Mahatma Gandhi
The Mahatma Gandhi Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka organized a modest event with "Friends of Gandhi" on the 2nd October at its office premises to commemorate the Mahatma’s Birth Anniversary. This year’s event was dedicated to the intense struggle the world over to reverse the environmentally destructive life styles that modern society has adopted and to give maximum recognition to the Mahatma’s philosophy of self reliance and simple living sans greed.
The opening address by Dr. Mohamed Saleem, President of the Mahatma gandhi entre highlighted the gravity of the problems humanity is facing today. After welcoming the “Friends of Gandhi” who had gathered on this occasion he said:
” This day 140 years ago a child was born at Porbandar, West India. Unlike many millions of Indian children of his time, he struggled to choose a career that changed the destiny of humanity by freeing it from the shackles of human subservience to freedom, self rule and honour. His selfless service to humanity earned him the name Mahatma. As we remember him today, this world of our time is also in dire need of another Mahatma to restore sanity in humanity and save it from self destruction. We are told that the earth has been in existence for over four billion years, and the homo sapiens who appeared last in the emergence of living creatures have occupied the earth for only 200,000 years but assumed that all endowments on this earth were meant to serve them and them alone. This is leading the human race towards the worst catastrophe in the history of the human species.
Evolution in the area of technology and increasing human abilities to explore into things hitherto had remained unknown have supported continuing growth in human numbers, over consumption and ever-increasing scale of the human enterprise whereby outstripping and destroying the life-support systems upon which all of our lives depend. Unfortunately, ethical values and social organization that should have accompanied technological evolution to increase our ability to understand the impact of our activities on the ecological systems has not kept pace. All those who share a concern for the environment and the depletion of natural resources are now engaged in a desperate search for a way out, which can sustain development required to meet our needs of today while ensuring that the ability of the those who will inherit the earth from us – the future generations- is not harmed to meet their own needs as well.
Thus, if humankind is to develop better relations with the environment, a renewed sense of reverence for nature will be required. People should be made to understand that the rape of nature needs to be resisted with all the strength at our disposal. Our heritage is one of living with and protecting nature and not one of destruction, as none of the religious doctrines we pay allegiance to in our respective ways permit us exploiting nature for our self-chosen purposes, and selfish patterns of life revolving only around our egos. That is considered evil and socially regressive. Unfortunately, these virtues have lost meaning in our lives and we are overpowered only by the thrill of short-lived selfishness and materialism pertaining to this life. We are at a stage in this world where no amount of legislation can help to replace selfishness by altruism to unify humanity for purpose of protection and safety of the earth unless there is also spritual regeneration to change the course of our aspirations and actions on this earth in a direction, as in the words of the Mahatma, only to “satisfy our needs and not our greed”.
This requires more than our signature on a paper that earth and its environment should be saved and protected. It is not calling for a referendum or staging demonstrations in the streets and on campuses that matter. Our leaders who are focused on short term power game may not even bother. The change should start somewhere else. It should take all of us down to our own selves, our family, our homes and our neighbours. It entails an extraordinary commitment to an entirely new way of life. That is why The Board of Management of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre came up with the theme “Commitment to save our planet earth” for this year’s Mahatma Gandhi Commemoration”.
The latest documentary film titled “Home”, directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand detailing the wonder and the concerns to save of our planet earth which we call home was also shown. There was unanimous agreement that the global environmental problem has become everyone’s problem as it has no territorial borders.
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