| by Dr.
Ruwantissa Abeyratne
(
December 8, 2012, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) Again, Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
has missed the point entirely. In her article Jaffna Plane and Global
Hawk, published in the Sri Lanka Guardian of 7 December, Ms. Paramasivam
chides me thus: “At a time when many educated Sri Lankans of Sinhalese origins
are highly critical of the Sri Lankan President over alleged interference with
Judicial Powers – I was surprised to read the following by a legal expert Dr.
Ruwantissa Abeyratne: ‘With such rapid winds sweeping through the commercial
aviation world, what should Sri Lanka do? We should take an example from the
visionary thoughts of the President of Sri Lanka which he put forward at the
launch of the space age of Sri Lanka when Supreme SAT-1 was launched into
orbit. The President said in his message: “The launch of this satellite will be
the beginning of more such ventures that will help promote Foreign Direct
Investment, increase export earnings to the country, and help greatly in the
transfer of technology within and outside this Region”.
My
article and comment on the wisdom of the President of Sri Lanka in the context
of the importance of foreign direct investment and building partnerships in Sri
Lanka has absolutely nothing to do with his alleged interference with the judiciary.
Please,
Ms. Paramisivam, are you telling me not to acknowledge the practicality and
wisdom of that truth merely because of some totally unrelated issue? I
know you like to talk about yourself in your writings and pontificate to the
reader about your own befuddled sense of truth and philosophy, your religion
and your dreams and visions, but my article had nothing to do with Sinhala and
Tamil politics, visions and dreams, religion and philosophy. Nor
did it have any relevance or link to political interference with the judiciary
or exploitation. I wrote the article A hundred years of flight
in Sri Lanka – time to take stock’ basing myself on 30 years of continuous
experience in aviation both in Sri Lanka and on the global platform and the two
doctorates and master’s degree I have earned in aviation law and
economics. I am not a politician nor am I a self-proclaimed philosopher
espousing the cause of an ethnic group. I am an international civil
servant who likes to see some good happen to his country of nationality.
I based
myself – when supporting the importance of foreign direct investment in
aviation in Sri Lanka - on my latest book Administering the Skies – Facing
the Challenges of Market Economics which was released last week. I
also had a whole chapter on this subject in my book Aeronomics and Law
– Fixing Anomalies published earlier this year. I hasten to assure
you Ms. Paramasivam, that I was writing about what I do in my job at the
International Civil Aviation Organization and I have reason to believe that I
know what I am talking about.
If you
wish to vilify or criticise the President of Sri Lanka on all his comments and
utterances no matter what the subject is, purely because you believe he is
interfering with the judiciary, that is entirely your business. However,
I would strongly advise you to stick to the point and not to talk of
things you might not know of.
I might
also allude to your statement: “The way I did when I applied for the position
of UN Secretary General when Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala was nominated, I sought to
present the investment of Sri Lankan Tamils in Global Aviation to dilute the
maya / delusion I saw in the picture drawn by Dr. Abeyratne in relation to
Aviation in Sri Lanka”. What on earth are you talking about? And
how does your application to become the Secretary General of the United Nations
or investment by Tamils in global aviation got to do with my article, which was
purely on national aviation? Are you telling Tamil investors not to
invest in Sri Lankan Airlines because the President is interfering with the
judiciary?
Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale
University and a former professor at Harvard, states in his book, “Where
shall Wisdom be Found”, that there are three criteria that impel him to go
on reading and teaching: aesthetic splendor, intellectual power and
wisdom. Of these, the last is perhaps the most useful for survival.
Wisdom is the ability to distinguish between facts and issues and the dexterity
to keep philosophy, prejudice and beliefs away from reality. Wisdom is
the ability to make correct judgments and decisions, and remains an intangible
quality gained through knowledge and experience.
Ms. Parsamasivam, I read all your articles published
in the Sri Lanka Guardian. But one word of advice. Please do not
write about things you do not know and please try to distinguish between apples
and oranges when you write.
I will consider this correspondence closed, at least
for my part.
 Again, Gajalakshmi Paramasivam has missed the ...){kind=link}