e-Con e-News 24-30 September 2023

Before you study the economics, study the economists!”

‘I was there at Torrington Square when we received Independence.

I watched with contempt our PM arriving there in top hat & tailcoat.

I was there at the Town Hall when Bandaranaike formed his party.

I was on the streets of Kandy cheering away when the ’56 victory

was announced. I was in depths of despair when JR Jayewardene

hoodwinked the entire nation with his Dharmista slogan and pushed

his neoliberal economic policy on us which resulted in 2 insurrections,

one in the South & one in the North.’

– Gunadasa Amarasekera

From Gamanaka Mula to Gamanaka Aga – the Wayward Journey of the Middle Class gathers Gunadasa Amarasekera’s reflections over the last 75 years, in the home, on the street, across the seas, and on the page. As Colombo’s anglomaniacs prepare to launch yet another ‘international’ (minus Sinhala, actually a white) literary farce at a colonial Southern fortress, only open to what the sea drags in, for whom Booker is a delicious prize not another Caribbean (oops, West Indian) slave plantation owner, here is the real story, and it ain’t novel:

     Politics as such has been outlawed from our serious fiction”, Amarasekera declares. He places today’s modern fabling in dire perspective: His novels forecast Sri Lanka’s trajectory into ‘a colony of India or USA or of both!’ It is important to remember, World Bank (and IMF) interference in the world and Sri Lanka precedes and prepares for ‘independence’ (see 10 August 2019, Central Bank Special).

     Here then is 1977 times 10: JR’s media & other strategies, carrot&stick – and more. Such tactics are usually credited to the ‘Old Fox’, yet we know those games too were and are prompted by the USA’s IMF, seeking to bribe and fatten certain fractions.

     Here then is the saga of those who sought a ‘Socialism with Sinhala Buddhist Characteristics’. A tale also of a narrow ‘middle class’ who lost their way on the journey from village to town, to university & abroad. Their attempts to recover their roots & their Buddhist civilization through white foreign-funded institutions returns them as strangers in their own land: Alienated & marooned abroad, then disillusioned at home, a colonial mentality still imprisons them…and not just them.

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This ee also examines ‘The Common Dream’ of the present President and a secessionist Tamil leadership, forged and massaged by colonialism. A dream that remains unchanged. ee has recalled the international merchants of rice and money who have underwritten this leadership process (see ee 07 July 2021, Maharaja’s MTV, Chettiar Bankers & Killer Import Mafia).

     Some recall ‘Sir’ Ponnambalam Arunachalam’s call to the Ceylon Tamil League in 1922 to propagate ‘precious ideals throughout Ceylon, Southern India and the Tamil Colonies, to promote the union and solidarity of Tamilakam, the Tamil Land…we have been proud to call Tamil Eelam’.

     Kalyananda Thiranagama examines the founding of the ITAK from 1949. Called the Federal Party in English, ‘the name of the Party – Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (or Tamil State Party of Ceylon) itself reflects this dream’ A dream ‘reiterated in various resolutions passed at their conferences and public declarations at different times.’ It is no surprise therefore that the President, most aware of English and its dissembling histories, has spoken of a ‘final solution.’ – a dream to annihilate us all (see ee Focus).

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• Seeking a real Way Forward, an alarm is being sounded by the Communist Party of Sri Lanka. They point to auguries of ‘an ungovernable state of anarchy’. ‘Rightwing forces will not hesitate to allow extra-legal or even military intervention.’ The CPSL is calling on all ‘progressive, Left & patriotic forces’ to urgently fulfil ‘their historical responsibility’.

     There are organized interests and forces pushing this ‘anarchy.’ Those politicians & thinktanks who have promoted the chaos of further colonial control of the economy, are now acting contrite:

Verité Research Head lambasts Government and IMF

for ‘privatising profits & socialising losses’

Verité, a US-funded thinktank, is now trying to deflect from their former reports promoting Domestic Debt Restructuring (DDR). US Verité were the first to put out a paper on DDR, note astute observers. ‘Now that their own advocacy is coming to bite them in the ass, Verité’s headman De Mel is trying hard, but is yet to reach any clarity such as Marx’:

The only part of the so-called national wealth

that actually enters into the collective possessions

of modern peoples is their national debt.

– Karl Marx, Capital Vol 1

Other US-funded somebodies & nobodies are fiddling the same coy violins as Verité. A future SJB government will ‘refine’ Sri Lanka’s agreement with IMF, promises SJB (actually Trans-UNP!) MP Harsha de Silva. President Ranil Wickremesinghe ‘hints’ that the IMF’s ‘ways of negotiation are old’.

