For the past few years, decades really, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka was our deadname. Democracy died in 2022 when the unelected usurper (Ranil) schemed his way into the Presidency, and his family tortured and killed socialists for decades. In 2024, however, we voted him out for the third time and democratically elected a socialist President. Now the country's name makes sense for the first time since the 1970s, at least nominally.

That President is Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD). AKD, as he's known on the street, is a member of a party called the JVP. The JVP were a brutally suppressed Marxist-Leninist party that has basically suppressed its Marxist-Leninism. They reemerged as a somewhat anodyne center-left coalition called the NPP. As my compatriot Pasan Jayasinghe says, “In substance, even a cursory glance at the NPP’s [their election coalition] manifesto reveals not a plan to usher in full-throated communism but a milquetoast, deliberately vague social democratic program.”

I'll break down what these words and acronyms mean slowly and out of order, quoting directly as much as possible. But first some completely inadequate history.

Marxism-Leninism-Wijeweerism

First lets address Marxist-Leninism, and it's local incarnation, Wijeweerism if you will.

If you ask Marx (and Engels), their Communist Manifesto says nothing about elections at all. Instead, it says, “The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” The point of revolution is to revolt the bougie classes (I cannot keep spelling bourgeoisie), not to play house with them via elections.

The famous conclusion of the Manifesto goes. “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

If you ask Marx's hyphen homie, Lenin, he says elections are for morons. In The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Lenin said,

The traitors, blockheads and pedants of the Second International could never understand such dialectics; the proletariat cannot achieve victory if it does not win the majority of the population to its side. But to limit that winning to polling a majority of votes in an election under the rule of the bourgeoisie, or to make it the condition for it, is crass stupidity, or else sheer deception of the workers.

In order to win the majority of the population to its side the proletariat must, in the first place, overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power; secondly, it must introduce Soviet power and completely smash the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the rule, prestige and influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the non-proletarian working people. Thirdly, it must entirely destroy the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the majority of the non-proletarian masses by satisfying their economic needs in a revolutionary way at the expense of the exploiters.

This was, indeed, the position of the proto JVP, led by Rohan Wijeewera. In 1973, Wijeweera said, “I am a Marxist-Leninist. I am a modern Bolshevik. I am a proletarian revolutionary. Marxism-Leninism is a clear doctrine. In no way is a Marxist-Leninist a conspirator. I, a Bolshevik, am in no way a terrorist. As a proletarian revolutionary, however, I must emphatically state that I am committed to the overthrow of the prevailing capitalist system and its replacement by a socialist system.”

As Marx said, Wijeweera 'disdained to conceal his views and aims,' even though it would eventually get him killed. Wijeweera said, “We thought that the Ceylon Communist Party was degenerating into a social-democratic party” and for that reason, he formed the JVP as actual revolutionaries. They tried actual revolution in both 1971 and 1988/89, and lost bloodily.

Wijeweera and 41 of 42 JVP Central Committee members were executed and the JVP was quite literally dead in the water. In the south, 'Jeppas' bodies were burned at junctions and were found floating downstream. The JVP was violent but the government was ultra-violent. The Sri Lankan genocide (destruction of people in whole or in part) of Tamils is well-documented, but the ideological genocide of communists has been memory-holed completely.

Ideological Genocide

The Cold War is only called 'Cold' because that describes white people's hearts. Millions of people were killed in this 'Cold' War, which they ignore because it didn't affect Europe. America took up the mantle and military bases of the European powers, assimilated the Nazis into NATO, and began pursing Hitler's #1 goal in global earnest. They eliminated communists in what can only be called an ideological genocide, killing millions on every inhabited continent.

I'll repeat because it went on and on. The American-led red scare was an ideological genocide waged that killed, tortured, and disappeared millions of people, from Chile to Congo to Sri Lanka to Indonesia. America's only ideology is money, and communists seizing the means of production fucks with their money, which is why that ideology had to be smothered in the crib. That's why the Americans, who I just call White Empire cause it's the same shit, unleashed an anti-commie genocide that made Hitler proud.

