කට්ටඩියා හා විද්යාඥයා එකකු බවට පත්වීම
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka’s media have never promoted primitive superstition as they do now, filling airtime with astrologers and sorcerers whose advertising has become a key source of revenue. He recounts testing an astrologer-candidate who claimed he could win elections by occult power, and a sorcerer-monk who threatened his life after Ravaya exposed abuse at his temple. Galileo, Newton and Einstein transformed human life yet have no followers; worse, some scientists now mimic the charlatans, spreading fear over kidney disease, milk powder and arsenic to suit political ends.
චින්තනයේ දුප්පත්කම (2)
Ivan argues that British rule transformed Ceylon’s economy and state but left its thinking feudal. Europe’s Renaissance and liberal philosophers — Copernicus to Locke and Mill — remade how people thought as well as how they lived; India’s Congress, under Gandhi and Nehru, used the freedom struggle itself as a revolution in thought against caste and communalism. Ceylon, handed independence on a tray, had only Buddhist and Hindu revivals that fought Christian dominance but, trapped by caste and unlike Ram Mohan Roy’s, never turned their criticism inward.
දරුවන් ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Noting that his columns on life draw far more response than those on politics, Ivan continues the family series. Recalling how he mediated in a cousin’s mother-in-law dispute, he sets out four principles he taught his own children: married children should live apart from their parents; parents should not depend wholly on their children; mothers should stay home with young children; and grandparents should not be made into childminders. He writes of becoming a grandfather, cites Newton and Bertrand Russell, and urges parents to build cleanliness, order, honesty, self-confidence and courage in their children for a globalised world.