Date: Monday, January 17th, 2011
Title: Session 4 – Making Peace Personal
Moderator: Marina Jimenez – The Globe and Mail
Presenters:
Shanthi Sachithanadam – Founder and Chair of Viluthu
Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne – General Secretary of the Sarvodaya Shra
Zahra Ismail – former program manager with Nonviolent Peaceforce Sri Lanka
Key Quotes:
“People have to expect something of their government. right now there are no expectations. and So I feel that when people start expecting much more, the government has to deliver more. So start from there”. - Shanthi Sachithanadam
“We have to deal with extreme views…one way to answer that is ‘ok look at what has happened during the last 26 years. Has whatever that has happened brought about justice for the communities that you are fighting for..? Arethey better off now? Do we want more of it now, regardless of whatever the objective? We have to be able to direct the dialogue onto understanding the underlying needs. People can take positions… we are interdependent…we are more interlinked than ever before. What do all these natural disasters teach us? They have are no boundaries..there cannot be a borderline anymore. So the context has changed so much.. and how to bring this realization to extreme minds is very difficult. But I think that if [the] majority of ordinary people understand and somehow come together [to] fulfill their needs and try to address the structural issues of governance we can really neutralize or counter extreme views and move forward. ” – Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne
