My beautiful country, this place we called Paradise is fast spiralling into becoming a cess pit of corruption and mayhem.
I recollect with fondness my childhood and teens.... as a child my mother used to take us to Fountain Cafe and around to the back where the Hot Dog stand was alongside the slide and the swing and the see-saw..... there was even a little Merry-Go-Round.
In my teens, and this was about the time that the Blue Elephant and My Kind of Place opened, a typical Friday night started off at Galle Face and a tank up before hitting one place or the other..... the worse that could happen on a night out was to either run out of money, or be rejected by the one woman there you thought was so drop dead gorgeous - today, knives, guns, thugs..... alas.
Post 1984 and that black day in July changed the entire psych of this nation... perhaps it had been festering for years and that shameful act squeezed the bubble.... what emerged was a darker side to what till then was an apparent land of smiles and laughter.
From the dawn bread ques in the early 70's to a an open market, a booming economy we have over the last three decades come to this, the brink of chaos, on the road to becoming the Zimbabwe of South East Asia.
Who is to blame? You cannot blame the masses, for they know only what they are told. The blame falls squarely upon those who aspire to hold public office and in doing so, become utterly and despicably corrupt.
As at this day, at international forums our abuse of human rights, the rampant corruption, freedom of press, free speech, the state of the nation, a bloated public sector and cabinet, all under criticism.
This article, an opinion for one of our dailies yesterday reaches straight to the core about what ails this nation - Madam, you are my hero!
http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/08/14/opinion/02.asp
http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/08/15/opinion/03.asp
Another bubble will burst, soon the worm will turn for the burden upon us is becoming too much. One's toils from sun rise to sun set yielding little but no more than to provide a day to day existence. The rich, grow richer, the poor remain so and the middle class, forced closer and closer to the bottom as we are called upon to sustain the antics of jack asses. The irony is that we probably got the government we deserved.
The masses, just as you have stated at the end of your missive this day, get the government they deserve.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that it is the people who make the politicians who they are. Have you ever been witness to the shameful way in which our people bow down, even worship these men? Why? Who are they to be worshipped? In theory, they are there to run the country on OUR behalf; ie, they are there to work for US.
The masses in the meantime have forgotten this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the politicans in this country are perfect little angels. What I am saying however, is that the state of this nation is not wholly their fault.
It is the people who give them the power that they abuse.