of representing matters to the British Government in person to get redress.

It was a very successful mission and because of Colonel Olcott’s efficient handling of the brief, the full moon day of Wesak was declared a public holiday for religious observances of the Buddhists in the year 1885, a privilege the Buddhists of Sri Lanka in the maritime area lost in 1770 during the period of Dutch colonization. The Colonial Secretary also agreed to appoint civil registrars of marriages so that Buddhist families could register their marriages outside the Church. The others concerned the rights and privileges enjoyed by the Buddhists from time immemorial and assured by the British Government to upkeep in accordance with the Kandyan Convention of 1815, like the beating of the tom-tom in Buddhist processions. However, the issues were many and the seeds for a struggle for complete independence from colonial rule, if Buddhism is to be preserved, were sown.

The Buddhist Defence Committee of which Colonel Olcott was an honorary member continued its operation. There was much discussion relating to the celebration of the Wesak of 1885 in a fitting manner. The need for a Buddhist flag, around which all Buddhists could rally, was identified and a special committee was set up to design a flag. The idea could have been of Colonel Olcott, being an army man who fought in the American civil war. The birth of a five coloured Buddhist flag was the outcome and it fluttered for the first time on April 28, 1885 at Dipaduttaramaya, Kotahena, Vidyodaya Pirivena at Maligakanda, Gangaramaya temple at Hunupitiaya, Kelaniya temple and the headquarters of the Buddhist Theosophical Society. Colonel Olcott who returned to the Island in January 1886 was overjoyed to see the Buddhist flag and made certain suggestions for its improvement to conform to accepted standards. The Buddhist prelates and Buddhist leaders accepted the suggestions made and the revised Buddhist flag that was flown on the Wesak full moon day of 1886 has now become the acclaimed flag of all Buddhists throughout the world.

Colonel Olcott was a visionary and in a way a forerunner of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. Not only did Colonel Olcott help in the Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka
but also he laid the foundation for closer collaboration of Buddhist groups in Asia. He prepared a document with 14 common Buddhist themes where congruency among major Buddhist sects was found. It was approved at a Buddhist conference that was held in Adyar in 1891. It was signed by Buddhist dignitaries of Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon
(Sri Lanka), Japan and Chittagong. Among the signatories from Sri Lanka were the Maha Nayaka Theras of Malwatta and Asgiriya, Venerable Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Nayaka Thera and Venerable Waskaduwe Subhuti Maha Nayaka Thera. Colonel Olcott also helped
Anagarika Dharmapala in establishing the Mahabodhi Society of India. Furthermore, he prepared a Buddhist Catechism for learners of Buddhism and it was published after getting approval of Venerable Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Nayaka Thera.

Education of Buddhist children was another area of concern where Colonel Olcott made a lasting contribution. It was a significant component of the Buddhist Revivalist movement. Buddhist children had little access to English education that had become the portal of advancement. The colonial rulers followed a laissez faire policy in regard to education
and this allowed an open field to the Christian Missionaries to carry out their work of proselytizing. Aided mission schools were less costly to Government. An important policy statement was issued by Governor Robinson on 12 January 1870, namely, ‘to extend the operations of Government in the direction of establishing village schools in localities as yet unprovided with the means of instruction, but gradually to contract its operations in respect of English schools in the town districts where an effective system of grants-in-aid will enable the Government to employ its funds to much greater advantage than to
maintaining schools of its own…’ The operative principle  as it was pithily mentioned was English education, as far as possible, for the ‘classes’ and vernacular education for the ‘masses’.

At the time Colonel Olcott came to Sri Lanka, the policy of the Government, accordingly, was to close down its English schools and transfer them to the aided mission schools. This was done ‘with scant regard for the religious scruples of the students’. The Director of Public Instruction in his Administration Report of 1878 has this to say. “In some cases
…. I have found not a single child professing the nominal religion of the schools he attends.” There was so much rivalry and competition among the different Christian missions to take over the schools closed down by Government and to start new schools that the Government issued a three miles distance rule, which was later modified to two miles and finally to a quarter mile. The distance rule stated that ‘no grant will be made to any school establishment’ that was within the stipulated distance from an existing Government or Aided-school of the same class. Commenting on the distance rule Colonel Olcott has stated in the Buddhist of 1892, a journal started then and continued by the Borella Young Men’s Buddhist Association, that “this clause is one of those inequalities, those violations of British policy, which can only be perpetrated with comparative safety in a distant colony.”

