A war in Iran and a house in Kaduwela

Something strange has happened in Sri Lanka’s pro-Western elite—or rather, that loose, transient, unorganised group of people who, depending on the day, feel that the West is so far ahead in culture, technology, human rights, and civilisation that the rest of us need their guidance, their models, and sometimes even their coercion to catch up.
No argument that the West has given the world so much. Just like other civilisations.
Okay, who are these pro-Western Sri Lankan elite? They are among us and in all of us. You’ve seen them (us) on social media. You’ve heard them (us) at dinner parties. Not a fixed group—many drift in and out of this posture depending on the hour—but a recognisable sensibility remains: Western = advanced, local = backward, our only dignity lies in emulation.
After the recent war on Iran—where Iran, for the first time in a long time, especially after Venezuela, made the West look genuinely weak and meek—these voices have gone eerily silent. No lectures on how we should be more like the Americans or bow to the world’s only superpower (or bully). No guidance on fixing our “uncivilised” ways or lack of our attention to human rights. Just… bonsai. Crochet. Insects in the backyard. Architecture.
Anything except the uncomfortable fact that a non-Western country—and no, Iran is not “us”; I would personally rather live in the US than in Iran, and America is in many ways closer to us culturally—just humiliated a superpower’s multi-billion dollar radar system. Or how they literally made the US and Israel walk into the martyrdom trap of the late Ayatollah. An entry-level mistake in geopolitics and strategic intelligence.
That silence is not wisdom. It’s embarrassment. The allegiance is still there, but the script broke.
That’s my message. The end.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
PS: The script broke for many of us. Including Lal Kantha. The die-hard anti-West, anti-elite JVP revolutionary now has a good-quality Western piano in his Kaduwela house— presumably for his offspring. And he is proud of it. The party that once banned Mitsubishi Pajeros as bourgeois now invests in the ultimate symbol of Western cultural capital. Not corruption. Allegiance he didn’t know he had.
(I love pianos, don’t be fooled.)
Is it only Lal Kantha? Or do we all switch allegiances—sometimes several times a day—and then mistake those switches for clear-eyed assessments of reality?
I’m not on a high horse. I’ve made pro-Western comments myself from the premise that the West is miles ahead. And it is, in certain ways. Just like other civilisations. The difference now is I see why I made them. And that has made me unbelievably more relaxed.
The piano doesn’t lie. Neither should we.
Let’s look in the mirror.