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Beauts battle; request for the truth and due punishment

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I had two Sri Lankans living overseas inquiring as to whether there were no strong comments, nay criticism against the much money-consuming National Day celebrations. They keep tabs reading our newspapers, maybe accessing social media and discussing matters, but they want to know stuff from the horses, in Cass’s case, mare’s mouth as to the goings-on in the way of rumblings in this Paradise Island. I replied there were a couple of non-approving letters to the Editors; even vituperation on Facebook, but not much. Cass surmised that people must have been celebrating nationalism and independence, watching the government’s long and costly show with exposure to Omicron.

Missed sorely by Cass was the singing of the National anthem in Tamil and even more, the remembering, by at least laying flowers at the statue of the Father of the Nation, which stood cheek by jowl with the VVIP’s at the parade. Such a gesture would have been appropriate and proved all is not political. Independence and the years following were successful in large measure due to DS Senanayake. Why not pay homage to him for this, never mind his political party. Nein, netha and nay! Everything is politicised through and through!

Two beauties (certainly not cuties) battle

So Rosy Senanayake is pitched against Pushpika de Silva. Rosy has been forced into the fray and we are all rooting for her, at least ole Cass is. Maybe, on this side female voices and cheering (hope not screeching) will resound while on Pushpika’s side the male sound will dominate – some Cass is sure – derisively. She may have a political trumpet or two (certainly not Green Jumbos’); but one thing Cass vouches for – politicians of his ilk who conducted her in short shorts to examine the gallows at Welikada will not bother to cheer her on. Use and discard is a maxim among the powerful. If very pleasing, a crumb or two may be flung in her whining way; no more.

Rosy has demanded a thumping amount in damages from Pushpika. Denting damages! I suppose Pushpika is rich enough to pay it all and save her skin; her untamed mouth leading her to this plight.

She accused Rosy of coming over to the final selection of international Mrs World, after winning the title here in a hair’s breadth, so to say. Remember how the crown was scraped off her expensive coiffure and placed on another and then replaced then or elsewhere; Cass does not recall. This tussle because of the fact that the crowned girl was not married but divorced. The matter was settled in her favour and off went Pushpika to the international contes.

Rosy sure would have been invited as a distinguished guest as our first Mrs World. But Push contorts that in an interview she gave, the video of which Cass watched, where she implies that she invited Rosy (paid her ticket too!) and Rosy did the dirty on her – deprived her of the fourth place by influencing the judges. That statement is so representative of what pertains over here in surmising and deed. Can one bribe international beauty pageant judges? Cass does not believe so.

Cass has written much on this continuing incident since this is trending among young un’s with nothing much upstairs and with bouncy buoyant bodies bared at the mere snap of a strap.

The older winners of beauty pageants were absolutely beautiful of face and character and had good bodies from which exuded eastern modesty. Remember Ms Pelpola, who very nearly won a beauty title in London, but was unwell that day? Maureen Hingert did Ceylon proud and Rosy, who was an intelligent woman then and remains so. Not even the slightest trace of cheapness in her; she maintained and maintains her dignity. Her not being able to decipher a sum from its zeroes and her extravagant refurbishing of toilets in the Mayor’s residence we can keep out of the picture as it is not relevant to the issue at hand.

Persistence for the truth

Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith sent a sharp message which was evident at National Day Celebrations on 04 Feb. He did not go to the Independence Square to attend the celebrations which to him doesn’t hold water with so many maimed and suffering due to bombings that could very well have been prevented. Swords had been imported in bulk, passing them off as sugarcane cutters, he said. About a month after Easter of 2019, Cass and a couple of friends visited the Katuwapitiya Church on their way to Negombo. A priest there authoritatively said that the Archbishop, working tirelessly, had prevented a blood bath by cautioning and calming the furious Catholics who wanted to go on rampage against Muslims. Even Buddhists would have joined. But the Cardinal, seeing very well that an extension to the mayhem and labelling the then government as incapable of ensuring the country’ security was inciting a retaliation by Catholics, restrained the mobs who respected him. He was joined later by a couple of Buddhist monks. A blood bath would have resulted.

