This was a reply from an email from my friend who is in Sri Lanka documenting the reconstruction effort. From what I suspected it is a total mess. Here is an email from a man who lived there for quite some time with some interesting intake:
Congratulations on the work you are doing. Having lived as a monk in Sri
Lanka, lived in the villages and know the sociographic arrangements of the
society in general I can tell you from the dint of harsh experience that it
is a complex society, with layers within layers of obligations and divisions
between village, relatives, region and religion just to name a few. Its is
also important to understand the Sri Lanka is a democracy in name only, a
partial theocracy in practice and what the Western world calls corruption
the order of the daily governmental life.
The relief camps are still in place because the UN and the Red Cross
couldn't organize a tea party with a hundred million dollars and three or
four converances in New York and for the Sri Lankan goverment the camps cash
cow. The well meaning Westerners come in, starting spreading and spending
money and handing out goodies never before seen by the people of Lanka. We,
naturally focus on the relief camps and moved by compassion start to spend
money, dontate money, forgive debts its. The Sri Lankan in general the
coarse corupt government in particular are not slow to recognize a money
magnet when they see on and instead of emptying the relief camps by
spearding the displace into the hinterland and living into one of the 15,000
untouched paradise like villages with abundant water, rice, fruit and every
good thing in the hinterland. Many a plush, Eden like area only a half
kilometer away from stricken high tide mark they are required to stay in the
stricken areas and relief camps to insure they keep the 'money magnet'
powered.
Did you not wonder why the Sri Lanka has given next to nothing in the way of
cash to those in the relief camps? With cash they would have headed into
the hinterland and stayed with family or clan in one of the villages full of
food, water, work etc. Last thing the goverment wanted them to do was to
look after themselves then all the Presidents and Prime Ministers coming to
Sri Lanka would not have seen the relief camps and been moved to give more
money.
Corruption.
The standing joke amongst my Sri Lanka friends with whom I have been
visited, or they me and have been in contact with for 25 years is. "How due
you acquire a relief tent?" Answer, "Check the classified ads under imported
goods".
One of our past cabinet minister and a medical doctor returned not long ago
and reported the level of corruption going on there while on national radio.
I went on Canadian national radio as a guest explain how 98% of the fishing
boats well meaning Westerners are paying for replacement or repair are owned
by very rich Sri Lankans whom have the equivalent of 'wage slaves' fishing
the boats for them. In fact many of the present Sri Lankan politicians,
including the so called 'Ministry of Fisheries" own boats and for all
intense and purposes the people fishing them.
The fishermen in company with some very high religious officials have
contacted me explaining that due to the Emergency Measure Act put in place
after the wave struck is so strict that if newspapers, electronic media,
pamphleteers etc. complain, organize etc. about any of these exploitive
issues and, or make such information available to non Sri Lankans they will
be arrested and jailed. Its has already happened to many. Hence, when you
are working in the villages and trying to understand what is happening you
have to be aware of the layers, corruptions, obligations etc that effect
ever facet of Sri Lankan life.
I was able to have small business loans made available to business men in
the Tsunami area, have hundreds if not thousands of people in relief camps
find alternate shelter in the hinterland, create new business, get fishermen
back on the water fishing were the UN, Red Cross and many NGO's couldn't.
Not because I tried harder or was any smarter than the many able people
working for such organizations but because I knew how to work within the
context of the local system or simple cut through it by using a religious,
political or social higher authority.
To understand all the interconnecting relationships is made all the more
difficult because Sri Lankans are a proud and polite people and think it the
height of bad manners to tell you of there problems. (Westerners,
particularly those porn to New Ageism think they have some understanding of
'karma' but they have absolutely no understanding of how it works in a two
thousand years old Buddhist or Hindu society. For a start, the Christian
'Good Samaritan model is not always on because, depending on circumstance,
obligations, religion etc. helping out someone may interfere with their
'karma' and by interfering you may be adding to your 'negative karma'. As I
said, its a complex society.
