Came across this book review in the Weekend Wall Street Journal, by Sadanand Dhume, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Entitled “Sins of Their Founders”, the piece reviews a book on the civil war in Sri Lanka. The civil war started in 1983, but as Dhume pointed out its roots go back to the country’s independence in 1948. Instead of embracing an inclusive view of citizenship, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) marginalised the Tamil minority. The Tamil revolt was led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, a brutal guerrilla leader. The bloody conflict killed tens of thousands, and set the country back many years. Now that it is over, I hope Sri Lanka can enjoy lasting peace and stability.
Dhume noted that Singapore took a different path, with a different result. We are fortunate that right from the birth of our nation, our founders upheld multi-racialism and equal opportunity as the fundamental basis for our society. Thus we have maintained harmony between the different races and religions all these years. But we must never take this harmony as given, and must continue to work hard together to uphold and strengthen it. – LHL
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