I’m a scientist by training and as such, generally avoid public debate, which tends to be dominated by charisma rather than fact. Nevertheless, given the strongly homophobic atmosphere in Sri Lanka two weeks away from what Bill Clinton declared is gay-pride month (my embassy informs me that “Homosexual acts are illegal in Sri Lanka”), I thought it pertinent to share some inconvenient truths from the little-known, less-regarded realm of academic research. Make of them what you will.
1. We’re a lot gayer than we think
The two papers I’d like to share are both loosely to do with sexuality in Sri Lanka. The first is a study of sexual health in tea-plantation populations (Jayasekara et al, 2011) and the second is a detailed study of beach boys and the supposed endemic sexual exploitation of children (Miller, 2011). The aims of these two studies are divergent, focus on two distinct cultures (tea workers and beach boys) and set about proving two different points, but they present data that overlap to an appreciable degree.
Both studies found that among men, first sexual encounters occur as early as at age 12, and the vast majority of those interviewed have had gay sex at least once (86% of tea-estate men and 82% of ‘beach boys’). It seems that (at least) a single gay experience is, by definition, the norm amongst rural Sri Lankan men. The majority of Sri Lankan men are also, then, eligible for imprisonment. I find it intriguing then, that we’re so homophobic. Logically I see two options—we can lock up a substantial proportion of tea-estate workers or admit that the country’s homophobia-augmentation law is just slightly daft.
2. Our bigotry might not be where we expect it
Some unexpected findings of Miller (2011) are that (1) the tendency to conflate homosexuality and pedophilia is best reflected in the activities of child-protection NGOs, which happily lump pedophiles, perverts and homosexuals into a single “deviant” category; (2) Religious charities, too, often try to ‘rehabilitate’ former prostitutes and (sometimes happily married) men to ‘cure’ their deviant traits; and (3) Oftentimes it is sexual health charities trying to lower the incidence of HIV that perpetuate the myths that homosexuality leads to AIDS, and that “if you have AIDS it’s entirely your fault”.
It seems though, that while rural Sri Lanka is happy and gay (pun absolutely intended), it is we urban folk who enjoy sitting at home and basking in our self-righteous bigotry. There really is a wealth of (sometimes rather frightening) information in Miller’s (2011) paper that I couldn’t hope to summarise. I can only encourage my readers to find it themselves.
3. We’re here, we’re queer, and you wouldn’t have guessed it, would you?
As far as I’m aware, I haven’t even a gay friend. I mean I might have—I just haven’t bothered to quiz them all on their sexuality. In fact, I worry about the relative extravagance of the approach of gay activism. The received wisdom seems to be that the way forward at gay-pride rallies is to make as profligate a display as possible about sexuality. Given the choice between the Stephen Fry and Gok Wan models of public perception, it seems to me that gay rallies have chosen the latter. I cannot identify with this.
The problem with the public perception of homosexuality is that in it, gay people are in some way “different”, deviations from the norm. The metaphorical schoolyard bully refers to gay people as poofs, queer, camp, fags, fairies, pixies and a litany of other pejoratives. A question I must ask: is dressing up is assless chaps, leather tights, balls and chains, fairy costumes and thongs before dancing on the street in a shower of glitter… is this helping the schoolyard bully’s case or not? Is this aiding the perception that gay people are “different” or not? In fact, what exactly does it do to further the cause? I don’t have an answer to that last question, which is why I ask it.
Here’s one strategy. Given that at a gay-pride rally the public expects a spectacle of weird, wonderful and rather confronting things, a powerful statement would be made if the next gay-pride rally consisted entirely of participants wearing what they wore to work yesterday. “But how would people know what the rally is even about?” I’m often asked. Exactly. We ought to stop thinking about gay people as glitter bugs and start thinking about them as doctors, engineers, coal miners, hairdressers, politicians, teachers, police officers, pilots, waiters, soldiers and people of every other occupation.
There’s an important distinction between being comfortable with ones sexuality and being overt about it. Most people, heterosexual or not, are uncomfortable with overt sexuality for the same reasons they don’t want their children watching pornography or teenage girls getting boob jobs. Parents ought to be able to look at every participant in a gay pride rally and think to themselves, “I’d quite like that man/woman to be my child’s babysitter, school teacher, gym instructor or cub-scout leader. (S)he’s just like me.”
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[Editors note: See interview with members of Nrityagram and the Chitrasena Dance Company here.]
Samhara is a new dance work created by the Odissi dance ensemble, Nrityagram, together with their long-term friends and collaborators in Sri Lanka, the Chitrasena Dance Company. It was performed over the weekend at the Lionel Wendt Theatre in Colombo, fresh off the plane after a successful tour of United States and Mexico, having premiered in India. In New York it went on the boards at the legendary Joyce Theatre, with none other than Mikhail Baryishnikov in the audience. The show was choreographed by Nrityagram’s Artistic Director, Surupa Sen, with assistance from Heshma Wignaraja, the Artistic Director of the Chitrasena Dance Company (and eldest grand-daughter of Chitrasena, the founder of the Company).
It is difficult to describe in any depth my feelings about the show, without giving some history and context. It is important to note the history of the Kandyan dance form, Chitrasena’s role in preserving it, and the journey the Chitrasena family and Company have travelled to get to where they are today, in order fully to consider the significance of Samhara to this Company and to Sri Lankan dance. It is also important that I disclose my personal attachment – both to dance and to the Chitrasena family and Company – before I proceed.
As a baby, my mother handed me to Upeka (daughter of Chitrasena and the Company’s former Principal Dancer) to hold, and told her, ‘Now you have a dancer’. I became Vajira’s student at the age of 6, and went on to become Upeka’s student at the age of about 14. I danced in several productions produced by the Chitrasena-Vajira Dance Foundation, both as a child and teenager, in a time period spanning more than a decade. I became intimately attached to the family, and to the dance. At age 18, I decided to stop dancing. It had become something I couldn’t relate to anymore. I felt as though traditional dance – and perhaps the Chitrasena Company’s approach to it – no longer felt like it fully belonged in the modern world.
Onto a little history about the Kandyan dance: in Sri Lanka, all traditional dance forms – the Kandyan, the Low-Country and the Sabaragamu – were originally used in the ritual-ground, to heal diseases, to quell droughts or as a supplication for prosperity, good harvests and good health. Typically, dancers were men. Women were deemed inferior, impure and unfit for this special honour.
In the 1940s Chitrasena, a dancer, the son of an actor, faced with rapidly changing modern culture, decided that the only way to preserve traditional dance was to stage it as performance. Having studied the traditional dance forms rigorously, he became a dance teacher and choreographer, bringing traditional dance in Sri Lanka to the modern stage for the first time. In his hands, it was transformed: it was no longer outdated, it was animated, it was cutting-edge. Combining technical prowess with creative and conceptual agility and with modern-day production technique and technology, Chitrasena went on to create works that were revolutionary.
His ultimate act of radicalization was to introduce his wife and protégé, Vajira, to the stage. When awe-struck audiences watched her don the ceremonial regalia worn exclusively by male dancers and prove her mastery of the Kandyan dance, a spell was cast. The female dancer had arrived.
More than 50 years later, Chitrasena, the man who rescued traditional Sri Lankan dance, is survived by women: his wife, his daughters and his granddaughters. So too is the Kandyan dance – originally reserved for men – now invested in women.
In this regard, Samhara is particularly special. This show is among many other things, an ode to the female dancer, the female body, the female form, the female herself: the Goddess, the mother, the source of all life.
Samhara bloomed into being in a space between the controlled gestures and upper-body undulation of the Odissi dance – the dance form that was derived from the seductively posed temple sculptures of ancient India – and the wilder, fiery, less controlled disposition of the Kandyan dance. It developed a series of exchanges between the complex and nimble rhythmic structure of the Odissi movement, the more sturdy and reliable rhythm patterns of the Kandyan drum, the delicate, subtle story-telling of the Odissi hands and eyes, and the decisive, large movement of the Kandyan dancers. These two forms, both ancient, both rigorous, were meeting face to face: they were showing off, contending with each other, rivaling and yet complementing each other and the stage before us was the site.
The dancers melted from threes to twos to fours and fives in Sen’s flawless choreography – never predictable but always so fluid – and their bodies interacted on a bare stage lit by warm pinks and icy blues. The dancers were in a state of constant flirtation: with each other, but also with themselves, their own bodies. As the Odissi dancers undulate their torsos seductively and the Kandyan dancers look lovingly at their own arm-movements, it feels as though these women are marvelling at their own bodies, and each others’, in a state of wonderment and joyful surprise at seeing what the dance is doing to them. The pieces dissolve from one to another; the dancing never ends. The lights fade but the movement never stops. The audience holds its breath, captivated, as the slightest shifting of weight or the continuous, slow tilt of a head makes you believe the dancers are never still – even when you can’t see them.
In one moment, one of Nrityagram’s Principal Dancers, Bijayini Satpathy joins Thaji Dias, Principal Dancer of the Chitrasena Dance Company, in a phrase of Kandyan dance – and she executes it playfully and flawlessly. In one other moment, Thaji joins her in turn, in a single Odissi move. Besides these moments – so brief and yet immediately poignant – the dancers are always in conversation, but never take on the others’ styles. Samhara never pretends that the different styles are somehow one. They are not, and that is the crux of the show.
The Odissi dance form is sublime – its pin-point precision and its ability to combine every body part to create a perfect whole movement in an exact and definite moment, creates pure magic. It creates the kind of magic that only dance can really create. The presence of ‘Abhinaya’ (expression) within the form itself makes Odissi a form of story-telling, the dancers constantly emoting, constantly eloquent. The Kandyan dance form, on the other hand, is less precise and is less inherently complex. It is ‘pure’ dance; it is a blank slate on which you build movement to show-off technical skill. It has no story, it has no natural drama. The drama comes from the joy and the wild abandon of the movement itself.
Samhara consciously or unconsciously showcased this explicit difference between the two forms. While the Odissi ebbed and flowed with beautiful ease, the Kandyan dance struck out with strength and impact. However, it was clear that the Kandyan dance didn’t have the same vital subtlety and nuance that the Odissi did. And this created an interesting conundrum: it was almost like the Kandyan dance had never been challenged quite this way this before.
Yet the challenge was precisely the thing that made it come alive. In Samhara, the Kandyan dance looked better than it had looked in years. And so did the Chitrasena Dance Company.
The Chitrasena Company has a long legacy of greatness, of inspired innovation within the traditional dance forms. At the height of its success in the 50s and the 60s, they were touring the world with Chitrasena’s masterpieces, pieces of dance theatre that were considered cutting-edge in the global dance arena. He recognized that technique was nothing without substance, nor substance without technique. And so what he did best was bringing the Kandyan dance to life – creating life on that blank, otherwise inexpressive slate. He gave it a soul – which it did not inherently possess.
And soul is perhaps what newer work from the Chitrasena Company has been lacking.
With the passing of the torch to Heshma Wignaraja, there is much hope that the work will finally begin, in this new era, to match or even surpass the greatness of earlier work. Heshma’s first true moment of genius as a choreographer came in the fund-raiser show produced in collaboration with Barefoot, Sri Lanka’s premier boutique handloom brand, Barefeet in Motion (2003). Subsequent shows, The Art of Chitrasena (2006) and Guru Pooja (2008), both conceptualized by Heshma, were celebrated new pieces of work. And while it was clear that the Company had grown in technique and style, and had clearly begun its journey to re-establishing itself as an important artistic force, neither of these shows seemed to match the intellectual rigor and depth of thought that made Chitrasena’s own work so unique.
In 2010, Heshma choreographed Dancing for the Gods, and this was seen as a turning point. The choreography was beautifully structured, and it was conceptually brave – it was a reinterpretation of our most ancient ritual, the Kohomba Kankariya. The dancers were near-perfect. But just the previous year, Colombo audiences had had their first taste of Nrityagram. And so we couldn’t help but compare. And Dancing for the Gods felt incomplete: for dance that was meant to be ‘for the gods’, it lacked the sense of meditation, the deeply felt devotion and love expressed through every movement – every flick of the wrist or turn of the eye – of Nrityagram’s show. The stylish choreography of Dancing for the Gods felt somewhat flat and clinical.
So what is the secret to Nrityagram’s success? It is the genuine undertaking of a philosophy that was also Chitrasena’s own: preservation through innovation. This manifests wholly and rigorously in the expert choreography and creative thought of Surupa Sen. Nrityagram shows are the ultimate testament to the role of classical dance in the modern world. In their hands, classical dance is not clunky, old-fashioned or boring. It is as cutting-edge, as moving, as the best contemporary dance work in the world today. Nrityagram reminds us that classical dance can be vital and relevant while remaining pure and untarnished.
Therefore, in examining the Chitrasena Company’s work in contrast to that of Nrityagram’s, we are forced to ask a difficult question: is the Odissi dance form itself simply more interesting than the Kandyan dance form? Does it give a choreographer more meat, more substance to work with? It was at once puzzling and revelatory that the Chitrasena Company’s best work in recent years was in this collaboration.
And it truly was their best. As I sat at Samhara, it was the first time since I had stopped dancing that I thought ‘I wish I was a part of this’. There it was: form and content, soul and technique, perfectly balanced, hand-in-hand.
