Ten Days That Can Subvert Democracy

By S. Sivathasan -December 31, 2014 

S. Sivathasan

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”- Karl marx.

Lenin changed it. In 1917 John Reed saw it, “with the eye of a conscientious reporter” as he puts it. “A slice of intensified history” he calls it so aptly. With the same intensity, the flow of Sri Lanka’s history may get perverted. Ten days from tomorrow are enough for it. International vigilance can thwart it. The country is alive to it, but remains unprepared. Danger is from the incumbent President, his coterie and his familial regime.

Portents to Make One Shudder

The caption of this article is with reference to Sri Lanka. It is in the same vein as John Reed’s ‘Ten Days that Shook the World’. It is phrased advisedly. Though confined to a small nation, it can escalate to earth shattering proportions. To the polity the eruption may even be volcanic. Signs are ominous and many have sensed it. Ceylon and later Sri Lanka never before stood so precipitously on such unpredictable terrain.

Ten Days in 1917

The allusion is to ten decisive days of the Russian Revolution. As the first successful Communist upheaval it was epoch making. The book too was same. Lenin wrote in the introduction in 1919, “With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed’s book …”Lenin with his sense of history took the title as appropriate.Read More