Moving away from the sorry state of the State

By Cheranka Mendis

Citizens must unite, putting behind race and ethnicity, to save the nation from its current pit of power-and-wealth-driven, highly-politicised state, breeding practices of animalism in society as opposed to that of a humane one led by ethics, value and morality.

With the right values of a country being trickled down from leaders and the political system in place, citizens must rally with a united front to overtake the petty politicisation that governs the country at present.

Noting the disinterest in a Government that has sunk to low levels, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga urged people to make a stand and change the current situation of the country, at least for the next generation, by promoting the values and ethics of being a good person, and if possessed with extra wit, good leaders.

“The value systems have completely broken down. All that matters is the acquisition of wealth – money, money and more money, at the expense of all that is humane,” she said. “I am not talking of governments. I am no more interested in the changes of governments under petty politicised events. It has reached such low levels at the moment that I don’t want to have to do anything about it. I am talking of change, as human beings at higher levels – this is something we have to think about, something we have to exercise ourselves for.”

 Wrong people at the right places

Noting that leaders influence the behavioural patterns of the generation of their time, Kumaratunga noted that it is an uphill task to change the thinking of students when the government encourages corruption to rule the state.

“If leaders encourage and promote criminals, murderers, casino owners, book makers, and drug dealers to come into Parliament and nurture them and give them high positions of government, whatever teachers and parents may do it would be an uphill task to make children understand that there is something other than physical force to get what he wants; that there are things that are more valuable than the acquisition of wealth and money.” Unless leaders believe they have a sacred duty to change or maintain a set of hallowed values that makes us human as opposed to animals, all that anyone else is going to do will not work, she said.

Kumaratunga expressed these views at the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Memorial Oration organised by the Past Pupils’ Association of St. Bridget’s Convent on the subject of ‘Educating Women for Leadership’.

Educate the young

Noting that the education institutes, religious leaders, and non-governmental sectors have a vital role to play in fashioning the minds of the younger generation, she acknowledged that her generation and the one after had already lost the battle of a good and ethically correct value system to base their life on.“Maybe we have lost out in our generation, and the generation below us, but we can start with the children.” They have to be given the tools to think straight to drive the point that material wealth and the acquisition of power is not the only thing; and that it is all transitory. To be human is much more, she said. To be human is to love one another, to believe that he/she has equal rights to fight for and to ensure he/she has their rights, and to stand up for the right of others. Each of us is born with the right to think and to express ourselves freely and to act according to thoughts and conscious.

You cannot kill me for speaking my mind

“If someone disagrees with us, even if it may be the head of a government, or a king or a monarch, he cannot kill us for it. He cannot punish us for it if we are not engaged in criminal activity under the laws of the state.”

Expressing her disappointment, she stated that she was “devastated as a former leader of the country and as a mother, a woman, and as someone who loves the country” over the present state of the country.

“I don’t have a prescription to take our country out of the situation we find ourselves in, but I honestly believe that if we collectively realise that it is a responsibility that each one of us bears – mothers, religious leaders, teachers, and all of us citizens of the country – there are many ways to change the situation and I think change is urgently required.”

To be true leaders

Noting the need for true leadership to emerge from future generations, Kumaratunga stated that a good leader is one who makes better humans of others, giving them a vision of a better world and inspiring them to greater heights.True leaders possess the gift to inspire others, to subdue and control the animal within them, and lift out the good and humane in them. Such leaders have the ability to give the nation the strength to reach and conquer heights.

A good leader will have the rare ability to pick the common cause before personal interest at all times. “She must be honest in what she does with regard to realising her vision as well as in monetary and material dealings.”

A true leader is fully aware that the power bestowed on her is held by the trust on behalf of those who gave him the power and that it is never right to abuse power for his personal benefit.

“He should posses the humility to hear the voice of others, even opponents, and the generosity to engage with them in free discourse; the courage to say ‘I was wrong’ sometimes and the self confidence to arrive at compromises. A good leader lights up the darkness, giving hope to the desperate, and courage to those who will not dare,” she stressed. However, for a person to be a great leader, he or she must possess a clear vision of what the leader, her people, or the organisation wish to achieve, an effective plan of action as well as tools and materials to implement it, and unswerving honesty, transparency, and commitment. All this requires many special qualities which must be brought forth by hard work to subdue the animal within.

Women as leaders

Women have faced massive challenges to earn their place among the rounds of leaders in every sphere, be it in politics, in employment, in society, and sometimes at home. The struggle has been long and arduous.

It is suffice to note women emancipating because the social structures pertaining in the world except in a few countries for many millennia was based on a patriarchal system where the male dominates almost every aspect of socio political, economic and cultural activities, and life in general. Sri Lanka, the country that gave the world its first female prime minister and executive president, has less than 6% women in Parliament today, about 5% in the provincial council and less than 3% in local government. This in a country where more than half of foreign earnings come from toil, and, sometimes, the blood of women.

Action taken under CBK Government

Noting that the country still has a long way to go in having females in leadership positions, Kumaratunga listed some of the actions taken under her watch as President to support the cause. “We brought in several laws and created new institutions to protect women and children from sexual abuse, and we were able to achieve a lot in that field.”

The Government also worked to improve conditions of employment in industries and plantations for women and others, to adopt international conventions such as the UN Resolution 1325 calling for increased participation of women in conflict resolution, conflict prevention, and peace building, and many other laws and regulations and actions of which some were successful.

“My Government was the first in the country to appoint a woman to the Appeal Court, another to the Supreme Court (who is having serious problems today), a woman as a Vice Chancellor of a university, a woman as a secretary of a ministry, and a woman as chairman of a State bank for the first time.”

She admitted that she did not have much success in improving the composition of the elected bodies and noted that she could have brought in a quota system like in India to nominate a certain percentage of women for elections but due to the stress of war, she refrained from creating more ripples in the society.

However, she did bring in a rule within her party to nominate 35% of females as candidates to all three elected bodies at times of election. “There was huge silent resistance within the party and the rule was observed mostly in the breach,” she admitted.

Just as corrupt as men

It is believed that if women hold positions of political power, they would execute their responsibilities with more commitment and also more honestly than men, Kumaratunga said.  The argument is that as would-be mothers, women are born to be responsible, more caring and more committed than men. “It is also said that femininity makes women softer and gentle, hence less inclined to violence and more to compromise and settlement.”

She noted that all the above statements were correct, except that of honesty. “My experience is that women can be as corrupt and as dishonest when in power as men. Honesty can only be experienced only by an honest leader with a vision to wipe out corruption in government and a clear action plan to achieve this.” A leader’s personal actions are of utmost importance in guaranteeing transparency and good governance, she said, adding that the gender of a person is irrelevant if you are honest to your commitment where freedom and democracy is concerned. “All that matters is a leader’s morality and ethics.”

Better than men

Women as leaders in this context play an important role, perhaps more so than men. “Men have ruled too long and spoilt many things for us,” the former President said. “Let us now take over and show them how well we can do it.”

“Today the barriers of ethnicity, race, religion, caste, even political creed, have been overtaken by the concepts and practices of animalism of society. Let us forget all barriers that separate us into communities while we retain our own identities and rise together as one nation to save our nation and take it forward as it deserves.”