New rules were made continually by the Government and this seriously jeopardised the opening of schools for Buddhist children. It is against such odds that the work of Colonel Olcott has to be appreciated. It was sometimes a blank wall that his co-workers and he had to face. Every step was heavily mined by the Christian missionaries who were aided and abetted by the Colonial Government whilst parading a façade of liberalism, fair play and
justice.

Although the Buddhist temple was the fountain of knowledge from ancient times there was no formal temple based education system for lay Buddhist children. Colonel Olcott pioneered the opening of Buddhist Sunday schools in Sri Lanka. The first was at Vijayanada Pirivena in Galle. At the premises of the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society, too, a Buddhist Sunday school was opened. It was converted into the Pettah
Buddhist English School in 1886 and later renamed Ananda College. The first Principal was C.W. Leadbeater who was the Head of the Buddhist Sunday school. The suggestion was made that the School be named after Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda. The latter softly declined stating that Ananda is a part of his name Gunananda and that the name should be Ananda and not Gunananda. The establishment of Ananda College by the Buddhist Theosophical Society could be considered a historic moment for Buddhist education in Sri Lanka. It was followed by opening of several Buddhist English and Vernacular schools in
several parts of the Island. Notable among them were Mahinda College and Sangamitta
College in Galle, Dharmasoka College in Ambalangoda, and Dharmaraja College in Kandy.
Musaeus College was the first Buddhist school exclusively for Buddhist girls.  Before
long it became a movement and by the end of the 19^th century there were nearly 200 Buddhist schools. But when the total educational structure is taken into account they hardly sufficed to meet all the needs of the Buddhist children. A beginning was made and Colonel Olcott with his zeal to promote educational facilities for Buddhist children was undoubtedly at the helm.

The period 1880-1907, the year of Colonel Olcott’s arrival in Sri Lanka to his death in
1907, was a part of a critical period in Sri Lanka’s history, when Sri Lanka was awakening itself to get back to its roots. Neither the Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka nor the opening of schools for Buddhist children started with Colonel Olcott. The Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist movement wanted a true believer of Buddhism who could be a strong advocate for its cause and could argue on par with the colonial rulers. Sri Lanka was most fortunate to get such a man in Colonel Olcott, a man who commanded respect in his own right. He had the most cordial relationship and the highest respect to the Buddhist prelates who reciprocated by even permitting him to administer the five precepts along with the Tisarana to those who wanted to become Buddhists. He was a trusted servant who championed the Buddhist cause and at the request of the Buddhists made several visits to London to plead their case with the Colonial masters of the time. He gave the necessary leadership and his advice was sought by the Buddhists on many matters. He considered himself a member of a team of devoted Buddhist workers and activists working with a single purpose of uplifting Buddhism and also the Buddhists who have undergone untold suffering and hardships in the hands of three colonial powers. Colonel Olcott will always
be remembered with gratitude by the Buddhists of Sri Lanka for his selfless contribution to the Buddhist cause.

For further Reading

1. Buddhism and Christianity Face to Face with Introduction and Annotations by J.M.Peebles, Colombo, 1955 (Reprint)
2. Colonel Olcott – His service to Buddhism, The Wheel Publication, No. 281, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1981
3. Olcott, Colonel Henry Steel, Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Vol. 7, Fascicle 2, 2004
4. From the Living Fountains of Buddhism by Ananda W. Guruge, Colombo, 1994
5. Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka by K.D.G. Wimalaratne, Satara Publishers, Maharagama, 1985
6. Report of the Buddhist Committee of Inquiry, All Ceylon Buddhist Congress, 1956
7. Educational Policies and Progress during British rule in Ceylon 1796-1948 by J.E.Jayasuriya, Associated Educational Publishers, Colombo, 1984
8. Social Policy and Missionary Organisations in Ceylon 1840-1855 by K.M. de Silva, Longmans, 1965
9. Education in Colonial Ceylon by Ranjit Ruberu, Kandy Printers Ltd, 1962

10. Two Centuries of Sri Lanka-American Friendship – A Pictorial Record, 1976

Colombo, Sri Lanka

10 September 2011.

Taking the shine off Great Britain

“Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.”