Privately, when the 'Western grief councillor's had left the camps for the
day, there was a good deal of head scratching and laughter at what the
Western trained grief councillors advise etc. The first tenant of the
Buddhism for example is Anita, Anicha, Dukka. (Life is impermanent, there is
no Self and Suffering) the second is that this relief and all and everything
that happens in it is a result of karma from past life times, and not
transcending the lethal delusion of Anita, Anicha, Dukka. Can you imagine
to those whom accept and believe this unconditionally listening to someone
talking about 'closure' etc.
Your work is important there because with right understanding, the
appreciation that you don't go from a colony to a functional democracy in a
few decades. There is a reason for everything that is going on there with
the jealously, complaints and difficulties of having a consensus and
concentrated effort for the collective good. It is amazing there has not
been a lot of bloodshed. Remember just a year ago the Tamil Tigers executed
19 young monks and the Sri Lanka army burned the villages in and around the
areas the Tamils were known to operate. Some of that went right on in the
area you are and in and around Galle.
The Euro's and the US killed how many of each other in their quest for
liberty, fraternity and equality and over how many hundreds of years. Fifty
years ago in Sri Lanka only a few policemen and the British colonist had
cars and the Sri Lanka went by foot or bullock. You can see from the
numbers maimed, mangled and murdered by traffic in that country the cost of
skipping all the steps in between pedestrian and motorised traffic. The West
went through foot paths, carts, horse and carriage, cities, bikes, trains,
and then cars of decades. In fact you can learn a lot about Sri Lanka
society by watching the traffic. Big buses wins, privately owned buses
trump government buses. Commercial cars with westerns passengers are all
about immune from law. New, late model cars with Sri Lankan officials
completely immune from the law and don't even have to stop for those they
have run over and all the way down the scale until the abused, fined and
treated with contempt three wheel taxi drivers.
There are well informed Westerners whom have lived in Lanka for decades who
can tell you a lot but the ones I know have made the observation a number of
times, "You can always tell a Westerner in Sri Lanka but you can't tell them
much'. Some of these fellows tried to tell people that shipping water in
from Norway, blankets from Canada, tents from the US, food from Europe was
unnecessary as the country is rich in water, never drops below 80 degrees in
temp, shelter is easy made from bamboo and palm leaves however there was a
huge need for medicine, educational materials and replacements eyes glasses
for the tens of thousands whom lost theirs during the Tsunami. In fact, all
those long time Westerners living in Sri Lanka, be they monks, priest,
preachers, teachers, business men, retiree's etc had never been contacted or
asked for their advise by any organization. Which of course, as the traffic
patterns in Sri Lanka tell us about their social order, tells us a good deal
about the Western social order.
The same dysfunctional relationship between those wishing to help and those
'needing' the help you witness in Sri Lanka in magnified in Africa. The
only lack in Africa is the whit to organize the various countries around the
existing 'reality' as opposed to the one 'they are supposed' to have.
African governments just like the Sri Lankan government have learned how to
tell the Western world, particularly government aid officials what they need
to hear (They always tell Americans they are a democracy. They always tell
Canadians you are multi cultural/bi lingual and they always tell Euro
officials they support WTO). An accurate socio political understanding of
what is really happening in Sri Lanka would be beneficially and educational
to many but be careful.
The Sri Lanka government just pardoned an ex cabinet minister and eight
policemen after they spent a year in jail for murdering an opposition
candidate and his two assistants during the last election. And the last chap
that tried to do something about the corruption with donated goods was found
in his rented house, tied to a chair and burnt to death after gasoline being
poured over him. And, the Dept of Health medical inspector and the district
commissioner in the Galle area were found to have condemned tons donated
tents, tools, canned food, etc. etc. as unfit for 'human consumption' and
had buried them, carefully wrapped of course, in their back yards. "Charges
at this time are not being contemplated". So again be careful. Keep your
head up as we hockey players say. In a country where some 60,000 people have
been killed and hundreds of thousands injured due to the war and corrupt
politics they are found of saying to those begging for their lives or
relief, "Be quiet, you are nothing they are millions just like you".
Individuality is not esteemed in the East as it is the West, so look of
yours with great care.
All the best,
Stuart (Sudata)