Sri Lanka has proved capacity to neutralise terrorism

Heritage For Coexistence: Situating Sri Lanka’s Role in the SAARC region - Part III:

Continued from yesterday

SUDHARSHAN SENEVIRATNE Director General. Central Cultural Fund Professor of Archaeology. University of Peradeniya

D.A. Rajapaksa Memorial Lecture, November 27, Colombo.

How do we revive our historic role in contemporary South Asia and in the Indian Ocean Rim? In this connection we may take a leaf out of Singapore’s experience in the ASEAN and its role as the main facilitator in the Asia Middle East Dialogue (AMED). Quite obviously Singapore has established itself as the mediator or facilitator bringing other countries together.

How can Sri Lanka play a similar role in South Asia and in the Indian Ocean Rim countries? In our capacity as academics and heritage professionals we have made productive use of our image as an independent venue and as an impartial facilitator for gatherings of the region.

This became convenient for other partner organisations from the SAARC region, when each one of our regional neighbours found the others country some what limited or restricted in its accessibility.

We must bank on our good faith and good will with our regional neighbours as a strategy for SAARC and our central location as a strategy for the Indian Ocean Rim countries. The projection of Sri Lanka as an independent venue and its acceptance by our partner countries in the SAARC and the IOR must be taken up on a priority basis in the agenda of the Foreign Ministry.

Our infrastructure and human resource development must match these requirements and be on track when the war ends in the near future.

We are yet to reap the benefits of Sri Lanka converting itself as an independent and neutral venue and hub for off-shore banking, port facility as an entrepot as well as a ship-building and repair facility, transit air route facility, conference facility for international summits are some potential areas from a long list of applications towards this end.

In addition, we yet to realize the full potential this country has for the international market in the field of education, health facility and recreation venue. In a small way, events that are taking place in Galle (literary and cultural festivals) may point to the potentialities such events carry if they are organised on a larger scale under good management.

Heritage connectivity as a third dimension

Taken together with the above process of convergence, one of the most positive advantages we have is our unique multi cultural personality that could be connected and related all SAARC as well as IOR countries. Our country possesses the following favourable features:

* Cultural plurality
* Cultural diversity
* Multi culturality
* Cultural inclusiveness

This immediately provides us with the advantage (only next to India) where connections could be made to Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian communities and their cultures. Our traditional connectivity through Buddhism has provided us with a strong bond with several countries in the region.

The pilgrimages undertaken to India, the Maha Bodhi Society, Buddhist Theosophical Society, Ambedkar Society are all points of connectivity. Similarly the Buddhists in Bangladesh, Buddhist sites in Gandhara in Pakistan are fast becoming important points in the road map to connectivity.

The importance of the Ramayan sites in Sri Lanka and the sacred spaces for the pilgrim, such as Koneshwaram, Tiruketishvaram, Munneswaram, Kataragama and Sri Pada are valuable multi-religious sites with great potential for connectivity.

Our efforts to recognise the possibility of twinning Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Islamic heritage sites with other regions of the SAARC and the IOR countries is bound to provide us with a natural advantage in reaching out to such countries and their people.

The President had directed us with the construction of a multi-religious museum at Kataragama and the Government notification to identify and inventorize heritage sites of all religions in the Eastern Province, President’s wish to list Koneshwaram, Tiruketishwaram and Munneshwaram and the Padayatra route as UNESCO declared World Heritage sites are important landmarks indeed in establishing bona-fide credibility for the State policy for plurality under the leadership of the President.

The ability to use our World Heritage sites for training of South Asian heritage managers and establishing Outreach Programs for Shared culture are some of the programs that were tested with a high success rate in the recent past. This is people to people connectivity at its best and it also establishes a process of interaction for sharing information, resources, knowledge, resource persons for the development of intellect and understanding.

At the 2007 SAARC Cultural Ministers Meeting held in Colombo, our proposal for the SAARC Heritage Center carried the following message. “It is apparent that the region must preserve this rich culture bequeathed to us from the past in a redefined form and as a living source of cross-regional cultural connectivity sustaining the spirit of the SAARC and also blending tradition with modernity.

