What is it to be Sri Lankan? The answer to this question is something that I struggle with. Should it not mean that we are a citizen: a citizen of a proud, diverse nation with respect and equality for all. A nation that is united. A nation that celebrates our differences. (1)

However, the year 1956 marked the first significant show of overt oppression against an ethnicity. (2)

Politicians of the day and those that followed, did not have the best interests of the country or its citizens, but had their own personal thirst for power and fame in mind. (3)

While claiming to act in the name of self-determination for the Sri Lankan identity, they oppressed and asserted dominance against minorities, and we embarked down the slippery slope that led us to where we are today. (4)

What started off with just politics and biased policymaking, led to inflammatory rhetoric, frustration and desperation, ultimately descending to terrorism and the resounding indoctrination across the nation that ethnicity was pitted ethnicity in a full-blown civil war. (5)