An encounter in Puttlam: Peace as seen by two youth who served in the Army
Repost This ArticleMy article is based on an encounter with two Sinhalese youth in Puttlam recently. Both had served in the Army. Both had lost limbs, though we didn’t find this out till much later. We listened silently as we sat on the bund and they recounted their stories of war, and their aspirations for peace.
When so many are clamouring for war and violence in Colombo, these two youth offered us a different viewpoint. Instead of hatred and violence, having seen enough of both perhaps, they told us they were sick of war and just wanted to live in peace.
It’s a simple message, but are we listening?
Read my article in Sinhala here.
True, it’s simple enough and it’s a pity that most of us don’t understand this. May be we understand but we’re rotten with pride and blind with Eksath Lankawa and Sinhala Deshaya that we’re not ready to acknowledge it. We all are captured by the political system and politicians, we see what they want us to see.
So, we can not understand this simple truth. We can not hear that.
It is our Power Hungry Politicians running the war for their pride, killing their own people and making easy money out of arm purchases. Corrupted Politician, living under tight security, running the the country! Once a pride state… is now “Pariya” state.
the problem we have is that we always talk about war and violence and bombing and all those negative aspects and we never talk about peace…even if we do tlak about peace it ends up in he did that he did this and ends up in a fight….we just dnt see he did this great thing so i should compliment it…thats the basic problem we have…its hard to change
Simple questions have simple answers!
We do not listen because we can not listen. We have different agendas. Issues such as war and Peace, politics are our passe- temps favoris – to lighten our hearts while we get our evening drink, to shed a tear or two, to be emotional……… and to show-off.
And Shylock, it’s because of our Pariah mentality, we can not see the simple things in front of our eyes. Why see what the IC wants us to see?
I wish to read the article- will someone translate it into English(orTamil), please