Ceylon Today Editorial

ALL CHILDREN ARE ENTITLED TO GOOD SCHOOLS, NOT ONLY DOCTORS’ CHILDREN

20 September 2016

Last week, a cold war erupted between the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) and Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam due to the demand of the GMOA to admit the children of doctors to popular national schools. Doctors went to the extent of striking in Kandy and Matara Districts demanding their children be admitted to better schools.

The issue reflects the existence of a deeper crisis. While the doctors had faced certain injustice due to the transfer policy, the issue clearly reflects the status which doctors are attempting to maintain. It appears that doctors think that they are superior to other human beings in the country and therefore their children deserve to be admitted to popular schools.

This attitude, by no means can be justified. Just because doctors belong to the category of professionals serving in the public service, their every demand cannot be granted. While it is important to provide incentives for professionals to serve in the public sector, it should not be forgotten that the so-called professionals too have a responsibility to serve the country and the people who had paid taxes for the existence of free education from which these doctors were benefited.

However, as noted earlier this issue reflects a way deeper crisis in the education sector in the country. Very often, being an old boy or an old girl of a so-called popular school is a qualification for employment. Resources are not equally distributed amongst the schools around the country and with the support of old pupils' associations, the so-called popular schools often get a lot of resources. So often, we come across people who judge individuals based on the school they attend. These factors had created a huge inequality amongst the schools in the country and most of the people, by hook or crook want to enroll their child in one of such schools.

Looking at it from a perspective of a parent, it appears to be fair. Parents want the best for their child and in the society we live in attending such popular schools is considered very precious. In that context, it is obvious that doctors want their children to be enrolled in these popular schools. However, the question is whether providing these popular schools to doctors' children solves the crisis.

It is crystal clear that the issue needs a long term solution. Such a long term solution is nothing but developing all schools and providing them with resources. However, that alone will not be sufficient. The country requires an attitudinal change. The so-called professionals, who are considered to be educated human beings, need to change their attitudes too. In the absence of it, there will be no point in developing schools as everyone would only be concerned in admitting students to so called popular schools.

We should not forget that in Sri Lanka primary education is free. In the system of free education, the child of a doctor, the child of a minister and the child of a labourer have no difference. Every child has the right to education. While it is essential to create a comprehensive mechanism to provide schools to doctors' children when they transfer from one place to another, it should be emphasized that providing special treatment to any child based on the occupation of parents, resulted in serving injustice to other children. Therefore, the long term focus should be on developing schools and providing better education to every child rather than covering up the shortcomings of the educational system through providing popular schools to selected children.

According to the findings of the National Youth Survey 2013, 56% of youth attend tuition classes. The most crucial finding is that 33.7% students attend tuition classes during school hours. These statistics reflect the need of school education reform without any delay.

Daily Mirror Editorial

Hypocrisy at its best

20 September 2016

The just-concluded 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Margarita Island in Venezuela, has placed a great emphasis on the prevention and eradication of terrorism world over.Condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, the final declaration of the two-day NAM Summit had strongly pitched for decisive and coordinated action to prevent and combat the financing and illicit transfer of weapons.

The NAM countries also had reaffirmed that terrorism and violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, cannot and should not be associated with any religion or nationality.They also recognised the threat posed by the scourge of terrorism; particularly the activities carried out by terrorist groups such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS and affiliated entities.

“The NAM countries also reaffirmed their firm condemnation of terrorist acts in all their forms and manifestations, whatever their motivations, wherever and by whomsoever they are committed. They further condemned destruction of heritage and religious sites as well as the commission of crimes against humanity by terrorist groups among others on the basis of their religion or beliefs,” the draft declaration said.
 

Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari, who led the Indian delegation to the summit, stressed the need for “concrete action” against terrorism.Underscoring that terrorism remained one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, Skills Development and Vocational Training Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who led the Sri Lankan delegation to the summit, as the special envoy of President Maithripala Sirisena, said all forms and manifestations of terrorism must be condemned.“Sri Lanka underscores the need to strengthen cooperation to fight this scourge and reaffirms the importance to conclude a comprehensive convention on International Terrorism at the earliest” the Minister had stated.Well said.

