In the past 18 months, the media has highlighted the work of several Sri Lankans who have achieved success in Western countries for their contributions in many essential fields including medical science, politics and finance. These individuals are often young people in their thirties, and are female.
Reading the comments on social media in response to these stories and profiles, we discern that the local attitude to expatriate success stories is complex. There is genuine respect and admiration felt and expressed, and understandable curiosity about the people’s familial origins and context. ‘Who and who’ they are related to, and connected with.
But there are also comments which seem to convey envy and disbelief. At first, this seems ugly and sad, and grudging. But like every such negative on the surface, there are reasons for these attitudes which indicate issues in the bedrock of this society which can be recognized and addressed.
The ‘brain drain’ from which the country suffers has been going on for decades. The exodus of the Burgher community from the 1960s, for example, was in response to the exclusion of English from Sri Lanka as the national language, and the resulting diminishment of their employment prospects as a community of European origin.
In the 1970s and 1980s and during the decades of the recent war, thousands of Sri Lankan citizens sought safety and peace for themselves and their families in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. and Europe and the U.K.,from the civil disturbances which disrupted their lives and destroyed their homes and livelihoods.
The children of these immigrants are the success stories being written about in the media today.
It is a generalization, but also a fact, that Sri Lankan people are extremely talented. When working and living in an organized and stable environment, they are capable of immense achievement, which benefits not only themselves but the whole community and society in which they live.
It is particularly notable that Sri Lankan women in countries like New Zealand and England are achieving success and recognition in fields which remain rigidly male-dominated in their country of origin. Despite the racism they must inevitably have faced in their progress, and the rising anti-immigration attitudes and distrust of refugees which have emerged over the past 15 years, as the governments of many countries become more right wing in their perspectives, these resilient individuals have emerged and blossomed.
Great efforts have been made in Sri Lanka both at the level of governance and in civil society to secure and establish peace in the country, and promote economic growth and prosperity, in the years since the recent war ended. With comparatively less population and economic resources available than Western countries, Sri Lanka has managed to progress in many ways.
But I suggest we need to look not only at factors of economic prosperity, but to the clearly expressed aspirations and preferences of the younger generation here, who have not had access to the opportunities and resources available to their peers who have emigrated and manifestly flourished.
They are profoundly frustrated by the blocks placed in the way of their professional progress. By language barriers, by low salaries, and by unrewarding work environments. By the social hierarchies which enable others and disable them. They struggle against fear-based social conditioning which results in their individual efforts being continually undermined and criticized by their own families.
These young people are often spoken down to by ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ who believe that nothing can change. But the young change makers speak not only out of personal frustration or ‘grievance-laden anti elitism’ as the writer Rafia Zakaria expresses it. Their concerns are not marginal, and they should not be mocked, ignored or dismissed. Rather, we could use these frustrations as signposts to reconstruct the processes of this country.
They should be addressed as an integral part of the vision we have for Sri Lanka’s future. What are these aspirations? A society which does not block talent, but recognizes it and utilizes it, through consistent policies of gender equity, diversity inclusion, recognition of the rights of the marginalized, and criticism and dismantling of nepotism and cronyism - pernicious and self defeating practices which prevent people of merit from occupying positions in which they could be professionally productive, and help build the society to great heights. There are great opportunities now available in the fields of education reform, law, medicine, industry, media, private corporations and governance.
It is not just in engineering that people build bridges and roads. Educationists do this too, creating pathways to individual progress through their teaching. It is not just doctors and nurses who save lives. Teachers do this by equipping the future generation with the critical thinking skills and insight they need to thrive.
Women leaders in key decision-making positions have made great positive change in the countries in which they work. They have done so because they have qualities which are recognized by the people around them as contributing unique and valuable perspectives to their societies, and have moral vision which encompass accountability and the impact of their acts on the people affected by their decisions.
Find the best skilled and qualified people, and place them where they can do their best work.
For this progress to happen, collective re-evaluation on a societal level must occur, and a multi-levelled commitment should be made and acted on to making our country of origin a fully productive place to live, so that the people with the capacity to enrich our country in an ongoing way will have no reason to ever wish to leave.
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