if i were the president of sri lanka simple essay

Essay on Sri Lanka

Students are often asked to write an essay on Sri Lanka in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Sri Lanka

Sri lanka: the pearl of the indian ocean.

Sri Lanka, also known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, is a beautiful island nation located south of India. It is a land of rich culture, history, and natural beauty.

Natural Beauty

Sri Lanka is blessed with stunning beaches, lush rainforests, and majestic mountains. The island is home to a diverse range of wildlife, including elephants, leopards, and blue whales.

Culture and History

Sri Lanka has a long and complex history, dating back to the arrival of the first settlers thousands of years ago. The island has been influenced by many different cultures over the centuries, including Indian, Chinese, and European. This diversity is reflected in Sri Lankan art, music, and dance.

People and Economy

Sri Lanka is home to a friendly and welcoming people. The island’s economy is based on tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing. Sri Lanka is a major producer of tea, rubber, and cinnamon.

Sri Lanka is a truly special place. Its natural beauty, rich culture, and friendly people make it a popular destination for tourists from all over the world.

250 Words Essay on Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, a beautiful island nation located in the Indian Ocean, is often referred to as the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean”. It is a land of rich history, diverse culture, and stunning natural beauty.

History and Culture

Sri Lanka has a long and fascinating history, dating back to ancient times. It was once ruled by powerful kingdoms, and its culture is a blend of various influences, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.

Sri Lanka is blessed with stunning natural beauty, including lush green hills, cascading waterfalls, golden beaches, and diverse wildlife. The country is home to several national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, where visitors can see elephants, leopards, and other exotic animals.

Beaches and Water Sports

Sri Lanka’s coastline is dotted with beautiful beaches, making it a popular destination for beach lovers and water sports enthusiasts. Visitors can enjoy swimming, surfing, snorkeling, and diving in the crystal-clear waters.

Tea and Spices

Sri Lanka is famous for its tea and spices. The country produces some of the finest teas in the world, and visitors can visit tea plantations and learn about the tea-making process. Sri Lanka is also known for its aromatic spices, such as cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.

Sri Lanka is a truly special place, offering a unique blend of history, culture, and natural beauty. Whether you are a history buff, a nature lover, or simply looking for a relaxing beach vacation, Sri Lanka has something for everyone.

500 Words Essay on Sri Lanka

Sri lanka: an enchanting island.

Sri Lanka, also known as Ceylon, is a beautiful island country located in the Indian Ocean, south of India. It is known for its diverse landscapes, rich history, and vibrant culture. The country boasts stunning beaches, lush rainforests, ancient ruins, and a fascinating blend of ethnicities and religions.

A Glimpse into Sri Lanka’s History

Sri Lanka has a long and storied history, dating back to over 2,500 years. The country has been influenced by various cultures, including the Sinhalese, Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch, and British. The ruins of ancient kingdoms and temples, such as Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa, offer a glimpse into the country’s rich past.

Mesmerizing Landscapes and Pristine Beaches

Sri Lanka is blessed with stunning natural beauty. The island is known for its pristine beaches, which are perfect for swimming, sunbathing, and water sports. The southern and eastern coasts are particularly popular among tourists, with towns like Galle and Arugam Bay attracting surfers and beachgoers. The country’s central highlands, known as the Hill Country, offer breathtaking views of lush tea plantations, waterfalls, and misty mountains.

Cultural Tapestry and Vibrant Festivals

Sri Lanka is known for its diverse culture, which is a blend of Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Burgher influences. The country is home to many festivals and celebrations, including the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, Vesak Poya, and Deepavali. Traditional dances, music, and art forms reflect the rich cultural heritage of Sri Lanka.

Exploring Sri Lanka’s Natural Wonders

Sri Lanka is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. The country’s national parks, such as Yala National Park and Udawalawe National Park, offer opportunities to spot elephants, leopards, sloth bears, and a variety of bird species. The island is also famous for its tea plantations, which produce some of the finest tea in the world.

A Culinary Journey

Sri Lankan cuisine is a blend of local and foreign influences, resulting in a unique and flavorful culinary experience. Rice and curry is a staple dish, accompanied by an array of flavorful curries, sambals, and condiments. The country is also known for its delicious street food, such as kotthu rotti and hoppers.

In conclusion, Sri Lanka is a captivating island nation that offers a wealth of experiences to visitors. From its ancient ruins and diverse landscapes to its vibrant culture and delicious cuisine, Sri Lanka is a perfect destination for those seeking a rich and memorable travel experience.

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Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations

Full text of the speech made by his excellency president gotabaya rajapaksa on 73rd independence day – february 4, 2021, independence square.

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if i were the president of sri lanka simple essay

If I Were The President Of Sri Lanka Essay

If I Were The President Of Sri Lanka Essay

Kids Essays

The capital of my country is Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte and the commercial capital is Colombo. The president of my country is Hon. Maithripala Sirisena and the prime minister is Hon. Ranil Wickramasinghe.

Our national flag is called the Lion Flag. Our national flower is the Blue Water Lily, national tree is Na tree, national bird is the Jungle Fowl, national animal is the Giant Squirrel and our national sport is Volleyball. But Sri Lanka is famous for Cricket. The world’s best tea comes from Sri Lanka.

On February 4, 1948 Sri Lanka gained independence. Our national anthem is ‘Sri Lanka Matha’. The official languages in Sri Lanka are Sinhala, Tamil and English.

My country is a peaceful country where all the religions such as Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Hindus all live in harmony. I am so proud to be a Sri Lankan. I love my motherland Sri Lanka a lot.

Naqeeb Shamroz (7 years) Zahira College, Colombo 10

My father My father’s name is Sampath. He is 35 years old. He has curly hair. He drops me to school. I love my father.

Pabalu Dikkumbura (6 years) Musaeus College

Myself My name is Thenulya. I am eight years old. I live in Maharagama. I study at Logos College. My favourite colour is pink. My best friend is Atara and I love to play with her. I have one sister and no brothers. My hobbies are drawing pictures and making models with clay. I love to eat chocolate cake and drink Milo. Out of all the countries I have visited, my favourite country is Dubai.

Thenulya Weerawardhana (8 years) Logos College

Ramazan Ramadhan is the month of fasting. Every Muslim of all ages takes part in the fast. Ramadan, the annual fast, falls in the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. Those who fast, must neither take food nor drink throughout the hours of daylight. Above all, they must keep away from things shameful, and telling lies.

Fasting can be a little difficult when it falls during summer. Though it will be a little difficult, a Muslim fasts joyfully in any season, obeying the orders of Allah. There are Muslims who love summertime fasting the most. There is a deep relationship between Ramadhan and the Holy Quran. Those who fast, turn again and again to the Holy Quran because Allah revealed it in the month of Ramadhan to our Holy Prophet Muhammed.

Shaifna Aroos (10 years) Ilma Int. Girls’ School

How could TV be better?

We all enjoy watching television. One of the main reasons which we watch television is to gain knowledge. Some knowledgeable channels are NatGeo, Discovery, NDTV Good times, NatGeo Geography etc. These channels are based on all about the world and types of people, natural disasters, ancient and historical places and many more.

