{"id":109227,"date":"2020-11-30T17:27:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T00:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109227"},"modified":"2020-11-30T17:27:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T00:27:58","slug":"paradise-restored-end-the-kakistocracy-and-make-this-resplendent-isle-great-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/30\/paradise-restored-end-the-kakistocracy-and-make-this-resplendent-isle-great-again\/","title":{"rendered":"PARADISE RESTORED – End the kakistocracy and make this resplendent isle great again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stanley Gunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From\n1948-72, the island of Ceylon (the English phonetic transliteration of our\nnative name of Sinhale\/Sinhaledeepa) was a FULLY SOVEREIGN realm\/kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A realm\nwas a sovereign state which had Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state.\nEach realm functioned (and still function today) as an independent co-equal\nkingdom from the other realms. Thus we had:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– full\nsovereignty<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a Queen\nof Ceylon, above politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a\ndemocratically elected government of the People (extremely lean and efficient)\nwith a Parliament of honest gentlemen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a\nceremonial Governor General, above politics and non partisan, nominated by the\ndemocratically elected Prime Minister, as the de facto head of state<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a lean\nSenate composed of eminent and honourable members of society acting as a\nrevising chamber\/checks and balances<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a fully\nindependent judiciary with the Privy Council (used by Singapore until the\n1990s) acting strictly according to the Ceylon Constitution and laws enacted by\nCeylon’s Parliament<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a fully\nindependent and lean Civil Service, based on a meritocracy and an Independent\nCommission for public appointments and promotions, totally apolitical,\nresulting in what was perhaps the best Civil Service in all of Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– a\ncountry whose system Singapore later emulated (and perfected and overtook us)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– the\nrule of law applying to all citizens of Ceylon with ONE law prevailing over all<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\naddition, Ceylon had a beneficial Anglo Ceylon Defence Agreement with Great\nBritain <\/strong>providing a guarantee of defence from foreign attack and\ntraining\/equipment for our armed forces. This protected us from the India<\/strong>.\nTo prove our independent foreign policy and sovereignty, our leaders\nsubsequently also entered the Rubber Rice Pact with China<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must\nregain the spirit, integrity, efficiency and charm that we had in that early\nperiod. History must not be politicised, nor should revisionist history be\npropagated by politicians and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nhappened at various points in history, aside from economic stupidity, from 1972\nin particular was disastrous. We lost our sovereignty to politicians. We lost\nthe actual name of the country. We lost a clean system and an apolitical Civil\nService. We lost our defence guarantees in 1957. No government armed the\ncountry, or introduced national service to compensate. The 1972 and 1978 constitutions\nwere not constitutions for the people, by the people and of the people, but\ninstead for the politicians, by the politicians and of the politicians! They\nwere both done ostensibly to give full weight to the nation’s culture, but a\nfew symbolic clauses that could have been added were instead used as a ruse to\ndupe the people and engage in a wholesale corruption of the system at large.\nMarxism that would make the Soviets balk, was even argued by some to be part of\nour national culture!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The major\nflaws of both systems that exist to this day are listed below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Making\na particular ideology a constitutional principle, and thereby depriving the\npeople of the right to determine economic policies from time to time at\nperiodic elections (first socialism, and later democratic socialism!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.\nIncluding a truncated list of fundamental rights and almost nullifying their\neffect by making them subject to excessive restrictions and numerous principles\nof so-called state policy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.\nDeparting from the practice of all existing republics of directly or indirectly\nelecting the Head of State, and providing instead for nomination by a political\nmigratory figure<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.\nIntroducing control by the Cabinet of Ministers over the subordinate judiciary,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.\nDepriving the judiciary of the power to determine the constitutional propriety\nof laws, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.\nAbandoning the principle of the neutrality of the public service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7.\nRenamed the country after the name of a political party and solidified an\nartificial flag instead of the unifying national Lion flag used since ancient\ntimes re-raised in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8.