Features

EMANCIPATION THROUGH EDUCATION

Published

7 months ago

2025/05/25

Thilina Walpola

Mulkirigala Temple: wall painting depicting a troupe of women musicians, including female drummer

CHAPTER III

I remember my first day in school when I was five years old… There were about 30 students. Our classroom was a long, single room with a low wall from where we could see the playground, and the paddy fields further away.

(NU, interview with Carol Aloysius, 2000)

The Colonial School System

In Sri Lanka there had been a virtual revolution in education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reflected in the rise of literacy and educational levels. Primary schools expanded in urban and rural areas, and literacy rates increased rapidly. In leading towns, wellstaffed and equipped high schools in the English medium (some with boarding facilities), drew in boys and girls from all parts of the island. Parents from rural areas or small towns would try to somehow raise the necessary funds to send their children to schools in provincial capitals (and if possible, to Colombo) for their secondary studies, in order to broaden their horizons and prospects. While those living in villages were often caste-conscious, the schools in the towns had a universalism, which discouraged parochial feeling. Students sent to urban centres for their studies became more aware

of social and political issues affecting Sri Lanka and the rest of the world. NU was part of this process. His family, in the quest for upliftment through education, chose to move him from a small school in Hambantota (St. Mary’s), where he had his primary education, to a secondary school in the larger town of Matara (St. Servatius’), and then to a prestigious school (St. Aloysius’) in the provincial capital of Galle – all of which were run by Jesuits.

A pansala (temple) school

The country had a network of non-fee-levying government schools teaching in Sinhala and Tamil, and one – Royal College – teaching in English. There were also English-medium non-government schools, which received government grants and levied fees. The latte were run by Christian missionaries and Buddhist organizations in Colombo and the provincial capitals. The first Englishmedium schools, during early British rule, were attended by the sons of Muhandirams, Mudaliyars and the local new-rich. A few children

from less-affluent families also attended. These schools, based on the British school system, implanted modernizing ideologies among the children. Similarly, there was also an expansion of English-medium Buddhist schools in urban areas, which modelled their curricula on the former, imparting a western-oriented, modern education, but with an emphasis on Sri Lankan and Indian history and on Buddhism. English-medium schools were a training ground for the professions, producing lawyers and doctors as well as teachers, planters, businessmen, clerks, bookkeepers and secretaries. The demand for a

modern English education increased with the growth of the colonial economy, the creation of mercantile establishments, and the consequent expansion of the job market.

Early Education at St. Mary’s

The reverence for education in Sri Lankan culture is reflected in the traditional ceremony of ‘first letters,’ in which a child is initiated into the process of writing by a respected or learned person. NU’s education started at the age of three with this ritual, which was conducted by his maternal grandfather, Gajawira. This was preceded by a visit to the temple by the whole family (de Zoysa manuscript, p.48). A few years later, registered as Ubesinghe Jayawardenage Nonis, he began his formal education in 1913 at St. Mary’s School, a typical, one-room village school for children under the age of 10. The school, located barely a mile away from the Hambantota Resthouse, was founded in 1900 by a Belgian Jesuit, Father Paul Cooreman (1863-1919), even though there were only about a dozen Catholics in the town (Perniola, 2004, p.28). Father Paul Cooreman, born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1863, came to Sri Lanka in 1899 after joining the Jesuit Order. His elder brother, Father Joseph Cooreman, was already teaching in the Southern Province. The former was allocated to Hambantota, which was referred to as “a sterile station… a locality burnt by the sun and inhabited only by Muslim merchants of salt of whom… nobody is ever converted.” Since it was difficult to recruit teachers “to come and re- side under the burning heat of this place,” Cooreman himself taught at St. Mary’s (Report of Father Feron, 1913, quoted in Perniola, pp.510-11).

NU’s sister Wimala, dressed up as Queen Victoria for a school play, Christ Church School, Tangalle

Father Cooreman was described as a “man full of duty, full of zeal,” who gave himself “body and soul to the hard work.” Cooreman worked for 20 years in Hambantota, until his death of cholera in 1919. As Perniola writes: “in his humble bullock cart he crossed the jungle or vast burning desert… paying no attention to distances or to fatigue” (ibid, p.574). St. Mary’s in NU’s time was headed by Father Wickremasinghe.

Two and a half years later, NU changed his school when his father left his job as Hambantota Resthouse keeper. The circumstances of his leaving reveal the latter’s temperament. Diyonis had declined to carry out his duties in the way the Government Agent (GA) of the Southern Province wanted, and eventually told him to ‘do the job himself.’ The GA appears to have been a difficult person to work for; as Leonard Woolf wrote many years later, he himself had been “rapped on the knuckles” by the Governor for including in his diary “some sarcastic and not unjustified criticism” of his superior, the

GA (Woolf, 1969, p.200). NU’s cousin, a clerk in the Kachcheri Mudaliyar’s office, tried to persuade Diyonis not to jeopardize his job by challenging officialdom. Disregarding his advice, Diyonis left the job and went home to Tangalle with his family (de Zoysa manuscript, p.49). NU’s maternal grandfather, Gajawira was ambitious for his grandson and felt he should be sent to a good school. In 1916 the change was made to St. Servatius’ College, Matara, which, like St. Mary’s, was run by Belgian Jesuits. NU moved to Devundara, where his maternal grandparents lived, since this was closer to Matara.

