National Shoora Council’s Independence Day Message

National Shoora Council's Independence Day Message 

 04 February 2105

Sri Lanka is in the threshold of a new experience as an independent nation. Independence, freedom and liberation have visited this country in different forms. 

In these various forms, our community of people be they Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Malays or Burghers each had played a major role.  The politicians exerted themselves for our independence from the British in 1948.  The Sri Lankan military liberated us from the thirty year war in 2009.  The common masses freed the nation from nepotism, corruption and fear in 2015.  The dynamism of our people has been amply demonstrated in this concurrent saga of liberations.

“Let us move forward without delay as the children of one mother”, reminds the national anthem each time we sing along.  The time has arrived to transform these words of the national anthem into practical reality.  The good governance mandate that has been endorsed by the masses gives us the best opportunity to march towards this noble goal.

It would be worthwhile to remind our people of the famous words of the Late Dr. T.B. Jayah in the State Council in 1937, ten years before Sri Lanka gained its independence.  He said,  “We might stand up for our community, but it cannot be said that we have stood against the interests of the country as a whole. I have always said, and I repeat it today, that I consider the interests of the country as a whole, to be paramount.”

It is this spirit that we need to revive in our thoughts on this Day of Independence and eliminate from our minds the disease of racialism.

The National Shoora Council wishes all the Sri Lankan brothers and sisters on this 67th independence day a peaceful era of co-existence, understanding and tolerance.

Tariq Mahmud
President
National Shoora Council