The question...
Where did you leave your keys?
Talking Points
- IPCC: we must slash fossil fuel use immediately to stay below 1.5°C
- Cases soared as Shanghai's strict lockdown dragged on
- Hong Kong's Carrie Lam announced her exit
- Turkish inflation went bananas
- Russia renewed its assault on eastern Ukraine
- Ban on Russian coal to send dirty energy prices soaring
- Qatar is still using "forced labour" for 2022 World Cup
- The Fed committed to reducing its holdings by $1tn in a year
- Kentanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as a Supreme Court judge
- Tiger Woods made an unlikely return to Augusta
Dive deeper
Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic and political crisis since the civil war. In previous weeks we've covered the recent downturn. But at the centre of it all is one family. Their history is the key to understanding the present crisis.
Favour and rancour
The Rajapaksa's have had a good run. It's certainly been a long run. The forebears of today's clan occupied roles in the native headmen system of colonial Ceylon. Then, they acted as intermediaries between the local population and their Portuguese, then Dutch, and finally British masters. Those Rajapaksa's were tax-collectors, ceremony-holders, and law-enforcers all at once. Unsurprisingly, over time their influence grew far beyond their southern landholdings. By 1947, the family's star was shining brightly. Don Alwin Rajapaksa was the sitting member for Beliatta, in the old stomping ground of Hambantota district. There, he found himself at the epicentre of a nationalist movement whose time was fast approaching.
Sidebar: A quick word on the Tamils of Sri Lanka, whose loss, at every turn, has been the Rajapaksa's gain. All empires exploit preexisting ethnic or religious divisions to create new social strata that benefit them. In fact, a fair slice of the world's history over the last century has been about the decay of such systems. In Sri Lanka, the British favoured the northern Tamils for their proficiency with the English language. The Tamils were entrusted with key posts, and much of the central highlands (formerly Sinhalese land) was handed to them for tea plantations. Meanwhile, rancour among the majority Sinhalese island grew and grew.
The end of colonial rule marked a moment of great opportunity, and power swung from one group to the other. Don Alwin and his Sinhalese compatriots meted out favours to their people and sidelined the Tamils. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils were made stateless and deported to India. The Sinhala Only Act replaced English with Sinhala as the only national language, effectively excluding most Tamils from public service. Anti-Tamil pogroms followed, laying bare a fractured sectarian landscape. Don Alwin went on to serve as agriculture minister and then deputy speaker of parliament. He eventually retired in 1964, just as his nine children were stepping up to the plate. You'll know at least two of them: Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The Terminator and the Tigers
In 1981, tensions between Sinhalese and Tamils in the northern city of Jaffna exploded in an orgy of violence. After a deadly rally for Tamil independence, incensed Sinhalese backed by the police launched a pogrom in the northern city of Jaffna. In the paroxysms that followed, the Sinhalese torched the Jaffna Public Library, one of the largest in Asia, destroying 95,000 manuscripts. The building was a receptacle for Tamil identity and knowledge — and the act remains one of the worst examples of biblioclasm in modern history. The civil war that broke out two years later lasted nearly three decades.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, colloquially known as Gota, didn't shy away from violence. The experienced officer was sent north to Jaffna in 1983, to command a battalion based in Jaffna. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were his target, and over the next few bloody years he earned himself the nickname, "The Terminator". The war would wax and wane through the 1980s and 90s, but Gota would reappear every time counter-insurgency tactics were needed. While soldiers under Gota's command were out burning villages, the rest of the family were adorning themselves in titles. Chamal took a reserved seat as MP for Hambantota in 1989. Basil briefly and unsuccessfully played politics; then emigrated to America.
But it was Mahinda who rose highest. From 1989 onwards he has rarely been out of the public eye. In 2004, he managed to scrape over the line as the 13th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. A year later, he was bumped up to the presidency. Gota meanwhile was helping to kick the Sri Lankan Civil War along. After a vicious four year campaign in the north and east, the LTTE collapsed in 2009. Having claimed Velupillai Prabhakaran's scalp, Mahinda strolled to victory the following year.
Let the good times roll
Mahinda's second term as president marked the zenith of Rajapaksa power in Sri Lanka. The triumphant leader awarded himself half a dozen cabinet portfolios and dealt more out to his brothers - Gota, Basil, and Chamal. Between them, the four held a final veto over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget. Would it then surprise you to learn that, over the years, the Rajapaksa's have happened to amass a vast fortune? The money, billions of it, is held in the United Arab Emirates and the Seychelles. Enormous patronage networks stretch out from the Rajapaksa's to touch every element of Sri Lankan business. A small gratuity here, a friendly tender there, a finder's fee for me, exclusive bidding rights for you. Cronyism and nepotism weren't shameful acts to be hidden under the family's rule - they became the modus operandi.
