CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Obama creates history: Can it happen in Sri Lanka?

Dr. Mahes Ladduwahetty, Courtesy The Island 07-11-2008

, it happened despite the still lingering divide of Race in America. It has taken 232 years since Independence to shed the racial divide when electing a President. It is mainly the young people who turned up by the many thousands to work and vote for the Americian ideal they believed in to be true, that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL (unlike the older people who are more hypocritical in that while they talk equality, there is the underlying race consciousness), who made it possible. And it took a LOT of hard work and dedicated perseverence and above all Faith in the ideals of liberty and democracy that are enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The question that naturally follows is: Can it ever happen in Sri Lanka?

I say "Yes", but some fundamental facts must be understood.

Unlike in America, Sri Lanka has setbacks to such an outcome because of 2 major factors:

1) The American Black (African American) struggle for equality did NOT use violence to achieve its goal. Rev. Martin Luther King was very clear in recognizing that they could NEVER win their goal using violence, for even though it could give temporary advantage, it would only drive the racial divide further and leave a bitterness in its wake that would be extremely difficult to remove from the nation's psyche. That is why MLK chose to lead his people through NON-VIOLENCE as the modus operandi of their struggle. And even though they were challenged with State violence to contain their peaceful revolt through of marches etc., the Blacks were trained under his leadership to not retaliate, and even at the point that MLK was assassinated, Black leaders and the people did not abandon his message.

2) The minorities in Sri Lanka have political parties to identify themselves and maintain their separateness. In America, the minorities belong to the same 2 mainstream political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, and therefore they are identified as part of the mainstream, and NOT by their being a minority, even though Color is such an overt and obvious thing. There are no African American political parties to back their particular political aspirations. Barack Obama could never have got beyond being a minor member of the Illinois State legislature, perhaps, if he belonged to a political party that was identifed with African Americans alone,

These 2 setbacks of the use of violence as a tactic, and the use of parochial political parties, need to be OVERCOME.

Lakshman Kadirgamar broke through Sri Lanka's minority barrier and became accepted even by the JVP as their nominee for PM. National acceptance can only happen through belonging to the mainstream UNP or SLFP parties and can never be achieved by members of the Muslim parties or the Tamil parties. The Tamils and Muslims must commit to the one Sri Lanka and work for their particular goals within that commitment, and the possibility of a Tamil or Muslim President would probably not take as many years as it has taken America to achieve this tremendous testament to its ideals.

It is important that the message of this American election be uinderstood by the Tamil and Muslim leaderships of Sri Lanka regarding a commitment to the country AS A WHOLE, and not to their particular parochial parts, if they hope to follow in the example of America.

It is our good fortune that technology has made it possible for the whole world to participate in this great and uplifting human experience!

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