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The Oldest English Newspaper in South Asia
Founded 4.2.1834
P. O. Box 1217,
35, D.R. Wijewardene Mawatha,
Colombo 10, Sri Lanka.
Telephone: Editor - 94-1-429226; Fax: 94-1-429230

Puritanism vs common sense

Certain human rights groups are calling on citizens to vote in Wednesday's parliamentary election solely for candidates who do not or, have not, practised violence and support peace. Some religious leaders too have taken up this call.

At least three quarters of the 4,610 election candidates belong to political parties and nearly half to political parties that have held governmental power in this country. Both major national political parties have presided over situations of social violence and even severe internal war.

Even today, the party that presided over the worst period of social and political violence in centuries - communal riots, rebellion, separatist insurgency and counter-insurgency - hardly admits to its dark past even though its current leadership comprises people who held power at the time.

The party that succeeded it, even in the process of reducing the violence, has also been guilty of violence, even if none of it has approached the horrific scale of the past. Other smaller parties too are just beginning to admit their part in a violent past while one new coalition unequivocally endorses an armed movement that yet wages a separatist war. If the citizenry is to puritanically reject all of these candidates, they will be excluding from the national decision-making body, at a crucial moment in our political history, almost all those with professional political experience and well-honed administrative and policy-making capabilities (or what little they might have).

Would it not be more socially responsible to acknowledge the reality of a violence-ridden society where many non-politicians too engage in violence in the home and outside? Would it not be common sense to engage in a historical process of gradually moving out of our violent condition?

Would it not be better to choose between those with the worst record of violence and who arrogantly refuse to acknowledge guilt and, those who have committed violence but have helped the country recover at least partially from the depths into which we fell?

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