For the past several days, some of the SLU team has enjoyed Sri Lanka’s premiere beach festival, Hikkaduwa Beach Fest. This outdoor extravaganza brings artists and entertainers from outside the country and is marketed as a major tourist attraction where even people from the Maldives come for the 4 day long festivities. Sri Lankan culture is burgeoning locale for cultural and economic development, and the situation is likely to get better now that violence is on the decline. With this new opportunity, Sri Lanka is taking advantage of an increased interconnectedness with the global community.
Sri Lanka Unites can be interpreted within this trend also. The move towards national reconciliation and Sri Lankan identity is large foray for the tropical island, yet one step among many others in the global network. Such movements have been happening across the world in the modern era, whether its reconciliation in Northern Ireland or equality in South Africa. There are certainly many ills that have developed also, but it is the successful precedents that keep the hope for the future alive. As the push for peace and understanding takes flight in Sri Lanka, it joins a host of predecessors and becomes the next link in the chain to continue the global story of positive change. The real question has become, can Sri Lanka emulate these patterns to become its own success story? The changing climate across the nation would seem to say yes.
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