Hysteresis - Sri Lanka

The current cultural scenario can be seen as a “hysteresis”. If you refer any dictionary for “hysteresis”, they all will point you to the common meaning known as “deficiency” or “lagging behind”. But I like the phenomena called “hysteresis” (the history of the system has something interesting to cause the present situation) more in using it to describe the present day which is obviously not the initial state of Sri Lanka.

Hysteresis is observed when a system is induced with some property like magnetism. As we all have once done the experiment on temporary magnets created using a conducting coil; perhaps you may remember that the magnetic property remained in the “nut” or the “nail” even after the electric current was cut off. This residual magnetic field is a “hysteresis”. In general, before the hysteresis, the system experiences a dramatic shift in its field (magnetic field when we consider this context); this shift is HUGE compared to the initial external field.

The simple fact about this is that you don’t need a huge energy to produce a mammoth field: the tiny magnetic droplets in the nut or nail (the material used for the induction) will align themselves in order to give you a resulting saturated state of huge magnitude. And if the material used for the induction, is hard magnetic material then, the residual magnetic field will be quite significant.

Over the last many years we, Sri Lankans, have been experiencing cultural hysteresis and now also we are proudly continuing it- because we are like hard magnetic materials. I believe that the hysteresis caused by the British invasion is the building block of present day Sri Lanka; nobody can deny it. We are nothing but the small dots trying to make our way, arrange our “spin” according to the British. Therefore, we cannot argue that we are building the proud Sri Lanka which is described in the tales and history books: dudes we are in a HYSTERESIS, and we cannot go back to the 0-state.