From the Greek play Medea by Euripides, 431 B.C. (Latin version)

The world feels the pain when a once great power declines. The modern industrial evolution began here in Britain together with most of the new technologies that made it possible. Parliamentary democracy that is now celebrated around the world began here. It was the seat of the greatest world empire. And now, as standards of living decline for most
British, as roads and other infrastructure remain outdated, as once famous industries disappear with competition from an Asia it once ruled, the country saw a week of rioting and looting in August, 2011, reminiscent of failed states like such as Haiti and Somalia. Britannia that Ruled the Waves could not even rule the streets of its big cities.

Demonstrations and protests have erupted in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal over
the EU’s failed economic model that has transferred wealth to the richest and got these nations into unsustainable debt levels. But nowhere was there the mindless violence and viciousness that was seen in the riots in Britain. The British truly stand apart from others.

Since the loss of its empire and it pre-eminent economic and political position in the world, Britain has tried to identify itself with its richer cousin across the Atlantic, ingratiating itself by joining their military adventures in the Middle East, bullying smaller  nations and aping its model of predatory capitalism. Modelling itself and attaching its policies to those of the USA from the time of Margaret Thatcher has proved a disaster.But that does not prevent the British establishment from continually pontificating on the ills of other countries that the British had in its imperial past despoiled and degraded, like China, Iran and Sri Lanka. If some fundamentalist Muslim Uyghurs riot in Xinjiang province in remote Western China, it is a great occasion to study human rights abuses in China, even though the leaders are often in the pay of Western agencies. Vocal condemnations by the British and other Western governments are followed by months and years of analysis by “experts” in the mass media, at numerous seminars and think tanks, university studies and in magazine articles. If Muslims in the Middle East challenge Western interests, it is grounds for violent military invasions. But when widespread riots take place in the big cities of England, Prime Minister David Cameron only blames it on criminal elements. Britain must indeed have a large criminal element within its population according to his version.

Violence in the streets

The British have been notorious for its mindless violence in the streets. I can recall that even in 1973, when we had a long spell of study in England, we would not venture out at evening on days when the local soccer teams played. Unruly drunken gangs would take over the streets, stoning cars, assaulting pedestrians and upsetting dustbins. In other countries hosting football matches with British teams, special security had to be deployed to control British spectators. Is this kind of vandalism a sign of the civilisation Britain lays claim to? The prime responsibility of any government is to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of violence. For a half century, Britain has been failing to provide this basic right for its citizens.

The culture of violence is widespread. In many areas, public schools cannot function because rowdy elements among the students threaten teachers and disrupt classrooms. Drunken youth hanging around pubs threaten passersby. Racial tensions are always simmering in racially mixed communities. Equally, the government has been ever willing to pursue violent militaristic foreign policies that it can ill afford at the expense of social
services and job creation. The Afghanistan adventure has cost the country over £30 billion. The new Libyan adventure will also escalate in costs as no end is in sight. It is not only that sections of the youth are social misfits, some of the leading politicians have the same
malaise.

Analysts have been trying to prove that it was the decline in social benefits forced by Britain’s financial problems that has created a restive and unruly youth population. But the liberals are wrong on this. At best, it is a contributory factor to the riots. It is the corruption in British society at the highest levels that is providing a model of others.
For example, it was discovered by the government audit that Members of Parliament and the House of Lords were routinely cheating on their official expense accounts. Two whistle-blowers, one against Former Premier Tony Blair and his chicanery over the Iraq War and the other recently of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his collusion in crimes with the government, have both mysteriously died. If this happened in China, Iran or Sri Lanka, there would be a demand for an international inquiry by the British government.

Money corrupts politics in the UK as much as in America. The former Labour government was found to have given lordships to multi-millionaire businessmen in exchange for political contributions. Many young people in the country have long ago lost faith in their government and in the values of their society. It was revealed that the British government
colluded with the Americans in the torture of detainees in the numerous prisons organised around the world to incarcerate, some for ever without trials, tens of thousands of terror suspects.

