By Sarath de Alwis –

Sarath de Alwis

“When earth piles up into mountains, wind and rain will originate thereof.” “A bosom friend afar brings distant land nearer.” ~ Chinese Proverbs 

This is not a lockdown. This is not a curfew. It is called ‘Sancharana Seema’. Restricted movement is the idea. Better late than never. The blanket restriction of vehicle movement has pissed off many. That includes my children.

But that is the right thing to do. ll you must do is to walk to the nearest outlet. The SJB has expressed its reservations. I don’t understand those chaps. They say that they oppose neoliberalism of Ranil and that they are grassroots free marketers.

Then please put on your jogging outfits and walk the talk. I am really angry with these chaps because they are all for a port city accountable to parliament. That is neither here nor there.   

I stand with my lifelong commitment to the idea of Capital which as Marx said is dead labour , which vampire like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.

That said, we must take the world as it is. Globalization has created one huge enterprise in search of capital. It is in search of the best talent and the most contemporary ideas. And you expect them to come to your parliament and explain?

If you want to go the brothel do not go looking for virgins.

The debate over the riches to be realized from the reclaimed oceanfront in our capital is over. The discourse mirrored a swing between Uninspiring Idealism and Opinionated Cynicism.

Watching the debate, I was reminded of that aphorism with which the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche dissected human nature and debunked the premise that every man had a price. That is not true he said. But every man had a bait which he “cannot resist swallowing.

“To win over certain people to something it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice, – and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow.”   

The debate on the port city commission bill mirrored that Nietzschean view of human nature. It had the elements of slave’s morality of conceding power to the master. It also had the elements of deep psychological egoism that comes from raw power.   

The port city has been described as a turning point. It is claimed that it will offer ‘world class’ facilities.

For it to be a turning point, the journey must also have end.  A nation’s journey is a never-ending journey.

If 1917 was a turning point for Vladimir Lenin, 1985 was the year that Michael Gorbachev took a definite detour. If Mao Zedong reached a turning point in 1948, Deng Xiaoping diverted to his expressway in 1978.

If Jawaharlal Nehru took the high road of ‘Pancasila “1948, Atal Behari Vajpayee took the explosive Pokhran road of détente in 1998. 

The journey of a nation is an enduring journey. Nations on their journeys through the ages have displayed the excellent habit of leaving charlatans by the wayside. 

I do not understand the urgency that prompted the hurried debate and passage of the Port City Commission bill.   

History will record that the operative legislation of the port city was enacted when the nation was in the grip of an omnipresent sickness. When fear of death by an invisible pathogen engulfed the land.

It is a date to be remembered. A time when human coexistence was under the most severe strain imaginable.

Now there is to be another inquiry to determine if it was passed with 148 or 150 votes. They say that politics is trophy hunting. You pull the trigger from a safe distance.

Commonsense would suggest, that this discussion on what is to be done with those reclaimed “Hectares of the Port City” and by whom and how should have preceded the reclamation of the land.

Now it is not suggested that we have put the cart before the horse. We have only got ourselves a Master of all Carters with forbidding whip called ‘Renminbi’.

The Master Carter has arrived with his Carthorses and has now put shafts and the wheels in place.

Quietly and slowly. He will put the carriage in to shape. We are told that it will be of world class. 

For the sake of my grandchildren, I would sincerely hope that it will turn out to be so or strive to approximates that figure of speech of being truly ‘world class’.

We are told that it will be a turning point. Unfortunately, this sanguine sentiment has emanated from the bloke who invested in Greek Bonds.

The Greek Bonds were dumped by investors. Only the Pope offered to pray for Greece.