The contradictions of Sri Lanka are a
beautiful country with warm friendly people, a good health service but human
rights problems caused by lack of democracy.
Two weeks biking around Sri Lanka gives one
a year’s worth of beautiful views and experiences. By the end of the holiday I
was also aware of the darker side of Sri Lanka which relates to its political
history and way the government has evaded questions about the military end to
the civil war. I wrote about the journey every day on my blog and this is a
post travel reflection.
I was on a biking holiday organized by
Exodus and we had a lovely route that took us over the central and western part
of the island. There were 14 of us from Australia (6), Ireland (4), UK(3) and
one Canadian. We biked around 70 km a day, doing 102 km on one day. Being a
cyclist really opens up a country, everywhere children shouted out to us. Our
tea stops were in small cafes where they rarely see white people. Bananas
fuelled my cycling, bought in the small shops with at least seven different
varieties. I feasted on the ripe pineapples and water melons.
Sri Lankans are warm, open people, very
welcoming. They also eat wonderful food.
Their main dish is so- called “rice and curry”, this dull name does not
capture the feast one has of rice and about six other dishes of spiced
spinach, dahl, beetroot, jackfruit, aubergine, ladies fingers,
fish. Every cook prepares the dishes in
their own way and for me the spices were a treat.
Buddhism is very visible, we saw the ancient
vast white stupas at Polonnaruwa, exuding a quietude that I appreciated. As we
biked towards the south we saw many small temples beside the road with a seated
Buddha. We often saw monks walking along with their begging bowls; many
Sri Lankan families send a son to be a monk, and they they are celibate and
study the scriptures. But we also saw the Buddhists enjoying a Hindu festival
and worshipping Hindu gods enthusiastically. The festival had an Indian
exuberance with crowds pressing forward to have their offerings blessed under
garish pictures of the Hindu gods. huge Temple elephants, devotees carrying
fire, colourful dancers and drummers were all part of the festival . Sri Lanka
has a 10% Muslim population and I saw mosques in the commercial areas such as
Colombo and Galle. People spoke disparagingly about the Muslims saying that Sri
Lanka would have 100% literacy rates if it were not for the Muslims. They
apparently drop out of school early to help in the family business. Nobody
seemed to be asking what should we do to keep these kids in education.
Christianity is a minority religion and I saw only few churches, in Colombo and
Galle. However the Dutch reformed church in Galle was a vast building with a
huge pulpit and organ, clearly built by colonists who thought they were in for
a long stay but they only lasted for about 100 years before being displaced by
the Brits.
I enjoyed comparing India and Sri Lanka,
having visited India regularly over the last 38 years and Sri Lanka twice about
30 years ago. Sri Lanka is visibly better off and appears to have less inequality. The absence of beggars in Sri Lanka is very noticeable. The Sri
Lankans have a health and social security system. The health service is free to everyone at the
point of care, there are small divisional hospitals in villages which are
staffed by two doctors, patients needing operations are transferred in
ambulances and do not have to pay for their treatment or drugs. Another important difference is that this
system works, India has a free government health service but is often
non-functional. I also experienced the health service myself, I was bitten by a
dog in a temple in Kandy and needed rabies booster jabs. I had immediate helpful advice from my doctor
friend Indira so I attended the base hospital in Nuwara Eliya for a rabies
booster jab. It was a Saturday night, quiet in the casualty and I was quickly
seen by a young doctor, bobble hatted because of the cool temperatures in
Nuwara Eliya. who put me on the rabies injection protocol., I was given my
rabies card with clear instructions about when I needed my next injection. The
base hospitals are giving 250 courses of rabies injections per month. The
vaccine was Indian made, in an Indian hospital the protocol might have been
available but the vaccine would not be stocked and would have to purchased
outside. The success of the Sri Lankan system are also visible in the
statistics, Sri Lankans are more likely than Indians to survive childhood, their
women are less likely to die giving birth and they live longer( 71 vs 64) , Sri
Lankan also ranks above India in the world hunger rankings.
I was invited to Sri Lanka to speak at a
dermatology conference , Sri Lanka still has a significant leprosy problem with
over 2000 new cases being diagnosed each year, despite its better health
system. The new cases rates have been
stable for the last 20 years leprosy will be a problem in Sri Lanka for a long
time yet.
