Gajalakshmi Paramasivam – 07 February  2015

Common Mind of Leaders – Australian and Sri Lankan

Even in Singapore there were social discussions about our Australian Prime Minister awarding knighthood to Prince Philip.  Back in Sydney, I read the welcome news :

‘Mr Abbott has announced all future decisions on knights and dames would be made by the Order of Australia Council.’

I do like Mr. Abbott and did not have high expectations of him as Prime Minister. To my mind, Mr. Abbott represents the average voter and in most instances – does not feed desires of the more ambitious voter. But from time to time – the subjective leader seeks to be special and acts forgetting that  his uniform/position is his protection. To my mind - the immediate past President of Sri Lanka – Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa  - is the parallel of Mr. John Howard and the current President of Sri Lanka – Mr. Maithripala Sirisena is the parallel of Mr. Tony Abbott. Both current leaders need to be ‘facilities’ for their independent citizens and communities.

There is usually conflict in the Australian mind between elected leader and appointed official. The parallel at family and workplace level are majority rule vs principled decision-making through allocation of rights and wrongs. If the former is Democracy, the latter is Autocracy represented by  the British Monarchy in the Australian mind.  During the period leading to elections – one aspiring to be leader would feel more inclined  to connect to the average mind of the voter. This is easier for the leader with a simple mind, representing the average citizen, than it is for the more ambitious leader seeking high credits through the leadership position. To my mind, Mr. Abbott was desiring to show outcomes that would have been natural to a leader like Mr. Howard. It’s an expression of pride in British origins. It does influence the citizen living in the past.

We allocate the face of an individual to our own investment in the position on the other side of a relationship. Where there is a position there is a relationship. Common laws and common positions help us make this mind connection beyond  the physical. Once we discover the Truth and include that Truth as part of our law and structure – we connect universally – beyond time and place borders. Often  members of a group limit themselves to local borders (current time and place) due to easy benefits in that environment.  The loss is the mind connection which influences us to feel independent. The reverse of the above is  – the more easy the benefits – the lower the mind order.  When one remains an elected representative over a long period – without higher order of thought  – the reverse starts happening naturally. That is the basis of  the system of karma.

The lower the mind order the greater the likelihood of sheep mentality.  Hence majority vote to elect government. When such voting  is independent – it is natural and would result in harmony. When such votes are influenced by easy benefits – it breeds servitude of one form or the other.

In families, where relationships are  on time as well as cultural bases – seniors often tend to cling to their higher status when  the relationship is not completed by them. Relationships are completed by accepting respect as the return for their services.  Even if the ‘other’ side fails to show respect,  we could respect ourselves and complete the relationship.  This is an essential feature of Democracy, under which one is facilitated to produce independent outcomes at the lower level positions.  Outcomes so produced become available in common to all – and the risk is that they may never be included by others in their work. 

Mr. Abbott produced such an outcome which would be rejected by investors in democracy and multiculturalism. As per Hindu philosophy – personified by Lord Muruga with six faces, one who produces outcomes at the physical level needs to limit her/himself to one equal part of the final picture. In terms of Australian society – Mr. Abbott  had the responsibility to limit hereditary based credit to the same level of recognition shown to Aboriginal ancestry. Likewise each independent community that makes up Australian society. By taking leadership on the basis of ancestral positions beyond other subsections – for example that of King Dutugemunu by Sinhalese and King Raja Raja Cholan by Tamils of Sri Lanka – one automatically foregoes the opportunity to travel the democratic path. A community where majority are driven by what happened in the past rather than the Truth discovered in the past – promotes hoarding of money and/or  status when they use the system of democracy.  It was money in Sri Lanka under Mr. Rajapaksa and status in Australia under Mr. Howard to whose mind Mr. Abbott is naturally connected.

Other communities independent of majority race in Australia need to show their own outcomes in terms of Independence – which to my mind is the essence of Australia Day. As a Tamil associated with upper class culture  – I shared my higher status with a group of disenfranchised Toddy Tappers in Northern Sri Lanka.  I wrote about this:

On Australia Day 2015 – we were asked by   Mr. Jeevarasa (bridegroom in the above picture) to bless the Thaali (Tamil  wedding necklace) and hand it over for tying the marriage knots at the Arali Amman Temple. Arali is the native village of my father. Jeevarasa said that when he prayed at that temple – he saw my face in the altar. That kind of feeling could not have been shared by the above nephew who got married in Sydney – even though his mother is also from the same village of Arali. From both sides of the family I have been asked to accompany mothers who sought the blessings of Holy Mother when their children got married. They are family. (Article ‘We Need Closure at http://austms.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/arali-amman-riding-lion.html )

Until we have social equality between various sections of community we would not successfully use the path of democracy to realize self-governance. Mr. Abbott used the path of democracy to become Prime Minister of Australia. By awarding high status to a Monarch with little contribution to Democratic Australia – Mr. Abbott reduced the status of other democratic leaders as well as Indigenous Australians – the group that suffered most due to British occupation.  Migrant Communities in Australia whose majority members are economic migrants would tend to not see anything wrong with this. This includes both major ethnicities from Sri Lanka who do not produce their own independent picture in relation to the value of Australia Day. To those Australians who left Sri Lanka due to the war – Australia Day would be the beginning of globalization through the Democratic path. Perhaps Mr. Abbott would facilitate  such expressions of confirmations by communities that claim to have suffered persecution in their countries of origin and take refuge in Australia. I believe I did facilitate a group needing refuge – in Sri Lanka on Australia Day 2015 – to express their Equal status at a traditional Hindu Temple.