     Those who invited the IMF in, are now backtracking as the people’s anger grows. Having declared a fertile & rich country, bankrupt. Having bankrolled an ‘Aragalaya’ (Rs250billion, the published ‘advertising spend’ by capitalists in 2022? Advertising what??) to drive out a popular government, accusing it of all the old sins of colonialism. After escalating the intrusion of the USA’s economic war machinery (notice the US’s Fitch & S&P’s generous ‘ratings’ on the state of the currency). The World Bank is given headlines for providing more aid (loans?) for ‘welfare’, even as the IMF is throwing even more people out of work! The US is also providing ‘thriposha’ to combat malnutrition. The USA’s World Bank are funding a National Debt Management Centre, etc, even as they provide loans (bribes) to the country’s political mercenaries to pursue their commands.

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• So-called diasporas, members of a transnational ‘middle-class’ who have helped the colonial master rob their country’s resources, are those given ‘permanent’ residency in those lands.

The feeble response by Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Canada’s revelations about India’s assassination of a separatist Khalistani leader in Canada, only exposes how our capitalist leaders have no interest in truly setting the record straight. Certain ‘national questions’ are beggars’ wounds, meant to fester until amputation. Indeed, some warn the Minister not to interfere in Canada’s affairs, even as they observe Canada’s blatant interference in Sri Lanka.

This week also saw revelations of Canada’s role as a haven for Europe’s & Asia’s fascists & terrorists. It is no surprise that both Europe & their white settler states have become a refuge for this world’s contras – their ‘bastard children’ of nondescript shades. Canada’s own great expertise in manufacturing (after decimating) ‘tribes’ & identities, derives from their genocide of the original peoples – which contrary to the Canadian envoy’s utterances gulped by Colombo’s supine media – continues to this day, and has long been a model for the fascists of this world. Canada has also played a lead role in the ousting of such independence leaders as the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba (assassinated), Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah (couped), Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide (kidnapped & couped), etc, etc, and opposed anti-colonial struggles (from Korea to Vietnam, etc).

As for the actual surreal diaspora, the truth of their day-to-day lives, as ultra-exploited & terribly insecure workers, is yet to be exposed…

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• A recent parliamentary debate on the April 2019 attacks, heard ‘reports that those who were in the Aragalaya… are training militarily in remote locations’.

     At the same time, Madame Julie Chung is seeking to recruit the leadership of sacred Mihintale to lead the ‘Nava Aragalaya’. Those readers who follow the twitterings & other targeted meanderings of the US Envoy across the country, observe Chung met the Mihintale Thera recently. They were spotted ‘seated with… a Galle Face priest who was with Omalpe & the Cardinal’. The Thera is as usual, most honest. A few months ago, the Mihintale Thera justified the entry of the IMF, declaring, ‘It was the IMF that ruled Sri Lanka… there are financial issues in the country…the government needs to take drastic measures to address them.

     These moves make clear that it is the US that is pushing the ‘anarchy’ from the so-called Left and the Right. They have the rock’n’roll for it.

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No pirates, no digital salesmen: US Envoy Julie Chung also recently met ‘Cyber Security Advisor & Educator’ Asela Waidyalankara – ‘Technocrat, Cyber Security Crusader, Privacy Advocate, Futurist, Techcelerator, Proud Sri Lankan’ – on 27 September 2023. Midst all this hoha about ‘digital economy, disruptive cyber attacks, draft online safety bill’, Chung twittered:

     ‘Had a good chat w Asela Waidyalankara on the latest cybersecurity law & critical ways the USA can further support Sri Lanka’s proactive steps to develop its digital economy & mitigate disruptive cyberattacks. Also discussed concerns & far-reaching implications of the draft Online Safety bill on citizens & tech companies.’

     At the onset of last year’s ‘Aragalaya’, on 9 April 2022 Waidyalankara twittered with a purported photograph of: ‘A high powered Wi-Fi/GSM jammer spotted near Presidential Secretariat’, hinting at covert state surveillance. On 20 April 2022, ‘Anonymous Hacker Collective’ launched cyberattacks ‘against the Government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.’ Waidyalankara was quoted as pointing to the ‘incredibly fragile e-Government system’ (see ee Random Notes)…

Contents:

Sri Lanka’s Lost Middle Class: Debts in the Making