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Time to halt the violence

Even a casual glance through any national newspaper reveals that violence is on the rise. Hidden behind these sensational headlines is a terrible human tragedy. The stories we read in newspapers and watch on television paint a graphic picture of a society that sees no value in human life.

During the past few days alone, we have been inundated with the gruesome details of several shocking murders and other heinous crimes, including acts of arson. Even a couple of musical shows that began on a note of fun and entertainment ended in dreadful clashes, claiming several precious lives. In these instances, we sympathise for the victims; hate the perpetrators. But is that enough? Should not the society play a more active role in preventing and fighting crime?

These are difficult questions that we have to answer.

It is true that the pursuit of money is the root of all evil. In an open economic environment which cherishes material wealth above all else, moral values are the first casualty. A society degenerates into an abyss of chaos when it loses moral values and discipline.

This is the kind of society that we find ourselves in now. Many have raised serious doubts as to whether we will ever be able to extricate ourselves from these abysmal depths. But beginning at the beginning may help. Schools, whose own disciplinary record has come under the spotlight recently, are the ideal forum to inculcate moral values in the younger generation. Dhamma schools can play a similar role. The places of religious worship in each village should be more actively involved in guiding their followers on the right path.

When such self-discipline fails, the law is often the next option. The law, or rather the lack of it, has led to a lengthy debate in society. There are many who argue that lenient laws actually encourage criminals to continue their activities unhindered. They point out that the lack of capital punishment has led to a rise in murders, because the killers are secure in the knowledge that they would never be hanged. Most criminals serve relatively short jail sentences and revert straight to their former lives as soon as they leave the prison doors. Some even dare to direct their subordinates from inside the prison walls, using mobile phones.

Some people apparently take a dim view of justice as dispensed by the Courts and take the law into their own hands. Mob justice is a recent phenomenon that has engulfed the society. For example, whenever a pedestrian is knocked down by a bus or other vehicle, an "enraged mob" invariably gathers at the scene, pummels the driver to death and burns the vehicle. This could be an extreme reaction to the law's apathy, but the society cannot be the judge, jury and the executioner as well. It is a dangerous trend that should be eliminated.

One way of addressing such extreme reactions is strengthening the law and fighting crime using all available means. Police must be fully equipped to fight crime at every level of society. We hope that the newly appointed IGP would rise to this challenge and help make Sri Lanka a resplendent island sans crime in the coming new year.

SARS again?

A world that had nearly forgotten the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) woke up yesterday to the news that a World Health Organization (WHO) expert is travelling to Beijing to help Chinese authorities identify what may be the nation's first case of the disease in months.

The suspected case is that of a Chinese television producer who came down with a fever on December 16 and was hospitalised on December 20. He was not classified as a suspected SARS case until Friday. Guangdong is the province where the disease was first recognised in February.

In this year's outbreak, SARS spread to more than 8,000 people in nearly 25 countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. It then seemed to stop spreading and the WHO declared the epidemic over in July. But the world is still reeling as a result of the massive health and economic damage caused by SARS.

SARS, like AIDS, is a disease that no one was prepared for. There are various theories as to how it originated. There is no known treatment. It can be fatal. Various health institutions are working on a vaccine, but none is ready. Non-experts cannot identify the disease at once, because the symptoms - high fever, chills, headache, a general feeling of discomfort and body aches - are associated with many other, easily curable illnesses.

SARS is a very much a disease of the modern age. In a rapidly shrinking world, infected travellers can spread a disease in a city on the other side of the world in a matter of hours. This is indeed how SARS spread to Canada. This global nature of SARS prompted an unprecedented international effort to combat it, spearheaded by the WHO.

They have mostly succeeded, but in the words of Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, "we have to expect that sometime, somewhere this virus is going to rear its ugly head again".

The world must be prepared to meet this challenge. Efforts to develop a vaccine and a cure should be intensified, so that SARS does not become the pandemic that it threatens to be.

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