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Sri Lanka Tsunami: A Social Autopsy What this paper is about: The country of Sri Lanka was hit my a huge Tsunami December of 2004, and it still has not recovered. This paper will describe the country before and after the tsunami hit and analyze what should have been done, what can be done now and the outlook for the future. Before the Tsunami, Sri Lanka, which used to be Ceylon, was a peaceful and relatively prosperous island country in the Indian Ocean, near to India across the Page Strait. It has had close cultural interaction with India from ancient times. Sri Lanka has also been exposed to cultural influences from other Asian civilizations. It officially became Sri Lanka in 1972.
The civilization of Sri Lanka can be traced back to the 6 th century BC, and it preserves Theravada Buddhism (the orthodox school of Buddhism having its literary traditions in the Pali language) and maintains a two thousand year old irrigation system in the dry regions of the country. Sri Lanka has also benefited by the influences of Hinduism and Islam. In 1948 Sri Lanka became independent from England, and it was admitted to the United Nations in 1952 and it became a member of the Commonwealth and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The country's economy was agricultural concentrated on export crops such as tea, rubber, and coconut grown on plantations.
Cocoa, coffee, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, citronella, and tobacco were also exported. For internal consumption they grew rice, fruit, and vegetables. Amorphous graphite was its principal mineral export with refined petroleum, precious and semiprecious gems, mineral sands, clays, and limestone's secondary industries. There are a lot of rivers to provide hydroelectric power. Industry was mostly the processing of agricultural exports until the 108 -s when Sri Lanka started to export a lot of textiles and consumer goods. The port of Colombia a major trade port with all of Sri Lanka's railroads converging upon it.
The United States, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom are the largest trading partners. Until it was struck by the tsunami, Sri Lanka was a popular tourist destination and an ex-patriot haven. People could live there quite well on a retirement income. It was home to a number of famous writers and other celebrities who wanted out of the limelight. The very moderate climate is lovely most of the year, with temperatures between 20 and 33 Celsius. Even the cold season only dips to about 7 Celsius.
Relations between the Sinhalese and the Tamils have been strained, with occasional violent outbreaks, but the people have lived is relative harmony. Policy was focused on social welfare and replacing imports with locally produced products after independence. The government provided free education and health services and subsidized the food industry to keep prices down. By imposing restrictions on imports Sri Lanka stimulated home industry. Social welfare policies lowered mortality rates and increased life expectancy and literacy rates. These policies were less than successful, and some ethnic conflict was slowing growth rates, but progress was being made.
Education is free through university and even trade school and the population has an 85 % literacy rate. However, courses of study at university level have been very limited and needed improvement. In spite of an extensive free health program supported by government, problems of poor nutrition and infectious disease remain. Sri Lanka draws on an ages old tradition of art and music and has added its own flavor to those it preserved. However, the tourist industry helped to preserve the traditional folk dancing and music, giving people the ability to earn a living with art. Advanced training fine arts is provided at the Government College of Fine Arts, the Institute of Aesthetic Studies, and several private institutions.
Indian, Asian and Western influences are apparent in newly created works, but all have that exotic flavor of Sri Lanka. The fossil records date back to the Paleolithic, or old Stone Age with many tools found made of quartz. These date back to about 1, 750, 000 years ago. However, the richness of the environment plus the climate make fossil records less than plentiful. There is more in the Mesozoic and Neolithic layers.
More sophisticated polished tools came into use about 5000 years ago. The Buddhists appeared about 500 B. C. after being banished for misconduct from the kingdom of Sinhapura by Vijaya's father, King Sinhabahu, given a ship and sent away. They chased away the locals and established a royal dynasty. Several waves of Indo-Aryan immigrations followed by several from other regions of India completed the cultural mix.
The major linguistic group was Sinhalese. By the second century B. C. the Sinhalese had been totally converted to Buddhism. Duttagamani Abhaya (reigned 161137 BC) united the country near the end of the millennium.
