The case against Isolationism

Sri Lanka has just received a handsome bouquet from the world community, which is, in a way, a foreign policy triumph for this country, of considerable note. 'Sri Lanka has achieved excellent results in its North-East rehabilitation and resettlement programme and post-conflict economic development....Sri Lanka should share these experiences with other countries', John Ging, Response Division Director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who was in Sri Lanka on an official visit, was quoted by this newspaper as saying yesterday.

While the UN official just quoted was giving Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa his positive impressions of Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris was engaging with a visiting British Parliamentary delegation which was apparently here for an in-depth discussion of current local developments.

In the latter meet, the visiting delegation was given a comprehensive overview of what has been done by way of returning the country to complete normalcy, by the state and its agencies. In focus was the National Action Plan for the implementation of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.

These are times when a judicious and farsighted foreign policy would prove most handy. Fortunately, the Lankan state has chosen to remain engaged with the international community, and very vibrantly so.

This is proving very beneficial because the world is seeing for itself what Sri Lanka has been doing over the past three years by way of North-East reconstruction and rehabilitation. The world is in a position to see, as a result of Sri Lanka's non-isolationist and Non-aligned foreign policy trajectory, that much has been accomplished in terms of national rejuvenation following the defeat of terrorism.

Without much fanfare and trumpeting, Sri Lanka has remained open to a steady stream of visitors from abroad over the past few years, despite some sections of the West seeking to victimize her in some international bodies, and this aspect of her foreign policy has enabled this country to achieve much in the foreign relations sphere. It has been a quietly assertive foreign policy intervention which enabled this country to win a multitude of friends.

Even as we write this commentary, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, we are told, has requested the visiting British Parliamentary delegation to visit the North-East and to see for itself what this country has achieved by way of national development.

The message is that visitors need to have the evidence of their eyes on these matters rather than be passively receptive to adverse propaganda unleashed against Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's unflagging efforts to win more and more friends in the developing world, with External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris leading from the front in this endeavour, is entirely consistent with this central foreign policy thrust of getting on board, more and more friends and well wishers who could see for themselves Sri Lanka's accomplishments and comment favourably on them to the world outside.

The upshot of these insights is that it would be foolish and counter-productive to turn back the hands of time, as it were, and seek isolation and insularity as a country. Unfortunately, there are sections which advocate this policy line. Following it would be disastrous because this country would, in that event, court isolation and alienation from the rest of the world in a most irrational fashion.

But it is credit-worthy that the state has chosen to do otherwise and be engaged with the international community. Engagement, does not translate into subjugation and this important policy nuance needs to be kept in mind. Amity with the world is not enslavement to it. Rather, it amounts to building bridges with the polities and publics of the world, with the aim of conducting constructive ties and informing them about where we are getting as a country.