HELL’S BELLS WHAT’S GOING ON?

The trumpet of sanity is on fire in a state that’s on the verge of total failure

Oh my goodness, what’s going on in precious Sri Lanka? Has just about everyone lost their mind? Yes, we know what the men and women who supposedly run the country by making the law and then breaking it themselves – while telling us lesser mortals that we must abide by the laws of the land to a tee – are up to (although some of us are inclined to believe they’re up to nothing or helping themselves to what’s left of our nation’s riches… or both!) but how about the rest of us?

Well for starters, so many among us have seemingly embraced the ‘give and take’ culture that pervades the national landscape either because we don’t have a choice (even though we do) or we’re as greedy as a wolf. The wolves in sheep’s clothing come from all corners of the island we call ‘home,’ which includes the man or woman on the street, those who man the state sector, businesspeople and even hordes of so-called ‘professionals’!

It has been said that giving and taking are equally criminal undertakings but the givers seem not to heed this warning either because they ‘have to get things done’ or ‘can’t be bothered waiting longer’ for things to happen.

Some of them even pay up to get their kids into school, which means that the seeds of many of our children’s education are planted in a bribe… rather than it being free!

The free-for-all has gathered steam in the corridors of business, professional institutions and many other vocations, so much so that as LMD’s Editor-at-Large writes in his column on the next page, there is an emergence of a nexus between business and politics because governance means more than growth in our world of biz.

When will the rot stop? you may be inclined to ask…

Well, unless there is a radical and dramatic turnaround in the modus operandi of both businesspeople and professionals, there’s simply no hope – for it is they who must not only lead by example but guide working men and women along a path to sanity.

We must know after all, that the political top brass will not budge from where they are, which is literally (but not necessarily visually) ‘sitting pretty’!

If nothing else, let it be said to our captains of business and the professions that if the dirty money spinning circus continues for much longer, Sri Lanka may well become a dumping ground for rogue investors – and while that will sound like music to the ears of corrupt politicians, our world of business will be relegated to the gutter of investment; and with it, so will business.

The following lyrics from Hells Bells by the Aussie hard rock band AC/DC in the early 1980s might put things in perspective…

“I won’t take no prisoners;
won’t spare no lives
Nobody’s putting
up
a fight
I got my bell; I’m gonna take you to hell
I’m gonna get you; Satan get you…” 

– Editor-in-Chief