What’s the Story: The Sri Lanka Podcast
Sep 15, 2026 · 18 min · 6 segments
Despite all temptations, Sri Lanka has never been very good at merely waiting for the end of the world. But why is that, and what does it have to do with barbarians and a Hollywood monk?
David SwarbrickHost
Do we control our fate or is it all predestined? In Sri Lanka, both views jostle for ascendancy, but the decisive evidence all ends up plain to see.
Even so, given the island's history, distant past and near present, it would be all too understandable to sigh rather a lot and assert it's all fated.
After all, the island's ancient kings had a terrible habit of murdering one another with giddy abandon, plunging the state into long bouts of civil war.
And when independence finally returned, it brought with it decades of civil war, political instability, corruption and even a devastating tsunami.
And then, of course, more recently, there's Covid and the ill effects of Donald Trump.
Sri Lankans have put up with it all and still more, and yet the country comes through.
And it does so because it has a sort of unbudgeable inner resilience and a deaf sense of irony and also surely lurking deep down a belief that things will eventually get better so long as everyone keeps doing more or less the right things.
The barbarians that C.P. Kefafi immortalised in his famous poem as a perfect blame doll may appear to take centre stage on this island, but they amount to paper tigers, mere excuses for not just buggering on.
Why isn't anything going on in the Senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate in state wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle barbarians.
Do we control our fate or is it all predestined? In Sri Lanka, both views jostle for ascendancy, but the decisive evidence all ends up plain to see.
Even so, given the island's history, distant past and near present, it would be all too understandable to sigh rather a lot and assert it's all fated.
After all, the island's ancient kings had a terrible habit of murdering one another with giddy abandon, plunging the state into long bouts of civil war.
And when independence finally returned, it brought with it decades of civil war, political instability, corruption and even a devastating tsunami.
And then, of course, more recently, there's Covid and the ill effects of Donald Trump.
Sri Lankans have put up with it all and still more, and yet the country comes through.
And it does so because it has a sort of unbudgeable inner resilience and a deaf sense of irony and also surely lurking deep down a belief that things will eventually get better so long as everyone keeps doing more or less the right things.
The barbarians that C.P. Kefafi immortalised in his famous poem as a perfect blame doll may appear to take centre stage on this island, but they amount to paper tigers, mere excuses for not just buggering on.
Why isn't anything going on in the Senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate in state wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle barbarians.
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