Where lies the solution?

Like most others, I shall venture to state the obvious that our motherland is blessed with such a wonderful array of naturally endowed resources, a very rich ancient culture and a heritage of which all of us can justifiably be proud. You may say that it makes a good slogan to attract tourists to visit us or question "what good is it for us now?" for we are yet to make the most of these values and the ethos embedded in that legacy in shaping the post-colonial phase of our nation's future.

Although, possessed with such riches to enrich our ways and thoughts, there is little doubt that we had made a considerable mess of how we chose to carve our way forward in the post-independence period of our history. Those in the know of how nations the likes of Singapore and Malaysia, handled that somewhat similar challenge, and how we did ours, will help us better understand the follies we made and the lessons our leaders chose not to learn, in creating sustainable systems and ways to guide and lead this nation.

Divide and rule

There is enough empirical evidence to substantiate that we had been 'divided and ruled' on racial, religious and social-status lines under colonial rule for a considerable length of time. There is also no doubt that we were left with strong remnants of that era and were victims of attempts made by several forces to restrain our will as a new nation, even after we were supposed to be out of the shackles of that dominance with 'independence'.

Unity and harmony among Sri Lankans

But to continue to harp on such is the easy way out for us as a nation; i.e. go on blaming those who created the mess for all time, without ourselves looking in the mirror to see what and where, we had gone wrong. While the reasons are many, in essence, the immediate post-independence calls for federalism as a solution to address the issue of just treatment of 'minorities' and extremist movements of nationalism and the short-sighted handling of those issues were equally responsible for driving this nation to the edge of divisiveness, chaos and mayhem.

Dark days

When the 'Rule of Law' was not upheld and the vulnerable and helpless were inadequately protected during and in the aftermath of the 1958 and 1983 racial riots, there is no doubt that it caused immeasurable damage to our nation's psyche. Those dark moments in our history coupled with what we witnessed in the 1971 and 1989-90 periods of lawlessness have left us with many lessons to learn in carving our way forward in the future.

Having gone through it all, we had hoped we could get ahead raising our heads from the mess we were in, for almost three decades in dealing with a band of terrorists who chose to call themselves 'freedom fighters' and 'representatives of the Tamil people'. Those divisive forces chose terrorism and other hideous ways to create mayhem in our midst in what they and their external support mechanisms justified as a 'just struggle for claiming rights of the minorities'. They were blind to the fact that there is no way that a doctrine using terror, crime and murder as a means to achieve an end, could be used as a means to justify any end.

Desirable future

Upon the defeat of those terrorists, I believe that we did learn the lesson that we needed to learn lessons, and that is evident in that the majority of Sri Lankans have now resolved to mend our ways to move ahead to create a desirable future for ourselves. An expression of that is seen in the report of the LLRC where many Sri Lankans offered both written and verbal submissions. In a study of those submissions and the recommendations of Commissioners, one could observe that there is widespread support for seeking a new beginning for Sri Lanka to build a nation based on values and an ethos that reflect those embedded in our culture and heritage of the past.

Justice and fair play

Today, unlike any other time in this nation's history, most among us have a strong urge and desire to think as members of one nation and be in unity as Sri Lankans regardless of race, cast or creed. We also have both the desire and the strong urge to venture to celebrate the diversity of each of our races, religions and our ways of life in seeking that unity. Yet, achieving this cannot be through the snap of a finger or any magical move. There needs to be lots of patient hard work put in by all Sri Lankans, for us to be able to get there.

Not only in Sri Lanka, but from all over the world we witness the emergence of movements where people now raise their voices in unity against wrongdoing by the powerful, demanding that the economic and social justice is upheld. Much like the Occupy Movement in the US and in Europe, where the majority (99 percent) demand justice and equitable treatment from those holding economic and social power (1 percent ), here in Sri Lanka, too people do not now hesitate to demand justice and fair play when faced with social injustice. That in my mind is a welcome development. It serves to ensure a re-rooting of values of upholding the rule of law, meritocracy and mitigating corruption, getting those tasked with implementing these back into firm action. Yet, one must be careful in not equating such spontaneous movements with those instigated agitations and protests masterminded by political entities working with the aim of serving their own means in gaining power or seeking regime change.

Promotion of harmony

I am happy to observe that some key leaders and politicians have begun to make statements of admission on the need for us as a nation to embrace values of honest endeavour, meritocracy while denouncing corruption, nepotism and injustice. Since of recent times there is also a new breed of various programmes, especially in the Sinhala and Tamil media which proactively and effectively promote national harmony and reconciliation. In some of them self-serving politicians are portrayed in roles of villain. I also observe programme content being developed to bring back our lost values of sharing and caring regardless of race, cast or creed.

There are now product and service media advertisements that promote national harmony and use trilingual formats to get the messages across. The spheres of song, music and dance are making a strong contribution and the expansion of the reach of programmes for teaching English and Tamil, access to computers and connectivity to knowledge hubs are all positive steps in this direction.

Taking root

Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying that all of this has now brought us out of the shackles we were in earlier. We still hear of the slayings of innocents and activities of the gun trotting mafia of drug dealers. We hear of citizens being violent in taking the law unto their own hands, the rising cost of living and demonstrations held using that as a slogan to gain political advantage and disorder in the opposition front that weaken its role as watch-dog.

We also observe the work of a section of the media that tows interest lines, creating confusion in the minds of their audiences and the extravagance, waste and corruption in our midst. Yet, with all these, I submit that the positives we observe taking root in our midst, to be a good beginning with promise of yielding desired results. In the same breadth it must be observed that adequate time must be given for its incubation and growth.

Ours to solve

On the issue of taking effective action on national reconciliation, we began by giving expression to our own wishes through the work of the LLRC on what needs to be accounted for and corrected in our midst and what lost values we must reinstall in our own systems to enable us to seek true reconciliation. Just then, to our surprise, the US and its Western allies seem to want to thrust their own agenda and commands, upon our throats with the intent of choking us with demands of rapid response.

That certainly is not where the solution to our problems lay. It is in the hopes and the desire we as citizens of this nation have to make us successful. There is no way that any other nation or entity could determine what form our nation's collective psyche must be or should have the power or the ability to determine what our nation's collective values and ethos should be.

We, Sri Lankans who were rooted in a rich cultural heritage prior to its suppression by dominant influences, should be able to rekindle those deeply embedded values to determine that it must be just, equitable, fair and of caring ways; not only for Sri Lankans but for all beings on this planet earth. [email protected]