කොමිෂන් සභා නිර්දේශ
Publishing the Lessons Learnt Commission’s report, and holding a census to find the true number of those who died in the final war in which the LTTE was defeated, can be counted two very important forward steps.
මහගමසේකර ප්‍රහේලිකාව හා අර්බුදයට තිබෙන අර්ථකථනයේ දුගීභාවය
Mahagama Sekera was an artist the country loved and respected, of the first rank in several branches of art at once, and the authenticity in his work was the artistic expression of the authenticity in his life. Ivan had a puzzle about him he could not settle for years: why the statue of him at the junction where you enter his village had been attacked, several times, by somebody.
උගත් පාඩම් කොමිසම හා උගතයුතු පාඩම්
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s report has been handed to the president, and what it finds and recommends is not yet clear. It is a commission that drew international attention: the British foreign secretary said Sri Lanka should show its honesty by making the report public, and the government says it will be put before parliament in December.
විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ හා ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂ දේශපාලනයේ ශ්‍රාස්ත්‍රීය දුගීභාවය
Ivan opens with a telephone conversation with an educated man of some standing inside the UNP who is himself a subject of argument there, and the question he put to him. What follows is an account of the intellectual poverty on both sides, of the deceiving of party members, of family politics, and of the limits of the forward vision on offer.
විකෘති වී තිබෙන දේශපාලන සංස්කෘතිය ප්‍රකෘති කිරීමේ අවශ්‍යතාව
Until the Kolonnawa tragedy on polling day, the political society saw the problems to be settled after the war as the visible ones — the disappeared, the displaced, the destroyed houses and infrastructure. What made them see that the great distortions the war worked on social life are a large problem too was what happened between Bharatha Lakshman and Duminda at Kolonnawa.
කොළඹ නගර සංවර්ධන විවාදය
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Colombo development programme is heavily criticised by the opposition, and at first sight what Ivan sees is a good change that can be felt: the city is cleaner than it has ever been, the rubbish heaps along the main roads have stopped, and not only Colombo 7 where the rich live but Borella and Wanathamulla where the poor live are clean, with the traffic much eased.
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ අර්බුදය
Will the split that has opened inside the JVP hasten the decline it was already travelling towards, or will it renew the party and make it strong again? Six sections follow, on Kumar Gunaratnam, on correct Marxism, on the JVP’s social background, on commitment, on the absence of a forward vision, and on what should be done.
යුද්ධය හා ජනවර්ග අර්බුදය
Written for the Tamil-language Veerakesari at that paper’s invitation, and it begins by placing its author: the man writing to a Tamil paper about what the Tamil people face after the war is not a Tamil but a Sinhalese — and not a Sinhalese born in a Sinhala area but one born in Batticaloa, who drove his pen to build Sinhala opinion in recognition that a grave injustice had been done to the Tamil nation.
අර්බුදය ඓතිහාසික දෘෂ්ටියකින් දැකීම
Political outlook is an important factor in whether political struggles bear fruit. Ivan is not a Marxist, and he accepts the idea that theory guides practice: there are political struggles in this country and they happen without a meaningful forward vision, and that is why the fighters have become people running on the spot.
හෘදය සාක්ෂියේ වික්ෂෝභය (3)
What Ivan sets out to analyse here is the moral crisis facing a society that has to live crushed between the two naked powers of an armed struggle for state power, when both sides stand level with each other — and specifically how that worked on the Sinhala society of the south during the JVP’s second insurrection.