By Nimal Chandrasena –

Dr. Nimal Chandrasena

The inability of Sri Lankan citizens, academics and scholars included, to engage properly with critical issues on time presents a risk to society. It also presents a challenge to the new GOSL. I’ve said this before – sadly, the country ended up in its current, precarious state due to a financial crisis brought about by wicked and corrupt politicians, some of whom have amassed vast wealth in just 15 years after the terrorist war ended. But corrupt and stupid politicians didn’t do it alone.

They were aided and abetted by ignorant, greedy and incompetent public servants who are now trying to shift the blame to various other third parties. Now that the NPP has so convincingly won government, it is time to kick some of these incompetents, stooges, flunkies and corrupt officials out of each Department and Ministry and establish those with the guts to make appropriate social changes. The confidence to bring about the required changes smartly undoubtedly lies in ‘experts’ who have the ‘expertise’ that can supplement lay ‘native’ knowledge.

In the literature on scientific expertise and the role of expert judgment, it is not always clear how expertise should be defined. Specifically, who is an expert, and who is not? The public has a right to question this as the so-called ‘experts’ in previous governments were singularly and directly responsible for or sat around and did nothing while the country’s economy was ruined!

A few so-called ‘economic experts’ and pretenders come to mind, plus a few bogus professors and tuition masters! There is a possibility that a few of these clowns will once again shamelessly raise their voices of economic expertise in the new Parliament! The GOSL should be prepared to holler down these shamed individuals. It is no secret that many didn’t have the guts to be elected to Parliament! In Australia and several other countries, I can think of, shame would have been sufficient for politicians with any degree of self-respect, decency or scruples to move on! But most of those politicians who have long enjoyed the privileges of the Sri Lankan Parliament are unscrupulous and greedy! That’s the tragedy of our Nation.

‘Experts’, Lay Knowledge’ and ‘Expertise’

In literature, an ‘expert’ is simply someone who has special experience and knowledge regarding some specific topic. An ‘expert’ can be a scientist, a non-scientist, an artist, a manager at a government agency, a professional, or even a member of the public with relevant experience in a given subject area and someone who has performed with recognized skills.

The ‘expert’ and their ‘expertise’ are characterized both by excellence in performance in a given field of human endeavour. The same can be said for people in any vocation, provided that they’ve successfully acquired the required skills and performed well. Performance in applying the ‘expertise’ is the key here. Performance in solving problems and issues and successfully delivering what was expected in that role is the ultimate test of an ‘expert’. There are well-established global benchmarks for measuring performance in almost all areas of human endeavours. These must be applied in Sri Lanka in the future. If required, ‘experts’ must help establish these measurable benchmarks in any field.

In the relevant literature, there is also a distinction between ‘expert’ and ‘stakeholder’, which often overlaps. Stakeholders, including the public, teachers, workers, and farmers, may also be ‘experts’. The vice versa is also true – ‘experts’ can also be stakeholders since they have the means to affect decisions and are also affected by decisions.

The distinction between ‘expert’ and ‘lay knowledge’ is also well-recognized in literature. ‘Lay knowledge’, like that of a farmer or school teacher, is characterized as contextual and practically oriented. Although not always codified in scientific terms, this ‘Indigenous’ knowledge is equally valid as scientific knowledge. Both need to be used as complementary to each other.

In my environmental work, involving catchments and waterways management, vegetation and ecosystem restoration, in order for decisions to be legitimate, I make an effort to include a broader cohort of ‘non-experts’. The broader church of engaging with multiple stakeholders ensures that decisions that affect society are democratically taken. This approach is not well developed in Sri Lanka, which can learn from the tools and methods already available in other countries.

In both developing and developed countries, in general, no unskilled and under-performing con artist is expected to survive in a job for decades without being exposed at some point. Institutional and organizational logic, as well as global evidence from many countries, are that, at workplaces, incompetents would have been found out and ‘weeded’ out by the system. Needless to say, in Sri Lanka, in the past two decades, ineffective and inept officials were not exposed because they were protected by those of similar ilk in the Parliament. This was a key factor in our ruin.

As an environmental scientist and a botanist, one key thing I’ve taught my students is to be wary of ‘teaching’ farmers how to farm; farmers know what they are doing – but only if we let them have the resources to do their job! Sri Lanka, as a nation, suffered because of half-qualified dim-witted ‘experts’ who held Cabinet positions and important positions in corrupt governments. We must never again make the same mistake! Merit must prevail over everything else.

In science and non-science endeavours, an ‘expert’, by nomination, is identified by others (peers) as an expert. This means, for example, being appointed a professor within the University system or to a formal or organizational lead role, such as a school principal.

We must also recognize the distinction between contributory expertise and interactional expertise. These two forms can overlap but do not necessarily have to do so. Interactional expertise is the capacity and skill to interact with participants within a field of relevance, while contributory expertise is the ability to actually contribute to the scientific knowledge of the field.

