'Our President will overcome the darkest hours'

by Dr. T. C. Rajaratnam

WE must bring our country together amid all our diversity into a stronger community so that we can find common ground and move forward as one. We must reach beyond our fears and our divisions to a new time of great and common purpose. To bring our people together we must openly and honestly deal with the issues that divide us.

It is a moral imperative, a constitutional mandate and a legal necessity to support our President in her daring quest for peace. There are many of us who have silently wept in the privacy of our homes as a result of terrorist attacks and natural disasters. As human beings we all suffered, some physically and emotionally but all others emotionally.

Those days were not very long ago. Our President is determined to help all those who were affected. This is the right attitude of any leader. But some people and groups with mean attitudes are lingering and creating a turmoil without any humane considerations. Discrimination is not just morally wrong, it hurts. When we allow people to pit us against one another or spend energy denying opportunity based on our differences, everyone is held back. A lot has changed. More humane attitudes have been nurtured in the minds of the people - all at the instance of one person - one leader, one President.

The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender or race from the opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute.

Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination. It does not mean the unjustified preference to the unqualified over the qualified of any race or gender.

The nature and role of government should be affirmative. If one wants to maintain public response there must be an effort to change but not to eviscerate the government. A democracy requires a certain amount of common ground.

So many successful business leaders have acknowledged that their companies are stronger and their profits are larger because of the diversity and the excellence of their workforces achieved through intelligent and fair affirmative action programs. Managing diversity and individual opportunity and being fair to everybody is the key to our future economic success in the global marketplace. So must the Government. Those who ought to co-operate and have collective responsibility are spent forces promoting more for destruction than for development.

We need more conversation than combat... differ but present an alternative. When we differ we should say what we are for, not just what we are against.

We have to move beyond division and resentment to common ground. We've got to go beyond cynicism to a sense of possibility. We're not one race. We're not one ethnic group. We do share a common piece of ground here. We need to respect our differences and hear them.

Unnecessary conflict was brought to a just and honourable conclusion but from the resolution there are elements who create conflicts.

This brings new hope that when some people are singled out for destruction because of their heritage and religious faith and we can do something about it, the world will not look the other way. It is the duty of the President to take affirmative action and cast away the elements that disrupt her attempts to resolve the conflict.

The decision of the President will bring new prospect in human affairs. A moment that will define our course and our character for decades to come. Our President will overcome all adversities.

We have been touched by tragedy, exhilarated by challenge, strengthened by achievement. Problems that seem to deepen can bend to our efforts.

We witnessed the trials and tribulations as a nation, we must also appreciate the fact that the President has so ably guided us to where we are today. For moving forward is rarely accomplished without considerable grief and sadness and whilst our sorrow may be profound the clouds will clear and the sun will shine on us again and we shall as a nation rejoice under the leadership of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. We need political stability for economic development. We have as a nation suffered too much with too little help from those who ought to co-operate with us to jointly steer towards development. We will in that bright light find ourselves facing a glorious future. A future with exciting challenges and infinite possibility in which the horizon will stretch out before us rimmed in heavenly glow the sunrise of our tomorrow.

The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future; will we be one nation, one people, with one common destiny... or not? Will we come together or come apart? It all depends on the determination of President. The elements obstructing her making it evident to the world looking at us there is no possibility for our nation to live together.

The divide of race and religion has been Sri Lanka's curse. Prejudice, contempt cloaked in the pretence of religious or political conviction are no different.

They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror - they are no different than the terrorists. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and of course those who hate. Robbing both of what they might become. We must live together, learn together, forge new ties that bind together and it is only then that there would be great results.

With a new vision, a new sense of responsibility, a new sense of community we will sustain our journey towards peace.

A thousand schemers who advance the politics of petty bickering and extreme partisanship, conspirators within and without are no match for the strength and decency of the human spirit - the humane President, my leader.

Private media freedom is running amok. The news that millions of people receive each night is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers.

The people love the President. Her achievements are remarkable. She has been a stoic in the face of adversity. She has earnestly endeavoured to unify the nation. She is totally committed to serve the people. It is genuine, unwavering and it is selfless.

Deference may be inherited, but affection is earned and the affection this country feels for her is real.

We must not permit a contaminated moral environment.

Let us not negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

There should be only one race - the human race - all religions speak of compassion, love, forgiveness and good conscience - let us not segregate and commercialise religious values which are not to be labelled but borne in our soul and mind - but men have begun to confine their religious values to statues and fight to place them.

If we have compassion, love and good conscience and behave well it is better than a million statues as those gods themselves will be pleased by our good conduct but not by placing their images on the streets.

A government that is smaller should live within its means and would do more with less. The mission of our Government is to give people an opportunity to build better lives. We have much to do as the people.

The Government alone cannot do it. We as the people must co-operate and owe allegiance to the constitution and its President.

Now is the time that the nation requires a leader to take affirmative action. President Chandrika Kumaratunga would exercise her powers vested in her by virtue of the constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and would make decisions in the best interests of the nation for the love and conscience of humanity.

(The writer is the Co-Ordinating Secretary to the Chief Government Whip of Parliament, Snr. Advisor to the Chambers for Academic and Professional Studies and a foreign correspondent)