Meanwhile, Diyonis turned to cultivating his paddy land at Angunakolapelessa, a drought-stricken and depressed area frequented by elephants, 15 miles from Tangalle. NU commented: “As a child I would often help my father who had a small paddy field in a jungle area. It was a source of our income and I, being the eldest boy, was useful to my father in his work.” NU also in an interview referred to the “unproductive paddy land” his father farmed (Roshan Pieris, 1987). These childhood experiences may have resulted in NU’s realization that small landownership was neither a source of income or status, and, in later life, in his particularly critical view of those engaged in absentee-landlordism.

Some miles away from where his father farmed was an imposing dagoba on the summit of a rock known as Mulkirigala, 300 feet high. Its historic temple, carved out of rock, is famous for a wall painting depicting a troupe of female musicians, including a woman drummer. The summit presents a panoramic view of the province. Bordering Diyonis’ paddy land on all sides was forest. The backwoods in which this land lay could be viewed from the treehouse, or platform, which it was customary to have in such areas. It served as a watch-post for the cultivator to protect his crops from elephants. Made of two gnarled tamarind trees, the structure was 12 feet high, and one climbed on to it with the help of a ladder (de Zoysa manuscript, p.52).

The Tangalle Connection

Tangalle, where Diyonis and his family had their home, lay roughly midway between Matara and Hambantota. Unlike Hambantota, which was the administrative and commercial centre of the district, Tangalle was a quiet town situated on a bay. Diyonis’ house was on the Medaketiya Road – a loop road branching off from the main Tangalle-Hambantota Road, which skirts the sea front and joins the Hambantota Road at Ranna. The house was nearly two miles beyond the bridge over the Kirama Oya. A tiny lake nearby, called Rekava Kohalankala, added to the attractive setting.

NU’s parents’ home in Tangalle

A one-room school

NU’s daughter Neiliya has vivid recollections of her grandparents’ home, which she used to visit as a child:

My grandparent’s home was in Tangalle, which they sold subsequently when they moved to Colombo. I still visit this house on occasion, though the surroundings have changed. The house is still in its original condition – a U-shaped building with a central courtyard, covered with sea sand of sparkling gold. ( The house remained in its original condition up until the tsunami of December 2004, when it was completely destroyed.) The base of the ‘U’ is the living and dining rooms, and the right side has the kitchen storeroom and servant’s room, and the left side the bedrooms. During my childhood, the house had one boundary at the rear and the other was the river. It was a beautiful location, an ideal hunting ground and playing field for us children – 8 brothers’ and sisters’ children – 27 grandchildren in all. There were no other houses within sight.

Near the Jayawardena house and land at Medaketiya was the house of the Amarasinghe family, where Kusuma Gunawardena née Amarasinghe – later Member of Parliament and wife of leftist leader Philip Gunawardena – was born in 1905. Lakmali Gunawardena has

written of her mother’s birthplace and the string of towns and ports that dotted the southern coastline between Galle and Kirinde. She refers to the “thin ribbon of road [along which were] these towns, Matara, Devundara, Tangalle, Ambalantota, and smaller ones of local importance… Ranna, Hungama, Netolpitiya, and Nonagama… up to and beyond Tissamaharama” (Gunawardena, 2004, p.1).

Tangalle was a natural site for a small harbour, where the British built a resthouse on a promontory overlooking the Indian Ocean… In the early 1900s it had schools, a post office, a police station and other establishments that had elevated it from a sleepy fishing town. (ibid)

The Amarasinghes and U.J. Diyonis’ family knew each other. The second Amarasinghe son, Dayananda was a contemporary of NU’s and they kept in touch with each other throughout their lives. The houses of both families were situated on coconut land that adjoined the sea, and their lifestyles were similar. Both families were Buddhist; the Amarasinghe father, Don Davith was a building contractor who was active in the Tangalle branch of the Buddhist Theosophical Society and was the leading patron of the town’s Buddhist school – Sri Rahula Vidyalaya, which Kusuma attended. Amarasinghe, being independently employed, could afford to sponsor Buddhist education and be involved in the agitation carried out by the Buddhist movement. In contrast, Diyonis had to be cautious – if he held any ‘controversial’ views – while he served the government as a resthouse keeper.

