Editorial - Religious unity vital for lasting peace

Racial discrimination and regular attacks on the Tamil-speaking minorities led to the formation of one of the most ruthless terrorist movements in the world and a bloody thirty-year war in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, injured or displaced while the cost of the devastation is incalculable. The LTTE was militarily eliminated more than three years ago, but the peace we have today is fragile and could explode again at any time because justice has yet not been done and the Government is far from finding a just and fair political solution to the ethnic conflict.

In such a situation, it will be a calamity if religious divisions also are allowed to turn violent because we will then be confronted by conflicts within conflicts and divisions within divisions. On Sunday a tragedy involving intra-religious violence was reported from Galle. Government and religious leaders must move fast and effectively to bring about religious unity in diversity through an all-religions’ solidarity alliance. This we hope will bring about a spirit of accommodation where people who profess and practise one religion will also respect the faith, beliefs and practices of other religions.



According to most analysts, the ideal situation will be if Buddhists become good Buddhists by living the Dhamma, Christians become good Christians by living the Gospel, so that their lives will become a sermon, Hindus become good Hindus by living according to their Holy Scriptures and Muslims become good Muslims by practising what is preached in the Holy Quran.
All religions preach love, forgiveness and mercy with an inner-liberative spirituality where we are gradually liberated from our slavery to selfishness, self-centredness, greed, and the desire for personal gain or glory, power, prestige and popularity. Holy scriptures say the unliberated human nature is deceitful and desperately wicked. If we do not acknowledge the truth of our lives and experience inner liberation, we can go on acting as being good and caring, while our inner nature is not in harmony with our external behaviour. Inside there is hypocrisy, self-righteousness and sanctimonious humbugging. Unfortunately hypocrisy, self–righteousness and deceit appear to be widespread especially on the political scene. They are supposed to be servants of the people and work sacrificially for the common good of all. In contrast what we see to a large extent is corruption, fraud, waste and plunder of the resources of the people.

Recently a movement for all religions’ dialogue proposed to the Government a comprehensive plan to turn holidays into holy days. The movement led by Dr. L.A.W. Sirisena and including the eminent Professor Carlo Fonseka proposed that many of the large number of holidays be scrapped and instead these working days be started with teachings of different religions so that while practising their own religion people will grow in their respect for other religions. We hope the Government will act fast in giving a positive response in implementing this proposal for religious unity in diversity.