Can the Political System be changed by way of Court Orders?
The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva now rules against the executive, and the public is pleased. Ivan sets this against the court’s record — the stay order on the impeachment motion, the JSC petition, and five years of turning away petitions to implement the 17th Amendment before Sumanasiri Liyanage’s succeeded — and argues that only changing the political system will last.
කළ හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Addressed to a coalition of civil organisations: agree on the aim before anything else, and make it a large one. Ivan proposes a Sri Lanka whose political system treats every citizen as an equal regardless of race, religion, language, caste or sex, works out which three demands to begin with, and sets out a campaign — posters, workshops, interviews, lunch-hour pickets, sermons — to carry them.
The Harvest of 60 Years of Independence
At sixty years of independence, Ivan refuses to blame the colonial rulers. Sri Lanka began with roads, railways, literacy and income ahead of most of Asia, and fell behind because its leaders ran the British system on feudal lines. He calls for a political system accountable to the people and a national dialogue on where the country went wrong.
The Third Reading of the Budget: What might happen?
After the government survived the second reading of the 2008 budget, Ivan weighs the UNP’s chances of defeating it at the third. He argues that even a defeat would not force a dissolution, that MPs want to finish their terms, and that party leaders should stop fighting over a rotten system and agree to change it.
නව සමාජ ව්යාපාරයක් සඳහා කතිකාවතක්
Does Sri Lanka need a new social and political movement, and what vision and form should it take? Ivan reports on a discussion on the 17th that brought together artists, professionals and others across ideology, class, religion and language, and on the ‘Prayatna’ initiative, arguing that a country that never fought for its freedom never united its divided people.
රනිල් වික්රමසිංහ: විවේචනාත්මක විශ්ලේෂණයක්
Prompted by a friend’s emotional call on the morning after the defeat, Ivan recalls what he once told Ranil Wickremesinghe to his face. Sections examine his deep but unfulfilled vision, the acting Elections Commissioner, forged ballot papers in an earlier election, his lack of courage, and the party system.
රාජ්ය නායකයා තේරිමේ තරගය
The winner may steer the country not for six years but for twelve. After nearly 58 years of independence the country is fractured and bloodied; the editorial calls for democratising the parties’ feudal ways and for each of the executive, legislature, judiciary and media to do its duty.
රටේ යහපත් වෙනසක් සඳහා පක්ෂ ක්රමය ද වෙනස්විය යුතුය
The SLFP marked its 54th anniversary and the UNP its 59th on the same day. Every head of state since independence has come through these two parties, yet after more than five decades neither has modernised or allowed internal democracy.
දාර්ශනික මාක්ස් හා දේශපාලනික මාක්ස්
A reply to Sumanasiri, who holds that Marx the philosopher is not dead. Ivan grants that the world Marx hoped for is more beautiful than liberal democracy, but separates the philosopher from the politician. Drawing on Dmitri Volkogonov’s biographies of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, drawn from the opened Soviet archives, he argues that attempts to build Marx’s world produced tyranny, likens Pol Pot, Wijeweera and Prabhakaran to those figures, and concludes that capitalism cannot be replaced and must be reformed through liberal democracy, his preferred model being Gandhi’s India.
සිවිල් සමාජ ව්යාපාරයක් ඇති කරගැනීමට සුදුසු කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
The failure to manage the tsunami’s damage is creating the conditions for a ‘political tsunami’, a near-anarchy in which citizens no longer obey the state or the parties. Ivan argues that the moment has come for a civil society movement built by joining the many people’s organisations already working for the public good.