Features

Diamonds, tears and tiaras

Published

3 years ago

2024/02/25

Thilina Walpola

Marilyn Monroe’s genius and tragedy of her life

By Dahami P. Samarathunga

I remember watching “Blonde”, with a few of friends back in 2022 and finding its portrayal of Marilyn Monroe most unfair. Even though the film was dubbed a ‘fictional biopic’, it seemed as though it had failed to be even that presenting her story as an unending tragedy, with too much focus on the negatives. The director described the film as a representation of Marilyn captured through the lens of a camera, with her highlighted beauty, sensuality, and sex appeal saying it was an emphasis on “the idea of Marilyn Monroe” rather than the actual person herself ignoring the fact that she had fought hard to be taken seriously, instead of as some ‘sexual object’, through the major part of her career.

It is no secret that Marilyn was a symbol of Hollywood glitter and arguably the most recognizable movie star of her time. But her success and rise to stardom didn’t come easy as she had to overcome not only the politics behind the scenes in show business but also her own personal demons. In the midst of the multitude of tragedies she endured in her short time on earth, she was one of the hardest working women in show business, who was well aware of the ugly side of Hollywood and as actress Shelly Winters once revealed, “If she was dumber, she would’ve been happier.”

Marilyn was born “Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 and didn’t have a normal upbringing as her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and she had never seen her father. Due to her illness, her mother was admitted to a mental institution, making Grace Goddard, a family friend, her guardian. But, due to her husband’s reluctance to keep the child, Norma was later sent back to an orphanage where she was abused and shunted through over a dozen foster homes within a few years greatly affecting her mental state. The orphanage staff believed Norma could thrive in a family setting resulting in Grace Goddard moving her back to her home. But Norma’s happiness was short lived as Grace’s husband, attempted to sexually molest her causing Norma to develop a stutter which she later tried to conceal by adopting to more breathy and softer speaking tone during her studio days.

Through out her school and teenage years, Norma was constantly moved to friends and relatives’ homes. Her foster parents often encouraged her to go out for movies as they didn’t like having her in the house all the time. This led to her becoming infatuated with the idea of being a movie star. To remove Norma out of their home state, Grace Goddard who remained her legal guardian and her husband decided to marry her off to their neighbour James Dougherty, five years her senior. Though she went along with their decision, she felt she was pressured into it and believed her destiny was elsewhere. She was only 16-years old at the time.

After Dougherty was shipped off to the Pacific during World War ll, Norma worked at a “Radioplane” factory where she was discovered by David Conover, a photographer working for the US military. Impressed by her good looks, he invited her to model for an Air Force calendar. This led her to quit her factory job in 1945 and sign up with a modelling agency where she was an instant success, being featured in magazines and advertising commercials. The agency considered her to be one of their most hardworking models.

Around this time Norma bleached her hair blonde, drawing inspiration from her childhood idol Jean Harlow. She signed a contract with a Fox Studio in 1946 and went on to take her iconic screen name Marilyn Monroe adding the ‘Monroe’ which was her mother’s maiden name. She divorced Dougherty in 1947 as he opposed her film career. Marilyn was dropped by Fox after her initial contract and was later signed on by Columbia Pictures. Both studios were hesitant to give her prominent roles as they deemed, ‘she was too timid and shy to be in front of camera’. However, due to her later appearances in a few Fox hits, she was offered a seven-year deal with 20^th Century Fox in 1950 but was heartbroken after hearing her rumoured lover, talent agent Johnny Hyde, had died of a heart attack a few days later.

After going back to Fox, Marilyn began to work extensively with her acting coach Natasha Lytess and was determined to make a name for herself as an actress in show business. In 1953, she starred in three consecutive box office hits consolidating her status as one of the most sought-after stars in cinema. “Niagara” was a breakthrough for Marilyn as many believed her years of hard work had finally paid off. Her iconic walking scene in Niagara was considered the longest such scene in the history of cinema and was filmed in a one single take.

