27 January 2016

The story behind Q Elizabeth's glove-less handshake

President Maithripala Sirisena was so floored by it that he couldn't stop talking about how a lady called Elizabeth took off her gloves to shake his hand.  That's his innocence.  And his ignorance. But at the time he must have truly thought that he had orchestrated a single-handed revolution in defeating Mahinda Rajapaksa.  

One can't blame him for not understanding that people voted AGAINST Mahinda rather than voted FOR him (Maithripala).  One can't blame him for not understanding that Elizabeth, David and others had always seen him as an agent of their designs and not deliverer of and for the people of Sri Lanka.  

So, no surprise that he didn't understand the whole gloves-off affair.  After all it's something that the grandmasters of good governance in NGOs, professional bodies and universities never understood or else chose not to acknowledge.  However, 
now it seems that it is not just Sirisena but that the vast majority of Sri Lankans didn't get the true meaning of the gloveless handshake.  

Fortunately, we've been educated by no less a worthy than the Chairperson, University Grants Commission of Kekirilanthaya, Prof Cho Cho Ukwattage.  He's revealed it all in an email sent to Kekiri FM.  Here goes:
 
"Just think about it.  Was it only Britain that invaded countries?  No.  There were other stakeholders in the colonial project such as France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal.  And all of them, by and by, left the countries they conquered and plundered, leaving them in the hands of carefully cultivated natives who were tasked to manage value extraction and the transfer of the same to what they called the 'Mother Country'.  You can call it cost-cutting if you like.  But that's not what we are talking about.  What's important to understand is that separatism, federalism and devolutionist movements were born, bred and grew up in some cases (like yours) into fully fledged terrorist movements only in countries that had been conquered by the Brits! It's like a disease.  I am pretty certain that when Elizabeth took off her gloves, it was not about shaking your president's lovely hand.  It has to be about passing the germ!"

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