Stop Milking The Goose
The Rajapakse model of governance.
My dad writes columns for LBO. I don’t usually comment on them what for conflict of interest, but he had a very funny metaphor in the last one. “According to the fable, the regular supply of golden eggs was not enough for the foolish owners; blinded by greed, they cut open the goose to get all the eggs at once. They found to their grief that there was no trove of golden eggs in the goose’s stomach; that their greed had deprived them of any more golden eggs. I do not accuse the government of being that foolish. They are not killing the goose; their behavior is more like that of trying to milk the goose for more eggs. The end result, however, will be a stressed goose yielding less eggs than it otherwise would have.” I think milking the goose about sums up the Rajapakse economic policy. He inherited a healthy economy, spent or stole almost everything, and now he’s furiously trying to milk the goose.
By milking I mean printing money and borrowing money on the (HSBC) credit card. In fact, sensible policies are to not 1) bribe ministers with cars 2) fund loss-making quasi-private vanity airlines 3) buy MiGs to shoot down (what are basically) Cessna and 4) enrich your entire clan and buy your son’s Bond cars. Sri Lanka is a golden goose, we can kick ass economically – but not with Rajapakse trying to milk us. Omigod they suck. Oh, and if you didn’t know, now that the JHU and everyone has had their fill of Benzes (which we pay the duty for), they’re going to raise taxes on importing cars. Now that the mobile industry has invested the most in this country and provided the most tangible benefits for people, they’re going to slap a 50Rs tax on the consumer. Note, not the company. When the average cellular customer is spending about Rs 350 a month on calls, the government is asking that guy for Rs 50. It’ll slow the whole sector down and suck up peoples lives so the Rajapakses can buy more cars and planes. Sweet.
Anyways, the article is here, on LBO
This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like 
Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
There’s nothing wrong with pornography, but there’s a lot wrong with porn. Nothing wrong with watching people have sex, but too often that sex is brutal, senseless and coerced. I mean how many couples are coming on each others faces every day? Hence, philosopher king Alain de Botton – after calling for a 
Sri Lanka is going to start offer 
The people of Sri Lanka voted for Rajapakse, to bring about “an honorable peace”, not to build the economy.
If you want to criticize Rajapakse, criticize his military tactics. Criticize his impotency on the way that the war has turned out. That will surely stir some attention.
You can rant all you want, but the common folk of the country value pride over economic stability. They value masculinity over femininity. A feminine leader like Ranil [I'm not referring to the gender, I'm referring to the style of leadership] is more appealing to developed countries. A masculine leader like Rajapakse has more appeal in developing countries where we can’t think ourselves. Haven’t you noticed that everyone wants a benevolent dictator to rule over their realm of passive existence?
Ranil couldn’t understand this. Inevitably he lost.
P.S. Your father’s article is quite informative.
What bullshit. All the voter research data show clearly that voters except in the North and East vote first on the cost of living and secondly on the war. You’re argument is founded on nohing. I’m talking to R here.
Really? Tell me where I can have a look at these stats. It would interesting to analyze when and on what context it was taken.
If this is the case, my question would be why did the people of the south choose Rajapakse over Ranil? It’s a clear case of the yearning to be ruled over by a masculine leader.
Our whole culture revolves around masculine leaders. Fathers who don’t show emotion (please refer rhythmic’s ‘chicken curry for the soul’ post), school masters who command respect, CEOs like Dian Gomes, etc etc etc. All these leadership figures show one strong trait. They are masculine.
Regardless of the masculine/feminine traits of leadership, the reason the majority (minus the NE) voted for MR over Ranil was because Ranil’s economic policies weren’t having the IMMIDIATE trickle-down effect the masses were expecting. So MR and the JVP were able to tap into that impatience and show close-to-home grassroots quick-fixes which seemed attractive. This was backed up by the ‘peace with honour’ policy on the NE. So Ravana’s right that the primary platform for MR was economic. However, the defence policy with its vocal rhetoric grabbed most of the headlines.