In developing the NPP Government’s policies on Science & Technology, Research & Development, Agriculture, Environment, Sustainability and other fields, I experienced how both types of ‘expertise’ were enthusiastically sought and diligently garnered by well-appointed coordinators. It wasn’t by chance. Dare I say, despite some reservations of the local academics and scholars, this ‘expertise’ was provided by the ‘expatriates’ to a large extent.

Detractors emerged during the NPP’s successful engagement efforts. A few disgruntled local academics voiced concerns and may continue to fuel that fire. The noises were: “What do these ‘expatriates know? After all, they left for greener pastures. The locals have been fighting these issues for decades”. Thankfully, a coordinated effort thwarted such heckling. There is, however, a need to bring about collaboration by uniting people of all walks around the re-building task.

Drawing the attention of and attracting skilled and high-performing ‘expatriates’ was no easy task. It needs people who know of other peers and have respect to attract others who’ve remained largely on the margins. It was indeed a critically important factor that delivered victory for the GOSL. Opinions also vary between experts, but the expertise of the ‘expatriates’ was a pillar on which the GOSL’s victory platform was built, although it may not be the only factor. Building the much-eroded ‘trust’ in the public’s mind in providing a stable SL was another factor, and I have no doubt that the expatriates provided expert and realistic ideas abundantly to achieve that.

Readers only need to think for a minute as to whether any alternative party had such a progressive, development-focused, people-friendly series of policies that could come anywhere near what the NPP offered. Therein lies one of the primary factors of the GOSL’s victory.

What ‘Expertise’ Will the ‘Expatriates’ Bring?

The inadequate capacity of our country for global engagement in scientific disciplines (and other fields) has always been a personal bugbear for me. Disengagement with the rest of the world was a malady that has plagued the country for about 30 years. But, as a former academic, I can attest that it wasn’t like this until recent decades. Sri Lanka’s rich publishing history in all fields of endeavour (books, monographs, conferences and research articles) is a testament to how well we were doing until around 2005. The terrorist war certainly wasn’t the only factor. Readers only need to pause for a second to put a timeline on the decay and conclude as to who destroyed our society.

‘Expatriates’ are the fastest tool to get back into global engagement on topics like sustainability, poverty alleviation, gender equity, fair work for everyone, renewable energy, biodiversity, and climate change. The prestige and recognition many international luminaries have already brought to the island on some of these topics are well-established facts. Based on population size, I would take a bet that Sri Lanka has produced the largest per capita number of well-known ‘expatriates’ certainly in Science & Technology (including Medicine and Engineering) than any other single country. So, those detractors should re-evaluate their positions without pre-formed biases, while the GOSL welcomes all ‘expatriate experts’ back to Mother Lanka’s folds.

The ‘expatriate experts’ will bring about collaboration across countries and institutions, a much more holistic perspective on all matters that affect society, a comprehensive understanding of problems that need solving, education and cross-disciplinary endeavours. I have no doubt that – given a chance, they would play a vital role in Sri Lanka’s recovery, allowing the island to balance developmental needs with societal and environmental needs. They are also unlikely to be hampered by conflicts of interest.

Intellectual discourses in Sri Lanka decayed over about 30 years. In day-to-day discourses, political corruption, daylight robbery, drug use, maladministration, poverty, murders, rapes and suicides, thuggery, cricket, stories about the underworld, etc., dominate the discourses in Sri Lanka. Just check the print media, online news and a new menace – YouTubers! What a shame!

As recently as two years ago, Indian and Malaysian colleagues laughed directly in my face about that cruel political joke that the island would be developed as “A Miracle of Asia”! The miscreants are still in plain hiding, while we, Sri Lankan-born ‘expatriates’, have a great role to play. We must forget these corrupt politicians and do what we have to do. Global engagement and climate change adaptation are two issues that ‘expatriate’ scientists can help the GOSL with. In the cauldron of a politically corrupt society, these topics took a back seat on the island.

We now have a new dawn. We must embark now on a participatory democracy, which requires an unwavering commitment to positive engagement with the citizenry on all policy issues through information dissemination, consultation and knowledge sharing. The tools to awaken institutional apathy, inefficiency, and maladministration are available in the developed world.

Instead of maligning ‘expatriates’, I am hopeful that the local detractors will not be too unkind and will assist GOSL in using these resources well to bring about the changes expected by the public within a relatively short time. Countries MUST learn from each other.

After reaching the nadir in terms of its economic and social decay, there is now no other way for our precious Mother Lanka to go except upwards. The winds of change are blowing, and I am mighty glad to be a small puff of that wind.

*Associate Professor Nimal Chandrasena (formerly, Department of Botany, University of Colombo), Editor-in-Chief WEEDS, Journal of the Asian-Pacific Weed Science Society