Let’s recognize Samhara as a true turning point for the Chitrasena Dance Company, and therefore dance in Sri Lanka. It represents a kind of brand-new return to form, a restoration and a revival of traditions and values close to Chitrasena’s heart. One is of taking Sri Lankan dance to the world, and Samhara has reinstated the Chitrasena Company’s place in the international dance world through its phenomenally successful tour. Another is presenting traditional dance as radical contemporary dance work, which Samhara has done successfully with Sen’s choreography and the immense skill of all five dancers. The last is the important tradition of artistic collaboration. Much of Chitrasena’s best work was created in close collaboration with musicians and artists who shared his values and artistic integrity. With Samhara, the Chitrasena Company returns to this idea, showing that perhaps their best work is created in partnership and friendship.
It feels like the Chitrasena Dance Company has truly arrived in a new era of creative excellence and they have done it with a little help from their friends. It feels like the Company has finally come home: home to where they really belong, alongside others like themselves who will inspire and challenge them to new forms of greatness.
Finally, it seems as though Samhara has delivered more than just the Chitrasena Dance Company home. The Kandyan dance itself, it seems, has been reborn, emerging reinvigorated to meet the demands of a contemporary world. And it is housed in the body of the female dancer.
Similar Posts:- Samhara: An interweaving of the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble and the Chitrasena Dance Company
- Heshma Wignaraja: Thoughts on dance and choreography
- Interview with Vajira, Sri Lanka’s Prima Ballerina Assoluta
- Interview with Bijayini Satpathy, Director of the Odissi Gurukul at Nrityagram
- In conversation with Bijayini Satpathy, Director of the Odissi Gurukul at Nrityagram
[Editors note: Sanjay Senanayake in a comment below raises a number of concerns regarding inflammatory statements made by Rev. Dambara Amila Thero in the past, which invariably inform the appreciation of the interview below. Sanjay also alleges that the thero had in the past assaulted journalists from Young Asia Television, which produced this video. We have asked them for a response.]
When first put online by Young Asia Television after it was broadcast on Sri Lankan TV, Groundviews requested the producers to sub-title this video in English to make more widely accessible what Rev. Dambara Amila Thero has to say about the practice of the Dhamma in Sri Lanka today, his views on political Buddhism and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka.
What he says is particularly important and resonant in light of the outrageous violence spearheaded by the Chief Prelate of the Dambulla temple a few weeks ago.
This interview is essential viewing for those who expressed their condemnation over the violence in Dambulla, and refreshing take on the Dhamma over what is today the popular fashion of publicly worshipping the Buddha to bestow blessings on even the most heinous of deeds and men. At around 18 minutes into the interview, Rev. Dambara Amila Thero also supports religious co-existence and comes out strongly against religious extremism – noting that anyone who is such, is not really a Buddhist.
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Photo courtesy UN
May is the month of the diplomatic success of Sri Lanka and its friends at the Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2009. That battle and victory are now the target of criticism and historical revisionism. It is alleged that Sri Lanka was brought onto the HRC agenda by our success, that the Sri Lankan team in Geneva at the time should have kept the resolution off the agenda as had our counterparts in New York, that the success of 2009 was the progenitor of an inevitable setback of March 2012 in the same arena, and that if we are in a hole today, we dug that hole in 2009.
This criticism, whispered and murmured since 2009 and finally out in the public domain, has the dubious virtue of being entirely ‘home grown’, because nothing remotely along these lines has figured in the voluminous commentary on the May 2009 and March 2012 votes published overseas, be it ‘Wikileaked’ cable traffic between Geneva and Washington DC, critical research monographs or ‘higher’ journalistic analyses. Having recognised its psychological well-springs and domestic political coordinates, one could ignore it except that wrong diagnoses inevitably lead to wrong policy prescriptions and are injurious to the national interest.
In several senses, the battle in the UN HRC on May 26-27th 2009 was inextricably linked to and a ‘superstructure’ of our military victory on the ground on May 18-19th. It was a run-on of that ‘ground war’. The West planned the resolution in the UN HRC as a means of securing a ‘humanitarian cessation’ of our final drive for victory against the Tigers. It followed through on the resolution, having earlier failed to move it in time to obtain a UN mandate for such a cessation. It failed because we in the UN HRC prevented the obtaining of the requisite sixteen signatures until the war was won. It remained one signature short for a week to ten days. The final signature was obtained shortly after, and the EU supported actively by the USA (as Secretary of State’s explicit instructions in a ‘Wiki leaked’ cable dated May 4th render incontrovertible) moved the Special session on Sri Lanka. Much is made of the fact that the US was not a member at that time, but by the same token, nor was Sri Lanka (having lost its seat at an election held in New York) –which did not mean that we were not active protagonists and players.
That Sri Lanka came on the UN HRC agenda in May 2009 due to its Geneva team at the time as alleged in an article in a well-known business magazine (and amplified in a Sunday column), is demonstrably false, several times over. Firstly there was an EU draft resolution against Sri Lanka as far back as early 2006, which we successfully removed from the agenda after I took over. Secondly, it is the EU backed by the US that sought a Special Session on Sri Lanka and tabled the resolution, thus bringing it on to the agenda. Personally driven by David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner and carried on the wave of mass demonstrations in almost every Western capital by the Tamil Diaspora (including a self-immolation in front of the Palais de Nations), there was no possibility of preventing it, though delay it we did. Thirdly, the comparison and contrast with New York is grossly erroneous. Sri Lanka was structurally safe in the UN Security Council, with the Russian and Chinese vetoes (and Russia and Vietnam as the rotating Chairs during the most intense weeks of the crisis), as it never was in the Human Rights Council. This is why, as an International Crisis Group report confirms, New York was never the intended pathway of the West’s move for a cessation of hostilities, while Geneva was. As UN Under Secretary-General Sha Zu Kang, China’s former Ambassador/PR in New York and Geneva, told me “they were looking for nothing less than a UN mandate, and knew it couldn’t come from the Security Council with us and the Russians there, or from the UNGA because the numbers were stacked against them; so they wanted it from Geneva. You not only deprived them of one, you gave them a negative mandate with your counter-resolution.”
What is richly ironic about this exaltation of a (professional) ‘New York model’ over a ‘Geneva model’ is that the issue of accountability entered the agenda and was conceded precisely in New York. Two successive Sri Lankan heads of Mission in New York had, during the final war, and indeed its final months, told me of the need for ‘a diplomatic endgame’ as distinct from a military one. Our current PR in New York, Dr Palitha Kohona, may recall an irate telephone call from me in May 2009 from the Serpentine bar at the UN Palais to Colombo (he was then the Secretary/MFA) to protest that we seemed to have conceded on accountability in New York, going by a communiqué issued after an ‘informal consultation’, which was being used in Geneva to put pressure on us. I told him I would not agree to anything of the sort. Dr Kohona urged me not to dissent on the record as we had to appear to be on the same page in New York, Colombo and Geneva. I am proud that when I left Geneva, I didn’t cut and run, leaving Sri Lanka dangling on an accountability hook.
Fourthly, our victory in the vote in May 2009 did not put or retain Sri Lanka on the agenda of the UN HRC; the EU driven Special Session did, but our diplomatic victory removed it from the agenda and there was no further action mandated, not even the need to report back to the Council. The return of Sri Lanka to the UN HRC agenda has therefore to be sourced in the actions or inactions – the sins of commission and omission– in the years following the success of May 2009, i.e. the post-war years.
Ironies abound in the revisionist critique of our diplomatic success in May 2009. If a 17 vote majority, is a ‘hole’, how may one describe the high-stakes, Sri Lankan bid in late 2005 at the UN in New York which failed to obtain the vote of either China or India, or to put it differently, obtained the support of neither India nor China? Surely the support of Asia’s two major players, or at least one of them, should have been ascertained before making a move which pathetically crumbled? If ‘preventive’ diplomacy were ever needed, it was to prevent such a fiasco.
Did Sri Lanka have the option of a dignified compromise in Geneva in 2009, a compromise that could either have kept the EU resolution from being placed on the agenda or one that could have led to a consensus? As the Special Session drew near, negotiations between Sri Lanka and the EU-led West were conducted at our behest by a Quartet, comprising our main neighbours India and Pakistan, and the current and incoming Chairs of the Non Aligned Movement, Cuba and Egypt, together with Sri Lanka. This arrangement was designed to reflect the chief concentric circles constituting Sri Lanka’s identity in the world: the South Asian neighbourhood and the global South. Those negotiations included one convened by the President of the Council, the Ambassador/PR of Nigeria, Dr Martin Umohoibhi, just before the vote was taken. The stance of the West even at those last minute backstage talks, and more clearly and publicly, the amendment moved by Germany in the Council after formal session resumed (successfully forestalled by Cuba), clearly proved the impossibility of a compromise: the EU and its allies were dogmatically insistent that any reference to ‘sovereignty’ should be deleted from the text, that UN Human Rights High Commissioner should engage in a fact-finding mission to the war zone and report to the Council within six months, and that an international accountability mechanism was imperative. It is vital to recall the larger, real-world backdrop against which the issue was being posed: that of the bitter and victorious final battles fought back home. The Quartet, the NAM and I as SL’s PR rejected such a sell out of the Sri Lankan armed forces and citizens, our hard fought and finally won victory over secessionist terrorism, and the principles of the NAM.
My critics depict our stance and strategy of May 2009 as some kind of ultra-left, lone wolf confrontationist adventurism. This defies both logic and fact. Firstly, had it been so, it could not have garnered a near-two third majority of support, from Russia to Nigeria, from India to Indonesia, from the Philippines to Uruguay, from South Africa to Brazil. Secondly, a distinguished professional of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry Dr Rohan Perera, whom I always kept in the loop, consulted on draft texts and was invited to crucial meetings in Geneva during those days, is witness that all our strategic and tactical decisions were taken in a collective and collegiate manner, at consultations with our coalition, including crucially, NAM and the BRICs. Not a single decision was taken outside of and other than by our ‘united front’; not a move made without consultation with and concurrence of trained, experienced and accomplished senior diplomats of a diverse array of states who were in touch with their capitals (with Russia represented by a former Deputy Foreign Minister and China by the Ambassador who would go onto be the PR currently on the Security Council). A lesson of Geneva May 2009 was Sri Lanka’s need for –and ability to—‘unite the many, defeat the few’, rally the broadest forces, construct coalitions, build alliances with those who stood for sovereignty and a multi-polar world, neutralise those vacillators in the middle, thus helping us balance off pressures on our national sovereignty from the Diaspora-driven, ‘humanitarian interventionist’ powers.
It is unsurprising though, that the revisionist critics fault me for failing to arrive at a negotiated compromise when the last example they set of successfully negotiated compromise was the post-tsunami ‘joint mechanism’ (PTOMS) of 2005 with the Tamil Tigers, leaving Hon Lakshman Kadirgamar out of the negotiating loop. This mechanism consisted of a top tier in which the legitimate Government of Sri Lanka and the Tigers were accorded equal representation and the more important middle tier in which the Tigers were conceded five seats to the elected government’s three! The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka froze the operation of the P-TOMS’ middle tier and effectively aborted that deadly act of appeasement.
It is amusing that the tactics of the Sri Lankan Geneva team of the 1980s are upheld as a model for the 2009 challenge. It was not, though the performance was skilled and competent. In the mid–to-late ’80s in Geneva, Sri Lanka was on the defensive, through no fault of its ably led team. In a lesson that may be apposite for March 2012 and beyond, but had no relevance for 2009, the Sri Lankan team of the ’80s found itself on the opposite side of India, while the latter had many allies and proxies. In such a situation Sri Lanka had to play for a draw as it were in Geneva. The crux of the matter, which has been avoided by the revisionist critics of our performance in Geneva 2009 and 2012, is the pivotal strategic significance of India for Sri Lanka’s external relations and those policy measures needed in the ‘intermestic’ realm to retain the support of that most critical of variables. I have been an unflinchingly consistent advocate of precisely such measures, and as a student of geopolitical Realism, have held that given especially the new strategic alliances, the road to Washington lies through Delhi.
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Today in the contemporary society there is a cost for everything, from the air that we breathe to the burial of the dead. But we never question the money’s worth for what we pay. Governments come and go, rules are enacted and shelved and applied to ones choosing, babies are born, killed and one’s life is sometimes snuffed out before being born. No one questions these nor are there answers one would be obliged to provide, life goes for the survival of the fittest. Man a social animal with more animalist inclinations living in a concrete jungle called modern conurbations. This is where we are today. We know the cost of everything and value of next to nothing. So is the cost of distrust. We do not know the cost of trust hence we fail to fathom the cost of distrust.
A society built on trust is sustainable, cheap and effective and value based. As opposed to this, distrust is a negative reflection of trust and it is prohibitively expensive, it costs one’s life, social harmony and economic growth of a nation.
In Sri Lanka, cost of everything is high and shooting higher and higher, the more the society is individuated from homogeneity the more we become socially and economically unsustainable and it would undermine all the systems that support society.
Individuation and division of people into segments and groups under various pretexts is good for market forces to make profit out of such atomisations, but this produces an unsustainable society.
For a society to sustain itself, it has to be homogenous, interdependent, sharing and caring so that in return it would produce social security, social harmony, efficient resource use, productivity and peace. The kingpin of such a cohesive society is mutual trust, inter-dependence and reciprocity. This is what we were once, and then, we did not have endemic poverty, civil strife, communalism and divisions as much as we have now.
