Let peace be a religion

Friday, 7 August 2015 00:33 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

THERE is a sense of increasing urgency as the days tick down to 17 August. For those that relished the change at the start of the year the next test is the parliamentary elections, to not just preserve, but push forward the quest for good governance that started eight months ago.

To this end even religious leaders have stepped out with one voice to call for smart votes and resist divisions along racial lines promoted by some political parties. Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith this week declared that political parties based on ethnicity and religious belief were inimical to peace and harmony. The Catholic leader stressed that the Church would never allow the formation of a party exclusively for Catholics.

Sri Lanka’s grievous ethnic divide is a deep one and in some ways fostered by racially focused political parties. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the Tamil National Alliance, Jathika Hela Urumaya and the newly-formed Bodu Jana Peramuna (BJP) of the infamous Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) have led the way along with dozens of others and have arguably deepened divisions between communities.

Granted the political parties were born to fulfil a need. As ethnic tensions deepened in Sri Lanka there was a feeling among minorities that they needed a voice for their grievances and the only way to protect their rights was to engage in politics as a group. Such sentiments can even be traced back to pre-colonial times and the formation of ethnic parties can be justified in such a context.

Yet the truth is that for Sri Lanka to go forward as a peaceful country it has to create a platform for all religions and ethnicities to have equal rights and for these rights to be protected by the State regardless of majority or minority concerns.

In some ways the old divide and rule policies have been allowed fresh life through the formation of ethnic or religious parties that has sought to promote politics by fertilising insecurities, distrust and injuries between the three main ethnic groups of the country.

It is no secret that many in these parties use sensitive and ethnically charged arguments to justify and camouflage their greed for power. Perhaps the best example of this is former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has based his entire campaign on whipping up divisive sentiments between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities. His supporters have enthusiastically sought to deepen fear and mistrust between the communities by holding aloft the bogey of an LTTE revival and separatism though the TNA and other parties have publicly denied any such effort.

In short this political campaign has done everything to destroy any healing achieved in the last few months and could well sow discord that will polarise the public in the future.

It is imperative that racial agendas be destroyed at the next elections. One of the best ways to do this is for political parties themselves to engage with all communities on a national level and even once they enter parliament to work on behalf of all people and not just their specific ethnic group. The TNA demonstrated this when they fought the impeachment of former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake and now it is time for them and others to continue to care about Sri Lankans.