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The first two generations of independent Sri Lanka were still
struggling under the influence of foreign rule and like most of the
Asian societies the mental colonisation achieved by British could not be
eradicated in the minds of people fully.
People still thought like clerks waiting to follow someone?s thought
process.
We left the original thinking and started making experiments
following Western models of development. The social and cultural
differences between the West and Sri Lanka led to failure of many
systems and we are not really roaring.
With more and more doors opened for Western investors, Sri Lankans
are merely becoming clerks in the hands of the investors.
People working for multinationals get huge salaries, cars and many
but lack any authority to make decisions, to climb up the corporate
ladders from Sri Lanka. They are the working classes in the eyes of the
investor.
The working class in the multinationals has the same colonised minds
that were limited by many barriers.
This time the colonisation is in the minds of the working class, Sri
Lankans if not at the political level. Western societies were pushing
the lifestyle through the media especially films and television and all
international brands are available in the local market hampering the
local goods severely.
The colonised mind of buyers, this time, is looking at buying those
brands to the local products. We are finding more pizzerias and burger
joints than places selling local authentic food.
The riches we are making through the colonised work are going back
into their own doles through spending on international brands.
What we, in Sri Lanka, are getting is mere experience of using
expensive international branded products and creating more and more
economic divide among citizens.
The average Sri Lankan is thinking to make his children great by
pushing them into engineering colleges, computer science trainings and
medical studies to make money, to travel abroad and live his/her life in
the style that cannot be thought of by him as an average Sri Lankan.
The average Sri Lankan is not aware that by pushing the children
towards vocational studies and colonised environments they are hampering
the future of the country.
Today children know more of Valentines Day than Vesak or Diwali.
They are representing freedom in terms of what they eat, wear, think
and read but unfortunately the freedom of thinking is missing. The
Westernised freedom and Westernised solutions are leading our thinking.
More and more elected representatives and public servants are
visiting developed countries to follow the model of development from
providing amenities to citizens to beautification of cities.
How difficult it is to perceive that public require better transport
on busy roads or single window facilities to make their utility payments
without visiting any developed country?
If we start creating the attitude of analysing the problem and
finding original solutions for the creative inheritance, we got from our
great past it should not be very difficult to become original.
What we see in Sri Lanka today are more like the Latin American
cities of late seventies and early eighties. We saw what happened to
them in 10 to 15 years time frame.
We may head towards such downfall as well. Even if we do not fall
down, we definitely might degenerate as a society if we do not teach
original thinking to our children.
The new liberalism and economic reforms should lead us into original
thinking and action rather than more and more dependent scenarios where
we just end up being workers and the cream, profits and intellectual
property goes out of Sri Lanka.
T. M. Sabaratnam
I am in Sri Lanka from Aylesbury, England on a three-week vacation
and staying in Mount Lavinia.
There is some work I have to attend to whilst in Colombo for which I
needed to visit several public buildings here.
Although I am mobile and in my mid sixties, an accident in 1994
affected my mobility and I am now required to have the use of two
walking sticks to get about.
The inconvenience I experienced whilst here made me aware as to how
disadvantaged one becomes in facing inevitable happenings like aging,
accidents and illness, even temporarily.
It means so much to persons such as myself who asks for no more than
the opportunity for independent living and awareness on the part of
architects that life does not end with disability.
This is unfortunately my very sad experience in your otherwise lovely
country with its caring people.
Even elderly, pregnant and pram pushing mothers would find it a
terrible inconvenience to gain access to shops and public places.
Sri Lanka is certainly still in the stone age when it comes to
disabled living, but glancing through a recent weekend newspaper, I read
about the campaign on ?Access Ability? by a voluntary organisation named
Idiriya. This is most encouraging.
GAVIN CASPERSZ
As there were a few controversial articles written by a Muslim lady
in several newspapers about the slaughtering of animals during Haj,
I would be very grateful if an educated reader could enlighten the
reading public as to whether it is the bounden duty for Muslims to
slaughter animals and feed the poor during Haj.
The above lady who had been frequently contributing articles to
several newspapers including The Island, Daily Mirror and Daily News has
said,?Muslims will always eat meat, for it is a bounden duty for them to
slaughter animals and feed the poor during Haj and even at other times
it is considered a highly meritorious act to feed the poor with meat?.
As far as I am aware the Holy Prophet had an overwhelming concern for
animal rights and their general welfare and factory farming and other
methods of cruelties to animals are condemned according to Islam.
There is no suggestion in the Quran Majeed or any other Islamic
sources as far as I am aware, that eating meat is good for physical or
spiritual health.
Eating meat is not required and not compulsory according to Islam.
The ?Prophet was not a meat eater and most of his meals did not
contain meat.? Traditionally Muslims were semi-vegetarians and the
Prophet was in that category.
Traditionally Muslims are not cow-eaters; they were sheep and lamb
eaters, when they did eat meat.
According to Islam, those who eat meat are urged in the Quran Majeed
to eat meat in moderation (Quran 7:31, 5:87). Meat eating is neither
encouraged nor recommended by Islam as far as I am aware. Any reader is
free to correct me if I am wrong.
I would be very grateful if an educated Muslim could inform the
readers whether it is a bounden duty for Muslims to slaughter animals,
during Haj.
D. P. Atukorale
- Colombo 7
A Daily News report indicated that a leading commercial bank donates
libraries for the most deserving schools in our country. This is a
praiseworty act.
If there is any possibility of starting mini-libraries (reading
rooms) in every village, we will be able to guide a correct path to read
something to our pre-adolescents.
S. Hettige
- Kuliyapitiya
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