{"id":96522,"date":"2019-12-17T17:52:28","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T00:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96522"},"modified":"2019-12-17T17:52:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T00:52:28","slug":"brexit-long-overdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/17\/brexit-long-overdue\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit: long overdue!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\nThe most asked \nquestion on Google in the year 2019, according to reports, is \u2018Where is \nSri Lanka?\u2019 I am not sure who is looking for Sri Lanka or why. Maybe it \nhas something to do with Sri Lanka being picked as the No 1 island to \nvisit. Again, I am not sure who concluded this or why.  \n\n
\n\nSri\n Lankans know where Sri Lanka is. Most Sri Lankans know what Sri Lanka \nis. Of course there are those who think Colombo is Sri Lanka and vice \nversa and who, consequently, don\u2019t think that non-Colombots really count\n and therefore are often shocked at how politics unfold. That\u2019s a \ndifferent story. \n\n
\n\nThere\n are people from other countries who know where Sri Lanka is and have a \nrough idea that the island is not only about tea. The more discerning \nand aware know the island\u2019s history, its strategic importance in the \nIndian Ocean and of course who plundered what and when.  Most,\n however, have only a cursory knowledge of the island. Arundathi Roy, \nfor example. Gullible to the core, and yet sufferable in ways Boris \nJohnson and Jeremy Corbyn are not.  \n\n
\n\nBoris\n and Jeremy, leaders of the Conservative and Labour Parties in the UK \nhad many things to talk about in the run up to that country\u2019s \nparliamentary elections. Usually, Sri Lankans are not really bothered \nabout by such processes, not least of all because the result, either \nway, has little chance of changing the predatory and condescending \nattitudes and actions of the UK government(s) with respect to Sri Lanka.\n This time, however, both leaders mentioned Sri Lanka in the course of \ntheir respective campaigns.  \n\n
\n\nIt\u2019s\n not hard to understand. There\u2019s a significant number of Tamils of Sri \nLankan origin living in the UK who have the vote. Elections are about \nvotes. Politicians woo voters. They are a promising lot. The aim to \nplease. And so Boris and Corbyn had to say stuff that they believed was \nmusic to the ears of this relatively tiny segment of the voting \npopulation.  \n\n
\n\nA\n minor matter and it didn\u2019t really count, but it nevertheless indicates \nstuff. Jeremy talked of genocide. That’s a good thing. Britain know all \nabout genocide, ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure and plunder. Boris \nwants to achieve \u2018reconciliation, stability and justice.\u2019 Across the \nworld, he says. In current or former conflict zones, he says. Yeah, \nright!    \n\n
\n\nThose\n who get high on either Boris or Jeremy should relax. They are no \ndifferent. The only good thing is that we have to deal with just one of \nthem. As things turned out that would be Boris. \n\n
\n\nNow\n Britain may have reconciled itself to forgetting the past and the \npresent when it comes to horrendous excesses (yes, a mild word, that). \nHowever, if Britain wants justice, that\u2019s good. Here\u2019s stuff that \nBritain could do.\n\n
\n\nFirst.\n Return all the loot. Second. Compensate for genocide, torture, \ndispossession and for having flowered up a people via divide-n-rule. \nThird. LEAVE US ALONE!  \n\n
\n\nThat\n country, folks, doesn\u2019t know whether it is coming or going. It preaches\n democracy but is just another monarchy. It could never tell East from \nWest and still believes the sun has not set on collective behind. It \nbelieves that it is a free country when it is in fact a client state of \nthe United States of America. It is not sure if it is a part of Europe \nor if it is not. It pretends to be one country in the United Nations but\n when it comes to sports (like Rugby and Football) it \u2018breaks\u2019 into its \nconstituent parts.\n\n
\n\nAnd they want to give us direction. Wait. I need to laugh for a good ten minutes over that!  \n\n
\n\nAlright. Done laughing. Seriously, folks, when you dig deep into all this, it is not funny. It\u2019s gruesome. And it is unresolved. \n\n
\n\nSri\n Lanka is not the UK and not only because we haven\u2019t really robbed other\n countries or stockpiled weapons. We don’t do what they do. We don\u2019t \ntell others what to do. We don\u2019t insist they inhabit our version of \ntheir reality. We are not telling them to mind their own flowering \nbusiness.  \n\n
\n\nBritain\n has its own tumors to deal with. That much is clear. Xenophobia. \nTerrorism. Chicken coming home to roost. That kind of thing. Perhaps the\n likes of Boris and Jeremy feel good about themselves by dissing \ncountries like Sri Lanka. \n\n
\n\nAnd\n we here they are fretting over something called \u2018Brexit\u2019. Britain + \nExit, that is. The first time I heard that term, I remembered Nanda \nMalini\u2019s catchy song in the \u2018Pawana\u2019 album, titled \u2018Nidahas Baila\u2019.  <\/em>This is how Sunil Ariyaratne saw it: sudda yanna giyeth nae, nogihin hitiyeth nae. <\/em>(The white man did not stay, and neither did he leave)!  \n\n
\n\nWe\u2019ve\n been waiting for Brexit for more than two centuries. And it\u2019s not their\n fault alone. There are people among us who just don\u2019t want them to \nleave. Maybe \u2018Brexit\u2019 is a Sri Lankan project. An unfettering. It might \nactually give a boost reconciliation, ensure stability and obtain \njustice simply because we won\u2019t have rank idiots telling us who we are, \nwhat we are about and what we ought to do. \n\n

This article was first published in the ‘Sunday Morning’ [December 15, 2019]<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne The most asked question on Google in the year 2019, according to reports, is \u2018Where is Sri Lanka?\u2019 I am not sure who is looking for Sri Lanka or why. Maybe it has something to do with Sri Lanka being picked as the No 1 island to visit. Again, I am not sure […]<\/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-96522","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\/96522","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=96522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}