Burning Ranil’s house…
This mystery will be revealed!
One of the characteristics of revolutions is that certain events that take place remain eternally mysterious. It is my wish that the burning of Prime Minister Ranil’s house does not remain such an eternal mystery.
We should refrain from burning down Prime Minister Ranil’s house not only because there was a valuable library there or because of the house where Prof. Maithrie Wickramasinghe lived or because this house was gifted to the nearby Royal College of Colombo through a gift deed. Because burning houses is a crime, second only to murder. This argument is also related to the homes of ministers in Pohottu that were set on fire on May 9, 10, 11. They are also crimes. Whether those houses had libraries, baths or liquor bars is irrelevant.
The occurrence of crimes in revolutions is a paradox that emerges from revolutions themselves. Most of the revolutions up to the 19th century involved burning down the palace and beheading the king to display Ritaka Amuna. We saw George Abashwilli cutting the neck and beheading the prince in the drama “The Story of Hunu Round”.
But as the society developed, more humanist ideas and especially the more humanist ideas of social emancipation developed, an alternative discourse emerged about the violent crimes that occurred in the revolutions. The conversation arose with the question of why the government of Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia shot and killed the Tsar’s pet dog in addition to 11 people including the Tsar’s royal family and servants.
It was meant to suggest that the struggle to oust the Rajapakses was a non-violent struggle from the beginning because the fighters were quite sensitive to this historical discourse.
Accordingly, I do not think that the militants wanted to burn this house. If they had such a desire, they would have set fire to the Fort President’s House first. We saw how the strugglers intervened and controlled it when a large river of people rushed into it and began to cause minor destruction to the mansion.
The burning of Prime Minister Ranil’s house is a clear political conspiracy. It is an attempt by a cowardly party who is trying to get another political advantage out of the struggle. It is an idea that I feel is not an idea that can be proven with facts. In the days when it happened, we felt that the Easter attack was not just the work of Saharans.
But this mystery will be revealed. It is my wish that it be revealed.