Devundara and Matara

NU’s first break with his home was when he was sent to live with his grandfather. NU’s maternal relatives – the Gajawiras of Devundara – constituted the more-learned side of his family, and NU always acknowledged the role of his mother’s father, who took a great interest in NU’s education. By all accounts, his grandfather Gajawira was well versed in Sinhala grammar and poetry, as he had been educated at a pirivena (temple school). Gajawira had four daughters and a son. NU’s mother Podi Nona was the eldest; the youngest, Arlis Perera Gajawira (1901-82) was seven years older than NU. Like NU, his uncle Arlis also attended St. Servatius’ and joined the clerical service. He and NU became close and kept in touch in later life. Arlis even named one of his sons Neville, after NU. (Interview with Dr. Bandula Gajawira, Arlis Gajawira’s son. The family link continued when Arlis’ granddaughter married Dr. Mahilal Ratnapala, NU’s sister Wimala’s son.)

Devundara is the southernmost point of Sri Lanka, with a lighthouse, marketplace and a historic Vishnu devale. NU’s grandfather’s small house was on Lighthouse Road, which leads to the famous lighthouse. St. Servatius’ was three miles away in the town of Matara

with its Dutch fort, low ramparts, government offices and courthouse. This English-medium school, founded in 1897, was off the main road and close to a promontory called Brown’s Hill. NU studied at St. Servatius’ for four years.

On his first day in school, NU, who was accompanied by his grandfather and his uncle Arlis, was introduced to the principal. The 3-mile trek to school along the road, and probably along the beautiful Wellamadama beach, was not unusual at the time. In 1911 in Sri Lanka, the average distance on foot to the nearest school was 3 miles, with provincial averages ranging from 5 miles in the North Central Province to three-quarters of a mile in the Western Province (Denham, 1912, p.405).

NU seemed to have enjoyed his long walk to school and back, noting its beneficial effects:

My grandfather decided to have me educated at St. Servatius’ College in Matara. To reach school we had to walk three miles and this I did at the age of eight in 1916. I did not feel that walking to school was some kind of drudgery. I enjoyed school. I would get up as early as five o’clock, and by six in the morning I left with my uncle and walked to school. Looking back now perhaps it appears tedious, but I enjoyed the walk. School was over at about three in the afternoon, and I would reach home by six in the evening. The walk did have its impact, for, I think, it made me hardy and strong, especially since roads at that time were not tarred and finished as they are now and I would walk barefoot to and from school. In fact, my determination to study, to gain knowledge as it were, made me make this daily trip without finding any excuses to stay away from school. (interview by Manel Abhayaratne)

Lucien de Zoysa notes that, NU “preferred to walk barefoot, carrying his shoes in one hand… shoes were compulsory at school, but NU found it more comfortable to walk barefoot, and put on socks and shoes only as he entered the school premises” (de Zoysa manuscript, p.53). As NU recalled: “I don’t remember wearing shoes until I went to St. Servatius” (Roshan Pieris, 1992). According to Pat Williams (who was at St. Aloysius’), inexpensive Japanese tennis shoes became readily available in Sri Lanka around that time, and thus, the use of shoes became more widespread (personal communication, 2006). The walk to school, however, did appear to have put a strain on the young NU, with a negative impact on his studies. The grandfather, noting the boy’s weariness, placed NU at the home of the school catechist who lived in a house situated within the Matara

fort, one mile from St. Servatius’ College.

This change did not seem to make much of a difference to his progress in school – and perhaps made him feel more isolated and lonely. Lucien de Zoysa writes that NU’s grandfather knew, by the way that “NU got on with his Sinhalese grammar and poetry, that he was no dullard, but how to get him interested in his books was the problem.” In retrospect, de Zoysa speculated that NU’s poor performance may have been caused by separation from his doting mother and sisters. To his grandfather, he seemed to be in a world of his own. Perhaps it was due to this loneliness and homesickness that NU played truant from time to time – sometimes bathing in the Nilvala Ganga, which flowed under the bridge at Matara – perhaps recalling happier times at the river and beach back home in Tangalle (de Zoysa manuscript, p.53).

Given this separation from his parents and siblings, NU looked forward to returning to Tangalle during school holidays. We have evidence of this from NU’s niece, Chandrani, who says:

My mother [Rosalind] related to us that she looked forward to my uncle [NU’s] school vacation so that they could give him the best of food to make him plump and healthy. She said that she measured his arm on the

first day he came home to check how much weight he had put on by the end of the vacation. The food they had was thala guli [sesame sweet] and banana on waking; then a plate of rice with bala maalu [tuna] and kiri hodhi [coconut gravy]. After lunch, they had mi kiri [buffalo curd] and

honey [palm treacle].

NU also soon had two younger brothers: David born in 1910, and the ‘baby’ Peter born in 1915. David was outgoing and boisterous, whereas NU tended to be introverted. In 1920, after 4 years at St. Servatius’, NU at the age of 12 was sent to St. Aloysius’ College in Galle. The move to St. Aloysius’ was to be a crucial milestone in his life.

