Sri Lanka Needs A Ministry Of Inclusion & Diversity

By Jude Fernando -March 2, 2015 

Jude Fernando

Against Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Ageism, and Ableism: Sri Lanka Needs a Ministry of Inclusion and Diversity – Part I

The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporific to the blacks while saving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites. – Steve Biko

It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep –  Malcolm X

“We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”- Jimmy Carter

What does it mean to be a human in a multicultural society such as Sri Lanka, a country comprised of groups with culturally, historically, and territorially distinct identities, and with a history of contentious relations among them? This should be the central question for all efforts to create good governance (Yahapalanya) and domestic mechanisms of accountability and reconciliation. Here, I applaud President Maithripala Sirisenaplan to eradicate corruption and formulate a code of conduct for Parliamentarians; his recognition in his Independence Day speech (unprecedented in the history of such speeches since Independence) of the failures of the reconciliation process, and his promise to rectify them.

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