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Double standards on peace

The noble ideal of reverence for life is the cornerstone of peace movements worldwide. This is borne out by the current global upsurge of the peace sentiment over the situation in Iraq. Indeed, the loss of life anywhere has to be decried. However, it needs to be borne in mind that what is true of Iraq is true of Sri Lanka too. War involves killing and loss of life and this stark fact has to be bemoaned regardless of where it occurs.

What leads us to these thoughts is the emergence of a perplexing mindset among some sections of local opinion on the question of peace in Sri Lanka. While these sections would, rightly, denounce the loss of life in the war in Iraq, they tend to be deafeningly silent on the moral correctness in ending the conflict in Sri Lanka by peaceful means.

In other words, the very same sections are some of the most vociferous critics of the current peace process. A clear instance of double standards - to say the least. It is this mental anomaly which led Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to observe recently at a rally in Matara that : "Some sections among our people are against the war in Iraq, but the same people are against the peace process in Sri Lanka".

The emergence of this attitudinal irregularity needs to be considered a moment of truth. The taking of life anywhere dehumanises man and disfigures his identity. There is no getting away from this cardinal truth. Accordingly, befriending one's "enemy" and settling one's differences with him by peaceful means, enhances one's nobility and humanity. For, strife and contention are not part of the human condition, considering man's inherent nobility and humaneness. Our wish is that peace will be found by peaceful means in Iraq. We wholeheartedly extend the same wish to Sri Lanka.

The tragedy of Sri Lanka is that everything here has been besmirched by politics. Even this noblest enterprise in Lanka's current situation, that of bringing peace, is viewed narrowly through the discolouring lenses of party politics and partisan polarities.

According to this blinkered view, there is a "UNF peace" and a "PA peace". There is no realisation among these partisan opponents that peace under any government "smells as sweet" because there are really no two or more paths to peace.

Whichever party brokers peace may have to do so with the most disaffected sections of the minority communities and their representatives. Besides, there is no getting away from the need to share power equitably among the country's communities. The only way to peace is the empowerment of the country's communities. These are the essentials of peace-making in Sri Lanka.

Those who think otherwise are likely to pave the way for a return by Sri Lanka to contention, strife and bloodshed. Herein, of course, lies national degradation and extinction.

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