There are also other useful as well as fun and interesting channels. For example, FoxLife is a channel which displays different types of food and recipes. They tell us about types of food eaten in various parts of the world. We as kids love watching animated programmes which can be found on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Pogo and many more. We can watch cartoons such as Tom and Jerry which have a moral.

It teaches us not to fight and quarrel and instead to live in peace, friendship and harmony. News is one of the most important programmes that we must watch. We must make it a habit of watching at least one news episode a day as there are many news updates daily from early morning until midnight.

By watching these types of important programmes we can develop our brain and learn a lot about the world. We can also watch cartoon but not too much as it may affect our eyesight and brain.

Amal Gaffoor (11 years) Royal Institute Girls’ School

My best friend My best friend is Sandra. We both go to Kudapaduwa Sinhala Mixed School in Negombo. She is eleven years old. Her favourite food is grapes and her favourite colour is red. She has a pet dog. Her favourite subject is Science and she would like to be a teacher. Sandra likes to read English books. She has a very good heart. I love my best friend very much.

Anne Hansika (Grade 6) Kudapaduwa Sinhala M.S., Negombo

Importance of trees Trees are one of the most important things in the world. They give us shade. When we are going somewhere in the sun, when we are tired, we sit under a tree to rest. We choose a tree because it is shady. Trees give us food. We take fruits, vegetables, grains and green leaves from trees. We also eat roots like carrots, sweet potatoes, manioc and beetroot. Trees give us wood to make houses, buildings, furniture etc. The most important things is that they give us oxygen to breathe. Trees make our earth clean and beautiful. We must not cut trees. It takes only a few minutes to cut a tree but it takes years to grow.

Sanduni Jayathilake (Grade 7) Little Flower Convent, Bandarawela

The moon In the evening when the moon sets, The eyes of bats open wide. Children stop playing and go back home.

Shops are closed for the day, Darkness appears little by little And the night dominates.

Children go to sleep, At midnight thieves come to steal, But they cannot hide from the moon.

The sun rises and the children open their eyes Moon disappears and day begins.

Aysha Amani (Grade 5) Royal Int. School, Kegalle

An unforgettable trip We went on a trip to England for a few months. I had lots of fun while we were travelling. It was a great experience for us. We went there after two days. I was so excited. After we went there we had lots of fun playing tennis. Then at night we settled in a great five-star hotel. We had our dinner from that hotel. It was very delicious. Then in the morning we went to our uncle’s house. It was near the hotel. All of us went to Bits Park to play. We were very fortunate because it was winter season as well as snowy days. We made a snowman and played with snowballs. Then after a few days, my parents as well as my uncle entered me into a famous school in England. It is called ‘Richard Rose Morton Academy.’ It was a turning point in my life. I learned to speak English properly from my school. That’s why I respect my school. My life was changed from that day. I met a myriad of friends called Daisy, Molly and Kara. My sister and my brother also entered into a school. I have never seen snow before that day. We went to see a duck park. It was a fantastic park. That’s how I spent my trip. I can’t forget it forever.

Dilmi Nipuna (Grade 10) Tangalle B.V.

My hobby A hobby is nothing but to have a change in the routine work. It is a happy union of profit and pleasure. Hobby is also man’s past time. There are varieties of hobbies. My hobby is gardening.

I spend my leisure hours in my garden. My garden is in front of my house. I have prepared the flower beds and planted varieties of flowering plants. The plants give out a sweet scent in the evening. I love being in the garden and I watch the butterflies. I water the plants and enjoy the nature of the pure air in the evening. I water the plants twice a day during the summer. I dig out the withered plants and plant new ones.

I talk to the plants and sing to them. I feel as if my plants nod their heads in agreement. All plants are living things. My hobby gives me happiness and some exercise for my body. My hobby satisfies my inner urge and gets an emotional response.

S. Shimeshika (Grade 6) Tamil C.C., Bandarawela

My pet My pet is a dog. Its name is Blacky. It has four legs and a nice tail. It likes to eat meat. It likes to drink milk. My pet runs with me in the garden. My dog loves me and my mother. When I am going to school, he is looking at me. My brother loves my dog. He likes to jump. I have one small cat. When I am doing my homework it stays near me. I love my pet very much.

Julia (Std. 3) Jennings Int. College, Nainamadama

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Essay on “Sri Lanka” for School, College Students, Long and Short English Paragraph, Speech for Class 10, Class 12, College and Competitive Exams.

Sri Lanka is an island state in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of India. In the early 16th century, the island was invaded and colonized by the Portuguese. However, the Sinhalese managed to maintain an independent kingdom around Kandy. The Portuguese were later removed forcibly by the Dutch. In 1796, it was named Ceylon by the British. Ceylon became an independent state in 1948 and was governed by the United National Party (UNP). In the 1956 elections, the Sinhalese nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) defeated the UNP. The leader of SLFP, Solomon Bandaranaike was later assassinated. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, his widow, stood for the election in 1960 and became the world’s first woman Prime minister. Ceylon became the Republic of Sri Lanka in 1972.

10 Lines on ‘Why I Love Books’ English Short Essay, Paragraph for Students and Children class 7, 8, 9, 10.

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Full text of the speech made by His Excellency President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 73rd Independence Day – February 4, 2021

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of our nation gaining independence from colonial rule. On this day we pay our respects to all the leaders from the Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Burgher and other sections of the population who made various sacrifices to win our independence.

I also pay my tribute to the brave war heroes who sacrificed their lives and underwent great hardships to preserve our nation’s independence and sovereignty.

We have faced many challenges as a nation in the 73 years since our independence. From time to time, we have had to face religious and ethnic conflicts, racist and terrorist activities, undue external influences, constitutional crises, and many other obstacles. The challenges of establishing national security, achieving true reconciliation amongst various communities of our nation, and building a strong economy that can deliver sustainable economic development and eliminate poverty still lie ahead of us.

At a juncture when our nation’s heritage, its traditions, its national identity and patriotism were under serious threat, more than 6.9 million people elected me as President to provide the leadership needed to reestablish national security and overcome the many challenges facing our country.

I am a Sinhala Buddhist leader and I will never hesitate to state so. I govern this country in accordance with Buddhist teachings. Within the Buddhist philosophic tradition of peaceful coexistence which gives due respect to all religions and ethnicities, every person in this country irrespective of his or her ethnic or religious identification has the right to enjoy the freedom as equals under the nation’s legal framework.

Traitorous elements always band together and seek to marshal domestic and foreign forces against the leadership that upholds indigenous way of life and country’s sovereignty. Such elements mislead the public through false propaganda in a subtle way. I request the people of our nation to always think critically before acting. If people make assessments based on facts and take decisions only after finding out the truth, no one will be able to mislead the public.

The public has given the current Government a mandate to execute the policies articulated in my vision statement “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour”.

I have sworn as the nation’s leader to always protect our nation’s independence, unitary status, territorial integrity and sovereignty on behalf of our future generations. I will always uphold that pledge.