The Anglo-American alliance facilitated the use of social network media such as Facebook and Twitter to organise anti-government riots in Iran and North Africa, and much earlier in Georgia, Ukraine and Xinjiang (China), but when the same tactics were used in the British riots, social media users are being sentenced to long prison terms.

The British government also encourages violence and lawlessness to suit its political agenda. It has provided a safe haven to terrorist organisations from around the world to use these criminal elements to threaten other nations that it wants to undermine. The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka operated its criminal enterprises in the UK with impunity and had its offices there. When they blocked the streets of London in early 2009 for several days to demand Western intervention to prevent the defeat of terrorism in that country,
the British government condoned this lawlessness on the grounds that it was an
expression of democratic rights. Will they also agree to describe the August 2011 riots in the UK as an expression of a frustrated populations’ democratic protest?

Economic decline

The world has still to wake up to the dire straits of the British economy. The country that was once called the “workshop of the world” has lost most of its manufacturing industries to Germany, Japan, China and South Korea. Some of its iconic motor vehicle companies are now in the hands of Indians and Chinese, apart from Germans and Americans. The mainstay of the economy is financial services which has made London the main financial centre of Europe. But this also saw shortcomings in 2008 and had to be rescued by government bailouts at public expense. But a financial sector cannot provide mass employment which only manufacturing industries can. The British official unemployment level is 8% but is most likely much more.

What many are unaware is that Britain has about the highest debt level in the world. The world focussed on the US debt of $14.3 trillion when it equalled the US GDP. But U.K. GDP is $2.173 trillion while its national debt is $8.981 trillion (see CIA World Factbook for details). Its national debt exceeds that of all other EU countries that are now in trouble.
But the existence of its financial sector enables the country to keep borrowing and survive intact, for the moment. The British corporate media, as in other Western countries, keep singing that “Our fundamentals are right, the economy will recover.” This refrain has gone on for over a decade while the decline becomes more unmanageable. Fairy tales will comfort infantile minds but they are far removed from reality.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka.

27 August, 2011-08-17

Copyrights reserved. Publication of it requires the editor’s permission.

Race in the British Military

Race in the British Military

Britain is undoubtedly a country with a very democratic form of government and public institutions. The British parliament is often rightly regarded as the “Mother of Parliaments” because the successful struggle against arbitrary government goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215 A.D. The current Chilcot Commission and its investigation
of ex-Premier Tony Blair’s deceitful role in the illegal war against Iraq in secret collusion with the US President George Bush is evidence of a transparency in political life which is unimaginable in America or many other countries. Yet racism, which dilutes democracy and leads to many human rights violations, is endemic in the British psyche. Its long history as the once largest imperial power created the illusion of White racial superiority, a myth assiduously cultivated by imperialists to justify their predation. Even when the empire is now long lost and others who were subjugated have risen in economic power, the disease of racism remains as a lurking inheritance from the past to surface when least expected and is evident sometimes in its dealings with non-European countries.

Winston Churchill, “the greatest Englishman of modern times”, always expressed himself frankly and eloquently. He was an unapologetic racist.

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the
black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

Extract from his submissions to the Peel Commission in the UK in 1937.

Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), founder of the British South and East African empire, Prime Minister of the then Cape Colony (South Africa), after whom Rhodesia was named, the major owner of De Beers diamond corporation, who initiated the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships by his 7^th will (it was originally not intended for coloured people in the Commonwealth but was interpreted differently for political correctness by the modern management of the project), expressed himself thus in his first will.

“I contend that we are the first race in the world, and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race…. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.”

Confession of Faith, First Will of Cecil Rhodes in 1877

But he also acknowledged the economics and politics of imperialism for Britain where
the industrial revolution had produced a vast exploited and restless working class.
“In order to save the 40 million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced by them in the factories and mines…”

White Man, Boss Man

Men (or women) who join the military are willing to sacrifice their lives for the country
and this is the last place where you would expect racism. While racism was egregious in the US armed forces in World War 2, America overcame this prejudice and senior military commands have been awarded to coloured service personnel since the Vietnam War. The situation in Britain was different from that of the USA. Britain maintained its large empire through the use of colonial troops and among them the largest body consisted of Indian troops. Over 1.2 million Indian soldiers served Britain during World War 1 and 2.5 million in World War 2. They fought with distinction in many theatres in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. In World War One 47,750 Indian soldiers died, 12 won Victoria crosses. In World War Two 87,000 Indian soldiers died and 30 won Victoria crosses. Without Indian soldiers, the British military would have been inconsequential. Yet throughout this period Indian troops were given lower facilities than British or other White Commonwealth troops: inferior living conditions, lower pay scales and even inferior weapons.

