Lessons in floods, landslides and freedom

by Renton de Alwis

Written in February 2011, at a time when we had torrential rain and floods, the question that comes to my mind is if we have learnt lessons from the past. Let me leave it for your critical evaluation.


A second wave of floods and landslides has affected many of our brethren in 18 districts of Sri Lanka. Some are housed in shelters and more than 1.25 million are said to be among those needing help. Much effort, energy and resources are spent on the relief efforts and much of the development work done in the recent past, will be inundated and damaged by the ensuing flood waters.

Areas and people that were seeing rays of hope of rehabilitation with the ending of the conflict are also affected. Mannar, Vavniya as well as many areas of the East are under water. Anuradhapura, Pollonnaruwa and much of the Northeast is flooded and people have been evacuated to safety.  So is the situation in the hills. In Badulla, Welimada and several other areas land slides have damaged homes and other facilities. Public buildings the likes of universities, schools and hospitals have not been spared. Mother Nature has unleashed her wrath on us, not only in Sri Lanka but in many other places on this, our only planet earth.

Next wave

In many instances, it is when the impact of such devastation hit a people that we begin to think. I remember the mid 1970s. The energy crisis, with an unprecedented oil price hike hitting the world at large. Much talk and even some action were taken on developing alternative energy sources and on taking on austere living to cushion the impact. That was short lived. A few years later the world at large had once again settled into accepting the higher oil prices, forgotten much of the frugality and it was business as usual. Business as usual, until the next wave of the economic crisis hit us a few years ago and the impact of climate change brought us unprecedented waves of natural disasters and calamities.

It is a sad fact that most people only turn to seeking solace in religion when the going gets bad. There is no doubt that it is important for societies, nations and the world at large from time to time, to revisit the very basics of its ways and take stock. There is perhaps no better time to take a good look at the current state of our own doing on the development front, in the context of state of the world’s social, economic and environmental health. 

Good of many

We forgot that “Small is beautiful” and that it is a term used to describe the principles enumerated in ‘Buddhist Economics’ or the way to successful living as described in the many teachings of the Buddha.  The orthodox Christian, Hindu and Islamic ways are no different.  Regardless of what we have in our own belief systems and ethos in the East, the Western world’s predominant stance of ‘Big is better’ has been the driver of our greed-based lifestyle and business ethic through out the modern phase of what is today, touted as ‘development’. “Greed is Good” was in fact, a prominent signage I saw about a year ago, not in any big city in the US, Japan or Europe, but in India very near the ashram of the man who was the epitome of basic living, the Mahatma Ghandi. That was in front of a modern shopping mall in Hyderabad.

We have often ignored the good of the many in preference to those holding power and access to resources. Offering unlimited choice over need and necessity is a fundamental fault-line, we need to track in our social and economic system of today. 

Fault lines

Increased incidence of polarised behaviour driven by intolerance and greed has resulted in tensions never before seen. Terrorism is a phenomenon we see emerging as a result and waging wars on terror over the years have caused an enormous waste of resources both natural and financial. These could otherwise have served to minimise poverty, conserve water, other resources, mange causes for global warming, prevent incidence of pandemics and to build trust among peoples to eliminate causal factors that breed terrorism. 

I recall the eighties, when at Sri Lanka Association of the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) discussions on use of alternative lifestyles and sustainable sources of energy, how good men the likes of late John Diandas, the self-made transport specialist and chartered accountant called for the use of alternative energy sources and expansion of our public transport systems. We also had the likes of Ray Wijewardena who has shown us living proof of how lifestyles can be sustained through the harmonious blend of the elements of Extension (Patavi), Cohesion (Apo), Heat (Thejo) and Motion (Vayo) in a holistic organic farm he created in Kakapalliya, a little beyond Wennappuwa.  Our own Nobel laureate Prof. Mohan Munasinghe’s research points us to the negative impacts we will have on our tropical rural agriculture from climate change and it is a desperate call he makes for us to adopt sustainable practices.

True freedom

Disasters the likes of what we see around us are no cyclical phenomena as some would like to think. Climate science, though subdued by energy lobbies with vested interests is potent and present solid evidence that all is not well and that it can not be business as usual anymore.

Though small in size, relative to many other lands, Sri Lanka is richly endowed with natural, heritage, cultural and social resources. She indeed has the potential to develop to be an example and model to the rest of the world in simple but profound living. Such model will need to place values such as need, quality, productivity, frugality, conservation and equity, when freedom of choice will be sought through the strengths of self-sufficiency and sustainability of effort. That indeed can be a model of true economic, political and social freedom for all.

 

 

pix credit: Onlanka (Google image)