{"id":135833,"date":"2023-07-23T15:52:42","date_gmt":"2023-07-23T22:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=135833"},"modified":"2023-07-23T15:52:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T22:52:42","slug":"ranil-in-the-family-coolies-coolie-to-the-red-fort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/07\/23\/ranil-in-the-family-coolies-coolie-to-the-red-fort\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranil in the Family: Coolie\u2019s Coolie to the Red\u00a0Fort"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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Before you study the economics, study the economists!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News July 2023 Part 4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With the US & India fertilizing chaos<\/strong> in Sri Lanka, while threatening division and invasion \u2013 the US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)<\/strong>, to allow troops on Lanka\u2019s soil, has apparently been \u2018unanimously\u2019 endorsed \u2013 Sri Lanka\u2019s President is now summoned to pose at Delhi\u2019s Red Fort<\/strong> \u2013 final citadel of the Mughal<\/strong> invasion, of England\u2019s East India Company<\/strong> (EIC) <\/strong>and of the current Brown-Sahib Raj<\/strong> \u2013 to embrace the role of the coolie\u2019s coolie<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Last ee<\/em><\/strong> reported that Washington assigned India to a subordinate industrial caste during Indian President N Modi\u2019s recent overhyped junket there. India has accepted this industrial harijan status<\/strong> \u2013 they will labor-intensively assemble & test semiconductors within the US supply chain. Sri Lanka thus has to learn to conjure kotthu from broken chips that fall off their table, just as we have creatively concocted kotthu from discarded Chennai roti, while the IMF hands over our national enterprises to the World Bank<\/strong> and other dubious \u2018international accounting firms\u2019 like Deloitte<\/strong> to sell (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The origins of the word \u2018coolie\u2019 are gps-ed in the Chinese characters for \u2018bitter strength<\/strong>\u2019 and turned into the word for \u2018wage<\/strong>s\u2019 in South Asia \u2013 kuli<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     China rejects such a bitter world-ordering, and seeks to design the latest chip-making machines. This ee<\/em><\/strong> looks at the belligerent extents the USA is deploying to prevent China from achieving such modern industrial autonomy. Such industrial retardation is finally aimed at all our countries (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Sri Lankan President\u2019s beckoning to Delhi \u2013 unleashed over-the-top promises to physically lash Sri Lanka to India at that hip joint called Trincomalee<\/strong>, with an oil pipeline<\/strong> running through, offering a common currency<\/strong>, dividing Sri Lanka via a 13th<\/sup> Amendment<\/strong> wrought from India\u2019s arming<\/strong> of terrorists. The President has also rammed through a \u2018new\u2019 Central Bank Act<\/strong>, which will further enthrall Sri Lanka\u2019s economy to Wall Street\u2019s croupiers. The US thinktank Verite<\/strong>, severe school master, keeps count of the government\u2019s failures to adhere to the IMF dictat (see ee Economy<\/em><\/strong>). Yet there is no thinktank to recount the failures to fulfil a so-called independent state\u2019s sacred covenant with its own people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Gone are the days when this President\u2019s uncle, then-President JR Jayawardene, with Margaret Thatcher highkicking chorus, promised their over-priced and destructive caricature of the CPSL\u2019s Mahaveli Project would electrify India as well! And where be all the daily wielders of ornery orientalisms as despotism, chaos and corruption of just last year, now? Let there be light! The Wickremesinghe offshoot of the oligarchy outdistances all in their obeisance to a dire anglomania, despite exhalations resounding non-alignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Then there are the Indo-Saxons atop us. India seeks to kettle economic & international policy by preventing Sri Lanka from pursuing a direct Free Trade Agreement<\/strong> with China. India wants Lanka\u2019s engagement with China only through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations<\/strong> (ASEAN<\/strong>)\u2019s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership<\/strong> (RCEP<\/strong>). Critics wonder if Sri Lanka is being asked to play again the same Bandung-Buru<\/strong> spoiler role it was assigned to play in Indonesia in 1955, to undermine the 1st<\/sup> conference of the historic Non-Aligned Movement (NAM, see Bandung Buruvo, Bailouts & Giveaways<\/em>, ee<\/em><\/strong> 23 May 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     A senior Sri Lanka government delegation was dispatched to Jakarta, Indonesia, from 12-14 June 2023. Their PR hailed the occasion as the \u2018First-ever Fact-Finding Mission to RCEP by any