The most important man forgotten in the madness that was May Day

A.E. Goonesinha, Father of the Labour Movement in Sri Lanka, who founded the Ceylon Labour Union in 1922 and the Ceylon Labour Party in 1928 and who fought for the labourer and gave him dignity and decency of profession and pride in his work, was totally eclipsed in this year’s May Day madness. A.E. Goonesinha fought for the rights of the workers who were totally subjugated by the British and treated like slaves. He had a social conscience. He agitated for May Day to be made a holiday so that workers could celebrate their freedom and rights as workers. The first May Day celebration in Ceylon was held under him in 1927.

So what happened this year on May 1? Suddenly all the political parties needed the workers to support their hypocritical causes. Workers who are now cast aside, who are not even given their basic rights let alone a decent salary and EPF, who are eternally referred to as ‘Yakkos’ and made to stay ‘Yakkos’ all their life were suddenly in the limelight. There was a lot of screaming and shouting and false promises made as is the name of the game, day in and day out, destroying what little the country has achieved.

I was alarmed to hear that in the first four months of this year over 39,000 dengue patients have been hospitalised. There may be thousands more who were treated by General Practitioners. This number is usually what we have in a year and not four months! Colombo city itself has a 100% increase with over 2000 patients.

It is pertinent to look into the causes of this massive outbreak. In the 1990s dengue fever was mainly in Colombo city and the suburbs. Colombo city had around 300 during the whole year. Last year this number was ten times higher. Even in the country the numbers rose to around 40,000. But this year in four months it has reached that number.

So from Colombo, dengue spread along the rail roads, bus routes and made pockets of dengue outbreaks where the roads or tracks ended. If one goes back and studies what happened since 1990s one will find that new pockets were created in Matara, Puttalam, Kurunegala, Kandy etc. Most of the outbreaks were the result of people travelling from those areas taking the disease back into their home towns.

It was not only patients with dengue fever who took the disease to the periphery but also the Aedes (dengue) mosquito who travelled in the railway carriages or buses. The train carriages were virtually parked in overgrown areas between Maradana and Fort. When these areas developed between 2010-2014, undergrowth was cleared although we had a running battle earlier with the CTB and railway authorities trying to get the land areas bordering the St Sebastian canal cleared. The railway passengers themselves contributed to the spread of dengue as when the trains were reaching the stations they were in the habit of throwing out the waste which included yoghurt cups, plastic bottles, shopping bags etc which disappeared in the tall grass which lined the rail-

Not a single politician referred to how May Day even came about in Sri Lanka. Maybe not a single politician is even aware of the facts since their education is below O’Level standard.

A.E. Goonsinha was responsible not only for the first May Day celebration in 1927 in Sri Lanka but also for the Universal Franchise in 1928 including women’s right to vote. After being the first Sinhalese Mayor of Colombo in 1943 and a Member of Parliament and Minister of State in 1947, he later was Ambassador in Indonesia and Burma. He was invited to join SWRD Bandaranaike’s party to contest the election in 1956 but declined as he did not agree with their policies. Such was the conscience of the man who was a democrat and truly dedicated to the cause of the labourer as he believed the worker is the core of a society that makes a country successful and prosperous. Only then can the country reap profits and all can benefit.

They say people deserve the government they get. So be it if this situation carries on. J.K. Ekanayake Colombo 7

Year in and year out, May Days come and go but they have never been the true May Days they were meant to be – a day for the workers. The politicians hijack this day as their day of showing the strength of their party and the workers are totally eclipsed – leave alone not being commemorated, not even thought of or spoken of. What a shame! Besides this it’s celebrated – if you can call it that – in one or two cites only. What about the rest of the workers in the rest of the country? Don’t they count?

We cannot expect anything better from our politicians for they never see anything beyond the tips of their noses nor do they care if others point it out. But why do the workers sit back and take it? Why not celebrate it as it should be? Do we need the politicians to do so? No.

Therefore, at least for the next year let’s plan to have a truly workers’ day. Let the workers gather in common places with their families, have some kiribath and kavun, have some games and commemorate the best workers in any sense they feel. Each institute can gather or professional groups can gather at different places or each village can gather--no boozing and gambling which are the bane of the workers please.

Or – let’s do away with this notion of May Day altogether instead of giving another thing for politicians to steal from the common man - a day in the workers’ name where they don’t count at all.

We Sri Lankans keep grumbling about these inequities dumped on us by our politicians but hardly anyone comes forward to do something to change the situation. Will we ever wake up? Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai Dehiwala