What could Sri Lankans learn from it
by A Patriotic Sri Lankan
( November 10, 2018, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Imran Khan in his visit to China recently gave one of best talks I have ever heard from him. It is a heart touching and thought-provoking talk. I wish every Sri Lankan listen to this talk if you want to take this beautiful Island out of this political mess, corruption and fraud. I wish every Sri Lankan politician too would listen to his talk to learn from his vision for his country. There is no harm in seeking wisdom from anyone or from any country. Today, we are living in this virtual world. Unlike in the past, today knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange take place instantly every seconds and minutes. Countries learn from one another in all sort of ways from different ideas, concepts, social and development models. I really admire Imran Khan for his clarity of thought and vision for his country.
I review his talk here for the benefit of all Sri Lankans. I do it at this crucial time of turbulent Sri Lankan politics. We are passing through one of toughest time in the post independent Sri Lanka. There is no doubt about that. Our politicians have put the lives of 22 million Sri Lankans in hock for the last few decades. Each Sri Lankan today owes a greater amount of money to some foreign countries. Our country has been gradually slipping into economic downfall and bankruptcy. We are at a crucial time today than ever before. If you do not wake up and do something for your country at this crucial juncture you will never do it at any time in future. We see many third world countries are waking up and enjoying rapid development and progress. Yet, we Sri Lankans one of best nations in Asia with rich human and natural resources, fight for petty things and for petty political issues. It is natural to have differences of opinions in politics and it is natural to have different political groups and yet, to take this beautiful country into a standstill for petty political differences is not good at all.
It is not my objective to copy the text of his talk here, but I quote some important points from of his talk to compare them with prevailing Sri Lankan political contexts. Imran Khan asks this question at the beginning of his talk. “A cricketer who played 22 years of cricket. Why did he end up in politics? He says when he was growing up in Pakistan in 1980s, Pakistan was one of fast-growing countries in the world. Once it was a model for developing countries. Yet, why Pakistan went down? What stopped Pakistan achieving its potential? These are some of the basic questions he begun to ponder over soon after he retired from cricket.
He firmly believes that it was corruption of ruling elites that stopped Pakistan from achieving its potential. Corrupt elites in both main parities from Both Benazir’s and Nawaz Shariff’s parties looted public money in billions of rupees to buy luxury houses and properties in London, US and Western countries. They accumulated their wealth and deposited their money in western banks. They protected their personal interest at the expense of the national interest. As a result of this Pakistan economy begun to crumble.
What happened in our Mother Land? What happened in Sri Lanka was not that much different from Pakistan experience. Of course, we had a man-made war for more than 30 years. We have spent more than $200 billions on war. It is true that we are still paying the price for that 30 years of war. Yet, what did our ruling elites do once war was completed in 2009. Since 2009 up to now, we have had nearly 10 years to take this country out of poverty and yet, what did our political elites do? They followed their corrupt Pakistani elite political counterparts in looting public money. They looted public funds and they bought houses and properties in US and some western countries. They deposited public money in banks in Dubai and some other western countries. In fact, some political elites in Sri Lanka become richer within these last 9 years. We do not need to mention their names here, but entire Sri Lanka knows them. Yet, Yahapalan government protected them all. In short, Sri Lankan economy is suffering today due to many factors and corruption is one of them. Ranil protected them all. Now, they stabbed him on his back. In fact, some UNP and SLFP MPS are doing a big business in politics. They have used their political power and posts to accumulate wealth at the expense of public interest.
Imran Khan argues “The reason why countries are poor, it is not because of lack of resources. The reason why countries are poor, because corrupt elites destroy state institutions. Secondly, money that should be spent on developing human resources get diverted and go on into mega projects, the worse part of it is money laundering. Money laundering means money leaves poor countries into rich countries. Despite all aids given to poor countries by rich countries, trillions leave from developing world into developed world. When money leaves the poor countries, it deprives that country the resources, it deprives that country the foreign exchanges and they end up taking foreign loans. Who pay for foreign loans? It is people of the countries with high inflation and price hikes.so, rich countries get richer and poor countries get poorer”. This exactly what happened to Pakistan. This is exactly what happened to Sri Lanka. Aid money for Tsunami and international fund are looted in broad day lights by previous governments and yet, this so called Yahapalana did nothing to punish them. Why? Because, many MPS of this so called Yahapalana too are corrupt. So, how could a group of thieves punish another group of thieves. JVP wants to expose them and yet, they do not have power to punish them. That is why money laundering elite politicians escape punishment. As result of this money laundering and fraud, Sri Lanka lost billions. End of the day, governments are compelled to barrow money from other countries with greater interest rate. Now, it is Sri Lankan people who pay back loans with additional interest. It is not Mahinda or Ranil who pays back loans and their interest. It is public who pay. This vicious circle of corruption has been going on for some time now. To stop it we need a leader like Imran Khan in Sri Lanka. I do not know if Imran Khan can be successful or not but his missions and visions for the future of Pakistan are very much clear. It looks that he is following Dr Mahbub UL-Haque’s ideas on Human development. Dr Mahbud was the architect of UNDP’s human development program. Imran Khan’s development model is not only applied by Pakistan but by entire third world countries.
Do you think about judge would dare to pass a judgement against Mahinda family? Imran Khan rightly says that “we can catch common criminals but to catch a white-collar criminal is difficult. They have resources and lawyers. States struggle to catch them”. That is what happened in Sri Lanka.
