haggis, bagpipes, claymores, and kilts.

As you may be aware, Sri Lanka’s twenty-five year civil war is officially declared to have ended on May the 18th.  This is beautiful news, and worth cheering.  Worth writing home about.

I play chess on SchemingMind.com, a fantastic site with a great little community.  As well as playing games on the site, I’m relatively active in the forums. There’s one thread titled “Interesting News from around the World,” so I shared the word on Sri Lanka.  A friend of mine on the site expressed his usual dose of cynicism: That’s all well and good, he seemed to say, but “not a big deal in Sri Lanka, as far as [the] world goes on.” There are countless other wars going on, and more will break out. “Wars are a part of this world because we, people, cannot live together in peace. We are NASTY.”  Here I write for my chess friend and for any others who share these sentiments that humanity has as little hope as goodness within, who make the choice to magnify the deeds of our demons rather than the perseverance of our saints. There’s a little of both in most of us, and our focus in life helps us choose which one to let out.  For you:

On politics and war, I suspect where there’s one there will always be the other — and as human societies on a large scale will always have government and government will always have politics, I fear we may be doomed always to have war. But:

It’s not every day that a two-and-a-half decade civil war that tears a country apart from within comes to an end. My friend Prashan was born into the war in Sri Lanka and has lived there his whole life. He has made that war his life, his career — not to fight, but to promote peace, to promote unity, to promote love. He meets with government leaders, he meets with policy makers, he meets with leaders in the churches and temples, he meets with Sinhalese and Tamil youth across the nation and brings them together under one roof to discuss their differences and their common humanity. He reaches out, and he unifies. And while the end of the Sri Lankan war may not be “a big deal” in the face of worldwide civil strife and military unrest, it’s a big deal to him.

Sri Lanka has been considered one of the most politically unstable countries in the world. It has been called a false democracy, a failed state, and a ruptured nation. But the war is over now, the long journey of reparation and reconciliation can begin.

The truth is that many people on this planet are born into war and many will die in war. Prashan was born into it and has fought tooth and nail to ensure that as few of his countrymen as possible die in it. Now he is fighting just as hard to ensure a lasting peace and a true unity in the country. There is much work yet, but major strides have been made. It is for Prashan a great triumph, and we celebrate with him. There may always be war, but so long as we can see a path to peace, we can hope, and we can exhibit the love and respect for our fellow human beings and for our neighbor that make a better world possible. We can write stories and news articles about the possibilities and the triumphant realities – few though they may be – rather than focus only on the negativity and despair. The world may go on, oblivious to the pocket of Sri Lanka that is finally solving its major trials. But for my friend and others in Sri Lanka, the world is now changed. Refreshed. Redeemed. New meaning and new possibilities.

Worldwide war may continue, but maybe, just maybe, Prashan may be allowed to dance in the streets for a day.