Every liberation movement was socialisty. You never saw the Capitalist Peoples Front anywhere. Hence America's anti-communist crusade was an anti-liberation crusade in general. They smothered or ended decolonization across much of the world. Any nation that wanted to plan their economy didn't fit into America's plans, and for that reason, young people were tortured, shot, and killed all over the world. They asked why communists resorted to violence but, as Fidel Castro said “Revolutionaries didn't choose armed struggle as the best path, it's the path the oppressors imposed on the people. And so the people only have two choices: to suffer, or to fight.”

Especially after the ruling UNP government cancelled elections and blocked all other paths to people protesting in both the north and south, both sides took up arms, and the state went ultra-violent on everyone. In the south, Sri Lanka joined wholeheartedly in the bloody anti-communist crusade, championed by Ranil the Usurper's uncle, JR Jayawardene, known as Yankee Dickee because he was pro-American (and a dick).

JR was an arch-capitalist and the architect of Sri Lanka's ruin. As Wijeweera said (presciently), “the administration of this country was handed over to the local capitalist class, as part of a neo-colonialist strategem, and the country continued along the same bankrupt path of capitalist development.” JR sold off Sri Lankan industrial capacity, broke trade unions, and waged two wars against revolutionary socialists in both the north and south. He was our comprador king, coming from the colonial-era United National Party, colloquially known as the Uncle Nephew Party. Sure enough, his sociopathic nephew Ranil presided over our actual bankruptcy in 2022.

Sinhala Jathiyism

The ideological genocide both worked and didn't work. One of the most popular trishaw stickers in Sri Lanka is still ‘Che Guevara Want You To Rebel.’ As AKD said (quoting), “they buried us, but they didn't know we were seeds.” After the ideological genocide, the JVP grew into a mainstream political party from just one surviving Committee member (Somawansa Amarasinghe).

As Rajesh Venugopal said in a 2010 publication, “The Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) is perhaps the most resilient, dynamic and deeply-rooted political force in contemporary Sri Lanka.” To be honest, I would have said this was crazy in 2010, when the two major parties still existed. Since then, however, they have both self-destructed and the JVP was, in fact, the oldest political party running in the 2024 election.

As Venugopal continues, “In the course of this reorientation as an electoral party, the JVP reacted skilfully to fashion a fluid ideo-political agenda that could be rapidly calibrated along the continuum from populist Marxism to populist nationalism as circumstances demanded.” Populist nationalism in the Sri Lankan context, of course, means Sinhala nationalism, that of the majority jathiya. In his paper, Venugopal talks about “four features of the JVP’s Marxist-Sinhala nationalist ideological mix.”

A Bit Of Racial Context

It is important to understand the Sinhala/Tamil divide in Sri Lanka, at least superficially. Before (total) colonization, 'Sri Lanka's' last 'Sinhala' kings were actually Telegu (South Indian) and Tamil was a court language in Kandy. Race was not the dividing line in society as much as class. The last Sinhalese kings were literally not Sinhalese, and before that they were often halfsies.

Race does not really translate. In Sinhala we say jathiya for race, but jathiya can also mean 'what type of dog is that?' to 'what kind of shoes are you looking for?' to 'I will love you in my next rebirth.' As you can see, the western concept of race doesn't really fit here, but it was foisted upon us anyways. Like cricket, this is now just the game we play.

The British strategically used race to divide and conquer Sri Lanka, as they did globally. They elevated mixed race Burghers and the Tamil minority to the highest posts in colonial administration, sowing the seeds of massive tension with the majority Sinhalese. For the Sinhalese (I'm Sinhala) the proximate face oppressing us was more often Tamil than White. This tension snapped after Independence in a way that still benefited the reconstituted White Empire (under America now).

For most of its independent history, Sri Lanka remained divided and conquered by racial war instead of the class war that both Tamil and Sinhalese revolutionaries broadly agreed on. Hence you get the (Tamil) LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran saying,

Revolutionary socialism is my political philosophy. By socialism I mean the construction of an egalitarian society where there is no class contradiction and exploitation of man by man; a free, rational society where human freedom and rights are protected and progress enhanced. Che Guevara is the guerrilla leader who inspires me the most.

