Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Being skeptical about having oil

During the height of the elections there was a proclamation that experts had found oil reserves somewhere close to Mannar. For once I wish and pray that this was also one of the election promises which isn't true. I can hear your screaming voice saying "You traitor!".  Peoples usual notion is that oil = prosperity. But if one is to go by the history oil discovery in a developing nation has always led to more problems than solutions.

Interestingly in Africa, they explained to me that Oil is the curse of African. The black gold has brought in wealth but more than the wealth it also accompanies greed. They claim that the wealth never reached the lower levels of the pyramid but instead has nurtured, dictatorships, foreign invasions, undemocratic systems,frauds, errant oil barons  etc. So when I saw the list of such countries, I just wished that we better be poor and be as we are right now.

2 comments:

  1. Seems Sri Lanka should have been one of the first countries to have been found with oil ... lol ... It got everything you mentioned already! What better we could be anyway?

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  2. Funny, I said the same thing today.

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