Commendable 'No' to communalism

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's rejection of communalism, besides clarifying the policy parameters within which the state operates on issues relating to the communities of this country, is a profoundly wise pronouncement which could help greatly in bringing healing and harmony to Sri Lanka. This is a most welcome sentiment and there is no doubt that the statement would have helped win for the state the hearts and minds of the majority of our citizenry.

As should have been realized by the majority of Sri Lankan watchers and other knowledgeable sections, communalism has been a virulent cancer in our body-politic over the decades. There have been occasions when it has torn this country apart, with July 1983 standing out as the most horrific manifestation of violent communalism thus far.

It needs to be noted that although outbursts of violence, such as those that occurred in July 1983, have been habitually and simplistically characterized as being racial in nature, this is not the case. Humans do not carry racial prejudice and animosities in their genes. Nor do they carry religious bigotry in their DNA. That is, people are not inherently racist and communal-minded. Communal hatred is induced in humans by their social environments and cultures and the same goes for religious hatred.

If the society into which one is born is tolerant of those who sow the seeds of communal animosity among its members, the chances are that very many members of the culture or society in question would be communalistic in outlook. Therefore, societies bent on development and advancement in every conceivable respect need to follow a policy of 'zero tolerance' towards communalism and other such divisive tendencies. The founding fathers of contemporary Singapore, for instance, followed a 'zero tolerance' policy towards ethnicity and communalism and this is a significant factor in Singapore's multi-faceted advancement.

A country on the march cannot afford to be segmented by communal and religious divisions and eventually disintegrate amid violence unleashed by these dangerous cleavages. It should not be doubted for a moment that such divisions spell not only social dismemberment but economic underdevelopment and backwardness too. Therefore, government leaders need to be decidedly against communalism and other such divisions and constantly guide their polities in the direction of reconciliation and unity.

Countries such as ours need to constantly guard against the deadly viruses of communalism and religious discord. Unfortunately, there are some politicians and opinion-moulders who assiduously spread such diseases and live off them. For such sections, the creation of divisions is of the first importance because it is on such bases that their popular support is established and expanded.

In recent memory, it is only communalism in some sections which have proved a huge obstacle to development. Religious friction has been unheard of in this country, particularly in the decades after the gaining of political independence. However, there was an attempt in some quarters to surface religious divisions too and the tensions at Dambulla some weeks back, were the proof of this. Fortunately, stability has been reintroduced in the area but careless words in some quarters did play a part in fanning religious animosities.

It was to Heads of media organizations, mainly, that President Rajapaksa directed his timely words on the communal scourge. This is in order because some sections of the media play a decisive role in fuelling communal and religious tensions by mainly sensationalizing and 'spicing-up' their stories. Such tendencies have had tragic consequences in the past and the 1983 July riots easily come to mind as one instance where sections of the media aggravated tensions by reporting carelessly and in an incendiary fashion on the developments of the day.

This is a moment of soul-searching for us in the media. We need to put our considerable resources and capability to influence the public, to very good and constructive use. The media cannot be seen as generating and exacerbating social tensions. If they are seen as doing this, they are only sowing the seeds of national discord and the latter situation would be to no-one's benefit.