The nation came out of a bloody period of continuous warfare a decade ago, but all that bloodshed, all that brave energy, has not succeeded in resolving the causes of the war. Those causes, today, still remain dangerous embers of socio-cultural conflict that could flame up again any time – as it did momentarily and tragically on April 21, Easter Sunday. But it is human to err and, as the community of dwellers on this ‘sceptred isle’, we must confront our challenges, new and old, and dare not repeat mistakes but seek creative and holistic solutions to the continuing social conflicts that beset us.
If the ethnic separatist war has taught us that war alone cannot settle social conflict, that lesson has shone forth in the Government’s determined management of the sudden outburst of pseudo Islamist terror and consequent communal tensions. Terror has human origins and counter-terror alone is inadequate to bring stability and peace back into human affairs.
Thus, despite provocative calls for counter measures targeting a whole community, the Government and the security establishment has carried out an effective counter insurgency that is seemingly rooting out the elements of fundamentalist terror without terrorising the people. The smooth response of the Dankotuwa Police in resorting to the judiciary in order to manage a potential community disruption sparked by a wayward Pradeshiya Sabha is remarkable testimony to the lessons learned from the separatist war and related social violence.
Likewise, the slow but reasoned and meticulous, response by the Police and hospital administration to the media-generated fear-mongering over gynaecological procedures in the Kurunegala General Hospital is another example of genuine management of potentially volatile issues.
Amid all the loud harangues by political potentates and their religious allies, the nation can, thus, see also its own capacities for recovery and re-adjustment in dealing with myriad contingencies that sometimes seem to beset us all at once.
Nowadays, amid the storms of racist threats and hate speech, enduring problems like drug addiction and the business of illegal drugs seem almost forgotten. But President Maithripala Sirisena has managed to find the time to devote his energies in this regard as well, even as he grapples with the complexities of the Constitution and ambiguities of electoral politics.
Thus, for over a year, the President has led his own persistent campaign to combat the drug menace. It is perhaps to cap his efforts with a singular ploy to definitively resolve the problem that the President has thought fit to attempt to revive the Death Penalty. In doing so, the President, despite his laudable intentions, is in danger of repeating those errors of the past.
The most important lesson to be learned about bloodshed is that violence and counter violence simply do not conclusively redress human dilemmas – whether ethnic conflict, political repression or social evils like drugs. No doubt, the Buddha has taught this a long time ago, as has been taught by the other great religions as well.
As many secular authorities are also arguing today – and is reported in our columns – the Death Penalty is the sole ‘penalty’ that simply cannot be undone by us, fallible, humans. Furthermore, the execution of a defaulter forecloses all possibility of any kind of rehabilitation or reform of the person. There is no hope for ‘salvation’ to be offered.
The nation naturally looks to its political managers, its social leadership, for solutions to the complex problems confronting it. In doing so, the nation seeks enlightened leadership.
People will now look to the President to understand the problem of the drug menace more holistically and to deploy all resources available - legal, judicial, moral and, most importantly, spiritual - in meeting the challenge in a manner that will bring happiness and contentment, not bitterness and permanent personal loss. After all, as the Buddha taught, the goal of ‘Maithree’ is to win back humanity, not to discard it.