The issues of distrust in Sri Lankan society can be categorised at three levels – individual, social and political. At the individual plane there is trust between people. The Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims in their neighbourhood have very cordial relations with each other as individuals and families. Similarly their individual business relationships and other transactions confirm inter-dependency amongst them. This is a healthy sign at the people level based on individual and family connections. Very rarely is there a rupture in their personal, private and business relations amongst them unless distrust by ones own misdemeanour spoils the relationship. Here, culture, language, race and religion have never been a dividing force and as opposed to this mutual understanding and respect and reciprocation has often strengthened the bonds across the divide. Remarkably, individuals and families hail from diverse backgrounds where mutual relationship is not inhibited by diversity, instead diversity plays a neutral role and it was humanity that binds these people together. That is why the many tourists and other foreigners call us a smiling people.
Apart from these, the commonality of the socio-economic problems that people face in general is common to all people irrespective of their diversity. Therefore, socio-economic problems of most Sri Lankans are common except where developments are driven to regions due to political power building than when it is national development centric. Therefore people, if left to themselves un-interfered by social and political leaders tend to maintain harmony and perpetuate good relationships amongst them at their plane.
For the people, ‘Distrust’ at their plane is prohibitively expensive and threatens survival. At this plane, there is no reason for distrust amongst them since everyone is fighting for their own survival and they have their own issues to look after than the issues of politics and economy which are controlled by the powerful segments of the society. Therefore, for them ‘Trust’ and mutual recognition is the way for their survival.
At the Social Plane the people are divided as communities,Sinhalese (Buddhists/ Catholics), Tamils (Hindus / Catholics) and Muslims (Consisting of many ethnicities) . Each group have their leaders who represent their communal interests in the larger fabric of society. There is a need for such leaders to genuinely represent their communities so that the interest of the community is furthered for their betterment. Like the people relationship at their plane, social and community leaders need to represent community at the higher plane to further engender social sustainability and harmony without undermining the sustainability of the other. Unfortunately, very often social and community leaders do not reflect the aspirations of the common people instead they tend to turn out to be liberators of their people and thereby carve a niche for them as another class. Then they use their liberationist thoughts about the other’s hegemony and create divisions amongst the people in order to consolidate and perpetuate their position as leaders. To justify their claim to leadership and to keep them perpetually relevant amongst their respective peoples, they invent new issues like Dambulla, Anuradhapura and similar issues so that they will have a following that gives credence to their leadership. It is this breed that spawn chauvinism in society for their private gains.
Since independence, how many social and community leaders have sacrificed their personal wealth and positions to the benefits of their communities? They are a very countable few and the rest are parasiting on their community and larger society.
The main tool that this breed of community leaders use is ‘Distrust’. They spread distrust amongst unsuspecting innocent people and create divisions among them and create a place for this special class. As was displayed in the Dambulla case, it is the silent majority that pays the price for maintaining this class of leaders. They do serious damage to the society, amongst a people who have no division, they divide and they spread mischief in a harmonious society in the name of looking after the interest of their community. This sort of leadership is a social evil that parasites on the society and does no good to the country.
This sort of leadership does not go after the social and economic ills that threaten their community or society. They are silent about the increasing number of drug addicts, alcoholism, spread of pornography, human trafficking, economic inequity, poverty, failure of health & education and social & moral degradation and the absence of social justice. Invariably they are very often found frolicking with those parties that suck the society through the aforesaid social ills and other means.
To the leaders at this level, building trust is an anathema and it threatens their survival and they are hell bent on spawning ‘Distrust’ among people in the name of culture, language, race, religion and country. Can we then expect them to build this nation as a civilised country that thrives in meritocracy and good governance?
At the political plane similar to the social plane, it was the social leadership that very often evolves as political leadership. As often, political leaders use social, religious or racial aspects as ladders to climb up the hierarchy by creating a voter base not based on intelligent policies but on divisive and chauvinistic beliefs.
Post Independence history testifies, that our political class parcelled out to people not pragmatic programmes of nation building but chauvinism, language to preclude the other, disfranchising the estate workers, removal of minority protection clause in the 1971 constitution, supposed Dharmishta Society and Dignified Peace as Unique Selling Propositions (USP)to come to power. In the process they let the country to bleed for 30years. No political groups accept responsibility for what they did to the country that destroyed the social fabric and economic infrastructure of a nation that Lee Kuan Yu once wished to emulate in the 1960s.
Even in Post War Sri Lanka, the political class is still bickering over how to consolidate power by hook or by crook than by presenting to people credible and pragmatic programmes and policies as a way forward to sustainable Sri Lanka.
The goodwill, bonds and human fraternity prevailing amongst all Sri Lankans are destroyed by the social and political leadership today. The USPs used by all these leaders is a mirage to people that they never achieved but resulted in distrust and division.
The people have built their lives around trust and understanding whereas the social and political leaders build their lives on distrust and division which percolates down the society as time goes and that is how our society has come to be so divided and vulnerable.
These point to a fact that when more and more people trust their social/communal and political leaders the people would breed distrust and get more polarised to give way for the corrupt leaders to drain the social and national resources for the betterment of the few who command.
Who gains by ‘Distrust’?
Today, spawning distrust in a society is an effective marketing tool. Spawning distrust in a harmonious society creates a paradigm shift and results in creating new market opportunities. As such, this society is bound to be conflict ridden as more and more market players would come to the scene to sell security, conflict resolution, anti-terrorism consultants and arms dealers. No doubt, Sri Lanka with all the paragons of peace active in their peaceful domains, distrust is an ever growing phenomenon and this is testified by the ever increasing defence allocation in Sri Lanka’s budget and the closeness that it is building with Israel – a country thriving in arms supply and paradoxical relationship with other countries in peace time.
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To some commentators the post-2009 era presents an opportunity to break with the past. This appears to be largely the official government desire as well. In his address to the nation, following the defeat of the LTTE, the Executive President of country made the provocative and controversial statement that minorities no longer exist in Sri Lanka. Yet post-war events in the country clearly suggest otherwise. The majoritarian imagination of the Sinhala polity along with the Tamil minority’s self-perception as a historically wronged community and Tamil nationalism’s lingering desire for separation as evidenced by the activities of some sections of the Tamil diaspora and local Tamil politicians are all part of Sri Lanka’s post-war reality. There are signs of further ethno-religious schisms as evidenced by the recent Dambulla mosque incident.
While reconciliation might be seen as a future process that builds trust and tolerance between divided communities, the term also carries strong implications of a return or restoration. However, Sri Lanka’s past, both pre- and post-independence, provides little evidence of an inclusive conception of nationhood. Other than the elite English-speaking Ceylonese identity that flourished briefly in the early twentieth century, and found political expression in the Ceylon National Congress, Sri Lankan political culture and more importantly its national cultural imaginary has always been marked by, for want of a better word, a communal and religious dynamic.
This is not to homogenize Sri Lankan history and suggest that ethno-religious divisiveness has been the norm. Indeed, it is possible to argue that as recently as pre-1956 there were better relations between communities and ethno-nationalist consciousness was not a dominant concern. For instance, in the contest for the ‘educated-Ceylonese’ seat in the 1911 Legislative Council elections the goigama Sinhalese backed a Tamil vellala caste candidate over a karava Sinhala candidate—caste concerns superseded ethnic/racial considerations. Nonetheless a space where Sri Lankaness could be evoked and experienced, as in ecumenical Gandhian nationalism in India, has been largely absent in Sri Lanka. The ‘imagined community’ of Sri Lanka, to invoke Benedict Anderson (1983), has never been fully realized.
Literature and the attempt to imagine an inclusive nation
Literary writing is often a space where the idealistic and imaginative is explored. In a number of post-1983 English language novels, writers have tried to counter contemporary ethno-nationalist polarization in the island by attempting to imagine moments of connection and collective identity. I chose here two novels: Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s iconic When Memory Dies (1997) and Yasmine Gooneratne’s The Sweet and Simple Kind (2006). Broadly similar in structure both novels look at the past and the familial domain to imagine spaces of inclusivity. Yet both texts also represent a failure of the imagination because they replicate the trajectory of the familiar narrative of Sri Lanka’s inexorable slide into ethno-nationalist conflict—the imaginative here is subsumed by the historical and the ‘real’.[1]
In When Memory Dies, a text that is unique and exemplary in the way it attempts to imagine an inclusive Sri Lankan identity, Sivanandan creatively exploits the early labor movement in colonial Ceylon to suggest a subaltern multi-cultural anti-colonial movement. The text also features a number of instances where individuals transcend ethno-religious boundaries. The young Vijay born to Sinhala parents but socialized in both Tamil and Sinhala cultures, because his Sinhala father dies before his birth and his mother subsequently marries a Tamil man, is the most iconic example of the text’s attempt to question the naturalization of ethnic identity. But like his parents inter-ethnic marriage, Vijay’s life ends in tragedy. While his mother Lali is killed by a Sinhala mob during the 1958 anti-Tamil riots Vijay who tries to act as an emissary of reconciliation between the South and North at the end of the book is executed by his own Tamil cousin, a rising figure in the northern Tamil militant movement.
Unlike When Memory Dies the Sweet and Simple Kind looks at the issue of a collective Sri Lankan identity from an elite English-speaking perspective. Gooneratne’s text suggests that it was the historic responsibility of the English-speaking elite to disseminate liberal values to society at large. Centering on the powerful Wijesinghes and their manorial residence Lucas Falls—easily identifiable as a pastiche of the Bandaranaike and Ratwatte families—the story is one of how the once liberal and British educated Wijesinghe patriarch and most of his clan succumb to expedient ethno-nationalist politics in search of political power. While the text’s historical vision and understanding of Sri Lankan history is far more limited than When Memory Dies, the narrative trajectory is similar—from the promise of an inclusive and tolerant society to one riven by ethno-nationalist divisions.
Both texts try to imagine alternatives to Sri Lanka’s current predicament by looking at the past, but the imagination falters when confronted by the ‘reality’ of the island’s present. I would argue that this is at least in part due to the realist genre. Realism is largely compelled to remain faithful to the historical record and reproduce things as they are. While a certain degree of creative license may be available the imagination can be stifled by the realist form. Its greatest strength is the very ability to generate what Rolan Barthes has called the “illusion of reality” and create believable life-worlds and this is also why the realist novel has played a central social role, especially in imagining the nation. But it is this same compulsion to be ‘real’ that limits and constrains the imagination.
If one were to contrast this with the career of the African novel in English, for instance, an immediate difference is apparent. The writing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o or Chinual Achebe, for example in its early phase was both realist and nationalist. Both writers saw the novel as a central literary artifact in in the process of decolonization. But as African post-colonial nationalism floundered Ngugi in particular abandoned the realist genre. This is what, American philosopher of Ghanaian origin, Kwame Appiah calls the post-realist and post-nativist turn in African literature.[2] If the earlier realist literary tradition contributed to nativist thinking and the naturalization of ethno-nationalist identities, post-realism helps the imagining of alternatives. But at the same time Ngũgĩ and many other post-realist African novelists are not post-national. While they may reject the conception of nation and nationalism as inherited from the colonial experience they try to imagine it in radically different ways.
Authenticity and the realist novel
Sri Lankan Sinhala writing has also been largely dominated by the realist mode. It may come as no surprise, therefore, that Gunadasa Amarasekara, arguably one of the most important and influential contemporary novelists, is a staunch defender of realism. For Amarasekara realism equates to authenticity. In Abudassa Yugayak, first published in 1976 and later updated in 1996, Amarasekara argues that the decline the Sinhala novel, following the work of Martin Wickremasinghe, is accompanied by social decline—the Sinhala novel he argues has failed in articulating a social vision that will help the Sinhalese rediscover their authenticity and become truly decolonized. Amarasekara repeats this theme across a number of his fictional texts as well as socio-political tracts. Exploiting outdated, but unfortunately widely prevalent positivist views on Sri Lankan history Amarasekara defines this authenticity as a form of transcendent Sinhala consciousness and a righteous form of governance associated with Buddhism which has survived for millennia from pre- to post-colonial times. The work of the novelist, as Amarasekara sees it, is to explore this notion of authenticity and how it can be realized in a modern social context.
Given the close association of the novel with the nation and the nationalist imagination it is unsurprising that a nationalist thinker like Amarasekara feels the need to defend it and uses it as a site to promote nativist thinking. What this evinces though is an inability to think beyond the legacies of certain modes of colonial thinking. Just as the form of the Sri Lankan nation state is the product of colonial-modernity so it seems is the literary imagination that accompanies it. The very ethnic identities that we take for granted today were crystalized in a complex negotiation between local actors and colonial forms of knowledge, institutional practices and practices of political representation. Imagining alternatives means the ability to be able to both critically reflect on these legacies but also to think beyond and outside them. From the perspective of literature perhaps we need a post-realist turn in Sri Lanka.[3]
To return to where I began if reconciliation means some kind of return, Sri Lanka needs to critically engage with the notion how an inclusive Sri Lankan identity can be generated. This necessarily means an encounter with the past—else we may have utopian declarations such as the one that minorities no longer exist. The past might not be the best inspiration for reconciliation in Sri Lanka but it does provide a template for how the nation should not be imagined. While Sinhala nationalism’s primary failure was and continues to be its unaccomodative majoritarianism, Tamil nationalism was equally majoritarian—it imagined and fought for a mono-ethnic Tamil nation. An ethical alternative to such majoritarianism needs to emerge. While critically engaging with the past we cannot be defined by it—only then might we be freed from the ‘tyranny of reality’.
