{"id":96900,"date":"2019-12-27T00:48:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T06:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96900"},"modified":"2019-12-26T17:28:57","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T00:28:57","slug":"beautification-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/27\/beautification-of-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautification of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the advent of GR government to power the\njubilant youth of this country, heeding to the election campaign of Mr.\nGotabhaya Rajapaka saying that \u201dyou fulfil your responsibility and I will\nfulfil my responsibility\u201d launched campaign of beautifying the old walls and\ntowers covered with moss, dilapidated walls and betel chew spit walls with\ncolourful, historically and culturally significant pictures.  This new wave I understand was started from\nWeeraketiya spread like a storm to all parts of the country and people\nbelonging to all walks of life, all ages including school children, all\nethnicity, (I say all ethnicity because there were TV pictures showing Muslim\ngirls wearing Abaya and hijab were also participating in drawing the pictures)\nand even foreign tourists joined the trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This art popularly known as mural paintings\nor Graffiti art is not something new and alien to Sri Lanka.  It had been a tradition in Sri Lankan temples\nto make mural paintings on the underground chamber walls of Temples and during\nmy schooling times I have seen such mural paintings at the underground chamber\nwalls of the Veherahena Taemple in Matara and at kushtarajagala Temple in\nWeligama and understand that sch mural paintings are availab;e at the temples\nin Mulkirigala, Dambulla and many other temples.  These paintings mostly depict the Jathaka\nstories, Lord Buddha\u2019s visits to Sri Lanka,\narrival of Arahat Mihindu Thera to Sri Lanka and his meeting of the\nking Devanampiyatissa, and the arrival of Sagamitta Therani witjh the Sri Maha\nBodhi sapling.  The the Sigiri Frescos is\nalso a form of these arts and it has noe become a world heritage.  The dyes used for all these paintings had\nbeen home made with the sap extracted from various native herbs and plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\norigin of this graffiti arts or mural paintings can be traced to pre-historic\nstone-age people who lived in caves and made imprints of their stone tools and\nthe animals they hunted.  <\/strong>An article published in the Daily Mirror\nrecently said thatalthough graffiti is considered to be an art form in the\npopular culture, it originated during the Paleolithic period and early\ncivilizations made use of symbols carved on caves and other materials as means\nof communicating with one another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such Petroglyphs are considered to be the first form\nof graffiti which are created on a rock surface by incising, carving and\nabrading it. The article said that during World War II, \u2018Kilroy was here\u2019 was a\ngraffiti phenomenon that flourished across the globe followed by the\nconstruction of the Berlin Wall which is a perfect example of modern graffiti\nand around the 1980s, graffiti was seen in many hip-hop tracks and it still has\nstrong ties to this culture. Along with DJing, MCing and breaking, graffiti\nbecame a central part in hip-hop culture which could be traced back to Bronx in\nNew York.\nFrom NYC graffiti art was then seen in London, Paris, Rome\nand many other countries. By the 20th century it had further advanced into a\nmode of communication between people. One of the 20th century artists that gained\nmuch popularity for his satirical work was Banksy. His street art and\nsubversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive\nstenciling technique. It said that today graffiti art is one specialization in\nmodern art and has taken its place in the popular culture and any artists use\nspray paints, stencils, stickers and new techniques for their creations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\npeople in sincere appreciation of what is being voluntarily done by our the\nyouth devoid of politics giving meanings have identified these Activities with\nwhat Winston S. Churchill, the former British Prime1\nMinister said tht A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it\nhas strengthened nations in their hour of peril.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor NAlin\nAbeysekara attached to the Faculty of Management Studies of the Open University\nin writing an article to the Daily Financial Times (Daily FT) has pointed out\nmany incidents the youth volunteers carrying out other than mural\npaintings.  Theyinclude <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Removal of posters, cleaning beaches and trying to keep the city clean and he says that they are enjoying their work despite gender, ethnicity or any other and heir smiles will tell us many positives for our future.\u00a0<\/li>
  • A youth called Nalaka Senadeera has initiated a project of re-cultivating hundreds of acres of paddy fields in his village with a large number of young men and women supporting him. <\/li>