Imran Khan argues that in the Mid 1980s Pakistan got into corruption. So, he entered politics to fight corruption. He claims that his People in Pakistan did not understand him for the last 15 years in politics but for the last 5 years they begun to understand him. We could compare Imran Khan’s political party with that of JVP’s political party in Sri Lanka. Of course, there are many differences between two. JVP has been for many years in Sri Lanka and yet, Imran Khan started his party only 15 years ago. But I think both JVP and INSAFF parties stand for justice, equality and democratic rights of people. Both parties work against the corruption. I wonder if JVP could get grass root support as Imran Khan got it in Pakistan. JVP could change the political map of Sri Lanka soon. Both Imran Khan and AKD have got some identical political mission. Both have some identical political personalities.
AKD is a charismatic political leader in Sri Lanka. Entire Sri Lanka knows that and yet, JVP could not get grass root support. Why? I think that Sri Lankan public has still got some bad nostalgia about JVP. JVP of today is different from JVP of 1980s. JVP has got a clear cut- political mission and vision. I think that this political chaos created by Maithri will give a boosting for the political renaissance of JVP. JVP could copy Imran Khan’s political strategies to awaken Sri Lankan public. UNP and SLFP should know we are living in a different world today. Today, to change a public opinion we do not need to have rallies and public meetings as we had in the past. Today, social net works have been used to make many political revolutions. So, I think there is a brighter future for JVP in Sri Lanka. More and more youths, academics, professionals, civil servants and public are coming to join to JVP now. so, there is a hope that JVP will gain more support and more seats in coming years.
Imran Khan says he has two primary missions.
1) “My concern is to strengthen the state institutions. The stronger the state institutions the lesser the corruption”
2) Secondly, “poverty elimination. You can not have a society while a small elites rich people enjoy life and sea of people suffer. With so much inequality we can not expect any country to progress”.
These missions are very much identical with JVP’s political manifesto. JVP stands for public welfare. It is dedicated for public service. Its members are hardworking, honest and devoted for their political missions. They spend their own money, salaries for their political mission. While MPs in UNP and SLFP milk public fund for their personal interest, JVP members are donating their wealth for the public and nation building process. Like Imran Khan has a clear mission to develop his country, JVP has got some excellent projects to develop Sri Lanka. Yet, public have not yet, understood them.
Imran Khan admires at the rapid development of China. Although, I do not agree with China’s international development programs we could learn a lot from china. Of course, China helped many countries and yet, it exploits many countries too with their high interest rates. Yet, China managed to challenge to western model of development and domination. The western countries have been boosting about their material development. The western countries have been telling the world, if you want to have development you must follow us. You must accept our social values and way of life. You must follow capitalistic economic principles and liberal democratic ideas.
Francis Fukuyama (1989) in his book (The End of History and the Last Mans National interest) claimed that “The end point of Mankind’s ideological evolution was the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” Now, it looks western democracy and liberal ideas are mocked by China’s state capitalism with its communist political ideas. Of course, we do not agree with human right violation and dictatorial politics of China and yet, it has challenged western capitalistic economic world order. China is becoming a greater economic and political threat to the western world today.
Imran khan praised China for its rapid development and progress.
“My admiration for china is for one reason. No country in human history has taken 700 million people out of poverty in 30 years as China has done”. China managed to get 700 million people out of poverty within three decades. Yet, what happened to Sri Lanka. We not have even 50 million people. We have only 22 million people with rich natural and human resources. The quality of our human resource was same as Chines one some 3 decades ago. Our GDP may have been same as Chinese one before 50 years ago. We have a population of 22 million with huge amount of natural resources and yet, we have failed to develop all this. Because we did not have a good political leadership. Of course, there are many corrupt people in China and yet, political leaders punish public officials severely so, they are afraid to loot public money.
Yet, we do not have such a good legal and political system in Sri Lanka. What Sri Lanka badly need to strengthen its political, economic, legal and social institutions. Sri Lankans must stop hero worship of political leaders and Sri Lankan must create some system to do some checks and balance on political leadership. We must know how to name and shame corrupt political leaders and how to punish them severely. Yet, out political, legal and social institutions help crook politicians to escape punishment. Our judges in judiciary are brought and sold by politicians. Some of them are honest and afraid to speak about.
Do you think about judge would dare to pass a judgement against Mahinda family? Imran Khan rightly says that “we can catch common criminals but to catch a white-collar criminal is difficult. They have resources and lawyers. States struggle to catch them”. That is what happened in Sri Lanka. If public do any crimes they are taken into court and punish and yet, politicians who loot billions of public funds get away with it using all their political influence in government apparatus. It is like Jamal Khashoggi’s case. MBS can get away with it with US support.
Imran Khan compares China’s GDP and Pakistan’s GDP. He says that “30 years ago, China’s GDP was same as to Pakistan GDP”. Now where is China and where is Pakistan today? Exactly same with Sri Lankan GDP. It is reported in 1960s Sri Lankan GDP was as same as Malaysian GDP. Yet, where is Malaysia today and where are we now in economy? So, Sri Lankan politicians must take some responsibility for their arrogant political behaviours and mismanagement. To take Sri Lanka out of this mess, a political reform is a must. The Election commissioner must put some pre-conditions and prerequisites for those who want to contest in any public questions. The candidate must have some qualifications and credentials to be nominated to any election contest. Yet, Sri Lankan Election commission is not given power to make those changes. Institutional building and poverty elimination are two of primary objectives of Imran Khan. We too need some political missions in Sri Lanka. So far, JVP is only political party that has got such a clear mission for Sri Lanka. Compared to Pakistan with its 200 million population, Sri Lanka with its 22 million people our literacy and numeracy rates are higher, and the quality of human resources are better. So, we could take this island out of poverty soon if we have a good plan. Yet, we lack a political will to do it.
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