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The Sri Lankan ‘liberal’ fights for all of the social progressivism of the West, and none of their industrial policies that made such lifestyles possible in the first place. They want Western decadence & colonial underdevelopment

Sri Lankan unions fight for higher & higher wages, but not for the kinds of industrial policies that would lead to the production of less & less-expensive goods. They envision a high-wage economy, not a low-cost one.-Shiran Illanperuma, Twitter

The US-funded thinktank Advocata wants ‘Women workers’ to ‘break’ the ‘shackles of time limits’. By shackles, they mean the Shop & Office Employees Act, Employment of Women, Young Persons & Children Act, and the Factories Ordinance. US Advocata weeps crocodile tears for such laws that place ‘restrictions on a woman’s right to engage in night work’. The UNP and SJB agree with the US thinktanks.

     US Advocata also says ‘political will’ is ‘required to abolish the ‘Period Tax’. This relates to the failure to import lower-priced ‘feminine products’. The ‘protection’ of high-priced local products they argue is an attack on women’s rights.

US Advocata, et al, are all part of the forces calling for the abolition of labor laws and trade unions that protect workers. These anti-worker forces are led locally by the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC). These are the same people who, following the July 1980 General Strike, advocated the mass sackings that then provided the kindling for the wars that were ignited south & north for the decades to come. Amnesia’s just another word for the media called ‘mass’…

‘The mainstream media ‘discovered’ women’s rights

leading up to the US invasion of Afghanistan,

inundating the public with imagery of

‘burqa-clad women in need of liberation,’

and then ‘rediscovered’ these women

following the withdrawal in order to justify sanctions…

the media’s selective focus on ‘human rights’…

erases the harm caused by the violence of US wars…’

– ee Media, The Role of the Media in the US War on Afghanistan

Of course the USA discovered women’s rights in Afghanistan even as they were encouraging their ‘radical’ allies – ‘freedom fighters’ – to throw acid at women going to University, claiming education of women was communist policy!

• This week, we hear that England’s Guardian newspaper has ‘investigated’ the ‘hunger’ and squalor’ of Sri Lanka’s ‘poorly-paid’ & ‘harsh’ tea ‘industry’ (it’s not an industry! – ee). Following the Guardian report, some of the ‘world’s leading tea manufacturers‘ said they were ‘examining’ the conditions of workers on Sri Lanka’s tea plantations. Also note the Guardian’s English: ‘Sri Lanka’s once English-owned tea industry’. The link between England, the tea party, and our underdevelopment is a priority mystery that Enid Blyton or Agatha Christie never sought to unravel. Their detectives always missed the real criminals. Just like the English media. Will they unravel the accounting forensics of the Exporters & the Multinationals? (see ee May 2023 Part 2: Unilever’s Tempest)

     Last month, ee wondered about Unilever’s ‘tampering’ in this tea game. ee reported on a show trial in Scotland ‘on behalf of’ workers on James Finlay’s tea plantations in Kenya. Also: on the purported takeover of JFK’s operations by ‘Sri Lankan firm’ Browns. And further: on the NGO Rainforest Alliance‘s suspension of their ‘certification’ of these tea exporters JFK and Unilever following a expose by England’s state broadcasting service BBC. So here they are again. ee keeps wondering about the who and how these NGOs were anointed with such powers. As usual, suspect greater concentration and monopoly is being exercised over the overall tea business.

     Whatever happened to the proposal to grant English citizenship to India’s plantation workers in Sri Lanka’s hill-country? A privilege provided to their counterparts in Kenya and Uganda. One of them could be the next English Prime Minister! Or BBC announcer. Not that it matters who is ringmaster in that Three-Penny Opera called English democracy. (see ee Random Notes)

• Altered Native Economy – All is not lost. A liberal coalition of NGOs, trade unions & academics are proposing Alternatives to the IMF. They blame consumerism, unregulated free trade, illicit capital flows, the political class, government bureaucracy and domestic rentier elites for instigating the country’s ‘ongoing socioeconomic collapse’. They oppose the selling of state assets, and promote the sale of private assets! They lament the lack of a teetotaling entrepreneurial industrial capitalist class of yore, and advocate for capital controls and import substitution. (ee Focus)

• We cannot expect an English media – bound hand and foot to the multinational corporations and their banks – or their economists – to tell us that it is Wall Street’s ‘bond’ business that is behind Sri Lanka’s manipulated meltdown. Or about the need for industry:

‘Sri Lanka has failed to effectively promote industrial transformation’

(ee Focus, Sri Lanka in the Trap of Financial Capital)

• We hafta go to China for a report from Tsinghua University’s Department of International Relations: on how ‘international bonds have become an important financing tool for developing countries’. ISBs constitute most of Sri Lanka’s debt. Most of the interest Sri Lanka pays on debt, goes to paying interest on such bonds! They ‘have become the major debt burden on the countries that issue bonds’. Don’t expect English media to tell this. (ee Focus, Sri Lanka in the Trap of Financial Capital)

• This ee carries a report from a US Republican Party media organ (yes, Breitbart!) on the US government’s migration policy. They link such policy to ‘extractive’ colonial economic needs. Canada let in a million workers last year. The deal is to create an underclass of unprotected workers, fleeced renters and conspicuous consumers to enable the profits of the ‘big corporations’ and consolidate the upward mobility of a fraction of the professional-managerial class. Last week ee reported on the strike by truck drivers in Europe, up against the hidden power of truck makers like Benz, supplying the warehouses of General Electric and Amazon, etc. (see ee Focus)

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