Fast forwarding an entwined prosperity

By Surya Vishwa 

On 19 May, in his National victory/War heroes commemoration speech, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake referred to the necessity of moving away from a tribal mentality of communal division and asked that the civil war be consigned to the lamentable history that it belongs to. He noted the loss of human life and the massive sacrifices – in life and limb that the Sri Lankans in the armed forces had made. He asked the nation to work together for a country that values peace, united prosperity and economic and social wellbeing where every citizen feels part of the national tapestry without discrimination. This is not an exhaustive translation of the speech and it is not meant to be. This is the synopsis that matters. 

This article is not meant to go to the expanse of the past but rather to look to the future. 

What is the future for Sri Lanka which had lost so much – in lives of youth, in economic opportunity and global investment from the late 1970s to May 2009. 

What is the future for Sri Lanka seen by almost every ambitious parent of any ethnicity as a place that will kill rather than foster the dreams and potential of their children. Hence, we have every year Sri Lankan youth – Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims leaving the country. 

The 1971 and 1989 insurrection murdered a generation of genius youth that could have saved the country from economic depravity and later the civil war bombed Sri Lankan Tamil and Sri Lankan Sinhala  masterminds that could have pitched this nation in the summit of global recognition. Those who survived and left this nation are happily serving the countries which adopted them across the world, mostly the West. 

So, are we going to keep on remembering year after year a murky civil war that has cost families their children and a nation its lifeforce? Is there another way to honour Sri Lankans on May 19 by prioritising peace? How would it enliven the nation to commemorate a national month of peace every May focusing on vibrant intellectual, industrial, entrepreneurial, environmental, spiritual and cultural vicissitudes, setting a blueprint for a  future that is entwined  in togetherness? We are late in this but as the cliché goes, better late than never. 

Let us understand how things are with us.  

Although a small island with a population of around 22 million people, we are one of the most polarised. Ask any Sinhala, Muslim or Tamil family who their close friends are? There is a very obvious lack of deep  integration across religions and ethnicities and many Sinhalese families who go on tour to the North do so, without prioritising human interaction. Much has to change on this front. It is changing naturally in Jaffna, the heartland of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka and the very place that saw such suffering. The future for a genuinely united country and the rise above mediocrity is in the hands of our youth. 

Many teenagers from the North and other areas of the country display blatant disregard for the shackles that their parents or grandparents lived by.   

The Harmony page last year wrote extensively on how the North of Sri Lanka is being changed every day by its youth – with the entrepreneurial scene of the peninsula given a dynamic facelift by youngsters. Youth below 30 years are giving a radical twist to a new way of living. We wrote amongst so many narratives, a story on two brothers, both below the age of 25 who had sold their house to set up a student hangout spot near Jaffna university that plays high beat Tamil, Sinhala and English songs loud enough for the entire city to hear and where by 5 p.m. all seats are taken and one could find diverse attire ranging from modern western dress, saree, head scarves and shalwar kameez where women are concerned or trendy male outfits from traditional Tamil attire to mostly T-shirts and denims. 

These were things that were socially unacceptable 15 years ago.

What do all these mean? It means freedom. Freedom from conditioned thinking. Freedom from a warped sense of nationalism. 

Hence the last chance for this country is its youth. Youth that other countries would love to have in their land – to enrich those nations with their passionate creativity and brains. Hence, if we want to see a Sri Lanka that removes its psyche one year at a time from its painful past, it has to fast forward its future. Change does not fall from the sky like manna from heaven. We have to create it. Can we in our minds eye see in a not so distant future, where Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim armed force personnel in white attire that they would wear on sacred Poya days, Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher civilians in similar attire, representing the entire country, commemorating peace through diverse means, on a selected day and throughout the month in multifarious ways. 

We will in the upcoming editions ideate on the ways that we could commemorate peace to salvage whatever that we could to turn around the tides of destiny. 

Imagine if every month of May became 30 days of dynamism and let it confront the still sluggish, halfhearted and less than mediocre public sector that seems to still function in an uncaring daze. 

Let us then as we read in the adjacent article keep our faith. Let us keep our faith, our hope and our optimism that despite Sri Lanka still being extremely unclean, despite the clean Sri Lanka campaign having purportedly begun days after the 2024 Presidential election, that there would be at least a dot of a clean spot in our minds that surrenders the garbage of the past where it should be; in the incinerator of history’s tomb. Each month of May then would become an opportunity to clean Sri Lanka in the most holistic sense possible.