{"id":50396,"date":"2015-12-22T16:24:01","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T23:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=50396"},"modified":"2015-12-22T16:24:01","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T23:24:01","slug":"needed-a-benevolent-dictator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/12\/22\/needed-a-benevolent-dictator\/","title":{"rendered":"Needed: A benevolent dictator"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera\u00a0Courtesy Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If one looks at history, many countries developed under autocratic rule. Sri Lanka, under Sinhala kings, prospered due to strict rules and control of the masses.<\/p>\n<p>Even a private company develops in keeping with the vision of the CEO.<\/p>\n<p>Russia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and especially Oman, developed under dictatorships.<\/p>\n<p>As I have written before, what we need is a benevolent dictator. Under MR, we had autocratic rule, but alleged corruption brought an end to the regime which had discipline, and vision to develop infrastructure despite nepotism etc.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.island.lk\/modules\/modPublication\/article_title_images\/1374031981farmers.jpg\" alt=\"article_image\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But, today we have no discipline or vision, but a lot of talk and frustration.<\/p>\n<p>I see garbage on roads, encroachments along the roads developed by the previous regime, bribery and corruption, nepotism and greed. We talk about an orange revolution and some have even written books about it, but the country is at a standstill.<\/p>\n<p>We read the newspapers with photographs of farmers in loincloth in Colombo, demanding solutions to their problems.<\/p>\n<p>Time was when farmers did not have to protest. Leaders like Dudley and Premadasa met them in paddy fields. President Maithripala Sirisena is from a farming family. Maybe he does not want to get back to the paddy field!<\/p>\n<p>Let the Prime Minister\u2019s and the President\u2019s Offices be shifted to a place like Muthurajawela so that everyone goes there to demonstrate and Colombo will be free from traffic blocks. Someone has to take over the reins of to lead the masses and trade unions and do something. Otherwise, there will be anarchy.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera\u00a0Courtesy Island If one looks at history, many countries developed under autocratic rule. Sri Lanka, under Sinhala kings, prospered due to strict rules and control of the masses. Even a private company develops in keeping with the vision of the CEO. Russia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and especially Oman, developed under dictatorships. As I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50396","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=50396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}