Sri Lanka’s expo effort lies exposed

It was a curious press release that the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau issued on Monday 8 June. For immediate release, it said. The contents had to do with Sri Lanka’s presence at the ongoing Expo 2015 being held in Milan, Italy. But there was nothing urgent in it that required immediate media and public attention.

There was little in the way of urgent news in it. If there was one could understand the release being tagged “immediate release”. There was nothing earthshattering in it. In fact there was little that would have caused even a minor tremor in Milan and sent the daily life of its citizenry and the thousands of foreign visitors to expo out of kilter. So why this inordinate rush to send it out to the media when it could have been done even a week later without it been dated? 

What prompted such frenzied activity?

One was left wondering what it was that prompted the Tourist Promotion Bureau into such frenzied activity throwing even accuracy to the wind.

It then became apparent that this was a sequel to remarks that appeared the previous day in a local newspaper citing the observations of some Sri Lankans from Colombo, and others living abroad who had visited the Sri Lanka pavilion at Expo. They had voiced their disappointment at our performance and what seemed to be lack of visitor interest in our pavilion having not seen a single foreigner during their visits. 

The fact that the press release came the very next day was no doubt the official response to these observations.

Joint patriotic voyage

If one is ready to overlook the linguistic aberrations in the observations of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman Rohantha Athukorala, and Export Development Board Chairman Bandula Egodage in the press release, it would appear that we must all applaud the efforts of their joint patriotic voyage, never mind the disappointment of Sri Lankan visitors who are better acquainted with our history and what our country has to offer more than the average foreign visitor to the pavilion.

One would think that this is the first time that Sri Lanka has participated in Expo when we have done so for many, many years, winning plaudits on the way.

“We as a nation needs to be patriotic and support the country….” says Athukorala, unfurling his own brand of patriotic credentials which implies that genuine criticism and patriotism are mutually exclusive.

In their hurry to hang their patriotic flags out to dry, Athukorala and his EDB colleague Bandula Egodage failed even to spell correctly the name of the country’s Prime Minister which is spelled Wickremesinghe and not as it is in the press release.

Let us begin at the beginning

As Lewis Carroll would say, let us begin at the beginning. Pavilion Director Dhammika Gunawardena writing from Milan says Sri Lanka spent just $ 0.5 million dollars on its stall which it received “at gratis” from the Italian Government whereas Nepal, Malaysia and Thailand spent $ 20 million.

He does not say whether this amount is what the other three countries spent collectively or individually. Even if each spent $ 20 m, this would surely include the cost of their pavilions which we got “at gratis”.

If this was the individual cost of pavilions as claimed by our Pavilion Director, is it not curious how each country has spent exactly the same round figure of $20 m?

Or is this an arbitrary figure touted to show how we have struggled to put up this show just as the 30,000 persons who we are told visited the pavilion in the first month – all this is nice round figures.

But he does not say how this figure was arrived at. Did the pavilion have some electronic tagging device, some book each visitor signed before entering or was there a pavilion assistant standing at the door counting each entrant like counting sheep to fall asleep? 

Dubious figures, duplicated images

These seem dubious figures especially in the light of 14 photographs of the pavilion I understand were sent along with the press release, probably as evidence of foreigners rushing to admire our pavilion and the products exhibited.

A careful look at those pictures as numbered in the press release sent to the media and not as they appear in the Tourism Promotion Bureau website shows the same persons are being duplicated. Images 1, 3 and 11 have some of the same persons. So do 6 and 7 and 9 and 10 and 11, 12 and 13. They can be identified as the same persons by their features or their clothes.

So if 30,000 visitors made it to the pavilion, which might well be contested, why are we fathered with pictures showing the same persons when the Pavilion Director has had such a wide choice of subjects to select from and not ones with the sparse attendance the pictures actually depict?

Theming the showcase on a trade theme

“Sri Lanka is the only stall that has themed the showcase on a trade theme while most country stalls at Expo 2015 are on the theme ‘feeding the world,’ which has taken around two-and-a-half years to construct and ship from the home base,” the statement says, quoting Rohantha Athukorala, Sri Lanka’s ‘Commissioner General for Expo 2915’.

If Athukorala is expecting to be Commissioner General 900 years from now, he would surely have to emulate Methuselah and live as long!

Whatever “themed the showcase on a trade theme” means, one finds it rather difficult to comprehend what has taken around 2½ years to construct and ship from home since that sentence is looking at comparative approaches of different countries. It cannot be the theme ‘feeding the world,’ surely. In any case, most country stalls adhered to the theme ‘Feeding the Planet – Energy for Life’ because that was the declared theme of Expo 2015.

Why did Sri Lanka deviate from the theme?

If so why did Sri Lanka deviate from the theme of Expo 2015, a theme that underlines two issues critical to the world today – food and energy? Surely it cannot be because Sri Lanka has nothing to show in these two areas when agriculture to feed the nation has been a subject that occupied the minds of even our ancient kings as did water, another source of energy.

While Athukorala is busy branding whatever he is branding, he might profitably spend some time reading this country’s history from the days of our kings, especially on their efforts to feed their people and conserve water for purposes of irrigation.

Some aspects of this could have brought to the fore especially since we can boast of a great hydraulic civilisation.  

EDB Chairman Egodage says he was fortunate to visit the pavilion and ‘get endorsement of “Sri Lanka, ethical sourcing destination”’

(whatever that means) but endorsement from whom, pray? The Milan effort will be a “platform for global reach,” he boasts. Laudable intention, no doubt. But when reaching out to the moon it might be wise to stand on firmer ground.