ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ දෙකඩවීම
Prompted by a 71-year-old reader in Kandy who hoped the JVP’s breakaway ‘people’s struggle’ group might revive Marxism, Ivan reflects on Marxism as a secular religion whose paradise collapsed with the socialist world, leaving devoted followers stranded. He remembers his lawyer and friend Suranjith, who gave years to the Communist Party, and the short story he wrote in prison after 1971 predicting that Mao’s own people would one day strike his statue. He recalls Leslie Goonewardene’s view that the LSSP split merely scattered a brilliant young generation — a warning for the new group — and argues that the old Left’s intellectual, liberal-democratic tradition deserves respect, that Wijeweera’s rejection of it was wrong, and that the dissidents stop their self-criticism short of Wijeweera and the two insurrections.
මීළග පාර්ලිමේන්තුවෙහි සංයුතිය කුමක් වෙයි ද?.
Ahead of the December 2001 election, the piece examines how the departure of the Muslim Congress, the Ceylon Workers’ Congress and the NUA costs the People’s Alliance about 15 seats. It works through the 2000 district results to show how bonus seats, the 5 per cent cut-off and remainders gave the JVP its ten seats, argues that the JVP is unlikely to become kingmaker, and projects a UNF vote near 50 per cent if rigging and violence are held in check.