References
- Amarasekara, Gunadasa. 1976 (1996). Abudassa Yugayak [An unreal time]. Boralesgamuwa, Sri Lanka: Visidunu Publishers.
- Anderson Benedict.1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
- Dwyer, Susan. 1999. “Reconciliation for realists”, Ethics & International Affairs 13(1): 81–98, March 1999.
- Gooneratne, Yasmine. 2006. The Sweet and Simple Kind. Colombo: Perera and Hussein Publishing
- Sivanandan, Ambalavaner. 1997. When Memory Dies. London: Arcadia.
[1] My reading of When Memory Dies here is indebted to Qadri Ismail’s incisive reading of the text in Abiding by Sri Lanka (2005).
[2] Post-realism is distinct from post-modernism. Post-realism does not necessarily entail a reaction or opposition to modernism. Post-nativist implies a critique of cultural essentialism. Nationalist thinking is often nativist as in Hindutva in India or Jathika Chinatanaya in Sri Lanka.
[3] Liyanage Amarakeethi in a recent article has suggested that such a post-realist turn is becoming visible in Sinhala writing.
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This essay is part of a series on the theme of post war reconciliation, justice and development initiated by the International Center for Ethnic Studies, (ICES). Colombo. The views expressed are the author’s own and does not necessarily represent the views of the ICES.
Photo provided by Nrityagram Dance Ensemble. All copyrights reserved.
Audiences in Colombo were over the weekend treated to Samhara, a collaboration between India’s Nrityagram Dance Ensemble and Sri Lanka’s Chitrasena Dance Company. Groundviews caught up with Nrityagram’s lead dancer Bijayini Satpathy, the artistic director and choreographer of Nrityagram, Surupa and Chitrasena Dance Company’s choreographer, Heshma Wignaraja.
We talked about the production, and the creative process that gave rise to it. The conversation focussed on rave reviews of the performance at the Joyce Theater in New York, and why they are averse to calling it a fusion of dance forms. We talk about the creative tension of modern day choreography juxtaposed with the form and tradition of Kandyan as well as Odissi dance, and how young, new audience with their own expectations are influencing each company to perfect their dance. Given the sheer technical prowess of dancers in this production, we also go discuss the problem of inspiring the next generation of dancers when so many are unwilling to make the self-effacing sacrifices needed to come remotely close to what audiences saw on stage at the Wendt.
The interview runs for just under 39 minutes. Some photos of the production sent to Groundviews by Nrityagram can be viewed beneath the video.
Groundviews and the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble have a long history. Nrityagram’s Director of the Odissi Gurukul Bijayini Satpathy was first interviewed by us, at the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya, in July 2009. As we noted then,
What Orhan Pamuk is to literature, Bijayini is to dance. She is effortlessly captivating. Having seen her dance on a couple of occasions, I was delighted when I got the opportunity to speak with her at length on the art of dance, her sojourn in Sri Lanka, her take on our own dance traditions, her bond to the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya and, in general, her experiences as a dancer, life in Nrityagram and the nature of a relationship between the guru and the student.
A year later, we caught up with Bijayini in an interview broadcast on public television in Sri Lanka.
Groundviews has also interviewed Chitrasena Dance Company’s Heshma Wignarajah. In that interview,
Similar Posts:We speak about how difficult it is for a woman to be part of what is a predominantly male Kandyan dance tradition and form. Given the changing nature of audiences, I ask Heshma who she sees as her audience – her answer is interesting, noting that it is not just an older generation interested in the Company’s productions. Towards the end of the interview, I ask Heshma about her approach to choreography, the sources of her inspiration and choreography’s place in a dance production.
- Heshma Wignaraja: Thoughts on dance and choreography
- In conversation with Bijayini Satpathy, Director of the Odissi Gurukul at Nrityagram
- Interview with Bijayini Satpathy, Director of the Odissi Gurukul at Nrityagram
- Thoughts on ‘Dancing for the Gods’ by the Chitrasena and Vajira Dance Foundation
- What Samhara Means: A review of Samhara and an unraveling of what it really means for Sri Lankan Dance
More than 5000 people packed Colombo’s Sugathadasa stadium (photo above) for the inaugural conference of the Peratugami Samajawadi Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party, FSP) on April 9, 2012. Photo and description courtesy Troubled Kashmir
Reading through Groundviews especially during the recent past, one would note that most contributions were in fact raising serious concerns over the core issue of governance as it is in Sri Lanka and the regime’s ideology in finding adequate answers for socio economic ills, the system itself carries as endemic.
One could safely assume, though Groundviews exposed and writers to Groundviews condemned the most recent Dambulla incident of insulting and depriving religious rights of the Muslim people, wanting reasonable and justifiable answers from this regime, there will be none. There were no reasonable answers for and culprits dealt with, in any of the previous attacks on churches and on the Muslim shrine in Anuradhapura in September, 2011. Every single such attack on other religious places had been instigated on a call from a Buddhist monk, or they have joined the religious mob parade, in the name of Buddhism. Funnily, Buddhism can only be “owned” by the Sinhala people within this island.
It runs on that awfully dominant social psyche created for waging war, now used to keep the military intruding into civil administration and the daily life of people, not only in North and East, but elsewhere too. It is the politicising of the whole State on this intimidatory Sinhala Buddhist politics with military power, that makes LLRC Recommendations anathema to this Rajapaksa regime. This type of power cabals can not provide any decent and disciplined governance, even to the racist constituency it uses for usurping unrestricted power, extending beyond the Constitution.
Hence the dismantling and muting of all institutions responsible for law and order in the country. This regime needs it to push and straighten its muscles and its goons the way it wishes. A disciplined and a “law and order situation” would not allow Mervyns, Dumindas, Muthuhettigamas and goons to continue with a Secretary to the Defence Ministry whom the foreign media tags as “the most powerful Secretary of Defence”, though Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is the most inefficient Secretary to the defence ministry since 1948.
The media avoids discussing Gotabhaya’s performance as Secretary to Ministry of Defence, which is appalling. Beginning in January 2010 which is post war, the police web site says, 877 out of 894 abductions reported, were accepted for investigations. The first quarter of 2011 has 235 abductions reported to the police, says the police web site. The GV noted in early April that according to media reports, February and March this year (2012) witnessed 29 abductions, while during the past 06 months up to April, there had been 56 abductions reported in the media.
In such context of mass abductions, police stations are mobbed and attacked by local citizens for custodial killings. Murder, rape of women and sexual abuse of children have all gone high during this Rajapaksa regime. Police and army personnel are accused of contract killing. There is also an increasing rate of suicides and homicides in the security forces, while every year since the war was declared victoriously over, the defence budget was consistently increased, at the expense of education and health. That defines the efficiency of this Secretary to the Defence Ministry, having taken the police department too under the ministry.
There is more to this regime, as to why it should be changed. Never has a Governor of a Central Bank (CB) played politics dirty and low as the present Governor Cabral. Never had one whose business into “Pyramid schemes” investigated by the CB, been appointed as its Governor. Never had any regime before, handed over the Treasury to one who was found responsible for big time fraud and was asked to leave public service by the Supreme Court for such fraud. And never had any Supreme Court allowed such proven guilt to be pardoned over a personal appeal to allow that same culprit to assume office as before. Now the two most important positions for the country’s economic survival and growth, are left at the hands of two, whose integrity and efficiency are beyond discovery.
This is no accident and not without political reason. Massive frauds are not possible, if a regime appoints clean and principled men to key positions. It is here worth noting that no ministry would have any mega corruption issue, IF the Secretary to the Ministry, who is the Chief Accounting Officer in the ministry and under whose signature all financial transactions take place, stands on his or her own integrity and open administration. The Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) is far from moulding righteous men or women.
This country, after 64 years of unrealised independence and people’s robbed sovereignty including over 06 years of Rajapaksa rule, can not be put to right with change of faces. Politics that decides power with mega corruption has BOUGHT OVER the whole State, justified by and continued as such with Sinhala Buddhist supremacy. The whole system of governance has now come to live as a Sinhalised corrupt system that needs total overhaul. That needs a democratic programme with a democratic leadership, not just a regime change. That’s where a decent, democratic “Left” programme could stand the test of social necessity.
Wickramasinghe, a political schemer though no public leader, seems the only Sinhala leader who understands this political dilemma. This Sri Lankan political dilemma is not in for any “Spring”, Arab or not. Not for now. For now, its the next parliamentary or presidential elections, hopefully in 2015 or 2016 if not earlier, that still holds hope for a regime change. Its for that elections the UNP leadership with Ranil Wickramasinghe (RW), is now gearing for. Its for that elections he is building bridges for a Sinhala – Tamil alliance. Wickramasinghe is hopeful, there would be a substantial Sinhala middle class drift, away from this Rajapaksa regime in the coming year or two.
He is not too far away from such possibility. The economy is turning out to be a major factor that decides allegiance of the Sinhala middle class; the academics, the professionals, public officers in districts outside Colombo and the small time service providers in urban and rural towns. RW is also well aware, the Colombo centred trade unions have turned away from supporting the Rajapaksa regime. In fact the workers go on record as the first organised sector that successfully challenged and defeated the government on the Employees’ Pension Fund Bill and on salary increase demands.
The UNP is being dragged to add the extras on to the growing slice of the disillusioned Sinhala vote, RW believes he could now muster. He believes the North – East Tamil and Muslim vote and that of the plantations, could tilt the balance in his favour. He may not be wrong as Rajapaksas are now facing mounting pressure from many fronts; international, economic and from the Indian side.
Yet what remains unanswered is, can RW and his UNP provide answers for all ills ? UNP can only talk of “corruption free” economic management. How true would such promises mean with the type of men RW could have in his cabinet ? Even if he runs with a small cabinet of ministers with “good people”, what is his development programme ? His neo liberalism, yet to be told is not what he advocated through “Regaining Sri Lanka”, is now a discarded model, worldwide. Well, yes ! The next man (or woman) bidding to head the SL government should now say where he or she stands on economic policy and social development, before asking for power.
Mitt Romney the next Republican prospect for US Presidency, accused Obama for leaning towards “Euro Socialism” in his efforts to turn around the ailing US economy. “Socialism” has already entered presidential campaign jargon. Two working papers (12/64 and 65) released by the IMF on 01 March, 2012 though not representing official IMF positions indicate, it was those few countries with strong protective labour laws that withstood global recession this time. This rubbishes the claim that SL has too rigid labour laws for growth, the cry of the second generation neo liberals.
Launching his latest book in Colombo, January this year, “Marx’s theory of Price and its modern Rivals”, the Hague based business consultant Prof. Howard Nicholas said,
The US and European Central Bank have together printed US$ 20 trillion in three years. Where is inflation? More money has been printed than was in the last 50 to 60 years in GDP terms. But you open any economic text book, what is the fundamental principle; inflation follows too much money. But where is the inflation? Neo classical economist cannot get out of this. Keynes tried to get out, but he never left a theory of price, resulting in an equally redundant theory of money. You have to come back to Marx.
He then said [quote] I became so impressed with Marx’s economics, purely as a scientific analysis of capitalists society, that I wanted to translate it into plain English. I want to butcher neo classical economics, the idealogical nonsense misleading generation after generation. Marxism does provide that alternative [unquote].
There is certainly an opening for a “Left Agenda” now. One that would propose a far reaching democratic agenda than what RW and his alliance with even the TNA could possibly offer. Serious reforms, this country needs for post war reconciliation and development. That agenda certainly would have to revert to a nationalist economy, that would guide the market on terms and conditions required for selective growth in the economy. It would not be a “free for all” economy and it would not be a “State owned and controlled” economy either.
It would be democratic to the extent, the whole development process would be within a “National Development Policy” that would go through a serious social dialogue, before achieving legal status through parliament. That national policy would define and decide the shape, size and colour of education, health, public transport, industry and agriculture for at least a 10 year period.
What is seriously more important should be, the total State Reform the “Left Agenda” has to offer, that RW and the UNP can never offer. This Sinhala State can not be changed with a few “independent commissions” though campaigned for as transitional issues against the Rajapaksa’s 18 Amendment. This centralised State would give no meaning to the 13th Amendment, even if it is given the colour of full implementation. It is too heavily centralised in many ways, for such implementation. This State therefore needs a complete overhaul with the abolition of the heavily centralised Executive Presidency. There can not be and will not be any worthwhile devolution of powers, even under RW, if centralised power is allowed in any form.
It is therefore important, the “Left Agenda” takes upon itself the responsibility of pushing through the proposal in the “Final Report” of the APRC, handed over to President Rajapaksa in June 2010. This proposal, though in the absence of the UNP and the TNA, brought together the widest consensus possible in the Sinhala South. It got all shades of Sinhala chauvinism to agree for power devolution within a Constitution that gives back a bi – cameral parliament, the powers now enjoyed by the Executive President. It is a new solution, the UNP and the TNA can not politically oppose. It thus could be campaigned for as the post war solution for Constitutional reform, with the strongest possible consensus among the Sinhala South, the Tamils and the Muslims.
