In the land of tea
In Ella Sri Lanka, are surrounded by tea plantations. While the tea plantation hills of Ella are beautiful in their own right, they were once native forests. The forest was felled to make way for the tea—a form of terraforming described by Amitav Ghosh in his brilliant book The Nutmeg’s Curse.
Tea was introduced to Sri Lanka by the British about 150 years ago. Sri Lanka is one of the biggest tea producers in the world. Tea pickers are paid wages of between a few dollars and about ten dollars a day, which is unlivable.
The profit made from tea goes into the hands of a few, most of whom are located in the global north.
The next time you drink your tea, perhaps send kind thoughts to the unknown people who have picked the leaves and those who work in the factories. Their toil creates our pleasure.
This is the way of extractive capitalism and colonisation. It hollows out those countries that are never allowed to emerge on the other side of wealth. Our capitalistic system needs to keep third-world countries poor so that scant wages can be paid to keep the wheels on the bus of the profit-making machines. It does not suit the money to allow all countries to become middle class and wealthy. Chaos and corruption at the political level of developing and emerging countries work for the capitalist beast that lives in London and New York.
Tourists like me love coming to countries like Sri Lanka where we pay a fraction of what we would normally pay in our home country for food and shelter.
Yet there is always a price.
All-in-accounting at a global scale would change that. The least we can do is honour the total fee – the cost of our Mother Earth to produce what we consume, the full cost to find it, refine it, grow it, water it, fertilise it, pack and transport it – the post use cost – rubbish and recycling and long term environmental costs. The cost to the people, short and long term.
Everywhere in Sri Lanka is rubbish—plastic bottles, food wrapping, everywhere. It hurts to look at it. This is a consequence, the writing on the wall of a price that is never considered by those who report incredible profits year on year.
We must factor in the price of rubbish. The cost to the people. The lack of infrastructure. So many costs that never make it to the balance sheet.
Eventually, everyone pays, even the lords and masters of Wall Street.
Today though, I think only of the price to the people of Sri Lanka.
Photo Taken August 29th 2024
