#Education
Target:
UNESCO/International Bureau of Education, International Criminal Court, United Nations
Region:
Sri Lanka
Website:
www.facebook.com

“The textbooks encourage children to develop ‘apartheid attitudes’” toward Tamils. In the 1950s and 1960s, Tamil and Sinhalese scholars vehemently protested this, but the Education Department that produces the textbooks dismissed their concern.

The Sri Lankan government impels planting and nurturing seeds of apartheid and intolerance in the young impressionable minds of Sinhalese schoolchildren through their educational system. http://bit.ly/nd3HQD

SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa has stated: “The elder generation is entrusted with the responsibility of creating a younger generation that will *NOT BETRAY* the country at any cost.” http://bit.ly/oAffpB

PLEASE NOTE! ~ Sometime between 20 Aug 2011 and 24 Aug 2011, someone REVISED Rajapaksa’s words above to the following:
"President Rajapaksa said the elder generation is entrusted with the responsibility of creating a younger generation that will *LOVE* the country at any cost." http://bit.ly/oAffpB (For original "phrase", please go to http://bit.ly/r3Eda7)

Regi Siriwardene, a well-respected Sinhalese writer, in an analysis of the effects of school textbooks on ethnic relations in Sri Lanka (1984): “Millions of school children are taught, in the name of social studies, through text-books published by the state, the myths of divergent racial origins which will help to divide the Sinhalese and Tamils for more generations to come….”

“Why education matters for global security”, http://bit.ly/obK3O9, by Irina Bokova (Director General, UNESCO), 01 March 2011:

“Education must rise on the agenda of peace building. We know the wrong type of education can fuel conflict. The use of education systems to foster hatred has contributed to the underlying causes of conflicts, from Rwanda to Sri Lanka, but also in Guatemala and Sudan.”

Speaking at the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA) convention during the US Independence day weekend, Professor Francis A. Boyle, an expert in International Law, said that Sri Lanka is a violator of the Apartheid Convention:

Francis Boyle Speech On Tamil Genocide On Sri Lanka, FeTNA 2010 - P1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmxlGDfUbUY&feature=player_embedded#!

Francis Boyle Speech On Tamil Genocide On Sri Lanka, FeTNA 2010 - P2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u2volDBOuU&feature=related

We are ONE VOICE for freedom, justice, equality and peace. What we accomplish today in the name of Humanity and Human Rights for All the Peoples of the World MUST NOT ONLY BE TAUGHT TO OUR CHILDREN, but it MUST be protected, appreciated and respected for all future generations.

The official Constitution, http://bit.ly/opC5S5, of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) of 16 November 1945 implicitly declares the following:

“The Governments of the States parties to this Constitution on behalf of their peoples declare
that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed;
that ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war;
that the great and terrible war which has now ended was a war made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races;
that the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfill in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern;
that a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.

For these reasons, the States parties to this Constitution, believing in full and equal opportunities for education for all, in the unrestricted pursuit of objective truth, and in the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, are agreed and determined to develop and to increase the means of communication between their peoples and to employ these means for the purposes of mutual understanding and a truer and more perfect knowledge of each other’s lives;

In consequence whereof they do hereby create the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation for the purpose of advancing, through the educational and scientific and cultural relations of the peoples of the world, the objectives of international peace and of the common welfare of mankind for which the United Nations Organisation was established and which its Charter proclaims.”

We, the Undersigned, respectfully demand that APARTHEID Education, implementing INTOLERANCE toward Tamils, of Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Schoolchildren be stopped.

The Tamils settled in Sri Lanka around the 2nd century BC. Their history is rich, diverse and invaluable, contributing immensely to the growth and advancement of Sri Lanka over a period of thousands of years. Tamils have been referred to as the last surviving classical civilization on earth. http://bit.ly/nd3HQD

Sri Lanka’s future Sinhalese generations must learn “TOLERANCE” – Respect and Accept!

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The Sri Lanka Must END APARTHEID EDUCATION of Sinhalese Children petition to UNESCO/International Bureau of Education, International Criminal Court, United Nations was written by sentinelgazette and is in the category Education at GoPetition.