Cass heard him in a video saying that he wants the persons who allowed the massacre to accept blame or be proved blameworthy, and punished; and the mastermind behind it be revealed. In The Island, a writer in the opinion section termed this a dream of the Cardinal’s. Did he mean a good and worthy dream or a pipe dream of the never never kind?

Corporate good deed

Cassandra awoke rather late in the day to the fact it’s already the second month of the year and she had no diary. She had many such given her, long ago, then a lone ex-bank manager of a nephew was generous to her. Nothing from him. So she took it upon herself to enquire from a financial company that she has a deposit or two with. Such businesses would gift diaries to depositors. The answer she received from a well spoken woman at the other end of the telephone connection was that they had stopped the practice long ago. Instead the money that would have been spent by Central Finance PLC on tokens to clients was being spent on school necessities which were gifted to deprived schools in poor far away villages. How great and good! I asked her permission to mention this in the press and again sweetly said, “Yes, you may.”

We in Sri Lanka still have the concerned, the charitable, the persons conscious of the deprivation that many suffer.

See you next Friday with, hopefully less gossip and more good news.



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South’s ‘structural deficiencies’ and the onset of crippled growth

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In need of empowerment: The working people of the African continent.

The perceptive commentator seeking to make some sense of social and economic developments within most Southern countries today has no choice but to revisit, as it were, that classic on post-colonial societies, ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ by Frantz Fanon. Decades after the South’s initial decolonization experience this work by the Algerian political scientist of repute remains profoundly relevant.

The fact that the Algeria of today is seeking accountability from its former colonizer, France, for the injustices visited on it during the decades of colonial rule enhances the value and continuing topicality of Frantz’s thinking and findings. The fact that the majority of the people of most decolonized states are continuing to be disempowered and deprived of development should doubly underline the significance of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ as a landmark in the discourse on Southern questions. The world would be erring badly if it dismisses this evergreen on decolonization and its pains as in any way outdated.

Developments in contemporary China help to throw into relief some of the internal ‘structural deficiencies’ that have come to characterize most Southern societies in current times. However, these and many more ‘structural faults’ came to the attention of the likes of Fanon decades back.

It is with considerable reservations on their truthfulness that a commentator would need to read reports from the US’ Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on developments in China, but one cannot approach with the same skepticism revelations on China by well-known media institutions such as Bloomberg News.

While an ODNI report quoted in this newspaper on March 25th, 2025, elaborated on the vast wealth believed to have been amassed by China’s contemporary rulers and their families over the years, Bloomberg News in a more studied manner said in 2012, among other things, on the same subject that, ‘Xi’s extended family had amassed assets totaling approximately $376 million, encompassing investments in sectors like rare earth minerals and real estate. However, no direct links were established between these assets and Xi or his immediate family.’

Such processes that are said to have taken hold in China in post- Mao times in particular are more or less true of most former colonies of the South. A clear case in point is Sri Lanka. More than 75 years into ‘independence’ the latter is yet to bring to book those sections of its ruling class that have grown enormously rich on ill-gotten gains. It seems that, as matters stand, these sections would never be held accountable for their unbounded financial avarice.

The mentioned processes of exploitation of a country’s wealth, explain in considerable measure, the continuing underdevelopment of the South. However, Fanon foresaw all these ills and more about the South long ago. In ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ he speaks insightfully about the ruling classes of the decolonized world, who, having got into the boots of the departing colonizers, left no stone unturned to appropriate the wealth of their countries by devious means and thereby grow into the stratum described as ‘the stinking rich.’

This is another dimension to the process referred to as ‘the development of underdevelopment.’ The process could also be described as ‘How the Other Half Dies’. The latter is the title of another evergreen piece of research of the seventies on the South’s development debacles by reputed researcher Susan George.

Now that the Non-aligned Movement is receiving some attention locally it would be apt to revisit as it were these development debacles that are continuing to bedevil the South. Among other things, NAM emerged as a voice of the world’s poor. In fact in the seventies it was referred to as ‘The trade union of the poor.’ Accordingly, it had a strong developmental focus.

