{"id":85635,"date":"2013-05-05T01:25:53","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T19:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=85635"},"modified":"2013-05-07T03:22:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T21:52:55","slug":"mattala-as-a-metaphor-for-sri-lankas-predicament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mattala-as-a-metaphor-for-sri-lankas-predicament\/","title":{"rendered":"Mattala As A Metaphor For Sri Lanka\u2019s Predicament"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emil van der Poorten<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

The ongoing saga of the newest white elephant of the Rajapaksa Regime<\/a><\/span> shows no sign of ending.<\/p>\n

The most recent scandal is about the monkeys being electrocuted by the high tension power lines serving the airport and the fact that, each time this happens, the power supply to the international airport is affected providing, as can easily be imagined, a significant safety hazard for planes coming into or leaving that facility.<\/p>\n

Not so long ago, when the power lines serving our neck of the woods were installed, the electricity didn\u2019t flow along the (un-insulated) cables for quite a while because the political-powers-that-be, while they weren\u2019t waiting upon an astrologer\u2019s prediction to throw the switch, had to try and milk some partisan political benefit from it by tying it in to an upcoming election.\u00a0 In the interim, the monkeys in the neighbourhood discovered that, not only did this provide a highway for their peregrinations, it also lent itself to fun and frolic on \u201cthe high wire!\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas, the day did<\/strong> arrive when the power was turned on!\u00a0 What ensued was random interruptions of electricity supply (fortunately during the daylight hours only), each time a macaque chose to commit (unwitting) suicide using what was meant to be our power supply!\u00a0 Every occasion of such hara kiri<\/em> was accompanied by a loud \u201cpop\u201d and the power going off until someone from the Ceylon Electricity Board arrived to turn the \u201cbreaker\u201d back on.\u00a0 Thankfully, this state of affairs has, to a large extent, abated as the monkeys wise up to their new existential reality!<\/p>\n

I suppose that, sooner or later, the langurs of the Hambantota region will also recognize their new Rajapaksa-driven \u201cfact of life.\u201d They will then stop killing themselves and interrupting the supply of electricity to the newest addition to the list in the \u201cDebacle of Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it is not this newsworthy tidbit that constitutes the entirety of the Mattala Airport<\/a><\/span> being a metaphor for the political reality that we all have to suffer under.<\/p>\n

To begin with, there was no economic imperative for the enormously expensive attempt at establishing an international airport in the most sparsely-populated part of Sri Lanka.\u00a0 The possibility is that the facility, which was preceded by a harbor and cricket stadium among other initiatives in Sri Lanka\u2019s arid zone, is that someone watched Kevin Costner in \u201cField of Dreams\u201d once too often and took his statement that \u201cIf you build it they will come.\u201d\u00a0 An unswerving belief in this proclamation is the only logical explanation for the Rajapaksa \u201cdevelopment\u201d extravagances in southern Sri Lanka, the airport included.<\/p>\n

The fact that the pursuit of a similar (paraphrased) \u201cIf you name an airline after the President, everyone will clamber on board,\u201d has proved to be little but a recipe for a haemorraging of Sri Lanka\u2019s economy has not deterred an arrogant and monumentally stupid Rajapaksa Sycophancy bent on doing anything <\/strong>to maintain their courtier status.\u00a0 A cricket stadium that very nearly totaled the finances of Sri Lanka Cricket and a harbor that, despite all the cajoling and blackmail, continues to be \u201cunderutilized\u201d obviously meant nothing to a Royal Family and its courtiers intent on helping the former indulge its every whim and fancy.<\/p>\n

Mattala, every step of the way, has been nothing short of a disaster.<\/p>\n

For starters, the reports of no environmental impact study being done prior to this massive construction being started, gave a clear indication of yet another display of arrogance that was simply \u201cin your face\u201d for anyone having environmental or other concerns about this multi-billion dollar project.<\/p>\n

At the first hint, if \u201chint\u201d is the word, of a serious avian hazard to aircraft in an area famous for an unequalled wealth of migratory bird life, the suggestions of a retired Director General of Wildlife appeared, indicating that the \u201csolution\u201d to the problem of \u201ctoo many birds\u201d in the vicinity of the Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/a><\/span> International Airport (MRIA) was to remove what attracted them \u2013 water.\u00a0 A very interesting suggestion coming from an ornithologist who, literally, re-named many of Sri Lanka\u2019s birds in a field guide which has their English names (many of them his re-named ones), the Sinhalese ones (many of which I could not have confirmed by local \u2013 Sinhalese \u2013 villagers), and without the Tamil name for even one of the birds in his otherwise-encyclopaedic tome!\u00a0 One cannot but connect some philosophical dots between the tenor of that omission – which not even ornithologists in the days of \u201cEmpire\u201d were guilty of – and the current regime\u2019s policies.\u00a0 Talk about \u201cBirds of a feather\u2026.!\u201d<\/p>\n

And if the firestorm subsides to some extent in the coming months, it will have a rather simple explanation \u2013 migratory birds arrive, in their hundreds of thousands at the end of the year and return to their northern hemisphere spring nesting grounds in the first quarter of the next year.\u00a0 They arrive with the North East Monsoon and depart with the South West Monsoon.\u00a0 This means the bird population in the Hambantota area will drop enormously in the next few months.<\/p>\n

However, the problems with terrestrial fauna will continue year round because they don\u2019t have the luxury of departing the Rajapaksa Paradise for northern climes but are stuck with the herd of white elephants in and around the Rajapaksa fiefdom which they happened to populate long before that family came into residence!<\/p>\n

Electric fences might deter elephants and the larger ungulates, but it will, inevitably, force them to seek other pastures for survival.\u00a0 Possibly, the cultivated lands of southern farmers don\u2019t you think?\u00a0 As for the proliferating pea-fowl population that has exploded over the last few decades, short of some sort of netting, you are not going to be able to keep them away from the grassy areas that, without exception, border airport runways, with the electric fences already being built.\u00a0 And they do fly high enough to be a hazard to a landing aircraft, particularly when they are significantly larger than the gulls that have been sucked into jet engines with disastrous results!<\/p>\n

Not to labour the point, all it will take is one accident to have Sri Lanka labeled with yet another \u201cfirst\u201d \u2013 the land where passenger aircraft with tourists on board have to compete with elephants, ducks, gulls and pea-fowl for landing rights – a new experience for sure but a debatable one in the matter of how much of a tourist attraction it will prove to be even if our spin-doctors can turn such occurrences into mythic tales of \u201cdhandu-monara\u2013yantharayas <\/em>competing with jet aircraft for landing rights!\u201d<\/p>\n

What has happened in and around Hambantota epitomizes Sri Lanka\u2019s status quo where stupidity is coupled with highway robbery and laced with a large dollop of sycophancy to present a concoction typical of what has now become typical of the land that was once the Pearl of the Orient; all to provide the Rajapaksa Sycophancy with an excuse to shout \u201cEhei Hamduruwaney\u201d <\/em>as they wend their way to a banquet bankrolled by the misappropriated wealth of a citizenry that sweated blood to create it.<\/p>\n

It has already been suggested that the name of the place where the MRIA is located should be modified to read \u201cMutt-ala\u201d because that first syllable provides a very apt description of the kind of people responsible for this unfolding tragedy.\u00a0 For my part, I would suggest that particular attention be paid to the second syllable when that happens because it will enshrine the memory of the staff of life (water) being sacrificed on the altar of monumental arrogance and vanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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