Such far reaching changes on State Reform and economic development would not be offered by the UNP and Wickramasinghe, but in the present context, RW and the TNA can not afford to ignore such reform, if campaigned for. That provides a “Left Agenda” more space now in SL, despite the fact that there is no serious and credible “Left” political party or movement to lay claim for such an initiative.
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Poster for the film Oh My God
I was born into a Malay family, where religion never seemed to play an important role. Most of the women in my family hardly covered their heads and the men usually consumed alcohol at every family gathering. There were a few who were staunch believers and prayed five times a day; some of them even covered their heads. But this was a rare instance and most often, it was looked upon as an act of extremism.
Growing up, religion was never imposed on me. Unlike most Muslim children I knew at the time, my parents never forced me to pray, never pressured me to cover or refrained me from doing things that were usually frowned upon in Islam. They did, however, teach me some aspects of Islam. I was taught the Kalimas, the six articles of Islamic faith, the stories of Prophet Muhammad, of Adam and Eve, and of Jesus. I was taught to be scared of the fiery depths of hell, to be aware of the wrongful path of non-believers and to believe that they were all doomed to Hell. I was told to not have doubts about God, to not question his will because it was a sin to do so.
At the age of 14, I transferred from a government school to an all-girls private Muslim school, where I was exposed to stringent Islamic beliefs. I was taught how to read and write Arabic, how to recite the Holy Quran and how to pray and worship God. I saw that teachers were using fear as a technique to help children stay away from what was deemed evil. I learned that the things I thought were acceptable were no longer right, yet I still watched movies, listened to music, and celebrated birthdays. I still drew figures with eyes, and collected photos for family albums. I experienced the stigma of being a “Modern Muslim”, a “Hypocrite”, a “Malay” in the midst of those who followed the words of the Quran. I listened to the stories of my friends, stories that echoed their difficulties in having heart-to-heart conversations with their parents or their inability to go out without adult supervision. I felt their resignation to their already-planned future and I remember the ominous sound of their acceptance ringing in my ears. I heard of the 14-year old girl who got engaged, about the 18-year old who got married, about the 20-year old who already had two children. Throughout all this, I hardly prayed, yet I still believed.
It became clear that there were two types of Islam being practiced. One considered to be the right path by the majority, the religious and the pious – those who stayed away from alcohol, who prayed five times a day and who covered – yet were victims of basic human errors, of lying, of slander, of selfishness and of greed. The other were moderate followers, who believed in the same – in God, in Heaven and Hell, in the Prophets, in marriage to your own kind – yet rarely covered, or prayed, or abstained from temptations. I saw the pious looking down upon the moderates, while the moderates looked down upon them.
Later when I grew older, I was given the freedom to make certain decisions for myself. I was then told that when the time came, I had to marry a Malay. “It is a sin to marry non-Muslims”, she said, “But the moors are too religious. They will not get along with our family. A Malay.. You need to get married to a Malay”. She did not need to say what would happen if I said no, if I by some chance married an outsider. It was a silent acknowledgment and I knew, I knew that I would lose her if I disobeyed her wishes.
Then, the day came when I had to go off to work and suddenly, the world was not black and white anymore. Perhaps it was the non-Muslim environment, or maybe a part-and-parcel of growing up, but suddenly I felt the need to question God. What is the purpose of life? I remember the confusion, the unanswered questions, the countless hours of research. Shouldn’t religion give us the answers we seek? Or maybe my teachers were right, maybe if you analyze Islam too much, you might find yourself going astray? I tried to stop myself from letting my thoughts wander, to ignore the incessant questions in my mind but with each day, the need to find answers became stronger.
I looked around and saw the Muslim world suffering – the innocents in the Middle East, the terrorists fighting in the name of God and the image of Islam tainted and I could not understand why there was no divine intervention. It seemed convenient for God to simply let us be after the death of the last Prophet, after years of guiding humanity since the beginning of time. Are we not worthy? Are we not your creation too? If you are so humble and modest, why is that our lives/actions are judged according to how much we worship you? Why put us in this world to test our devotion to you? Do our lives, the hardships, the victories, the people we love, the people you made mean nothing but a twisted game to show Satan that humans still follow what you have to say?
I suddenly could not understand why it was forbidden to fall in love with another who believed in something different. Why is it that we were to think we are much better than the non-believers? I have spoken to them, laughed with them, confided in them, shared my food with them and worked along with them. They do not seem bad at all. In fact, they were friendly, compassionate and engaging – just like us. The more I spent time with them, the more I felt the barrier between non-believers and myself begin to blur. I no longer saw them as Buddhist, Tamils, Moors or Christians – I saw them as individuals. There were no preconditioned thoughts anymore and I no longer saw any reason to judge anyone, or look down at anyone who was in a relationship with a person of another faith.
Soon, I found myself no longer understanding Islam. In fact, I no longer understood religion. It seemed pointless – the conflicts, the arguments, the wars – which at the end of the day was one person’s view of making sense of the world over another’s.
Yet, I understand the need for religion in our society. Although, I believe that the religion we see today is a system of man-made beliefs, I realize that religion serves as a moral compass and limits us from committing certain acts, thereby establishing social order. I understand that the world is a scary place and that looking up to God in times of hardship helps. I also know that death is frightening, and believing that everything you go through in this world will pay off after-death is comforting. I know that sharing the same beliefs with another brings about a deep connection, along with an identity and sense of belonging. I see that in this complex world, finding meaning to your existence, a reason to live and a sense of purpose helps you get up every day. It makes people do good deeds, help those in need, to be selfless, to be kind, to accept one another and to be just.
But somewhere along the way, these harmless, good, and necessary elements of religion seems to have been forgotten. All I see now is conflict. I see people of a faith claiming to be far more superior than others. I see men oppressing women, women/men oppressing children, and children oppressing children of other faiths. I see men being killed and violence being carried out – all in the name of religion. I hear stories of couples eloping, their love for another rejected by their families, of children who think twice to confide in their parents in fear of being rebuffed and of homosexuals cowering in fear and committing suicide when society condemns them – all due to religious beliefs.
It is clear that rationality has become the enemy of organized religion, a force which drives wedges between people. It creates a mentality of “us vs them”, which refrains an individual from befriending others – breeding distance, suspicion and distrust – which leads to conflict, confrontation and warfare. It promotes the notion of “group thinking”, discourages individuality, encourages conformity and looks to “magical” answers rather than relying on science/technology. It fixates on storied past events, through which it derives social mores and beliefs – as if our understanding of the world has not expanded since then. It presumes that knowledge is static, and opposes anything that differs because it leads people away from God. It glorifies the concept of submissiveness, and advocates gullibility to believe on faith alone, regardless of seeking evidence.
Here’s what I think. I think, we need to start thinking rationally and question what we believe in. Its 2012, we have witnessed, learned, touched and experienced so much more (things deemed unimaginable a century ago) than those who compiled the holy books, who knew so little of the world, who probably would have come up with illogical reasonings to explain things that were beyond their comprehension. We need to take the good out of religion – its core values of peace, unity, tolerance, love, acceptance, selflessness, generosity, kindness and modesty and keep the bad out - superstition, sexism, racism, extremism, homophobia and violence. We are all given a rational mind and its time to be open-minded, to think objectively and critically about things that matter and about things that affect our families, our communities, our society and our country.
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March 12 1997 was a dark day when personal power was used to subjugate not only national laws but also to subvert the international environmental obligations of this nation. On this day, the President of Sri Lanka Mrs. Chandrika Kumaranatunge issued a directive under emergency regulations which stated that neither the national Environmental act no.47 of 1990, the Urban Development Authority law no.41 of 1973, the Nuisance Ordinance (chapter 230), nor the Criminal Procedure Code Act no.16 of 1976 “shall be in force or effect in so far as they relate to the generation of power and energy”. The public was never consulted and the move seems to stem from the insistence of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) the national power generating authority to override any environmental or social concern over their operating procedure.
This unilateral action by Mrs. Chandrika Kumaranatunge acting as the President of Sri Lanka, to suspend all national legislation pertaining to the environment and public safety in matters of power generation, heralded a new and somber period for both social and environmental rights. Power generation to feed the insatiable appetite for cheap power by foreign investors became a national priority. In terms of public health and environmental concern, this became a period of disenfranchising the democratic process by executive order. The poisonous seed sown then continues to yield, its bitter fruits even today
Internationally this action points to the impunity demonstrated by our ‘leaders’ towards their global responsibilities. Sri Lanka is a signatory to many international conventions and protocols, a case in point being the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), we have signed and ratified it. But what does this mean if in the interest of power generation all obligations under the convention can be relegated? Further, Sri Lanka is obliged to report to the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), as well as to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) have we ever reported that all environmental safeguards have been nullified by presidential decree? Of course not! An example of the fiction still being presented to the world by the bureaucrats is illustrated by an example from our 2008/2009 report to the MDG, under MDG #7 We answer the (target) question 7B, What progress have we made ‘To reduce Biodiversity loss, by 2010? as ‘Satisfactory Progress’. Satisfactory progress? Ask any Sri Lankan with a modicum of knowledge as to how our biodiversity has progressed in those years!
Unfortunately such impunity has also gone unaddressed by the international organizations concerned. Soon after the odious presidential decree of 1977, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) agreed to supply Sri Lanka with money to develop a national program on environmentally safe power generation. The implementation of this project in a scenario where all environmental laws are suspended for power generation brings into question the credibility of the GEF process in Sri Lanka and undermines the hard work of a multitude of Sri Lankan citizens who created and framed the national environmental legislation.
The impunity demonstrated then has grown into a veritable monster today. We are a state unaccountable to the global responsibilities that we have committed ourselves to maintain. As we prepare for our role at the Global Environmental meeting Rio + 20. We are moving rapidly from being a Carbon sink to a Carbon emitter. Burning ever increasing and expensive fossil fuels, to power the ‘idiot development’ of today. Even the reflective day of Vesak, has been turned into massive carbon emitting circus today. In this context, it might behoove us to examine the stand of other nations claiming to be Buddhist and globally responsible, the Prime Minister of Bhutan, in the lead up meetings to Rio +20 has categorically stated, “Bhutan will always be a Carbon sink.”
In his recent statement in reference to Bhutan’s contribution to Rio+20, he noted, “ We need to re-think our entire growth based economy so that we can thrive more effectively on our own resources in harmony with nature. We do not need to accept as inevitable a world of climate chaos and financial collapse “. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka we have a cacophony of ‘economic-growth-is-development’ sycophants who cry for the acceptance of the current economic status quo, fearful of change and asking someone else to make the first move.
Well, someone has. The Hon Prime Minister of Bhutan also states “ Economic growth is mistakenly seen as synonymous with well- being. The faster we cut down forests and haul in fish stocks to extinction, the more the GDP grows. Even crime, war, sickness and natural disasters make the GDP grow, simply because these ills cause money to be spent”. I wonder if our ‘leaders’ can ever realize such fundamental truths.
As we ready ourselves for Rio+20, who will represent us? Will those attending present the public with what we, as a nation will present? Or what our national stand will be? Or will some nameless bureaucrat or dense politician mouth some meaningless platitudes and use the opportunity for travel and shopping?
Desire; as the Buddha has said will always lead to pain. No Nation claiming to be Buddhist can promote consumerism and desire as development. Now that another Buddhist nation has shown a lead will we support this brave call for a change? Or will we always be a nation of hypocrites, merely voicing Buddhism as a cover for our ills and misdeeds and never demonstrating any action to conform to the values and ideals set out by the Buddha?
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Photo credit JDS
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1991 in a contribution titled “Human development and human dignity” stated that “Respect for human dignity implies commitment to creating conditions under which individuals can develop a sense of self-worth and security. True dignity comes with an assurance of one’s ability to rise to the challenges of the human situation. Such assurance is unlikely to be fostered in people who have to live with the threat of violence and injustice, with bad governance and instability or with poverty and disease. Eradicating these threats must be the aim of those who recognize the sanctity of human dignity and of those who strive to promote human development. Development as growth, advancement and the realization of potential depends on available resources—and no resource is more potent than people empowered by confidence in their value as human beings. The concept of human development is no longer new. But some analysts still consider its aspirations bold and daring—some might say overwhelming and foolhardy. The problems are innumerable, forever changing and forever the same—a complex, fluid spectrum of social, economic and political issues that is impossible to grasp entirely. That it defies delimitation is the core of the challenge posed by the task of human development. It demands constant effort and capacity for rethinking, flexibility and fast reactions. The process of human development calls for human resolve and ingenuity. Hopeless, helpless people stripped of their dignity are hardly capable of such activities. And so we return to the link between human development and human dignity.
Human development encompasses all aspects of human existence. It is generally accepted that its
scope includes political and social rights as well as economic ones—but the different rights are not always given the same weight. For example, some people still claim that humanitarian aid and economic assistance cannot wait for political and social progress. This insidious idea creates dissonance between complementary requirements. If the people that aid targets are not empowered, it cannot achieve more than a very limited, very short-term alleviation of problems rooted in long-standing social and political ills. After all, human development is not intended to produce impotent objects of charity.