Ironically, in his early days NU did not do well in arithmetic or mathematics. He himself often stated that he was a late developer, and his childhood schooling, though it opened to him a new world of books, did not really give him any impetus to further his knowledge in any particular subject. When he reached the 5th standard in school, family circumstances favoured him once again, when his eldest sister Charlotte was married in 1919 to Thevis Nanayakkara. This was a fortuitous event that solved the dilemma facing his maternal grandfather, who had been worried about his grandson’s progress. They decided that NU should go to St. Aloysius’ College in Galle, since Charlotte’s house was half a mile away from the Talpe railway station, 6 miles from Galle. NU was later joined at the Nanayakkara residence by his younger brothers, David and Peter.

The Importance of Railways Indrani Munasinghe’s book, The Colonial Economy on Track (2001) documents the story of transport expansion and the way the network of roads and railways built in the 19th century changed the lives of many who lived in areas remote from Colombo. Before the coming of the railways, towns such as Kandy, Jaffna and Galle had been linked by new roads to Colombo, but travel was by cart, horsedrawn coach, or on horseback. Norah Roberts writes that, the Colombo- Kandy coach was started in 1832, and by 1838 there was a two-horse Galle Royal Mail Coach leaving Galle at 6 o’clock in the morning to arrive in Colombo at 4.30 in the afternoon, as well as a Galle-Matara coach. These coaches, which charged differential amounts from various categories of persons – Europeans, Burghers, lawyers and Mudaliyars – were, however, beyond the reach of the mass of people, who used bullock carts, and hackeries (light carriages)

or walked to their destinations (Norah Roberts, 1993, p.9).

After the Colombo-Kandy rail connection was opened in 1867, railways were extended to other towns in the Central and Uva provinces, to cater to the needs of the plantation sector. Railway expansion, which benefited the inhabitants of other provinces, occurred subsequently. This accessibility between provincial towns and Colombo enabled many to commute to work and even to school from outlying areas. The coastal line from Colombo to Matara via Galle, a distance of 100 miles, was completed by 1895. The expansion of railways was certainly a most welcome innovation for southerners. A schoolteacher described the arrival of the first train in Galle in 1894, “with decorated engine,” adding that “the band played and people danced on the platform” (quoted in Roberts, 1993, p.9).

NU benefited from the coming of railways to the South. He had once used to walk many miles from Devundara to school in Matara and back, as the railway line did not go beyond Matara. But when he was transferred to school in Galle, he travelled in the trains that operated between Matara and Galle. The railways changed NU’s life, as did his new school, St. Aloysius’ College. (N.U. JAYAWARDENA The First Five Decades Chapter 2 can read online on https://island.lk/nus-social-milieu/))

(Excerpted from N. U. JAYAWARDENA The first five decades)
By Kumari Jayawardena and Jennifer Moragoda

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Features

True Santa & Fake Santa in the US. NPP underwhelmed by Square-toed Critics

Published

4 hours ago

2025/12/28

Thilina Walpola

Fake Santa deporting real immigrant

A telling Christmas cartoon in a Canadian newspaper (The Globe and Mail) shows the American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apprehending and attacking Santa Claus as he lands in the US presumably without a visa. For their part, ICE agents have gone a step worse and got one of their men to be a fake Santa, with an ICE logo, in an advertisement that promises US immigrants a payment of $3,000 and free flight ‘home’ for Christmas if they would voluntarily turn themselves in. The overexcited and out-of-depth Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noam has added her two cents: “Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport.”

That is Trump’s America and it is at terrible odds with the historical image of America that the first American Pope in Vatican devoutly cherishes and is unabashedly defending. Paraphrasing the gospel of Matthew, the Pope had pointedly admonished, “Jesus says very clearly, at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked, ‘How did you receive the foreigner?” The American Bishops followed suit and in a rare rebuke of the Administration, have expressed their “concern for the evolving situation impacting immigrants in the United States”.

But not all American Catholics are with the Pope and their Bishops. Sixty percent of white American Catholics are said to be in favour of Trump’s vicious crackdown on immigrants. They and their voluble intelligentsia are a bulwark of Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) bandwagon. Five of the nine Supreme Court judges are conservative white Catholics. They are aided and abetted by Clarence Thomas, the lone male African-American and conservative judge on the bench. The six judges, ignoring the dissenting liberal judges, have been giving judicial cover to practically all of Trump’s controversial second term initiatives.

The new bullhorn foreign policy towards Europe is the speciality of Vice President JD Vance, a late convert to Catholicism and married to a Hindu Indo-American. The oversight of Central and South America is the responsibility America’s new neocons, the Cuban neocons, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Catholic Cuban American with a ton of chips on his shoulders. Trump used to deride him as “little Marco.” Marco Rubio wants the US to browbeat Venezuela and use it as an example to other Latin American countries.

