Two views on what might happen to the nation

Is this monkey dead or only diminished in some essential or existential sense ?

 by a collector of quotes

(April 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Reproduced below are two quotes from Dayan Jayathilike. One was recorded on the occasion of the passing of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. DJ said that there is nothing to worry about.

Nations are too strong a socio-historical reality to be killed off by constitutional amendments.
The Sunday Leader - September 12, 2010

Now he says:

For those who think that the external trends and forces which gather threateningly on the far horizon will target and weaken only the incumbent administration, the best reminder comes from the Chinese magistrate-detective of 690 AD: it is not only the administration that is being threatened; it is our collective victory over decades of secessionist terrorism, and the Sri Lankan state itself, that stand in danger of being de-legitimised, undermined and dismantled. If the effort succeeds, we would as a nation, all of us, be defeated and diminished in some essential or existential sense. - The Sri Lanka Guardian - April 19, 2011

Is diminishment of a nation in some existential sense different to the death of a nation? What is worse, the 18th Amendment or the report of the UN Panel. Do the investigations into crimes cause diminishment in some existential sense; is that why Lasantha Wickrematunge's assassination is not being investigated along with the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda and, of course, of over 30,000 others in the south.

Or is it investigations into crimes in the north and east that diminishes the nation in an existentialist sense?

Of course we do not expect DJ to explain that.

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