\nChanged the systems of this country WITHOUT a national referendum. The party\nthat won power to enact the 1972 constitution did not even win over 50% of the\nnational vote at the General Election of 1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. In\n1987, India – which had already created, trained and financed a terrorist group\nin the early 1970s to destroy our country and all her people, now inserted\nartificial and illegal clauses to effectively give us an even more corrupt\nthird constitution that bares no relevance to our culture, society, common\nsense and only encourages artificial, highly parochial and deeply damaging\ngovernance, promoting only corruption and making us a virtual vassal state of\nIndia. Our sovereignty and independence has been further stripped away by the ILLEGAL <\/strong>Indo\nLanka Accord (which is to this day illegal under international law and makes\nthe MCC agreement look like a tea party with cake).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Uses\ninappropriate, confusing and contradictory Indian jargon (like “link\nlanguage” and “except in xyz Province” etc) making a pig’s\nbreakfast of the official language laws, administration and educational systems\nof this country and promotes multiple ethnic laws and jurisdictions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11.\nEncourages no rule of law, no accountability and no cohesion as a nation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. Made\nus a nation of slaves ruled by local slavemasters – politicians (meant to be\nservants of the people) presiding over us with total ineptitude and\nincompetence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncountry has been made such a mess by the corrupt, the Indians and Indian\nbootlickers, that a nation that should be more akin to Singapore, South Korea,\nand Japan – and which started out far ahead of these economies – is instead\nlanguishing in this sorry, sad and frankly pathetic state today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at a\npicture of 1950s Ceylon’s streets, transport, people, business and look at a\npicture of us today. The once clean and magnificent countryside and towns have\nbeen flooded with Indian junk and lorry buses. Trincomalee, which Nelson\nreferred to as “the finest party in all the world” sits idle and\nbarren. Our people are sent as menial labour to other countries. Corruption is\neverywhere. The Rupee has been printed to such an extent to finance auctions of\nnon existent resources that it is beyond worthless. Compare us to the East\nAsian nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we get\nthe BASICS of this country right – the RULE OF LAW, ZERO TOLERANCE for\ncorruption, and a MERITOCRACY, then the whole nation may be developed to have\nthe same world class infrastructure, opportunities and stature of the upcoming\nPort City in Colombo (which aspires to be a first world hub benchmarked against\nthe world). In short, we can become much more like Singapore and South Korea\nvirtually overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need a\nnew constitution and total system reset. The starting point should be the 1948\nConstitution. From there we can decide upon whether we wish to have an\nexecutive Prime Minister, President, Chancellor, or even a High Priestess. But\nthis current mess of a constitution has got to go! The symbols of Buddhist\nphilosophy, and codifying the official languages are simple things that can be\nadded (this would have been only two, or three amendments to the original\nSoulsbury Constitution of 1948). A great example would be to virtually copy and\npaste (adjusting for our situation) Articles 153 and 154 of the Singapore\nConstitution. If the PEOPLE wish to be a Republic, that is again one simple\namendment. Such changes should be conducted via a National Referendum so the\nPeople decide upon how they wish to be governed as a nation. We must be a\nnation of laws, not of politicians.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must\nrediscover that golden era of policies, leadership integrity and honesty (with\ngentleman like Dudley) and robust and clean system that will be the ultimate\nfortress for a sovereign, free and successful Ceylon\/Sinhaledeepa. There must\nbe a TOTAL cleanup of the Augean stables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us\nexpel Indian nonsense, Indian bootlicking, corruption, inefficiency, endless\nmediocrity, and the squandering of opportunity from our country once and for\nall.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this\nGETS DONE, then this nation will blossom and boom overnight. It is my firm\nbelief that the kind, intelligent and noble people of this island nation have\nextraordinary potential. We have survived through difficult times, survived the\nabhorrent creation of our neighbour, we have endured hardship and even after\nall that, there is nothing like the warmth, smiles and hospitality of our\npeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May we once\nagain become a resplendent island nation in which no one is left out, where\nthere is honour to all and favour to none. And where we the People live in one\nnation, with one law, as one people, with one indomitable destiny, where we win\nseveral World Cups, where opportunity is high and where potential is reached\nand where brand Ceylon stands proudly up with head held high in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long live\nour beautiful island nation. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee\noh resplendent Ceylonese!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stanley Gunaratne From 1948-72, the island of Ceylon (the English phonetic transliteration of our native name of Sinhale\/Sinhaledeepa) was a FULLY SOVEREIGN realm\/kingdom. A realm was a sovereign state which had Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. Each realm functioned (and still function today) as an independent co-equal kingdom from the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}