It was said that Marilyn had to walk about 35 meters in the shot, with the director, Henry Hathaway initially not planning to shoot a long scene. But, once the cameras started rolling, Marilyn’s graceful walk enthralled the entire film crew and hundreds of onlookers on the street with nobody daring to stop her. She next starred in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” alongside Jane Rusell who was an industry veteran. Jane described Marilyn as a ‘sweet individual’ and a ‘workaholic’, revealing how overly critical she was of her own work, “She did look to her coach a lot,” Rusell said. “She worked with her after a full day’s shooting, when I couldn’t think of anything but going home, eating and crashing into bed. “But she’d go on working. She was really determined.”

At the time of the movie’s release, it was revealed that Russell was paid over ten times more than Marilyn due to the contract she held. But despite their pay difference, the pair remained close. Marilyn later spoke of a time when the movie was being shot, she was upset over not having her own dressing room. “The public would be quite disillusioned with the way the industry treats its stars”, Marilyn said. “She (Russel) got $ 200,000 for the film, and I got my 500 a week. But to me it was considerable. The only thing was I couldn’t get my own dressing room. I said look, ‘after all I’m the blonde, and gentlemen prefer blondes!’ “.

Though the studios tried to downplay her acting talent, refusing to look past her beauty, critics believed Marilyn had outshone a cast of seasoned veterans with Russell revealing she didn’t mind playing second fiddle Marilyn as they had formed a bond and didn’t compete with each other. With the success of her movies, Marilyn was offered the same stereotypical “dumb blonde” characters which, she strictly refused. After rejecting series of such movies, she was sent on leave in January 1954 as the studio accused her breaching her contract.

However, Marilyn had the last laugh as she married the baseball star, Joe DiMaggio, at a hugely publicized event a few weeks later. They jetted off to Japan for their honeymoon with Marilyn later detouring to perform before thousands of US soldiers in Korea, creating a media frenzy that became one of the biggest news stories of the year. After this highly publicized tour, she was offered a new contract with Fox in March of 1954.

However, Marilyn’s marriage to DiMaggio ended in less than a year with speculation that their separation was triggered by an iconic scene during the shooting of “The Seven Year Itch.” Here, Marilyn’s skirt gets blown by the gust from a subway grate orchestrated by Fox for publicity reasons. DiMaggio was furious over seeing that photo and the excitement it created that he reportedly struck her later that night at St. Regis Hotel, where they stayed. Many believed Marilyn’s fame overwhelmed DiMaggio who eventually grew jealous.

Tired of being cast as a ‘sex symbol’ upset she couldn’t choose her own roles and conflicts with the studio, Marilyn was suspended from work. She countered by opening her own production company, “MMP” with her photographer Milton Green, in late 1954.

Green’s wife, Amy, a close friend of Marilyn, once said she loved strolling around the streets of New York with the actress hiding behind her glasses or a scarf. Nobody bothered her. Once when they were on such a walk, Marilyn asked, “Do you want to see me become her?” “I just said ‘Yes’, Amy revealed. “And then I saw it. I don’t know how to explain what she did because it was so very subtle. Suddenly cars were slowing and people were turning their heads and stopping to stare. They were recognizing Marilyn Monroe as if she pulled off a mask or something.”

Marilyn in every sense was a fine actress. She often made her movements and mannerisms appropriate for the camera and honed her speaking skills with the help of the books such as, ‘The Thinking Body’ by Mabel Elsworth Todd. This showed how hard she was willing to work to perfect every aspect her career and persona. By the late 1955 Fox was eager to work with her again and offered her a contract with provisions allowing her to pick movies, directors, and projects of her own.

She declared another victory against Fox in 1956 by legally changing her name to “Marilyn Monroe” which was seen as a clever entrepreneurial decision by the same media that once ridiculed her for leaving Fox and going independent. It also was considered a rare feat, as her superstars of her stature typically avoided legal conflicts with major studios fearing potential damage to their careers. She later married playwright Arthur Miller in 1956, seen as controversial by many.

One well documented aspect of Marilyn’s life was how understood and loved she was by fellow female stars. Joan Collins revealed how Marilyn was the first to warn her about the vultures in Hollywood saying, “Beware of the wolves in Hollywood honey. If the studio bosses don’t get what they want from you, they’ll drop your contract”.