Sri Lanka is a democratic nation. Every citizen who lives in this country has equal rights. We reject any efforts to divide our citizens based on ethnic or religious reasons. We always strive to protect the fundamental rights and human rights of all our citizens, and always stand for the principle of one nation, one law.

We always respect the rule of law. The public has rejected the undue influence that was exerted on law enforcement agencies and the judiciary by politicians in the past. However, the public also expects fair, unbiased and efficient service from the officials who enforce the law. As such, I have advised the Attorney General’s Department to swiftly act upon matters that have caused great concern to the public, such as the Easter Sunday Attacks and the Central Bank scam.

I have now received the final report of the Presidential Commission appointed to inquire into the Easter Sunday Attacks. I have already given instructions to implement its recommendations. Simultaneously, taking into account the recommendations of the previous Parliament’s Sectoral Oversight Committee on National Security, action will be taken against all parties involved in this tragedy. We will not allow those responsible for designing and enabling this tragedy to escape justice. We will never allow extremism to raise its head again, in this country.

At a time when the entire world is in crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our country has had to face many challenges. For more than a year, the pandemic has posed serious obstacles to carrying out the development activities and for people of our country to lead a normal life.

Several countries have by now successfully developed vaccines for the COVID19 virus. I have requested the leaders of India, China and Russia to support Sri Lanka to swiftly obtain these vaccines. This matter has also been discussed with the World Health Organization. Accordingly, we have obtained one vaccine and have already started our vaccination programme. This vaccination programme will be carried out without any disruption.

An important lesson learnt by all nations faced with the prevailing global crisis has been the need for a strong domestic production base. This experience has further underscored the appropriateness and timeliness of our policy of strengthening domestic agriculture to ensure food security and self-sufficiency.

The stimulus provided through distribution of free fertilizer, raising the floor price of paddy to 50 rupees, striking off the debts of farmers, reconstructing thousands of irrigation tanks around the country, and the encouragement provided to home gardening and urban farming has revived the agriculture sector. We will act to further increase agricultural productivity through the infusion of new technologies. We are already seeing the benefits of strengthening farmers through managing import taxes to encourage the production of paddy, maize, grains, potatoes and onions; by limiting imports of products such as turmeric which can be grown domestically and by limiting the re-export of spices such as pepper. Domestic production has increased, and export opportunities have expanded.

I have always maintained that in order to strengthen farmers economically we must encourage them to become agricultural entrepreneurs. It is our aim to further develop and strengthen the domestic agriculture sector so that it becomes a significant foreign exchange earner.

We have not forgotten the importance of the industrial and service sectors in economic development. The Government has taken action to encourage these sectors through the provision of tax incentives and by reducing interest rates. A great improvement is already visible in traditional handicrafts such as batik, cane, clay and jewellery through the state ministries that were established for this purpose.

We have paid attention to provide entrepreneurs engaged in small and medium enterprises as well as those who are self-employed avenues in minimizing delays in various approvals they require, in helping them to access financing at single digit interest rates and in obtaining required training.

Providing stimulus to the construction industry has been shown to be a successful means of reviving stalled economies. Initiatives such as the 100,000 kilometer roads programme; the 10,000 bridges programme; the reconstruction of thousands of irrigation tanks around the country under the ‘Irrigation Prosperity’ programme; the programme to construct 14,000 houses under the theme of ‘one village, one house’; the creation of 100,000 housing units for middle income earners, low income earners and urban shanty dwellers; the programme to construct 4,000 houses for estate workers; and the construction of walkways for densely populated areas around the country will provide great benefits to the public at large whilst directly supporting the revival of the economy.

Amidst striving to develop the agriculture, industrial and service sectors to strengthen the national economy, we are also taking steps to minimize obstacles to the promotion of foreign direct investments. While our policy of not selling national economic hubs to foreigners remains unchanged, I trust that the public will critically assess the misinformation and misinterpretations being propagated by those with ulterior political motives to deter foreign investors from investing in Sri Lanka.

I have established a Presidential Deregulation Commission to change the outdated laws and regulations that affect the general public as well as the domestic and foreign companies. This long discussed but unimplemented activity has finally commenced. I believe that implementing the recommendations of this Commission will provide significant impetus to the country’s future economic development.

The 21st Century is considered as the Knowledge Century.

Human resources are extremely important to the development of the nation. The “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” policy statement articulates the need for educational reforms to foster a knowledgeable and skilled future generation.

Accordingly, a separate State Ministry has been created to undertake the reforms needed in the education sector. Two task forces have also been created to obtain specialist assistance for these reforms. The recommendations they have provided are already being implemented.

During the course of this year, the number of students gaining admission to universities will increase by 10,000, or 30 percent. Provisions have been made to double the number of students entering the state Technical Colleges from 100,000 to 200,000. Approval has been granted for the creation of a system of city universities catering to every district in order to increase the capacity of universities. We are acting quickly to implement recommendations for educational reforms. As a result, we anticipate that there will be an appreciable qualitative improvement in the education sector within the next few years.

In order to fulfil our economic ambitions in the modern world, we must foster a society familiar with technology. In order to compete in the future, the agriculture, industrial and service sectors will need to be infused with technology. To support this, we look forward to fostering a culture of technological innovation that will uplift the living standards of the people.

In accordance with the policies contained in the “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” vision statement, the Government will encourage innovation through the use of technology in both the public and the private sectors. With this in mind, a range of tax incentives has already been provided to the technology intensive sectors.

In recent weeks, I established a dedicated Ministry of Technology and brought it under my purview. Through this Ministry, due attention will be paid to developing the policies and legal framework required to improve the technology sector, as well as to simplify the functioning of the state sector and markets through the use of information technology as a tool for broader digital governance. Action has already been taken to create five technology parks with all facilities in five identified districts in order to encourage entrepreneurs and start-ups in the technology sector. We will have an opportunity to create a revival in the technology sector through such incentives.

I request the intelligent public to remember that all of this has been achieved in little over a year, whilst facing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has debilitated the entire world.

Our tourism industry earned approximately US$ 4.5 billion annually and provided direct and indirect employment to three million people. These people are now in great difficulty as they are unable to make a living from tourism. We need to find solutions for these people as soon as possible. As such, whilst strictly adhering to health recommendations, we have acted to restart the tourism industry in a phased manner.

I have always loved and respected the environment. In the past, whilst serving as the Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development, I strove to protect the environment when undertaking such activities as urban beautification, urban development, and the creation of walking paths and urban parks. Today, too, our Government has paid particular attention to preserving the environment for future generations. What the creation of urban forests, designing of green cities, promotion of green businesses, undertaking of nationwide tree planting programmes, reconstruction of irrigation tanks and canals, recultivating of fallow paddy fields, promoting the use of organic fertilizer, and limiting the use of plastics demonstrate is the implementation of this sustainable environmental management policy.

