Call for Unity – By Oscar Fernando

President’s Call for unity is a wise move in the face of the ongoing IMF deliberations that would bring enormous benefits to Sri Lanka-especially in the aftermath of a severe bankruptcy! One could ask why single out IMF among other donor countries?

IMF does a fine-tooth comb analysis of the economy before aid is granted-how severe the analysis can be concluded by our failure sixteen times to be considered worthy of the aid-and if on this seventeenth time we fully succeed, it speaks well of the diplomacy of the present regime as deserving of an accolade to the previous regime that started the ball rolling-under a severe bankruptcy!

This acceptance of Sri Lanka as worthy of IMF relief measures is a harbinger for the flow of FDIs as well as expatriates to come in to invest and churn the economy in the right direction-and this initiation by a regime with Marxist leanings smacks of Che Guvera turning Peace Maker in actual life.

This reconciliation of-a little bit of totalitarianism joining ranks with Private Entrepreneurship is really the need of the hour-not only to Sri Lanka but to the world at large.   

This is the very reason why the President has stressed the importance of democracy-coexistence and avoiding divisive politics-all of which this writer has touched upon in recent publications made by E- Lanka Newspaper.

Just a few points to highlight Coexistence-the need of the hour-

Over the years we have witnessed democratic regimes lording it over minorities in more ways than one and we do not have to say it here-we have also seen-not so humble ways of some minorities which in many ways are close kindred to Tamil Nadu brethren.

Let us at least now realize the tiresomeness of this infantile behavior and conduct, realizing that the shadow of South Sri Lanka majority falls on the minority in the North, in the same way that Tami Nadu shadow inevitably falls on the little dot of Sri Lanka-in the international arena!!

So, we see that the fear in the south SL is a fear of being a Regional Minority.

The only way forward for SL is the family way by both sides adjusting the ways of thinking.

No amount of IMF deliberations and winning aid will be of any worth, now that this ethnic issue unlike Black July 83 is not on earth only, but out there in space!

Oscar E V Fernando

December 2024