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Dons` strike and the conscience factor
Saturday, 15 September 2012 - 12:32 PM SL Time
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The strike by university Dons is well into its second month and the majority of the public as well as the state are in a highly troubled state of mind over it, but the strikers seem to be unmoved by the widespread distress they are causing. We hope we will be proved wrong in making this assumption because the younger generation of this country`s citizens, in particular, should be spared the trauma of losing faith in those who are said to be their teachers and guides.
We call on the sides to this issue to focus strongly on the common interest. Hopefully, the striking Dons would have come to realize that they cannot forge ahead without having the common good at heart. How will it benefit them if they barter away the national interest in their anxiety to win their sectional demands?
What the general citizenry finds extremely baffling is this seeming insouciance with which our striking Dons brush aside their duties and responsibilities towards the younger segments of our populace.
It does not seem to bother the Dons` conscience that they hold the future of our undergraduates, in particular, in their hands? We hope we will be proved wrong on this score too, because we simply do not like to believe that our academics` consciences have been deadened and rendered grossly insensitive as a result of this stand-off with the authorities.
Apparently, the state is willing to negotiate a solution to the outstanding issues at the heart of the strike and we hope the striking academics would continue to give talks a try. They need to admit that the state has not been deaf to their grievances and that a considerable number of issues raised by them have been resolved. Accordingly, the academics would do well to persist in their talks with the authorities, arrive at a time-frame to resolve their issues, and get back to the responsibility of teaching.
The academics, perhaps, cannot imagine the extent of the heart-burn and sorrow they have unleashed among children and their parents. They could be certain that the distress is pervasive and that many a home is engulfed in dejection and sorrow over fears that the life prospects of our youngsters are steadily shrinking in the face of the prolonged closure of our seats of higher learning.
Would the striking university teachers wish that such a heart-rending situation befalls their children, or their own flesh and blood? How would these Dons feel if they were in the shoes of a parent whose children are thus suffering as a result of frustrated just hopes and ambitions?
There is no way in which a society could forge ahead towards better prospects if those who are expected to be standard bearers degenerate to the position of mean-spirited bargain hunters who are obsessively engrossed in self-interest and the latter only. Have our striking Dons thought on these things?
Accordingly, we call for a rethink on these issues on the part of our university teachers. The upholding of essential human values depends crucially on them and on how they manage issues of a contentious kind. They would do well not to compromise their traditional standing and image for material and monetary considerations because it is wisdom, knowledge and ethical values that prove the life-blood of a country, in the final analysis.
We also urge the state to act on these issues with a greater sense of urgency.
It is not our position that the state is apathetic in this crisis, but a speeding-up of the process of problem-solving is desired.
It is essential that the sides to the issue do not lose faith in each other and a seeming delay in resolving the crisis could cause the impression that the state is foot-dragging. Let not this be the case.
We call for a strong focus on the national interest. Besides, we call on both sides to avoid a polemical tussle. If the national interest is kept mainly in mind, finding compromise solutions would not prove difficult because the sides would be headed essentially in the same direction
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