{"id":94267,"date":"2019-10-23T17:22:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T00:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=94267"},"modified":"2019-10-23T17:22:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T00:22:17","slug":"awakening-the-nation-from-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/23\/awakening-the-nation-from-down-under\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Awakening the Nation\u2019 from Down Under"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\u2018Sri Lanka 2020 and Beyond is a forum that will provide Sri\nLankans living in Australia with an opportunity to engage in a dialog with the\nintent of shaping the future blueprint of Sri Lanka. This forum will provide\nwith an opportunity to directly interact with the panel of experts on specific\ntopics and provide valuable feedback in shaping the future of Sri Lanka.\u2019 –\nfrom the \u2018Sri Lanka 2020 and Beyond\u2019<\/em> forum\u2019s website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Lecture and Q &A programme on the theme \u2018Awakening the\nNation\u2019 hosted by Sri Lanka 2020 and Beyond forum was conducted at the Rudsen\nlecture theatre of the Melbourne Burwood Campus of Deakin University, Victoria\non October 20, 2019. Though it had been scheduled to begin at 2:30 and close at\n5:00 p.m. local time, it went on till around 6:30 p.m. The hall was filled to\ncapacity, with an audience estimated by one speaker at over 600. They were all\nprofessionals living and working in Australia. It was a very well organized\npromotion event in support of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa\u2019s presidential candidacy.\nThere was a pre-recorded video statement of the candidate (GR) welcoming the\nguests to the session and thanking them for their presence. As always, in the\nterse few words he spoke, there was this sincere tone of \u2018I mean business. Here\nis the reason why you may trust me\u2019. He appealed to the voters to do their duty\nand pledged to do his duty on election as president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gotabhaya is a decorated war hero,who voluntarily retired from the\nmilitary in 1990, as a lieutenant colonel, for private reasons, and who later\nworked as a highly qualified computer professional  in America, and\nfinally as a prominent civilian state functionary in Sri Lanka during his\nbrother Mahinda\u2019s presidency. The panel of speakers\/experts, who are definitely\nworthy of Gotabhaya, comprised the following four (in the order in which they\nappeared in the advertisement): Attorney at Law Udaya Gammanpila MP,\nGotabhaya\u2019s legal adviser Ali Sabry  PC, a distinguished former Central\nBank Governor Ajith Nivaad Cabral, and former UPFA MP Rear Admiral (Retd) Dr\nSarath Weerasekera, who made a name for himself by upgrading, under Defence\nSecretary GR\u2019s instructions, an earlier sparse, ragtag, hardly recognized, home\nguard brigade of uneducated rustic young men into a properly trained 41,000 strong\nCivil Defence Force, which earned respect as an adjunct to the regular\narmy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The speakers were, no doubt, the best available for the Sri Lanka\n2020 and Beyond forum (in fact, for any similarly serious conference for that\nmatter) for providing an opportunity for the participants to listen to and to\ndirectly interact with them on the topics they had been assigned that related\nbroadly to the fourfold domain, where the Yahapalanaya\u2019s abysmal performance is\nnow well known, of national security, economic development, political\nadministration, and matters of justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The compere made it clear that while only a very few questions\ncould be entertained during the short period at the seminar\u2019s disposal, further\nquestions could be uploaded to a given email address and the panelists would\nuse these for improving and streamlining the \u2018Blueprint\u2019 (Gotabhaya\u2019s plan) for\nreactivating and modernizing the nation-building process that the Yahapalanaya\nsuddenly aborted in 2015. It refers to the Blueprint, the writer feels, that\nGotabhaya\u2019s Viyath Maga (Professionals for a Better Future) organization has\ndeveloped over the past 4+ years, working with experts including his fellow\ntechnocrats with whose assistance he made remarkable achievements in rebuilding\nthe country after decades of devastating civil unrest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organizers had boiled down questions previously emailed from\nparticipants into  a few representative ones flashed on the overhead\nscreen, such as \u2018What are the strategies that will be employed to counter <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • false propaganda being spread\n within and outside Sri Lanka and in the UNHRC against the Sri Lanka Armed\n Forces, alleging that they have committed war crimes and genocide against\n the Tamil community,<\/li>
  • threats posed by powerful countries\n directly and through their proxies to the sovereignty and territorial\n integrity of Sri Lanka and<\/li>
  • extremism  <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Two or three impromptu questions were also put to them, for\nexample, \u2018Were they going to accommodate in the new administration the\ndishonest characters (called by an insulting sobriquet which would literally\ntranslate into English as \u2018rice ferriers\u2019) who were close to Mahinda Rajapaksa\nand brought about his downfall?\u2019 The answer was too obvious to be articulated.\nUdaya Gammanpila reminded the audience of how Gotabhaya, with the Urban <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Development Authority under the Defence  Ministry of which he\nwas Secretary, ordered the pulling down  of an unauthorized three-storeyed\nbuilding in Colombo alleged to have been built by a government minister,\nsomething a less conscientious person yielding to \u2018same party\u2019 favouritism\nwould not have done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gotabhaya with his unique administrative abilities, personal\nprobity and strict discipline will be a godsend for the country in the current\ndire straits. He has a clear vision and a coherent plan for national\nregeneration drawn up with expert help from a wide range of patriotic\nintellectuals and professionals. Gotabhaya is not a politician or a party man.\nThat is probably his greatest qualification for the job. The Yahapalanaya has\ntarred politicians of all periods with the same brush, a great injustice to the\ngenuinely sincere few of them of the past and the present. Gotabhaya\u2019s proven\ntrack record cannot be matched or challenged by his rival\/s. Could we think of\na better champion to pull the country back from the brink of absolute ruin,\nwhere it is now teetering?    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Of course, Gotabhaya\u2019s blueprint will not be a return to the past.\nIn fact, it is more likely to be a \u2018springy frog leap\u2019 (to invent a new\nexpression) into an essentially knowledge driven future. The idea of forging\nahead through strategies based on knowledge is reminiscent of the ADB sponsored\nKnowledge Society project of 2010-2014, forgotten since. This will at least\npartly compensate for the contrived disincentive of the dark period of failed\n\u2018good governance\u2019 of the past five years. Gotabhaya has been stressing the need\nfor giving the highest priority to the education of the young under his future\nadministration (which is a certainty now). As in other areas, Gotabhaya is\nlikely to be interested in developing bipartisan policies in education, so that\nprograms started by a government led by one party will not be disrupted by\nanother led by its rival, as has happened to date with disastrous consequences\nfor the nation (particularly during periods of UNP rule).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    On reflecting back on the meeting, the writer feels that had this\nlevel of attention been paid to the FB savvy young  floating voter\ncomponent (particularly, the millennial section – 18 to 40 year olds) of the\nelectorate (including Sri Lankan workers abroad), the narrow margin by which\nMahinda Rajapaksa lost in 2015 would probably have been more than cancelled,\nand the rigours of the past five years avoided. Social media suggest at least\n200,000 expatriate Sri Lankans working across the world will be coming to Sri\nLanka to vote at this most crucial presidential election ever in its forty one\nyear history. This Australian program is most likely to be repeated in other\nglobal centres. Participants who do not travel home to vote will urge and\nencourage their near and dear ones there to go and cast their vote without fail\nas this will be the last chance available for the Sri Lankan nation to survive\nas an independent unitary sovereign state.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Rohana R. Wasala \u2018Sri Lanka 2020 and Beyond is a forum that will provide Sri Lankans living in Australia with an opportunity to engage in a dialog with the intent of shaping the future blueprint of Sri Lanka. This forum will provide with an opportunity to directly interact with the panel of experts on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94267","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=94267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}