Surprisingly, Sri Lanka’s IT is not as advanced as India’s, mobile phones
arrived later on the island and through Indian technology. There are no call
centres yet.;although they could do very well in this sector because many people
are well educated and speak English.
We also experienced the plight of the tea
pickers through the personal story of the bright intelligent young woman who
was showing us around tea factory. She had hoped to go to university but had
not got good enough grades in her A levels, retaking was not an option. Her
mother was sick and she had younger siblings, so at 18 she had to start as a
tea picker and pick 16 kg of tea leaves a day. It is a precarious life, they
are only paid for what they pick and are permanent labourers employed on casual
conditions. It seemed very difficult to escape being a tea picker. I also
suspect that many of the families are in debt. It felt a very Asian scenario of
limited opportunity and the needs of the family trumping everything.
I read Gordon Weiss's book “The Cage” about
the civil war and the last days of the Tamil fight when the Tigers and
thousands of civilians were stranded in the Nandikadal lagoon with the Sri
Lankan army bombarding them. This was a
war crime but the current government has avoided censure. Both Canada and UK
had questioned whether Sri Lanka should host the commonwealth Heads of
government meeting (COHOGM) in Nov 2013 because of the genocide in 2009, but
the meeting is going ahead. Weiss notes the absence of journalistic freedom in
Sri Lanka., this is a striking contrast with India with its lively opposition and a active media. I could see this, few people read newspapers
despite the high literacy rate, the news papers that are available all support
the government.
In Sri Lanka the absence of concern for
human rights has also mirrors the absence of democracy. There is no effective
opposition so the president and his family rule and enrich themselves. In the
presidents home area there were huge billboards with his portrait and that of
his son and brother celebrating his achievements and reminding us of the
ability running in the family. When
someone in power demands a place for a party it has to be surrendered.
I was sorry that I did not go up to Jaffna,
the capital of the Tamil area, especially as I had discovered a tomb-stone
there with my Dutch family name “Mom” in 1982. Stacey, a Canadian girl in our
group had been there and had seen both the war destruction and the active
rebuilding programme. She visited a hospital filled with people with post traumatic
stress disorder. Because the government has not acknowledged the tragedies that
occurred recently and because journalism is so weak there I fear that the
resentments of the Tamils and others will grow and that there will again be
racial strife. There seemed to be no
equivalent of the South African Peace and Reconciliation commission, and yet
for a like that are very important for acknowledging wrongs and moving forward.
The Uk Ngo Freedom from Torture have also reported that Tamils who returned after
the war were being totorured even in 2012.
I also read a novel about the civil war,
“Mosquito “ by Roma Tearne, it is a love story between an older writer and a
young girl who has artistic talent. The war tears them apart, he is tortured by Singhalas and then Tamils, but
eventually they are reunited. The novel celebrates the power of love to
overcome problems and also the importance of art. The author is also an artist
and the novel is full of beautiful images. It was good to have a fictional
contrast to the serious Weiss report.
The scenery in Sri Lanka is beautiful. The
paddy fields were full of ripe paddy, with palm trees everywhere. The scenery
also changed quite rapidly which is nice for a cyclist. On the day we biked up
to NuwaraEliya we started in lush green paddy fields and half way through the
morning the scenery changed to tea bushes and pine trees. On our descent from
Ella we biked through the hills and then came down to the flat plains with huge
lakes. The bird life is also spectacular , flashes of iridescent blue as
kingfishers dived for lunch, spoonbill cranes and other waders in the paddy
fields.
So I left Sri Lanka having enjoyed the
holiday, I loved the scenery and the people. I would be happily return to
bird-spot and snorkel and continue searching for the perfect rice and curry. But
it also reminded me of how important democracy and human rights are and how
important it is to protect them.
Diana Lockwood
Aug 2013
1.
India vs Sri Lanka statsDying under 5 12 versus 61/10 000; the maternal
mortality rate is 35 vs 200 /10 000 compared with India.
2. The
CageGordon Weiss.
Vintage 2011
3.The Mosquito Roma Tearne Harper Perennial
2007
4. http://www.freedomfromtorture.org/feature/out_of_the_silence/5980
