A Trilingual Sri Lanka
'Sri Lanka is speaking the language of peace' -
President Mahinda Rajapaksa could not have put it across more
lucidly and touchingly. The 30 year conflict has drawn to a
close and the task before the country is to not only rebuild
itself in a physical sense but to bring about its rejuvenation
in the profounder sense of establishing durable national unity
and harmony. One of the surest paths to rebuilding in this
latter vital sense is the recognition of the language rights of
all our communities. To this goal, we are glad to note, the
government is fully committed and the world had a fresh
reassurance on this score from the President himself at the
ongoing 9th International Language and Development Conference
being held in Colombo.
We hardly need go over the highly beaten track of the
language debate in this country at this juncture to point to the
very vital importance of Sri Lanka adopting a trilingual policy,
with English playing the role of a link language. One of the
triggers to our conflict which dragged on destructively for 30
long years, was perceived language discrimination and there is
no better way to see an end to our problems in this regard than
by adopting successfully a trilingual policy, which would make
it obligatory on all citizens to have at least a working
knowledge of the three main languages used in this country -
Sinhala, Tamil and English. President Rajapaksa's enlightened
approach to governance is reflected in his commitment to a
trilingual policy. With the adoption of this policy he has
indicated also his commitment to seeing a complete end to
language policy linked controversial issues which literally tore
this country apart in the past.
Among other things, this policy line amounts to also a
complete rejection of language chauvinism which had a
destructively divisive impact on Sri Lanka and which had helped
in no small way to sustain our conflict, although no
justification could be made for the LTTE's policy of terror
which was dehumanizing and destructive in the extreme and which
necessitated a strong military response on the part of the
state. But having decisively put down the LTTE, the state has
chosen to start anew as it were, by rejecting language
chauvinism in all its forms and by choosing, very rightly, to
follow a course of according complete parity of status to our
official languages, Sinhala and Tamil, while encouraging the
cultivation of English by the citizenry as a link language. In
other words, a Trilingual Sri Lanka would be the ideal which
would be striven towards by the state and among the
right-thinking this, indeed, is the right way to go.
The most immediate task is to establish the capability and
capacity to bring about this aspired to state of affairs in the
country and the exertions in this regard of Sunimal Fernando,
who, among other things, is the Coordinator of the Presidential
Task Force for A Trilingual Sri Lanka, besides other key
officials, should be appreciated. They have pursued this project
of the first importance with single-minded zeal and given their
degree of commitment, the aim would not prove difficult to
achieve.
The state should be commended for its highly pragmatic
approach to resolving these language-linked issues. President
Rajapaksa has committed himself to building a Sri Lanka where
community would not matter at all, and there is no better way to
put it but by stating that in Sri Lanka from now on, there would
not be any ethnic minorities as such but only those who are
loyal to Sri Lanka and those who are not. Since in this new
dispensation community would not matter, language-linked
parochial issues that divide the citizenry rather unite it,
would cease to matter too. The underlying principle is that in
post-conflict Sri Lanka only one's humanity would matter, since
all citizens would enjoy parity of status. The perceived
discriminations of the past would not figure in contemporary Sri
Lanka because what would matter vitally in this context is one's
Sri Lankan identity only.
However, all relevant languages in this country would be
taught in an unbiased manner and all citizens would be
encouraged to learn all these languages, for, in the world of
today, interaction among peoples and countries, in a
multiplicity of spheres, would not be possible if languages that
matter, such as English, are not learnt and used effectively.
Thus, multilingualism becomes the hallmark of a country on the
march to progress and it is a matter for rejoicing that Sri
Lanka has decided to figure prominently among these
positively-oriented countries. |