Vichara

May Day is round the corner. Mayday is also the international distress call used by aircrafts and ships. It is appropriate we scream mayday” to alarm the nation that the ship named Sri Lanka is sinking. The Captain of the ship is confident that we can save the ship if we throw all the valuables overboard. The Chief Mate says he has the lifeboats ready. But the fact is that the ship is sinking.

On every May Day since independence, we used to sing ‘sa duking pelenewun than ithin nagitiyaw and scream –‘down with the capitalists-‘danapathin banga wewa.’ But what has happened is the poor have become poorer and the rich have become richer.

The top one percent of Sri Lankans own 31 percent of the total personal wealth, while the bottom 50 percent only owns less than 4 percent of the overall wealth in the country.” Yet we tax the poor with indirect taxes and allow the rich to dodge direct taxes.

According to a UNDP report, the indebtedness in the country is disastrously deepening; 31 percent of Sri Lankan households depended on loans; 24 percent are dependent on money lenders and 23 percent on bank loans. As of June, the country’s staggering household debt reached more than 7 percent of the GDP.

We will have another May Day shouting the same slogans and marching in the scorching sun and listening to pseudo leaders promising sun and the moon but the system will remain the same. The crew of the sinking ship will remain the same and more rats will jump out of the sinking ship.