{"id":44151,"date":"2015-11-23T16:39:27","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T20:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=44151"},"modified":"2015-11-23T17:42:15","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T21:42:15","slug":"samantha-power-appeals-to-lankan-leaders-to-stop-being-governed-by-fear-in-thought-and-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=44151","title":{"rendered":"Samantha Power Appeals to Lankan Leaders to Stop Being Governed by Fear in Thought and Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/p>\n

Dharisha Bastians<\/strong><\/p>\n

United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power yesterday urged Sri Lankans to be less fearful of digging into a complicated past and turned introspective as she denounced current divisive political rhetoric in her own country in the wake of the Paris attacks, as \u201coutrageous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFear is a bad advisor,\u201d Ambassador Power said quoting UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a suicide attack in Iraq in 2003, as she addressed a town hall style gathering for Sri Lankan youth at the JDA Gallery in Colombo last<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fear that is we dig too deep to a painful past, the pursuit of a bright future might be lost; the fear that certain liberties come at the expense of security are perfectly understandable and reasonable,\u201d she said, in reference to Sri Lanka\u2019s own struggle with coming to terms with the legacy of a painful civil conflict.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While remarking that change was \u201cunmistakably underway\u201d in Sri Lanka, she appealed to Government leaders to stop being governed by fear in their thoughts and actions, as they seek to build on the democratic changes wrought through the elections in January and August, to deliver greater liberties and political compromise to the people.<\/p>\n

The fear that greater liberties would come at the expense of security was understandable and shared across the world, Ambassador Power acknowledged.<\/p>\n

The top US Diplomat and member of President Obama\u2019s cabinet turned self-critical and introspective about the climate of fear that had taken over in her own country in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris.<\/p>\n

\u201cSri Lanka is not the only country susceptible to such fears,\u201d she said adding that calls were intensifying in the US to turn away refugees. \u201cThere are calls to place entire populations under surveillance simply based on their religious backgrounds,\u201d Ambassador Power said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is outrageous,\u201d she added, \u201cthis is offensive and it smears the legacy of the US and its proud tradition of taking in people who have undergone immense suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambassador Power spoke passionately about increasing the role of women in politics in Sri Lanka, and urged the country\u2019s youth to remain engaged and invested in shaping the country\u2019s future. She said female representation in Parliament when Sri Lanka obtained independence in 1948 was 3% and said it was regrettable that this figure had only risen to 5% in 2015.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question posed on Facebook about the \u201ctrue purpose\u201d of her visit to Sri Lanka, Power said she could not think of any other country in the world where so much change had taken place over such a short period of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of bad things are happening in the world, and then there is Sri Lanka, and its story of change. I came here so I have a reason to go skipping to work next week,\u201d Ambassador Power said, smiling.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dharisha Bastians United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power yesterday urged Sri Lankans to be less fearful of digging into a complicated past and turned introspective as she denounced current divisive political rhetoric in her own country in the wake of the Paris attacks, as \u201coutrageous\u201d. \u201cFear is a bad advisor,\u201d Ambassador …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Samantha Power Appeals to Lankan Leaders to Stop Being Governed by Fear in Thought and Action’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44152,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44151\/revisions\/44152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}