A string of pearls does not always
refer to a necklace adorning a woman’s neck.
These days it refers to a network of Chinese facilities/relationships
along its sea lines of communication from China to Port Sudan. It’s a term tossed around by some who are
concerned about growing Chinese influence around the world. Not surprisingly, the ‘concerned’ have their
own ‘pearls’. They don’t lie neat in a way that ‘threading’ is possible.
Rather, they pockmark the world. Worse, they are all about first-strike
capacity.
This string of pearls is relevant
because Sri Lanka is one of the nodes. A
pearl, let’s say, or more precisely a would-be pearl or a wannabe pearl,
depending on who is describe it. Sri
Lanka is eyed for pock-marking too in the manner that Diego Garcia is a
pockmark. In this business, sweetness of
term means little. A pearl is as pernicious as a pockmark.
But Sri Lanka is a pearl. It is as pearl to her people as any other
nation is pearl to its citizenry. Sri Lanka was and is pearl to others for many
reasons. This is why it is sometimes called ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’. This is why, a few weeks ago, when a group of
people who decided to cycle around the island in order to create awareness
about Cerebral Palsy and raise money to purchase 1,000 wheelchairs for victims
of the disease called their project ‘Around the Pearl’.
There are approximately 40,000
people suffering from Cerebral Palsy. They won’t get better. A wheel chair,
however, can make an immediate difference.
Those who organized, helped and took part in this wheels-for-wheels
exercise of cycling 1350km in just ten days in the scorching sun and over
unforgiving terrain, need to be applauded and more than that, supported.
There are many lessons that traveling
of any kind confers on traveler. In this
case there are the hard lessons of endurance, the re-discovery of body and
self, courage, determination and resilience.
Then there are other lessons that warrant mention. These refer to
pearls.
The first, one of the riders, Peter
Bluck, made a pertinent observation: ‘This is the result of the war ending’.
True. War-end opens territories and
opens hearts. People don’t think about
it all the time, but if one were to reflect on what one does and what one sees
being done and asks the question, ‘Would this have been possible before May
2009?’ the answer would be ‘no’ nine times out of ten. It’s simple: people don’t count blessings,
they count curses. The result is frustration.
Next comes the blame game. Then
barbs this way and that. That way is
patently unproductive.
Another rider, Yasas Hewage, spoke
of the positives: ‘It took me 36 years to finally see the full coastal belt of
Sri Lanka....and when you are greeted with smiles in every town ...you are convinced
Sri Lanka is a free country ......while we search for a perfect world...makes
sense to enjoy what we have in the mean time.’
True.
There are enough imperfections
around us. Some of them have nothing to do with the long years of conflict or
what are said to have been the causes. It
goes without saying that those with power can do much more. Power makes for change. It makes for undoing
things as well. The balance sheet is
nothing we can be proud of as a nation.
However, even as relevant authorities
including elected representatives, do nothing, or worse, complicate matters
further, there’s ample room for ordinary people to take ownership over this
pearl. They can admire. They can capture in photograph or word. They can polish it. They can make it gleam. Those who went around the pearl did exactly
that.
Belonging to the land is at one
level a personal choice. No law can rob
that kind of citizenship. There is a way
that pockmarks can be smoothed over.
There is a way to unearth pearls. There is a way to acknowledge
imperfections and yet not let them drag you down. There are many ways to go ‘around the
pearl’. Indeed, one might even argue
that the exploration of those many ways is the one way to resist being
pockmarked by outside interests, whether or not it is called pockmark or
pearl.
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