The Independent generation

by Aditha Dissanayake

The King of Britain said on February 4th, 1948, in a speech conveyed through the Duke of Gloucester "After a period of nearly a century and a half, during which the status of Ceylon was that of a colony in my empire, she now takes her place as a free and independent member of the British Commonwealth of Nations". Words of joy? Or words of doom?

"Doom" says twenty-two year old Mekula Wijesena. "My father thinks we should never have got our independence.

He says if we had still been a colony of the British empire we would have done better. We would have been like Hongkong." This is what your father thinks, what do you think? I ask Mekula. "Gosh" he says and shrugs his shoulders. "I haven't given it much thought" he admits. "But I suppose we should be glad we are a free nation".

Sixteen year old Ruwanthi de Silva too, says, to her, so far independence had meant writing an essay every year on Independence Day, at school, but now that she had finished her O/L exam, she is happy she would never have to write one ever again. "But, according to my father, we got our independence too easily.

There was almost no bloodshed. He says if we had to fight for it the way the Indians did we would have valued it more".

"Everything went wrong after we got our independence", says the thirty-three-year-old manager of a tea estate in Talawakelle. He too is determined we would have done better if we had been under British power.

For four-hundred and forty-three years, Sri Lanka was under foreign rule. Europeans exploited the economy and dominated the political arena.

But they also built roads, improved transport, health, communication and the education systems. Yet, the whole nation, regardless of their race or caste had got together to throw them out. Venerable Wariyapola Sumangala Nayaka Hamuduruwo had hauled down the Union Jack. People from Uwa, Wellassa, Kandy, Matale, Dumbara and Kurunegala had rebelled against the British government.

But all this was centuries ago (1816-1817) Now, fifty four years after 4th Feb. 1948, to most of the young people at Galle Face on Saturday before last, Independence meant just another chapter in a history textbook. "It has something to do with the Donoughmore Commission hasn't it?" asked one young man, scratching his head in bewilderment and not a bit ashamed he knew very little about the history of his motherland.

"All this happened so long ago, I don't think even my father was born when we got our independence. So, why bother about it?" he asks me, not bothering to hide how bored he is by my questioning. "If whitemen had not pierced the rock at Kadugannawa you will not be here looking at the ho-gana pokuna" (the howling pond)" says another young man to his friend while staring into the blue waves in the receding sunlight.

He says he is Mihira Pathirana, from Galle. His friend is from Kandy. They are following a course about the garment industry in an institute in Bambalapitiya. I ask them what they think about Independence Day. "Its a holiday." Grins the one from Kandy. "I can stay at home for three days". Mihira frowns at his friend's carefree words.

He says in a serious tone "I think it's silly to celebrate an independence we do not have". What is independence? Who has it? Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in America on July 4th 1776 said " We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

Life, Liberty and Happiness? Slavery in its conventional form being dead, everybody who is alive has got the first. But Liberty and Happiness? "I don't think anybody in this world is truly independent.

Not as an individual or as a nation", says a twenty-nine-year old marketing executive who believes he knows something about the subject, having studied political science at university. "Being truly independent means not bowing down to any authority and sticking to one's principles even when everyone else is against them."

A graduate in archaeology, who had once been a bikkhu but had given up his robes says "Independence means keeping your head high without bowing it to serve another's will.

To me, being independent means being honest and truthful. It means looking any man in the eye and being able to ask him to go to hell". "I don't know about the nation and its independence." sighs a voice in my ear.

"But wouldn't I like to have some for myself. I would like to break free from my family, forget my work and my studies, throw my present life out of the window and travel all over the world. I would like to be like H.D Thoreau in Walden".

Sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion." Whose voice is this? Mine? Or Yours? Or our's, together?

(Reproduced from 2002 Daily News Independence day supplement)

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