Besides the traditional aims of NAM, such as the need for the South to keep an ‘equidistance’ between the superpowers in the conduct of its affairs, the ruling strata of developing countries were also expected to deliver to their peoples equitable development. This was a foremost dimension in the liberation of the South. That is, economic growth needed to be accompanied by re-distributive justice. In the absence of these key conditions no development could be said to have occurred.

Basing ourselves on these yardsticks of development, it could be said that Southern rulers have failed their peoples right through these decades of decolonization. Those countries which have claimed to be socialistic or centrally planned should come in for the harshest criticism. Accordingly, a central aim of NAM has gone largely unachieved.

It does not follow from the foregoing that NAM has failed completely. It is just that those who have been charged with achieving NAM’s central aims have allowed the Movement to go into decline. All evidence points to the fact that they have allowed themselves to be carried away by the elusive charms of the market economy, which three decades ago, came to be favoured over central planning as an essential of development by the South’s ruling strata.

However, now with the returning to power in the US of Donald Trump and the political Right, the affairs of the South could, in a sense, be described as having come full circle. The downgrading of USAID, for instance, and the consequent scaling down of numerous forms of assistance to the South could be expected to aggravate the development ills of the hemisphere. For instance, the latter would need to brace for stepped-up unemployment, poverty and social discontent.

The South could be said to have arrived at a juncture where it would need to seek ways of collectively advancing its best interests once again with little or no dependence on external assistance. Now is the time for Southern organizations such as NAM to come to the forefront of the affairs of the South. Sheer necessity should compel the hemisphere to think and act collectively.

Accordingly, the possibility of South-South cooperation should be explored anew and the relevant institutional and policy framework needs to be created to take on the relevant challenges.

It is not the case that these challenges ceased to exist over the past few decades. Rather it is a case of these obligations being ignored by the South’s ruling strata in the belief that externally imposed solutions to the South’s development questions would prove successful. Besides, these classes were governed by self- interest.

It is pressure by the people that would enable their rulers to see the error of their ways. An obligation is cast on social democratic forces or the Centre-Left to come to center stage and take on this challenge of raising the political awareness of the people.

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Pilot error?

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Wreckage of the trainer jet that crashed in Wariyapola recently

On the morning of 21 March, 2025, a Chinese-built K-8 jet trainer aircraft of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) crashed at Wariyapola. Fortunately, the two pilots ejected from the aircraft and parachuted down to safety.

A team of seven has been appointed to investigate the accident. Their task is to find the ‘cause behind the cause’, or the root cause. Ejecting from an aircraft usually has physical and psychological repercussions. The crew involved in the crash are the best witnesses, and they must be well rested and ready for the accident inquiry. It is vital that a non-punitive atmosphere must prevail. If the pilots believe that they are under threat of punishment, they will try to withhold vital information and not reveal the truth behind what happened, prompting their decision to abandon the stricken aircraft. In the interest of fairness, the crew must have a professional colleague to represent them at the Inquiry.

2000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Cicero said that “To err is human.” Alexander Pope said, “To err is human. To forgive, divine.” Yet in a Royal Air Force (RAF) hangar in the UK Force (RAF) hangs a sign declaring: “To err is human. To forgive is not RAF policy” These are the two extremes.

Over the years, behavioural scientists have observed that errors and intelligence are two sides of the same coin. In other words, an intelligent human being is liable to make errors. They went on to label these acts of omission and commission as ‘Slips, Lapses, Mistakes and Violations’.

To illustrate the point in a motoring context, if one was restricted to driving at a speed limit of 100 kph along an expressway and the speed crept up to 120 kph, then it is a ‘Slip’ on one’s part. If you forgot to fasten the seatbelt, it is a ‘Lapse’. While driving along a two-lane road, if a driver thinks in his/her judgement that the way is clear and tries to overtake slower traffic on the road, using the opposite lane, then encounters unanticipated opposite traffic and is forced to get back to the correct lane, that is a ‘Mistake’. Finally, if a double line is crossed while overtaking, while aware that the law is being broken, that is labelled as a ‘Violation’. In theory, all of the above could be applied to flying as well.

