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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, July 10, 2017
G 20 Summit – One More Photo Ops
One is not really clear as to what the G20 summit really sought to achieve except as a get together of selected few countries for whatever purpose.
( July 9, 2017, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) One
more G 20 summit has ended , now in Germany ,without paving way for any
tangible improvement in the ground situation in the world for the
better.
Why protests ?
This G 20 summit has been marked by protests against the G 20 leadership
when over 160 police officers were injured, dozens of activists
hospitalized and more than seventy protestors were detained. Typically ,
the German Chancellor thanked the security forces for their work, as
the G 20 leaders met behind a heavy police presence in a no- go zone
that were off limits to the protestors and most of the people.
While the German Chancellor is right in condemning the violent form of
protests as unacceptable, she also should have gracefully accepted the
justification for such protests , as G 20 summit has become a cosmetic
show of so called world leaders from a few countries , who are not
really representative of the countries all over the world. The
protestors think that some countries have joined together to discuss the
world issues between themselves to benefit themselves with least
consideration for other developing nations. The protestors further are
of the view that G 20 members want to discuss issues on cross section of
subjects relating to the countries who are not part of the G 20 summit.
For example, USA and Russia were discussing about the Syrian crisis
without involving Syrian government or any people representative from
Syria.
Why undermine UNO ?
Obviously, the right forum to discuss such matters and thrash out the
problems confronting the world is the United Nations Organisation and
not a group of countries which seem to be of the view, that they can
think for the world and direct the world movement. G20 summit is an
event that has inevitably undermined the importance of United Nations,
though it may not be intended that way by G20 members.
Inequality between members
One wonders how the countries participating in the G 20 summit have been
short listed who have organized themselves as a forum. Even between
these member countries, there are high income inequality. Among G 20
members, Germany recorded the lowest income inequality while South
Africa registered the highest. There are considerable differences in the
industrial growth and technology development between these countries.
There are little common between all of them.
One is not really clear as to what the G20 summit really sought to
achieve except as a get together of selected few countries for whatever
purpose.
Paris Climate Accord given go by
The world countries joined together and formulated a draft policy to
manage the world climate issues and arrived at the 2015 Paris Climate
Accord.
However, President Trump of USA has now rejected the accord in one
stroke and other G20 members and rest of the world remain surprised and
do not know how to go about further in combating global warming issues,
without participation of USA which remains as one of the significant
polluters in the world.
Discussion on trade issues in vacuum :
On the issue of trade, there is agreement that there should be fair
trade which is a universal expectation and not confined to G20 members
alone. But, the G 20 members have sought to discuss about world trade
issues between themselves, unmindful of the needs and priorities of
other countries who are deeply concerned about trade related issues and
are not part of the G20 summit.
The decision of the summit with regard to the trade issues are unlikely
to be binding on the members , as G20 summit does not have the moral
authority that United Nations has. Ultimately, all G20 members would be
chalking out the trade policies of individual member countries based on
their own self interest , as it has been happening after several G 20
summits earlier.
Whither anti terrorism strategy ?
The world is now suffering due to terrorist activities with hundreds of
innocent people losing their lives in one part of the world or the
other. Many countries affected by terrorist acts could do nothing about
this , as several countries themselves are suspected to be involved in
encouraging terrorists directly or indirectly as part of their self
centred geo political strategies.
Indian Prime Minister Modi spoke strongly against the terror groups and
named a few of them. In spite of such strong speech from Mr. Modi, there
was thunderous silence amongst other G 20 members, without any tangible
and coordinated action plans.
Cosmetic hand shakes and photo ops
Some of the G 20 members like China and India or USA and Russia have
running confrontation between themselves and have mutual suspicions.
Cosmetic laugh and hand shake between these members are not going to
make them less hostile to each other.
At the end of the G20 summit, the leaders of the member countries will
go back to their place after enjoying their retreat and world will
become no better. For these G 20 members, the G20 summit is one more
photo opportunity.