Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries.
Though Earth Day has been observed for 50 years, there is no evidence in any country to demonstrate it succeeding to protect its environment.
However, in this period the population in the planet Earth has doubled and human species have exploited other living beings and the environment to meet its greedy needs.
It is too early to know the extent of its impact on this planet Earth and on its living beings; but if we follow the guidelines given by the health authorities, could emerge out of this crisis with minimum damages.
Bitter truth is that the COVID19 pandemic is the consequence of over exploitation and today the whole world is reeling over by this crisis as nations are working hard to overcome a new virus for which there is no known vaccine yet.
Law of Nature is that this crisis too will pass and the opportunity will come to rebuild nations.
Whereas, Sri Lanka went from bad to worse in the same period (1970 to 2020), under many political leaders as Presidents, each with different agenda and consequently people got divided beyond ethnicity and religion into several segments each with selfish agendas, represented by as many political parties.
When COVID-19 began to surface late last year, Sri Lanka was surfacing out of a dark period. Today, one thing is for sure life will never be the same again in Sri Lanka. With the dawn of 2020 the country was blessed for the first time in its history, with a non political President as Head of State.
The arrival of COVID-19 pandemic gave this administrator turned President to serve the various segments of the population with a holistic rule, without being biased to a particular segment that previous presidents kept doing for decades.
Many of these Presidents were veterans in the political arena for their own gain and to their affiliates.
With the General Election due in June, it is upto the people as the ruled to give the two third majority support the President as the ruler wants in the new parliament to be formed after the General Election.
It will enable the President to provide a holistic inclusive rule to benefit all citizens in a united country that is multicultural, multi ethnic and multi religious.
All it needs from Sri Lankans is to comeout of their negativity mindset of many decades and think out of the box to vote quality persons to fill the parliament as their representatives; without worrying about the political affiliations of the candidates listed in the ballot paper. Thereafter the government will serve the population together to rebuild and pull the little island nation out of its present predicaments!
Northern Breeze 