A Tribute To Prof A Jeyaratnam Wilson

By Laksiri Fernando -August 31, 2013 

Dr. Laksiri Fernando

Professor Alfred Jeyaratnam Wilson

This tribute is not only from me but also from a friend of mine who had associated Professor Alfred Jeyaratnam Wilson, even more than me, for over two and a half decades very closely even living in his home in Fredericton, Canada, for few years. I am writing this not only as a tribute to this great man and an undisputed silent humanist, Wilson, but also to show how some of the hidden stories of Sinhala Tamil relations could bring certain sanity to the otherwise poisoned atmosphere in Sri Lanka and promote reconciliation and harmony among different communities.

When Kumar Samarasinghe came to Sydney to visit his sister, Mallika Gunewardena, with his family I invited them for a simple dinner with some other friends. Kumar and Shamali came with two daughters we have never seen before. I never realised, however, that we were in the midst of a celebrity, a reputed teenage novelist from New Jersey, USA, who had completed three popular novels by the age of just fifteen according to NBC News. Kumar didn’t speak about it except a brief mention and neither did she show-off and I only came to know after Googling her name Sara Samarasinghe and came across www.teenauthorsite.com   She is still a college student and has published few other novels all of them have become extremely popular. This is another story which would also show the merit of bringing up our children broadminded beyond ethnic divide and taking up the opportunities open to them beyond our restricted horizons.

I was the first Sri Lankan Master’s student in Political Science, or for that matter any other field, at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in 1974 when Prof Wilson was the Chair of that Department. He recommended me for a Canadian Teaching/Research Assistantship and I was fortunate to get it. After me was late Ambalavanar Sivarajah who also became a Professor of Political Science at the University of Peradeniya. I met Kumar somewhere in 1975 when he was sponsored by his brother-in-law, Dhanapala Gunewardena, an Engineer from CEB who came on a Canadian fellowship to Frederickton Electricity Board with two others. Even for Kumar’s initial arrival in Canada, I believe Prof Wilson helped him.Read More