n btw what about the south asian and black minorities in England?
n non malay malaysians? where are the aborigines represented on the australian flag?

Stop complaining, if u r sri lankan,then no one can take that away from you, whether ur crimson, orange, green or yellow.

Each country has its own national flag
Specially designed that it can safely ‘brag’
Its own unique style without being a drag
Hoping it will flutter properly without a sag

(C) Samuel Goh Kim Eng – 040409
http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
Sat. 4th Apr. 2009.

If we leave the legends out, the National Flag of Sri Lanka was the flag of Sri Wickrema Rajasingha, the last King of Lanka. I have not found any earlier reference to the Lion Flag. Is there any evidence that Devanambiya Tissa or Parakramabahu the Great or any other Sinhala or Tamil Kings of Sri Lanka, before King Rajasinghe, use a lion flag? May be a historian can give us the information with scholarly evidence and source.

Some years ago when reading the life of Pompey (106 – 48 BCE ), in Plutarch’s Lives, the last paragraph shed light on the earliest mention of the symbol, a lion holding a sword in its right paw. Pompey, who was being chased by Julius Caesar, reached the shores of Egypt to get help from King Ptolemy. King Ptolemy’s Council decided to kill Pompey. The assassins also cut his head off. Plutarch wrote,
“Not long after, Caesar arrived in the country that was polluted with this foul act, and when one of the Egyptians was sent to present him with Pompey’s head, he turned away from him with abhorrence as from a murderer; and on receiving his seal, ON WHICH WAS ENGRAVED A LION HOLDING A SWORD IN HIS PAW, he burst into tears.” (Emphasis mine.)

I am not in any way casting doubt that the Lion flag was not an original creation of a Sinhala or Tamil designers in the court of Sri Rajasinghe. May be Pompey got the idea from traders or ambassadors from whatever the Island was called during Pompey’s era or vice versa. I do not question the symbolism that Mr. Bopage gives to the sword and the body parts of the Lion. The flag is a symbol and the three communities interpret the current Lion Flag based on what it signifies to them. I like that animal, not because my father named his five sons with names ending in “Singam”. I wished the lion was holding a Chakra or Olive branch (I almost said, “Dove!”) in his right forepaw.

To Mr. Bopage and probably to many Sinhalese, the strip signifies that the Tamil and the Muslim communities are integral part of Sri Lanka. I am not sure what the Strips signify to the Muslims. But to many Tamils, the flag with the lion holding a sword, the bow tree leaves in the corner and the maroon background bounded by the Yellow Border is the Sinhala Sri Lanka. Outside the yellow border and within a peripheral yellow border are the coloured strips for Tamil and Muslim communities, symbolizing the status of a class of citizens inside a state but outside of Sinhala Sri Lanka.

The question arises why the two strips symbolizing the Tamil and Muslim communities were not placed inside One Border, without the vertical yellow border separating them from the share of the Lion? The rectangular border symbolizes that the Tamil speaking communities are within the territorial borders of Sri Lanka, but outside the Sinhala state of Sri Lanka. One wonders whether the mind-set of the Sinhala leaders got symbolised in the flag. When there was a clamour for inclusion, the best the Sinhala leaders could do was to show the two communities as part of Ceylon but not an integral and equal part of the whole. Therein lies the cause of the armed conflict.

May be, reconciliation should start with the redesigning of the flag to symbolize the equality of citizens and communities, before one starts to amend the words or even create a new constitution. Not that it would solve the problem, but it would be a start. I doubt that we are capable of redesigning a “Flag” that will be acceptable to all communities. Any Sinhala poilitical party that advocate a redesigning of the flag or the easier task of redesigning the state would be out of power before you can say, “Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam.”

Just think about it.

The flag issue, however, is just a symptom. The real issue is the inherent and cultural dicrimination throughout our society. How can we move forward if we can’t accomodate learning in a “different” language? Or how can we become inclusive if we try to put laws in our constitution making conversion to a “different” religion (i.e Christianity)? Let’s lose our shackles and not FORCE people to speak/learn in a certain language or follow a specific religion. No freedom-loving person will EVER condone and/or embrace a majority-forced way of thinking/living. The yearning for freedom is much too great.

There is a reason why even after beginning at the same point, Singapore developed into prosperous and thriving global country and our beloved Serendip is slightly above a banana republic. Wake up people- let us take our rightful place in the world. We’ve wasted so many financial resources. We’ve also lost a couple generations of time. How sad! In order to emerge in the 21st century, we need all 20 million of us on the same page and moving forward to the same goal- that of the Sri Lanka nation first before each of our separate interests!!!!

Can you answer why the peace talks failed in 2004 / 2005?

When the GOSL had to decide to give more power to provincial govt, more over to introduce self governing states like India. BTW, LTTE came down a step to accept this, so it would have been a single country as GOSL wanted. The reason I say “would have been” is its a failed state now ( if anyone wants to define failed sate, look at SL).

If you can answer this, it will be easier to answer (explain) you question.

to start talks shouldnt every one agree none of these countries have been broken into 2 countries?

‘Lakmali’ seems to have got the wrong end of the argument. Except for Malaysia, both the United Kingdom and India have been conscious of and have also experienced separatist tendencies. The leaders of these countries were able to weaken those tendencies by providing more decentralized forms of decision making powers and more equitable opportunities to the constituent communities. One of the best examples for this would be to consider the case of Quebec in Canada.

For example, the leaders of the Indian independence movement were conscious of the diverse ethno-linguistic nature of the Indian society. They united this diversity into one single national force through their anti-colonial struggle and secular government. Hindi was made the official language of India while each state had its own official language. They continued to teach English as a link language and provided the same emphasis as given during the pre-colonial days. Because of the positive vision of the Indian political leadership, a person from India would respond as an Indian first. Her/His nationality will come second. I invite Lakmali to compare this situation with what our political leadership did in Sri Lanka
In Malaysia, with the recent change in the UMNO leadership and increasing pressures for equitable opportunities to all the communities including Malays, Chinese and Tamils exerted by the growing strength of the opposition, such changes may occur sooner rather than later, and if so happens, it will be for the betterment of Malaysia. In Sri Lanka this is yet to occur.

The political moral at the end of the day is, instead of looking inwards, we Sri Lankans should be looking outwards for models and lessons we can learn from and use to heal our fractured social relationships.
Regarding the comment by ‘citizen’ I am basically in agreement, except to say, that mine was a response to a comment on Prof Michael Robert’s article ‘The needs of the Hour‘. I did not initiate this discussion on the national flags.

The National anthem is in Bengali composed by Rabindranath Tagore
The most publicised monument is Taj mahal – An Islamic inspired monument
A Sikh Prime minister – Manmohan Singh – extremely small minority

when shall we learn