{"id":134248,"date":"2023-05-08T16:32:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T23:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=134248"},"modified":"2023-05-08T16:32:41","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T23:32:41","slug":"multinationals-meddle-midst-mindless-may-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/05\/08\/multinationals-meddle-midst-mindless-may-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Multinationals Meddle midst Mindless May\u00a0Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\u2018Political parties could have used this year\u2019s May Day to emphasize the gravity of the situation thereby\u00a0preparing the population<\/strong>\u00a0to face the deepening crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, all of them engaged in\u00a0meaningless rhetoric<\/strong>\u2026\u2026such\u00a0useless propaganda received<\/strong> primetime television coverage<\/strong>\u00a0as well as coverage by Sinhala, Tamil & English print media.\u2019\u2013 former General Secretary of the Communist Party, DEW Gunasekera (See:\u00a0ee<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, for more)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Even the most vicious snakes moult their skin quite often. But not the corporate media. Well-bribed by their multinational corporate sponsors, led by Unilever<\/strong>, Ceylon Tobacco<\/strong> Co, CIC-ICI<\/strong>, Standard Chartered, etc., they see no need to renew the country. Yet they preen themselves in constant claims to \u2018newer\u2019, \u2018diverse\u2019, inclusive\u2019, etc. The media\u2019s job is to trivialize or ignore what is vital, and highlight what is paltry. They claim to be whiter than white and love to point fingers at politicians (who usually wear \u2018national\u2019 & are \u2018corrupt\u2019 \u2013 though the media never call their corporate sponsors such names). Or highlight the petty crimes of working-class criminals (usually given Sinhala monikers, Makandure Madush etc). Despite the whiteout, there are those who would still attempt to discuss the roots of our disquiet. Yet, their words never obtain repetition and saturation<\/strong> in broadcast media. Meanwhile, all of them are totally prevented from examining one tap root: the prevention of modern industrialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Special Loan Conditions<\/strong> on Upper Kotmale Hydropower Project (UKHP)<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) 50% of goods & services from Japan;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) All main & subcontractors from Japan;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Consultants should be from Japan\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 ee Industry<\/em><\/strong>, Wimalasurendra Memorial Lecture 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Such \u2018loan conditions\u2019 are demanded not just by Japan. It\u2019s part of the imperialist game of keeping us underdeveloped. ee<\/em><\/strong> was directed this week to examine the 1935 Report of the Technical Advisor on Industries<\/strong> in English-colonized Ceylon. He (KD Guha) noted how in India every Province already had a Department of Industries<\/strong> by 1935 (due to being \u2018rudely shocked\u2019 by world war & depression). Yet in Ceylon, despite \u2018the bitter experience of Ceylon in recent years as purely an agricultural country\u2019, all that was allowed over the previous 2 decades had been an overabundance of \u2018mere speculation\u2019<\/strong> on the need for industrialization. He noted how in India, the Department of Industries had to battle the Department of Education to take control of Technical & Industrial Education (so today in 2023 India\u2019s Institute of Technology or IIT is a leading institution in machined modernity).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The 1935 report records drawbacks (in Bengal then, as) similar to developing a modern producer culture<\/strong> in Ceylon, which still apply to us almost 100 years later: \u2018An absence of familiarity\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018want of zeal\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018lack of technical knowledge<\/strong>\u2019, \u2018want of necessary tools & appropriate machinery<\/strong>\u2019, \u2018lack of necessary funds<\/strong> for developing cottage industries and saving cottage workers from the clutches of the middlemen\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018ignorance of market<\/strong> conditions\u2019, and \u2018lack of advertisement<\/strong>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Well, as to \u2018lack of advertisement\u2019 of our real needs, we can very well ask Unilever<\/strong>, who controls the propaganda (aka public relations or PR) machinery (which was behind the recent \u2018Aragalaya\u2019) in Sri Lanka (and has captured our home market!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Which brings us to this tiny gem found midst the mountain of doo-doo that is the English media in Sri Lanka today. Within a mistitled excerpt from A Cabinet Secretary\u2019s Memoir<\/em>s by BP Peiris \u2013 \u2018Writing<\/em> the Soulbury Constitution\u2019 \u2013 we learn of the stenographic \u2018native\u2019 copyeditors of the English dictat to inscribe a body of useless principles that would prevent our economic transformation at \u2018independence\u2019. Note the reference to 19th<\/sup> century comprador families, English universities, and Colombo clubs, where all the so-called \u2018separations of<\/strong> powers<\/strong>\u2019 between executive, judiciary, legislature and raw capitalist cravings vaporize in a tipple of alcohol:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018PC Villavarayan \u2013 Classics man from Oxford; HNG Fernando \u2013 Oxford & Orient Club;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP Peiris \u2013 No Clubs; Abeysundera \u2013 One-time Private Secretary to DS;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S Namasivayam \u2013 Oxford, Grandson of Arunachalam;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fred de Silva \u2013 Son of George de Silva, Member, State Council;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Mahadeva \u2013 Grandson of Ramanathan;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that I was drafting the Constitution<\/strong> was kept secret by my colleagues\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministers\u2019 Draft, which had been prepared by Sir Ivor Jennings<\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was in a most confusing form as a draft and,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

