Some MPs celebrated their 25th anniversary in parliament this year, which means that they were elected in 1977 - but it seems we have a poor sense of remembering events if somebody's 25 years in parliament is considered more important than 25 years since J. R. Jayewardene enthroned the ethos of the free market.

Not just that. It is 25 years since Jayewardeneism changed the face of politics and changed the course of history. Everybody is fighting the Jayewardene constitution with so much venom today that they have no time or use for anniversaries. But, it is 25 years since so many monstrosities were grafted onto the social fabric of the nation.

But, it is also 25 years since the market was 'liberalized'. Even Mervyn De Silva who addressed Jayewardene with a jaunty 'Sir' and did so many personal interviews with the man for the Lanka Guardian, said that "Jayewardene succeeded in his economics, but failed in his social policies which engendered conflicts such as the JVP uprising and the war in the North East.''

But 25 years since 1977 is not about Jayewardene. It is about change that is palpable, and writ large. Gunadasa Amarasekera writes in Gananduru Medi-yama Arunalu Dutu-wemu, that changes in the social contract are not linear.

If feudalism was usurped by capitalism it will not necessarily mean, despite the fondest wishes of the Marxists, that capitalism will somehow give way to Marxism as a logical process of social transformation. He goes on to say that egalitarianism will come with the development and transformation of human intellect. "Thamama siyalla badagena kunuwena-wata wada, anun ha beda hadagena ke uthuya yana uttara henguma ohu thula pahala wei; minisa samajavadi sankalpayen sajjitha vu pudgalayeku bavata pathvei." Man will share, he says, rather than rot, grabbing all for himself. At that point, there will be socialism.

There is no indication that this transformation will come soon, looking back at the 25 years since the Sirimavo Bandranaike government of 70-77 was defeated. There is 21 years between 1956 and 1977, and there is 25 years between 1977 and the present time.

Logically, this would mean that the national condition would be far more influenced by the post 1997 free market transformation, than it would be by the Bandarnaike social revolution of 1956. Not to stress the obvious that 1977 is closer to us by 25 years than 1956 is.

The exchequer maybe poorer today than it was in 1956, and we may be in greater debt, but put that down to the constant fluctuations of the global markets. Since 25 years cannot be sized up by statistics, or by reading C. A. Chandraprema's Kolapata samajaya (though that might be useful) perhaps we should ask each individual how his life has changed since 1977. American radio stations have this rather juvenile habit of asking people where they were and what they did on the day that John Kennedy (or Elvis Presley) died.

"What happened to you since 1977?'' will be a more homegrown and sensible response to a watershed event in our own past.

The recollections will no doubt be suffused with images of conflict, guns, checkpoints and bombs, or the sudden transformation of roads into race tracks for Pajeros, or Coca Cola and cricket - or teledramas and chicken meat balls.

But also, most of the changes since 1977 will be felt in our lives, rather than be recalled in our memories. Someone said over the week that "cohabitation' between an Executive President and parliament is like 'getting into bed with an elephant', because one partner is so much more powerful than the other.

Trying to live sedate lives unaffected by the changes since 1977 is even more like getting into bed with an elephant.

When Gunadasa Amarasekara was talking of an egalitarian transformation into socialism, he wasn't saying it would come after 77. But he makes several references to Francis Fukuyama and his book End of History, where Fukuyama argues that liberalism and the free market will envelop the world and there will be no further movements seeking social change.

So, if 1977 signaled the end of history for Sri Lanka, this is what we have. It is not what we recall but what is happening in our lives.

The thing about the post 1977 free market is that it is impossible not to get into bed with this elephant (… and if there is any association of ideas between the idiom and the electoral symbol of the UNP, that's only coincidental.) Everything is defined by the market, and as if that was not enough people tell us that the conflict in the North East will be solved because of market imperatives - and Prabhakaran confirms it by saying that he wants an open market economy for his part of Sri Lanka.

That may even leave hope among some that there will be an end to war, but what about it, if this is the end of history? If Gunadasa Amarasekera says socialism must result from a positive transformation of people's minds, 1977 must be the point from which our intellects started becoming collectively smaller. It's because crassness and avarice seems to be everywhere - no roadside musical show passes without a murder. There is no saying what mows down people faster - dangerous drugs, or dangerous buses. In a cult of money, parliamentarians are there to be bought. There is no need to make this sound like a litany or a dirge. We have been there and we are all there - and television has helped make us see this crassness clearer. But yet, do we have a choice?

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