Now, It Is Thirteen Minus
Dr Dayan Jayatilleka
“Machiavelli… brusquely remarks that a state undergoing these changes would fall victim to a stronger neighbour before it could have time to complete the cycle.” - Introduction to ‘Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy’, University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. xxxviii
It is good of Prof GH Peiris (‘Prophesies on Sri Lanka’s Global Vulnerability: A Critique’, The Island, June 14-15, 2013) to “spell out the essence of [his] perceptions on the issue” of province-based devolution. He writes that: “I believe that any constitutional provision which conforms to or perpetuate the ‘Two Nation Theory’ and the idea of the northern and eastern parts of the island constituting an ‘exclusive traditional Tamil homeland’ is detrimental to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation-state of Sri Lanka.”
