Saturday Sep 21, 2024
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Tuesday, 11 November 2014 00:16 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
A road after all is a permanent feature and its value is based on its recognisability. We don’t hear of roads names in stable countries like the UK, USA, Singapore or even in India ever changing in this manner.
We know that all this is politically-motivated and is one way in which the Government is cunningly subverting various social and political factors which could stand against them. For example, we can never expect Lester James Pieris to take up any criticism of the Government because they have now named Dickman’s Road after him, and, unlike many others, while Mr. Pieris is very much in the land of the living!
Mr. Dickman, in whose memory the road was rightly named, was a long-standing resident in the area, who even donated his land for the road as well as other developments in the area.( Please check the records at the archives and the Colombo Municipality for his contribution to the Havelock Town area.)
Similarly, they are naming roads after departed Buddhist monks by the dozen. As a practicing Buddhist, I believe that the diminishing of the ego is a fundamental requirement for true wisdom; and a name, like the material body we carry, is just another fetter, in our endless Samsaric transition. In different births we will of course have different names. A monk should be ahead in the path to freedom and certainly naming of roads and cities after such a being is no advantage to a person on that path.
I see many parallels between the naming of roads and the whimsical appointing of various outsiders to the diplomatic service over others who have worked in the Foreign Ministry for many years. These appointments are either rewards or thinly-camouflaged bribes.
Many of these outsiders were decent people but they could not resist the temptation. As a result, while their contribution in the Foreign Service is negligible, the damage to their sense of independence and integrity is immense. They have now become beneficiaries of a certain political culture.
We presume that people like Lester James Pieris have democratic instincts. Acting on that, if he were to do an opinion survey among the residents of Dickmans Road and even the whole city of Colombo, he will find very few endorsing the Lester James Pieris Mawatha! It would have been a different story had they named a cinema or a theatre after this reputed film maker.
But in my opinion the greater let down here is the moral aspect. Had Lester James Pieris refused the naming of the road after him, it would surely have earned him the respect of the Government and millions of others looking for moral guidance. Pieris did not do that. Now comes the deluge.
Manjula Fernando
