Marie Antoinette Credo in GPS + Withdrawal

Marie Antoinette was the Queen consort of Louis XV1, the last King of France whose reign ended with the French revolution in 1792. She however, had nothing to do with human rights as they are flaunted today, but became famous for her statement during the turbulent days leading to the French revolution. When bread, the staple food, became the issue of unrest among the people she retorted, “If there is no bread, then let them eat cake!”

Last week, the European Union decided to announce its withdrawal of the GSP+ facility to Sri Lanka for its imports from the island nation citing ‘shortcomings’ in the country’s human rights practices. However when we evaluate the timing and the reasons adduced to this withdrawal, it is plain that there is an unmistakable parallel in this action to the element of cruelty and hubris embedded in the Marie Antoinette statement.

Human rights practices in Sri Lanka, a country with a 443 year legacy of colonial rule, should not be compared with those in the European countries where there was an enlightened and prosperous ‘middle class’ who formed the vanguard of the country’s social and political activity for the past 200 years. Sri Lanka has a history of been plundered and pillaged with its people driven to, ignorance and brink of survival, whereas in Europe, the people were literate and sophisticated, albeit due to colonial domination, and their needs were in contrast to those in the victimized nations.

Human needs have a hierarchy, and human societies through their own evolutions have established themselves at different stages of this hierarchy, depending on their social sophistication and sumptuousness. It was Abraham Maslow, that famous theorist on human motivation that theorized the human need hierarchy, stating that each person has a hierarchy of needs ranging from basic physiological requirements like food and shelter, through social requirements such as reasonability and fairness, ending up in self actualization needs. What is important about this needs hierarchy however is that a person’s or a nation’s upward mobility on this hierarchy depends on the satisfaction of the needs at the preceding level. This is proof enough to say that a person’s needs and rights blossoms with his standard of living and social evolution.

It is when the basic needs are satisfied that the man will then become conscious of his need to: love and be loved, to enjoy social justice, be equitable etc.. In short, a man, who can not ensure food to himself would not have the capacity to procreate or still, would not be concerned about the quality of his children’s education. Therefore there essentially is a scale in human needs where ‘basic human needs’ precede ‘human rights’.

Countries like USA and Britain have a citizenry whose basic needs are well met and hence they would certainly be interested in asserting their human rights to augment living conditions further. But the people in the west should be only too aware of the struggles they had to wage during the Industrial revolution in Europe to win their basic human rights and how those rights have evolved with general development leading to the birth of the ‘middle class’. In such a context how could a society, only a few years after centuries of colonialism, adopt human rights paradigms as they are practiced at present in the west?

Therefore it is unrealistic to draw parallels between the situation today in the advanced west and the developing countries. Developing countries have been exploited for centuries with alien socio economic structures enforced on them by the colonials to suite colonial agendas. For instance what human rights did the citizens of Ceylon have in 1948, the time the British left the Island, when the nation’s justice was administered in a language that 96% of the country’s population did not understand? What right for education did they have when almost all the country’s educational institutes conducted education in a language their children did not understand? What human rights did the Tamils, brought to the country as indentured labor have, when they hardly had enough space to sleep within the line rooms allocated to them for dwelling; when they had to work unrestricted number of hours and when they did not understand how their wages were calculated? What human rights were they interested in when they were fighting to meet their basic physical needs like adequate food, shelter and clothes?

Therefore the people in Sri Lanka are still struggling to survive with basic human needs, requiring to evolve a tried and tested structure for socio economic development and social justice. In such a context expecting a fool proof human rights situation would be tantamount to expecting the average Sri Lankan to adjust his pallet to suit the different tastes of cakes, when he can not in reality, afford even bread. This also has the effect of putting the cart before the horse because it is an attempt to enquire in to the comforts in the cart with little regard to whether the horse can pull the cart when it becomes too heavy with all the comforts. In fact this could be pernicious from the developing country’s point of view because the priorities of the Government, with limited resources, could be different from the west’s high standards in human rights practices.

In short, human civilization and economic development in a society have a symbiotic relationship and they have to evolve in stages to reach the optimum level where human rights are enthroned. Hence Sri Lanka’s need of the hour right now is its own socio economic development because it is the development of the people that will finally make the country’s democratic institutions robust. For this the people of Sri Lanka would always look up to the arbiters of democracy and human rights for understanding and support in their struggle towards strengthening their social, economical and political status.

Sri Lanka has just emerged from a 30 year bloody war where they had to confront the world’s most ruthless and successful terror group in the world. The Government was not able to have its writ implemented in about 1/4th of the island’s territory during this time and as a result there was anarchy and breaches of human rights in those areas. It was just 7 months ago that the government was able to restore law and order in the island, in its entirety, and hence now the lines of accountability and governance are more clearly established. The withdrawal of the GSP+ facility at this juncture therefore, makes it all the more anachronistic since the country is just struggling out of its war legacy and threatened democratic institutions.

In such a context when the EU attempts to impose their own advanced standards of human rights with punitive actions on Sri Lanka, would create a ‘no win’ situation for both, Sri Lanka a well as for those interested in the promotion of democracy and human rights universally. This would be especially so when the net effect of that punitive action is to take away the jobs of the poor and the vulnerable pushing their living standards back to the basic levels in the rights hierarchy. Such action therefore, would be viewed with the same cynical hypocrisy of Marie Antoinette advocacy because the action in itself infers that ‘Since there are ‘shortcomings’ in Sri Lanka’s capacity to live up to the standards where the country could enjoy cakes (optimum human rights), we are herewith punishing you by withdrawing your bread!’ Hence the EU has withdrawn our bread, citing ‘our inability enjoy cakes’, as a reason.

- Asian Tribune -