My New Year dream

The countdown has already begun. In another four days' time, a New Year dawns. I believe it to be the most active-minded holiday of the year, because it is the one where people evaluate their lives, plan and resolve to take action.

It's hard not to start making resolutions and creating goals on New Year's eve. There's that sense of renewal, of rebirth and the guilty awareness that you ate your own weight in chocolate and sweets during the holidays. "Sure, last year's resolution didn't make it past the second week of January, but this year's going to be different," you might say.

I definitely include myself in your category, which incidentally is the majority, because I was never an extremely organised, a clear and logical thinker and one of those rare individuals who can write goals and stick rigidly to achieving them.

The thought also crossed my mind that it can be slightly depressing writing out many of the same goals as last year. And that everyone else still seems to be making more money, having more fun and generally having a better time of it. So it could end up being quite a long list if there is to be some serious catching up in 2006!

So this year, I decided keep off any personal goals but to pen down a few resolutions for my beloved country. I believe we are in the throes of our country's hour of need and she needs us now more than ever she has before! We need firm resolutions and we, ourselves, can make those become reality.

My resolutions

* I wish for a country where we appreciate our differences and resolve to make sure that people are not discriminated against because of those differences. A country where no matter what your religion or race, you have the same rights as everyone else.

It is a place where people are educated, where they participate in public life, and where self-governance is welcome and necessary. (I am confident, just like myself, most Sri Lankans have the identical aspirations.

Although each will express it in a different way, they aspire to a level of prosperity that guarantees the enjoyment of the present and the safeguarding of the future. And to deliver on those aspirations, our people demand good schools, good social systems and an economy that provides the opportunity to build futures right here.)

* Results must prevail over dogma, if my country is to be worthy of a place as a leading Asian nation. We must analyse what is not currently working and then set about finding the most practical and realistic solutions to serve our people's needs.

* Today, our country rages with wounds: brutality, mistreatment, ethnic and religious misunderstandings, oppression of women and children, ignorance of the fabric of wildness that sustains us, the sacrifice of our waters, lands, creatures, forests to profit-hungry industry, erosion of the noble ideals of true democracy, and justice for all by corporate interests.

These wounds deepen and fester with our willingness to be complacent, our turning of heads, our silence. "Our freedoms were not granted to us by any Governments," Arundhati Roy reminded us.

"They were wrested from them by us." Every right we have gained as citizens, every inch we have moved toward peace and justice and equality, every move we've made to protect those beings that have no voice has been accompanied by struggle, by courage, by people holding out clear visions.

To exact change in the country, we must be together and protest the wrongs until they fail. We are too small a nation, our interests too insignificant on the international stage for us not to seek the things that bring our peoples together.

* If we are to allow citizens to deliver on their dreams of fulfilled aspiration, we must harness aspiration, for it is the aspiration that binds the strands of our history, and it is aspiration that will mould our futures as Sri Lankans together.

* In simple terms, my New Year resolution for my country is: I want the country I live in and the country I want to live in, be the same in the coming year.

"Arise and awake my country men, the time is ripe to flourish. Ponder my friends we lack nothing, Mother nature has given us aplenty.

"Toil hard in earnest young lad, fruits you reap will taste better. Develop a sense of discipline today, and your tomorrow will yield results. Travel in the path of righteousness, you will rejoice at the destination.

"Let your goals, dreams and actions, bear the nation's interest always. Each and every victory of yours, should ultimately contribute to the nation. Resolve to build a stronger nation, strengthen your resolve every single minute. Spread your dreams, share your thoughts, inspire others in your own way.

Remember there is unity in diversity, work towards a united stronger nation".

- from "Let my nation live united" by President of India, Abdul Kalam.