{"id":666,"date":"2015-08-06T04:46:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T04:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmythology.net\/mv\/?p=95"},"modified":"2024-09-03T19:13:42","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T19:13:42","slug":"the-difference-after-the-war-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/reflections\/the-difference-after-the-war-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference after the War Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"cs-content\" class=\"cs-content\"><div style=\"--tco-dcii-0:;--tco-dcii-1:;--tco-dcii-2:;--tco-dcii-3:;--tco-dcii-4:;--tco-dcii-5:;\" class=\"x-text x-content e666-e1-v0 mii-0 mii-1 x-content exp03-content\"><div class=\"x-col e383-e14 man-36\">\n<div class=\"x-the-content entry-content\">\n<p><span>Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, dating back 30,000 years. The island off the coast of <\/span><span>India in the Indian Ocean is a mix of many cultures, Sinhalese and Tamil the predominant <\/span><span>ones. \u00a0After a recent trip there, it seems amazing the transformation I witnessed. \u00a0I first <\/span><span>visited the country back in 1998 when it was in the middle of a brutal civil war that began <\/span><span>in 1983. \u00a0You could not travel freely because of the many military checkpoints and <\/span><span>threats of bombs and killings. \u00a0People seemed always on edge, always looking over their <\/span><span>shoulders at any passing face. \u00a0Was this someone with a bomb? \u00a0Was this someone <\/span><span>hiding a weapon? \u00a0It was a stressful way to live.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>After years of conflict, the civil war ended in 2009. \u00a0When you visit the island capital <\/span><span>today\u2014Colombo\u2014you can feel the lightness among the people. \u00a0Smiles are more <\/span><span>evident. \u00a0Children are playing sports in fields and parents are cheering them on, with no <\/span><span>apparent worries about security or threats. \u00a0Colombo seems cleaner and more orderly <\/span><span>than in the war days. \u00a0New highways have been completed\u2014even with tolls\u2014to channel <\/span><span>the masses from one side of the city to the other. \u00a0There has been so much improvement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Yet, like any nation, it\u2019s a work in progress. \u00a0Among gay Sri Lankans, there is little <\/span><span>freedom as homosexuality remains illegal. \u00a0Men tell of police entrapment schemes that <\/span><span>make them reluctant to live their lives. \u00a0There is a certain emptiness in their eyes when <\/span><span>they talk about what their lives can be until they are allowed more freedom. Many fear <\/span><span>they can never really live until they go someplace else, until they flee to a more <\/span><span>hospitable, tolerant culture. \u00a0It\u2019s a great thing that the military checkpoints are almost <\/span><span>invisible, but if fleeing is the only road to happiness, then there is still so much work to be <\/span><span>done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, dating back 30,000 years. The island off the coast of India in the Indian Ocean is a mix of many cultures, Sinhalese and Tamil the predominant ones. \u00a0After a recent trip there, it seems amazing the transformation I witnessed. \u00a0I first visited the country back in 1998 when it was in the middle of &#8230; <\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/reflections\/the-difference-after-the-war-ends\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":776,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redesign.visualspring.net\/varga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}