A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, April 28, 2014
The Quebec Election In Canada And Federalism Lesson For Sri Lanka
Earlier this month the Province of Quebec,
in Canada, had its one-day election after less than a month of
campaigning. As I have discussed in a separate article, India is just
half way through its five-week long election ritual. Theoutcome of the Indian elections is widely expected to be a defeat for the ruling Congress alliance and victory for the opposition BJP alliance.
The results in Quebec were a huge surprise with the governing Parti
Quebecois of French Canadian separatists suffering a crushing defeat and
the opposition Quebec Liberal Party securing a spectacular victory.
There is very little to compare between the French Canadian Province of 8
million people and the mass of humanity that is India. Yet there are
commonalities between Canada and India as two reasonably successful
federal states and societies, and in the functional containment of their
internal national problems. Federalism, separatism and secularism were
wedge issues in the Quebec election, and they are so but for different
reasons in the Indian elections. The over-determining issues, however,
are the economy and jobs. Corruption was big time on the election radar
in Quebec and is even more so in India.
Along with Sri Lanka, Canada and India are long standing Commonwealth members.
Soon after independence, Sri Lanka was a model state for ethnic
co-habitation and economic potential in the Commonwealth. Pierre Trudeau
held up the “State of Ceylon” accommodating two languages and four
religions as an example for Quebec and Canada. This was when Trudeau was
a trenchant political critic and before he won a seat in the Federal
Parliament and went on to become one of Canada’s more famous Prime
Ministers. Sri Lankans, or Ceylonese then, did not know much about
Canada, and not enough about India – ignorantly laughing at their huge
neighbor for its poverty and its English accent. 60 years later, Canada
and India are mature success stories in their own ways, while Sri Lanka
has the Commonwealth Chairmanship to boast of, but little else. Our
cricketers, not the Board of Control or Selectors, are a different story
and their well-deserved and long-awaited success in Bangladesh is
doubly sweet because unlike in past finals there were no Rajapaksa
government poobahs in Dhaka to bask in our cricketers’ glory.
Quebec and CanadaRead More