A friend of the regime
The first Rajapakse I knew, closely related to the current President, was from over ten years ago, in a different country at a time when the Executive of the day had begun a “war for peace†campaign that was also sold as the only way in which peace could be achieved and soon. We were both undergraduate students in the same University though in different colleges. He kept an immaculately clean apartment, tastefully furnished with a well appointed kitchen which always harboured the delicious promise of homemade Sinhalese food. We worked closely together on many projects. He was precise, sensible, quick witted and reflecting back on his nature, essentially a political animal in training. I realize now why I was then attracted to that which he embodied and represented. At its most basic was an effortless Southern hospitality that he exuded, the equivalent of xenia (ξενία), the Greek concept loosely translated as hospitality, or generosity and courtesy shown by a…
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