Thank you for your thoughtful piece. While I’m always tempted by the simplicity and elegance of classical liberal thinking on this matter, history reminds me of the great cost the people of Europe have had to pay for their nation-states (countless bloody wars) and the remarkable speed with which the prize is unraveling as a result of immigration and deeper European integration.

It is far from clear that the nation-state is the ‘natural’ form of government. In fact, as any good Hegelian would argue context is essential when selecting a suitable form of government; the “negation” of the Soulberry Constitution and its liberal values shows that we are not ready for such a form of governance – perhaps we need to aspire to something more limited. Plurinationalism is but one option.

Please be grateful enough to elaborate on what I did not understand.

“Presumably because she was not setting out to address an academic audience, Jayatissa does not expressly set out a theoretical basis for her argument,”

You more or less nailed the fundamental flaw with your own style of communication- you’re addressing an “academic” audience (and most certainly, a very narrow band of that audience) and not Sri Lankans at large. I doubt that even people who agree with you here really understood what you were saying (Orion and Keynes! can easily disprove me if I am wrong). I’m sorry to say, but Mr Wimaladasa’s post was far more comprehensible and accessible than your articles.

Moving on to the fundamental flaw with the substance of your thinking, which your writing style wonderfully obscures, you have yet to define what a “nation” is and whether they exist (in the manner that you articulate) in Sri Lanka. You do not appear to recognise the gross contradiction in your identification of “Sri Lankan Tamils” as a distinct nation.

As for your concern with Eurocentrism, I suggest conversing with CPA’s language unit to determine whether this article can be translated into Sinhala or Tamil. If this translation is not possible, then you might need to revisit how much of your own thinking is affected by non-Sri Lankan sources.

In The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, Michael Tomasello discusses the Ratchet Effect – a kind of mission creep that occurs because cultures have historical records such as the Mahavamsa and the Puranaru poems. Such texts anthropomorphize the lives of our forefathers and thus act as a catalyst for maintaining traditions. The fact that the totemic symbol that manifests itself on top of traditional oil lamps is yet to be changed to a lion may bear witness to this claim.

I was enjoying an unbeatable bonus: Asanga’s articulate composition, a Three Coins beer and a saturday afternoon. Then came Wimaladasa’s gem. He made my day.

Govinda! May the Blessings of the Noble Triple Gem be with him forever!

Hey Wimaladasa, where the deuce do I come into this? I have not been mentioned by Welikela, Jeyaraj or Jayatissa! By the way, either follow the GV editors’ advice and run an auto spell and grammar check on your computer after you’ve written, or go to night school and improve your use of English (which is currently atrocious). After all, 2012 is the Year of Trilingualism.

[Editors note: Suggest you type out future comments in Microsoft Word, so that even if they don’t make any sense, your spelling and grammar are checked. Also read our site guidelines before commenting.]