Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

14 May  2020

Australian Prayers & Sri Lanka’s Alms Bowl

In October 2004, I responded to a speech celebrating Gandhi, by  Justice Weeramantry.

[….Months later when searching through Google – I came across my response (Appendix 16) to Justice C. G. Weeramantry, former Vice President of the International Court of Justice, published by the Daily News (Sri Lanka) on 01 November 2004 – the day Dr. Peter Vaux above stated that I was like Gandhi.  I wrote the response in October when I went to Sri Lanka at the invitation of Airlanka and was accommodated at Galadari Hotel. Their vehicle was sent to pick me up and I included my conversations with the driver (a Buddhist) also in my response.  To me that is the way to share Gandhi’s values.  I was able to, through my interpretations of the message of a Judge of International standards, take Non-Violence message to the ordinary folks.  To me this is also what I was doing in terms of workplace and laws to the common Australian. ] – Chapter 25, Naan Australian

Today, I received email directing me to Sri Lanka Guardian article ‘On Law and Religion’ through which I learnt that Justice Weeramantry was also ‘President of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms.’ To my lay mind, bioweapons and nuclear weapons are in the same group in which the attacks are ‘Acts of God’. Hence I concluded that Australia was not as seriously affected by Covid19 due to genuine prayers at our National Parliament. I believe that my belief in Gandhi intuitively connected me to the international power of justice and it was as if Justice Weeramantry was speaking through the Australian Doctor  Peter Vaux who ‘told’ the Magistrate to release me from the false charges of Trespass. Punishing the true contributor  invokes nuclear  power and this did happen at the University of NSW which suffered a major blow to its reputation.

[….One of them is the hadith of the two-deck boat which is a wonderful statement of what humanity is doing to itself which applies here and now as vividly as when the Prophet* said it. He*said: imagine there is a boat with two decks. There is the upper deck and the lower deck. As is the human custom, quarrels break out on the upper deck, and as is the human custom quarrels break out on the lower deck; people have a tendency to quarrel with each other. Then what is worse, there is a big quarrel between the lower deck and the upper deck. So what can you do? The lower deck can’t have any interaction with the upper deck but now a situation arises where the lower deck desperately wants water. They can only get that water if they go to the upper deck but they can’t go to the upper deck because of the quarrel. So there is a huge discussion on the lower deck about what to do about this and then a hot head in the lower deck says: “if the water is what you want I will get you any amount of it”. He takes a pick axe and is about to make a hole in the bottom of the boat. So he says that is what humanity is doing itself. Isn’t that a beautiful description of the nuclear bomb of today? We have huge quarrels between different sections of the world and brilliant people who will say they will solve it, and how will they solve it? With a pickaxe and drown everybody. So that is the situation in which humanity is placed today. Why? Because we are not taking heed of the teachings of the great religions. Why? Because we are not interlinking this with international law; so international law remains an avid discipline: just the letter of the law and does not have the spirit of the law, the wisdom, the mercy, the justice, all of which can be brought into it by religion.]

I do not know whether there are International laws that regulate Bioweapons or if they were in existence, how effective they are in practice. But by effect, the Coronavirus proved to be exponential in its spread and could only be controlled through the Spirit of any discipline – including the written law but not limited to the written law. The prayer for the ‘flattening of the curve’ is to bring it to simple relative terms. To my lay mind Einstein’s theory of relativity confirms the exponential power of Energy. This energy could be as positive as god or as negative as the devil. Both are sovereign and have their independent ways. Hence at the moment we need god-power to offset the sovereign power of the coronavirus.