The foundation of our citizen centric economic policy is that the true potential of the economy cannot be unleashed without economic freedom. To achieve the Government’s aims of eliminating poverty, providing equal opportunity for improvement of all citizens, and developing domestic businesses, we require a clean and efficient public service. The public service is a powerful, nationwide mechanism. This represents an opportunity that many countries in the world do not possess. Therefore, I expect this powerful mechanism to make a significant contribution to the national decision making process. However, I observe that weaknesses currently prevail in decision making at every level. Even on very simple institutional matters, I have observed that officials avoid making decisions and refer them to the Cabinet of Ministers. They expect advice from circulars for every activity.

They avoid taking decisions even within the limits of their authority. If we do not change this situation, it will be extremely difficult for us to take this nation forward.

The legal reforms necessary to protect those in the public service who take correct decisions are currently being formulated. I therefore request all those in positions of authority to ease the limitations and practices that obstruct the general public through the state administration.

I personally participate in the ‘Conversation with the Village’ programme because rural development is one of my Government’s priorities. The public administration system at both the District and Divisional level is extremely important to achieving the citizen centric economic development articulated in my vision statement “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour”. There is a clear responsibility incumbent on everyone involved in this development process, from the Governors, District Secretaries, Divisional Secretaries and Public Health Officials, to officials such as Grama Niladharis, Samurdhi Officials, Agriculture Research and Production Assistants, Family Health Service Officials and Development Officials at the village level. They have all provided tremendous support in controlling the spread of the COVID-19 virus and in providing other essential services. Similarly, I look forward to the unstinted support of all public servants in successfully overcoming the challenges that confront us in terms of our economic development.

The political leadership has a grave responsibility not only on matters at the national level but also in rural development. We have instituted mechanisms to ensure the active participation of Cabinet and State Ministers, Members of Parliament, and Members of Urban and Municipal Councils in the development activities at District and Divisional levels.

Corruption and waste are significant obstacles to a nation’s development. We are setting an example to eradicate corruption and waste in the public administration. We will not be lenient on anyone who is found guilty of corruption or waste. However, one of the difficulties we face in preventing corruption is the indirect support given willingly or unwillingly by the public to such activities. I request the general public not to encourage corruption either directly or indirectly. If anyone is found to be engaging in corrupt practices, please inform the relevant authorities.

I invite everyone to join in a national effort to mobilize public opinion against corruption and waste. Our future generations too must be educated in this regard. I appreciate the support that is being extended by the media for this initiative.

Various parties claim that they worked to ensure my election as President. That may be true. People from every section of society gathered around me to support my campaign. I believe that the vast majority of these people did so not in search of personal benefits but because they expected me to serve the nation diligently. I am always prepared to fulfil the genuine expectations of the public that supported me with honest intent. However, I will never take decisions that will damage the country and to please those who seek gains for themselves personally or for their businesses.

Throughout history, strong civilizations were built and nations developed by those who worked on targets by looking positively towards the future. At this juncture, our nations’ development requires precisely that kind of vision.

No contribution can be expected from pessimists and those who do nothing but criticize the work of others. What we require today is the support of citizens with a positive vision, who love their country, who contribute to society, and who do not make unfair criticism but offers practical solutions to the issues we face.

We are committed to achieve the principle of the ‘productive citizen, happy family, disciplined and ethical society, and prosperous nation’. If the majority of citizens in this country provide their due contribution towards this, we can make this principle a reality. I therefore once again request all the citizens of this country to think positively and join with us to build the future for all our children.

I am the leader that you searched for. I will discharge the responsibility you have entrusted to me, with commitment and dedication. May the blessings of the noble Triple Gem be with you.

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Sri lanka essay.

The island nation of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka gained independence from British rule on February 4, 1948. The country followed a nonaligned foreign policy and participated in various world bodies such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank.

Sri Lanka also became a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). For 10 years the country was ruled by the United National Party (UNP) of Don Stephen Senanayake (1884–1952). After facing hardship under a socialist economy, Sri Lanka became the first country in South Asia to liberalize its economy.

The government passed the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, which made Sinhala the official language. The onslaught of Singhalese nationalism marginalized the Tamils. The Tamils, living in the north and east, constituted about 18 percent of the population. They feared dominance by the Sinhala majority, who were 74 percent of the population. A separatist movement was launched, resulting in confrontation between the two communities.

The concept of Tamil Elam (homeland) was broached by several Tamil militant groups. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran, was emerging as the leading militant group. A large-scale riot broke out in 1977, and in the 1980s civil war broke out. Terrorist attacks by the LTTE and riots became common. Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Tamil militants in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. The president of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa, also was assassinated in Colombo.

After two decades of bloodshed, there was a formal cease-fire in February 2002 under the auspices of the government of Norway. Chandrika Bandaranaike of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party became president. Meanwhile, the country was devastated by a tsunami in 2004. A lasting solution to the ethnic conflict had proved illusory, and large-scale human rights violations were committed by the army and the LTTE. Civil war began again in 2005, and violence continued in 2006. Peace talks were held in February and April 2006 in Geneva, but these did not produce any concrete results. In July and August 2006 there was heavy fighting in the Muslim-dominated Muttur region.

Bibliography:

Rotberg, Robert I. Creating Peace in Sri Lanka. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999;
Tambiah, Stanley J. Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991;
Woost, Michael D. and Deborah Winslow. Economy, Culture, and Civil War in Sri Lanka. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

This example Sri Lanka Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

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My Country English essay

My country is Sri Lanka. It is a small island in the Indian Ocean. This is an agricultural country. Most of the people are farmers.

Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is the capital of Sri Lanka. The population of my country is about twenty million. There are several communities in Sri Lanka. They are the Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Muslims and the Burghers.

Piduruthalagala is the highest mountain and Mahaweli is the longest river in Sri Lanka. We gained independence in 1948. My country is a Republic today. Our national anthem is ‘Sri Lanka Matha’. The official languages in Sri Lanka are Sinhala, Tamil and English.

Our national flag is called the Lion Flag. Our national flower is the Blue Water Lily, our national tree is the Na tree, the national bird is the Jungle Fowl, the national animal is the Giant Squirrel and our national sport is Volleyball. But Sri Lanka is famous for Cricket. The world’s best team comes from Sri Lanka.

There are many tourist attractions in my country. Waterfalls, sanctuaries, botanical gardens and sandy beaches are some of them. I love my country very much.

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Home Unlabelled Sri Lanka: Reign of Anomy - An essay on the ethnic conflict

Sri Lanka: Reign of Anomy - An essay on the ethnic conflict

By Sri Lanka Guardian • July 31, 2008 • • Comments : 0

Meloni’s Cultural Revolution

June 6, 2024 issue

Paolo Ventura: Rome No. 3 , 2024

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For months now an enormous excavating machine has been drilling deep into central Rome beneath Piazza Venezia, at the foot of the looming Victor Emmanuel II National Monument—a white marble pile of steps and columns that is probably the closest we will ever get to experiencing the grandeur of ancient Rome. Also known as the Altar of the Fatherland, and with an eternal flame for the unknown soldier flanked by a solemn honor guard, the monument is nicknamed “The Typewriter.” Romans have been deflating pomposity for millennia. On another side of the piazza is Palazzo Venezia, where Mussolini had his headquarters and from whose balcony he delivered speeches to adoring throngs.

