{"id":112886,"date":"2021-03-22T01:25:45","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T07:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112886"},"modified":"2021-03-21T18:17:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T01:17:53","slug":"cheerio-eu-hello-ea-and-more-hopefully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/22\/cheerio-eu-hello-ea-and-more-hopefully\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheerio EU, hello EA (and more, hopefully!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

MALINDA SENEVIRATN\u200bE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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EU. That\u2019s the European Union. EA stands for East Asia. It\u2019s a crude categorization in terms of what\u2019s happening right now in Geneva with regard to Sri Lanka. Russia, after all, is \u2018East\u2019 according to some, West according to others. Pakistan is not East enough so to speak. Both countries are backing Sri Lanka with respect to the resolution tabled by the original Mother of all things Evil, Britain. The geography has to be discussed in detail but that\u2019s for later.

Here\u2019s a lovely headline: \u201840 countries join resolution on SL as co-sponsors and additional co-sponsors.\u2019 Forty countries. Forty. That\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s as though the entire world and part of some other planetary system with intelligent life have ganged up against Sri Lanka. That\u2019s until you examine the deets.
So here are the details, as offered in the body of the news story: \u2018a bulk of them [are] from the European region. Bulk might mean a little more than 50% or even two thirds. More deets: \u2018only TWO (emphasize mine) are \u2018non European or Western countries.\u2019 Minor detail: twelve [of the 40] have voting rights at the UNHRC this time. So, take out Malawi and the Marshall Islands and it\u2019s essentially a European move. The headline looks a tad exaggerated now, doesn\u2019t it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, it\u2019s not something that should surprise anyone. There\u2019s a thing called history and there\u2019s a thing called the present. We know of gangs. We know that nations gang up. We know that rogues nations gang up. We know that rogue nations that also have bucks and weapons of mass destruction are willing and able to crown themselves as benefactors of all humankind and of course blackball other nations that for whatever reason don\u2019t see eye-to-eye or rather are reluctant to submit to someone else\u2019s definition of their reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s an EU story. Here\u2019s another which we\u2019ve referred to at times.
In 1884, 13 European nations shamelessly gathered in Berlin to parcel out the African continent like famished school children (on a school trip) haphazardly dividing up a pizza. Great Britain was represented by Sir Edward Malet (Ambassador to the German Empire). The US, the emerging but [at the time] reluctant superpower, had a delegate – the explorer Henry Morton Stanley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In utter disregard and with not a single iota of conscience or concern for the culture or the families of the continent, the map was redrawn and lands claimed. What followed was the systematic scramble and undoing of Africa. Resistance was met with the brutal force of gunpowder. The Herero Massacre was the first genocide of the 20th century: tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, starved, and tortured to death by German troops as they put down rebellious\u201d tribes in what is now Namibia. Tens of thousands of defenseless women and children were forced into the Kalahari desert, their wells poisoned and food supplies cut.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They still do the guns-in-booty-out number but are more sophisticated. It\u2019s white-man\u2019s burden clothed as black\/brown people\u2019s preference. Sometimes it works. Sometimes guns are sent in and booty taken out. Raw stuff.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s revisit the political geography. China and Japan are in the East. China is backing Sri Lanka and Japan hasn\u2019t exactly applauded the moves by the rogue states of Europe. China and Japan own North American and European debt.
The balance of global power is shifting but hasn\u2019t shifted yet. Europe and North America (essentially the USA and its 52nd State of Amnesia, Canada) still have sway on account of rules set in their favor in happier times. That and a persisting political economy that ensures dependency do not place Sri Lanka in a situation where she can smile and say \u2018ta-ta.\u2019 Not yet, anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, this business of pernicious persecution could push Sri Lanka to a point where \u2018ta-ta\u2019 is inevitable. Sri Lanka could just grin and bear. Sri Lanka could say \u2018ta-ta\u2019 without enthusiasm. Sri Lanka might have to say \u2018hello and hello again,\u2019 to China and Japan. Maybe one day North America and Europe would be forced to say \u2018bye-bye\u2019 to their arrogance and say \u2018hello\u2019 to reason, civilization and the notions of community and solidarity, but not in the foreseeable future. They had to say \u2018hello and hello again to China,\u2019 after all, albeit in all probability muttering \u2018damn it\/you!\u2019 under their breaths.
Cheerio EU, hello EA. That\u2019s the title. Better if we could say \u2018Hello Asia\u2019. Better yet to say \u2018Hello and hello again the Tricontinental\u2019 in the Guevarist expansion of the Bolivarian formulation. Indeed it would be best to say \u2018bye-bye EU, EI, A, TC\u2026.hello people, hello community and solidarity, hello earth\u2019 but we are not anywhere close to such Utopias. India, after all, is confused about her geographical location or rather location in politics of vexatious persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, then, it\u2019s an Outside-Europe universe that Sri Lanka is being forced to look at. Perhaps it\u2019s a good thing. Let\u2019s see.
malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/a><\/em>[Malinda Seneviratne is the Director\/CEO of the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. These are his personal views]<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MALINDA SENEVIRATN\u200bE EU. That\u2019s the European Union. EA stands for East Asia. It\u2019s a crude categorization in terms of what\u2019s happening right now in Geneva with regard to Sri Lanka. Russia, after all, is \u2018East\u2019 according to some, West according to others. Pakistan is not East enough so to speak. Both countries are backing Sri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}