White British and Commonwealth troops were kept in separate Army units from the Indians. Indian Army units were officered by British officers who held the King’s commission. The smaller number of Indian officers held the Viceroy’s commission. A few upper-class Indians held the King’s commission but did not command any British troops. Many of these were short service commissions for three years. Indians could aspire to
non-commissioned ranks in their units but were given distinctive Indian designations: Havildar-Major, Havildar, Naik, Lance Naik, Sepoy, etc.

One consequence of this was the willingness of Indian troops in Malaysia and Singapore
who had been taken prisoner by the Japanese to join the Indian National Army of
Subhas Chandra Bose to fight the British together with the Japanese. A more significant event was the mutiny of sailors of the Royal Indian Navy in February 1946 against poor living conditions and mistreatment. It involved 20,000 Indian sailors on 78 ships. This mutiny went some way to persuade the British that it could not hope to continue to rule India as they could not be certain of the loyalty of its large Indian military at this stage.

Another mutiny against racism in the British military was that of a section of Ceylonese soldiers in the small Cocos Island garrison in May 1942 who rebelled against their two British officers[1]. The small contingent of Ceylonese soldiers came from middle-class families in Ceylon and resented the way they were treated by the British personnel. The mutiny failed and three of the mutineers were executed, the only execution of Commonwealth troops for mutiny during World War 2. Ceylonese soldiers taken prisoner in Malaysia and Singapore in World War 2 also joined Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army, forming the Lanka Regiment.

Racism tolerated by government

So it is interesting to see British government reactions to retaining Indian servicemen after India gained independence. On 03 June 1947 the British Cabinet discussed this issue[2]
when Indian independence would require a restructuring of the British Indian Army where Indians vastly outnumbered British. Britain was also hoping to keep the newly independent non-White nations within the British Commonwealth to maintain a semblance of the lost empire.

“The Secretary of Sate for War said that, if non-Europeans were admitted to the ranks of the British Army, they were bound to be eligible in due course for consideration for advancement to commissioned rank. British soldiers would not take kindly to service under coloured officers and discipline would be undermined. He urged that the compromise proposed by the First Lord of the Admiralty should be accepted. (ie. separation of facilities for Europeans and non-Europeans) ………

The general feeling of the Cabinet was that it would be difficult to justify the retention
of an admitted ban on the entry of non-Europeans into the Royal Navy and the British Army.”

Earlier in the discussion the Secretary of State for the Colonies had already pointed out the contradictions between public policy and actual practice.

“The Secretary of State said that he did not wish to minimise the practical difficulties which would be created by the admission of coloured persons to the Royal Navy and the
Army. But a major principle of issue was involved, since the existence of this colour bar was contrary to the accepted principles of our Commonwealth policy, was resented as a sign of racial superiority, and was incompatible with our policy of associating people of the dependent Empire in its defence both in war and peace”

The Cabinet finally decided that the ban on the entry of non-Europeans to the British military should be lifted (they agreed there was no need to give this wide publicity) as it was unlikely there would be a flood of applications from non-European British citizens. It was stated by the Minister of Defence that “the possibilities of trouble could be further reduced by careful selection in accordance with the principles already adopted by the Royal Air Force.”

British-Indians  currently serving in Britain

There are often news reports in the UK of racial abuse of Indians and other ethnic minorities currently serving in the British Army by their colleagues and officers, even though they now constitute 12% of British regular military forces[3]. Some of these have been settled through the courts and these receive publicity. Others go unreported as officialdom does not want to hear of racial abuse. There was publicity when it was recently reported that a British royal, Prince Harry, in the forces referred to a colleague of Asian origin as “Paki”.  The treatment of retired Gurkha soldiers who were denied the right to live in the UK after retirement also received publicity due to a campaign by some outraged citizens to whom the Gurkha is a romantic figure.

