First meeting of the Puttalam Inter-religious Forum was held yesterday (10.12.09) at the PSM Regional Office. It was attended by 15 members representing all religions. The purpose of launching this forum is to create a space for interaction between the local leaders of different communities in order to promote coexistence and discourage conflicts and violence

MPA Chairman Ash-Shaikh H. Abdul Nasar delivered the key note address and explained the need for such a forum in the region. The key points of his address are as follows,

• Human composition is common to every person.
• Hunger, likes and dislikes, sleeping and thirst also common to all irrespective of religion, cast, race or creed.
• Every religion instructs its followers to treat others equally to respect others feeling. Thus humanism evolves on this basis and it is the foundation of human brotherhood.
• When a man respects feelings of others then only he learns to respect their rights. In that process he learns to respect lives and properties of others. Thus Co-existence is created.
• If the freedom of religion is ensured there will be no imposition of ideas or forcible conversion.
• When we read the history of the world there were ethnic violence and religious wars when this human view was absent.
• Basis for freedom struggles is denial of just rights of people
• Recent South African Experience on apartheid helps us learn many things related to human brotherhood and coexistence
• The constitution adopted in 1994 after Mr. NelsonMandela became the President of South Africa ensured the rights of every individual of the country irrespective of race, language or skin colour.
• There are 11 languages spoken in South Africa and all of them were made official languages.
• What about our country with two languages?????
• Dialog between civilizations has become the trend at local and international levels.

After his presentation, a discussion took place. The members expressed their views welcoming this initiative of PSM and stressed the continuance of this process.

After the discussion the selection of office bearers of this dialog forum took place. The office bearers are as follows:

President: Ms. Elisabath Nawaratne

Vice President:Mr. S.M.A. Hassen

Secretary:Mr. S. Vamadhevan

Deputy Secretary: Mr. Rajakaruna