Foster reconciliation, abandon discrimination
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By Fr. Augustine Fernando-February 19, 2017, 9:28 pm
Diocese of Badulla
There are many instances where the constructive attempts supported and much publicized by the government in power today are overshadowed by many practically disruptive and unsettling actions of others. The President, Prime Minister and some members of the Government may be launching and promoting a process of reconciliation by calling upon all the citizens of Sri Lanka to a renewed awareness of justice and exhorting and encouraging all to re-establish the bonds of fraternity and mutual understanding among the different linguistic, ethnic, religious and other sub-cultures in our island home. But other members of the coalition government are lukewarm and lethargic
BEING HUMAN IS INDESTRUCTIBLE
Banefully, the indifference, the discrimination, false propaganda, culpable ignorance, prejudice, hateful and violent speech and action on the part of a good many are also real. While the government may be attempting to illumine the social environment and assist everyone to overcome ignorance and reach the light of knowledge and truth, there are many others who are agents of darkness who propagate prejudice, bigotry, intolerance and xenophobia in the name of a misinterpreted patriotism and loyalty to the Country.
Differences in the nations and countries we are born in and belong to, the customs and traditions we have inherited and follow the different languages we speak and the religions we adhere to, need not and actually do not divide and separate us. It is this indestructible and unsinkable human trait that pays no heed to forecasters of doom and always hopes and strives to recognize, come to a heightened consciousness and establish the fraternity, oneness and unity of humanity. Up to date, with our highly advanced capacity in science and technology, we have not yet found a livable human home like the planet earth among the hundreds of billions of spheres and stars and galaxies in this universe.
LOP-SIDED WORLD
Today, humanity is more than seven billion human beings, living in a corner of a galaxy called the Milky Way in the unfathomable universe that is supposed to have existed for 14 billion years. Our earth is comparatively a speck of dust. And living on this small speck of earth, we stultify our magnificently endowed minds and imprison them to narrow confines with petty issues of borders and boundaries, ethnicities and tribes, castes and creeds to such extreme ends that we refuse to strive and sustain, collaborate and cooperate, allocate and share, distribute and dispense the collective produce of human minds and human creativity in a human way.
In many ways today’s world seems a peculiar place: there are a few big moneyed leaders handling the destinies of their people and impacting on others. One is threatening to build a two thousand mile wall to safeguard his country from a poorer part of humanity. No one yet knows how strong, broad, durable, insurmountably high the wall is going to be; how deep its foundation and of what material it will be and what would be the cost. Will it end up as the Berlin Wall? This leader’s opposite monastery to boost up his nationalist bonds. Another supreme ruler has over 1000 most expensive and luxurious cars and over 6000 other cars costing more than 5000 billion dollars. Added to it he has a huge gold plated jet plane worth more than 200 million dollars and a palace of over 1000 rooms with a proportionate number of bathrooms. Then there are others in the Middle East who also have gold and silver plated cars and show off by throwing away in the air hundreds of thousands of dollars.
POTENTIAL CAPACITY OF SRI LANKA
We numbering only twenty two million in tiny Sri Lanka cannot change the world into a new one and transform it to make it a good home for all. But if we put our mind to it, we could make our land the true pearl of the Indian ocean and sparkling gem in the world.
We could make it a blessed land where people of a couple of linguistic backgrounds and different ethnic and religious identities live within their island territory, with self-respect and honour in keeping with human dignity, in fraternity, unity and peace in a spirit of sharing and solidarity. This is indeed possible and within our capacity to bring it about.
To make it a reality, we should not distort our history. We should not cancel or forget its unpleasant and not so civilized aspects nor embellish it with fanciful and romanticized fairy tales and self-serving narratives invented to prejudice minds especially of the young. We should not bend or distort main religious teachings of our religions and value them with the standards of consumerism and of the market place. Nor should we submerge religious belief and way of life in the rising tide of science and technology, but ground our lives on truly human values and find rational ways to respond to the challenges of life. Could we not accept all others as equal to us in human dignity and worth? Don’t we have the capacity to be a new people? We do. We should find the way. We must have the will.
A FUTURE TOGETHER
We should cultivate new and wholesome attitudes. These attitudes should pervade schools and universities, all adult citizens in urban areas and rural districts. It is up to the leaders to share high ideals with the people and uphold values that all civilized people cherish.
If we need to go to new horizons to live in peace and harmony with others we should have the courage to forge bonds of fraternity and shed our attitudes of discrimination, debilitating rivalry and hate that begets violence. We should be able to frankly discuss the problems that vex us. We should shed our haughty and arrogant attitudes inherited perhaps from our past and be truthful, honest and sincere. We should be able to give and take. We should be able share not only the land and its produce but also the blame for the hurts we have caused one another. We should be able to put the past behind us, mutually forgive and face the challenges of the future together.
RADIANT MOTHER'S CHILDREN
We, all of us, should not remain immature but mature and rise to our full humanity without partisan greed, envy and jealousy and live free, as one people, as brothers and sisters of one Sri Lankan family, children of a Radiant Mother Lanka.
