{"id":98070,"date":"2020-01-21T16:58:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T23:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98070"},"modified":"2020-01-21T16:58:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T23:58:49","slug":"one-national-anthem-sung-in-one-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/21\/one-national-anthem-sung-in-one-language\/","title":{"rendered":"ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM SUNG IN ONE LANGUAGE"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The National Anthem of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) should be the\noriginal song sung in the language it was written in. That is “Namo Namo\nMatha” and it was written to be sung in Sinhala. If the anthem had been\nwritten even in Swahili, then EVERYONE, irrespective of ethnicity, should sing\nit in that language. Other countries that sing in multiple languages have no\nhistorical, cultural or contextual application to Ceylon.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As usual, this self proclaimed “nationalist” Eranda\nGinige spouts nonsensical fake history. Whatever the wrongs of the modern day\nUNP, that does not justify twisting the patriotic acts of the Independence\nmovement who achieved FULL independence in 1948. There was no “scam.”\nIf anything, a government which didn’t even win a majority of the national vote\n(over 50%) changed the entire country in 1972 without a democratic mandate and\nscammed the people. During this transformation to a Republic, they politicised\nthe entire Civil Service and ruined the education system of the country by\nseparating people into separate language streams and other nonsense. Becoming a\nRepublic is completely SEPARATE to being Independent. We had a fully\ndemocratically elected government and the Governor General was appointed only\non the recommendations of the Prime Minister of Ceylon. The Privy Council was\nused by Singapore as well for a considerable period of time. It only acted as a\nfinal arbitrator of Ceylonese Law as made by our own Parliament to the letter.\nOne could argue it was far more independent than modern day courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceylon (which is Sinhale in\nEnglish and our actual name) was a fully independent country in 1948. To argue\nit wasn’t is to argue that somehow New Zealand is not an independent country\ntoday which of course would be ludicrous. Bandaranaike was an Indian bootlicker\nand traitor who used the non-issue of language and ethnicity simply to\nmanipulate an electorate undergoing economic hardship to vote him into power.\nHe removed defence and cultural links with Britain not for any\n“nationalist\/patriotic” agenda, but instead to make us a lackey of\nIndia – this was cemented by the fool JRJ, the architect of the modern day\nuseless UNP with his acceptance of the undemocratic Indo Lanka Accord forced on\nSri Lanka in 1987. No Sri Lankan leader, despite proclaiming themselves great\npatriots has as of yet removed this garbage from our country. Furthermore, the\nuse of “God Save the King\/Queen” was not as a national anthem, but\nthe Royal<\/em> anthem. There is a\nnotable difference. One is for use at receptions\/functions of the Head of\nState, the other is the song of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Anthem of Ceylon\n(now Sri Lanka) should be the original song sung in the language it was written\nin. That is “Namo Namo Matha” and it was written to be sung in\nSinhala. If the anthem had been written even in Swahili, then EVERYONE,\nirrespective of ethnicity, should sing it in that language. Other countries\nthat sing in multiple languages have no historical, cultural or contextual\napplication to Ceylon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Singapore, EVERY citizen,\nwhether Chinese, Malay, Tamil, Sinhalese, Eurasian, will sing the anthem in\nMalay – the language the anthem was written in. Therefore in Ceylon\/Sri Lanka,\nEVERY citizen, whether Sinhalese, Tamil, Moor, Malay, Burgher, Veddah etc,\nshould sing in ONE VOICE in the language the anthem was written in – in this\ncase Sinhala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applying\nstupid Indianised left wing twists on factual history is a foolish and\nirresponsible thing to do. This is meant to be the Financial Times, not some\nrag tag tabloid. It is extremely disappointing to see the history of\nIndependence twisted by this irresponsible writer, who is known to interrupt\npeople when on televised programmes like an uncivilised brat. Our country was\nFULLY independent in 1948 and far better run by the first few governments,\ncomposed of civilised and honourable men and women – be that DS Senanayake, the\nfather of the nation, be that the gentlemanly Dudley, the disciplinarian Sir\nJohn (who told the Indians where to stick their diktats), the world’s first\nelected female Prime Minister Mrs. B etc. No country in the world politicises\nits independence history. It is thoroughly pathetic that we have so called\njournalists and civil society and politicians spouting vitriolic diatribe and\nmisleading the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is\nnot politics, but history. This is not about UNP, SLFP, or SLPP. This is about\nCeylon\/Sri Lanka and all Sri Lankans. Don’t fabricate history. The writer\nGinige should take some serious responsibility for his reprehensible language\nin this FT article as well. If he wants to live and act like an Indian, he\nshould go to India. The rest of us – Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors, Burghers,\nMalays, Veddahs, etc want to live as one people, with one destiny with no\nethnic ghettos and run by competent sane and visionary leaders – not\nmankollakarayas who pander to India and who pointlessly blame everything on the\nWest, or now China as well.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long live\nSri Lanka and long live the truth,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stanley\nGunaratne<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stanley Gunaratne The National Anthem of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) should be the original song sung in the language it was written in. That is “Namo Namo Matha” and it was written to be sung in Sinhala. If the anthem had been written even in Swahili, then EVERYONE, irrespective of ethnicity, should sing it in […]<\/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-98070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98070","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=98070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}