Sri Lanka – a SWOT Analysis

A look back in regret, pride and hope

Seventy-five years is a significant time span… around a lifetime for a human being on average; the time it takes a tropical palm to grow into maturity – flowering only once; then fading away.

It is also three-quarters of a century in which Sri Lanka (where such palms flourish) promised to bloom on many occasions… but died sundry deaths several times over.

Ceylon began with much promise on the eve of its independence and was for many years a model colony as a dominion of the former British Empire. Strengths such as an educated elite and top-drawer bureaucracy saw it shine among a constellation of newly independent states in a burgeoning Commonwealth of Nations.

Later however, the same characteristic would sour the disposition of the natives as an English-speaking Western orientated upper echelon replaced Britannia as the island’s new oppressors.

Like in any diverse societal fabric that fails to develop and consolidate a pluralistic ethic early on, weaknesses crept through the sieve of partisan politics and corrupted the melting pot of the Ceylonese polity, with chauvinism in terms of language policies in particular and attitude to minorities in general.

These were compounded by failures to develop mechanised agriculture, and a healthier balance between industry and services, and consolidate our wonderful reputation as the Granary of the East.

Latent opportunities such as the onetime Crown Colony’s eloquent advocacy of an Asia with sterling agency in its emerging destiny were not capitalised upon assiduously enough. This lapse failed to secure Ceylon a place under the international spotlight as an exemplary nation state capable of holding its own.

And it came despite our then young statespersons’ articulation of grand ideas in the vein of nonalignment and nuclear nonproliferation in an alarmingly polarising global milieu.

Lamentable backsliding into petty political bickering for narrow electoral gains have been encircled by the threats of abysmal decision making and management of our near paradisal country’s natural assets and resources, waste of national resources on containing crippling civil wars and internecine violence unleashed by a brace of insurgencies – and of course, the cancer of corruption that has permeated both the state and society in general.

Yet, there is a fifth – and perhaps not final – dimension in which Sri Lanka could discover a new trajectory beyond its ‘diamond jubilee’ (the 75th, not 60th) into a more hopeful future as it sets its sight on the island’s centennial in 2048…

That hope could be a newfound faith in its people – particularly but not necessarily limited to its more youthful demographics – as the vector of progress, equitable development, and a just and fair society that dreams afresh; to refresh Sri Lanka, and capitalise on its strengths and opportunities, to shape a stronger and more salutary destiny.

From being a bright beacon of hope to its sister states – in the first blush of its youth as a free state and model nation – to a morally and fiscally bankrupt country was a twisted and tortuous road through 75 years of failure to look up, around, above and beyond the basics of nationhood.

If Sri Lanka is to learn from ‘mistakes made,’ it must look back with quiet and careful consideration to embrace ‘lessons learned.’

Ergo, this tome of reflections – in the hope it would serve as the epitome of an ancient civilisation that can transform itself into the modern, pluralistic, productive, profitable, equitable society it aches (and dare we say, deserves) to be.

– Wijith DeChickera

If Sri Lanka is to learn from ‘mistakes made,’ it must look back with quiet and careful consideration to embrace ‘lessons learned’