Peace at last?

That's what the President is declaring. Sri Lanka's ruinous, hateful civil war is over.

I pray that peace will finally be ours.

Many of my Sri Lankan friends are triumphant: Facebook is full of patriotic messages, Sri Lankan flags, and the like.

I don't feel jubilant.

Chevanthie, a fellow Catholic and student at NUS sums my own feelings on the developments too:

YES I am proud to be SRI LANKAN I've been told I have a melancholic personality, maybe that's why I think there should be no celebration. Sinhalese and Tamil alike should unite in remembrance of those that have suffered and perhaps work towards a Sri Lanka that we all belong to. We should be sombre, not happy. Too many have died. . .

Yes. Too many have died for us to be jubilant. The terrorists have lost the war. I'm glad! But what a cost! Those thousands of innocent Tamil civilians who died during the last months of fighting are Sri Lankans too. They're our brethren. Where's their victory?

Perhaps one day both Sinhalese and Tamils can look at our island home and how far she has improved and say "perhaps all those deaths were worth it." That moment has not yet come. Until then, we should be working, praying, forgiving and rebuilding.

Today, we should be sombre, not happy.