And his Sinhala counterpart Wijeweera broadly agreed. As Wijeweera said, “After the publication of Che’s Guerrilla Warfare certain of our sympathizers, as well as members of other groups, thought of seeking solutions to the prevailing economic crisis by similar methods.” Thus you had multiple socialists rebelling against the same government, but divided along race lines, as the British intended. Tamil/Sinhala, Shia/Sunni, 'Israeli'/Palestinian, White/Black, divide and conquer is the grift that keeps on giving.

If we, thus, brutally simplify Sri Lankan (et al) politics to a continuum with Class War on the Y-Axis and Race War on X, you can see the political space that the JVP played in. I'll repeat Venugopal who said, “the JVP reacted skilfully to fashion a fluid ideo-political agenda that could be rapidly calibrated along the continuum from populist Marxism to populist nationalism as circumstances demanded.”

Pivoting To Sinhala Jathiyism

From 1997, the circumstances were such that both of the duopoly parties broadly agreed on racial and class (economic) issues, leaving wide open political space for the JVP. As Venugopal said,

For the first time since the rise of the two-party system in the mid-1950s, both the main parties were in broad consensus on the necessity for state reform regarding the two core issues that had animated Sri Lankan politics: economic policy and ethnic conflict. Both parties advocated market reforms, and both agreed on the necessity for constitutional reforms to address the ethnic conflict. The remaining differences between them on these issues were largely a matter of emphasis, tactics, and personality, rather than principle and direction. But, as a direct consequence of this emerging consensus, there was now an increasingly open and viable space on the populist left for opposition to the market reforms, and on the Sinhala nationalist right for mobilisation directed at preserving the unitary state and opposing the devolution of powers along ethnic lines.

As Vengugopal continued, “At an ideological and practical level, the JVP’s success lay in their ability to fold these often spontaneous sources of predominantly economic opposition into component elements of an over-arching and coherent Sinhala nationalist framework.”

I must add here that somethings are being lost in translation. Sinhala nationalism is not necessarily a bad thing. As Robert Kearney said after interviews with leftists in the 60s and 70s, “The movement expressed deeply felt popular aspirations and contained ‘progressive’ features, particularly as it represented the class revolt of the Sinhalese-educated rural masses against the English-educated classes.”

Much is lost in translation and Sinhala nationalism is regarded as pure racism in English. But it isn't. As Rohana Wasala said, “we can talk about a ‘Sri Lankan nation’ in English, but cannot translate the term into Sinhalese as ‘Sri Lanka jathiya’ for then it will mean ‘Sri Lanka race’ which is non-existent.” It's hard to explain, but most Sri Lankans don't identify as Sri Lankan except at cricket games. It is (or was) almost impossible to organize around Sri Lankan nationalism. Such an identity did not exist (yet), except for what Wasala called the “nationalised colonialism” of the corrupt 'Ceylonese' elites.

Electoral democracy was, honestly a Trojan Horse left by the British. Parliamentary democracy creates racism because it rewards identity politics, whatever gets you to 51%. As Kumara Jayawardena said, “In terms of parliamentary politics this often meant the adoption of policies and strategies that would evoke a positive response from the general mass of the people; in effect, of the Sinhala majority.” A king or a Lee Quan Yew or a one-party state can clamp down on such jockeying for power, but a party within a Parliamentary democracy has to just ride it. Which the JVP, more than other contradictory leftist parties did.

The JVP took a clear position in the early 2000s arguing that “that the peace process and market reforms were part of a coherent assault by a constellation of foreign forces and domestic quislings to destabilise, fragment and re-conquer the island” (Venugopal). As JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva said, “On the one side, the country is being sold to transnational corporations through the Regaining Sri Lanka programme while on the other, a separate state is being given to the LTTE.” This was actually true, and describes the fraught nature of the country's decolonization. Sri Lanka was still divided and conquered and prone to being consumed by both White Empire and India for parts.

Divide and conquer had been historically used to strip the country of resources and labor, and things were honestly going the same way. That's the threat the JVP was able to articulate and organize around. And this was a popular perspective in the south. There was, in fact, wide opposition to dividing and selling off the country, and tens of thousands of people came out to protest, every month for a year. This was not just racism.