A country where there is racial discrimination within its military cannot afford to be a champion of human rights elsewhere in the world.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka

Copyrights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole may be allowed on application to the editor.

The Globalists: Hoisted by their own Petard

Did you notice that the cry for “Globalisation” is now muted? From around 1960 till quite recently, the Western economists, their international media and their aid agencies were singing the praises of globalisation and demanding that poorer nations conform to this philosophy or be denied aid assistance or much worse. But now the plaintive cry is that developing nations are manipulating their currencies against the West by under-valuing, indulging in unfair trade practices to gain access to Western markets and acquire Western businesses. So protectionism is becoming increasingly popular in the West. Few conomists, if any, have commented at length on this seismic change in the world economy.

If anyone seriously believed that globalisation was only about breaking down barriers to trade and expanding prosperity for all nations, as many economists would have us believe, then you then you are living in Cuckoo Land. Let us look at the international situation that gave it birth.

After World War 2, most of the large mass of nations in Asia and Africa were able to gain
independence after hundreds of years of colonial rule, economic exploitation and social degradation. These economies were ravaged and survived on the basis of subsistence peasant agriculture for the masses and large export-based plantations or mines owned mainly by the former European colonisers. There was no local capital accumulation
or technological base to establish industries or mechanised agriculture. So the
Western aid agencies developed to fill in the gap.

This generosity of the former imperial rulers was also spurred by the threat posed by the Communist bloc countries allied to the Soviet Union that was challenging the West
and its imperial policies. Assistance to developing countries and the creation of a comprador capitalist middle class friendly to the West could keep communism at bay. If that seemed unworkable, it was necessary to overthrow elected governments and install puppets, as in Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Congo or go to war as in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia. In a memorandum to the British Cabinet on Foreign policy, dated 04 January, 1948, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs begins his memo with this sentence:

“In my paper on “The First Aim of British Foreign Policy” (CP48.6) I have shown
that the Russian and the Communist Allies are threatening the whole fabric of
Western civilisation, and I have drawn attention to the need to mobilise spiritual forces, as well as material and political, for its defence.”[1]

Globalisation and Western aid

Western aid was based on a fundamental premise: developing countries should be raw material producers while the industrialised countries would be the manufacturers who added value and made the super profits. Consequently, economic aid was mainly for peasant agriculture and not for industry. Countries in Asia which were determined to industrialise after independence, like China, India, Ceylon and many in Africa had to turn to Soviet aid and receive often outdated factories that created inefficient state owned
enterprises that were a burden on the economy. At the same time, from the 1950s to about 1990, market manipulation by Western buyers kept bringing down commodity raw material prices while the prices of Western manufactured finished products rose, altering the terms of trade and impoverishing developing countries that “produced more to stay in the same place.”

Then came globalisation, proclaimed as the panacea for the ills of the developing countries by economists and politicians of the West and implemented through the two
international agencies controlled and directed by them: the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). These can be likened to hired missionaries of Western economic philosophy and interests. It is they who implemented globalisation by making aid assistance tied to its conditionalities. These conditionalites were designed to maintain Western dominance of the world economy while developing countries would be suppliers of raw material and buyers of finished products. The financial aid was indispensable for developing countries as they had neither the capital nor the access to world capital markets because of their impoverished state while World Bank/IMF loans came with low interest rates and long-term repayment.

A look at the usual conditions for aid is revealing: (1) Privatise all state owned enterprises and open them up to foreign (Western) buyers; (2) Reduce or eliminate import tariffs to open markets for foreign products; (3) Eliminate subsidies for local agriculture and
industry; (4) Cut poverty alleviation programs and subsidies for the poor; (5) Reduce taxes on corporations and individuals; (6) Reduce public spending and cut public services; (7) Devalue local currencies to make export prices cheaper; (8) Develop commercial agriculture for export at the expense of food crops for local consumption; (9) Liberalise currency regulations to permit easy flow of foreign capital (and currency speculation).

One of the egregious demands of the World bank/IMF was to privatise all water supplies in developing countries and hand over these for management to US corporations like Bechtel. The popular upheaval against this theft of its basic resources available to the poor population led to riots in Cochabamba in Bolivia and put an end to this project.