Marilyn also had an endearing relationship with Jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald. ‘She’s my very favourite person and I love her as a person as well as a singer; I think she’s the greatest,” she once said of Fitzgerald. Ella later recalled how Marilyn came to her rescue when many venue owners did not let her perform at important theatres and nightclubs because she was black. “I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt,” She revealed. “She personally called the owner of the Mocambo and told him she wanted me booked immediately. The owner agreed and Marilyn was at the front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play at a small jazz club again.”

Marilyn was diagnosed with endometriosis and suffered a few miscarriages in late 1950’s which made her self medicate to cope with depression. She was later admitted to a hospital after an overdose. With her personal heartaches and career frustrations, she started using alcohol, narcotics, and stimulants to cope with chronic insomnia and stress. But she eventually made a comeback in 1958 with the box office hit “Some like it hot”, which won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress in 1960.

In 1961 Marilyn starred in the movie “The Misfits”, written by Arthur Miller, who had promised her to write a script where she could fully showcase her talent as a dramatic actor. Marilyn later discovered an entry in his notebook, where he allegedly called their marriage “disappointing”, insinuating she was a threat to his creative image. This eventually strained their relationship. She was distraught after seeing his remarks and noticed he had rewritten and changed the movie script persistently making it difficult for her to memorise the dialogues. ‘He was supposed to be writing this for me”, she told a friend, “He could have written me anything, but he comes up with this”.

Following a difficult shooting due to Marilyn’s health and severe prescription drug abuse, Miller and she decided to part in 1961, signifying the culmination of Marilyn’s final released movie.

On August 5, 1962, Marilyn was found unresponsive in her bedroom and her death was ruled as an overdose and “a probable suicide”. It was revealed that she had ingested a lethal dose of Nembutal, which is often associated with treating anxiety. Some believed there was a government involvement in her demise due to rumoured ties between her and the Kennedy brothers in her final days. However, when investigators reopened the case decades later, they failed to find any evidence strong enough to suggest any foul play. Yet, some in the industry still refused to believe that Marilyn had taken her own life, with the likes of Jane Russell opining that there were certainly some “dirty tricks” involved in her death.

Joe DiMaggio was devastated upon hearing of Marilyn’s untimely death and felt guilty as he believed he partly contributed to her demise. They had reconciled shortly before her death. He organized her funeral and barred anyone from Hollywood attending as he believed they all played a part in her tragic end. Arthur Miller didn’t attend the funeral, but criticized the public mourners writing, “glad that it is not you going into the earth, glad that it is this lovely girl who at last you killed”.

In a way “Marilyn”, was Norma Jeane Mortensen’s greatest creation; but that identity slowly became a burden as Marilyn often felt trapped in the image of a sex goddess. Unfortunately, for her there was no turning back as her stardom had hit heights beyond her control. She wasn’t naive, but understood the nature of fame, “‘Fame is also a burden,”, Marilyn once said. She had masterfully built the image of “Marilyn” and played it so effortlessly that the studios wanted her to believe in that image.

“Well, I hope you got something here” she said to Richard Meryman as he was wrapping up the recording of her final interview. “But please don’t make me look like a joke”. It’s no secret that Marilyn despised how superficial the studios painted her to be and hated the media’s guts for pushing that narrative and running along with it. But she also sensed what she deemed as a fantasy was slowly becoming her reality and this left her fragmented and losing control.

(The writer is a Canadian of Sri Lankan descent living in Toronto. She may be contacted at dahamisamarathunga44@gmail.com)

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Features

Defend civic space upon which peace is built

Published

18 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

International Peace Day was observed on 21 September. It finds Sri Lanka with a genuine achievement to record and a demanding test to meet. The UN’s theme this year was “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” It also honoured the “everyday architects of peace”—people driving local action and building a lasting peace from the ground up. In the 2026 Global Peace Index, Sri Lanka rose 30 places, from 97th to 67th among 163 countries. Over the same period, global peacefulness declined for the twelfth consecutive year to its lowest level since the index began, and South Asia suffered the sharpest regional deterioration. The test is whether the government will protect the civic space in which those architects of peace work.

