Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

06 August  2020

 

Truth In Governance

“…sides you take and scientific findings depend on the quantum of offer and benefit and not the truth” – Lankan Diaspora Leader

The above came in response to my article headed ‘We can see professors. Professors cannot see Arsenic. We cannot see gods. Gods can see Arsenic.’

The contents of my article may never reach the apparent participants. But when someone who cares about the issue responds, it contributes to governance of the issues concerned. To my mind the process is like calculus in Maths – the base of  which is continuous change. Another way I would present  it is ‘thought without action’ or ‘process without particular outcomes’. I believe that our thoughts do have consequences and travel fast when they are without directed towards particular manifestation.

This morning also I was pleasantly surprised to note the following Daily Mirror heading:

[Will get 2/3 majority created in parliament if not at polls: PM]

I felt that the message I sent on 04 August, under the Subject heading ‘UNP Had 96% Approval’  had reached the true seeker. Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa is reported to have made the above statement to Journalists:

[SLPP Leader and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa today said that they will make arrangements to get a two thirds majority created in parliament if the party did not receive it at the General Election.

Speaking to journalists at the Medamulana D.A. Rajapaksa Maha Vidyalaya in Weeraketiya where he cast his vote, the Prime Minister however said he was positive of the party winning two thirds majority]

The voting system is based on Universal Franchise. The right is Universal due to our ability to self-govern. A true vote connects us to all powers of governance – past and current. The vote that can be counted is slower to travel / spread itself,  than a true thought of governance without a vote. The offers of ‘quid pro quos’ that we allow ourselves when voting, dilute the power of the spread to qualify as being Universal.   

Every belief based vote – whether cast or not empowers the purpose. Likewise every vote based on expectations of return – whether cast or not – differentiates, divides and dilutes commonness of purpose.

On the same day the former President confirmed the above connection, the current President is reported to have demoted the value of pure knowledge :

[The President, hearing from an undergraduate that she is doing ‘Political Science’ responded saying that she should have selected what has an employment potential in the industry. This triggered many responses but none of them attempted to describe the connotation of what the President may have implied.] – Daily FT article ‘President had a point: Biggest challenge in education’

The author of the above article Dr Vipula Wanigasekera states:

[One of my recent articles concluded stating, ‘The country needs a paradigm shift in every sector and in the education too. Sri Lanka needs skills, not graduates’. We need professional plumbers, electricians, horticulturists, agriculturists, motor mechanics, language experts, web developers, multimedia experts, paramedics, beauty culturists, culinary and cookery experts, English Teachers, Masters of F & B, independent journalists, event planners, pest controllers, land and construction movers – the list is long. Other than the medical, engineering and IT fields, universities do not produce them. University colleges and technical colleges do, in a small way.]

Technical skills are like vote based governance. Academic education is like Governance through Common Policy. There are separations including within Mainstream political parties due to former. That kind of power limits us to local area. This is fine so long as we are locally self-sufficient. As a country we are not.

The author is reported to have been ‘Director General of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority’

While the land called Sri Lanka has the natural beauty by birth, it is the higher Lankan mind that values Universal commonness that lifts the country’s beauty to communicate the experience of that beauty beyond local borders. Higher education is one such avenue. It has been for my family and community. It helped also to self-govern through intellectual logic. That was how from time to time Tamils became Equal Opposition in National Parliament. When the Hon G G Ponnambalam proposed 50:50 intellectual solution – it did not make it to the constitution. But the contribution remained as political power and empowered whenever minorities united in politics. It is an eternal power – as all independent powers are.