Back to the gates of other Bastilles

I sense the long weekend — we Sri Lankans being past-masters at combining a Thursday poya with the traditional brace of days six and seven - somewhat dampened any marked commemoration of the apex of our erstwhile Aragalaya.

- By Wijith DeChickera

There was no noise from even those who manned the barricades way back then. Social media, bowing the knee to our panopticon state's Online Safety Act perhaps, was as dark as the other side of the moon.

Three years ago, between 9 and 13 of July 2022, we Sri Lankans were demonstrably united as arguably never before when an estimated two million islanders — a tenth of Serendip's total population - took to the streets to protest a regime that had to go.

From scarecrow farmers leaning together, their headpieces filled with straw, to otherwise hollow-minded teenagers united by a passion for transparency and accountability, the streets were thronged with irate citizens united as never before outside the sporting arena.

And while it was not cricket or war, it was magnificent.

We few, we happy few

Surely it was of our happy band we Sri Lankans voting with our feet, rather than those in 'The French Revolution as it appeared to its enthusiasts at its commencement' that the poet wrote: "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!"

Speaking of which: Today, the 14th of July, is Bastille Day: the national day of France, and the anniversary of the storming of that medieval armoury, fortress and political prison one that was symbolic of the oppression of the people by their entrenched rulers.

It would be beyond tedious it would be a tiring and thankless task for this editorialist to redraw the many parallels that present themselves as being in common between the two emblematic events.