Colombo

Waking up to the news of a series of bombings having killed hundreds in Sri Lanka, I felt deeply saddened. As the world becomes more peaceful, the brutality of such acts becomes even harder to comprehend. From my own visit to Sri Lanka five years ago, I remember the visible military presence and the constant checkpoints but also a sense of optimism as the country was finally leaving its civil war behind.

In the May issue of The Atlantic, there is a long article about Richard Holbrooke entitled “Elegy for the American century”. While I remain optimistic that the US will ultimately find its way again, there are of course many reasons for concern. Beyond all the obvious ones, I am thinking of how dark and disoriented that the worldview of the Left has become, something that was on full display at WPSA. Talk of not wanting to have children because of climate change may be the most extreme example but there is a more general sense of malaise and post-colonial self-hatred that has been allowed to completely overshadow the great possibilities of this century. As the Left has lost track of its original emancipatory vision and replaced it with grievances over identity, it not only fails to take meaningful responsibility for historical wrongdoings but also to offer something better in return for the future.