Hello again, my Sepia friends! I’m delighted to say our mutinous overlords invited me back as a part-timer here at the bunker, and I promise not to abuse the privilege. (But did you feel that shudder? Those were standards being dropped.)
So as I cast about for something to write about besides boys and terrorist envoys, I found this item in the news tab (thanks Gujulicious): Sri Lanka hosted a literary festival this weekend in Galle, a beautiful city on the Southern coast with a uniquely Dutch heritage.
Attended by non other than the freshly minted Booker winner, Kiran Desai, The Galle Literary Festival billed itself as “Sri Lanka’s first literary festival” and announced noble goals:
Our objectives are to raise the awareness of the increasing depth and diversity of Sri Lankan writings in English, to give Sri Lankan writers an equal platform to their international colleagues, to encourage the use of English among young people and to attract visitors from overseas to visit Galle and the Southern Province.link
But Sri Lanka already has a National Literary Festival, as bureaucratic and stodgy as it may be. And the founder of this Galle festival appears to be an Anglo-Australian hotelier, Geoffrey Dobbs, who has a vested interested in drawing affluent tourists to his Galle hotels and resorts. And this same Geoffrey Dobbs also founded a a tsunami relief organization, AdoptSriLanka.com that is supposedly the source of funding for the Galle Literary Festival.
So as exciting as it is to imagine Kiran and Suketu Mehta and Romesh Gunesekera trading bon mots under a sacred Bo tree, something seems a little…not-so-right…no?
The Asia Sentinel has a lacerating article on this matter:
Is it appropriate for a registered charity dedicated to Sri Lankas December 2004 tsunami relief to sponsor a foreign literary festival in the middle of what to all intents and purposes is an ethnic and civil war? Of course, says Geoffrey Dobbs, a colorful Anglo-Australian hotelier who founded both the upcoming Galle Literary Festival and the charity Adopt Sri Lanka. He says he sees no conflict whatsoever.
Others, such as some who responded to Dobbs original plea for tsunami aid, arent so sure. They are asking for a full accounting and wondering why their money is being used to support a lit-fest rather than the still-suffering victims for whom it was originally intended.link
Dobbs was interviewed by NPR and The Washington Post, among others, when he began his charity organization, and his own description of his accounting practices leaves much to be desired:
The reason why we are quite effective is because there’s not a lot of red tape,” Dobbs said. “We can make instant decisions. It’s our own money, so we don’t have to account for it.”
Still, the band of businesspeople - which includes a Sri Lankan antiques dealer, a German organic farmer and a Belgian owner of a tire manufacturing company - lack the transport and professional expertise available to the government or established aid groups.
Dobbs said their strengths lie in local knowledge and contacts with village headmen. They have set up a Web site to promote their cause and attract funding, and they telephone each other daily to exchange experiences and suggest solutions.
“If a certain area needs something, and a certain area has got it, we then trade our sources of supply,” Dobbs said in an interview on the verandah of one of his colonial-era hotels, the Sun House.link
I can’t help adding my two cents to this matter based on an extended visit to Sri Lanka last summer. I’m sure many aid organizations did the best they could, but my eyes latched on to the screwups: the farmers who were given boats. Boats that were the wrong kind for the type of fishing in the area. Farmers who were not allowed to sell the damn boats they couldn’t use because that would be “profiting” from charity. Boats used as surreal begonia planters. The village headmen who seemed quite flush. Entire villages still living in tents. I find it difficult to believe philanthropist/businessman Dobbs when he says AdoptSriLanka can “move on.”
It is quite possible that all accounting irregularities are minor glitches and this festival is an act of good faith. But that leads us to the question of whether a festival featuring mostly foreign writers, few honest to god literary authors (some are chefs “working on a cookbook”) and just one panel that even comes close to addressing the conflict (“What makes Sri Lankans one?”) has any place in Sri Lanka. I smell self-interest, and it smells quite lucrative.
But if we rotate the prism and look at this situation again, isn’t this sort of press a relief for a country tired of being permanently affixed with a “war-torn” prefix? Despite the motives or sketchy funding, landing Desai and Mehta is quite a coup, and some talented but less known Sri Lankan authors get to share a spotlight, gain some exposure. And maybe, this weekend, some young writers felt validated and hopeful about their calling.
I don’t know anymore which perspective is the more idealistic. I returned from Sri Lanka more convinced than ever that this war is self-perpetuating, and that people without a vested interest in its continuation long for normalcy and find it wherever they can. The photos in the post are quick snaps from within the Galle Fort. I cede the floor to you, so please weigh in. Did anyone attend the festival?