But nothing lasts forever. In 2015, the family was bundled out of the top jobs. A coalition promising sensible spending took over - but sadly proved to be completely dysfunctional. After the shocking 2018 Easter suicide bombings, Gota was once again back in contention for the presidency . Campaigning on a simple platform (Sinhala-Buddhists against the rest) Gota swapped his stripes for a suit. In 2020, Mahinda too was back - once more as prime minister. The family once again had control of 24% of the budget. Naturally, all those pesky investigations into graft and shonky land deals were shelved.
The family may well have sought to bring back the halcyon days of economic mismanagement , but the pandemic, and then a land war in Europe, thwarted them. Now, protesters are furious at the family who have enriched themselves for decades at the expense of the country. Things are moving quickly. Some of the family have already fled to Dubai. Others have dispatched shipping containers full of their possessions under military guard. Sri Lankan are bearing witness to the flight of kleptocrats . But will the deep roots of the Rajapaksa's finally be hacked out too? That would have seemed unthinkable a year ago. Now, maybe.
Worldlywise
Your French election vote card
The Fifth Republic goes to the polls tomorrow in what, save some serious polling anomalies, will be the first of two votes. Who have they got to vote for?
French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking a second term in the Élysée Palace. He may well get one. His first has been a study in contrasts. At home, thoughtful reforms reduced unemployment and halved primary school class sizes in poor areas. But Macron over-promised on revitalising the skeletal former-industrial towns of France. And the feeling of being left behind invigorated the gilets jaunes movement of 2018. On the world scene, France has played a much more assertive role. And it has also come through the pandemic far better than most of its neighbours.
Macron's primary rival, as at the last dance, is Marine Le Pen. She’s hoping that the dire leftist warning “Macron 2017 = Le Pen 2022” comes true. Last election was a trouncing. This time, Le Pen has toned down the racism and spoken almost exclusively about cost-of-living pressures. Unfortunately for her, early pamphlets from the campaign featured a photo of her shaking hands with... Vladimir Putin (whoops). Third time's a charm?
Third on the grid is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The grizzled leftist warrior likes Cuba, dislikes NATO, and is making appearances simultaneously across the country via hologram rallies. (Augmented reality meets politics, how very 2022.) If the race goes to a second round he is the last viable candidate.
Éric Zemmour meanwhile is trying to squeeze into the space Le Pen vacated, as a far-right firebrand. The author and media figure has been raging about his country’s decline for decades. His latest book, Le Suicide franćais, places the blame for this moral and aesthetic collapse on feminism, egalitarianism, and immigration. Zemmour’s centre-piece “re-migration” policy would eject one million non-White migrants from France. And he is a big fan of the Vichy regime (admittedly a strange position for a Jewish man to hold).
Then there are all the also-rans. Anne Hidalgo, and her floundering Socialists. Valerie Pecresse, and her equally-floundering Republicans. A Greens candidate who isn’t terribly focused on climate change. Another far-right figure, but one not xenophobic enough to garner attention. Assorted communists and ruralists.
The Everything (But That) Store
The working conditions for Amazon sorters, packers, and drivers are a regular news item, and rarely for good reasons. In March 2020, Covid-19 was spreading unchecked through factories and warehouses. On New York's Staten Island, in Amazon fulfilment centre 'JFK8', the conditions were so unsafe that one employee, Chris Smalls, led colleagues on a walkout. That act cost him his job . But the punitive dismissal — a warning to Smalls' coworkers — has now cost Amazon far more. Last Friday, the ex-packer popped champagne in front of the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) building in Brooklyn. JFK8 had just voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favour of the fledgling Amazon Labor Union; the first successful organisation effort in the history of the company. The company, which fought the vote every step of the way, expressed disappointment. Equally disappointing was a leak revealing that Amazon's new internal chat app will block certain keywords ("union", "compensation", "plantation", "diversity", "injustice", "robots"... the list goes on). It's all probably too late anyway . Dozens more Amazon warehouses have filed with the NLRB to hold their own votes.