Piazza Venezia is one of Rome’s busiest traffic circles—a whirl of cars, buses, taxis, and mopeds with no stoplights or discernible lanes. The excavating machine is working on a third line for the Rome metro, which is expected to take years and is causing endless maddening traffic delays. The drillers constantly encounter the remnants of the ancient city, and the new metro station under the piazza will include a museum with objects unearthed in its construction, which will no doubt rival some of the world’s best archaeological collections.

How can Rome—or Italy for that matter—possibly move forward or adapt to the exigencies of the contemporary world when at every turn the sheer enormity of the past hits with full force? How can one build or do anything new here without being encumbered by the literal and metaphorical weight of history, empire, tradition? It is no wonder that the Futurists wanted a radical break with everything that came before in order to forge something new. The more one engages with Italy, the more one understands why so many political innovations here have been right-wing: Futurism, fascism, Silvio Berlusconi’s postideological, personality-driven politics, the technopopulism and online rage that in the past decade brought antiestablishment and right-wing parties to power. Italy may share political weather patterns with the rest of the West, but what sets it apart is the utter inescapability of these layers of history.

I had come to Rome to try to understand the new cultural priorities of the government of Giorgia Meloni. When she became prime minister in the fall of 2022—the first woman to govern Italy and the first far-right leader to govern in the heart of the European Union—there was widespread international concern. Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party, which she cofounded in 2012, is a grandchild of the neofascist Italian Social Movement, a party formed in 1946 by supporters of Mussolini nursing their defeat. Was fascism back? Was Italy drifting away from France and Germany and closer to Poland and Hungary? Was Meloni’s us-versus-them rhetoric hot air or did it have a real impact? Was Italy a harbinger of the future or a throwback to the past? How worried should we be?

Responses, especially in world-weary Rome, tended to range from boh —the verbal equivalent of shrugging one’s shoulders—to insomma , which loosely translates as “Are you kidding? Nothing changes here.” Giuliano Ferrara, the founder of the erudite and witty conservative daily Il Foglio and one of Italy’s sharpest political commentators, told me over lunch, “The only thing we can fear is to become a serious country.” But if we burn through the fog of Italian cynicism and the mixed messages of the government, a clearer picture begins to emerge. It is of a scrappy opposition party in power for the first time, eager to exact some comeuppance and hungry to put its loyalists in important positions yet lacking a deep bench of experienced officials and presentable right-wing intellectuals. It is a picture of the mainstreaming of a postfascist right seeking changes in Italian historical memory—what is emphasized, what is downplayed—and attempting, often ham-handedly and with a dearth of fresh ideas, to forge a modern right in a country that lacks a conservative tradition (comparable to, for example, the UK’s Tories) apart from fascism. Above all, it is an image of an aging country worried about its future and holding on to an idea of its past.

That idea does not reflect the reality of an economically precarious and increasingly multiethnic polity, but it was an electorate driven by fear and resignation, not hope, that brought Meloni to power. This does mark a shift from the past. For decades Berlusconi—eternal optimist, free marketeer, and consummate salesman—promised Italians a bright future. It didn’t happen. Economically the country stagnated. Populism bloomed, feeding on discontent. After a series of strange and often angry coalitions between 2018 and 2021 that scrambled the traditional lines between government and opposition, and a brief technocratic government led by Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank president who deftly steered the country out of the pandemic, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy appealed to middle-class anxieties. She campaigned on protecting borders, cracking down on immigration, eliminating a “citizen’s income” subsidy for the poor, and upholding traditional family values. With the support of Italy’s public school teachers, public sector workers, factory workers, and shopkeepers, disillusioned constituencies that had once voted left and now drifted rightward, her party won 26 percent of the vote, not a majority, in a national election with the lowest turnout in Italian history.

The far right has been more normalized than defanged, a tendency well underway across the West, but fascism has not returned to Italy. In spite of her party’s postfascist roots—and a small but notable core of supporters with a penchant for Roman salutes—Meloni’s coalition government falls solidly within the mainstream European right. She shares power with Forza Italia, the center-right party founded by Berlusconi, and with the right-wing League party, formerly the Northern League, whose excitable leader, Matteo Salvini, she has kept in check. Her government is probably to the left of the US Republican Party in its belief in a social welfare state. Although she made noises to the contrary before coming to power, she supports the euro (crucial for an economy based on exports), the European Union (whose infusion of more than €100 billion in Covid-19 recovery funds—including for the new Rome metro line—it desperately needs), and NATO . Italy has eight US military bases, and Meloni has been a staunch ally of the United States in its support for Ukraine. Though she does not have a college degree, she is savvy and capable and seeks respect on the world stage. With a solid majority in Parliament, this spring she announced she wanted to change the constitution so that prime ministers would effectively be directly elected. This would weaken the institution of the presidency, which is supposed to stand above partisan politics. It is unclear if she will win this battle—or whether such a change would lead to political stability or autocracy. For now, Meloni has far more room to maneuver in the cultural realm.

Changes to Cultural Institutions

In many ways the cultural dynamics of Italy under Meloni are not greatly changed from those under previous governments. The state still struggles to contend with an enormous patrimony that it does not always have the resources to manage. Tourists come in droves, more than 445 million last year alone. Meloni has appointed her people to important cultural positions All are men and solidly of the right.

As the new general manager of RAI , the state broadcaster—a position with great power in shaping the national conversation—Meloni chose Giampaolo Rossi, a longtime member of far-right parties who on his personal blog has expressed great admiration for Putin and disdain for George Soros. Since he began, viewership numbers have dropped and RAI has faced accusations of censorship for canceling a monologue by a prominent novelist critical of Meloni.

As culture minister, Meloni appointed Gennaro Sangiuliano, a journalist who has also written books on Putin, Xi Jinping, and Hillary Clinton. When he was the director of the TG 2 news channel from 2018 to 2022, it offered a stream of images of dark-skinned people arriving on boats, which created the perception of an immigration crisis that helped keep the populists in power. Since taking office Sangiuliano has repeatedly expressed bold plans to overturn the “cultural hegemony of the left.” In the postwar era the Christian Democrats governed, and the Communist Party, once the largest in the West, eventually had influence over one channel of RAI , while the heads of most cultural institutions, as well as intellectuals, writers, artists, and filmmakers—then and now—leaned left. When I asked Sangiuliano what overturning that “cultural hegemony” meant, he said, “The radical-chic spirit of certain Roman salons tried to transform culture in Italy into something that spoke only to a small circle.” In response, he wanted to give “the national cultural panorama a wider horizon,” and also the international one, where “Anglo-Saxon cancel culture and a dictatorship of wokeness dominate.” In practice, the government is mostly replacing people installed by previous center-left governments.

