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| Sunday, 21 September 2003 |
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Burgher leaders sat back in their cocoons Excerpts of Keynote Address by J.B. Muller at AGM of the Burgher Association of Sri Lanka held at BMICH on Saturday 13. The land mass we call 'Europe' is arbitrarily divided by the Ural Mountains. On one side is Europe and on the other is Asia. The Caucasus range acts as the southern boundary between Armenia and Iran but the landmass is one enormous continent known as Eurasia to geographers. If anyone is looking for genuine Eurasians all he has to do is to look at the Burghers because they are an amalgam of so many races! Therefore, it would be desirable for us to understand and accept the fact that we are the distilled product of many and varied bloodliness and a remote ancestry that gives us a unique versatility. It also puts paid to any notions of so-called 'purity' of genealogy that some people fondly like to believe in. Scientifically the concept of 'race' is baseless and meaningless because human beings have been mixing since the dawn of creation. What defines us is our unique culture which is a melding and mixing of West and East. It would do us good to examine what happened to bring this once proud community to a position of insignificance and marginalisation, of poverty, helplessness and hopelessness. When the British Government granted internal self-government and universal suffrage or 'one man, one vote' in 1931, the leaders of the Burgher Community should have sat up and taken notice that great changes were on the way. During World War II, actually in 1944, when the Soulbury Commission was appointed to study the constitutional change precedent to the granting of Dominion Status, the Burgher leaders should have taken notice. When independence was granted in 1948, the leaders of our Community sat back complacently in their comfortable Middle Class cocoons and did not pro-actively represent the vital interests of the Community. When 1956 happened, they were thunderstruck by the events that followed even though they had prior warning ever since 1931! Yes! A lack of vision, an inability to accept ground realities, a refusal to acknowledge inevitable change eroded the leading position of the Burghers. The option they sought was to emigrate, to run away to Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and even Brazil. Really that was no solution. We had to adapt - that is the Law of nature - adapt or perish! Those who left were compelled to adapt to newer and harsher environments, not only climatically but also socially and culturally as any Burgher who has returned from abroad will tell you. Darwin once said: "It is not the strongest species that survives, not the most intelligent but the one most responsive to change" How true! And that gives us a cue. The Burghers must not only respond to change, the Burghers must become dynamically proactive in leading change and building up an irreversible momentum of change that will transform Sri Lanka once again into a land of peace and tranquility, a land flowing with milk and honey. Indeed, the Burghers those people of European descent who were on this Island at the capitulation of the Dutch to the British in 1796 transformed themselves from nobodies to somebodies between 1800 and 1900 and risen to greater heights from 1900 to 1950. During this time, the Burghers came to represent Quality and Class in the life of this country. Did you know that this was Britain's premier Crown Colony, that is, the first, the best Crown Colony? Not Australia, not New Zealand, not Singapore, not Hong Kong, not Canada, not India - Ceylon. Sri Lanka! Why? Because it had a peculiar people - the Burghers - to give it an unsurpassed quality and class out of all the then British Empire! Then, they were the best sons and daughters the finest sons and daughters of Mother Lanka. Today, a revitalized Burgher Community bids once again to play a significant role in shaping the future of this country in the 21st century, in the Third Millennium and this not with any ambition to dominate but to make this a 'Land like no other' on the face of the Planet, our homeland, or rather, our common homeland from sea to shining sea. Indeed, I strongly believe that 'the heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future,' and, therefore, we must know where we came from and why if we are to find out where we want to go. We call upon our most distinguished guest, the representative of the Netherlands from which our forefathers set sail on perilous seas, to hearken to our cry. We need support for education and higher education, for technical, scientific and business education. We need to train trainers to teach teachers to go forth and teach English to the large mass of children marginalised by the ignorance of that global language. The Burgher Association needs to establish a Language Laboratory and Training Institute in Information and Communications Technology where Burgher children could be taught and trained in the skills of a rapidly globalising and modernising world. It could then provide the trained personnel demanded by Sri Lanka's developing and expanding mercantile, banking and industrial sectors. That also means and implies the whittling down of welfare hand-outs or charity to those who could be gainfully employed. Help us, your Excellencies because, to use a figure of speech, "If you can help teach the Burghers to catch fish, they needn't have to come to you for cans of donated fish!" The greatest single technological input of the decade of the Nineties absorbed by Sri Lanka has been information and communications technology. Everything else pales into insignificance in the face of the digital electronic revolution sweeping the country and I might add, the world. And, you know what? This entire revolution is on a platform of English. When the Peace Process succeeds, the opportunities would be tremendous even overwhelming. The Burgher Association wants you to be ready to take advantage of those opportunities, to seize them and run towards the goal of your prosperity, your progress, because your success will be the success of all! You have a leading role to play wherever you are, what ever you are doing. As we look forward hopefully to another year, our values should revolve around that still small voice called 'conscience', the highest ethical standards and accountability in the work undertaken by the Burgher Association for the social, economical, cultural, and, eventually, political development of the entire Burgher Community. I call upon you, one and all, to demonstrate your commitment to responsibilities entrusted you by the Burgher Association in all matters related to the building up of the Burgher Community. It is very important for the Community that government recognise the potentials and capabilities of the Burghers in Nation-building in changing lives and lifestyles and in creating a superior quality-of-life for ALL citizens. |
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