country after it entered into force on 01 January 2022\u2019 The US, it turns out, is openly attempting to sabotage ASEAN. NATO<\/strong>\u2019s Jens Stoltenberg<\/strong> recently stated, \u2018security is not a regional, but a global task<\/strong>\u2019. Hence concealing their iron Euro-Atlantic<\/strong> priorities within their silky \u2018Indo-Pacific Strategies<\/strong>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     To this end, India pushed Sri Lanka\u2019s envoy there, Milinda Moragoda, <\/strong>to get President Ranil Wickremesinghe to appoint Jayanath Colombage as the Ambassador to Indonesia. Indonesia is the current headquarters for ASEAN. Colombage, belonging to Moragoda\u2019s Exxon-funded Pathfinder<\/strong> NGO, is held culpable for misleading former Gotabhaya Rajapakse into major foreign policy faux pas (see Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, Politics of Hedging in the Indo-Pacific).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ee<\/em><\/strong> has been examining the US sabotage of China\u2019s participation in building & laying the latest submarine internet cabling<\/strong> in the ocean (see ee<\/strong> July 2023, Parts 2 & 3). SLTelecom<\/strong> is fighting shy about being lubricated by US \u2018compensations\u2019 to deny Sri Lankans access to the latest technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Reader indulgence is requested therefore, as ee<\/em><\/strong> seeks to trace the US imposition of its \u2018Euro-Atlantic\u2019 (NATO) architecture of war on the Indian Ocean<\/strong>. To track first sightings of the US in the Indian & Pacific Ocean<\/strong>, just after its \u2018war of independence\u2019 from England, and enthusiastic involvement in the English-dominated opium trade imposed on China<\/strong>, leading to the USA\u2019s 1st<\/sup> millionaires<\/strong>, the \u2018Boston Brahmin Bankers<\/strong>\u2019 etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Last ee<\/em><\/strong> quoted Eric Williams\u2019 classic Capitalism & Slavery<\/em><\/strong>. Williams points out that some of the most philanthropic English \u2018humanitarians\u2019 of the 17th<\/sup>, 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries<\/strong> made their glittering lucre from the Atlantic slave trade in kidnapped Africans<\/strong>. Let\u2019s not forget that \u2018father of English liberalism\u2019 John Locke was a slave trader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Rivers of ink<\/strong> were emptied in denouncing this horrific trade. Some proclaimed, such \u2018humanitarians\u2019 would change their investment options if they saw the choked holds<\/strong> within slave ships, or a plantation\u2019s whip-in-hand human-resource policies<\/strong>. Williams said none of this curtailed English investment in the chattel slave trade. Vast profits overcame any shyness. Williams points out that many abolitionists were directors of the East India Company<\/strong>, which turned to the indentured slavery of predominantly Chinese and Indian people, of coolies and opium, etc. (Williams as Prime Minister of Trinidad was inspired to ban his own book! Also: see EIC history<\/strong> below, ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Meanwhile, the USA\u2019s 1st<\/sup> envoy to China,<\/strong> a former pirate himself, noted how the slave trade required an apropos joy in the horrific suffering of other humans. He also recorded how the English were already resorting in the 18th<\/sup> century to armed thuggery to extend their attempts to rob China. ee <\/em><\/strong>here recalls that the \u2018liberal\u2019 expression \u2018equal opportunity\u2019 originates in the US demand to also do what other European imperialists were doing in China!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ee<\/em><\/strong> has also extensively quoted former Ceylon Central Bank official Michael Greenberg\u2019s 1969 classic British Trade & the Opening of China 1800-42<\/em>. Both Greenberg and Williams appear to subscribe to the theory that our \u2018non-settler colonized economies\u2019 were crafted to absorb the surplus output necessary to keep the imperialists\u2019 <\/strong>\u2018new machines running<\/strong> when the home market sagged<\/strong>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Storm Sewer! Runway Truck Ramp! Coolies indeed!<\/em> Those constantly craving capricious export markets \u2013 even as the US & EU raise their own \u2018walls\u2019 and blatantly weaponize access, GSP+ etc \u2013 to develop the economy, should take careful note. ee<\/em><\/strong> here marks, too, the curious and total silencing about our own home market<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

PS: Last ee<\/em><\/strong> had some egregious ee<\/em><\/strong> errors. We have corrected and reposted a complete Harnessing the Mahaveli \u2013 <\/strong>our excerpt of Chapter V\u2019s \u2018Relief of Ceylon\u2019 in CPSL leader SA Wickramasinghe\u2019s 1955 classic, The Way Ahead<\/em>. And the entry on Paris is Burning<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ranil in the Family: Coolie\u2019s Coolie to the Red Fort<\/a><\/blockquote>