“Behind every issue there is a value.” I read this recently and it continues to illuminate this great Sri Lankan awakening of 2022. The reality is that this unprecedented, inspirational people power movement will eventually fizzle out unless it can change underlying social values.

The trigger issues of power cuts, fuel shortages and long queues represent the conflicts around which clashes of values are playing out. If we think back to Mirihana, public frustration boils over when it becomes increasingly clear that there is one rule for us (the public) and a different rule for them – the president and his family.

So the first time we feel the tangible impact of our collective outrage is in that moment when electricity is cut for the first time on Pangiriwatta Lane to pacify angry protestors. The cheers are deafening as they unite people across the island in that moment, our resolve only strengthening in the face of social media bans and curfews over the next 48 hours.

This fateful sequence of events mainstream what is a pivotal cultural shift; an economic crisis precipitates a political crisis that gives birth to a social revolution. By the time GotaGoGama was established in the following days, the struggle found its moral clarity – equality: one Sri Lanka, one people, one law, one purpose.

If leaders and civil society can leverage this momentum against corruption, and fuel the values of shared prosperity through equality, this people power movement will deliver real, sustainable change. Our ‘අරගලය’ is an innately decentralised movement that has successfully cut across society to find common threads to build consensus on.

No one hero drives it. Policy and purpose, over personality and charisma, bodes so well for what I am hoping is the movement that delivers the system change we so desperately need to fulfil our tremendous and often elusive potential.