Healthy and happy workers make for more productive, longer-term workers — this is something the pandemic has brought into sharp relief. Most companies have been looking for new ways to improve staff motivation and hold on to workers: WFH arrangements, four-day weeks, better pay, shared decision-making. But at Amazon, warehouse staff turnover is not a new problem. Even before the pandemic, staff attrition was around 150% per year. In other words, 3% of its workforce would quit every week. If you think that number looks high, you're right. It's 10 times the industry average.
In an unfortunate bit of timing, Amazon announced its executive pay packages on the day of the JFK8 vote. CEO Andy Jassy received $212.7m (including stock that vests over 10 years) — 6,474 times the median pay for his employees.
The best of times
A safe bet
Researchers from Oxford and the Karolinska Institute gathered people from around the planet for a fascinating experiment: to find the world's best scent. They recruited 235 individuals from "disparate odiferous environments": Mexican metropolises, Andean villages, Southeast Asian fishing towns, and rainforest hamlets. Vanilla turned out to be the overwhelming favourite . The results suggest that smell is not a culturally-defined sensibility, as previously thought. Or perhaps the study was flawed since "onion and garlic gently sautéing" (the actual best smell) didn't make the cut of the 10 scents to choose from.
How do you change someone's mind?
Gently .
The worst of times
Court politics
In areas recently relinquished by Russian forces, evidence of summary executions has been found on every street corner. Many have called for Russia's leaders to face trial over apparent war crimes. But where and how?
German courts recently heard a war crime case involving Syrian officers. But how do you get a Russian general out of Russia and into Germany? Zelenskyy wants a "Nuremberg-style trial" but for that to happen Russia must first lose the war. The International Criminal Court is equipped to deal with such cases, but Russia is not a signatory of the Rome Statute (nor, for that matter, are the US, China, India, Indonesia, or Israel).
Speaking of the ICC
This week the 72-year-old Sudanese militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman faced the ICC for historic war crimes committed during the Darfur crisis. He is the first and only Janjaweed commander to stand trial: one man shouldering the responsibility for a conflict that killed a quarter of a million people. Is this what justice looks like?
Highlights
The image
The most over-excited city in America unveiled its own version of Wall Street's 'charging bull' statue this week. Miami is hosting the Bitcoin 2022 conference as part of its plan to become a future financial capital. Given Bitcoin is down 30% from its November peak, one might argue the bull should be missing a leg - or more. Still, there is a subversive and poetic rhyme to the sculpture. After all, both Bitcoin and Miami could be under water soon. Image supplied by Bloomberg .
The Quote
"We did not expect to find the highest number of particles in the lower regions of the lungs, or particles of the sizes we found."
– Laura Sadofsky of Hull York medical school was surprised by the volume of microplastics in the lungs of living people. You've probably got polypropylene (plastic packaging) and PET (plastic bottles) in your lungs too.
The Numbers
50.6% rise
- Canadian house prices have soared over the last two years . Justin Trudeau's ruling Liberals targeted this absurdity in the budget this week: foreigners are banned from buying homes for two years, and billions are to be spent on new housing initiatives. But even if this cools the market, home ownership will remain beyond the reach of most people unless they dangerously overextend themselves with borrowed money.
9,000 items for sale each day
- This week the Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein raised north of $1bn on a $100bn valuation from a trio of US hedge funds. That's more than Zara and H&M combined. If you are unaware of Shein, ask the nearest 15-year-old. It is turbo-mode-drop-shipping delivering $5 t-shirts to Gen Z'ers everywhere. The model is essentially a conveyor belt from factory to landfill (or the ocean) with only a week-long stop in someone's wardrobe.
The Headline
"Meta plans 'Zuck bucks' virtual coins for Facebook and Instagram users"
— The Guardian . Every day we stray further from God.
The Special Mention
At risk of inflating his sense of self, we are awarding this week's special mention to Elon Musk. At inkl we are big fans of anyone who puts their money where their mouth is. In this case Musk's mouth (quite famously) is on Twitter. And now so is his money.
The Best Long Reads
- Businessweek knows how to transition to a four-day work week: don't cram in five days worth of meetings.
- The Economist argues that Emmanuel Macron is a cautionary tale for centrists everywhere.
- And finally, can we interest you in the size of naked mole-rat spleens? A wonderful read from The Atlantic.
The answer...
So where did you leave your keys? If you've forgotten, that might not be a bad thing. New research is beginning to illuminate this foggy area of brain functionality. As it turns out, forgetting is an essential component of prioritising and encoding memories . We hope you remember this the next time you are rifling about for your keys.
