By Dr.C.G.Ilangakoon Courtesy Ceylon Today

COVID-19 has triggered a precise message to humanity and the whole world with no exception whatsoever – “I, your Mother-Earth, tell you very seriously, these words are my final warning. I don’t need you. I can live without you. Even right now, I am living in the presence of your absence. Then, it is you who want me and who cannot live without me. Thus, should you want to live with me, in and on me, observe my laws of love, mutual understanding, cooperation and collaboration. Be constructive instead of being destructive. 

Respect not, man-made social labels like Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim or respect not, the religious labels like Buddhist, Hindu and Islam, but the truth I created about humanity. 

Besides, honouring the dignity of mother earth, I do not care about super powers, whatsoever the self-declared supremacy by some. Just look at the miserable agony, some so-called super powers have been de-superised in to. This is my FINAL WARNING”!

This is the first insight, the prosperity vision any country must be guided by, should its central objective be to reach the loftier altitudes of authentic development. Why authentic development? The “development”, in its generalised context, can cause not only deterioration, but also total destruction. 

This is what the BR Vision is all about, the GR Viyath Maga perception is all about and the SLPP Manifesto is all about. Their final destination is to achieve authentic development, the discerning victories of which, would cascade down, to benefit the absolute majority of the people of Sri Lanka and to patriotically profit the future of our motherland.

Failed governance

With fake promises of “Good Governance”, the UNP with a limited number of SLFP politicians captured power, only to fail Sri Lanka of its military, political and economic victories gifted by the Rajapaksa administration. 

The President of the Good Governance himself appointed a presidential commission to probe the Central Bank scam, which mortgaged the Nation and the future generation to be born, for a terrific period of more than 30 years. Destroying the economy of the country totally, the 7% developmental index of the island was reduced to 3%. 

The victory over the LTTE terrorists and the peace, the people enjoyed thereafter, were blown up in to pieces by the Islam State of Syria and Iraq religious racists. In short the UNP good governance   failed miserably. Hence, the vast majority of the country rejected it along with its living masters. Now there is a call for the former Parliament to be reconvened along with its failed and also people-rejected politicians. 

A winning journey cannot be attained with the failures of the UNP team. That will be against the wishes of the people. Thank God that we have a courageous newly elected President, who can take sweeping decisions, which would benefit the public and profit the people. The people are fed up of a corrupt West-worshipping cult of politicians betraying the motherland.

Wisdom vs. Ignorance

What the world needs is not intelligence, but wisdom. Why? Intelligence can understand and know only what “appears to be”.  Wisdom can comprehend not only what appears to be, but also that, which “is” the truth. Now, the confusion is, “the man is taking that which is, to be that which is not and he is taking that which is not, to be that which is”. 

This mishmash is conditioned by intelligence and in such context, intelligence could be deemed to be a component of ignorance, which is not-knowing or the inability to know. eg: Does the American President consider himself to be Donald Trump? The present writer, of course does not. However, if the US President is in the affirmative, he is an intelligent man and not one of wisdom. Why? When he was born in to this world, he was not “Donald Trump”, but a nameless innocent human – baby. Then, how did he become “Donald trump”? His parents gave him that social label. Why? For him to be identified as a separate individual. 

Thus he became a label-being. In such a frame of reference, we all are artificial label-beings, who are devoid of the beautiful truth of human-being. Why has the current writer taken up this “Intelligence Vs Wisdom” dialogue in a text, the actual orientation of which is economic prosperity? If anyone wants a promising wish to be fulfilled, powerfully willed in to the opulence of milk and honey, before all, he/she must be a conscious natural human-being, well set in the void of aforesaid artificial social labels like “Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim” and man-made religious labels like ” Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic”.

The presence of these artificial labels, which comprise lies in place of truth, will never allow the explosion of any true development and this is exactly what has dishonoured the whole world. 

With so much social and religious labels, with such a high degree of the progress of science and advancement of technology we are all on the verge of a catastrophe. Why? The commonality of the human-being is destroyed and the fake identification in to separated false social and religious entities is established and this utter foolish and devastating process is being granted a stupid extent of reputation and recognition. This unfortunate condition promotes communal terrorism and religious racism. The Tamil LTTE Elam dream and the Caliphate of Islam State of Iraq and Syria( ISIS) are best terrorist and racist examples of this.

SLPP Manifesto

This crucially central factor, in my personal opinion, has well been innovatively grasped by the BR Vision and it is qualitatively seeded in the SLPP Manifesto – the proposed and people-approved Constitution of the Economy of Sri Lanka. Thus in Section 9, The Heading Para, under the rubric of “Virtuous, Disciplined and Law-abiding Society”, at Page (70) of the Sinhala version of it writes: “For any country, what is required to have for its authentic development is, the attainment of economic prosperity, refined with the nourishment of spiritual advancement. A person, to whatsoever the extent, may be rich and wealthy, if he is full of fear, doubt and suspicion, jealousy, hatred and vengeance, he is not a rich man. 

To be rich, his mind must be full of happiness, wealthy in well-intensions and must have the ability to be kind and compassionate. Then only a birth could be given to a society, wherein, the mutual respect shall be rich and the cooperation with each other shall be the order of the day. Hence, we are powerfully devoted to create, not only a rich person, but also an individual, rich in discipline and righteous in thought, word and deed”. This is the human-being, with whom the attainment to the right prosperity is possible.

New Propensities

The SLPP Manifesto is a beautiful prosperity-pregnant policy document. Nonetheless, it is not in a static state and destined to the stagnation of hibernation and dogmatism. It comprises dynamism with the capacity to be empirically operative in the law of the survival of the fittest. In such context, no doubt could be had on its adaptability. 