Sangiuliano notably championed an exhibition at Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien: “Tolkien: Man, Professor, Author.” Meloni attended the opening last fall, and the exhibition has now moved to the Palazzo Reale in Sangiuliano’s native Naples. Meloni’s postfascist right has often looked to fantasy literature for heroes. For years she hosted an annual far-right festival called Atreju, after the warrior-boy hero of the The Neverending Story , who fights a dark force. The Tolkien exhibition’s run in Rome coincided with an exhibition for the centenary of the birth of Italo Calvino, who represents the left-wing cultural elite that Meloni’s government is so eager to supersede. Sangiuliano’s intellectual hero is Giuseppe Prezzolini, who died at the age of one hundred in 1982 and once directed Columbia University’s Italian Academy. Sangiuliano just published a biography of him and has said he admires Prezzolini as a conservative and antifascist. He often cites a favorite Prezzolini saying: “The progressive is the person of tomorrow. The conservative is the person of the day after tomorrow.” Italy’s satirists keep a running tab on Sangiuliano’s gaffes. He recently said that Times Square is in London.

In 2014 a center-left culture minister, Dario Franceschini, opened up the directorships of Italy’s top museums to non-Italians in a reform that also gave these museums more autonomy over their budgets. Sangiuliano told me one of his priorities was to extend that autonomy to more museums, for a total of sixty. This also puts more pressure on them to be financially self-sustaining. And while the posts remain open to non-Italians, all the directors appointed under Sangiuliano have been Italian.

After two terms as director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt, a German who recently became an Italian citizen, was named director of the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, where he succeeded Sylvain Bellenger, who is French. When I went to see him at the Capodimonte, high on a hill overlooking the spectacular Bay of Naples, Schmidt told me his plans for the museum, but he seemed more animated at the prospect of running for mayor of Florence, a step he took soon after we met. In Florence, a city overrun by tourists, Schmidt had been hailed for cracking down on ticket scalpers. (This, too, plays into Meloni’s emphasis on law and order.) Schmidt is running as an independent with the support of the Brothers of Italy and other center and right-wing parties.

Opera directorships have also been caught up in a game of musical chairs and national sentiment. Stéphane Lissner, who is French, sued to keep his post as director of Naples’s San Carlo after the government passed a law saying directors of opera theaters could not serve beyond the age of seventy. In April Sangiuliano named Fortunato Ortombina, the director of Venice’s La Fenice, as the new head of Milan’s La Scala, trumpeting that “after three foreign general directors”—Lissner, Alexander Pereira, and Dominique Meyer—“an Italian” had returned to the position.

An important test case of how Meloni is putting her stamp on culture is the Venice Biennale, one of Italy’s most prominent international stages. As its new president, she picked her friend Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, an erudite novelist, journalist, and intellectual who is a former member of the Italian Social Movement. Buttafuoco has not given any interviews about his vision for the Biennale. He is expected to name the next curator of the Art Biennale and a new artistic director of the Venice Film Festival to succeed Alberto Barbera, an appointee of the left who is widely respected for having made the festival more competitive with the Cannes Film Festival.

Buttafuoco, a Sicilian, is nondoctrinaire and unpredictable. He is a convert to Islam and now a practicing Muslim. One of his novels recounts the Allied liberation of Sicily in 1943 from the sympathetic perspective of the Germans. He has been a regular guest on mainstream television talk shows and has written an affectionate introduction to an autobiographical novel by Paolo Signorelli, a militant in the hard-right Ordine Nuovo group who served a prison sentence for his involvement in the 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station, in which eighty-five people were killed, but who was later acquitted. Buttafuoco has also been artistic director of several theaters and has a perch at the Leonardo Foundation in Rome, a nonpartisan think tank funded by Leonardo, Italy’s largest aerospace and defense company.

He seems to see himself in the mold of Gabriele D’Annunzio—a man of intellect, a man of action. The poet, journalist, and politician is something of a hero for the new Meloni right. Buttafuoco has addressed friendly audiences at CasaPound, the radical neofascist social center in Rome. In one speech there in 2012, he defended the idea of a deeper right-wing “tradition” and was critical of “the global right”—presumably the Atlanticist world order—which he called the opposite of the right as espoused by Ezra Pound, D’Annunzio, and the Futurist poet Filippo Marinetti. “I love CasaPound because it operates outside a logic in which souls and existences are turned into a market, in which youth are instrumentalized and deluded. Instead, it offers a laboratory,” Buttafuoco told the audience. He also urged it to “throw out the racists” and “kick them in the ass.”

This year’s Art Biennale, which opened in April, was curated by Adriano Pedrosa, a Brazilian appointed under the previous president, Roberto Cicutto. The theme is “Foreigners Everywhere,” an on-the-nose response to nationalism, with a focus on queer, folk, indigenous, and outsider artists. Pedrosa has said the title has several valences:

First of all, that wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.

In remarks at the Biennale opening, Buttafuoco was fairly respectful of Pedrosa’s vision. He said that for Venice, “diversity has stood from the outset as a basic condition of normality. A process of mirroring and confrontation with the Other, never perceived in terms of denial or rejection.” It’s hard to know how Buttafuoco will handle his new position’s complex institutional and diplomatic demands. This year Sangiuliano defended Israel’s right to have a national pavilion at the Biennale in the face of opposition; ultimately, the artist representing Israel, Ruth Patir, said she would not open the pavilion until there was a cease-fire in Gaza and release of the Israeli hostages.

Alessandro Giuli, a journalist and author, was appointed the new head of MAXXI , the contemporary art and architecture museum in Rome designed by Zaha Hadid. Giuli hired two well-respected figures: as head of the artistic program Francesco Stocchi, previously a curator at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and as head of the architecture and design program Lorenza Baroncelli, a former artistic director of the Triennale in Milan. “Ambienti 1956–2010: Environments by Women Artists II,” organized by the Haus der Kunst in Munich, just opened. Upcoming exhibitions include one curated by the American architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro and a retrospective of the Arte Povera artist Giovanni Anselmo, organized with the Guggenheim Bilbao.

Giuli, who is close to Meloni, has given considerable thought to how the postfascist right can and should evolve. His book Il passo delle oche (The Goose Step, 2007) criticized the National Alliance party, which was created in 1994 after the neofascist Italian Social Movement disbanded, for not having fully broken with its fascist past. Meloni rose through the ranks of the National Alliance and represented it as youth minister in a Berlusconi government. Giuli’s book was published by Einaudi, a historic left-wing publisher. I met Giuli in his office at MAXXI , and above his desk there was a work of art by the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar based on the front page of the antifascist newspaper Giustizia e libertà announcing the death of Antonio Gramsci in 1937. Giuli said Meloni marked a new chapter, and that after some years of rabid populism Italy had returned to “the normal dialectic between conservatives and progressives” and had moved beyond “the dialectic of the people versus the establishment.”

He said MAXXI would fit into the government’s larger geopolitical strategies, including its Mattei Plan for Africa, a €5.5 billion commercial agreement largely focused on energy and preventing immigration. There is already a MAXXI in L’Aquila, the Abruzzo city devastated by an earthquake in 2009, and now there are plans for a MAXXI Med in Messina, which will provide exhibition space and museum-studies training, including for people from the Maghreb. I suggested it sounded like a neocolonial project. Giuli said it was “the exact opposite.” He spoke of the Etruscan kings who turned ancient Rome into a colony and said the African countries that Italy had brutally colonized in the twentieth century later made use of fascist-era architecture. “We realize that Italy committed tragic and violent errors and also that the African world is capable of using, even reappropriating, whatever remains of the colonial presence,” he added.

