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It seemed that the UN and its secretary-general had turned out a special annual gathering of its 193 members in honour of our own president, Anura Kumar Dissanayake. Such was the esteem it had for the president in his first year in office as Big Chief that he was allowed to lecture—or was it hector?—the world as though the UNGA met at that house of wonders across Diyawanna Oya.

Such was the importance of this occasion for our nation that one thought the prestigious President’s Media Division had got so excited that it spelt the president’s name with a double “s” when not so long ago there was—and possibly still is—an ongoing dispute over whether it should be one or two.

Never mind, these are only minor slip-ups compared to the importance of the occasion when the world was enthralled by what appeared to be a sermon from another mount which Moses had not even heard of or a chance to part the waves.

Even if President Dissanayake was not celebrating his first anniversary from the Big Apple, it was indeed worthy of listening to his speech whether he was standing on a much-venerated podium or at a gathering at the office of the NPP/JVP.

Some representatives of the world sat unmoved in awe or sleep, with only the nitpicker from the White House uttering and muttering about the shaky escalator at the UN as though nothing shakes in the Oval Office except the occupier’s head.

One would have thought he had just got off the bridge in the Caucasian Chalk Circle that President Ranil Wickremesinghe had been dared by the IMF to cross to collect a few dollars more. Whatever it was, it was a sermon of the kind we had listened to before.

After all, it was the first time a Marxist-Leninist had taken the reins of office at home, and though we had heard sermons of one kind or another, the world at large had been too busy to listen to the thoughts of our dear leader, thus leaving an educational emptiness under many a foreign hat.

So it was quite appropriate that though we come from a small island in the waters of the Indian Ocean, the sprats too be given a serious hearing and not just the sharks alone, though I’ve seen in recent years sharks hovering around in the waters or thereabouts—those toothy and hungry creatures looking for things that are not theirs to take away.

Just the other day President Dissanayake had to step into a maritime vessel to be taken to one of our northern islands called Kachchatheevu to make sure it is there. After all, there is always the danger that someone close by would drag it away instead of the fish they are eyeing day and night and claiming it is theirs to take home.

It was President Dissanayake’s way of making a point to friends and neighbours and even those quite a distance away. His philosophy had made it clear to brothers from big countries like the US, led by stingy leaders determined to grab more, and smaller countries like Israel, hungry for war and expansionist as though it is what their religious leaders and prophets taught.

It is not that what President Dissanayake preached that day from the podium was wrong. His words were not wrong. What was wrong were the people whom he addressed. He concentrated his preachings on poverty, hunger, corruption, aggrandisement and self.

Nothing wrong with that. It is these qualities in those who rule nations on this planet who exercise those qualities and continue to do so, the likes of sermons from the likes of Anura Kumara Dissanayake notwithstanding.

He is not the only one today who preaches for the elimination of darkness and the birth of a bright new world. Here again I find no fault with what he said.

The fault lies elsewhere. It is to whom you preach. Mr Dissanayake addressed those who are leading the countries of the world. If they are all pure, upright, honest and looking for the welfare of the people, at least the message will carry to each one’s soul.

But does one really believe that one opportunity to listen to the Sri Lankan leader’s sayings will reverse their moral thinking and convert them to persons of moral rectitude and will turn them to become the people AHD wants them to?

Just one address one hears from the podium in the UN chamber is not what is conversed in the diplomats’ lounge. If one thinks that a moral teaching over a cup of tea in the lounge has set in motion its moral conversion.

In his speech President AKD says he feels “confident that all of you will join me in rejecting war”. Right now, the efforts by the world community have proved futile—the UN has passed resolutions; some have appointed commissions, and others outside the UN have established organisations within or without their countries calling for an end to war, not only the Gaza genocide but other conflicts too.

While the UN and other organisations call for an end to the Gaza war, just two voices have used their means to sabotage that intention.

Just a couple of days earlier, clear words that clearly indicated that would act to obviate that expectation were spelt out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“A Palestinian state will not arise.” Period.

True enough, President Dissanayake has said rather unequivocally that Sri Lanka supports a two-state solution, a position that previous Sri Lankan governments have supported. That has been voted on before.

But what is irksome is what does not stand as supportive of what the Sri Lankan president enunciated in that speech about war and peace—why war should be abolished, repulsed and rejected and other deleterious pursuits such as corruption and drugs should be abandoned.

What is missing is this. If war is so abhorrent and should be condemned at every available opportunity, why has Sri Lanka quietly avoided or shamelessly displayed this country’s reluctance to name Israel’s outrageous actions in continuing its military actions in turning its original defensive actions into what has turned out to be genocide, as international investigations have revealed?

Is Sri Lanka afraid to say a word against Israel, for whatever reason which is yet to be disclosed, or is what is being publicly stated mere eyewash?

There is, of course, another reason which is being buried. That is that the JVP, which is a significant component of the NPP and of which Mr Dissanayake was a member in his early days, was also engaged in two wars of its own in which thousands of people died on both sides, and anything in the way of armed conflict would resurrect the past—and that is not good for political futures.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief de Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)