May Day Rallies

As to the introduction I would like to diversify topics and focus on a global phenomenon,May Day and its celebrations.

May Day or  Labour Day or International Workers Day(as it is officially termed) is about celebrating achievements of workers.

May Day Rallies to me were a vague call back to communist agenda's, until I found out that  actually started in America, and has more to do with the labor movement than communism. I’d greeted it with appreciation; because like every Sri Lankan I appreciate the occasional(sarcasm) holiday, them being so hard to come by . 

May Day in Colombo is a crazy affair. Busloads of people are brought in from all over the country, thousands of people gather in the city, they eat, they drink and they pay for nothing. Although no official figure is known, if the government’s claim that nearly 2 million people were ferried(or bused)  into the city this May is to be believed, then the cost for the whole day could have been close to a billion rupees. What is also unknown is who actually footed the bill. Mainstream media was silent on this particular nosy question.

But May Day today is less about the workers than the politicians that represent them. The money, in a rare example for our country, is flowing from the top to the bottom. It is the politicians that are bringing the workers into town. It is the politicians that are spending money, apparently motivating workers to fight for their own rights. The labor movement has been sabotaged by politics; its integrity sold for a free trip into the city, a lunch packet and a quarter bottle of liquor.

Such is life in the paradise Isle.