We are certainly glad to say goodbye to 2020, but, can we really do so? Coronavirus keeps trailing us into the New Year.

One official joy for the New Year is the reopening of tourism. We must sing praises to Ukraine for this jubilation, especially because it has sent us tourists with Covid-19, possibly with a special Ukrainian twist of crookedness, associated with former twisted diplomatic contacts between Kiev and Colombo. 

So why not open our airports to the UK travellers too – who can bring the new strain of the coronavirus, which spreads faster,  and could spread even faster here with our warm Sri Lankan  hospitality. Let’s keep abreast with the world, and embrace the spread of this pandemic!

Let us not forget that we have seen the dawn of a new year which must remind us of the “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” – the theme of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s manifesto at the 2019 presidential election. There was very little of Prosperity & Splendour that could be delivered in 2020, not only because of the coronavirus, but also due to the rise of Rajavasala governance, with its focus of family-bandyism and the gratifying spread of corruption.

The Gotabaya manifesto also assured us of “creating a secure and progressive nation”. The security was certainly assured by the lockdowns, curfews, warnings, and official threats on the Covid-19 spread, where clusters keep expanding and will do in 2021 too. As for being a ‘progressive nation’ one must wonder how much of this is the speedy closing of cases, ready releasing of those found guilty in courts, the speedy bail outs, and the parliamentary privilege granted to those guilty of murder or held in remand for murder allegations. All of this makes 2020 a year of unforgettable regress, with very little of progress. 

The dawn of 2021 will certainly not take us away from our traditions of inanity. The Rajavasala thinking will keep us strongly associated with the Pot and Syrup – Muttiya and Peniya. We may not see Cabinet Ministers and so-called doctors throwing ‘kattady chanted’ pots into rivers in 2021. But we will certainly see the spread of greater belief in the role and power of exorcists, cocky chanters, distorters, mind manipulators, and thought twisters, having their  play with deities, demons and avatars of crooked play.

The Syrup has even more promise  in this new year. We already see the rise of a ‘pani tharangaya’ between Kali Amma and Ravana. It is a Dhammika and Ritigala fight, which has the support of the Rajavasala distorters on public thought. One university has already given an approval of sorts to the Dhammika – Kali Amma Peniya. The Ravana Peniya is certainly on the move, and there are (and will be) many more syrups of contortion, aimed at the profits that can flow from a global pandemic to Peni Karayas and the Peni Politicians. 

The New Year will also bring us to many pots and syrups of distortion. The people are being speedily led away from belief in science to belief in superstition, fallacy and delusion. The Rajavasala thinking will have much to do with provincial council elections and the abolition of PCs. There will be continued distortion in thinking on the burial or cremation of the Covid deceased. 

A State that thought of asking a neighbouring country to bury some who die here due to the same religious belief is not far from asking neighbours, or even distant countries, to give free entry to our minorities, to ensure the only presence of today’s majority in the years to come. 

The Sri Lankans who have been toiling abroad to send foreign exchange to this country, in such large amounts over the years, are easily forgotten as they face the realities of unemployment because of Covid-19; forgetting the many hundreds who came here to vote for a Gotabaya victory with his promise of Prosperity and Splendour –  the glow of “Soubhagya”. The continued spread of coronavirus, with more variations of speedy infections, has very little promise of relief for these mothers, sisters, and daughters, of Isle of Promised Prosperity.

We have seen the dawn of a New Year of rapidly vanishing hope. The huge blasts of crackers at midnight that saw the end of 2020 and the birth of 2021, were shockers to make us forget reality, and distort our thinking on  a hugely declining and massively threatened Democracy. 

What we will see making a big rise this year is the Rajavasala Senakeliya – the Carnival  of Family Power. Fathers and Sons, Uncles and Nephews, Brothers and Sisters – the players in this carnival can be sure of Prosperity and Splendour in 2021: Not those who voted them to such splendour.