නලින් ද සිල්වාගේ සංස්කෘතියේ ප්රධාන සංරචකය
Answering Nalin de Silva’s reply in Irida Divaina, Ivan agrees that the professor meant culture and not mere numbers — and then shows that the measure he uses is the number of people who speak Sinhala and profess Buddhism. He traces the Karava caste’s part in the Buddhist revival, cites the sociologists on its south Indian origins, and ends by saying that a Sinhala Hitler is what this argument is preparing the ground for.
යුද්ධය ගැන ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක්
Ivan had planned to write about the war as the subject connected to his review of 2005 to 2010 — the de facto state the LTTE ran, the war that ended its existence, and the great changes it has made in the social, economic and political picture. The leadership contest between Ranil and Karu tempted him to write about that instead, and he judged the war the more important thing for understanding the political picture.
යුද්ධය නපුරුය විනාශකාරීය, ඒ සමඟ එය ඓතිහාසික කාර්යභාරයක් ඉටු කරයි
Answering Ravaya readers angry at his support for the war, Ivan points to Gandhi raising an
ambulance corps in the Boer War and blessing the Allies against Hitler, and argues that the
Second World War was won not by non-violence but by a greater counter-violence. He applies
the same reasoning to the two JVP insurrections and to this one, and — drawing on Michael
Roberts — describes the people held with the LTTE as citizens of a de facto state that ran
its own courts, customs and army on Sri Lankan salaries.