The looming tourism-apartheid for Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka

‘Foreigners walk in free’ ad

Social media protest against tourism-apartheid

Apartheid laundry in Sri Lanka

However, Sri Lanka is already in dangerous territory of carving out special privileges for foreigners at the exclusion of the brown locals. We are ourselves recreating a system of apartheid, which was dismantled in South Africa in 1995, or the Sri Lankan-style Jim Crow laws

In a viral video, the owner of a beachside restaurant in Tangalle was seen refusing to serve a group of locals. The man justifies his refusal, claiming that his establishment serves only foreigners. The original poster, a British Sri Lankan, laments that he had not encountered such racism even in the UK.

“This guy refuses to serve us because we are brown. We are locals, and he says we don’t serve locals. There is nobody else in this restaurant. I get so much pressure on me, especially during the floods. Oh, why are you not supporting the tourism industry? Sri Lanka really needs it right now. They don’t want brown people here. They only want white people. This is why. I’ve never faced racism like this in the UK.”

In another viral social media post, a restaurant in Mirissa advertises a party as “Foreigners walk free. For the locals, tickets at the gate.”

In another, a laundry service claims to serve “foreigners only.”

In another post, a Sri Lankan travel blogger recounts numerous incidents on New Year’s Eve where locals were ‘discriminated and made to feel unwelcome in places that had a majority of foreigners’.

Like it or not, Sri Lankans are facing a tourist apartheid in their own country. A few years ago, after the public uproar over a ‘White Only Party’ hosted, allegedly by a Russian-operated restaurant, the then Immigration commissioner terminated the visa-free stay of the Russians and Ukrainians, ordering them to leave within a fortnight.

A policy decision, which I then criticised in this same column as arbitrary, for punitive measures should target the violator, not an entire community. (Later, after Ranil Wickremesinghe, then president, intervened, the departure order was rescinded, but the extended visa-free stay was terminated.)

Nowadays, though, no one seems to care – especially the government. It may be that the JVP, a party of enforced teetotalism, may be expecting the rest of the Sri Lankans to follow its suit.

However, Sri Lanka is already in dangerous territory of carving out special privileges for foreigners at the exclusion of the brown locals. We are ourselves recreating a system of apartheid, which was dismantled in South Africa in 1995, or the Sri Lankan-style Jim Crow laws. 

Self-correction made unlikely

Once such discriminatory practices take root and are institutionalised, they become normal and hard to get rid of.  Then even well-meaning subsequent attempts to dismantle the system would face resistance. (In a comparative analogy, see the recent protests by fishermen against the ban on environmentally destructive tractor-mounted winches for Madel (seine nets).

Interestingly, it is not blue-chip companies or large travel chains that practice tourism apartheid. Rather, it is the locals who cashed in land value appreciation in the tourist boom, beach boys,  and other nobodies who, after they became somebodies,   now exclude their own people. That also makes self-correction extremely unlikely. It may sound classist, but the reality of the evolution of civilisation is not exactly a politically correct journey. Some social segments get it last, or not at all. 

That also makes legal enforcement and regulation extremely important. In the absence of proactive enforcement, the gutter sets its own rules and rules the roost. In the process, such societies are bastardised.

The evolving tourist apartheid in Sri Lanka is not just exclusionary, as if it is not bad enough. It is a symptom of multiple ills arising from the absence of regulation. It is scamming both locals and foreigners (e.g., the double pricing by three-wheeler drivers), is exploitative (no job security for much of the workforce), and sullies the country’s image. In the long term, it would discourage foreigners from visiting. 

Consider the taxi mafia in Goa, India, which had forced many Indian tourists to avoid the tourist hotspot. 

It is not known what the government thinks of the emerging insalubrious status quo.Does it think it is all right for the locals to be excluded from their own country? Or is it simply ineffective?

Without a strong government intervention, the bureaucracy or the police are unlikely act. The system is hollowed out, and even before that, pro-active regulatory measures were not Sri Lanka’s strong point. 

There exists a host of laws and regulations that ban exclusionary practices, and many state agencies are entrusted with their enforcement.

The Constitution ( Article 12.3)states: “No person shall, on the grounds of race, religion, language, caste, sex or any one such grounds, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to access to shops, public restaurants, hotels, places of public entertainment and places of public worship of his own religion.”

All that is needed is to enforce this constitutional provision to restore the status quo.

Police remain indecisive

However, Sri Lankan police, probably unsure whether that would place them on the wrong side of politics, seemed to be awaiting a presidential directive. 

Recently, when a viral video of a young man in an Eastern hamlet exposing himself to a foreign woman caused uproar, the police acted with manifest urgency to arrest the suspect. Such a sense of urgency is missing in this instance, perhaps because it was the locals who had been the aggrieved party. 

In the lacuna of law enforcement to ensure basic constitutional rights, it would take someone to file a Fundamental Rights (FR) Petition before the Supreme Court. However, in a country where environmental activists sabotage every other development project under the pretext of fundamental rights violations, this does not yet appear to be a lucrative field for skimmingforeign funds. 

Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) is entrusted with regulating the registered hotels and guest houses. However, most of these ventures might not be registered with the SLTDA. However, SLTDA should recognise that exclusionary practices by those crooked ventures would leave an indelible stain on the country’s image,  and spoil its own efforts to promote Sri Lanka as a country worthy of visiting.

If its limited remit prevents it from taking action, it should still raise the matter with the political establishment and law enforcement agencies, and demand prompt action.

Other agencies, such as the Consumer Affairs Authority, should be able to investigate discriminatory pricing, and the tourism police should look into exclusionary practices. But, more often than not, that requires an aggrieved party to file a complaint. That Sri Lankans have to go to the police in order to win the right to be served in a restaurant in their own country is a cruel joke.

The government should intervene to ensure the basic constitutional right of Sri Lankans not to be discriminated for being Sri Lankans in their own country. Strong enforcement action, and punitive measures – some of which need to be performative for certain quarters of society, are only receptive then, would roll back the emerging tourist apartheid. Failing in this would mean that by the end of its full term, the NPP government may have left behind a full-blown system of apartheid.

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