COVID-19 has projected a useful space for it to be augmented with couple of new trends and domains of operation: (1) A foundation has been powered by COVID-19 to be innovative in creating a private-public partnership. The germ has depicted the truth that people should not burden each and everything on the State and relax in lethargy, anticipating that the culmination of their all dreams shall be reached by the government itself, without their active involvement. 

Then, conversely, it has pragmatically convinced the Government that in the absence of peoples’ participation, no sensible project could be successful. In fact this is what has happened to Sri Lanka. The public delight in lethargy, blaming the Government for each and everything. 

Now, if both parties can rise above intelligence and be galvanised in to action via the above said wisdom, seeing things for what they truly are, the COVID-19  curse can be transformed in to a beautiful blessing (2) A pragmatic space has been created to seek new opportunities. 

The investors should seize these possibilities to engender the trends of long-term technological innovation and also capital market reforms (3) The dire need to revitalise the entrepreneurial spirit in the domain of commerce and trade of Sri Lanka. The recent outbreak of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka has led to significant impacts on businesses and industries. 

Hence, a webinar can be hosted with the participation of all pertinent stakeholders, in order to structure an insight, with a view to reacting for the mitigation of the negative impacts and adaptation to the changes, preparing for the bounce back in new opportunities (4) Consideration of the reflections of public opinion. 

The social media, Web chats, official webinars etc. can be made use of to assimilate the public opinion and simultaneously be transparent to intensify the public trust in the agenda of the present Government to be revolutionised (5) Balancing imperatives between disease control, economic recovery and population movement to reach the annual GDP growth at least to  5%  for the year 2020 (6) The refinement of monetary policy by the relaxation of the reserve requirement ratio and the loan prime rate. 

However, a new cycle of global interest rate cuts to be initiated by the US Federal Reserve, to address the stock market fall must be in careful view (7) The regulation of Fiscal policy via tax reductions, payment concessions, introduction of social security packages and target funding (8) Formulation of policies for returning to work and the implementation of the production process through Local Government Bodies, however, under the total supervision and control of the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in order to prevent the empirical and secret involvement of communal terrorists and religious racists.

Entrepreneurial paradigm shift

The adversity is a state of mind. Now it is vital for the entrepreneurial spirit to feature the faith and capability to turn the existing crisis into opportunities. The business models are already shifting. Remote work and online business, which faced obstacles previously, are now a necessity. 

Business must embrace the following strategies in order to seek and seize opportunities: (1)Digitalisation is the future. The outbreak is an opportunity to reshape and implement digital strategies. It in turn will create new opportunities. Capability building and new value creation are key for such transformations (2) Risk management needs to be re-evaluated. 

More attention will have be directed to insurance, multiple sources of income and customers, and integration of online and offline business. To many Sri Lankan businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), separation of family and business, diversified asset allocation and insurance are fundamental to risk management (3) SMEs need to take initiatives actively. Beside cost control, unique competitive edges have to be developed to the fullest. SMEs need to reflect on how to relate to and seize the next wave of growth.

A safe and healthy living environment is now considered equally, if not more important than economic growth. Earlier detection and prevention will be crucial for a future public health and management system. The system in Sri Lanka has to prove its capability subsequent to the outbreak that the private sector has made a significant contribution. This again demonstrates the necessity and potential of public-private partnership. 

The outbreak has accelerated the need for the application of new technologies. Social communication has to be greatly diversified, making room for efficient and online measures of interaction. This trying time is also shaping the entrepreneurship of the private sector. Many businesses were driven not only by profits but also a desire to provide a social good.

Government support for innovation

The UNP-introduced market-liberalisation destroyed, not only the independence of the economy of Sri Lanka and the food security based self-sufficiency, maintained historically, nourished with the concept of  Tank, Dagoba and  Temple, but also the beautiful mutual understanding, mutual respecting and mutual cooperating ethicality in the character of the individual. Besides, it never allowed any domestication of innovation. 

The domesticity of the novelty was never a boon for the marketers of commercial liberalism. If a talented youth was successful in a scientific discovery, no priority was given to it. On the contrary, it became a barrier for their governance. Why? The invention impeded the import of the invented commodity and such impediment became a huge barrier to play the game of commission for those who had the competence to import.

COVID-19 now vividly demonstrated the promotion of the innovation-localisation is an indispensable imperative. Besides, many talented youth, men and women mushroomed from many domains with their invented products, which the present President and the Prime Minister subjected to their valued scrutinisation. 

But, the powerful lesson, taught by the COVID-19 pandemic is not fully satisfied only with such appreciation. Such mastery of our own citizens should be caused to be transcended to higher result-oriented altitudes to profit the motherland and its people – indeed, one of the best paths to perpetuate the consistence of the political power of the Rajapaksa regime.

 Therefore, the perseverant supportive efforts of the Government on following realm would be truly appreciable : 

(1) Emerging New business models, especially in sectors such as health, logistics, automation, online office, entertainment, retail, and education (2) New generation smart cities, which can be the  key to the future public agenda. Besides certain urban functions, a new generation smart city will systematically enhance public management by integrating supply chains, traffic, emergency and disaster warning (3) Big data Banks could be more widely used for public wellbeing, especially for tracking, analysing, and supporting timely public decision-making (4) Transcendence of Offline-driven businesses to begin into online, especially in education, entertainment, and retail (5) The extension of value chain of healthcare to cover early detection and prevention along with the  promotion of a comprehensive healthy ecosystem for public health agendas (6) Transformation of Social media from being the channel between not only individuals and business, but also public and the Government.

About the writer:
Dr. Gamini Ilangakoon is a Lawyer, specializing in International Treaty Laws.