Proper language policy, law and order and good governance are the recipe for the future success of Sri Lanka..!!!

More on ‘Can Sri Lanka ever be a Singapore’

I read with interest the exchanges by your readers on the above noted topic, "Can Sri Lanka ever be a Singapore?"

Most of them missed an important aspect for the success of Singapore and the downfall of Sri Lanka - the racial harmony among the majority and minority communities in Singapore.

Singapore consists of 90% Chinese and the balance are Malay and Indian minorities. It was the statesmanship and wisdom of the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Quan Yew, that made the difference between Singapore and Sri Lanka. One of the readers correctly pointed out that Singapore wanted to emulate Sri Lanka in the 1950s. This was mentioned by LQY during one of his National Day addresses to the nation.

He began his address in the Malay language, then in Mandarin (Chinese), and followed by his comprehensive speech in English. Even though all three languages are officially recognized in Singapore, English is the operational official language of Singapore, not Mandarin.

Many people do not know that the National Anthem of Singapore is still in the Malay language (Majullah Singapora) as it was originally formulated at the time when Singapore was under Malayan Federation. LQY could have easily changed it to Mandarin or even English but his wisdom of having a good relationship with Malaysia and his magnanimity with the minority Malays in Singapore gave his country great unitary status and economic prosperity. Singapore still depends on its drinking water from the State of Johor Bharu of Malaysia.

In the same National Day address, he cautioned Singaporeans by citing the communal violence in Sri Lanka. Those seeds of racial disharmony were sown when the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, SWRD Bandarnayake, who contested under a pledge of bringing "Sinhala Only" to win the election and made Sinhala as the only official language of Sri Lanka.

It is true that both Sinhala and Tamil are now official languages of Sri Lanka, but the mindset created by the Sinhala Only Act is still haunting both the majority and minority communities. Sri Lanka and Singapore are different in many ways: ethnic composition, cultural heritage, natural resources and land area, etc., but the basic fact that brought racial harmony, as demonstrated by Singapore, is the magnanimity of the majority community and the strict enforcement of law and order in the country where there is no discrimination in the application of law between the powerful and the powerless.

In my opinion, it is a God-given opportunity for Sri Lanka to emulate such principles after defeating terrorism in the country. Proper language policy, law and order and good governance are the recipe for the future success of Sri Lanka.

Nakeeb M Issadeen,
Colombo 06.


www island.lk