The JVP was able to organize thousands of people to come out to protest both privatization and the peace talks. This helped topple Ranil's government (under Chandrika) and, later, they helped install Mahinda's warlike one. Thus, “Between 2001 and 2004, the JVP became the leading Sinhala nationalist political organisation in Sri Lanka, and also the leading political force that opposed the peace process. Incredibly, it achieved this position without being an explicit advocate of Sinhala nationalism, (and having frequently denounced it).”

While the JVP certainly played to the Sinhala jathiya, I think it's unfair to call them racist (but I'm Sinhala, so take it with chili and salt). As Venugopal said, “The JVP angrily and vociferously denies the charge that it is chauvinistic, and there is very little in the official literature or statements of the JVP that can be described as arousing overt anti-Tamil sentiment. The JVP advocates equal rights for all communities in Sri Lanka and recognises that Tamils have historically suffered discrimination and even violence.”

The JVP, of course, wouldn't say that the Tamils have suffered genocide, but—if we define genocide as the destruction of a people in whole or in part—they unfortunately have been genocided, in part. Genocide is really much more common than we think, though it has been effectively trademarked by 'Israelis'.

The fact is that the JVP actually has the least blood on its hands compared to the duopoly parties. The JVP did not organize the 1983 pogroms of Tamils in Colombo, that was Ranil's UNP. They did not burn down the Jaffna Library. Again, Ranil's UNP. While Ranil and the UNP posed as the protectors of Tamils, they were really the same old comprador elites, doing the same old looting for the same old colonial countries, using the same old tricks. They never gave a shit about the Tamils or anybody else, except as a way to divide and conquer elections.

What I must add from the Tamil perspective is that whatever the JVP said, “in operational terms, this effectively translated into an agenda and tactical programme that was little different to that which successive generations of Sinhala chauvinists have deployed since the mid-1950s… On the basis of these actions, the JVP is viewed by large sections of Sri Lankan society, and particularly by the Tamil community, as a Sinhala chauvinist organization.”

In the end, the JVP was part of Mahinda's government which restarted and ended the war. That last, violent push eliminated the LTTE and tens of thousands of civilians in the process. This was the result most of the population (except those being killed and militarized, of course) wanted. As Venugopal said, ““Sinhala nationalists... long opposed devolution, foreign intervention, and any solution to the ethnic conflict short of outright military victory.” Again, I'm not using nationalist as a bad word here, these people wanted the war to end. This is obviously not satisfactory to Tamil nationalists, for whom the JVP only has the following weak sauce to offer:

[question by audience member]: ‘Can you succinctly describe your solution to the ethnic conflict in this country?’ ‘Socialism’, answered one of the JVP leaders unequivocally and crisply. ‘What should the Tamil people do until socialist rule is established in the country?’ asked another person in the seminar crowd. ‘The Tamils also have to struggle for socialism until then’ replied the JVP.

The war ended in 2009 and this, politically, ended serious discussion of 'the Tamil question' in the now dominant south. It's not that anyone came up with a good answer, the Tamils were just beaten until they shut up. For the moment, this left only the struggle for socialism, whatever that meant.

The Liberation Movement Of The Moment

Many liberal democracies have two parties and, for whatever reason, those parties seem to be collapsing into one uniparty. Whether it's Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Labor, or the UNP and SLFP, “the remaining differences between [the two parties] on these issues were largely a matter of emphasis, tactics, and personality, rather than principle and direction,” as Venugopal said.

Sri Lanka's parties mainly differed on how much to beat the minorities, and with the Tamils beaten they were running out of reasons to exist. Mahinda Rajapaksa tried to introduce beating Muslims, but that didn't catch on for more than one election cycle. By this time, the privatization and cannibalization of the state they both indulged in ended where Rohan Wijeweera predicted. Bankruptcy. The country's economy collapsed under predatory loans from foreign capitalists in 2022 and, politically, only the JVP was ready for it. In fact, the JVP was the only major party that even existed.

