(Not very) Abstract: ‘Life During Wartime’

S. M. Owens posted a photo:

Not very Abstract ‘Life During Wartime’

I wrote the following after my last visit to Sri Lanka in 2014.

In the yard of Dematagoda engine shed, Colombo, are the rusting remains of a couple of steam engines; for some reason, there seems to be more tenders than locomotives. If I’m not mistaken they’ve been moved from where they were last time I saw them; unsurprisingly, they appear dreadfully forlorn.
By the side of the road in Negombo, ironically, outside the cemetery (near Saint Sebastian’s church), is an old steamroller. It’s obviously been in exactly the same position for some considerable time – plants are growing inside the driver’s cab. This redundant yellow monster has a maker’s nameplate on the front, and this says that the machine was manufactured by a company called Nicolina, of Romania, at a guess, during the 1970’s.
To the victor, the spoils; the peace dividend is bearing fruit. Strange fruit, perhaps: new buildings, renovations, and grandiose projects on a scale few could have imagined. And, if it’s not too insensitive to ask: where is the money coming from, and where is it going; and who will benefit from this investment? Sure, certain things were and still are crying-out to be done; a nation paralyzed by a long and divisive war was desperate for an injection of capital and a vision for the future.
The president of China had been in the country not long before my visit. China is now playing partner and paymaster. No surprise there, but lots of irony, plus things to be concerned about if you’re troubled by such geopolitical matters. How this relationship is viewed in the mega-country to the north, I cannot know, but it must be something of an irritant to the nationalist BJP regime.
The new, Indian premier had also recently been in the country, no doubt eager to find out exactly what’s going on. I can’t imagine he enjoyed much success in this regard, but he’d have to be blind not to have noticed the influence of China.
Hopefully, the Colombo port expansion will stop at that, and not become a huge, land reclamation project. I was lucky enough to be able to view this from the fourth floor restaurant of the Grand Oriental Hotel – shame I didn’t have a camera. It’s probably the first time since the end of British involvement that anything of this scale has been undertaken.
On Galle Face, there’s also a huge project underway. Part of the lake has been drained and it appears that they are building a shopping complex – well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it. The Galle Face Hotel is also having a make-over.
I’d be astonished if dignitaries from foreign powers stop to admire the relics of previous liaisons – such as the steam engines and the steamroller. But to me, this seems to be a serious oversight on their behalf. They might learn something vital. What these things illustrate so graphically is the failure of previous interventions – fleeting ambitions, left to rot in remote, forgotten outposts.
It is easy to recognize that Colombo is largely a British colonial city. It has things in common with its contemporaries: Madras and Rangoon, and to a lesser extent Calcutta and Penang. Equally, it has characteristics which set it apart. Before the British, there was the Dutch – they left their mark, too; and before them, the Portuguese.
Their legasy includes Slave Island and Lake Beira…. One afternoon, over tea, I found myself telling an old Sri Lankan friend that Slave Island was so-called because it was where the Portuguese kept their slaves; and Lake Beira was named after the port in Mozambique (also a Portuguese colony) where most of the slaves had been shipped from: Beira. There were, apparently, at that time, crocodiles in the lake, and these ensured that the slaves didn’t go far. When the Dutch arrived, they released the slaves into the larger population.
So who lives on Slave Island today, and who are the colonial power? Perhaps for now, I’ll leave that be….
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Saint Sebastien’s church in Negombo was one of those bombed in the Easter Sunday attacks of 2019.
‘Life During Wartime’: a song by Talking Heads. The photo was taken in 1992 during the civil war.

Photo & Text:
S. Owens
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