Bandwagon Politics at Its Finest

What makes you think the JVP was the victim and the UNP government was the monster in the ’80s? Is it because your parents told you so? Because your friends and social circles believe it? Or maybe because you've consumed a vast amount of YouTube videos and social media posts pushing that narrative? Which one is it?

Or just maybe do you believe only what aligns with your existing beliefs while rejecting anything that challenges them? Does it make you feel noble to be part of a movement that promises to "change the system"?

Let me tell you something—you don’t know jack shit about what really happened back then. And to be fair, neither do I. Most of you here were born long after those atrocities ended, many of you 10 or 15 years later. So, where do you get your version of history? The internet? Your parents? And you genuinely believe you have the intellectual capacity to dissect that information accurately?

What makes you so sure you’re getting it right?

I bring this up because the JVP brutally murdered two of my family members. We weren’t even allowed to attend their funerals. I still have the letter they sent, dictating how the funeral should be handled according to their rules.

And yet, despite all this, some of my family members chose to vote for the NPP. They had bigger priorities. Even though I didn’t agree with them, I respected their decision to move on—to leave the past behind.

And then came that Al Jazeera interview. Suddenly, people who had never even heard of the Batalanda Commission now have bleeding hearts over it. But where was this outrage over the Easter Sunday attack that happened just six years ago? What about the corruption files that AKD claimed to have on the Rajapaksas? None of that matters now, right? No, let’s dig up a 30-year-old report because that’s the priority.