Sri Lanka needs urgent surgery!
Sri Lanka needs emergency surgery, not an election, Victor Ivan writes — and he is careful to say what he means by surgery, what diagnosis must come first, and what the next president will actually be able to do.
Overcoming wretchedness
What the country needs now is not an election but structural change, Victor Ivan argues — and he describes trying, and failing, to get that point onto the agenda of a meeting of party leaders.
Can Sri Lanka be saved?
Neither the government nor the opposition, Victor Ivan argues, but a third option: he describes what the Punarudaya Movement has actually tried in villages and meeting halls, and what it learned.
Making a People’s Constitution for Sri Lanka
Having argued that the Constitution has lost its spirit, Victor Ivan sets out what a replacement should do: build the nation, empower the people directly, and put constitution-making beyond the reach of the Executive alone.
Overcoming the crisis: The second freedom struggle
If the collapse of the state cannot now be avoided, what should replace it? Victor Ivan calls for a ‘second freedom struggle’ led by public organisations rather than political parties, aimed at a new constitution.
අශීලාචාර තත්ත්වය පවත්වාගෙන යමුද? ශීලාචාර රටක් ඇතිකර ගමුද?
Ivan frames the January 2015 election as a choice about the country’s future. After defeating a rebellion a state must heal, not keep ruling by fear; yet after Prabhakaran’s defeat the Rajapaksa government had no vision for repairing the damage to people, infrastructure, society and institutions, and turned the victory to its own ends, using the forces for power. He asks why the rebellions arose and argues that re-electing Mahinda Rajapaksa would entrench an uncivilised state.
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.
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.
ව්යවස්ථා සම්පාදනයේ දකුණු අප්රිකානු ආදර්ශය (ව්යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්රශ්නය-8)
Part 8 holds up South Africa as a model. After de Klerk freed Nelson Mandela in February 1990, multi-party talks from 1991 agreed a two-stage transition: an interim constitution, elections in 1994, and a constitutional assembly given two years to draft a final text, with wide public participation through theme committees, which the new Constitutional Court then tested against agreed principles before approving it.
ලිඛිත ව්යවස්ථා ඇති රාජ්යයක් ඇතිවීම (ව්යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්රශ්නය-7)
Part 7 traces how written constitutions arose as the grip of theology broke in Europe. Ivan sets out ten principles of the liberal idea of the nation-state, from popular sovereignty and the separation of powers to equality before the law, protection of minorities and a secular state, then contrasts Britain’s unwritten constitution and parliamentary sovereignty with the American constitutional convention, now 228 years old, and India’s constituent assembly, which built a constitution for a vast and diverse nation.