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President Anura Kumara Dissanayake outlined the formidable task of nation building at the 78th Independence Anniversary celebration on Wednesday. Achieving such desirable objectives poses a formidable challenge.

He highlighted the economic progress, resilience and achievements during the past 18 months. He said the nation has made steady progress in restoring economic stability despite daunting obstacles.

Inclusive growth

He emphasised that economic gains must reach all communities across all provinces and highlighted that true development is only possible through inclusive growth.

Modernisation

He outlined the strategies for modernising governance through digitisation and the reforming of the education system to provide vocational and academic skills for every child.

Public administration

He cited strengthening the public services as a priority. He pledged to strengthen services in agriculture, fisheries, energy, public transport, and health care, where he said the government was hoping to build 200 primary health care centres.

Call for unity

As on many previous occasions, the President stressed the importance of unity, determination, and brotherhood to realise the national vision of “A Thriving Nation – A Beautiful Life” and to break the cycle of missed opportunities.

National unity

The President once again emphasised the need to forge unity among the multiple communities in the country.

The worst failure during the 78 years of our post-independence has been the inability to forge a united nation. The communalism and discriminatory policies have been the biggest setbacks to the economy. The several waves of communal violence in 1958, 1977 and 1983 weakened the developmental capacity of the country severely. These several waves of communal violence culminating in the nearly three-decade civil war were the most serious economic and human disaster of post-independent Sri Lanka.

A feature of the 78 years of our independence that we celebrated last Wednesday was the several migration waves that have weakened the development capacity of the country. These waves of migration since independence 78 years ago have weakened the country’s development capacity as well as its free health facilities and social welfare.

Early migration

Early waves of emigration were of minority communities sensing disadvantages of the country’s language policy. The Burghers left owing to the disadvantages they feared as a result of the Sinhala-only policy and seeking greener pastures.

Communal riots

The communal riots of 1958 and 1977 and most notably the horrendous riots of 1983 and the subsequent civil war of nearly three decades resulted in a large exodus of Tamils. This included a large number of professionals, such as doctors, engineers and technicians.

Current migration

The current migration has several motivations. Most them migrate for a few years.

President’s speech

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s speech on Independence Day last Wednesday emphasised the paramount need to forge a united nation once again. This need for national unity was also underscored in his speech at last year’s Independence Day celebration. The President said that “the nation has embarked on a new path with a government built by the collective effort of people from all regions—North, East, West and South.”

President’s reflective
conclusion

The President concluded by saying, “We are ordinary people, not superhuman beings. Yet together, we can create a better country than the one we were born into—one where our children inherit not despair but hope.”

Concluding reflection

Transforming this political rhetoric into institutional reality is a mammoth endeavour. Achieving each of these desirable national objectives is a formidable challenge. Achieving all of them is a Herculean feat. Nevertheless, the endeavour to achieve them and moving towards these objectives would be commendable. We must be committed to achieving these goals and achieving them during this government’s term of office.

Among these goals there is one we cannot fail to achieve. That of national unity. The failure to achieve communal and ethnic harmony will render the achievement of all other objectives futile. The threat to ethnic harmony arises from the political culture of the country and the practice of political parties that seek to evoke communalism to gain popularity. Can we prevent this?