සම්බාධක දංගෙඩිය මුවවිට සතුටින් කල් ගෙවන ජාතියක්
With the UN human rights investigation under way, Ivan warns that the government is ignoring the danger of sanctions, which no country has escaped unharmed. A small country’s foreign policy should seek safety, not confrontation with the United States and Europe. He criticises the government’s false show of innocence over alleged wartime abuses and the continuing hardship of Tamils in the North five years after the war.
ජවිපෙ ප්රහාරයට පිළිතුරක් (ලංකා පුවත්පතේ පළවූ විවේචන දෙකට පිළිතුරකි.)
Ivan answers two attacks in the JVP paper Lanka by a writer calling himself ‘Kasakaraya’ (the flogger), who branded him a fraud and accused him of preparing the ground for Ranil Wickremesinghe as he had for Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994. Calmly, he replies that he began writing books in prison after 1971, recalls Ravaya’s 25th anniversary, explains that the Kaha Pati campaign arose from the violent North Western provincial election of 1999, and states that his aim is not to install any leader but to win a framework for changing the political system.
කළයුත්තේ කුමක්ද?
Quoting Mao that falling into a pit teaches the mind, Ivan asks whether Sri Lankan society learns from its disasters. After defeating Wijeweera’s rising and then Prabhakaran, the country had a chance for an Asoka-like turn from war to reconciliation, but the victor was blinded by triumph. The crisis has taken a new form, hidden behind an illusion of development built on infrastructure and debt. The Rajapaksa government has lost its moral right to rule; the opposition’s first task is a common programme agreed through open negotiation.
පිළිකාවේ සදාචාරය හා සදාචාරයේ පිළිකාව
The death of a village teacher, a neighbour and relative, from cancer, and the difficulty of recovering her body, lead Ivan to examine the state of cancer care and medical ethics in Sri Lanka. Drawing on a conversation with his daughter, a professor’s account of radiation equipment, his family’s own hospital experiences and a doctor he respects, he describes failing diagnostic equipment, the dominance of private channelling, rushed surgery in state hospitals and a change in the class character of the medical profession.
ජාතියේ අන්ධ ගමන
On 15 July 2014 the President appointed foreign experts, including Sir Desmond de Silva, Sir Geoffrey Nice and David Crane, to advise the Paranagama commission, a sudden reversal of the government’s stand against foreign involvement. Ivan asks what the move is for, given the Defence Secretary’s long hostility, and argues that the government failed to foresee that accountability after the war could not be avoided. Having leaned on China and adopted an anti-Western line, Sri Lanka is on a blind journey that its strategic position makes dangerous.
දර්ශනයේ දුප්පත්කම
A reply to C.A. Dissanayake’s Ravaya article defending limited constitutional reform, which Ivan links to Dr Jayampathy Wickramaratne’s thinking. He questions who ‘Dissanayake’ really is, rebuts his account of J.R. Jayewardene’s Second Amendment to the 1972 constitution, which created the presidency, and argues that the executive presidency changed the whole character of Parliament: the old MP elected by a small constituency served the people, while today’s MPs, chosen under preferential voting, depend on money and patronage.
ජාතියේ අන්ධකාරය
Starting from Gandhi’s view of struggle, Ivan examines the militarisation of Sri Lanka since 1971: by global indices it is among the most militarised countries in South Asia, and the forces grew hugely for the final war. He asks who is responsible for the rebellions, citing Bertrand Russell on the state, argues that the nation owes a debt to all who suffered, and warns that five years after the war the army has not been reduced and the national mood, driven by secret political movements, has turned against human rights.
ජාතිය ගොඩනැගීම
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka failed to meet two historical conditions for building a nation. The Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim leaders of the independence era were limited in outlook; liberal ideas came mainly through educated Burghers, while revivalists such as Migettuwatte Gunananda took another path. The left movement and the Jaffna Youth Congress briefly stood for a united nation. India, with its pluralist attitudes, built a nation and a democracy; Sri Lanka, by comparison, is in an ugly state.
ගෝඨාභයගේ හෙවණැල්ල
Ivan credits Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa with driving the war to a conclusion, but argues that he failed at what must follow the defeat of an internal rebellion: the humane rehabilitation of the defeated, as after 1971 and 1989, and letting a people mourn its dead. His gravest wrongs, Ivan writes, were the killing of criminals without trial, which continued after the war, and his patronage of extremist groups, from the halal campaign to the Beruwala and Aluthgama violence, which threatens to undo the peace won by defeating Prabhakaran.
ඊළඟ මුවහම මුස්ලිම්වරුන්ද?
Ivan warns that a handful of extremist groups acting in the name of Buddhism, apparently with state protection, are pushing the country towards bloodshed again. Black July 1983 internationalised the Tamil question and fed the northern insurgency; turning on the Muslims now would isolate Sri Lanka in a world with a vast Muslim population. He traces the Muslims’ history in the island, their ties with Sinhala castes such as the Salagama noted by Ananda Coomaraswamy and Ralph Pieris, and argues that envy of Muslim success in trade lies behind the hostility.