We are losing our leaders … again!

Remember the last time? Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake, General Kobbekaduwa, and even Ranasinghe Premadasa himself to name a few, in ‘one fell sweep’ within months of each other and blamed on the LTTE. This time the perpetrator seems clearer, COVID-19, pronounced with a short ‘O’ in the Pearl, blamed for Kili Rajamahendran, Mangala Samaraweera, and now Sunil Perera of the Gypsies.

All irreplaceable, in the different spheres of society that they provided clear concise leadership to, in a country that is already woefully short of true leadership.

I was an unashamed fan of Sunil (I don’t believe I am entitled to call him ‘Aiya’ since I am no blood relative) since my late teens when songs like ‘Linda Langa Sagmaya’ (dealing with the gossip beside the village well) and ‘Amme Amme Memata Soyala Dennakoko’ (about a young man asking his mother to find him a suitable wife) and more recently ‘Lankawe Ehema Thamai’ (that is how it is in Lanka) captured the very essence of life in our beloved pearl, the culture and the fatalistic attitude and gave it prominence without a semblance of ridicule or scorn. Sunil also provided true leadership and encouraged the artistes of his generation and those who followed to be themselves and express their personalities.

Mangala Samaraweera, I have admired from the days when he had the courage to clear the pavement hawkers in Borella off the overcrowded pavements, which they were occupying illegally, and no government official let alone a politician had the guts to take action against them. Of course, his actions were nullified later by the moronic vote gatherers who pass for politicians today. He came out of the ‘closet’, something that took an unbelievable amount of courage for someone of his generation and even provided leadership to his gay community.

I was invited to Kili Rajamahendran’s office when I was a schoolboy along with the others who aspired to play cricket in my school, and he directed our thoughts to how we could pursue a career and bring honour and glory to our country by pursuing our talent further. Then many years later, my good friend in the tea trade Anil Cooke and I went to his house in Inner Flower Road for a memorable evening during which the conversation was sparkling, to say the least, almost as sparking as the copious amounts of wine and other alcoholic beverages consumed. Kili, who hardly knew me from the proverbial Adam, insisted that his chauffeur take me home as I had driven myself and when I refused, his chauffeur followed me all the way home in Rajamahendran’s Mercedes Benz limousine and saw me inside the gate, no doubt on his master’s instructions! They don’t make them like that anymore, and I don’t mean the car!

As for our ‘leaders’ of today, let’s start with the calls for more than the MP’s salaries to be contributed to the COVID-19 fund of the Pearl. By calling for the return of at least ‘part’ of the money robbed by politicians in the form of commissions and bribes, what are we doing? Aren’t we sort of legitimising what they have done and telling them in print that we will settle for the return of part of the money they have stolen? Aren’t we saying ‘it’s ok guys, we understand that you can help yourself to money, which has put our country into irretrievable debt, but please give us at least ‘some’ of it back because we are in deep trouble’? Are we ‘crazy’ or is it pure desperation? We want ‘all’ of it back and we want the perpetrators locked up for life, that is the minimum we will settle for. The death penalty will be preferred!

Then we call them ‘Royals’ and Royalty in print. How can they be Royals? They are simply corrupt, money-grabbing, unprincipled thugs who have fooled the people into voting them into a position from which they have decimated our country. Tell me one legitimate ‘Royal’ in any other country in the world who has that description attached to their CV? By calling these people royal we are giving them the last thing that their ill-gotten money can’t buy! My advice to those who have nothing to put into their weekly columns and other pieces of so-called journalism is to please take a break, go on a holiday or hide under your bed if the lockdown is preventing you from going anywhere, do ‘anything’ but don’t do what you are doing.What about additional ministries and power being given to a young member of the ruling clan. Some say he is being groomed to succeed his father. If this happens at his tender age, surely it will be the new definition of utterly ridiculous. One that totally exceeds his grandstanding at the Olympic Games in his role of sports minister, or staging rugby matches for the glorification of his sibling during a pseudo lockdown.

We are still shattered by the Lankan ‘refugee’ who went berserk in a supermarket in West Auckland. All of us Lankans seem to have taken this personally as a ‘black mark’ against our countrymen. However idealistic and ego-inflated Lankans living in other countries may be, it is those of us who live here in Aotearoa – New Zealand who understand the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) nuances of the situations and circumstances that we face every day. Our Kiwi friends are being very nice but we feel guilty that one of our Countrymen has chosen, or been driven to behave in this manner. Furthermore, the lack of official response from either our Government or our ‘Honorary’ representatives who live here is a matter of great conjecture. Within our community, we have no recourse or facilities for people such as this to turn to. Other communities are much better organised and that may be why no person of Indian or Chinese origin (who outnumber us Lankans hugely) or any other much more genuine refugee, has resorted to such actions.

Now that New Zealand has an embassy in Colombo, isn’t it time for Lanka to reciprocate? Hopefully with some representation in Auckland as well as the capital Wellington. Most Lankans live in Auckland and even now isn’t it clear that we need some leadership and support from our mother country!