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I fully endorse the comments of Thilak Fernando and subsequently of
Patrick Berenger on the status of our railway service. Both of them have
focused mainly on the dilapidating situation of our country’s rail track
system and its communication system.
I would prefer to submit my concerns on why and what is happening to
our railway being the most important element of the whole transport
system.
About 80.8 per cent of our country’s transport demand is met by
public vehicles 12.2 per cent by private vehicles and only 7 per cent by
train. Then the problem is, are we going to manage the country’s
transport demand simply by maintaining the existing model split
mechanism?
First and foremost do we have a national transport policy to talk and
formulate strategies for transport demand management?
Any layman will understand the fact that railway has the least cost
per passenger per kilometer and is the least contributor for the
degradation of the environment hence no doubt the most sustainable mode
will be the rail- way.
Then the problem is why and for what reasons the authorities
concerned have let down the rail mode to get dilapidated day by day?
Take for example the city of Tokyo in Japan. Their 78 per cent of the
total demand is met by railway, 3 per cent by buses, 12 per cent by cars
and 7 per cent by other means. Japan contributes more for developing
transport sector of developing countries via ADB and JBIC.
Then whenever the transport sector development proposals are
submitted requesting funds, have we been unable so far to convince them
our transport demand management strategies. Is it due to the fact that
we do not have a national transport policy so we have been used to
accept whatever the terms imposed by donors?
Please can S. Amarasekera, Secretary, Ministry of Highways or an
official responsible for planning in the Ministry or in RDA comment and
elaborate the exact situation for the benefit of general public?
GRAPRO JAYASANKA - Gampaha
A falsehood has been spread about that the Burghers ‘fight so much
amongst themselves that they have no time to co-exist with the other
communities’ on this island. That is the most ridiculous statement that
I’ve ever seen in print in reference to the Burghers.
The consciousness that a fair complexion is better than a dark one is
something common to all Indo-Aryan races and is a carry-over that was
generally used as an insult 50 years ago by all communities on the
island who esteemed the fair complexioned as opposed to the dark.
It is the same kind of prejudice that favours boys over girls, slim
over fat and similar preferences.
Then, having a genealogy never guaranteed anyone in the Burgher
community fairness as opposed to darkness as brothers and sisters in the
same family were both fair and dark complexioned.
Indeed, there were a few Burghers who entertained the idea that they
were ‘White’ and superior because of their near-Nordic European
complexion, eye and hair colour but those ‘Bourbon’ attitudes are now
things of the past and quite preposterous in this day and age.
All communities entertain ideas and concepts of ‘superiority’ based
on colour lineage, caste, and mythical antecedents but we also know that
all of this is a load of rubbish.
It is true that in the fifties and sixties that some persons created
fictitious genealogies in response to the infamous ‘White Australia’
policy that required 75 per cent.
‘White’ blood in those seeking to emigrate from this country to that
because they entertained misperceptions about the changes that swept
through a post-colonial society trying to establish its identity within
the new world order that was emerging after World War II.
If not for this absurd requirement by a white supremacist Government
the Burghers wouldn’t have bothered to have such genealogies created in
the first place because the Burghers are the least racially-conscious
people on this island.
At issue in the ongoing debate on preserving the Burgher identity is
not an ethnic identity per se but a unique cultural identity that
developed on this island.
That identity is made up of many strands, indigenous as well as
foreign that have synthesised into the Burgher culture.
Certainly, assimilation is not the answer as Burghers have all but
disappeared in the worldwide diaspora.
The genetic diversity within the Burgher community is so wide that it
is a guarantee that Burghers will not produce ‘village idiots’ by
marrying within their community.
The genetic mosaic that goes to make up the average Burgher would
have sent Gregor Mendel crazy if he had to unravel its multifarious and
intricate strands.
Primarily, what I advocated is that the current leaders of the
Burgher Community should concentrate on the education, further education
and professional development of Burgher youth in order to raise their
economic status far above present levels.
It is only when Burghers are prosperous that they could contemplate
increasing their numbers, now gravely depleted by emigration, a low
birth rate and death.
Within themselves the Burghers possess the ability to weld the
ethno-socio-cultural diversity in the island into one Sri Lankan nation.
That fusion then has the potential to release the creative energies
of the Sri Lankans to surpass the glories of the hoary past-soaring to
new heights of accomplishment.
Hasn’t Sri Lanka produced persons of the caliber of: A.E. Buultjens,
A.N.S. Kulasinghe, A.W.R. Joachim, Alice de Boer, Ananda Coomaraswamy,
Chandra Wickremesinghe, Cyril Ponnamperuma, E. Vijayalakshmi, E.O.E.
Pereira, George Keyt, Kumari Jayawardena, L.E. Blaze, Lionel Wendt, Lyn
Ludowyk, Maureen Seneviratne, Neluka Silva, P.E.P Deraniyagala, Paul E.
Peiris, Pieter Keuneman, R.L. Brohier, Razik Fareed, S. Thondaman, Sihan
de Silva Jayasuriya, T.B. Jayah, Tennakoon Vimalananda, W.L.A. Don
Peter, Wester Modder and Yasmin Gooneratne and others equally
illustrious? Indeed, it has and the Nation could be justly proud of her
great sons and daughters.
J. B. MULLER
The Nobel Committee’s decision to award the 2007 Peace Prize to Al
Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is
disturbing because both are alarmists with exaggerated views that are
based on scant evidence.
Certain claims made by Gore in his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ even
contradict those given by the UN panel. It is difficult to see Gore’s
contribution to peace when he blames humans for his so-called ‘imminent
apocalypse’ and then offers as a solution anti-life legislation that
includes birth control and abortion.
Gore has in the past praised the Gaia Cult, the earth and the revival
of primitive pagan cults.
Hence, his agenda seems religiously motivated. Gaia supporters are
anti-Christian because in their view, Christianity freed the earth from
pagan myths and set in motion a process of unrestrained exploitation of
nature.
In reality, environmental disasters are the result of a society that
has moved away from God, a world of enlightenment that sees itself as
the ‘master’ rather than ‘keeper’ of the Earth.
PAUL KOKOSK
Recently I went to a leading hospital in Colombo with my husband who
is a wheel-chair user to see an ENT specialist. After checking him, the
doctor requested us to take an audiogram from the same hospital.
When we went to the room where the test was to be done we found to
our dismay that the door to that room was too narrow for a wheel-chair.
Although most buildings boast that they are wheel-chair accessible,
we have found out by experience that by being accessible, they mean that
there are ramps which can be used to access the building, but after
entering the building the wheel-chair user has to get another person’s
assistance to get their work done.
I hope that the relevant authorities of the hospital will widen all
doors, so that a wheel-chair user can access all facilities available to
the able.
D. LILAKSHI WEERASINGHE
Reference my above titled letter which appeared in the Daily News of
September 29, I regret very much not receiving any reply to-date.
In this connection, may I please draw the attention of the Secretary
to the Treasury and the President for an early reply, considering that
this is a burning problem faced by myself and many retirees of the
public sector, without any relief.
RETIRED PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEE
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