Sri Lanka’s improvement is real and deserves acknowledgement. In this year’s review, issued a few weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged progress in the form of action against corruption, arrests and investigations linked to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, and continued official denunciation of racism. A ranking, however, records conditions at a particular moment. It does not guarantee that they will last. Sustainable peace will depend on three factors. These are whether the government addresses the unresolved causes of conflict, whether it strengthens accountability for past and present abuses, and whether it protects the civic space in which peace is built from below. On the first two the record is incomplete. On the third, the draft NGO law threatens to weaken the very organisations that press for the other two.

What holds Sri Lanka back from a higher place are the same things that fed the war at home and also feed international conflict that rages elsewhere in the world. These are racism or ethnic nationalism that is narrow-focused, corruption and lawlessness. Equality, accountability and the rule of law are their remedies. The present government has committed itself to these, and is a significant improvement over governments of the recent past. But these pillars are not held up by governments alone. Peace is made in villages, workplaces and university campuses. It is made by families who insist on the truth about their disappeared, by journalists and lawyers who expose abuse, and by community organisations that bring Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese into practical cooperation.

Unfinished Work

The UN High Commissioner’s report to the current Human Rights Council session, covering October 2025 to July 2026, shows how much remains to be done. The Prevention of Terrorism Act is still being applied, producing arbitrary arrests and long detention without charge. The report calls for a moratorium pending repeal and for the release of long-term detainees. Military-occupied land has not been released, memorialisation lacks support, and tensions over land and religious sites persist. The Batticaloa district illustrates how such problems endure. In the past three years, two Presidents, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have visited and instructed that the dispute over grazing land in Mailaththamadu and Mathavanai be resolved. It is a dispute between Tamil cattle farmers and outside Sinhala cultivators, and it has not been resolved. When two Presidents issue instructions and nothing changes, the fault lies in the machinery of State. An unresolved dispute does not stand still. It hardens into the next grievance.

Accountability shows the same pattern. The report documents torture and deaths in custody, and surveillance and intimidation of activists, journalists and civil society. Serious cases remain stalled for years, among them the killing of seventeen aid workers of Action Contre la Faim in Muttur two decades ago. Sharper still is the case of the Eastern University refugee camp at Vantharamoolai, where in 1990 the army took away 158 persons in a single day. They were never seen again. The camp’s officer-in-charge, Dr T. Jayasingam, later Vice Chancellor of the university, identified the officers responsible. More than three decades on, those officers have not been questioned. These cases are still remembered because families, survivors and independent witnesses have refused to let them be forgotten. Meanwhile several commissions of inquiry have completed their investigations but nothing further has happened.

What South Africa, Argentina and other post-conflict societies have found indispensable are four pillars of what is called “Transitional Justice” which are truth, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence. In Sri Lanka’s circumstances, truth means credible, independent investigation of what happened to the disappeared, and support for memorialisation. Accountability means prosecuting Muttur, Vantharamoolai and comparable cases, and removing credibly accused persons from senior office. Reparations mean compensation for victims and the return of military-held land. Non-recurrence means repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, releasing those held under it in the meantime, and resolving local disputes such as Mailaththamadu before delay hardens them. A country that buries its past does not escape it. The past returns in the next generation.

Civil Society

It is against this background that the draft NGO law is most troubling. The proposed legislation contains sweeping provisions for State oversight and control of civil society organisations. Among these are enforcing a licensing requirement on NGOs, which is to be renewed every three years, and severe penalties for not submitting reports on time, or for spending on emergency flood relief (for instance) when the NGOs mandate is peacebuilding (as an example) with possible sanctions including deregistration and having to shut down. Civil society groups have warned that it would confer excessive discretion over their registration and operations. Officials in Sri Lanka have abused such powers in the past. Additional power without effective checks invites further abuse. Sound regulation would have clear criteria for registration, an independent registrar and a right of appeal to the courts. What cannot be justified is a regime in which registration becomes a licence to be withheld from organisations that scrutinise policy, expose abuses or advocate for the rights of citizens.

