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'Black July' and our future

OVER the past 22 years in Sri Lanka, July 23rd has acquired the character of a solemn day of remembrance with the more socially-conscious sections of the country's media and other progressive opinion-moulders reactivating in the public mind memories of the horrors of 'Black July 1983'.

This is as it should be because a people who do not learn the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them. Therefore, revisiting 'Black July 1983' is a healthy exercise from the point of view of national progress but it wouldn't do to merely ritualistically rekindle these dark memories annually.

The task that faces the Sri Lankan polity is to translate the lessons of 'Black July '83' into progressive nation-building principles.

Ethnic peace has been one of Sri Lanka's foremost concerns since those dark days of 1983 and the State, particularly under the direction of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has grappled strenuously with this problem over the past ten or more years.

The year 2000 draft constitution which is a prime result of such exertions outlined some of the constitutional principles which could contain the conflict and bring a degree of ethnic peace to Sri Lanka.

However, one of the tragic failures of contemporary Sri Lanka is that not all sections of its public are eager to learn the lessons of history. Nor are they willing to back well-meaning, State-driven initiatives towards resolving the conflict peacefully.

This is a dangerous tendency because under such circumstances the tragic blunders of history could very well be re-enacted. These dissenting voices have without fail, cried "foul" at all State-initiated efforts at resolving our conflict.

Even the P-TOMS, which has as its focus the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the tsunami-ravaged North-East, has run into a storm.

The year 2000 draft constitution was, earlier, burnt by protesting UNP MPs in Parliament when it was taken up for debate. The ceasefire agreement which has helped save a multitude of lives and all attempts at power-devolution have came in for vicious criticism.

Therefore, it could be said that we have made very little progress from the days of the July 1983 ethnic holocaust. As we see it, there is no future for Sri Lanka outside the framework of a power-sharing arrangement.

Unless and until Lanka's ethnic groups learn to accommodate each other's legitimate demands and interests and evolve a governing structure which would give expression to this understanding, there is unlikely to be a degree of peace in Sri Lanka.

If Sri Lanka fails in this endeavour, it would condemn itself into repeating the tragic blunders of history. May this fate not befall us, is our hope.

Meanwhile, the State should take on itself the task of educating the people on these gut issues in the ethnic conflict. The agents of disinformation who currently cry "foul" need to be defeated.

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