But Trump’s support is falling and almost all of his new initiatives are beginning to unravel even before he has finished the first year of his second term. Even among Catholics who are 20% of the population numbering 50 million, the 60% support of white American Catholics is negated by the opposition of 70% Hispanics to Trump’s deportation program even though Trump made significant inroad among Hispanics in the 2024 election. Among all Americans Trump has a negative approval rating with nearly 60% of Americans dissatisfied with his policies and performance across the board.

At 79, Trump is beginning to walk and talk like Biden when the latter was in office as the oldest American President. Trump is not losing his grip on power but he cannot keep tab on his zealous acolytes as they rush to further their own agendas on immigration, controlling Latin America and jettisoning Europe. It is the economy that is his business. It is literally so insofar as his family is enabled to make as much hay as they can before the curtain crashes. And the country’s economy will be his Achilles Heel just as it was for Biden. Trump will be considerably deflated should the Supreme Court rule against him on the constitutionality of his idiosyncratic tariff scheme. On the other hand, if the Court’s conservative judges were to rule in his favour it will do lasting damage to their already tattered credibility.

True Santa under arrest

Regardless, the Trump presidency is not going to end all of a sudden like in so many other countries including Sri Lanka in 2022. The built in inertia of the US system will provide for the Trump presidency to peter out and for the country to take an even longer time to be rid of the damages he has done to the institutions and to restore them slowly. In the meantime, one would hope that the carnage in Ukraine will be soon brought to an end. And, as Pope Leo XIV said in his Christmas homily, the people “in the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold, ” should be soon helped out of the “rubble and open wounds.”

While it is too soon to speculate about post-Trump America, Trump’s impact on the American political system over the last 10 (to be 15) years in politics is obvious. First, he was able to instigate a critical mass of people into believing that the mainstream political discourse is a fake enterprise. That was his route to victory in 2016 and much of his first term was about consolidating the belief of his followers that everyone who was opposing him were fake and un-American. He took the next step and made them believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him by the political establishment and was given to Joe Biden. The Trump’s playbook is being adapted by like-minded leaders in other countries to score their own political victories. Accusations of fake news, allegations of stolen elections, and widespread disinformation – i.e. intentionally spreading incorrect information – have now become the stock of politics in a number of countries. Sri Lanka is not one of them but it does manifest symptoms of this new malaise.

The NPP and its Square-toed Critics

Allegations of election fraud have always been a fact of political life Sri Lanka. A sizeable forensic industry grew out of petitioning courts to challenge the results of individual constituency elections based on allegations of fraud and corruption. The two old Left Parties would have none of it and would accept the results of the election based on the official counts. They never challenged the results of any election that was lost by any of its candidates. When the Left was shut out of parliament in 1977, NM Perera wrote for the LSSP that the Party had been shut of the legislature twice in its history. First, from the State Council by colonial Order in Council, and in 1977 by the people themselves. It fought the colonial expulsion but accepted the verdict of the people.

Allegations of foreign interference are also not new. The Left had its routine rhetorical flights to warn of the circumambient presence of imperialism. The UNP countered with homemade stories of Chinese spies. But the first serious questioning of an election result and the accusation of foreign interference came after the 2015 presidential election that saw the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa when he tried to win an illegitimate third term in office. It was also the first defeat of a sitting president. The first reaction was to blame Tamil treachery. The second was to blame the long hand from New Delhi. Neither took serious traction but they created a local genre of political punditry that keeps itself busy.

The Rajapaksas have grown out of it. Their elders have no time for it and their next generation is desperate about finding a future foothold. But their loyal pundits keep churning. The latest addition to this genre of commentary is the finally revealed revelation about the supposedly sensational proposition made by former Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay to former Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, on the morning of that fatefully eventful day of 13 July 2022, that Mr. Abeywardena should immediately become Sri Lanka’s new President.

Obviously, this meeting would have taken place after Gotabaya Rajapaksa had fled the country in the wee hours of that same morning. But what is not clear is whether GR’s letter of resignation was already official and whether GR’s appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as Acting President had already come into effect. Mr. Wickremesinghe himself has revealed the circumstances of his taking oath as president after GR’s fleeing – that the oath was taken in secrecy in a Colombo Temple – in an interview with former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, after a meeting of the International Democracy Union (IDU) in London. The UNP is an IDU member and Harper its Chairman.

There is no reason to question the veracity of Speaker Abeywardena’s account of his meeting with the then Indian High Commissioner, in the Speaker’s parliamentary office. But what is amusing is the use of this single data point of a meeting between the High Commissioner and the Speaker – to draw a line of conclusion in two directions: (1) a causal line going backward to suggest that the entire Aragalaya phenomenon was potentially orchestrated by India and America; and (2) a consequential line going forward to the election of the NPP government with the assertion that the new government came into office after displacing Gotabaya Rajapaksa to serve Sri Lanka’s two masters – India and the US. The people of Sri Lanka are reduced to doormats in this political theatre and their votes were political counterfeits to elect a government of fake Marxists. Even Trump would be impressed by this creativity.