At this time when the world is preoccupied with the menace of terrorism, it is worth considering that
people who feel deprived of control over their lives—necessary for a dignified life—are liable to search for fulfilment along the path of violence. Merely providing them with a certain material sufficiency is not enough to win them over to peace and unity. Their potential for human development has to be realized and their human dignity respected so that they can gain the skills and confidence to build a world strong and prosperous in harmonious diversity.
The Human Development report Office, addressing the issue “Good governance—for what?”, takes the position that “from the human development perspective, good governance is democratic governance. Democratic governance means that:
- People’s human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected, allowing them to live with dignity.
- People have a say in decisions that affect their lives.
- People can hold decision-makers accountable.
- Inclusive and fair rules, institutions and practices govern social interactions.
- Women are equal partners with men in private and public spheres of life and decision-making.
- People are free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or any other attribute.
- The needs of future generations are reflected in current policies.
- Economic and social policies are responsive to people’s needs and aspirations.
- Economic and social policies aim at eradicating poverty and expanding the choices that all people have in their lives”.
This article next draws on the project entitled “Map-Making and Analysis of the Main International Initiatives on Developing Indicators on Democracy and Good Governance” commissioned by the Statistical Office of the Commission of the European Communities (EUROSTAT) with the overall objectives to provide a synopsis of the different approaches and methodological options available for measuring Democracy and Good Governance and the increased efficiency in the development of indicators related to Democracy, Human Rights and Good Governance aimed at monitoring governmental action. Refer University of Essex – Human Rights Centre publication.
Some critical issues and comments extracted from the above report noted below read together with the aforesaid two quotations are of value to those in Governance in the effective implementation of the LLRC Report;
- Both democracy and good governance remain ‘essentially contested concepts’ (Gallie 1956), since there is not now, nor will there likely be, a final consensus on their definition or content. It is not surprising, therefore, that the European Union avoids defining the term ‘democracy’. For instance, in the revised fourth Lomé Convention it opted instead for the phrase ‘democratic principles’ (Article 5, revised fourth Lomé Convention). It did so in order to emphasize ‘the universally recognized principles that must underpin the organization of the state and guarantee the enjoyment of rights and fundamental freedoms, while leaving each country and society free to choose and develop its own model’ (European Commission 1998). The European Commission considers that the principles can be defined in terms of three fundamental characteristics: legitimacy, legality and effective application.
- There is much greater clarity concerning human rights. These have now been codified in a wide range of UN and regional texts. The UN legal framework comprises the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and six other core treaties and covers civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. Human rights have been recognized by the world community as being universal – every human being is entitled to these rights simply by reason of being human.
- It is also recognized that all human rights, be they civil and political or economic, social and cultural, are indivisible and inter-dependent (World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 1993). Neither branch of human rights should be given priority over the other, and states have the primary obligation to respect, protect and ensure the universal enjoyment of all human rights. Governments have the obligation to ensure enjoyment of some human rights immediately, whilst others, predominantly economic, social and cultural rights, are to be realized progressively. These are important distinctions when it comes to measuring government performance in the field of human rights. It is also important to distinguish between government obligations on the one hand, and enjoyment of human rights by individuals and groups on the other, in order that appropriate measurement tools might be developed for each of these aspects.
- The term ‘good governance’ emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s primarily in the World Bank, which was concerned about the ways in which governance influenced economic performance (see World Bank 1992). The economic dimension of good governance has variously included public sector management, organizational accountability, the rule of law, transparency of decision-making, and access to information. This idea was taken on board by the OECD and EU and integrated into its requirements for development assistance. It was later expanded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to incorporate a political dimension that includes government legitimacy, government accountability, government competence, and the protection of human rights through the rule of law.
- The European Commission has defined good governance as ‘the transparent and accountable management of all a country’s resources for its equitable and sustainable economic and social development’. It lists a number of aspects of good governance, such as equity and the primacy of law in the management and allocation of resources, an independent and accessible judicial system and transparency, and recognizes that corruption is the main obstacle to good governance (European Commission 1998).
- More recently, the European Commission has regarded the term as comprising six components: human rights, democratization, the rule of law, the enhancement of civil society and public administration reform (including decentralization) (Draft EC Good Governance Manual, version created 04/02/2003). In other words, it regards democratization and respect for human rights as being essential ingredients of good governance. As we have seen above, the EC also regards democratic principles as “Underpinning the guarantee of the enjoyment of rights and fundamental freedoms, and thus regards all three categories as being interlinked.”
- Indeed, the most popular definitions of democracy and good governance now include reference to the protection of certain categories of human rights, especially civil and political rights. But they also make reference to some economic and cultural rights, such as property rights and the rights of minorities (see Foweraker and Krznaric 2000). Similarly, definitions of human rights, drawn from the long history of their international legal evolution make reference to the right to participate in public affairs and democratic decision-making, and make explicit reference to a right of everyone to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives (e.g. Article 21(1) of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Moreover, many consider democracy to be ‘hollow’ without the protection of civil and political rights (Diamond 1999), while governance is considered to be ‘bad’ without the rule of law and the protection of human rights.
- Despite their inextricably linked components, the concepts of democracy, human rights and good governance should not be seen as equivalent concepts since each has important exclusive characteristics as well as shared elements.
UN Development Report 2002 states that the following objective criteria alone do not reflect the state of democracy; Human Rights and Good governance are effectively in place;
13. UN Development Report 2002 has identified the following as the subjective indicators that must be assessed;
Some of the key recommendations of the LLRC Report (extracted from a document developed by the Marga Institute) are summarized below linking the recommendations to Democracy, Good Governance, and Human Rightsas defined above;
- Death or injury to citizens and Disappearances after surrender/arrests -(Ch.4)-Ascertain more fully the circumstances under which such incidents occurred, investigate, prosecute and punish wrong-doers and provide redress to next of kin-promotes accountability/rule of law
- Medical supplies-(Ch.4)-Further examination of supplies during the final days given humanitarian considerations- validates effectiveness of public health care
- Conduct of LTTE and Lessons to learn on application of IHL -(Ch.4)-Violations of Human Rights and IHL by ex combatants and cadres be investigated, offenders prosecuted and punished and formulate an effective legal framework -Upholds HR conventions and Rule of Law
- Casualties-(Ch.4)-Conduct household survey covering all affected families in all parts of the island and the circumstances of death, injury and damage to property- promotes accountability/rule of law
- Channel 4 Video-(Ch.4)- Institute an independent investigation and act in accord with applicable laws- promotes accountability/rule of law
- Missing persons, disappearances and abductions-(Ch.5)- promotes civil liberties, accountability/rule of law
- A Special Commissioner to investigate and provide material to AG to initiate criminal proceedings
- An Independent Advisory Committee to examine detentions and arrests under Emergency Regulations and PTA
- Domestic legislation to criminalize enforced or involuntary disappearances
- Island wide HR education programmes covering armed services, police and youth and children etc
- Detainees-(Ch.5)- promotes civil liberties, accountability/rule of law
- Full implementation of Interim Recommendations
- Centralised comprehensive database
- Cooperation and constructive engagement with ICRC and similar humanitarian organizations assuring welfare of detaineesFull implementation of the action plan for rehabilitation of ex-child combatants
- Investigate allegations and institute proceedings against offenders
- Disarm all illegal armed groups
- Establish a multi-disciplinary task force towards a comprehensive child tracing programme
- Investigate perpetrators of conscription and offenders be brought to justice
- Effective high level monitoring of civil administration officers tasked with the implementation of policies aimed at nurturing ethnic harmony and national reconciliation ensuring no unnatural changes to demographic patterns, with irrigation and land settlements, distribution of state land and effective return and resettlements taking place with social justice and in line with the Constitution.
- Towards this objective ensure political leaders, implementers, public officers and community leaders are made aware of overall objectives, risk mitigation action steps, effectively communicated in languages of choice
- Establish as per 13th amendment a National Land Commission to propose future national land policy guidelines
- Illegal Armed Groups-(Ch.5)- promotes civil liberties, accountability/rule of law
- Conscription of Children-(Ch.5)- Upholds HR conventions, promotes civil liberties, accountability and Rule of Law
- Vulnerable groups-Meeting basic needs in the post conflict environment and providing comprehensive medium to long term sustainable solutions for challenges and cross cutting issues faced by Women, Children, Elderly, disabled and internally displaced persons, Muslim Community in the NE, Freedom of expression and right to information, freedom of religion, association and movement, all coordinated by an Interagency Task Force -(Ch.5)- promotes of democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Land Issues-(Ch.6)- promotes of democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Restitution Compensatory Relief-(Ch.7)- The State to review the role and capacity of Institutional support in the post conflict environment and in providing compensatory relief to persons affected by the conflict-Promotes Good Governance
- Common Vision-(Ch.8)- The need to articulate a common vision of an interdependent, just, equitable, open, and diverse society towards developing a shared value throughout the Sri Lankan society built as one yearning for peace, security, amity and harmony ensuring the realization of legitimate rights of all citizens. – Will be the foundation for promoting democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Grievances of the Tamil Community, Grievances of the Muslim Community, Grievances of the Tamils of Indian Origin, Grievances of the Sinhalese in Adjacent Villages, Majority Minority Relations, -(Ch.8)-Effectively addressing these grievances will promote harmony, reconciliation and pave the way towards achieving the common vision.- Will be the critical first steps in promoting democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Failure to give effect to Rule of law-(Ch.8)- The need for effective law enforcement by an independent and impartial Police with an independent permanent Police Commission- A fundamental building block for democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Issues of Governance, -(Ch.8)-The need for concerted action by stakeholders to ensure efficient and effective administrative systems delivered by independent and impartial civil service upholding good governance. – A fundamental building block for democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Institution to deal with citizen grievances- Giving teeth to an independent and impartial office of the Ombudsman linked to feeder institutions at district and provincial levels and be supported by an independent Public Services Commission and the administration of the Northern province reverting to civilian administration are amongst the several key recommendations-Fundamental building block institutions for democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Devolution of Power, -(Ch.8)- . A political solution involving effective and resourced power devolution is imperative to address the cause of the conflict- Will be the foundation for promoting democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Language Policy-(Ch.8)- Full and effective implementation of the Language policy in a manner promoting understanding, diversity and national integration.- Will be the foundation for promoting democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Education-(Ch.8)-Removal of all barriers towards equitable and effective education facilities for all segments of society across the island targeting talent development meeting national human resource needs- Will be the foundation for promoting democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
- Diaspora-(Ch.8)-A multi disciplinary task force to engage the Diaspora get them involved effectively in the reconciliation process-Will support shared values to develop amongst the Diaspora and be an added building block
- Interfaith activities-Role of Religion-(Ch.8)-Establish a mechanism to serve as an early warning system as a preventive measure to ensure that communal or religious tensions does not lead to conflict and undermining law, order, peace and reconciliation.
- Art and Culture and People to people contact- -(Ch.8)-Will support shared values to develop and be an added building block
- Need for Political Consensus -(Ch.8)- The process of reconciliation requires a full acknowledgement of the tragedy of the conflict and a collective act of contrition by the political leaders and civil society, of both Sinhala and Tamil communities. A separate event be set apart on the National Day to express solidarity and empathy with all victims of the tragic conflict and pledge our collective commitment to ensure that there should never be such bloodletting in the country again.- Will be the supportive roof of the shared values embedded house of Sri Lanka.
- Overall- A high level monitoring mechanism to oversee the implementation expeditiously- The most critical action towards assuring democracy; Human Rights and Good governance.
It can therefore be concluded that expeditious and effective implementation of the LLRC recommendations will lead to meaningful democracy; Human Rights and Good governance in Sri Lanka.
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do you feel it every day?
When you’re buying groceries,
taking a train to somewhere;
when you smoke, eat or dream?
Does it take a toll? Make your feet drag, perhaps,
or your head ache?
*
Tell me,
Does it get away from you sometimes?
Have people around you sensed something
not quite right,
caught that glint in your eye (there for just a second,
and gone the next)
and wondered what it was that made their skin
crawl?
Or have they wished you good morning every day,
sat down to lunch with you, asked how your mother was,
without ever having a clue?
*
Tell me,
where does it hide? What shape does it take?
I imagine a boiling lava, burning in the pit of your stomach,
roaring with something other than hunger.
Or a demon that sits on both your shoulders,
having laid waste to the angel of good conscience,
whispering secrets and schemes into your ear.
Does it tell you who is ‘evil’ and who is ‘good’,
who should live; who deserves to die?
Did it convince you that you were fighting
a necessary war,
even though your so-called ‘enemies’
wished you no harm;
didn’t even know your name,
let alone that you wished them dead?
*
Tell me,
when did it first plant its seeds?
When did you first start to separate
‘us’ from ‘them’;
first start to see origin as a fault,
a punishable crime?
Was it the age old offender – the colour of their skin?
Or perhaps it was the lilt of the accent, the different dress or faith.
Then, as terrorism familiarised itself with the whole world,
you made the connection;
mistrusted them all the more,
finally turned to terror yourself.
*
Tell me,
does it still speak to you now?
Does it pull your mouth into a smile,
or, like a puppet-master, draw up your hand in salute
as you tell the world how and why you ended 77 lives?
Does it hide, malevolent, behind your eyes, watching weeping survivors?
Does it make your hands wish for weapons; your fingers for a trigger?
