Rise, Sri Lankans – our country needs you now!

• “United we stand, divided we fall” – Aesop

I am sick, tired and bloody fed up of reading and listening to pessimistic tales of woe on the unprecedented crisis we and our country are facing at this dark moment in time. I am also fed up to the back teeth with reading and listening to lamentations of what should have and could have been done. 

This, in my opinion, is sheer stupidity, a waste of time and energy. What has been done has been done dusted and finished. We cannot return to the past and undo it. Period!

Instead, look at what needs to be done and can be done, now. We the voting public are collectively responsible for the state our country is in today. Why? Because we all foolishly placed our trust in the dregs in politics to represent us and administer our country! 

They have all collectively or not, irrespective of political parties, kicked us all in our faces and let our country down in the most degrading and deplorable ways possible. So stop pointing fingers at the follies you voted for and point it at yourself instead. They did this to our country because we let them. We have looked up and spat on our own faces.

Where are all those closet patriots who stand tall and proud for our National Anthem and Flag? Where are all those ‘patriotic’ thugs who in recent times were proudly shouting themselves hoarse claiming to be decedents of a lion with ‘Sinha Le’ running through their veins? Have they all returned to the wilderness with their tails between the legs? 

Where are those ‘nationalists’ in saffron robes and their cohorts, who ran amok to ‘protect’ our motherland from the Other? Where are our apathetic and freeloading Mahanayakes? Have they all swallowed their tongues? Where are those who claim, “I’m proud to call myself a Sri Lankan”? Where is your patriotic “pride” now? 

I’m tempted to tell you all where exactly you can take your hypocritical claims and shove it!

We Sri Lankans shamelessly stand naked in the eyes of the world today with our stark lack of patriotism and cowardliness displayed for all to see, through our collective inaction in the face of a crisis our country has never known before and is facing today. 

We have proved to the world that we are nothing but a selfish nation of weak-minded, spineless and witless weaklings – an utter disgrace to our so-called 2,500-year-old history. Shame on you Sri Lankans! Is this how you want your future generations to remember you? Is this the legacy you want to leave for your country? 

Today, our country stands as a democracy in name only – an epitome of a tragic failed state – making a mockery of democracy and all what it upholds. The need of the hour is to reclaim our self-respect as Sri Lankans, show the world what we are made of by showing the door to all those politicians responsible for plunging our country into this disgraceful, repugnant and pathetic hole. 

This is the only way possible to save our country because the responsibility lies with us and us alone. The status quo is an indictment on us the citizens of Sri Lanka, not the political leaders we elected because they represent us. Hence we must do it ourselves!

What our country so desperately needs right now is for all its people to rise collectively but peacefully, put their shoulders to the wheel and support the few civic minded amongst us who still believe in our country and the freedom of its people. We are few and far between. Our solitary battle on behalf of our country and her people has left us tired and worn out but, we will not give up on our motherland until our last breath leaves us. 

But, we cannot do it alone anymore. We need you Sri Lankans to stand with us en masse for a common cause – to save our Sri Lanka. Do you Sri Lankans got what it takes to do it?

Dear Mahanayakes of all the nikayas in Sri Lanka, the time has come for you to rise from your slumber, get out of your comfort zones, take to the streets and mobilise the masses peacefully to save our country or else, you will go down in history as cowards and traitors of Sri Lanka you so proudly regard as “Buddhist Sri Lanka”. It’s your call NOW!