Sri Lanka’s been a joke for a while. At least for those compelled to live here. A deeply unfunny joke without a punchline. An island of uncanny beauty, blessed with an abundance of resources and a vibrant and literate population, Sri Lanka manages to produce ugliness on a consistent basis across a range of catastrophes.
The country has an unending supply of tragedy, absurdity and unorthodox cricketers, though it has run short of most other things – like petrol, gas, electricity, imports and competent leaders. As the economic crisis deepens, queues lengthen and prices soar, the output of jokes, memes, cartoons, skits, TikToks and fake news sites has been prolific.
It helps that each week brings new absurdities. On 9 July, the citizenry stormed the state’s buildings and ended up jumping in the president’s pool, bouncing on his bed and taking selfies on his many thrones. Days later, the president resigned by email, to be replaced by a six-time prime minister, repeatedly rejected by parliament and the electorate for the job he now occupies.
For the past few weeks, the populace has spent days and nights in petrol queues playing cards, singing songs and alternately cursing and sharing jokes about the bumbling leaders who got us here.
They range from parody songs and crude Photoshop jobs to sharply sketched cartoons and corny WhatsApp jokes. At the forefront, at least among English-speaking Twitter followers, is News Curry, an anonymous fake news factory reminiscent of the Onion. When the newly anointed president appointed a cabinet of zero women, the headline read, “I Empower Women – I Even Appointed One As My Wife”.
While the nation has seen wars, tsunamis and dictatorships, it has also seen beauty pageants where former queens storm the stage to confiscate the winner’s crown, parliamentary debates that descend into furniture-throwing brawls, a honey-based cure for Covid touted as an alternative to vaccines, and a floundering government placing more trust in astrologers than in economists during a debt crisis.
Sri Lankans smile for most things, which is frequently mistaken for friendliness by tourists and tourist brochures. While Sri Lankans are welcoming and hospitable at the best of times, the smile is more an attempt to save face and avoid confrontation. It’s a mask to hide confusion, contempt and anger, a tool to disarm an adversary and keep tensions from escalating. Though in recent times, Sri Lankan laughter is both a coping mechanism in crisis and an effective way of deposing tyrants.
During the Rajapaksa family’s first stint in government, from 2005-15, journalists who questioned the regime’s autocracy disappeared, like cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, or were assassinated in broad daylight, like newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, or driven into exile, like Frederica Jansz, who reported on Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then defence minister, offloading a commercial flight to transport a puppy from Zurich. The white van abductions that followed dissenters became a meme in itself, though not a very funny one.
After the 2019 Easter attacks, the Rajapaksas were voted back in by 6.9 million, as populist strongmen who would keep Sri Lanka safe from terror, and as technocrats who would deliver “vistas of prosperity”. Many feared the Rajapaksas would double down on stifling dissent, baiting minorities, robbing state coffers and piling up debt. However, something was different this time.
The unstable coalition government from 2015 to 2019, based on good governance – or yahapalanaya – may not have delivered on the bulk of its promises, but it had restored free media and enabled free speech. Perhaps this emboldened Sri Lankans to poke fun at the regime they previously feared. The blatant nepotism, the tone-deaf populism and the staggering incompetence were mocked by hit theatre shows like Feroze Kamardeen’s Puswedilla series; the debt crisis was satirised by YouTube sketch comedians Blok and Dino; and the day-to-day absurdity was made fun of by political cartoonists in broadsheets, opinionated morning radio hosts and hundreds of anonymous meme-makers on social media and messaging apps.
But just like the Sri Lankan smile, behind Sri Lankan laughter lurk uncomfortable truths. Take Basil Rajapaksa, the youngest brother – reportedly the strategist and organiser behind the family’s electoral triumphs. He was also the finance minister who presided over economic meltdown before being forced to resign with the first wave of the Aragalaya (struggle), as the nationwide protests came to be known.
One of his last interviews was less concerned with impending economic doom and more with the dangers of crows at Katunayake airport flying into aeroplanes. It didn’t help that Basil’s limited English vocabulary did not include the word “crow”; he referred to the birds by their Sinhala name of kaputas, thus sealing his own nickname and inspiring some of the catchier chants of the Aragalaya, which rid the island of him and his brother Gotabaya, the president.
A depressing truth lay beyond the caricature. How could a man unable to say the word crow pronounce bigger words such as debt restructuring, bridging finance and austerity measures, when negotiating with the International Monetary Fund?
But despite all the self-inflicted tragedies, as all those who have visited and those who live here know, Sri Lanka is not a miserable place – not yet, at least. While Sri Lankans negotiate queues and rising prices and wait for the economic hitmen to save them, the jokes will continue to write themselves. The band will keep playing while the ship sinks. The papare trumpets will blare while the team loses.
News Curry is predictably coy about who and how many they are. “We are the voice of reason or treason, depending on who’s doing the laughing,” they say in an online exchange. “We are anonymous for security reasons and to prevent the state from having the last laugh.”
These days, it is difficult to tell the difference between News Curry headlines and actual ones, like “No more nepotism, says MP Namal Rajapaksa” – nephew and son of two former presidents.
In the tough months ahead, Sri Lankans may draw strength from their ability to grin at tragedies and laugh at their fears. Though perhaps it is also time to get serious about reform and recovery, to elect a new generation of serious men and women with serious solutions, and to give the jokers a rest.
Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is longlisted for the 2022 Booker prize