Democracy is based on checks and balances. Those who press for accountability are part of those checks. The contradiction is plain. A government that has pledged accountability, equality and the rule of law ought not to be preparing to weaken the very organisations that press for their fulfilment. The organisations most exposed are those working on disappearances, land, memorialisation and reconciliation in the North and East, where the State’s record is weakest and the need for independent witnesses greatest. Silencing them would not remove the grievances they document. It would remove the channel through which those grievances are addressed peacefully. The government appears to be relenting, which is welcome, but a pause is not a withdrawal. The bill should be withdrawn and any replacement drafted in genuine consultation with those it would govern.

Investment in peace as called for by the UN in its International Peace Day theme implies commitment over time, with returns that come slowly. Sri Lanka’s 30-place rise on the Global Peace Index is a first dividend and nothing more. It can be built upon only if the government matches its commitments with action: withdrawing or fundamentally redrafting the NGO law, repealing or suspending the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and bringing Muttur, Vantharamoolai and Mailaththamadu to resolution. A higher place in a global index is not a certificate of success. Sri Lanka’s higher ranking is an encouraging start, but it will endure only if the space in which citizens speak, question and organise is protected. Peace is built from below, and a government that is serious about it will treat civil society as a partner rather than a threat.

Features

Africa is buying: Sri Lanka must start selling

Published

18 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A call to Sri Lankan exporters and agencies: Can Sri Lanka compete with China and India in Africa?

By Kana V. Kananathan
Former Ambassador

Sri Lanka has spent decades concentrating its exports on traditional markets in Europe, North America and Asia. Yet across the Indian Ocean lies a rapidly expanding market that remains significantly underdeveloped by Sri Lankan exporters: Africa.

The opportunity is not theoretical. Sri Lanka already exports packaging, textiles, rubber products, pharmaceuticals, paper, machinery and electrical goods to African markets. The question is whether these modest beginnings can be transformed into a serious export strategy—and whether Sri Lanka can compete against the enormous commercial presence of China and India.

The answer is yes—but Sri Lanka must compete differently.

Kenya: Gateway to East Africa

Kenya should be the starting point.

Sri Lanka exported approximately US$32.08 million to Kenya in 2025, while importing US$11.41 million. But US$32 million is tiny compared with the opportunity: Kenya imported more than US$24 billion in 2025. Even a 1% share of that market would represent nearly US$240 million in annual exports.

And the commercial base already exists. Sri Lanka’s 2025 exports to Kenya included approximately US$9.99 million in paper and paperboard products, US$9.73 million in knitted fabrics, US$3.64 million in pharmaceuticals, US$1.24 million in rubber products and US$1.20 million in machinery.

Kenya’s import structure is equally revealing. In the third quarter of 2025, industrial supplies represented 34.4% of imports, machinery and capital equipment 19.2%, food and beverages 9.0%, and consumer goods 7.3%. The opportunity for Sri Lanka, therefore, extends well beyond consumer goods—we can become a supplier to African industry.

But competition is fierce. Asia supplied around 70% of Kenya’s imports in 2025, with imports from China rising 16.5% and those from India 11.3%.

Sri Lanka cannot challenge China and India across every product category. Nor should it try. We must target sectors where quality, specialisation, reliability, technical capability, smaller production runs and flexibility matter more than simply offering the lowest price.

Where Can Sri Lanka Compete?

Packaging is an obvious starting point. Cartons, boxes, bags and labels are already among Sri Lanka’s exports to Kenya. Importantly, some Sri Lankan companies operating in Kenya are themselves importing these products from Sri Lanka. The market already exists; the challenge is to scale it.

As Africa’s food-processing, pharmaceutical, apparel and consumer-goods industries expand, demand for sophisticated packaging will grow with them. Sri Lanka already possesses the manufacturing capability and industry experience to capture a larger share.

Industrial rubber products, tyres, gloves and specialised rubber components offer another opportunity where Sri Lanka has established manufacturing expertise.

The apparel supply chain is equally promising. Rather than competing directly with African garment factories, Sri Lanka can supply fabrics, elastics, labels, packaging and specialised textile inputs.

Some Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing and export companies already established in Kenya, Togo, Ghana and Ethiopia are importing several of these inputs from Sri Lanka. The supply chain, therefore, already exists. The next step is to move beyond supplying Sri Lankan-owned factories and become a competitive input supplier to the wider African apparel industry.

