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| Friday, 9 January 2004 |
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A Second Birth After a lapse of nearly five years Commentary Plus is making its appearance again as a monthly page of the Daily News, on the first Friday of each month. The purpose of this page in line with its original appearance, will be to stimulate thinking and reflection among its readers on subjects and topics of current and/or universal interest. Though pieces of a reflective nature can be found in the pages of this daily, they are often lost in a plethora of news items, documentation, notices, advertisements etc. which are bread and butter stuff of a daily paper. This page will offer a concentrated platter of food for the mind in digestible form, inviting responses both for and against the positions taken by the respective authors. In other words it will be a monthly mini-Review of an intellectual nature, in the bosom of the Daily News. It was only about a month ago that Prof. Laksiri Jayasuriya in his address to the ninth Sri Lanka Studies Conference of the University of Kelaniya reminded the intellectual/academic community about its role in fermenting serious discussion and debate in the country: "As intellectuals you have to engage in public debate with a sense of vision, social commitment and absolute academic integrity to counter the dark forces of anti-intellectualism and xenophobic nationalism. We need to strive to preserve and defend the universal values of freedom, justice and equality in fashioning the destiny of a pluralistic society". It is not too difficult to recognize the shape and form of the dark forces referred to by Prof. Jayasuriya at play in our midst today. The lethargy of the intellectual community of Sri Lanka is not, alas, a new phenomenon. As far back as 1983, our legal luminary if international standing, Judge Weeramantry, in his convocation address to the University of Colombo, could say: "Every society needs to keep under continuing review a number of questions regarding itself. I have dealt with some of the more specific problems. There are also some more general ones such as 'in which direction does this society desire to move? what kind of society does it want to achieve for its children? What are the principal values we wish to preserve". Such problems need reflective and informed deliberation. Neither voters amidst the pressure of the polls nor politicians amid the cares of office, nor bureaucrats caught up with red tape and deadlines can give them the necessary attention. From where else in a society can the necessary informed reflection issue than from its intellectuals?" What has happened in the country is exactly what Judge Weeramantry feared, namely, decision-making of serious national import made by persons least capable of making them effectively; namely politicians, always with an eye to the polls, and bureaucrats pressurized by red-tape and deadlines. (Let us bracket here the question of actual competence of office-bearers with regard to the subjects they handle, given the pervasive politicization of public life). It may not be an exaggeration to say that to a good extent the mess that the country is in today is due to the abdication of its thinking responsibility by the intellectual community. At the same time we must rejoice over silver linings, even faint ones, round the dark clouds. We applaud the Institution of Engineers of Sri Lanka (IESL) for setting up a serious Think Tank recently, with the objective of advising (the Govt.) on public policy and national development strategy. The Organization of Professional Associations too, we believe, has bestirred itself to serious thinking and action, as exemplified by the proposals for a new political order put out by CIMOGG. Just as there can be no clapping with only one hand, the other hand which is the Govt. is duty bound to join the game by paying heed to what these organizations and other such bodies and individuals have to say. Lamentably this is also a major weakness in our polity - politicians arrogating to themselves not only powers of office but also monopoly over thinking. Given the mechanics and machinations of our electoral system (and its abuses), those who get elected to Parliament and other local bodies, are more often than not, poorly endowed intellectually, with plenty of brawn and little brain. And if that poverty of thought is being inflicted on the country, we cannot expect anything better than our present plight. |
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