although it contained all the essential points<\/strong>, had to be entirely redrafted.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 ee Politics<\/em><\/strong>, Writing the Soulbury<\/strong> Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such hubris! All those essential points by \u2018Sir Aiyo!\u2019, serving to maintain English political, military & economic interference in the country to this day, were dictated by England\u2019s Foreign Office!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 This ee<\/em><\/strong> covers the continued US destabilization of Asia & Africa<\/strong>. The 14 May elections in Thailand offer a template of what is in store for Sri Lanka. In SL elections have been postponed while there is blatant auctioning of public resources (under the guise of SoE restructuring) to pay for the upcoming buy-off of politicians. As one observer points out (ee Workers<\/em><\/strong>), the IMF is only concerned about corruption by the empire\u2019s enemies, than political and economic repression of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Nazis & Fascists of Europe<\/strong> always saw the genocidal white settlers of the Americas, Africa and the Pacific, as their \u2018older brothers\u2019 (no \u2018sisters\u2019 are mentioned but they no doubt \u2018intersect\u2019). So, it is no surprise that Europe is so easily capitulating to US control of their politics and economy. At the same time the Nazi (& ZioNazi) grip over US & Canadian political power grows even more dire and shrill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     For those taken in by the fake claims of DIE<\/strong> (Diversity, Inclusion, Equality), former US ambassador Charles Freeman explains exactly what defines a \u2018European\u2019 (White, Christian & Docile). Hungary PM Viktor Orban exposes the US war as cover for the US to cut Europe off from Russia and China, to set up a new architecture of power in Europe \u2013 this is no Polish joke! (See ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 This ee<\/em><\/strong> covers SBD de Silva\u2019s charting of the retardation of the growth of indigenous industrial capital<\/strong> \u2013 as evident in the post-1977 sabotage of an indigenous textile & garment industry (when it had features of real industry) leading to the rise of the fakers (Brandix, MAS), which mirrored the multinational capture of Singapore\u2019s garment industry. He also noted the rise in imports due to so-called \u2018access\u2019 to export markets. (ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, Political Economy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 England\u2019s Pre-emptive Judicial Tricks<\/strong> \u2013 There\u2019s an ongoing suit in Scotland by over 1,000 injured tea workers employed by James Finlay and Unilever in Kenya. Finlay insists Scottish courts have no authority to preside over the case [and] that letting Scottish courts determine the class action suit would be a direct attack on Kenya\u2019s sovereignty<\/strong>! Workers argue that policy is made at the multinational\u2019s registered parent company in Scotland<\/strong> [and] the ultimate beneficiary of the profits derived from labour rights violations<\/strong> are domiciled in Scotland\u2019. What may interest Sri Lankans is that these injuries are also linked to Finlay\u2019s \u2018mechanical harvesting department, with a 9-year-old boy decapitated<\/strong> by a tea-plucking machine at a 100-year-old James Finlay tea estate. Tea plantations have refused to mechanize production in Sri Lanka, relying on its over-150-year methods of labor-intensive musculoskeletal movements. Though no such law suits appear to have been launched from here. As to how these plantations were built on land stolen from Sri Lankans, see Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>. The story also refers to a recent BBC<\/em> documentary of sexual abuse of workers by Unilever management in Kenya. The issue for us is that Unilever is BBC<\/em><\/strong> and BBC<\/em><\/strong> is Unilever. So what tricks are the English up to now? (ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, Kenya)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 This week saw \u2018Sri Lankan firm\u2019 Browns Investment<\/strong> buy into aforementioned multinational tea firm James Finlay Kenya<\/strong>. Also, Swiss multinational Nestle<\/strong>, which monopolizes milk production in Sri Lanka, declared itself a private company. Nestle<\/strong> claims that the \u2018company manufactures over 90% of its products sold in Sri Lanka<\/strong> locally at their state-of-the-art factory<\/strong> in Kurunegala\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Further, England\u2019s\u00a0Unilever<\/strong>\u00a0claimed to \u2018get\u00a0more Sri Lanka-rooted<\/strong>\u2019 by setting up a malted beverage plant in Sapugaskanda. Again, the media provides no details on where their machinery and chemistries come from, nor how much imports are required. Then, we get the\u00a0United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0Delegation of German Industry & Commerce (AHK SL)<\/strong>\u00a0together with the Export Development Board (EDB, which has a German offficial housed within its offices) organizing an \u2018awareness program on\u00a0German Act on Corporate Due Diligence in Supply Chains<\/strong>.\u2019 This \u2018diligence\u2019 will then insist that local production does not meet their high\u00a0\u2018green\u2019 standards<\/strong>, and we must\u00a0only use\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0machinery<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Multinationals Meddle midst Mindless May Day<\/a><\/blockquote>