There followed a succession of rulers, which took power one way or another, mostly kings, and a major collapse after the takeover of the Kalinga dynasty about 1200, when the ruling aristocracy which had maintained the dry land irrigation system was forced out, and the system was neglected. Reservoirs were destroyed and the people migrated into the wet regions. Foreign trade was increased to compensate for the lost agricultural yield and spices became an important export. Cities sprung up as military posts. Wide-spread cultural change followed, including the religious organizations, as Hindu became a strong influence.
The Portuguese arrived around 1500 and brought Christianity with them, completing the mix. They took over the country very soon after the death of Rajasinha in 1593. The Dutch took over rule after driving out the Portuguese in 1658. Some attempt was made to codify customary law. The Thesawalamai, or laws and customs of the Tamils of Jaffna, was codified in 1707. A code of Muslim law was applied with the approval of Muslim headmen.
Because of the difficulty in codifying Sinhalese law and custom in view of its regional diversity and complexity, Roman-Dutch law was increasingly applied to the Sinhalese of the cities and the seacoast, especially to those who professed Christianity. (Sri Lanka. 2006) The British East India Company's conquest of Sri Lanka, which it called Ceylon, occurred during the wars of the French Revolution. When the Netherlands came under French control, the British began to move into Sri Lanka from India. The Dutch, after a halfhearted resistance, surrendered the island in 1796... In 1802 Ceylon was made a crown colony, and, by the Treaty of Amiens with France, British possession of maritime Ceylon was confirmed... The British adopted a unitary administrative and judicial system for the whole island. They reduced the autocratic powers of the governor and set up Executive and Legislative councils to share in the task of government; unofficial members (not officials of the government) were gradually appointed to the Legislative Council.
English became the language of government and the medium of instruction in schools. (Sri Lanka. 2006) The British gradually prepared Ceylon, as it had been called, for independence, though it had considerable influence upon the culture during its rule. In 1947 the Ceylon Independence Act gave the colony dominion status; actual independence came on Feb. 4, 1948. After more than fifty years of independence, Sri Lanka was developing nicely into a popular tourist destination, resolving its cultural problems, developing a thriving economy and doing quite well for a developing nation. However, on December 26, 2004, a huge tsunami swept over the country and caused more than 40, 000 deaths and unbelievable damage. A thirty foot wall of water swept across the island and laid waste to life and property. The country was not prepared for a disaster anywhere near this magnitude.
International help was called for, but there were other countries involved, like India and Indonesia, which also needed help. The first considerations were the necessary cleanup, burying the dead, and disease prevention. The World Health Organization made a huge mistake which was repeated over and over by other authorities. There had been a gradual discontinuance of the use of DDT as a mosquito control agent since it became known that DDT was toxic to the environment. The use In Sri Lanka had been to spray the houses to create a repellant barrier. Even though the disease carrying mosquitoes had become gradually resistant to DDT, the barrier still worked as a repellant.
The WHO decided to use alternative methods, such as bed nets and Malathion. The mistake was in deciding upon the very costly and temporary outdoor fogging instead of using the more permanent indoor applications. In addition, the treatment was not dealt with properly. The WHO is also supplying about $ 70, 000 of old drugs, and pharmaceutical company Novartis has donated over $ 40, 000 worth of its new anti-malarial drug, Charter, which has zero failure rate in Sri Lanka. (The old drugs still just about work, although the oldest, chloroquine, is losing its efficacy in Sri Lanka, and should not really have been purchased by WHO. ) WHO actors on the ground, along with other aid-agency personnel, are doing the best they can, but they are hampered by an official policy that is harmful. Unfortunately, to speak out against it is to risk one's job, so criticisms rarely occur. The cost can be measured in Sri Lankan lives lost...
The tragedy of the tsunami is obvious and it was largely unavoidable. But malaria deaths could be significantly reduced if only health agencies would do the politically incorrect -- but morally correct -- thing and spray DDT and other long-term insecticides. If this disaster doesn't persuade them to change, nothing will. (Bate, Roger 2005) Disease was a primary consideration in the days following the tsunami, with cases of diarrhea, respiratory illnesses, but not fearsome water-borne diseases such as cholera. An inoculation program was begun among 115, 000 children in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala to stop the spread of measles in relief camps.
There were enough medicines and doctors, but water and sanitation...
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