Buttafuoco and Giuli, along with Annalena Benini, whom Meloni named as the new head of the Turin International Book Fair, are all journalists and contributors to Il Foglio , a center-right daily with sophisticated culture coverage and stylish writing. It is philo-American, Atlanticist, Zionist, pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump, antiabortion, and critical of what it sees as the overreach of the Italian justice system. Before Meloni was elected, the paper’s editor-in-chief, Claudio Cerasa, told me he saw her as Trump-like and inclined to conspiracy theories, but now he sees a normalization. “It’s not fascism—on the contrary, there’s a great spirit of freedom here,” he told me. As evidence, he said Woody Allen was still popular in Italy, and Roman Polanski, too. I asked if that was a good thing. Of course, Cerasa said. The Meloni-era vibe is anti–cancel culture, even though no one has been canceled in Italy, as far as I can tell. For the most part, Italy seems to have skipped the backlash and gone straight to the backlash to the backlash.

Italianità and Its Critics

Beyond the government’s rush to fill positions, there is a battle of ideas underway about nationhood, about what it means to be Italian. Meloni and her government talk frequently about patria , or fatherland. More tellingly, the fascist-era term Italianità —Italianness—has reentered political discourse. Sangiuliano wants to develop a Museum of Italianità in the Emilia-Romagna region. When I asked him to define Italianità , he told me, rather enigmatically, that it was “that special condition unique to our people in which being accustomed to beauty creates an almost innate propensity for the well made.” Giuli, too, used the word. The right, he said, should “recover what it is intellectually” by looking to the Italian constitution, “which introduced themes of social protection, and even by taking pride in Italianità without falling into aggressive chauvinism.”

But the government often pushes exclusion over inclusion. Meloni has a fierce penchant for singling out perceived enemies—migrants, same-sex parents, intellectuals who have criticized her—as a way of building consensus. For years in her campaigns she said that a family should have a mother and a father, not “parent one and parent two.” Italy legalized same-sex civil unions in 2016 under a center-left government, and Meloni is trying to make it illegal for children born to gay couples via surrogacy abroad to have their birth certificates registered in Italy. Surrogacy is illegal in Italy and across most of Western Europe, a position shared by Catholic traditionalists and leftists opposed to what they see as the commodification of women’s bodies, but this push has spooked gay couples and supporters of gay rights in Italy. Meloni has said she will not overturn Italy’s 1978 abortion law, but she just passed a law allowing nonprofits into public clinics to dissuade women from having them. (A majority of Italian doctors are conscientious objectors who won’t perform the procedure.) Meanwhile she has been encouraging Italians to have more babies and has appeared with Pope Francis to deliver that message. The country just reported its lowest birth rate since the state was founded in 1861.

Beyond simple demographics, there is also a question of culture. “When Giorgia Meloni says, ‘Have kids,’ she is not talking to me,” Djarah Kan, an Italian writer and journalist whose parents are from Ghana, told me. We were sitting in a café in San Lorenzo, a formerly working-class neighborhood that like so much of Rome has been increasingly gentrified. If she had a baby with another black Italian, she continued, “it would not be considered a real Italian by the Italian state.” This feeling of exclusion in her own country infuriated her.

I feel offended, I feel mocked…. They are trying to invent out of whole cloth a model of Italianità that doesn’t match the reality of the country. They want to impose their idea of society on a society that is changing, however slowly. Because Italian society is changing and there are so many people in their thirties like me, of Chinese origin or African origin or Indian origin, who reside and live in this country. And every time we hear talk of Italianità or “Made in Italy” and of who has the right to be considered Italian or not, we laugh, but it also makes us sick to our stomachs.

Kan was born and grew up in Castel Volturno, outside Naples. We talked about how hard it is for immigrants to get a foothold in Italy. Many Italians inherit family real estate; without that inheritance, the social order would collapse. In a sign of the spirit of the times, Italy’s leading daily, Corriere della Sera , has a new podcast about the last wills of famous Italians, all men. “It’s all so stagnant,” Kan said. She said many of her high school classmates, also children of African immigrants, were sent abroad for better opportunities after graduating. It’s the same at Italy’s poshest private schools, many of which are Anglophone. Italy is unique among core EU countries in that its ruling class now prepares its children to leave. The brain drain has gotten worse over the years. Meloni reduced a tax incentive designed to lure Italians back home. It is against this backdrop of resignation that she came to power.

Meloni’s government is fighting rearguard wars over the past. It approved the creation of a memorial museum in Rome dedicated to victims of the Foibe massacres—reprisal killings in Italian territories in what are now Croatia and Slovenia during the immediate postwar period when Tito’s Communists murdered fascists and civilians. Sangiuliano and the government have been promoting the initiative, saying the murders had been downplayed by past center-left governments.

There have also been heated polemics over Liberation Day, a national holiday on April 25 when Italy celebrates its liberation from fascism by the Allies. In April RAI canceled a Liberation Day monologue by Antonio Scurati, the author of the global best-selling novel M (2018), about Italy under Mussolini, prompting cries of censorship. In his monologue, the text of which later appeared online, Scurati said, “After winning the elections in October 2022, the postfascist leadership had two possible paths: to repudiate its neofascist past or to try to rewrite history. It undoubtedly chose the second.” Scurati has in the past criticized Meloni for not directly acknowledging the contribution of the Resistance to ending fascism, or that Italy’s constitution was born of antifascism. In his monologue he said that she had denounced the Nazis “without repudiating the fascist experience in its entirety.” Meloni said the cancellation was an economic choice, but a leak from RAI indicated it had been editorial. She then published his monologue on her own Facebook page, a move indicative of the unpredictability and confusion fomented by the government, making it hard to pin down.

Italy, which began the war with the Axis and ended it with the Allies, never underwent a deep examination of conscience the way Germany did. Meloni’s government could present an opportunity to do this. Instead she is attacking her critics and shifting the narrative to redress issues like the Foibe that have long been an obsession of the right. At the same time the government has been attentive to honoring Jewish victims of the Holocaust. In March Sangiuliano went with Germany’s culture minister to commemorate one of the country’s worst wartime massacres: the Nazis’ execution of 335 Italian civilians in 1944 at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome.

Meloni’s government has found it harder to address contemporary violence. In January she turned a blind eye when a group of far-right militants made Roman salutes at a memorial gathering for one of their members killed in clashes with left-wing groups and police in the 1970s. The legacy of the Years of Lead, from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, when the battle between left and right moved beyond ideas to violence, is still palpable in Italy, and many consider it a civil war. Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled that the Roman salute is a crime if done out of a desire to reconstruct the Fascist Party, but not if done as a commemorative act. In February videos circulated showing police in Pisa and Florence beating unarmed teenagers who were demonstrating in support of Palestine. President Sergio Mattarella, an institutional figure who normally does not weigh in on such matters, took the interior minister to task:

The authority of law enforcement is not measured by truncheons but by the capacity to safeguard security while at the same time guaranteeing the right to express one’s opinion in public. The use of truncheons against youth is an expression of failure.

