If you sow a mango seed, you get a mango tree |04 May 2016

Seychelles’ founding President Sir James R. Mancham, KBE, who was recently the recipient of the Africa Peace Award 2016, has welcomed the news that the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has accepted the invitation of President James Alix Michel to undertake an official visit to Seychelles from May 7-8, 2016.

It is on Tuesday September 21, 1976 that Seychelles was accepted by acclamation as the 145th member of the United Nations. On that occasion, President Mancham who was privileged to address the opening session of the 1976 General Assembly stated:

“…..I think the time has come when we must ask ourselves what will make the world a sane world. The answer is only sane people. What will make the world peaceful? The answer is only peaceful people. For too long the strange notion has persisted in human beings that a state of sanity and peace can somehow be produced by arms struggle and violence. That the end justifies the means is a lie which has been swallowed by almost everyone. It would be much more accurate to say that the end reveals the means.
We do not have to look very far or very closely to see that there are simple and natural laws which work as surely in human affairs as they do in the rest of creation. If you sow a mango seed, you get a mango tree. If you sow maize, you get maize. No exception to this simple law has ever occurred or ever will. By the same token, if you sow the seed of contention, violence and hatred, the harvest will be more violence and more hatred. Society can only change by first changing the attitude of people who live in it and the world can only change by changing the attitude of the nations who constitute it…”

In a statement issued yesterday morning at his office in Mahé, Seychelles, Sir James states that “it is clear that the fundamental response to the prevailing world crisis must be based on a consensus of universally shared values and a unity of vision that the leaders of the world can agree upon through the collective wisdom of the world’s religions, of individuals and institutions such as the United Nations. Just as the Founding Fathers of each of the nations were committed to moral and ethical principles and ideals as a foundation for their nations, any vision of a harmonised unified world and a governance of peace must likewise bring together men and women of honesty, integrity, and a selfless commitment to individual and collective justice for humanity.”

Sir James said in that spirit he was looking forward to attend the “cocktail dînatoire” which President Michel will be hosting at State House on Saturday May 7, 2016, in honour of H.E. Ban Ki-moon and Mrs Ban.