Constitutional Reforms: Would it be a solution to the national question February 15, 2017, 8:01 pm By Sumanasiri Liyanage A German friend of mine whom I met after 7 years in the middle of our conversation asked me about the state reforms project of the Yahapalana government. He said that many people he met had been sanguine about them in spite of some minor difficulties. Lankans have been talking about the state reforms since the second republican constitution was promulgated in 1978. Three main questions have been posed, namely, (1) The executive presidential system and over-centralized architecture of the constitution; (2) the constitutional relevance in ethnically divided society; and (3) the representational deficiency in the system of election. After a heated debate in the 1980s and 1990, the heat of the constitutional debate has now subsided as many seem to believe that the present system has reached some stability. This may be partly due to the rigid character o...
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සාකච්ඡාව සදහා වැටුප් ශ්රමිකයා කවරෙක් ද? සුමනසිරි ලියනගේ වැටුප් ශ්රමිකයා කවරෙක් ද? නිර්ධන පන්තිය ලෙස සැලකිය හැකි පංති තීරූ මොනවාද? විප්ලවවාදී පක්ෂයක පන්ති පදනම වන්නේ සහ විය යුත්තේ කුමන පංතීන්ගෙන් ද? මා මෙම ප්රශ්නය මතු කරන්නේ න්යායාත්මක ප්රශ්නයක් හැටියට නොවේ. ශ්රී ලංකාවේ වර්තමාන සන්දර්භය තුල දේශපාලන ක්රියා මාර්ගය සකස් කර ගැනීමේදී ආසන්නව මතුවන ප්රශ්නයක් හැටියට ය. පසුගිය වසර දෙක තුල ඇතිවුන මා සහභාගී වූ දේශපාලන සාකච්ඡා කිහිපයක දීම මෙම ප්රශ්නය මතුවිණ. එහෙත් එම ප්රශ්නය මතු වූ අවස්ථා හැම එකකදීම වාගේ අපි එම ප්රශ්නය සමග නිශ්චිතව පොර බැදීම අත්හැර දැම්මෙමු. ඒ එය දිගට ගෙන යාමෙන් අප මාක්ස්වාදයේ ශුද්ධ වූ පාඨයන් ගෙන් බිදී යාදෝ යන බියෙනි. මෑතකදී වෟත්තීය සංගමයක් තුල ඇතිවූ සාකච්ඡාවකදී මෙම කරුණ වඩාත් සංයුක්තව මතුවිණ. වෟත්තීය සංගමයක් විසින් සංවිධානය කළ යුත්තේ කවුරුන් ද යනුවෙන් පැන නැගුන එම සාකච්ඡාවේදී සෟජු ලෙස නොවුන ද මතු වුයේ මෙම ප්රශ්නය ය. වැටුප් ශ්රමිකයා, නිර්ධනයා, සහ කම්කරුවා යන පද වලින් ජනප්රිය ලෙස හැදින්වුව් ද නැත ද වැටුපට වැඩකරන කොටස් වෟත්තීය සංගමයක් විසින් සංවිධානය කළ යුතු ...
Beyond Capital: How could the Transition Phase be designed? August 25, 2015, 5:30 pm By Sumanasiri Liyanage One of my favorite books always on my table for easy and quick reference is Istvan Meszaros’s Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition. It was loved and oftentimes quoted by Hugo Chavez, the beloved leader of the Venezuelan people. After the fall of the Soviet system, the issue whether a socialist transformation was possible had been raised not only by liberal writers but also by some Marxists. Many Marxists in Sri Lanka have already retreated to the comfortable path of democracy and good governance. We are very much aware of the fact that even if a left party or formation were to come to power in Sri Lanka soon, it wouldn’t be able to build socialism in the immediate future. The best recent example for this is that of the Syriza government in Greece. Any left government would immediately face what Walter Benjamin aptly called the "critical state of the p...
Social Market Economy: Does It Provide A Solution For Sri Lanka? August 3, 2015 | by: COLOMBO_TELEGRAPH By Sumanasiri Liyanage – Sumanasiri Liyanage I think it is for the first time that the idea of social market economy is introduced into the Sri Lankan election discourse. Champika Ranawaka appears to have borrowed the concept of social market economy (SME) from Dr. Harsha de Silva and used it as it was his invention for the purpose of portraying the economic policy framework of the future UNFGG government for the next five years. As far as I know, the concept of social market economy has never been discussed in serious manner in Sri Lanka. In the early 1990s, a seminar was held at the Colombo Hilton in which a German professor had outlined the concept SME as it had been practiced in Germany especially in the post World War 2 period. What is social market economy? What are the main characteristics of the SME? How do...