සම්බාධක දංගෙඩිය මුවවිට සතුටින් කල් ගෙවන ජාතියක්
With the UN human rights investigation under way, Ivan warns that the government is ignoring the danger of sanctions, which no country has escaped unharmed. A small country’s foreign policy should seek safety, not confrontation with the United States and Europe. He criticises the government’s false show of innocence over alleged wartime abuses and the continuing hardship of Tamils in the North five years after the war.
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.
යාපනේ පුස්තකාලයට ගිනි තැබුවේ කවුද?
Ivan revisits the burning of the Jaffna Public Library during the 1981 District Development Council election, when the ruling party had made itself a contender in the North. Jaffna believed the police were responsible, and in private talk senior circles pointed to DIG Edward Gunawardena, then in charge there. Ivan recounts a book published some thirty-two years later, a June 2014 article by retired police officer Tassie Seneviratne and Seneviratne’s account to him of a sergeant’s story, and his own inquiry to a retired DIG about Gunawardena’s background.
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.
ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්‍රශ්නය 3
The third part of Ivan’s series on constitution-making examines the Soulbury constitution, drafted around D.S. Senanayake’s wishes by Ivor Jennings, whose weak safeguards for minorities Lord Soulbury later regretted, and Colvin R. de Silva’s 1972 republican constitution, whose unitary state, primacy for Buddhism and Sinhala-only laws the Federal Party rejected. The Tamil representatives walked out, and the road led to the 1976 Vaddukoddai resolution for a separate state.
ජිනීවා යෝජනාවේ ප්‍රතිවිපාක ගැන
After the Human Rights Council’s March 2014 resolution on accountability and reconciliation, Ivan argues that in the modern world no war, internal or external, ends without an accounting. Stirring patriotic feeling is easy, but the public, used to the open economy since 1977, will not bear the cost of sanctions. If the government keeps acting headstrong, sanctions will follow, and the ruin of the country will be written against Mahinda Rajapaksa’s name.
අර්බුදය මට පෙනෙන හැටි (අවසන් කොටස)
Ivan divides the post-independence period into two eras and traces the second, from 1977: a government that could not be changed, thuggery institutionalised in the universities and unions, Black July and the JVP ban, and the violent era of 1985 to 2009, including Indian intervention and the state’s brutal suppression of the second JVP rising under Premadasa. Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance continued the corrupt system, and Mahinda Rajapaksa, after defeating Prabhakaran, chose a stinking path instead of reconciliation, leaving the country as isolated as it was when Prabhakaran was strong.
අර්බුදය මට පෙනෙන හැටි
Replying to a reader who said he blames everything on the executive presidency, Ivan traces the crisis further back, to a crisis of thought. Buddhism became confined to the Sinhalese, and independence came without a mass struggle, so the new state inherited narrow limits. He follows the distortions through to 1977 and beyond: the crushing of the 1980 general strike, the burning of the Jaffna library during the 1981 district council election, the 1982 referendum, and Black July, blamed on the JVP, which pushed both Tamil and Sinhala youth towards violence.