Confusions in history

This has reference to the interesting article on ‘Our Common Heritage – One Country – One Land –One People’ on Wednesday 5th August 2020, and similarities between the genetic makeup of Tamils and Sinhalese by Ashley De Vos. As school children, we were ‘brain – washed to believe every word of the History book ‘Our Heritage’ (in Sinhala it was called ‘Ape Urumaya’), by Prof Garret C Mendis.  Modern research, I am sure, shows the events that took place in world history in different light. For instance, was King Elara really a Tamil King? What if he was not? Was it really the Portuguese who came to Ceylon or were they present here under licence of the Spanish Royalty?  Did King Senarath invite the believers of Islam, to settle in the vicinity of Kandy, to be the first line of defence against the invading Portuguese?

May I add one more important thing that would make things easier to facilitate integration? That is to shoot down  the myth of land ownership, in the North, that is supposed to be  restricted to only those from the North (Malabar Origin), under the ‘Theysavalamai Law’. Is this spread purposely, to misinterpret the law? Surely, I, as a Citizen of Sri Lanka, can own land in any part of the country, and rightly so, and there is nothing under this law to prevent me from doing that.

Simultaneously, as stated by Mr De Vos that we should rally under one secular flag that has no reference to Caste, Creed or Religion. Other flags could do that. Lee Kwan Yew, the former PM of Singapore, said that in life “There is Private Space and Public Space”. We should not bring what we do in our private space to our ‘Public Space’, and attempt to impose it on everyone else

We are Sri Lankans first.

GUWAN SEEYA