However, these hallowed sentiments are being expressed at all international fora, world as well as regional; the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, and UNHRC Sessions, the SAARC Summit, OIC, G8 and many others.However, terrorism continues.It is not a secret that the main causes for the failure to eradicate terrorism from the surface of the earth are the uneven distribution of wealth and the double standards of member countries of all these fora.

The Western powers invariably call countries like Iran, North Korea, Syria, Gaddafi’s Libya and Cuba among some others as nations that support terrorism, while wholeheartedly supporting Israel, which bulldozes houses of poor Palestinians even at the drop of a hat, ignoring any resolution adopted at the UN General Assembly as well as the UN Security Council, in respect of the region.

It is well known that it was India, which now complains about the Pakistani support to the various groups active in Jammu and Kashmir, that nurtured the Sri Lankan Tamil armed groups providing them with weapons, money and training during 1980s.It was the West that created the Mujahideens in Afghanistan and many other Middle Eastern armed groups. World has failed to answer the question as to who supported the Taliban to capture power in Afghanistan within two years of its creation.

As far as Sri Lanka is concerned the Western powers had contributed to the strengthening of the Sri Lankan terrorism.For example, Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu, Thilagar and Anton Balasingham were stationed in London for a long time to serve as spokesmen for the LTTE, while the outfit was planting bombs in buses and trains in Sri Lanka and conscripting poor Tamil children to be sent to the battlefield.

The US Government prevented the LTTE from attending the conference on the Sri Lankan peace process in Washington on April 14, 2003, citing that the organisation had been designated in the US as an international terrorist organization, but V. Rudrakumaran, one of the members of the LTTE’s peace delegation returned to the US after each round of peace talks with the Ranil Wickremesinghe government.

Hypocrisy has been the norm of many countries with regard to terrorism mainly because the UN has failed so far to formulate a definition to the term “terrorism.”In other words, so long as the world fails to reject the notion “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” world leaders would have to continue to make rhetorical statements against terrorism in every international forum.

Daily News Editorial

A timely decision

20 September 2016

So at last, a ceiling is to be imposed on election campaign funding by way of legislation. The need for such legislation has been communicated to the local election monitoring bodies such as PAFFREL by both Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Local Government and Provincial Council Minister Faiszer Mustapha. The whole idea behind the move is to create a level playing field and enable the talented and deserving individuals an opportunity to enter politics. Up to now the professionals, intellectuals and individuals of standing have shied away from entering the political fray and they cannot be blamed. The bitter, rancorous, vituperative politics now on display would have made any decent individual flinch. Hence it is commendable at least a start is being made to cleanse the body politic of its noxious influences.

Drafting of the law in this regard is currently being carried out by PAFFREL and other local election monitoring bodies with assistance from the National Election Commission. A study is also to be made on the laws in this respect prevalent in other countries, according to our main story yesterday. No doubt the final product will not be without flaws. There are always loopholes to creep through, given the kind of crafty operatives we now have as our politicians. They will stop at nothing to have their way. For them the end justifies the means. The violence, the blood letting at elections in this country often among politicians of the same party battling for the manapey has come to stay. Hence any move to alleviate this situation is to be welcomed.

According to PAFFREL Chief Rohana Hettiarachchi, as per the proposed new legislation each political party and candidate would require to open a separate 'election' bank account and deposit all money received by them in it. All spending for the election campaign should be made through this bank account. It is also stated that the money permitted to be spent on an election campaign would depend on the size of the electorate. This is a reasonable consideration given that some electorates such as Wellawaya are extremely large, requiring additional resources while electorates such as Colombo Central are tiny though densely populated. It would be ideal, if not just the electorate's size, territory wise, but also the electorate's strength would be taken into account when deciding on the funding ceiling.

Nothing is also said about who is going to keep tabs on this account. It is presumed that there will be a watchdog body from the Elections Commission to monitor this account to ensure the monies withdrawn don't exceed the imposed ceiling. But is this a fool proof method? What about the monies that will be spent outside this bank account. Also according to the draft law, at the end of the election, each political party and candidates should produce an audited report to the Elections Commission. What guarantee is there that the entire quantum of money spent will be included in the audit report, and who will prepare this audit report? The law will also stipulate that no funds could be received from those engaged in unsavoury or anti-social activities, meaning drug money. What if this money is transferred to a 'respectable' person, by say a drug baron, and this money in turn is credited to the campaign fund? There is always a via media where black money can be turned into 'white' as the authorities and the public are only too well aware.

