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Reflections on Sri Lanka’s constitutional history, theory, and practice can be like that. They teach us strange lessons, tickle us in numerous different ways, and we end up with mixed emotions. We are, in a sense, back to square one.It’s the kind of feeling you might get when thinking about the great hope for constitutional reform we are considered to be having these days. To save us from the Rajapaksas, there comes a familiar figure, Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha with a document full of good and beautiful promises. There is light at the end of the tunnel, one tends to think. But sometimes we realize that that’s no light: it could well be another train. And we get the point: there is still the need to meet the Mahanayakas, there is still the need to remain silent about devolution, there is still the need for the robed monk to lead us to political and constitutional liberation. We are just entering the same room through different doors. And there’s your lesson on the constitutional history, theory and practice concerning Sri Lanka, in a nutshell.We’ve known this for so long, but given our infatuation with drafting constitutional documents, we simply miss the point: what we need is not a new constitution but a new people. Or rather, we need both, but without the latter, nothing will ultimately work out.Via http://groundviews.org/2013/05/11/people-politics-and-the-constitution-reading-the-sri-lankan-republic-at-40-edited-by-asanga-welikala/source: Groundviews