And love is thicker than hatred

It was reported in the newspapers that a set of NGO personalities (prominent, may we add?) had been hosted by a top diplomat (prominent, shall we say?) of a foreign mission for a party. While it is not clear if it was a tea party, a luncheon gathering or a sumptuous dinner, it has been revealed that sampling cakes, gulping caviar or sipping coffee (black, with no sugar, please) was not the main purpose of the meeting. One of the participants has confessed that the purpose was to discuss a personal communication between Ban ki-Moon and three individuals tasked by the UN Secretary General to advise him on matters pertaining to Sri Lanka, in scandalous violation of the UN Charter.

The confessor has stated that they had come together to deliberate on ‘how to make use of it (the communication) as a constructive instrument for reconciliation instead of one of division and polarization’.

He has also revealed the identities of the other NGO invitees and it is now whispered that one of them was actually the principal author of the said document.

Promote reconciliation

Much can be said (and indeed has been said) about Ki-Moon’s initiative, the composition and neutrality-credentials of the advisory panel, the malice, academic sloth, intellectual arrogance, absence of integrity, political slant embedded in the entire process.

The report itself has been shown to be biased, full of contradictions and factual inaccuracies, monumental exaggeration, a manifest dismissal of research ethics and an abominable naivet‚ in ascertaining reliability of source. It all adds up to mal-intent.

I am no student of diplomatic niceties, but common sense suggests that if any diplomat wants to help a government in the country he/she serves to promote reconciliation and counter division and polarization, the last thing he/she should do is to consult the very architects of division and polarization whose every act has sought to throw spanners in the wheel of reconciliation processes.

International community

The government has correctly decided not to give respectability to a rogue document. One hopes that the government will nevertheless recognize the damage caused by this document to the image of the country, its possible impact in derailing reconciliation processes and most importantly that it is one element of a clearly malicious and potent design on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

The government must understand that these machinations are designed by powerful members of the international community.

For this reason, the onus is on the government to study the entire document right down to the most insignificant detail, reading every line and also what’s between the lines, in order to anticipate the kinds of threats that Sri Lanka will no doubt have to face.

The above ‘meeting’ and the names of the invitees are not cause for surprise. It is merely re-confirmation of what was known for a long time, i.e. long before Wikileaks told the world who was gunning for Sri Lanka.

Reading the report in the Daily Mirror (online version), I was reminded of a poem written almost two centuries ago by Walter Scott, ‘Patriotism’.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,

As home his footsteps he hath turn’d

From wandering on a foreign strand!

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;

For him no Minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour’d and unsung.

Cultural differences

While acknowledging that this could be a theme song for jingoism, I felt it speaks to and of the individuals mentioned above. Where does the hatred come from, I wondered.

From where the extreme revenge-intent? It is no secret that they either loved the LTTE and/or the cause it espoused or else hated the government so much that the principal challenger of the government’s authority, the LTTE, had to be considered ‘friend’.

Sambuddhatva Jayanthi

Only one thing is clear: hatred. Even as the government and indeed the citizens of this country counter these forces intellectually and politically, and hopefully with sobriety rather than emotion, I believe that one thing needs to be avoided at all costs. Hatred.

Let us not forget in this 2600th year of the Sri Samma Sambuddhatva Jayanthi, anniversary of that most important ascension that later proved to be the key determinant of who we are as a culture, a civilization and a nation, and indeed that bedrock which made it possible for other faiths to take root and co-exist with one another, that compassion and wisdom are what helps us prevail over hatred and ignorance. Jayantha Chandrasiri came up with a brilliant tag line to his 2002 film ‘Agnidahaya’: aadaraya vairayata vadaa ghanakamya (Love is thicker than hatred).

How much do we love our nation, our rivers and mountains, fine sands, exquisite murals and architecture, quaint and profound customs and traditions, the wondrous diversity of fauna, flora and of course cultural differences, the time-tested worth of accommodation and embrace over antagonism and dismissal? Is our love thicker than the hatred of our enemies, those who in the very name of reconciliation act in concert and in tirelessness to promote division and polarization?

It is something each of us should ask ourselves. It is something we should ask ourselves as a people and a nation with a history, heritage and a civilization that gives no cause for shame but infuses us with pride and dignity. Let me ask it again. Is our love thicker than their hatred?

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