Does it croon over you at night,
sending you to sleep with its restless, congratulatory lullaby?
*
Tell me, has it made you mad?
I hope it has.
While thousands, probably millions hope for ‘guilty’,
I hope for ‘insane’.
Because if you are ‘guilty’, it means you did this
simply because you wanted to; because you could.
It means there are others out there, just like you –
‘normal’ but not.
Plotting to kill anyone
for any reason.
Who’s to say I’m not offending someone like you right now,
with my brown skin and my accent?
What if they too would plot to kill me because of a part of my identity
that I cannot choose for myself; that I was born with?
*
Tell me you are insane.
At least then your crimes would be senseless
in every sense.
And ironically, that would make
at least some sense
to me.
* Inspired by the Breivik trail
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Image courtesy Odel
They’re called thongs in Australia, jandals in New Zealand, Hawaii chappals in India and Pakistan. According to Wikipedia, they’re known as slip-slops in South Africa, go-aheads in the South Pacific, japonkis in Poland, and vietnamkis in Russia. The standard term in the UK and the US is flip-flops. Here in Sri Lanka they’re most commonly referred to as rubber slippers; also bathroom slippers, and Bata slippers (or Batas). And some of us like to talk about our Arugam Bays.
To a speaker of British English, slippers are an item of footwear worn inside the house. They are usually closed but loose-fitting, and often fur-lined to keep your toes warm. It’s unlikely that you would step outside in them. But in other less chilly parts of the English-speaking world, the word slippers is more likely to refer to any type of open sandal, usually made of leather, plastic or rubber, including flip-flops. In South Asia, slippers are the ubiquitous footwear except when a more formal closed shoe is required.
This raises a dilemma for teachers of English. Should we teach learners that rubber slippers must be called flip-flops, that other types of open footwear must be called sandals, and that the word slippers can only refer to furry indoor footwear, as standard dictionaries such as the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary would have us believe?
Personally, I do not believe that Sri Lankan learners should be penalised or corrected for using the words slippers and rubber slippers as they are used in standard SLE. If foreign teachers of English are unfamiliar with the local variety of English, it is up to them to familiarise themselves with it as far as possible. And while rubber slippers may be considered specific to SLE, the widespread use of slippers to mean any type of open sandal is one which modern dictionaries really ought to reflect.
However, learners of English need to be made aware of the differences between SLE and other varieties of English. A word such as flip-flops is likely to be encountered in many international English contexts, including of course here in Sri Lanka. And the truth is that, despite its playful onomatopoeic derivation, flip-flops enjoys a higher prestige status than the more straightforwardly descriptive rubber slippers thanks to its international UK/US credentials.
The flip-flops/rubber slippers dilemma is of course just one rather trivial example of an issue facing teachers of English in Sri Lanka: how to give due recognition to the local variety of English, and raise learners’ awareness of its validity in a Sri Lankan context, while at the same time making them aware of international standards, and empowering them to make their own choices about how they use the language?
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once independent island,
is the appointment
of a presidential committee
to decide upon which
recommendations to adopt
regarding the erstwhile
ethnic question, which
has been subsumed
into the unitary enterprise
of the war-fighting, now
North and East-occupying,
government dedicated
to paying appropriate attention
to the international human
rights lobby and European
and American states.
Nothing like a committee
to push the football away,
like the many formed
and dissolved
in the past without
achieving laws,
but which gained time
for the family
to work and play.
- Beam Me Up to Planet Football!
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Image courtesy Reuters
Two Veask Poyas have come and gone and three years have sped by since May 2009 when the prolonged war with the LTTE ended. And we Sri Lankans are yet trapped in post-war rhetoric and caught up in punches and counter-punches arising from different visions of what post-war Sri Lanka ought to be. Debates on who is a patriot/nationalist and who is a traitor have raged. Some Sri Lankans, sadly, have tended to the viewpoint that saving face is more important than national self-preservation and self-respect. Is one who has a honest disagreement with the government in office, no matter how different and opposed to that of the establishment point of view his/her opinion may be, actually a traitor? No fair-minded Sri Lankan will think so. Conversely any citizen who uncritically agrees with everything the establishment says or does is not ipso facto a patriot or a sensible nationalist. Happily most Sri Lankans, not blinded by bigotry or misguided by narrow political loyalties, are fair-minded human beings.
We must not permit propaganda from any quarter to colour our opinions. In all situations where misperception and confusion seem to prevail, and seemingly powerful voices seek to fashion opinion and thereby lead us to indiscretion , we must fall back on our convictions and the courage stemming from the latter to act independently. To question dominant views, subject them to our intelligent scrutiny and then respond meaningfully to them is a duty we owe to our fellow-sufferers on life’s complex journey, as exhorted by the supreme human being whose birth, life and death we commemorate as we mark another Vesak Poya in a few days.
Way too many of us who subscribe to the tenets of Buddhist philosophy tend merely to pay lip service to them. If we truly believe in metta ,karuna mudita and upekka, the freedom of thought and enquiry as outlined in the Kalama Sutta, and above all for today’s purposes, the concept of equality that Buddhism seeks to teach those of us willing and able to learn, then there is no basis whatsoever for the majority of Sri Lankans who are followers of the Buddha dhamma to behave the way we have done and are doing today. To be certain, the Buddha by means of his spiritual emphasis on equality, was opposing the iniquitous caste system and the social discrimination that prevailed in his time in India, but his teachings on equality of all human beings are also equally applicable to discrimination on grounds of ethnicity. According to Buddhist philosophy then the rights of all human beings must be protected. No one community or group has special rights that others do not or cannot enjoy. All of us are afraid of punishment, moreso when such punishment is unjust and uncalled for. Buddisht philosophy reminds us that this fear of unjust punishment stems from our human determination to be free from dukka during our samsarik existence: Sabbetasanti dandassa/ sabbe bayanti maccuno is how the dhamma explains this to us. The Sigalovada Sutta similarly teaches us to respect one another and points us in the direction of how to get on with our fellow citizens along life’s difficult journey towards nibbana.
It is my fervent hope that we Sri Lankans will begin from 2012 Vesak onwards to shed our irrational fears and animosities springing from inter- ethnic or intra-ethnic differences and learn to live together in peace and harmony. We have gone through more than three decades of awful violence, deep pain and monumental tragedy. There is no Sri Lankan regardless of his or her ethnicity who has not been adversely affected one way or the other in the last several years. Some who are yet not aware what exactly has happened to certain of their loved ones who have disappeared continue to suffer even today long after the guns have fallen silent. Anger at what has happened is the emotion that comes easily to us and we must avoid this negative emotion at all costs. Samyutta Nikya (SN 1.71) reminds us that anger is the only thing that is good to kill and in verses 3.14 and 3.15 it notes that in war, there is no winning side. All who participate in war ultimately end up as losers. Additionally in the Dighavu-kumara Vatthu: The Story of Prince Dighavu (Mahavagga 10.2, 3-20 PTS: Horner vol 4, pp.489- 498) we are told that only forbearance, never revenge, can bring an end to war.
Instead of creating fresh wounds in our fractured community, we must hasten to build bridges of human understanding in addition to building those urgently needed bridges to speedy economic development. Both building projects must go hand in hand as they are not mutually exclusive. Sri Lanka cannot hope to achieve economic prosperity without social contentment. One is reminded in this regard of Bhutan’s concept of the Gross National Happiness Index(GNHI). The fact that we may have more money in our pockets will not make us content. We will be nearer contentment when all of us citizens are made to feel we have a stake in our country regardless of our ethnicity and our social status, no matter how far we may be from the centre of political power. The fact that some citizens are not in agreement with our political masters of the day should not be a reason to label them as traitors and be made guilty of treason. It is when we are made free of the tentacles of the ‘national security state’ that Sri Lanka has slowly evolved into in the last four decades or so that we will begin to feel secure in our own country once more. The freedom to think and act responsibly without fear of unjust reprisals from the state or its law enforcement agencies will also contribute handsomely to the promotion of the kind of contentment referred to above.
And above all, we must mark the anniversary of the third year of the end of the war that falls on the 18th of May by re-doubling our efforts at achieving lasting peace and true reconciliation in Sri Lanka. I suggest that we do away with the ostentatious military parades and exhibitions that are usually held at this time of year. They smack of triumphalism and seek to divide us further rather than unite us. By all means, let us bear in mind lessons learnt and not forget what damage violent extra-parliamentary challenges can cause to democratically elected governments and the state in general. But to forgive those that have harmed us, whether they hail from the north or south, and whether they are Tamil or Sinhala, is essential. As the old saying has it, to err is human, forgive divine. Such forgiveness ideally ought to be accompanied by multi-religious observances and commemoration of the dead regardless of the fact that they died attacking or defending the state. It is our fellow citizens who died on either side of the conflict, not outside invaders. By our collective (politico-moral) sins of commission and omission, we caused the southern and northern insurgencies to materialise. Hence all of us are culpable for the violence and mayhem that have recently taken us and our country away from our true character and nature. It would be perfect if the President and the government take the lead in this regard and set the rest of the country an example. Let the 18th of May, 2012 mark a new beginning for our battered state. We may be assailed on many a front, but through the demonstration of our true national resilience based on our wonderful religio-cultural values, let us prove that while we may be down we are far from out. We have it in ourselves to resurrect, resuscitate and revitalize our country.
The battle for peace and reconciliation must be fought and won in and though the hearts and minds of the people of Sri Lanka, Tamil, Muslim, Malay, Burgher and Sinhala. Let us discard all false labels that, at the end of the day, do not hold any meaning. Let us stop squandering our national energies on frivolous debates on traitors and patriots. Let us cease shooting our messengers and instead seek to heed their messages. Let us not seek to make enemies of our friends the world over and instead extend our hand of friendship to them once again as we have traditionally done. A Sri Lankan welcome is something visitors to our shores treasure forever. A few days ago, I bumped into a British couple at a bookshop who told me that this was the 21st year running that they have visited Sri Lanka and how much they love the island. And, this expression of appreciation for our island home is by no means an isolated phenomenon. A significant number of Sri Lanka’s admirers feel the same way. There is much goodwill out there which could so easily be harnessed for our collective well being. There are thus very good and cogent reasons why we should think anew as the Veask Poya of 2012 dawns on us. We should endeavour to marshal our thoughts and energies along these reasons, avoid the dangers emanating from the extreme diasporic Tamils and ultra-nationalists alike at home and engage with Sri Lanka’s moderate middle to achieve a national renaissance that will carry us into the kind of future Sri Lanka and all Sri Lankans deserve.
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Original photograph REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
It is always a curious and odd little matter, to witness how even Buddhists become so obsessively attached to ‘sacred’ lands and in protecting them, commit acts seemingly prompted by hatred, delusion and ill-will.
Ideally, lands should not become ‘sacred’ for simple reasons. The Buddha, in attacking the rigid and unethical caste-system during his time, placed great stress on the importance of deeds or action. That was why it was said (in the Vasala sutta) that one did not become a Brahman (or an outcast) by birth, but by deed. That wonderful message ought to have taught us a very valuable lesson, which, to rephrase the Buddha, could be stated as follows: that a land becomes a ‘sacred’ (or Buddhist) land not by anything else but only by the words and deeds of those inhabiting that land. Even a place of religious worship would lose its sacredness if, in the guise of religion, all manner of nefarious activities are carried out therein. In such cases, your virtuous neighbour’s backyard becomes more sacred than the ‘sacred’ land or place of worship.
However, these are not ideal times and ideal societies. Laws and regulations can be enacted empowering ministers and other officials to declare a particular territorial area a sacred land. And of course, this is not a practice limited to Buddhists alone. But when mob violence is seen to be propagated, as was done in Dambulla on the 20th of April – when a number of Buddhist monks and laymen stormed a mosque in Dambulla and demanded the dismantling of that mosque – we know, very well, that something is not quite right; not only in the ‘sacred’ land of Dambulla, but also in this supposedly Buddhist-country.
Dambulla mob attack: some concerns
The immediate concerns arising from the unfortunate vulgarity exhibited by some Buddhist monks and their lay followers have been already highlighted. In what was said by some of the protesting monks, there are the obvious traces of violence, racism, religious extremism and that burning desire, if necessary, to cleanse the territory concerned of the ‘other’ (the ‘other’, in this case, being the follower of the Islamic religion). How this plays out politically – domestically and internationally, both against the country and against Buddhism – is easy to understand.
But there are other concerns too.
Firstly, the demeanour of such monks – who seem to be going against some of the fundamental precepts of the Dhamma, one being indriya samvara sila (morality concerning sense-restraint), which is one form of sila or morality a monk (a bhikkhu) is expected to follow – contributes greatly to the doubt and skepticism that is generated in the minds of the lay Buddhist follower today. The sangha community (or the community of Buddhist monks) has been traditionally, and principally, looked upon as a community which guides the layman in the path of the Dhamma and morality.