As Venugopal wrote in 2010,

The JVP’s Leninist party structure and its strict norms of discipline and collective decision-making provided an unparalleled organisational strength. The JVP has a dedicated cadre- base who remain active and perform constant house-to-house visits and acts of public service, such as tsunami relief, even when there are no elections looming. The JVP remains one of the few parties that has a constant supply of idealistic young ‘full-timers’ willing to sacrifice their own careers for a life as a party organiser. In these respects, the JVP ranks very favourably against the corruption, indiscipline, clientelism, petty rivalries and factionalism displayed within the other parties.

The JVP was the only party that managed to transfer power internally without falling apart. The other major parties were treated as private fiefdoms, seats to die in or pass on to your idiot sons. So the UNP became a one-man party under Ranil and the SLFP completely fell apart. The JVP, however, peacefully handed power from the old guard (Somawansa) to the new Anura Kumara Dissanayake in 2014.

Who Is AKD?

Let's introduce him a bit, in his own words. As AKD said in 2015,

I was born in Thambuthegama, Anuradhapura district. My father was a labourer. My mother was a housewife. As a child, I faced the same problems that many people in our country continue to face today... As a man who was born in a distant village, who went to a normal school and who came from a normal family, the opportunities I have today did not arise because of my skills and talents but because of my party. The JVP has been a constant source of strength and a pillar of support in my life.

Unlike the old communist parties, whose “leadership has consisted mostly of radicalised urban middle-class intellectuals,” the JVP cadres arrested in 1971 “were were the children of farmers, labourers, plantation workers, or the low grades of government service, and 86 per cent had attended rural secondary schools.” This is well before AKD joined the party (he was three years old), but it tells you where the party comes from, and why that matters.

JVP cadres believe a strong, socialist state not for abstract, theoretical reason but because, otherwise, they would be prey to the strong capitalists. As Venugopal said, “By providing education and welfare, protecting and promoting domestic entrepreneurs, and generating direct employment opportunities, the social democratic state became the vehicle by which the lives of the rural poor could be completely and permanently transformed.” That's where AKD was from, in contrast to the other candidates in 2024, who were either nephews or son of Presidents.

Is He Marxist?

Both the international press says that AKD is a Marxist and World Socialist says that he's not, scaring both their respective audiences. I don't know, AKD has at least read Marx. He said,

There are many books that changed my life. I was deeply inspired by the literature of Soviet Russia – War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, The Mother by Maxim Gorky and a number of short stories. The literature of that period had a great impact on our lives. I have read Senkottan by Mahinda Prasad Masimbula. Quite recently, I read ‘Adaraneeya Victoria’ by Mohan Raj Madawala. I’ve read Professor Abraham Kovoor’s work while at school. I enjoy reading autobiographies and biographies. I’ve read about the life of Marx, Engels, Mandela, Castro, Gandhi, Lenin and Clinton. I also enjoyed reading the story of Yugoslavia’s Marshal Tito.

AKD also said his heroes were “Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Friedrich Engels, Rohana Wijeweera, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.” However, AKD doesn't talk in a Marxist-Leninist way at all.

When asked what message he had for the country, AKD said, “We need to change our society. For 67 years, we have endured one system. It hasn’t benefitted our country. If there is anyone who thinks we haven’t suffered, he/she makes up only 1% of the country. The other 99% are suffering. We need to think about the other 99%. We need to build a society that allows everyone to prosper. This is what the JVP stands for today and what it hopes to accomplish in the future. It doesn’t matter who you are and what you do, we need to work together.”

This certainly doesn't sound like Marxism-Leninism, it sounds more like David Graeber's ‘we are the 99%.’ Whereas revolutionary socialism is about smashing bougie institutions, the JVP under AKD has been one of the most assiduous defenders of Parliamentary privilege. In 2018, AKD even defended Ranil the arch capitalist because the then President had sacked him (from the Prime Minister's post) improperly. The JVP under AKD won't smash anything. As AKD said,

The JVP totally rejects violence. We assure the people that the only way we will come into power is by winning the trust of the people. We assure the people of Sri Lanka that we will never ever take to arms again. During the last 25 years, the JVP was subjected to violence on numerous occasions, however we never resorted to violence and I assure the public that they need not have any fear, the JVP has rejected violence forever! Since 88/89, the JVP has conducted themselves without resorting to violence of any form and we assure the people of Sri Lanka that we never will resort to violence again.