  • Dulanjana Vithanage, a third-year student at the Department of Marketing Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura has started to promote jack fruit in Sri Lanka (the jack tree is sometimes called bath gaha\u201d or \u2018rice tree\u2019 by the Sinhalese). <\/li>
  • A small trash bin is placed in some three-wheelers which had not seen before which the Professor says convey the message Please don\u2019t throw garbage out. Keep them in the trash bin.\u201d\u00a0<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    He says the above are one of the best indications that the common man in\nthe country has changed drastically and in simple terms the people have overtaken\npoliticians, which is a good sign for the country!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In  conclusion of his article Prof. Abeysekera\nquotes from Rev. Dr. Martin LutherKing Jr. that One of the great liabilities\nof history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods\nof social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its\nfraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through\nrevolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to\nadjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Shown below are some of the wall paintings that can be seen in various\nparts of the country including Jaffna.\nReports from the North said that the Sinhala and Tamil youth of the North also\njoined this trend.  It said that the\nSinhala youth painted pictures depicting Sinhala cultural aspects at the Bus\nstand and other places while the Tamil youth painted pictures depicting Tamil\ncultural aspects.  The reports a;so said\nthat Yoshitha Rajapaksa who was on a visit to the North with his wifw to\nworship at religious places also joined in the painting work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Munasinghe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Youth\nfrom Batticaloa (COURTESY = Daily Mirror)<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    (Above picture shows that\nsome racist hooligans in Norwood\nenvious of the Mural painting programme have splashed some black oil on a wall\ncleaned for Mural paintings to prevent it taking place  \u2013 Courtesy \u2013 Lanka C News,lk)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While the new trend has been highly\nappreciated by almost all Sri Lankans with local paint manufacturing companies\nproviding paint and brushes free of charge, neighbours providing meals and\nrefreshments, and TV stations (not all) providing wide publicity some Tamil\nracist politicians who deserve to be banished from this country have come out\nwith critical comments.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The detestable Tamil racist alleged to be a\ndescendant of a South Indian Kallathoni who invented the \u2018white van\u2019 story to\ndiscredit this country and who was a close ally of megalomaniac Prabhakaran has\nstrongly criticised the programme and has said that drawing pictures relating\nto the war and war heroes will remind the Tamil youth about the repressions\nthey had been subjected to by the Sri Lankan army and implies that our heroic\narmy repressed people whereas in fact they rescued, fed and nursed nearly\n300,000 innocent Tamil people who were being held by the Tiger terrorist as\nhuman shields.  This idiot should understand\nthat the War Heroes represent the symbol that the people of this country would\nbe admirably relished by the people of this country for several future\ngenerations.  It was these war heroes who\nwere responsible for halting the people leaving the country with their kith and\nkin having lost hoprd for a future for them and were instrumental in building\nnew hopes and stimulate the people to return to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If this idiot cannot live in this country\nunder the present setup it is better for him to go back to his motherland India or seek\nasylum anywhere else. This racist who day dream about creating a racist unit\ncalled Malai Nadu in the hill country areas was an insignificant character in\nthe past and he had been elated to prominence by the UNP and he was even\nallowed to function as a spokesman on behalf of the UNP.  All patriotic voters in the UNP must make it\na point not to vote for this racist and at the same time the media personnel\nshould also shun all publicity to him.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Prabhakaran\u2019s cousin Sivajilingham has also\ncriticised this programme saying that it will erase the cultural and religious\nprominence of the Tamil and Hindu people and hence it should not be carried out\nin Jaffna and in the North\nand his call has already been ignored by the Jaffna youth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA With the advent of GR government to power the jubilant youth of this country, heeding to the election campaign of Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaka saying that \u201dyou fulfil your responsibility and I will fulfil my responsibility\u201d launched campaign of beautifying the old walls and towers covered with moss, dilapidated walls and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aamnizam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96900","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=96900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}