As amusements go, this genre of political punditry is fully supplemented by the NPP’s current critics and quondam comrades from the bookish left (as Philip Gunawardena used to scoff). They take NPP to task for any and all of its actions and non-actions – from its apparent ambivalence towards Israel to its alleged foot dragging on the Prevention of Terrorism Act, not to mention its similarly alleged kneeling before the IMF.

The criticisms themselves are not inaccurate, but their tone and timing do not appear to be intended for any positive outcome. They are also esoteric and out of place in a situation when the country has been ravaged by a torrential cyclone. I will conclude by paraphrasing a witty response to a recent online critique of the NPP on the PTA matter: in blaming the NPP government for not repealing all the bad laws enacted by every previous government, are we not forgetting that the NPP is the only government that is – not only against making use of bad laws enacted by others, but also against enacting any new bad law of its own.

by Rajan Philips ✍️

Features

2025: The Year We Let It Happen

Published

5 hours ago

2025/12/28

Thilina Walpola

Donald Trump

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Donald Trump said, a line that circulated widely during his political comeback rallies. “The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump declared as he was inaugurated for a second term on 20 January 2025, marking a major shift in US politics with consequences likely to extend across generations. Trump’s appeal lay not in moderation but in confrontation, rooted in the assertion that democracy works best when it produces winners unencumbered by restraint. He rewarded many who delivered him power, while leaders in other democracies often spent their mandates managing survival and retreating from pledges once deemed non-negotiable. The old Marxian line about history repeating itself as tragedy and farce felt newly apt as elections continued to produce both at once.

While deteriorating democratic systems grappled with their contradictions, quasi-democratic and openly authoritarian administrations pursued power with less ceremony. Beijing tightened its hold over Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong while projecting its global power with mixed success, and Moscow prosecuted its war in Ukraine with brutal persistence, accepting sanctions and isolation as the cost of imperial memory. The EU’s plan to use frozen Russian funds for Kyiv stalled and was replaced by a €90 billion loan package, which will cost taxpayers around €3 billion annually in interest. Pyongyang continued its missile testing, while its state-linked hackers reportedly stole an estimated $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025 alone. Tehran, for its part, passed another turbulent year, marked by a 12-day military confrontation with Israel in June 2025 that inflicted significant damage on both countries. Power in these systems remained centralized and unapologetic, justified by security and sustained by fear.

Across the globe, 2025 witnessed a wave of Gen Z-led protests that challenged authority and disrupted the social order in ways reminiscent of the Arab Spring, yet carried their own perils. From climate strikes in London and Berlin to anti-corruption demonstrations in São Paulo, Mexico City, Dhaka, and Kathmandu, young activists confronted entrenched elites with unprecedented energy and digital coordination. In Morocco, Madagascar, Tunisia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, student-led and youth-driven uprisings rattled governments, while in the United States, marches over climate action and student debt repeatedly clashed with authorities.

Even in authoritarian countries such as Iran, Vietnam, and, to some extent, Thailand, clandestine movements mobilized online and in the streets, forcing concessions while provoking brutal crackdowns. Yet these eruptions of youthful revolt, as electrifying as they were, revealed a dangerous pattern: like the Arab Spring, the protests often destabilized societies without delivering durable reform, leaving governments weakened, institutions strained, and political vacuums that could be exploited by opportunistic elites. The Gen Z moment in 2025 was a showcase of idealism and impatience, but also a warning that the seductive energy of revolt can become the architect of new disorder and unfulfilled promise. The question remains: who will have the last laugh?

The dissonance between public display and private conclave became starkly visible in Beijing in September 2025 during the 80th-anniversary commemorations of the end of the Second World War. State television followed Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin as they approached the parade ground, and microphones accidentally left live picked up a fragment of conversation that ricocheted around the world. According to reports, Putin’s interpreter was heard saying, “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become,” to which Xi replied, “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

The Kremlin later confirmed the exchange, insisting it was a casual discussion about medical advances, not a policy statement. Yet the symbolism was hard to miss: two leaders whose authority rests on longevity speculating, however lightly, about defeating mortality itself. In a century marked by demographic decline in both Russia and China, the fantasy of extended life carried political weight.

That moment intersected with a broader obsession that cut across systems: the promise and threat of artificial intelligence. Governments unable to agree on climate targets found common urgency in machine learning, particularly its military and medical applications. The United States National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence warned in 2021 that AI would “accelerate the speed of warfare beyond human comprehension”. By 2025, the Pentagon had embedded AI across military operations, deploying commercial models and prioritizing generative tools to maintain America’s technological edge.