Sovereignty expressed as law divides into equal parts. As a rule they are two and opposite parts.  Justice Weeramantry presents this as follows through Islamic leadership:

[ One of the just Caliphs had lent a suit of armor to one of his subjects and the subject was not returning it. So the Caliph wanted to get this suit of armor back and he could have sent one of his officials to seize the suit of armor but he didn’t do that. Instead, he filed an action in the court of law as an ordinary subject asking for the return of the suit of armor. On the day of the trial, he walked into the court as an ordinary litigant. The judge, seeing the Caliph come in, rose in his seat deferentially. The Caliph looked at him and said: “This man is not fit to be a judge; he does not know that all litigants before him are equal. I may be the sovereign of this country but when I come into court I come in as the equal to everybody else”. He then removed the case from that judge and had it before another judge. Now, the standard of things like that you will find in every tradition and we incorporated all of that into a code of universal judicial ethics which has now been adopted by 50 or 60 countries around the world.]

My question is ‘Has the Sri Lankan Judiciary adopted the Universal Judicial ethics?’

If yes, has any  Muslim lawyer sought Judicial ruling in relation to Cremation of bodies affected by covid19 in which scientific ruling becomes the basis? If not, Islamic belief is buried under political convenience and thus the sovereignty of god-power is weakened in Sri Lanka.

Based on faith one would connect the high rate of infections in Sri Lankan Navy to the forced cremation of Muslim victims of the coronavirus. The former followed the latter. When Muslim with true faith seeks the Judicial service as the Caliph in the above legend did – ancestral forces of Islam would descend upon them to bring cure from servitude.

Such efforts are essential if we are to protect Sri Lanka from the ghosts of Silk Road. China Global Television Network reports as follows under the heading ‘China, Sri Lanka to gradually resume practical cooperation’:

[China and Sri Lanka should gradually resume practical cooperation in various fields while ensuring the prevention and control of the COVID-19, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during a phone call on Wednesday.

President Xi said that the two countries should advance major cooperation projects in an orderly manner and work for high-quality development of the joint building of the Belt and Road, which will help Sri Lanka's economic recovery.

China will provide Sri Lanka with firm support and assistance, Xi said, adding that the Sri Lankan people will surely overcome the epidemic at an early date.

Xi thanked Sri Lanka for its timely support at the critical moment of China's fight against COVID-19 and said that China would cooperate with Sri Lanka to support the World Health Organization to continue playing a key role in the COVID-19 fight.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa appreciated China's valuable support and assistance to Sri Lanka over the years, saying it helps to promote the country's economic and social development.]

Given that the communication is reported to have happened through the phone the above report confirms the servitude of the Sri Lankan President to the Chinese President. Then there is this statement:

[Xi thanked Sri Lanka for its timely support at the critical moment of China's fight against COVID-19]

Support through  W.H.O. chief who arbitrarily praised both countries? Is China a reason for this government to want quick elections despite the option of recalling Parliament? Whatever it may be, Lord Buddha’s values have been buried by this government. The ghost of economic prosperity that Lord Buddha gave up. In turn Buddha became wise and those who willingly donated to Buddha were blessed with that wisdom.  That is my interpretation of the begging bowl. Is Sri Lanka so much wiser than China – for China to donate to Sri Lanka?  

At global level our commitment to Global laws are the basis of our hierarchy. Within a democratic country a citizen questioning the government needs belief in the common measure used – which usually is the law. Justice Weeramantry declares as follows:

[These are the reasons why I think we must mount a crusade and we lawyers, I think, are the people to blame. If you look at the history of the legal profession, I think it is a rather dismal history.]

When lawyers are driven by economic prosperity and status  - they lose their sense of sovereignty and parity with lay litigant driven by her his own conscience which is the source of her/his natural law or position law. It is equally or more  wrong of a citizen / litigant to question the Government / Judge – without belief not only in why something  happened to her/him but also the law of the position taken by her/him in the environment in which the pain / loss  happened. Where there is no structured position, our conscience becomes the source of our measure.  

Placing Armed personnel above medical experts in Administration confirms that to this government medicine is lower in hierarchy to Army Rule. Then to be fair to the common citizen, investment in medical education in Sri Lanka needs to be limited to the level needed by those who value the army protection above personal health. That is the way sovereignty  supports those who support sovereignty.