Utter confusion over abortive day of mourning

There was utter confusion this week as the Government tried to decide whether or not to declare the occasion of former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake’s funeral on December 31 as a National Day of Mourning.

The saga started sometime in the morning of Wednesday, December 28, when the Home Affairs Ministry announced that yesterday would, indeed, be a National Day of Mourning.

This would mean that all bars would be closed till midnight on New Year’s Eve and that the hospitality industry would be barred from serving alcohol to the thousands of revellers who would be out on the town that night. This was hardly going to invoke blessings upon the recently departed.

This unpleasant reality seems to have dawned rather quickly on the Home Affairs Ministry because shortly afterwards it was announced that the National Day of Mourning had now been shifted to December 30. But the country barely had time to let out a collective sigh of relief. A few hours later, the same Ministry stated that there would be no Day of National Mourning at all—only a funeral for the late Mr. Wickremanayake with State honours!

Home Affairs Minister Vajira Abeywardena had the decency to sound sheepish when contacted for an explanation of these bizarre events. He confided that when the first decision was taken that morning, there had been insufficient time to coordinate with the deceased’s family. He did not explain how, or why, the date was advanced but said the final decision was made because Mr. Wickremanayake’s next-of-kin did not wish any inconvenience upon the public.

Economist Deshal de Mel had this to say on Twitter about the administration’s wavering: “Maybe GoSL can declare it a ‘National Day of Somewhat Upset’ if not outright mourning.”