Project Stargate, a high-profile initiative with commitments from OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank, was said to involve hundreds of billions of dollars in public-private investment to expand AI infrastructure and research across sectors. In parallel, China’s state and corporate ecosystems together channeled tens of billions into AI development, sustaining the world’s second-largest cluster of AI firms and an expanding suite of generative tools. Critical minerals remained a strategic fulcrum, with China controlling more than 90 per cent of global rare-earth processing capacity and wielding that dominance as leverage over technology and defence supply chains.

Space in 2025 saw competition in orbit intensify rather than abate. The number of active satellites in low Earth orbit surpassed 9,350, led by SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which accounts for the largest share of operational spacecraft. The Space Development Agency awarded US$3.5 billion in contracts for 72 new infrared tracking satellites to strengthen missile-warning and defence architecture. China’s on-orbit presence also expanded markedly in 2025, with Beijing conducting a record number of launches and placing hundreds of satellites into space to advance communications and surveillance networks, including early deployments for its ambitious Guowang low Earth orbit mega constellation. Close encounters between Chinese, Russian, and Western satellites exposed weak space-traffic coordination, with orbit increasingly framed in martial rather than peaceful terms.

On the ground, the uglier side of power refused to remain hidden. In the United States, the Epstein Files Transparency Act compelled the Department of Justice to disclose federal records by mid-December, but heavy redactions and omissions drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers who argued the release undermined the law’s intent and shielded powerful individuals. Thousands of pages referenced disturbing allegations and reinforced a widely held sense that wealth and influence can insulate the well-connected from scrutiny or accountability. Elsewhere, established democracies continued to confront systemic failures: France grappled with unresolved clerical abuse scandals; Britain faced renewed criticism over policing gaps in handling grooming gangs; and India’s chronic under-reporting of sexual violence remained a persistent human rights concern.

Meanwhile, the language of peace was deployed with similar cynicism. Trump repeatedly suggested he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, citing what he described as a series of peace initiatives in which he claimed to have played a decisive role. These included the Abraham Accords of 2020, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, and the 2025 United States-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, under which all remaining living Israeli hostages held by Hamas were released and hostilities were paused through a phased arrangement.

Trump further asserted that his administration had “settled” or eased a widening range of conflicts, pointing to diplomatic efforts aimed at initiating talks towards a negotiated end to the Russia–Ukraine war, although substantive peace terms remain elusive and negotiations continue amid resistance from Kyiv, Moscow, and key European Union states. He also publicly referenced conflicts or diplomatic tracks involving India and Pakistan; Thailand and Cambodia; Kosovo and Serbia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan as evidence of his claimed peacemaking credentials, despite the absence of durable or comprehensive peace settlements in any of these cases.

Trump did not receive the Nobel Prize, whose awards have often favoured aspiration over results. Instead, it went to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader who told me in 2020 that “a mafia group has destroyed my beloved nation, Venezuela”, and whom Washington now treats as a key ally. Meanwhile, the United States has reportedly sought to seize another oil tanker linked to Caracas while pursuing an alleged drug cartel, amid claims that the Secretary of War ordered forces to “kill them all”. At the same time, Latin America has seen a significant rise in right-wing politics, with Argentina’s Javier Milei consolidating power, Chile electing far-right leader José Antonio Kast, and conservative presidents such as Daniel Noboa in Ecuador and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador gaining influence amid broader regional shifts to the right.

Africa was not immune to global disorder. In Sudan, a brutal civil war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and rival factions continued throughout 2025, marked by repeated mass atrocities, including ongoing killings around El Fasher in North Darfur that left tens of thousands dead and displaced millions, making it one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises. The United Nations and humanitarian agencies reported widespread executions, sexual violence, and attacks on civilians and health facilities. Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fighting between the Congolese army and the Rwanda-linked M23 rebel group forced thousands to flee, with more than 84,000 refugees crossing into neighbouring Burundi in 2025.

Nigeria’s security situation also deteriorated, with jihadist factions, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, expanding operations and causing civilian casualties and displacement. Across West Africa, political realignment followed coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which jointly withdrew from ECOWAS and formed the Alliance of Sahel States, commonly dubbed the “African NATO”. The bloc has announced plans to establish a shared central bank and investment fund aimed at economic autonomy and reducing reliance on traditional financial systems, but it remains too early to assess its capacity to curb the continent’s growing Islamic extremism and militant gangs.

Through all this, inequality hardened. The latest World Inequality Report 2026 showed that the richest 0.001 per cent of adults — fewer than 60,000 individuals — now control three times more wealth than the poorest half of the global population combined, while the richest 10 per cent own around three-quarters of global wealth. While leaders speculated about extended lifespans and investors poured money into longevity start-ups, life expectancy stagnated or fell in several countries: in the United States it remained lower than a decade earlier, and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa gains were erased by conflict and weak health systems.