In the mid-Seventies, Elwyn Edwards and Frank Hawkins proposed that good interaction between Software (paperwork), Hardware (the aircraft and other machines), Liveware (human element) and the (working) environment are the essentials in safe flight operations. Labelled the ‘SHELL’ concept, it was adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. (ICAO). (See Diagram 01)

In diagram 01, two ‘L’s depict the ‘Liveware’, inside and outside an aircraft flightdeck. The ‘L’ at the centre is the pilot in command (PIC), who should know his/her strengths and weaknesses, know the same of his/her crew, aircraft, and their mission, and, above all, be continuously evaluating the risks.

Finally, Prof. James Reason proposed the Swiss Cheese Theory of Accident Causation. (See Diagram 02)

From this diagram we see that built in defences in a system are like slices of Swiss cheese. There are pre-existing holes at random which, unfortunately, may align and allow the crew at the ‘sharp end’ to carry out a procedure unchecked.

Although it is easy and self-satisfying to blame a crew, or an individual, at an official accident investigation, what should be asked, instead, is why or how the system failed them? Furthermore, a ‘just culture’ must prevail.

The PIC and crew are the last line of defence in air safety and accident prevention. (See Diagram 3)

A daily newspaper reported that it is now left to be seen whether the crash on 21 March was due to mechanical failure or pilot error. Why is it that when a judge makes a wrong judgement it is termed ‘Miscarriage of Justice’ or when a Surgeon loses a patient on the operating table it is ‘Surgical Misadventure’, but when a pilot makes an honest error, it is called ‘Pilot Error’? I believe it should be termed ‘Human Condition’.

Even before the accident investigation had started, on 23 March, 2025, Minister of Civil Aviation, Bimal Ratnayake, went on record saying that the Ministry of Defence had told him the accident was due to an ‘athweradda’ (error). This kind of premature declaration is a definite ‘no-no’ and breach of protocol. The Minister should not be pre-empting the accident enquiry’s findings and commenting on a subject not under his purview. Everyone concerned should wait for the accident report from the SLAF expert panel before commenting.

God bless the PIC and crew!

– Ad Astrian

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Thai scene … in Colombo!

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Yes, it’s happening tomorrow, Friday (28th), and Saturday (29th,) and what makes this scene extra special is that you don’t need to rush and pack your travelling bags and fork out a tidy sum for your airfare to Thailand.

The Thai Street Food Festival, taking place at Siam Nivasa, 43, Dr. CWW Kannangara Mawatha, Colombo 7, will not only give you a taste of Thai delicacies but also Thai culture, Thai music, and Thai dancing.

This event is being organised by the Thai Community, in Sri Lanka, in collaboration with the Royal Thai Embassy in Colombo.

The Thai Community has been very active and they make every effort to promote Amazing Thailand, to Sri Lankans, in every possible way they can.

Regarding the happening, taking place tomorrow, and on Saturday, they say they are thrilled to give Sri Lankans the vibrant Thai Street Food Festival.

Explaining how Thai souvenirs are turned out

I’m told that his event is part of a series of activities, put together by the Royal Thai Embassy, to commemorate 70 years of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Sri Lanka.

At the Thai Street Food Festival, starting at 5.00 pm., you could immerse yourself in lively Thai culture, savour delicious Thai dishes, prepared by Colombo’s top-notch restaurants, enjoy live music, captivate dance performances, and explore Thai Community members offering a feast of food and beverages … all connected with Amazing Thailand.

Some of the EXCO members of the Thai Community, in Sri Lanka,
with the Ambassador for Thailand

I’m sure most of my readers would have been to Thailand (I’ve been there 24 times) and experienced what Amazing Thailand has to offer visitors … cultural richness, culinary delights and unique experiences.

Well, if you haven’t been to Thailand, as yet, this is the opportunity for you to experience a little bit of Thailand … right here in Colombo; and for those who have experienced the real Thailand, the Thai Street Food Festival will bring back those happy times … all over again!

Remember, ENTRANCE IS FREE.

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