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.
යුද්ධයෙන් ජයගෙන ප්රචාරණ යුද්ධයෙන් පරාජය වීම
The government won its war against Prabhakaran in an astonishing way. What it failed to do was to understand in advance that after that victory it would have to fight a more complicated propaganda war against the diaspora friendly to him, and that failing in that war could cost it everything the fighting had won.
නිදහසේ වාන් දොර ඇරීම
A fundamental change in the political system is essential to any good forward movement for the society and the country — and without overcoming the challenge Prabhakaran’s movement posed to the state, there was no possibility of making one. That challenge was itself something this corrupt political system enlarged: there was a problem before it, and this system turned it into a tangle that could not easily be settled.
අනතරු ඇඟවීමේ නලාව නාදවීම
The threat to the fish market from the extortionists was overcome by a policy of using force against them to the maximum, and for that problem the approach was right — the fish traders approved it and so did the public. The article then asks what happens when the same reflex is applied to everything else.
අන්තර්ජාතික අවුල ලිහාගැනීම
The government had a programme with a strong vision for defeating Prabhakaran’s separatist terrorism at home. It had no such vision for the international questions that would follow the victory: it failed to see them coming, and even once they had become serious it did not manage to build a programme with a strong forward vision for meeting them.
අභියෝගය ජයගැනීම
Whatever the wrongs and shortcomings within the counter-campaigns launched to defeat the terrorist war Prabhakaran led and the terrorist war Wijeweera led, had those campaigns failed and those two movements won, what could have followed was a great destruction. In that sense, Ivan writes, whatever their faults, those campaigns protected the country’s existence.
මූන්ට හෝ මූන්ගේ කමිටුවට හෝ බැණවැදීම අර්බුදයට විසඳුමක් වන්නේ නැත
If Sri Lanka fails to overcome the confusion the report of the Secretary-General’s advisory committee has created, and will go on creating, then all the great hopes the victory in the war gave the country will collapse. The government should make meeting this crisis with self-confidence the first and largest item on its political agenda.
ගාන්ධි නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාවට ගෙන්වා ගැනීම
Suppose Gandhi could be met, brought to Sri Lanka and asked to look into the country as it now is, and to give his guidance on the main problems it faces and how they should be settled. What analysis would he make of Sri Lanka, and what roads would he recommend to us for settling the first-rank problems we face as a country?
සීසර්ගේ දේ සීසර්ටම දිය යුතුය
A member of the Tamil alliance charged in parliament that 200 of the 500 tractors India gave to farmers in the north had been handed to two state institutions. If that is true it is a wrong, and putting it right is the government’s responsibility. Resettlement and the projects planned for that region must be carried forward without a break, and life there brought back to normal quickly.
රටට වෙනස්කම් අවශ්යද?
Given how rotten the political system and state administration had become, Ivan writes, winning the separatist war should be counted a miracle — the armed forces and police included people working for the LTTE for money, which shows how far the institutions had decayed. The question now is whether to go forward with that rot or reform it. Every important part is corroded: legislature, executive, electoral system, courts, public service, public services, media. The President has accepted change is needed but has set out no philosophy beyond the voting system and cabinet size, and it is unclear whether he means to win two-thirds by agreement with the opposition or by buying its members across. Ivan lists what remains unresolved — the executive presidency, a German-style mixed electoral system, the constitutional council killed after the 17th Amendment, judicial power used oppressively, customs revenue of which perhaps a quarter reaches the treasury, and education adrift.