The convergence of the arts and crafts will represent a cross-section of South Asian culture intrinsic to each country and its internal regions. Cross regional people to people heritage connectivity and environmental awareness are two major gains in this venture. Cross-fertilisation of inter-regional arts and crafts and the revitalization of indigenous arts and crafts that are facing extinction will be another positive gain.

All our countries are concerned of the impact of globalisation and other market forces that are diluting the indigenous arts and crafts. This center shall not only revitalise such endangered arts and crafts, it shall play a pivotal role in the preservation of the tangible heritage (as per UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage - 1972) and the intangible heritage (as per UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage - 2003).

This centre could be developed as an awareness-building and capacity-building venue. The target group will be out next generation. Youth arriving here from the SAARC region as observers, apprentices and participants in the arts and crafts activity is to be seriously taken note of.

As a center of dissemination of cultural knowledge it will bring together our children, the next generation of SAARC leadership, who belong to different ethnic, language, religious and cultural groups and inculcate within them the norms and values of respecting diversity, inclusiveness of our regional culture and shared aspirations eventually sustaining the spirit of the SAARC.

Negating terrorism

This country has proved to the world its capacity to neutralise terrorism that has been tormenting Sri Lanka and the region for over two decades. It is to the credit of this Government that it gave the LTTE the option of a political settlement.

The LTTE had evolved in the past three decades a system of totalitarianism that is unique to South Asia. It is different from Pol Pot’s dictatorship and far more sophisticated in its social fascist system of governance, which is unique to South Asia. It could well play the role model for aspiring dissident movements. The LTTE was setting a new bench mark in the political front.

The most dangerous element in this situation is the Naxalite-LTTE nexus that has been prevalent in India creating a wedge from Assam to Andhra Pradesh. This is something India must take serious note of and have concerted action with Sri Lanka to arrest that situation.

The Sri Lankan military has taken the wind out off the LTTE which was unthinkable some years back. Military tactics used by the Armed Forces against the LTTE will go into the annals of military history as novel operational methods neutralising terrorism.

As against this, the President has reached out to former terrorists in the Eastern Province by holding elections and proving to the skeptic West that a process leading to a pluralist democracy could be achieved even under the most disadvantageous conditions. This Provincial Government now has a Chief Minister who has renounced terrorism and accepted the electoral process. These two unique situations tend to redefine Sri Lanka’s role in the SAARC region and it is to be emulated by other countries in the region that are plagued by terrorism.

In spite of recurring upheavals I am positively optimistic about the wisdom of the people in our region to rise above abysmal parochialisms and reach out to each other with sanity and understanding on cultural connectivity and our shared heritage as a point of convergence. It gives us hope to know of individuals who are involved in the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature who have a vision Beyond Borders. Recent happenings in South Asia with special reference to the Nalanda Project, Sri Lanka’s efforts to name multi-religious sites as World Heritage sites-gives a glimmer of hope on the perpetuation of our shared heritage valued by the people. Similarly, the founding of a liberal arts school in Pakistan by the Agha Khan Foundation and the conscious effort by Pakistan to promote Buddhist heritage as a source of connectivity are laudable activities indeed.

The Lumbini Project in Nepal could be a potentially high value site for people to people connectivity. All these efforts will essentially initiate a dialogue with those “who so far have remained outside the periphery of mainstream political discourse... and in strengthening cultural connectivity and common historico-civilisational links...”

As South Asians we are in more than one-way shareholders to a common heritage situated in time and space. We are the inheritors of a culture that is so vibrantly enriched by sophisticated social philosophies that originated in this region and had an overarching impact beyond its natural landscape and also by both indigenous and shared values.

This is indeed a tribute to the remarkable synthesis that has been achieved in South Asia between two or more related but divergent value systems.

We have also been inspired for thousands of years by the messages of peace that emanated from this region, not only in terms of its sublime message of cultivating the supreme humane personality but also as a social philosophy that released dynamics of an expressive higher culture in art, sculpture, architecture and literature.

This is spiritual and cultural connectivity at its best. Let us therefore recognise and celebrate these elements of our shared heritage lending connectivity to the people of South Asia and redefine Sri Lanka’s role in this regard!

Concluded