With all these and more it is not surprising that poor countries became poorer and the rich West became richer during this era. But many developing countries, starting in Asia,
began to resist these conditions. Korea and Taiwan first began to industrialise along the lines of Japan, beginning with textiles and garments and then went into heavy industries and, finally, high technology. Other East Asians quickly followed and by 1980 the export of manufactured goods exceeded commodity exports from developing countries.

Blowback of globalisation

The large Western transnational corporations, who were the main beneficiaries of globalisation at the expense of developing countries, turned the Western economic theory on its head. Western economists and aid agencies worked on the assumption that developing countries were incapable of advanced industrial production, technology management, research and development. But countries like China, India and other Asians were producing more graduates with advanced university degrees than Western countries. This coupled, with cheap and efficient labour, had persuaded western corporations to transfer their production to Asia and South America while maintaining and expanding their marketing in the rich Western markets. By 1995 the UN Trade and Development
Report was stating that 75% of world trade was at some point in the hands of these large transnational corporations. Of the 100 largest corporations in the world at the time, none was from a developing country except the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation.

Even at that time, Western economists were predicting that employment in the developed Western countries was secure because the technological expertise and research and development could not be done in developing countries. The West would supply the research and high technology and marketing and developing countries would provide cheap labour and become part of the market. But the developing countries were smarter than these economists believed. Their skills and expertise are now employed by the
largest Western corporations for sophisticated research and development, technology support services for customers, high technology production, even for medical diagnosis. Fast computer-based communications have made these services easy to outsource to skilled workers in developing countries in Asia. The largest Foreign Direct Investment destination is China, not the USA.

Chinese corporations, like China Construction America, Inc., are now involved in large construction projects in the USA as US corporations find it easier to subcontract to China which has develop a very high level of management and technology expertise in construction. The result is increasing unemployment in the USA and the EU which threatens their economies while their transnational corporations are making super
profits, undreamt of in the past. Big transnational corporations have no loyalties to their countries: their obsession is profit.

A corruption at the highest government levels in the West has also contributed both to the economic decline of these countries while the financial corporate sector reaps profits. People are on the streets demonstrating against poverty and unemployment in European countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, not so much in Africa and Asia. Senator Bernie Sanders’ website[2] revealed the following story:

“As a result of this audit (by the Government Accountability Office), we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”

Among the investigation’s key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea
to Scotland, according to the GAO report. “No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of
Congress and the president,” Sanders said.

The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse.  In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial
institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.”

Developing countries on the rise

Developing countries owe their economic advance to globalisation and the Western transnational corporations in a way not anticipated by the originators of this economic philosophy. It is true that manufacturing to a large extent in India, China and other countries is contract manufacturing for transnational corporations. But developing countries are bridging this divide fast. South Korea is a world leader in electronic goods. The largest steel-maker in the world is an Indian. China and India have some of the world’s largest petroleum companies. Chinese financial institutions are among the biggest in the world in terms of assets. China and India have built huge motor vehicle industries. China and India have advanced space technologies. China is creating the most advanced
railway system and other infrastructure projects. And the list is growing.

While production is moving out of the West, creating massive unemployment, and economies are declining, the US-EU region continues its profligate spending, as though nothing has changed, by now borrowing from developing countries that have massive foreign exchange surpluses. Western consumers are in debt to maintain high living tandards and governments still act as though they are lords of the earth. Governments borrow to build huge militaries and police the world and invest in high profile space
projects. The US national debt of $14.3 trillion is equal to 24% of the world GDP. Most countries in the EU, including the UK, are heavily in debt. The World Bank/IMF is no longer the sought after source of foreign aid and development loans: it is China.

The plight of the West and the antics of its political leadership recall Satyajit Ray’s great film set in Bengal – Jalsaghar: The Music Room. Biswambhar Roy, the aristocratic zamindari (landlord) whose family dominated the village for centuries is losing his fortune as the river eats up his vast landholdings. He gradually becomes bankrupt but out of inherited pride maintains the high living standard of his ancestors by borrowing from the new rich business families in the village. He holds lavish music recitals and dinners with borrowed money to impress the village society till, eventually, he is unable to borrow any more or survive. Full of pride to the very end, he dresses in his finery and rides his favourite white horse to the river, committing suicide in great style.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka.

Copyrights reserved. Publication in part or full requires author’s permission.