Other sectors deserving systematic market development include pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, processed foods, biscuits and confectionery, coconut products, cinnamon and spices, electrical products and cables, industrial chemicals, ceramics, light engineering, agricultural equipment and food-processing machinery.

Sri Lanka should also look beyond physical goods. IT, fintech, banking technology, engineering, healthcare, hospitality management and professional services largely escape the freight disadvantage confronting merchandise exports.

The Tariff Problem Can Become an Opportunity

Market access cannot be discussed without tariffs.The East African Community applies a Common External Tariff with bands of 0%, 10%, 25% and 35%, while certain sensitive products attract still higher protection. Simply filling containers in Colombo with finished consumer goods will therefore not always be commercially competitive.

But that obstacle points towards a bigger opportunity: manufacture in Africa.

Sri Lankan businesses could export intermediate materials while undertaking final assembly, manufacturing, processing or packaging in Kenya. Packaging companies could establish converting plants; electrical manufacturers could assemble locally; pharmaceutical companies could explore manufacturing or packaging partnerships; and food companies could undertake final processing closer to consumers.

Kenya would then become more than an export destination. It could become Sri Lanka’s manufacturing and distribution gateway into East and Central Africa.

With the East African Community now comprising eight partner states and extending geographically from the Indian Ocean towards the Atlantic, establishing a regional presence is increasingly more important than viewing each African country in isolation.

West Africa Cannot Be Ignored

Sri Lanka simultaneously needs a West African strategy.

Ghana offers potential as an English-speaking commercial gateway and host of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Nigeria, with its enormous population and consumer economy, should be approached as a major market in its own right, despite its greater regulatory, currency and operational complexity.

ECOWAS tariff bands of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 35% again make product selection critical. Sri Lanka should concentrate on products with sufficient differentiation and margins to absorb freight, tariffs and distributor costs.

Pharmaceuticals demonstrate both the opportunity and the challenge. Nigeria imported approximately US$766 million in pharmaceuticals in 2025, with India supplying roughly US$394 million and China US$131 million. Ghana imported approximately US$301 million, with India supplying about US$140 million.

Sri Lanka cannot simply offer another generic product and expect to beat India on price. We must identify specialised products, reliable supply arrangements, partnerships and, where commercially justified, local production or packaging.

Stop Promoting Sectors—Identify Products

Sri Lanka now needs an Africa Export Opportunity Study based on individual products, not broad sectors.

The Export Development Board, Foreign Ministry, chambers and private sector should jointly identify 15–20 priority products. For each product, Sri Lanka should calculate the HS code, African annual import demand, principal suppliers, Chinese and Indian market shares, applicable duties, freight from Colombo, regulatory requirements, distributor margins and final landed price.

That will tell us where Sri Lanka genuinely has a competitive advantage.

The Commercial Test

Before spending resources promoting a product, apply one simple test:

African import demand + Sri Lankan production capability + tariff + freight + distributor margin + regulatory cost = final landed competitiveness against China, India and local African production.

Only products that pass this test should receive concentrated export-promotion resources.

This would move Sri Lanka away from exhibitions, delegations and general discussions towards what ultimately matters: specific products, specific buyers, specific distributors and actual export orders.

Give Our Missions Targets

Commercial diplomacy must become results-driven. The Government should set clear annual trade and investment targets for every Sri Lankan mission in Africa.

Missions should be evaluated not merely on diplomatic activity, but on buyers and distributors identified, business introductions made, investments facilitated, market barriers resolved and measurable exports generated.

In a competitive Africa, our missions must become active economic frontlines not merely diplomatic outposts.

A practical strategy could operate through three commercial gateways: Nairobi for East and Central Africa, Accra for selected West African markets and Lagos for Nigeria.

Sri Lanka’s total exports of goods and services reached approximately US$17.25 billion in 2025. Capturing even a small additional share of Africa’s enormous import market could, therefore, make a meaningful contribution to export earnings, investment and foreign-exchange generation.

Africa Will Not Wait

Sri Lankan exporters must stop looking at Africa as a distant or difficult market and start treating it as a strategic growth market.