Orwell’s line continues to resonate, even at the risk of banality: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” The events of this year have not disproved it; they have updated it with satellites, algorithms, and offshore accounts. Power now moves faster and hides better, but it still feeds on the same asymmetries. As another year closes, the temptation is to wish for renewal without reckoning. That wish has become a luxury. The facts are stubborn: inequality widens, wars persist, technology accelerates without consensus, and leaders speak of salvation while tolerating cruelty. New Year greetings sound hollow against that record, but perhaps honesty is a start. The age we are entering will not be golden by proclamation; it will be judged, as ever, by who is allowed to live with dignity — and who is told, politely or otherwise, to wait. To the New Year — hopefully wiser.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa ✍️

Features

After Christmas Day

Published

5 hours ago

2025/12/28

Thilina Walpola

We are in this period – the days immediately following Christmas – December 25. The intense religious and festive two days are over, but just as the festive season precedes Christmas Day, it follows it too, notwithstanding the day that marks the beginning of the new year.

Christmas is significant, I need not even mention, as the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth in Bethlehem in a manger as there was no room at the inn. It however symbolizes God‘s love and salvation for his ‘children’. People make merry with traditional gift giving (custom from the three kings), carols, bright lights concentrated in indoor fir trees and general goodwill epitomized by jolly old Santa. It is also a time of spiritual reflection on God’s love of people by his giving his son to their will.

The day after Christmas – 26 December – is also a day marked in the calendar of the festive season. Named Boxing Day, it too is a holiday of fun. Originally a day of generosity and giving gifts to those in need, it has evolved to become a part of Christmas festivities. It originated in the UK and is observed by several Commonwealth countries, including Ceylon.

It is concurrent with the Christian festival of Saint Stephen’s Day, which in many European countries is considered the second day of Christmas. It honours St. Stephen who was the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death for his faith. More commonly, it is called Boxing Day, also known as Offering Day, for giving servants and the needy gifts and financial help. The term boxing comes from the noun boxes, because alms were collected in boxes placed in Churches and opened for distribution on the day after Christmas. This day is first mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary on 1743.

The Twelve Days of Christmas follow the 25^th and make up the Christmas Season. It marks the days the kings of Orienta –Magi – took to visit the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense, symbolizing Christ’s royalty, future suffering and divinity/ priesthood respectively.

The “Twelve days of Christmas” we know as a Christmas carol or children’s nursery rhyme which is cumulative with each verse built on the previous verse. Content of the verses is what the lover gives his /her true love on each of twelve days beginning with Christmas day, so it ends on January 6, which marks the end of the Xmas season. The carol was first published in England in the late 18^th century. The best known version is that of Frederic Austen who wrote his rhymes in 1909.

“On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me

A partridge in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me

Two turtle doves

And a partridge in a pear tree.”

And so on with three hens, four calling birds; five gold rings, six geese a-laying, seven swans a-swimming, eight maids a-milking, nine ladies dancing, ten lords a-leaping, eleven pipers piping, twelve drummers drumming. But the most important fact is that each animal or human represents a Christian object or key tenet of the faith, serving as a religious tool where each gift depicts a religious concept.

For instance, it is believed the partridge symbolizes Jesus and two turtle doves represent the Old and New Testaments. Doves are symbols of truth and peace, once again reinforcing the tie to Christ and Christmas. Reference is also made to the Ten Commandments, the 12 Apostles and the Creed. However, this is a popular theory and not a historic fact with some believing it is a love song pure and simple.

And so 2025 draws to an end. One cannot but throw one’s thoughts back to when one was an eager beaver child. Buddhist though I was, I attended a Christian school from Baby Class and was very influenced by the Christian faith. In fact, an older sister was so indoctrinated she wanted to convert to Christianity. Our Methodist missionary school did not encourage conversions.

Mother was unaware of this great attraction; her emphasis was on an English education for her children,. But being so drawn to the Christian religion with all its celebration and merriment was no surprise, added to the fact that Vesak was such a solemn occasion with sil redi restraint and the death of the Buddha too commemorated.

It is a very heartening fact that in this country Buddhists too join in the pleasures of Christmas. Many go for Midnight Mass on 24^th because of religiously mixed marriages or merely to enjoy that experience too. Our family, when the children were young, invariably celebrated with the traditional XMas tree in the house with my husband taking great pleasure in buying a branch of a cypress tree sold in Colombo, and decorating it. We often spent the holiday in Bandarawela and so Christmas became extra special with the strong smell of the tree branch bought indoors. Santa visited my young one for long years; he being a strong believer in the delightful myth.

Delightful memories are made of these…

I wish everyone a wonderful Christmas. Let’s substitute the sorrows and despair of the aftermath of the cyclone and give ourselves, all Sri Lankans, a break and renew our togetherness and one-ness as a nation of decent people..