Developing Sri Lanka: The need for ‘Self Belief’

The volatile times Sri Lanka had been through during the past few decades and the impact of how the international forces have responded to those should impress us that the choice before a nation such as ours is simply to ‘Developed or be devoured’. Hence having resolved the need to physically develop this country as a matter of our very survival, we should now identify the challenges that lie ahead of us in that quest for developing the Sri Lankan nation.

If mind is at the ‘core of all human activity’, thinking has to be the fountain from which all such activities flow. Therefore the speed and the efficacy of our attaining those physical development goals will always be determined by the richness and practicality of our national thinking. In this regard there are few examples in the world community itself that are worth examining and emulating for countries like Sri Lanka.

Nuclear bomb

Japan is a country devastated after the World War II. Yet in a matter of 40 years Japan showed the world what humans could accomplish, by becoming the second strongest economy in the world. The most important ingredient required in self-development, whether it is of a nation or of an individual, is self-confidence. Although Japan did lose the war, they did not lose their self-confidence as a nation. Deployment of the nuclear bomb was the critical factor of the World War II and the one who achieved it first simply was destined to end up the victor. Hence though Japan was ‘down’ after the war, they did not count themselves ‘out’ as a nation. Instead they drew inspiration from how close they came to winning the war and most of all the war taught Japan what the collective will of a nation is capable of achieving.

Thus the important thing is that Japan drew inspiration from its national history to consolidate its collective will to meet the challenges that lay ahead. Sri Lanka on the other hand could not boost of war heroics in the international sphere and instead our legacy has been that of colonial domination for 443 years. During this time our nation has been subjected to physical genocide in the hands of the powerful colonial powers and hence our thinking too has been subjected to ‘sense of pervasive defeatism’. Even today there is a powerful sense of thought that lingers in our national psyche suggesting that we have ‘messed up’ our national affairs since independence and hence we need to read just our thinking more in line with the colonial and Western values and thinking.

National performance

A more objective analysis of our national performance since independence however, would prove that there are more positives than negatives in our achievements as a nation since independence. Sri Lanka has made tremendous gains in its progress towards improving the physical quality of life of its people and it is a fact that our national life expectancy and the level of literacy rank as a model for any developing country in the world. However we have not been able to convert such developments in to material progress, again due to some lacuna in the level of confidence we have placed in the ability of our people.

Even historically, apart from that period of subjugation, we as a nation have the longest documented history for any nation and that speaks volumes of the literate past in our civilized legacy. The huge man made reservoirs that formed the ancient most irrigation system of agriculture and the pyramid like Stupas that surpass modern architectural innovation are monuments that stand as testimony of a prosperous nation with a civilization of its own. The thought that such accomplishments have been achieved by the forefather of this nation with no foreign aid and consultancy alone would inspire us in our self-confidence to explore the capacities within us as a nation.

Future goals

Even in modern times, after 60 years of ‘semi-colonial and self-doubting’ thinking, Sri Lanka as a nation, is again beginning to show glimpses of its past glory. It is just the other day that we defeated the terror outfit that was known to the world as the ‘most ruthless and successful terrorist organisation’. The fact that we had the will power and the wherewithal to overcome this crisis that bedeviled our nation since independence will convince even the most pervasive thinkers that our future as a nation ‘is not necessarily in the past’. It is self doubt again that prevented us from apprising terrorism for what it is all those years and then confronting it in the most effective way.

Ethnic terrorism in Sri Lanka, even though surreptitiously projected as a post independent phenomenon, has a strong pre independent history were the seeds of mistrust and a ‘quaint sense of equality’ were sowed by the colonial masters for their own ends. Thus, overcoming those international and national forces that created clouded thinking and lack of focus, is the most valuable lesson that will inspire us to believe in ourselves to achieve the future goals that we set upon ourselves.

President Obama coined the catch praise ‘yes we can’ to propel America out of the recession. The Sri Lankan nation, ably led by President Rajapaksa who always leads us by example, could do well to believe in themselves to achieve the gigantic task of making the Sri Lanka, a force to be reckoned with, in Asia!

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