NO, NEVER A NATION OF INGRATES ...

The true protectors of the nation -- those who lost eyes, limbs and organs to protect our right to go out at night, and run business enterprises without let or hindrance -- are ignored by the same ingrates who have benefited from the end of the hostilities.

It's not all of them, but at least a great deal of those who swim in the gravy train of NGO money for instance, and others who have put up roaring businesses piggy-backing on the real peace that ensured after nearly three decades of war - that are now gung-ho. They are impatient - some of them - - and are asking for quick development, and radical changeovers, that they think will enable them to do business with all of those cash-rich foreign governments, most of which were not necessarily in favour of our war effort.

In the meantime, those who have lost eyes and limbs have been all but forgotten by some of the movers and shakers of the thriving business Meccas.

They forget that their exciting night lives, and their foreign jaunts and safaris to Yala and surf paradises such as Arugam Bay, would have been close to impossible if there prevailed the persistent insecurity of bombs going off, coupled with all types of other attacks on the city, some, as those with adequate memories will remember, which were from the air. They forget that those who made these hip lifestyles possible though some are dead, are now languishing, some without limbs, some without eyes, and some having lost their vitals, in the effort to make life safe for the rest of us fortuitously blessed beneficiaries.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that a society could be judged by the way it treats its animals. A society could also well be judged, particularly in these rather combative times, from the way it treats its soldiers, and those who fought to reserve for us the right to walk the glittering promenades of the (post-war) prettified city at night.

This leading article does not want to name the names of certain countries, but there are some very powerful ones, which virtually abandon their own veterans of war.

Old soldiers - and not so old ones -- are given a war veteran's pension on return home, and essentially left to their own devices. Most of these people suffer from untold maladies such as post-traumatic stress disorder, and lead pathetic lives, even as some who send them to combat dodge the wars, and live the good life.

Not in this country. Here, the President, three plus years down the road after the end of the fighting, is continuing to establish safe and convenient facilities for our wounded warriors, such as Abimansala, the latest of which was opened in Kamburupitiya a few days back.

Such gratitude in this nation seems to come from this quarter alone -- the Executive offices of State. The business tycoons and those who are living it up splurging on the post war bounty that rides on the expected peace dividend, would rather cavil about taxes and infrastructure, and go to their spas and their clubs, and turn a blind eye to the war wounded, the war-blinded, and the paraplegic or quadriplegic warriors of countless battles now behind us.

But, there is some innate almost spiritual good that comes out of doing the right thing by those who fought for us, and this is probably why this President and his administration does not seem to be open to harm, even though there are his local and international arch rivals who are plotting against him particularly after the end of the fighting in 2009, on a 24/7 basis.

Though most of us find it difficult to believe in the supernatural, or the intervention of the divine, there is no going behind the karmic laws as explained in Buddhism.

Buddhists believe that evil follows the evil-doer as surely as the cartwheel follows the cart, and that blessings and general wellness follows those who do good. (The Dhammapada.) The ancients said, if the King is just, the rains will follow on time. (Devo vassathu kalena - - raja bhavathu dhammiko.)

The rains did come, though there was a fleeting scare of a drought, and when they did, they fell in spades. In spades will follow the merit that comes from looking after our gallant war-wounded.