The police beatings drew widespread concern. “The thing that worries me, frankly, is the censoring of the youngest voices, of the voices of dissidents, of the voices of the counterculture,” the writer Nadeesha Uyangoda told me at a book fair of independent presses on the foggy outskirts of Milan. Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Milan, she is the author of L’unica persona nera nella stanza (The Only Black Person in the Room, 2021) and a columnist for the magazine Internazionale .

It is something intrinsic in Italian culture to go out into the piazza and demonstrate…. It’s a cultural act because you occupy a public space with your body. And if the state prevents this by beating you, what is it? It means there isn’t space for a different idea that doesn’t conform to that of the government.

Uyangoda told me she found the government’s talk of Italianità silly but troubling. Italy is, after all, a country of campanilismo , of people sticking to the traditions and dialect of their own towns beneath their local campanile , or church tower. “Only a group of far-right politicians could think they could bring back to life a concept of nationality, of Italianità , that doesn’t exist in Italy anymore,” she said. I asked if she took the government’s fusty rhetoric seriously. She paused. “When I hear them say some things, I can’t take them seriously,” she said. “But then I think of how we didn’t take them seriously six years ago, and look what happened. And so maybe it’s worth taking them seriously this time because they evidently have an impact on the country.”

Even before the Liberation Day polemics, Scurati was growing concerned. “I never thought that the potential victory of the far right would compromise democracy,” he told me.

I was afraid that a victory by the far right could represent a threat for the quality of democratic life, not for the survival of democratic life. And it’s getting worse. One of the signs of this worsening is in the world of culture. The few, the very few intellectuals who criticize the government become the object of violent and offensive attacks.

Indeed, Meloni has sued the historian and philologist Luciano Canfora for aggravated defamation, after he called her “a neo-Nazi in her soul.” * (Italy lacks the equivalent of First Amendment protections for press coverage of public figures, and Italian politicians often sue for defamation.) Members of the government have lashed out at the writer Roberto Saviano, a vocal critic who has been under police protection for years for his writing about the Neapolitan Mafia.

After Scurati was attacked by the right-wing, progovernment daily newspaper Libero , someone left dried feces in his building in Milan and the words Scurati merda appeared on the wall. He reported the incident. “When the police chief asked if I wanted police protection, I thought, ‘Now we have a problem,’” Scurati told me. “It’s very heavy for people who want to express their feelings,” he continued. “Almost none of my writer colleagues, most of whom are on the left, are speaking out. Most are just tending their own orticello ,” or little garden.

The Orticello

While a few public figures express dissent, such as Saviano, or defend gay rights, such as the social media influencer Chiara Ferragni, most cultural figures, to say nothing of the establishment, seem to be keeping their heads down or finding ways to turn the new regime to their own advantage. Loredana Lipperini, a longtime host of Fahrenheit , a program about books on RAI Radio3, a station popular with the left wing, used the same term as Scurati—the orticello . “I see on the one hand a great turning inward, and with some notable exceptions, what strikes me is that the majority of novels coming out now are intimate novels, autofiction, inward-facing and focused on themselves,” she told me. “I’m worried about this tendency in which everyone, with some exceptions…tends his or her own orticello .” For Lipperini it’s a sign that cultural figures aren’t fully engaging with the issues of the day. Institutionally and culturally, the left has not offered a clear response to the far right, with its well-defined positions on immigration, borders, and national identity.

A hit film in Italy since it came out last year is C’è ancora domani ( There’s Still Tomorrow ), directed by and starring Paola Cortellesi. Filmed in black and white and set in 1946, it tells the story of a scrappy Roman matriarch who maintains her dignity in the face of an abusive husband and an ogre of a father-in-law. In Italy the film sold more tickets than Barbie . It clearly hit a nerve, not only because it appeared when a case of a woman murdered by her boyfriend was calling attention to Italy’s high rates of violence against women. Cortellesi’s performance was strong, but I found the film reductive. Did we really need to be reminded that women in Italy got the vote? And yet I was struck by how many women in Italy told me how much the film had meant to them, had empowered them and given them a sense of solidarity. It showed the power of collective action—an alternative to the orticello .

In February 1948 Partisan Review published an essay by the antifascist and anti-Stalinist writer Nicola Chiaromonte, who captured the mood two months before the first national elections of the nascent Italian republic that the heroine of C’è ancora domani votes to create. “Italy has not changed,” Chiaromonte wrote of that tenuous transitional period, just two years after the 1946 plebiscite in which Italians chose to become a democratic republic, not a monarchy.

In the collapse of Fascism, only Fascism has been refuted. Fascist authority and state structure are not there any longer. But, if the façade has crumbled, everything that was behind the façade before is still there, very much the same. Except that everything looks like the scattered fragments of a scattered society. Everything is in a state of suspension: conservatism together with the need for change; authoritarian habits along with libertarian impulses; nationalism and the natural cosmopolitanism of the Italians. Political freedom, as it exists today in Italy, is a state of suspension. But it still makes a difference. The simple fact of free speech has given the country an animation which looks like a new life. Misfortune has made the Italians feel united as they never felt before. The country is far from inert. Yet the apparent immutability of Italian society weighs everybody down.

In trying to make sense of Italy today, I thought back to Chiaromonte’s essay, still so illuminating on the country’s infinite complexities. Just off Piazza Venezia I had sat for ages in traffic on Via del Plebiscito, named after the 1946 plebiscite. Italian society has indeed changed since then. Italy remains a free country. But its apparent immutability still weighs everybody down. I thought of Djarah Kan, her dynamism and energy like that of so many young Italians constantly running up against the muro di gomma —the rubber wall—of tradition, exclusion, and every power structure from the tax code to labor law to the Catholic Church, which are designed to preserve power and wealth in the hands of those who already have it and who are fearful of letting in newcomers. “Italians always have to go backward because they’re too afraid of going forward,” Kan told me. “They always like it in the places where they’re worse off because at least those awful places are familiar—they already know that suffering.” We both laughed. What else could we do? Around us the Roman café was thrumming. Kan is working on a novel. “As soon I’m done with my book, I want to get out of here,” at least for a while, she told me. “This country is a badly run museum.” When the children of immigrants want to become emigrants, perhaps that means they, too, possess Italianità .

—May 9, 2024

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Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) IF I BECOME THE PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA. 2018-12-03 - (An essay written by Binadie Ratnayake three years ago, in 2015) If I become the President of Sri Lanka, I will see to all citizens and check if they are leading good lives. I will see if all the roads are built smoothly in a way that people can drive vehicles easily.
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Download. Being the president of a country is a big responsibility for one person. If I were president, I would change the government, overthrowing corrupt politicians and those with a criminal record in the field of government. I would listen to the grievance of my fellow citizens on their daily problems in our society like traffics, flooding ...
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