Paradise Lost

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Sri Lanka. 

Not merely because it was a place that my grandfather almost got to, but did not. There were other family stories, too, of people from immediate and extended families having worked and lived in Ceylon.  A cousin, who is my brother's age, was even born in in that country and earned the nickname of "Ravanan."

The island, which was referred to as "Serendip" by the Arab merchants for the enchanting beauty that it was, then gave the word "serendipity" to the English language. 

But, in a "Black July" in 1983, Sri Lanka became hell on earth, when the simmering tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils became a bloody war. 

Whatever the grievances were, and however (il)legitimate they were, non-violent political discourse failed. The militant Tamil rebel front, LTTE, perfected the use of suicide bombers, which later became an essential part of the terrorist tactics in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. 

In 1991, a suicide bomber sent by the LTTE, blew herself up and killed India's Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and many others. 

All these in an island with which Arab merchants fell in love on first sight! 

Meanwhile, in graduate school, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica were some of the favorite textbook examples of how a society can have social indicators comparable to developed economies even without material prosperity.  Social indicators such as high literacy rates, long life expectancy, low infant mortality, relatively equal income distribution. 

I wrote in a newspaper commentary in January 2009, that the Sri Lankan problem doesn't blip in the political radar here because "the importance of destruction of life and property depends on the geographic area where that happens."

Granted that this news item has to compete against updates on the global economic meltdown, the presidential transition, or the situation in Gaza. But, even the controversy over Russia turning off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine and other European countries gets more coverage, not to speak of the hours that were spent on the recently concluded Golden Globes.

Yes, in that commentary about Sri Lanka 13 years ago, I referenced the Russia-Ukraine tensions and Western- and Central-European countries' reliance on gas from Russia.  The geopolitical tension was visible to the naked eye even to this small town blogger.  For that matter, my 2008 list of geopolitical hot spots around the world seems valid even today!

Later, the Sri Lankan government's scorched-earth military approach wiped out the LTTE leadership and brought the civil war to an end. However, the Sri Lankan economy did not fully bounce back because tourism, which is a critical part of the island's economy, never really returned.  And then Covid shut down the tourism industry altogether for two years.  

Now, the battered Sri Lankan economy is feeling the effects of putin's war against Ukraine too.

The war has surged the price of energy, and Sri Lanka does not have money to import oil and natural gas.  As a result, the government has mandated power cuts for seven-and-a-half hours every single day!

An unfortunate reminder that an enchanting paradise is not always a paradise.  It is not the fault of the paradise though--it is only because we humans are no angels.