Besides, why stop at frowning at just funding from unsavoury elements? What about the candidates themselves? Why couldn't those responsible for drafting the present law to remove black money in election campaigns, include provisions to screen the candidates themselves? The quality of politicians presiding over the destiny of the nation has a lot to do with the sorry pass to which things have descended in this country. Besides, the level playing field desired by the drafters of the new law cannot be achieved by the presence of murderers, bootleggers, drug dealers and cattle rustlers often seen on electoral lists. Those decent and talented individuals planned to be wooed by the drafters of the present law will certainly not cherish the prospect of rubbing shoulders with the undesirables mentioned above. Rather than encourage such decent and talented candidates it will only serve to drive them away from contesting.

Be that as it may, the election monitoring bodies have made a good start. It should be commended for taking upon themselves the civic responsibility of cleansing the flawed electoral system, going beyond their mandate of only monitoring and overseeing the conduct of elections. The authorities ought to build on this start until we hit upon the perfect system where the decent and the educated will not flinch from entering the election fray. The country has paid a heavy price for the lack of intellectuals and professionals in our political system. Even the National List has failed to fulfill this objective. It is time for a course correction that would ensure men and women of stature and respectability are brought to parliament, if for nothing else, to arrest the rapid deterioration and decay of the country's body politic.

The Island Editorial

Blast in Gotham

20 September 2016

 

The US has been doing its damnedest to protect itself against terrorism. All its institutions have been geared to meet that threat. The judiciary has refused to be moved against the state agencies responsible for abductions and torture on the grounds that legal action against the perpetrators will jeopardise national security. The victims of such acts of cruelty are without anyone to turn to while the US politicians and diplomats are pontificating to the rest of the world on the virtues of human rights. But, not even such draconian measures and tough laws have enabled the US to minimise its vulnerability to terrorism discernibly.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has sought to downplay Sunday’s crude bomb blast, which left 29 people injured; he has called it an ‘internal act’, insisting that there is no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to Gotham. No international terrorist outfit fighting against the US and its allies will be so stupid as to antagonise the entire world by targeting the city where the UN is in session with heads of state and eminent persons from the four corners of the earth in attendance. Terrorists are savages, no doubt. But, they are no fools!

However, the mayoral assertion that Sunday’s blast was an ‘internal act’ may be of little consolation to the discerning Americans. For, an internal threat is far more worrisome and intractable than an external one. It takes months, if not years, of planning for foreign terrorists to carry out an attack on American soil at an enormous cost and they run the risk of being caught in the process. They usually go for large scale, spectacular strikes like the obliteration of iconic buildings or massacres. But, internal enemies can resort to what may be described as micro terrorism, which requires only improvised explosive devices like the one used in New York the other day or a fully loaded assault rifle. There is also the danger of such elements graduating from pressure cooker bombs to small planes and drones or even flying toys laden with explosives.

Race relations are not as rosy as they are made out to be in the US and terrorism thrives in the medium of ethno-religious hatred which abounds in that country as evident from, inter alia, the not-so-infrequent incidents where white cops shoot coloured youth and kids unflinchingly. Terrorists may enlist the support of the resentful elements among the marginalised groups such as those who staged the Occupy Wall Street protest a few years ago.

Interestingly, Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton lost no time in condemning what she called "the apparent terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York". She declared that the Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the St Cloud attack should "steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat Isis [also known as Islamic State and Isil] and other terrorist groups." She has spoken as a patriotic American, but the question is why the US leaders do not recognise other countries’ right to battle terrorism with might and main. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee also thundered: "It's a terrible thing what's going on in our world, what's going on in our country, but we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant and we are going to end it." This, no doubt, is how terrorism has to be tackled. It is hoped that the US will not stand in the way of the same modus operandi being adopted elsewhere in dealing with terror.

Meanwhile, the government of Sri Lanka has called for an international summit on terrorism. Before worrying about how to tackle international terrorism, which means different things to different world powers, it had better take precautions to prevent a possible revival of terror at home without being lulled into a false sense of complacency.