Sri Lanka at the cross roads again

By Izeth Hussain-November 28, 2014, 12:00 pm 

The more it changes the more it’s the same thing – French proverb.

According to widespread Sri Lankan perceptions, we came to a cross roads by 1989 and in 1994 we chose what seemed to most of us to be the right road, which would lead to definitive solutions of the two major problems bedeviling us: that of restoring a fully functioning democracy and establishing unity through a solution of the ethnic problem. Today, twenty years later, many Sri Lankans, perhaps most, share the perception that we have again come to a cross roads at which it is imperative to choose the right road that would lead to definitive solutions of the two major problems bedeviling us: the restoration of a fully functioning democracy and the establishment of unity through the solution of our ethnic problems. It looks like the more it changes the more it’s the same thing. Or rather it’s the same thing but worse, because we now have two ethnic problems – the Muslim one as well – instead of just one. That fact suggests that the major problem underlying everything else in Sri Lanka is that of establishing national unity – which is the main case that I will be advancing in this article.

Sri Lanka at the Cross Roads Again by Thavam Ratna