Let Sri Lanka not become a Batista regime of CUBA – Food for thought

There is an interesting article by Ranil Senanayake, himself also called FR, and the grandson of the Freedom Fighter, FR Senanayake, who would have been the first Prime Minister at Independence had he not died at a young age of 39. FR was the intellectual, who went to Downing College Cambrige a Barrister who was called to the Bar in Lincolns Inn.

The link: https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/does-our-gambling-with-development-signal-the-rise-of-the-mafia/

It encapsulates what Sri Lanka could become if we are not careful, and allow the robber barons of today to rule this country without checks and balances. It is our duty to prevent this possibility as it is all predicated simply out of greed and NOT out of a sense of National Identity or Patriotism in the slightest.

I might also remind the reader that FR was the leader of the temperance movement in Sri Lanka, and had he lived, I am sure we would not have fallen into a Country in such an inebriated state!!

I quote from a passage he has written attributable to John F Kennedy whose 50^th death anniversary was commemorated just last week who noted:

“I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation, which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.”

It is opportune for us to read these words and carefully think how we must react and determine what it is that we want in Sri Lanka. Until we have good governance and the rule of law and with all the checks and balances of the Independent Judiciary etc. we MUST not attempt these mirages of gold that blind us as we drive towards it, and stop our car and wait for it to disappear.