සෝභිත හිමිගේ ප්රවේශය
Ivan assesses the campaign led by the Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha to abolish the executive presidency through a common candidate. He cites two indicators of institutional collapse, a former Chief Justice’s estimate and the substandard-cement case, and sets out six reservations: it seeks limited amendment rather than a full new constitution, ties everything to one election, and depends on a candidate. He then lists steps the opposition, especially the UNP, must take to correct course.
හරක් මස් වාදය
After a monk set himself alight at the Temple of the Tooth on Vesak in protest at cattle slaughter, Ivan takes the anti-beef campaign apart on its own terms. A dairy industry, which the same patriots demand, cannot survive if spent cows cannot be sold for meat, as India’s Muslim market makes possible; vegetarianism without planning deprives people of complete protein; and ancient Sinhala Buddhist kings hunted and ate game. Beneath it, he argues, lies Dharmapala’s anti-Muslim racism — and a quarrel with a world Muslim community twenty times the size of the Tamils would be ruinous.
ජාතියේ හා ආගමේ නාමයෙන් රට රැගෙන යන්නේ කොයිබටද?
Ivan warns that the anti-Muslim campaign now being led by groups of monks mirrors the climate before 1915, 1958 and 1983. He retells the 1915 Sinhala–Muslim riots, rooted in Dharmapala’s revival and Sinhala traders’ envy of Muslim commerce, and traces the Muslims’ long history in the island. Such a riot now, he argues, would be ruinous, and its premise betrays Buddhism itself: from the Kalama Sutta and the parable of the raft to Asoka’s edicts and Walpola Rahula, the Buddha’s teaching is one of free inquiry and tolerance.
සෝභිත හිමිගේ පැතුම
Unable to attend Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero’s 70th birthday, Ivan honours him as one of the few learned people who never stayed silent in the face of wrongdoing. He recalls telling two vice-chancellors, G.L. Peiris and Arjuna Aluwihare, after the second JVP revolt that intellectuals’ silence was the cause of youth rebellion. Sobitha Thero called for abolishing the executive presidency and changing the electoral system in his lifetime, and Ivan notes a growing chorus — Maithripala Sirisena, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, government MPs, the Communist Party, the JHU — for change. He contrasts the old Westminster system, with by-elections, constituency MPs, spending limits and a Prime Minister in Parliament, with the executive presidency, which concentrates power in one person above the law and turns governance into a system of plunder.
වඩා ප්රමුඛ වර්ගය ද? කුලය ද?
Answering Gamini Viyangoda’s criticism of his position on the ethnic crisis, Ivan opens the side of it nobody wants to discuss. The ethnic question is half the truth, he argues, not the whole: the 1971 insurrection, the monks who joined it, the Samasamaja movement, the second insurrection and the killing of Saddhatissa all point to inequality inside the communities as well as between them.
චම්පිකගේ උගුලට ජවිපෙ අසුවෙයි
The JVP could no longer stay in the alliance because of a public statement based on a wrong calculation, made while competing at once with the SLFP and the Hela Urumaya. The piece follows the monks’ fast against the joint mechanism, the Treasury Secretary’s role, and the President’s meeting with Muslim MPs.
සංඝ ආඥාව – සුන්දර
The Sunday Lakbima’s front page announced that a Sangha decree would expel the President from Buddhism, and its editor-in-chief Sundara Nihathamani de Mel had to answer for it. Ivan compares Gandhi’s model of satyagraha with the Sri Lankan version, and weighs a ruler’s right to decide against the need to win public consent for agreements such as the ceasefire.
මහා භාරකාරතුමෙනි ඉතින් ආයුබෝවන්
Ravaya called the Public Trustee, Sarath Seneviratne, a first-rate crook for more than six years and gave the evidence. Ivan explains why so many who claimed to defend Buddhism shielded him, how politically important cases are steered to hand-picked benches, and closes on a Supreme Court ruling that a monk MP could not be expelled because he was not a party member.
තිබ්බොටුවාවේ ශ්රී සුමංගල නාහිමියන්ගේ නිර්භීත ප්රවේශය
In a country without leaders who love it, understand its problems or want to lift it up, the Mahanayake of Malwatte has spoken fearlessly: ready for talks with the LTTE, urging both the LTTE and the JVP to avoid extremes, and taking a moderate line on conversions. The editorial sees in him a rare hope, while warning that his road will not be easy.
සෝම හිමිගේ අපවත්වීම, ආගම්භේද හා ශ්රී ලංකාවේ ජාතිකත්ව ගැටලුව
After Soma Thera’s death, fear spread among Christians that they might be attacked, and the old charge of ‘unethical conversions’ became a claim that Christian forces were killing Buddhist leaders. Ivan asks whether religion is becoming an explosive dividing line like race and language, and looks back to Asoka’s empire and the Buddhist idea of the state.