Makes a lot of sense but there are a few cultural aspects that cannot be denied. These might not be apparent to the English speaking citizens of Colombo, but in the suburbs and in the villages these factors play a crucial role…
1.) He was a ‘game minihek’ [one of our own people from the south]
2.) People could relate to him more than Ranil [Mahinda Mama vs Ranil Uncle]
3.) He was a nationalist who against the selling of national heritage to the English
4.) He had a deep voice and had a tone that seemed confident
Sound pretty lame? Well, that’s our level of Intelligence for you.
There’s an argument that many of us come to a point before rationalizing it with logical thought. So even though things like masculinity or personal traits might seem puny to the rational mind, it plays a big role on the right side our brain. (Especially the ones that don’t have much exposure)
No doubt that short term fixes like graduate jobs and fertilizer subsidies helped, but the relationship between Mahinda and the lower-middle class people of the country stretch beyond that. Hope this makes sense.
I would agree with points 1, 2, & 4. It’s true that MR’s personality traits and perceived background made him more acceptable to the majority than Ranil’s, but I think it was his platform that got him the bulk of the votes. His personality would have swayed the people on the fence. Don’t know what you mean by point 3 though — I am unaware of any English connection.
As for the masculine/feminine issue, I’d term it firm/soft. Sort of like Regan vs Carter.
Looks like its time to wield Peoples Power in sunny Sri Lanka in order to convey to the ruling elite that they must stop the corruption and conform to the rule of law.
Some of the things we could do in order to show our discontent and protest peacefully is as follows:-
1. Boycott the Lake House Group of newspapers
2. Dont pay taxes
3. Come out on to the streets, in each town, and march in protest (similar to whats happening in Burma now)
4. Refrain from indulging in giving bribes to get your job done and report every instance to a respected authority (if you can find one)
5. Speak out openly against all forms of corruption and breach of the law
You are 100% right indi Politicians in Sri Lanka behaves like angels when they are in the opposition, we have sent people who are not worthy of their positions , when sri lankans vote the only think about religion,race,cast & the help they can get from him, thats why we are so fucked up man, we should send people who are educated at least who has some good qualities, until then we will go down really really fast. Those guys jumped in from UNP has huge corruption charges, they did those things when Ranill was in power, right, so what are we going to do, to whom we are going to vote?
One day i met British couple her in Seychelles, they told that they really like sri lanka for its beauty, then they told us that they visited Sri lnaka during tsunami to help ,but gave up because politicians were stealing money, they said “Your country is so over,because of politicians”, now don’t look who was in power during tsunami ,i bet even if UNP was there this would be the same story, WE ARE SO OVER MAN, SO OVER.
When asked the following question, ‘How corrupt is Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government?’
In a recent interview with Lakbima News (5 Aug ’07) Wimal Weerawanse replied;
‘In villages, there are thieves who sneak into kitchens through the back doors of houses and steal the bath muttiya while the owners are watching teledramas. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s people are like those thieves. That’s why they even stole from the Mavil Aru compensation fund which was set aside for the abject poor. The UNP are professional thieves. They have special diplomas and have obtained degrees from Cambridge in thieving. That’s the difference between the two. When Ranil runs a government, there’s professional thieving. The thieving of Rajapaksa’s people is exposed in a month or two because they still don’t know how to do it professionally.’
I think this sums up the state of Sri Lankan politics.
COOL HA HA
Well said Indi, well said. I hate to imagine where it will all end up finally…
Indi agree with you whole heartdly but chill out a bit or you are going to be white vanned one of these days
Hey, it’s a democracy. The people voted for this.
Be glad that we at least have the right to run for office, and exercise our democratic rights every six years etc.
With that in mind, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Crappy politicians? There’s nobody else running for office.
I think you should run. You’d be good. :)
The phone tax and the “Balu” tax were hillarious and “Jokes of the year” lol :P
boring!!!!!!
Mahinda won the election thanks to the LTTE. (600,000 votes) Mahinda also managed to edge ranil off in south because 400,000 potential UNP supporters’ votes (like mine and my whole family’s) were struck off the voters list in Colombo, kandy and other urban areas… I Don’t blame Mahinda for this. He is a shrewd politician… I blame the UNP for not foreseeing this and taking remedial action beforehand…