He remarked that Sri Lanka showed the way how a country should not be administered. He added that Singapore has benefited by studying the failures of certain states like Sri Lanka.

“ In 1965, we had 20 years of examples of failed states. So, we knew what to avoid- racial conflicts, linguistic strife and religious conflicts. We saw Ceylon thereafter, we knew that if we embark on any of those romantic idea to revive a romantic past of greatness and culture, we would be damned”- This is what he said.

He had said that Singapore had the benefit of learning from failed states. He stated that although Chinese was the language of the majority of the people in Singapore, they chose English as the working language.

“Had we chosen Chinese, which was our majority language, we would have perished economically and politically”, he remarked.

As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, our leaders handled the language policy in a wrong and unhealthy manner. That is why we have the present ethnic problem. Will the leaders of the South learn a lesson from the views expressed by Lee Quan Yew?

An English translation of the Editorial in Thinakkural, a Tamil daily, based in Colombo

Comments (2)

Subscribe to this comment's feed