The Difference after the War Ends

Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, dating back 30,000 years. The island off the coast of India in the Indian Ocean is a mix of many cultures, Sinhalese and Tamil the predominant ones.  After a recent trip there, it seems amazing the transformation I witnessed.  I first visited the country back in 1998 when it was in the middle of a brutal civil war that began in 1983.  You could not travel freely because of the many military checkpoints and threats of bombs and killings.  People seemed always on edge, always looking over their shoulders at any passing face.  Was this someone with a bomb?  Was this someone hiding a weapon?  It was a stressful way to live.

After years of conflict, the civil war ended in 2009.  When you visit the island capital today—Colombo—you can feel the lightness among the people.  Smiles are more evident.  Children are playing sports in fields and parents are cheering them on, with no apparent worries about security or threats.  Colombo seems cleaner and more orderly than in the war days.  New highways have been completed—even with tolls—to channel the masses from one side of the city to the other.  There has been so much improvement.

Yet, like any nation, it’s a work in progress.  Among gay Sri Lankans, there is little freedom as homosexuality remains illegal.  Men tell of police entrapment schemes that make them reluctant to live their lives.  There is a certain emptiness in their eyes when they talk about what their lives can be until they are allowed more freedom. Many fear they can never really live until they go someplace else, until they flee to a more hospitable, tolerant culture.  It’s a great thing that the military checkpoints are almost invisible, but if fleeing is the only road to happiness, then there is still so much work to be done.