e assumption is that our system is best.
It is what would provide the answer to the needs of contemporary society here are these people on the fringes. We need to accommodate them and we will devise these artificial methods to accommodate them within our own system. I don't think that is an acceptable point of departure.
One other point which I wish to make is this, that many of these problems that we encounter in the world today arise from too strong a centralising tendency. Historical and anthropological research in our own country has shown that our lifestyles prior to the tank civilization of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, that our civilisation was very much a micro-civilization. There were little hamlets in different parts of the country and their culture and their values were different.
They differed significantly from hamlet to hamlet. There really were not patterns of life and thought which embraced large communities. All these changed with the development of roads, canals and waterways, the advent of western civilization with all its secondary influences. There was a very significant centralizing tendency. If we are to arrive at a realistic solution we must approach the problem in a different way recognising that centralising tendencies necessarily have their limitations. What are the matters that the people of the grass roots level in their own village communities can adequately handle for themselves? What are the matters that they can deal with and evolve satisfactory solutions?
There will be certain categories of matters which do not lend themselves to treatment in that manner at that level. Those matters you hand over to the next tier, to the next level. What cannot be done at the Gamsabha level or the village council level, you hand over to the Pradeshiya Sabha which is the next level. From the Pradeshiya Sabha you go up to the Provincial Council.
From the Provincial Council to the national Parliament, and so on. That to my mind is a much more realistic, a much more pragmatic exercise in devolution of power. I think that is the methodology that is very much reflected in the attitudes and values of indigenous people. And that is a very valuable lesson that we can learn from the entirety of their experience. That I think is an important point.
Then it is also necessary to focus upon the role of the media. We live, of course in an age of technology and we have abundant information available to us. The recent developments connected with Internet are fascinating, they are indeed novel and they could not have been contemplated even two decades ago. But what is lacking is expertise to deal with, to analyze to synthesize the large volume of information that is available to us. And also relevant in that regard is the role of the bureaucracy.
We have a highly central bureaucracy and whatever we are able to achieve in regard to the protection of the rights of indigenous people, will be a reality only if the bureaucracy is sufficiently sensitized. What we need is a sensitive bureaucracy, but that is precisely what is lacking in many parts at the world of the present time.
So those are some of the infirmities and the deficiencies of which we should be acutely conscious. If we are in earnest about protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, I think we must also recognise the sanity of customary law. If you are interested in the rights of the indigenous peoples and the legal landscape, it is absolutely essential that customary legal systems should be protected.
In our own country we have in many matters of statutory regime that exists in juxtaposition with the customary laws. We have the Kandyan law, we have the Thesavalamy, we have elements of Muslim law that regulate matters such as marriage customs, rights of succession. Then, rights in respect of land.
These are all matters that are regulated by customary legal systems that apply to different sections of the population. There are also statutory provisions which can be invoked by any section of the community. For example, a Kandyan or a person subjective to Thesavalamy