We cannot compete with China and India on scale, but we can compete on quality, specialisation, flexibility and reliability. Exporters must identify country-specific opportunities, establish strong local distributors, build partnerships with African businesses and use Sri Lankan companies already operating on the continent as gateways into regional supply chains.

Where freight and tariffs weaken competitiveness, businesses must be prepared to move towards local assembly, joint ventures and manufacturing in Africa. Exporters cannot do it alone. They need aggressive, measurable and results-driven commercial diplomacy from Sri Lanka’s missions.

Africa is buying. Its markets are being captured now. Sri Lanka must stop watching from the sidelines. We must enter, compete, build our presence and secure our share.

(Ambassador Kana Kananathan is a businessman, Diplomat, lobbyist and an expert in African affairs, with over four decades of experience on the African continent. A long-time resident of Africa, he served as Sri Lanka’s envoy to Uganda and Kenya, with concurrent accreditation to 22 African Nations, and was the permanent representative to UN Habitat and UN environmental Programme. Over the years, he has been the Elections Monitor across the continent, working closely with African governments, and built enduring partnerships with African leaders. He also served as Economic and Investments Advisor to former President Professor Alpha Condé of the Republic of Guinea)

Features

Memories and Midnight Magic: Recipe for a perfect 31st Night dance

Published

18 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

The heart of a great 31st Night dance is memory, and memories come rushing back when those 70s, 80s and 90s golden oldies begin to play — those timeless tunes that make revellers, young and old, rush to the floor and dance the night away.

A perfect 31st Night is not just a party. It is a journey. A journey through time.

The music should flow like a love story. Start slow, start soft. Let couples glide into a waltz for romance. Let the floor come alive with a twist, a rock ‘n’ roll, a jive. Let nostalgia build with beautiful sing-along oldies generally associated with a New Year’s Eve dance.

This is the art that many of our entertainers seem to have forgotten.

The final hour, before midnight, is sacred. It should be collective energy at its peak. The entire crowd, on the dance floor, linking arms, swaying together, singing, at the top of their voices, those sing-along favourites.

Yes, I’m referring to those immortal, nostalgic favourites that unite the world: ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ ‘Roll Out The Barrel,’ ‘Celebration,’ ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain,’ ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’ and so many more.

One wonders if some of our modern entertainers have even heard of these nostalgia anthems that traditionally lead up to the dawning of the New Year! This is not just music; this is ritual.

Then comes THE moment: Lights dim. Music pauses. A hush falls. The countdown begins — 10, 9, 8… — hugs, wishes, tears of joy, and then … ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Hands crossed, voices united, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. That moment makes or breaks the night.

Here is the truth that many genuine 31st Night revellers feel but hesitate to say — an overdose of baila music at New Year’s Eve events is NOT welcome.

Of course, baila is required. Baila is our Sri Lankan heartbeat! But a 31st Night dance is for everyone.

When it’s ONLY baila, the twist and rock n’ roll lovers, the waltz kings and queens feel left out. And they are the very people who MADE nostalgia! They are the die-hard revellers who have kept the 31st Night spirit alive for decades.

A family mentioned to me that they went along with friends for a 31st Night dance, in the city, to usher in 2026, and were thoroughly disappointed with the setup.

The bands in attendance, they said, failed to generate the excitement generally associated with a 31st Night event.

If given a free hand, the music at certain Colombo venues will be mostly baila, and that is going to disappoint many. Some are already worried that it will be just a baila scene this year, as well.

A memorable 31st Night respects all rhythms … yes, a waltz for romance, a twist and rock n’ roll for that 60s magic, a cha-cha, a slow foxtrot, and then the baila, after the countdown anthem.

That balance is what makes it inclusive, classy, and truly fun-filled.

Organisers, especially in Colombo, should keep this in mind: let it be 70% nostalgia – Western, and 30% baila, with the last hour left for pure baila madness, after the New Year is in!

Organisers must work out the programme for their 31st Night and instruct the entertainers to follow those instructions. The band should not dictate the night; the spirit of nostalgia should.

This New Year, let’s give Colombo what it truly wants — memories, midnight magic, and music for every soul on the floor.

Let’s dance into 2027 with class.