• President Ranil Wickremesinghe delivers speech at C2 Leos Mass Induction and Leo Day Celebrations

President Ranil Wickremesinghe emphasised the importance of youth participation in finding meaningful solutions to the current crisis facing the nation and that solutions should prepare the country to face the next 25 years. 

These remarks were made by the President at District 306 C2 Leos Mass Induction and Leo Day Celebrations which were held at Navarangahala Hall, Royal College, Colombo on Sunday morning (11), to recruit over 6,500 new Leos members from around the country.

The full text of the speech follows:

You have invited me for a mass induction of members of the Leo clubs. It is a sign of how the Leo clubs have grown that you can’t have them sworn in individually. When I was the Education Minister in the 1980s, we did not have this. It’s a big development that has come later and it’s a development that’s good.

It seeks to train you to become leaders in whatever field you engage in, to make you leaders so that you yourself can give direction to others. I had the chance to speak to all of you. In addition to all those who are in Colombo, I must say that I am surprised by those who came from Batticaloa. All I can say is thank you. I hope you have a good stay here in Colombo. 

Your exhibitions – I looked at all the exhibits and at all the stalls and I found one that was very, very interesting. This is from Ananda College and they say you can write with it and that the other end is good for growing chillies (referring to a submission to the exhibition by Ananda College, Colombo of a seed-based paper). So I first thought to see whether you can write with it, and I used it in the back, and back here again, so we can write on it; it works. First, I must congratulate you on what you have done.

Secondly, since we are promoting eco-products, I will ask my Chief-of-Staff to buy a whole lot of it for the President’s Office. But before that, we must put the insignia of the President’s Office on it.

We will use it regularly, and once people get used to it, I will ask the office to collect it and give it back to Ananda College, and then let us know when you have got the chillies. So that is a task for you. Can you undertake it, from Ananda? So this shows the talent that you have, which is useful in a time when our country is facing a crisis.

It was at the worst stage of the crisis that I had to take over as President. It is a task that a lot of people didn’t want to do. It’s a task about which I wondered what I should do and I thought to myself that I should do it because we must give the youth in this country a future. By the time it collapses, we will have lived our lives.

The way we are going today will end up in chaos. A youth movement that started in April, which everyone admired, was taken over by others to end up in violence. If you were to allow the chaos to continue, there would not have been a future for you all. Our political system was very unstable and the economy was broken. I thought I’ll take up the challenge and see how we can get this country back on its feet and have a future which is suitable for you all.

But we also have to recognise one factor, which is the fact that the youth are dissatisfied with the system. I don’t blame them. I am also a politician, but all politicians were making promises that suited the moment. No one looked to the future. In other countries, they didn’t do that; not in Singapore, not in Japan, not in India. We just made promises and came to power, lost the next election, and made promises to win the election after that. So, obviously, without growth, when the economy had broken down and when youth had high expectations, they showed their disgust by rejecting the system. Now we can’t carry on a system which the youth think is unfair. And it led to the collapse of the economy. 

The country’s economy collapsed. We had no food. We had no fuel. We had no future. Now we have just got the economy back. We still have to get the IMF (International Monetary Fund) agreement to go ahead and develop. But we know that we can survive and go ahead. So, in this, the first issue is to ensure that the youth is served. And for this purpose, we have recommended, and the Parliament agreed, that five youths should serve on every oversight committee. Now, unfortunately, there has been a delay, because the Parliamentarians and the parties are fighting about who should have the Chairmanship. We just sorted it out and I think I’ve asked them to give the criteria for youth appointments and how we are going to select them in the next 2-3 weeks.

I hope that by the end of January, or early February, we will be able to have youth serving there. There are other ways in which you can be represented. I feel a big organisation like the Leos and others should, together with the Youth Council, form a committee to advise us. Thirdly, we are going to celebrate the 75th anniversary of our independence with various projects being done by adults. But we have to take the youth in. We have to get all of you in. So I have started the National Youth Platform. Youth can present their views. We don’t want to know about the last 75 years of independence. There is enough written. We want your views as to what the next 25 years should be. 

So, I ask the Leos also to join the national platform. I’m happy that there were people also in this group who are from universities. We like to work with everyone and give you the freedom to go ahead, and you must tell us what has to be done because the politics of this country has to change. We have succeeded in making the country, which was once second only to Japan, a nation that is only on top of Afghanistan. So a lot of young people are voting with their legs and leaving the country. 

But I think, and it is my view, that we can turn this around. Let’s think of the future. Let’s have an economic system that works for Singapore, that works for Japan, that works for China, that works for Korea, that works for Malaysia, and that works for Thailand, with us. We can, in the next four or five years, start developing that. We can have new sectors, where people are looking for exports. You have the talent. You all have the talent to make that economy and I think you should shape it. We can’t think of doing now what we did 10 years ago. We have to do now what we will have to do 25 years from now; what is that 25 years? Most of you are going to be there. And most of you won’t even be 50. You won’t even be 50 when we are at the 100th anniversary of independence. So I am asking the question from you: Are you willing to take up the challenge? Yes or no? Is no one willing to take up the challenge? Are you willing to come? So we want you to participate. Participate with the Government and give us your views. Give us the views of other youth. Well, it’s your future that you’re making.

When we won the elections in 1977, I was 28, and we were talking of the future, President Jayewardene told us: “Look, the future belongs to you, not to me. So tell us what has to be done”. And we did that. So all I can tell you now is that it’s your future, not mine. So then we have to have a future that suits you and not me.

A digital economy, a prosperous country, and a good education system. So I want you all to join us in making this come true. We have difficult times. I still say that next year also, there will be difficulties. There are many problems to solve. But then when we solve it, the beneficiaries should be the youth, not anyone else. So I’d like you then to join us. And I have decided that we’ll make known to schools and others what the current economic situation of the country is, and what they say and what experts say. So you will have an understanding of what your future is. We’d like to get your views also on the new laws we are proposing on the constitutional changes that we are going to make. And I would like all of you to take part in that decision.

And as I saw today, we are going to launch our climate change initiatives, to mitigate climate change, next year. I have already established a climate change office. We will be having about seven or eight new laws that will come in. I want all of you to join in. I want you all to take part, and you give us the projects and we will tell you what we can do to help you. So I hope the newest movement will be ready to take over this task. So I have come here to ask for your help and to ask you to join us. 

Let’s start with climate change mitigation. We in Sri Lanka decided that we will speak out openly on the need for meaningful action to stop climate change. In Sri Lanka, we will do all we can to mitigate climate change and that has to be done by you all. And we want to educate the people on what climate change will result in. So I hope that we will have your help in going ahead with making these changes. I don’t want to take any more of your time, so I’d like to thank all of you again and wish you all the best for the future.