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"The next global crisis will be environmental”
Special Correspondent| Rotary International honours OfERR founder for peace-building efforts |
CHENNAI: The world will be severely tested to resolve monumental environmental problems and we have to do it peacefully, Wilfrid J.Wilkinson, past president, Rotary International, said.
The next global crisis would be environmental, Mr.Wilkinson stressed. “We cannot pretend it will not hurt us,” he told a gathering at the conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution: Emerging Ideas organised by Rotary International District 3230 along with Centre for Security Analysis and Hanns Seidel Foundation.
“Any status quo can always be changed,” he said, adding that every challenge had the power to unite or divide people. The world must unite and keep pace in order to fight the challenges posed by environmental problems.
Mr.Wilkinson conferred the organisation’s Lifetime Achievement Award to Samuel Chelvanayagam Chandrahasan, founder, Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation for leading peace-building efforts in the Sri Lankan peace process and through OfERR, supporting the growing participation of the community in such efforts.
In his acceptance speech, Mr.Chandrahasan said that the award was appreciation for a vision of hope and of justice as a means to peace. The appreciation came from a host country to refugees who decided to take life into their own hand and build an organisation for refugees respecting the law and order of the country that gave them asylum. OfERR had learnt much from India to successfully take care of the children of Sri Lanka who had come as refugees, focussing on literacy and nutrition.
M.J.Akbar, chairman and director, COVERT Magazine, said peace is not possible without understanding. For understanding, there should be dialogue and dialogue can only happen when people treat each other as equals. “Peace will come only when we understand the world is not an axis of evil and good, but of equals,” Mr.Akbar reiterated.
The origins of most conflicts were illusory or irrelevant, mentioning the Hindu–Muslim conflicts that arose out of language and food.
He acknowledged his appreciation for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to give a call for peace at Sharm-el-Sheik.
Those who made the effort to end conflict did not begin well in terms of the diplomatic language used he said and added that Mr. Singh had showed courage in choosing peace.
The country requires conflict-resolution and hunger-resolution and equity in economic growth, but that would not be possible until a visionary leadership lifts India and Pakistan out of the conflict that has bedevilled both nations.
Volker Bauer, resident representative, Hanns Seidel Foundation, spoke of the organisation’s involvement with conflict resolution and W.Anand, Rotary International District 3230 president, said this year, the club’s theme of ensuring a reasonable standard of living precluded peace and conflict resolution.
The Hindu, dated 2nd August 2009