In fact, the JVP has evolved so much that if you read AKD's 2024 Presidential Manifesto, Marx, communism, and even the JVP are not mentioned at all.

Who Is The National People's Power?

What is mentioned, instead, is the National Peoples Power (the NPP). The NPP is nominally a coalition with 21 members, but the JVP is the only serious political party therein. Coalitions are common in Sri Lankan politics, but the NPP is more like a rebranding of the JVP itself. AKD calls the NPP a national liberation movement. He said, “Our party is the JVP, and our national movement is the NPP. We have not only built a party, but also built a massive national liberation movement... When we look at countries that have developed well over time, we see that it [the development] is very much aligned to a national liberation struggle.”

The NPP is not just a rebranding. Their Prime Minister, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, is not from the JVP itself. Speaking for the NPP, she has said, “We're not a Marxist-Leninist party like the JVP because a Marxist-Leninist party has a much more formal structure. There are full-time cadres in that party, for example, we don't have that system. We are left wing. We're progressive. And Marxist philosophy obviously has an influence on our ideological thinking, but not only Marx.”

As Amarasuriya continued, discussing the Aragalaya, an abortive protest movement that toppled one political family to have another take his seat,

Had we come into power immediately after the Aragalaya, our entire approach would have been one that not only addresses the crisis but also tackles its underlying causes. This requires a much more systemic overhaul, focusing not just on managing the economy but also on addressing the political failures that contribute to such crises. For us, this means revisiting the social contract between citizens and the government. We believe that in our country, this contract has failed; there is a significant lack of trust between the citizens and the government.

AKD himself echoes this, saying, “What our country needs is not a mere government or a regime change, but a real social transformation. So, we are ready to work with groups and parties who are ready for that social transformation. We don’t see those in government or the opposition, who have ruled this country, as being eligible for such an alliance.”

How Does This Change Politics?

What AKD and Dr. Amarasuriya are talking about here is important. For my entire adult life, Sri Lanka has been ruled by three families. The Wickremesinghe/Jayawardenas, the Premadasas, and the Rajapaksas. Beneath them are a coterie of politicians who scurry back and forth to whichever Raja prospers. Their main business is stealing and dealing and taking out loans on the peoples credit for cold hard commission. The election of AKD is the first time in my life this hasn't happened. Nobody is scurrying over to the NPP, and the NPP is not taking them. I don't know if this will change with the General Election, but it hasn't happened yet. This is already a big change in the political culture.

As I quoted earlier, Pasan Jayasinghe called the NPP's Manifesto “a milquetoast, deliberately vague social democratic program.” Which it is. But political manifestos are bullshit, the real policy is personnel. As AKD said, “We must liberate the country from this corrupt political culture. That is the first thing we must do —liberate this country from this corrupt elite political leadership which has been ruining the country for the last 75 years.” And the NPP and JVP definitely provide completely different leadership. And whatever AKD is doing, he does not have the same people as we've been burdened by for generations. It's only been two days, but we haven't seen the usual rats scurrying from ship to ship that we usually see. So the ship may actually go in a different direction. Somewhat fitting since the NPP's electoral symbol is a compass. As Dr. Amarsuriya said when asked about the NPP's experience, “We don't have experience in bankrupting the country, but we will gain experience in building it.”

Ergo sum

Will this work? Hell if I know. The country still has ethnic issues that are not solved by 'just add socialism', plus all the trauma from the anti-communist killings, plus the western debt trap we're still in, all while America trying to turn us into an aircraft carrier to bomb China in World War III. Oh, and the climate is also falling down and it's hot all the time, and our children are hungry.

Personally, I wish the JVP would go Marxist-Leninist, but I realize now that it's not them. The JVP evolved through bitter experience into a certain historical form, 'socialism with Sri Lankan characteristics' if you will. Lenin and Marx said that stuff about overthrowing and conquering not for lols or bloodlust but because if you don't smash the bougies, they'll smash you most genteelly, but the JVP knows this better than anybody. They evolved a different way out of both self-preservation and for national concern, so who am I to say. I fear that they'll get devoured by the many sharks circling this island, but, as a Sri Lankan, I really hope they make it through.