LETTERS – NOV 2024
Sri Lanka’s new direction?
Sirs,
It was of great interest to read the two complementary and very well informed articles on Sri Lanka in your October edition, especially as this part of South Asia is undergoing such a sea change currently, following (or even amidst) a period of chaos.
Both Neville de Silva and Richard Gregson struck a broadly optimistic note on the social and political improvements new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake may bring about on the home front, and indicate things bode well in foreign policy too, with focus on cordial ties with China as well as further reinforcing the friendship with longtime ally and benefactor India.
Such optimism seems well founded, and perhaps especially so for India, as Dissanayake is already showing signs that Colombo will take New Delhi’s concerns about security matters with China seriously, even as he attempts to balance ties with New Delhi and Beijing, and with other major world powers.
If Sri Lanka is to recover from the mire it became sunk in under its previous leaders, it needs a ‘practical nationalist’ at the helm, as Dissanayake is tentatively proving to be, who will espouse domestic and foreign policies that put the interests of the country and its people first, ahead of personal gains or ideologies.
SL Perera
Croydon
‘Banality of destruction’
One cannot help but sympathise with the cynicism expressed by Tanya Vatsa in her piece ‘Cross-border crossfire: The Beirut chapter’ as she reflects on the ‘banality of destruction’and the terrible human cost that is an inevitable consequence of all war, especially wars of attrition.
Surely we must pause on the taking of sides for a moment. With civilian death tolls mounting across the Middle East due to flagrant disregard for international law, and the ‘gross trivialisation’ of human life through the blasé booby-trapping of everyday devices such as pagers and walkie-talkies, and using civilians as human shields, any moral high ground is being gradually eroded as hatred – a true weapon of mass destruction – is forged across borders and generations.
Maya Woodford
Cardiff
NATO in a new era
Brilliant and nuanced analysis in your October Editorial of NATO, if/how it could join with Indo-Pacific nations to face up to current security challenges, and the challenges of that potential collaboration, based on cultural and other differences. The writer has a very clear and in-depth understanding of how an ever more interconnected world and its balance of power have changed, and those who govern cannot afford to ignore this.
Ben Brodie
Zurich, Switzerland
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