And given that it is the members of this community who ultimately preach and propagate the Dhamma and since they play the principal role of the ‘guardian’ of the Dhamma in the eyes of the ordinary layman (even though the politician is seen to be playing this role too), acts as were witnessed in Dambulla can have the obvious and natural effect of generating a great sense of doubt (vicikiccha) about, and ill-will (vyapada) towards all aspects concerning Buddhism, its fundamental teachings, the community of monks, etc. Doubt and ill-will are factors hindering the path to emancipation. Doubt, of course, can be eradicated through, for example, the knowledge of the Dhamma, confidence, discussion and questioning. But the question is: can a community of monks (of the Dambulla-type) be of any assistance to the layman in this regard when what one witnesses is a community of monks engaged even in, inter alia, ‘animism’? (as Dr. Laksiri Fernando put it, in ‘The government must apologize to the Muslim community’, The Island, 30 April 2012).
Secondly, viewed from a critical legal perspective, the Dambulla incident throws up significant questions about the turn to law, by which I mean a turn towards the laws contained in statutes, ordinances and the like to resolve the Dambulla-incident. Now, resolving a dispute through the law is acceptable and if all parties agree to respect the verdict, the legal-approach naturally turns into a useful mode of dispute resolution. It will soften tensions, calm your nerves.
But this legal-turn has its weaknesses too. By reducing this entire problem to a simple legal dispute, which the law books and laws will now resolve and one which then will be left in the hands of lawyers and judges, the legal profession can also act as a smokescreen which hides or shoves under the carpet some of the underlying moral and ethical concerns relating to the Dambulla-incident. The legal profession, under these circumstances, becomes a profession of irresponsibility, if some provision or the other decides the fate of the entire controversy. Laws, law books and judgments are (as we know) towards which fingers are pointed as a convenient excuse to evade moral responsibility for one’s words and actions: ‘Look, it is not my fault; it is that law, that judgment, which says so.’ Such legal formalism hinders political discussion and the resolution of political or other social problems and controversies through greater public participation and debate. The root causes go unaddressed, and they erupt in numerous other forms and manifestations elsewhere, some other day. And one such problem that law courts don’t discuss is one which is fundamental to the recent controversy: ‘political-Buddhism’.
Buddha and the fundamental problem of ‘political-Buddhism’
The Buddha, undoubtedly, is the most influential and admirable philosophical teacher I have come across.
And, I do not view the Buddha very simply as one who had nice things to say about non-violence, peace and harmony, or as an extraordinary person who, from birth to death, carried out fantastic and unbelievable acts.
But also, thanks to the excellent work of numerous Buddhist scholars (ranging from the likes of Ven. Walpola Rahula to Prof KN Jayatillaka, but more importantly, scholars such as Prof. David J. Kalupahana, et al.) I read the Buddha more as: a philosopher who, unlike any other, stressed the importance of understanding the concept of radical impermanence which runs through all our activities and lives (a concept which is far more complex than what is narrowly and inaccurately defined as one which means that ‘all things that are born end in death’); a critic who went against the traditions of his time and valued critical reflection and inquiry at all possible times (e.g. the Kalama sutta; also note the advice given to millionaire Upali when the latter expressed willingness to follow the Buddha: ‘Of a truth, Upali, make a thorough investigation’); a brilliant social reformer who made timely use of ideas and concepts that ordinary men and women believed in, to introduce the notion of morality as a counter response to the dangerous nihilism promoted during that time by the likes of Ajita Kesakambali (e.g. the Buddha’s deft use of the concept of ‘god’ to narrate the different destinies confronting human beings, stressed in a way that makes ordinary people believe in that concept and thereby are inevitably influenced to do good to reach the world of gods, devaloka); a master linguist who developed words to bring out the nuances of meaning which were not captured in the language during his time and which still baffle the traditional Eastern and Western mind (e.g. the coining of the term paccuppanna meaning ‘arisen with a background’, which expresses the meaning that the present is conditioned by the immediate past; which was in contrast to the strict manner in which ‘time’ was categorized during the Buddha’s day as belonging to the past, present and future, a categorization which did not make allowance for the complex and nuanced connection of the past and present, for instance); and a teacher who employed similes which had an extremely sarcastic bite, to drive home a point which could be somewhat discomforting to a traditional, conservative, mind (e.g. in explaining the futility of praying for salvation and the end of suffering, the Buddha tells Vasettha that such praying is similar in effect to a man who, having approached the river desiring to get to the other bank, calls out: ‘Come here, other bank, come here!’).
But how, one may wonder, could this noble message of a profound philosophical teacher go so wrong in the hands of those preaching that teaching? The seeds lie in the very notion that the Buddha had advised his followers to be extremely mindful of: excessive attachment. From that springs all problems, and when that clashes with other ulterior objectives and motives of various groups (reasons pertaining to history, tradition, race, ethnicity, nationhood, politics, culture, ideology, etc.), Buddhism ends up being another tool in the hands of the politically-motivated. Promoting Buddhism becomes political, and in the process, Buddhism ends up being another political language.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong in the practice of preserving and promoting Buddhism. In fact, Buddhism should definitely be protected and promoted. What is problematic here, however, is the way in which it has been promoted and is sought to be promoted and preserved. The noble teaching of the Buddha becomes a problematic form of political-Buddhism when under the guise of promoting the teaching, various other ethnic, political and similar agendas begin to be nurtured and promoted to the detriment of those believing and following different other teachings or religions [This is perhaps the significant problem shared by those following Christianity and Islam, in particular. While all these teachings and religions are a great source of inspiration to the individual, they become extremely problematic when brought into the public realm of politics and governance where people respond differently to different teachings and faiths].
And more seriously, it is very easy and convenient for bigoted and narrow-minded followers with ulterior political motives to intentionally misinterpret and misunderstand the teachings if necessary. To take one example: in the case of Buddhism, it was once the late Ven. Soma Thero (a priest I admired, but critically) who pointed out that getting hold of the wrong end of the Dhamma could cause unimaginable disaster. For instance, wrongly interpreting the meaning of impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and no-self (anatma) could end up in promoting violence and terrorism – because if everything is impermanent, suffering and without a ‘self’, then causing harm to anyone doesn’t mean much! So, one can imagine how dangerous even these fundamental notions of Buddhism can become in the hands of those who are more interested in politicizing Buddhism.
Responding to Dambulla’s ugly political-Buddhism
It is another version of this kind of political-Buddhism that we witnessed in Dambulla, in the face of which the question arises over and over again: how should one respond to such acts and events? Three broad responses have come to be suggested during recent times. One, the need for a government-apology; two, secularism; three, citizen-initiatives condemning the acts as being not committed in their name.
One: the suggestion has been made that the government needs to apologize for what happened (as usefully made by Dr. Laksiri Fernando, et al). This argument, in general terms, lays much of the blame squarely on the government for being responsible for creating the conditions for inter-religious disharmony. A different version of this ‘government-is-the-culprit’ form of argument has been also raised by those who would not agree with some of the views expressed by the above mentioned authors. So, for instance, even Janaka Perera usefully points out that the real culprits for the present crisis are successive governments and that in the present case, the “ball is now in the government’s court” (Janaka Perera, ‘Dambulla Crisis: Who are the Real Culprits’ in Sinhale Hot News, 3 May 2012).
The suggestion, in principle, is a very valuable one. As regards the Dambulla incident, certain reports suggest that a politician is behind the instigation of the mob-attack; and if so, the government definitely should apologize. But, over-stressing the need of this demand for an apology from the government has the (unintended, but at times even intended) consequence of shifting the blame away from others who ought to be held equally responsible. The government becomes the main culprit, sometimes the only culprit, whereas others go unchecked.
Two: the above form of critique of political-Buddhism and the politicization of any religion leads to the famous argument which demands for a secular state and secular constitution. It makes perfect logic to demand so, and in principle, is a demand that one who is seriously concerned about inter-religious harmony cannot easily dismiss. But one of the nagging problems concerning the demand for secularism (through legal and constitutional means in particular) is that it often has the effect of reducing a complex problem (concerning religion) to a matter that can be addressed through law. Principally, ‘secularism’, when viewed as a term representing a particular mindset, is an immensely difficult destination to reach.
Generally, it calls for: an entire rethinking of the place of religion in life and society, its role in the matter of politics and governance, to what extent religion should be a guide in such matters, and more fundamentally, about how education of religion should be conducted from school-level upwards, etc. In the case of Sri Lanka to argue, for example, that Article 9 of the Constitution is what leads to religious fundamentalism is based on the inaccurate assumption that taking away the provision leads to a better, harmonious and peaceful society. And for the secular argument to be accepted by a majority of the people, it cannot be seen to be made by those who are rabid opponents of Buddhism and Buddhists; which, in other words, calls for a politics of persuasion which has to be undertaken from within.
Three: one of the prominent initiatives undertaken by citizens nowadays, given the advancement of information technology, is the mode of online-petitions. A very useful and important recent initiative concerning the Dambulla mob attack was undertaken in the form of a petition titled ‘Not in our name’ (see http://notinournamesl.wordpress.com). It is yet another important way of expressing the thought that the kind of violence witnessed in Dambulla is not acceptable, is condemned, and is not undertaken in our name. This is, to reiterate, not only an immensely useful form of public protest but also one which has today gained much support. It has, most usefully, generated greater awareness of the incident.
However, what is hoped in the case of such forms of protest is that one is not deluded into imagining that this form of protest could be very effective at the end of the day. While supporting such initiatives, one still needs to be quite skeptical about them. Firstly, it just could be the case that it is precisely this form of protest (online-petitions, etc) that those who instigate and promote religious extremism are comfortable with. And in a sense, the very form of online-protest carries the image of our helplessness in the face of such violence and extremism. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, the problem with the ‘not-in-our-name’ kind of language is this: contrary to our imagination, the kind of mob attacks seen in Dambulla could be acts which are not carried out in our name in the first place. They may be acts carried out in the name of those who are anyway having very rigid and fixed views about the place of religion in politics. And given the polarization that exists in contemporary society (NGO – anti-NGO, peace activists-war mongers, anti-Buddhist – Sinhala-Buddhist, etc), it is generally understood that those who resort to such violence/silently approve of such violence (group A) and those who say such violence is not in their name (group B) are anyway not on the same page ideologically and politically. Politically, then, group B’s resistance in the present case doesn’t shock group A into adopting a markedly different attitude. In other words: group A has to be critiqued, first and foremost, from within.
Common inadequacy: where are the monks?
This then brings us to the principal question: who constitutes this group within group A? I believe this is none other than the sangha community: the community of Buddhist monks. In all of the above responses, what is essentially missing is the role of the Buddhist monk.
At the end of the day, it needs to be reiterated – not once, twice but a hundred times if necessary – that it is the community of Buddhist monks which can most effectively and significantly end this madness that is being carried out by some in the name of Buddhism. When Buddhist monks are seen to be acting in the way they did, no amount of criticism can prove effective unless those from within that community itself come forward and respond adequately. And it is this glaring absence of a critical response from the community of Buddhist monks which has been the most unfortunate absence in the overall responses that followed. It is this that all of us (especially those who are admirers of the Buddhist philosophy) must perhaps resolve to remind the monks, lay followers, and ourselves, whenever possible.
However, while not abandoning the forms of protest and critique so far adopted, it is also necessary to call for a further nuanced critique and also the adoption of a skeptical (not dismissive) approach to certain comforting arguments which are made concerning the matter of religious harmony in Sri Lanka. The two are inter-connected.
Firstly, the kind of critique necessary is not that which pins the blame entirely on a single monk: in this case, Ven Inamaluwe Sumangala. Rather, it has to be pointed out that this is a problem not limited to the attitude of Ven. Sumangala alone but could be shared by many others in the sangha community who not only directly support him but also do so indirectly, by maintaining a studied silence (and that too, in the name of ‘tolerance’!). Secondly, one needs to be somewhat more skeptical (but not dismissive) of the ‘reservoir of goodwill’ argument that we often raise (see Javed Yusuf, ‘Dambulla: A challenge for all communities’, The Sunday Times, 29 April, 2012). While one can broadly agree with the sentiment expressed, our continued reference to this sentiment could even have the indirect effect of making us utterly complacent and even irresponsible. A probing examination should remind us that while Dambulla-type incidents are somewhat rare, the Dambulla-type mindset may be a more prevalent and rooted one, given the silence of many in the ‘Buddhist-camp’.
In short, the critical intervention of monks in particular is quintessential if they are serious about protecting and preserving Buddhism (and not the grotesque and dangerous aspects of political Buddhism). This is their duty, their responsibility. And this critical intervention, to be sure, is not one which calls for the spewing of hatred and malice directed at monks by monks. Certainly not. As the monks would well know, one can condemn certain practices and policies without hatred or ill-will (ujjhana).
Therefore, before people cry out that Buddhism is too serious a problem to be left in the hands of the contemporary Buddhist monks, or that Buddhism should be protected not from politicians but from Buddhist monks, it is necessary for the monks to come out more openly and critically in expressing their views about the incidents, attitudes, policies and practices that the Dambulla-incident represents. This is also a vital task that critical Buddhist scholars (far more than laymen and women like us) should be mindful about.
Conclusion
It is the Vesak season, and one often remembers that moment which has traditionally been considered the most poignant in the story of the Buddha; the moment the Buddha passed away, the moment of parinirvana. There is great silence that envelops the moment. The Buddha, who is now physically weak, addresses the monks surrounding him and inquires whether there is any doubt in their minds about any aspect of the Dhamma. Venerable Ananda, who is deeply attached to the Buddha, musters up all courage in the face of the great and noble light that now flickers before him, and informs that he has confidence that there is not one bhikkhu gathered there with any doubt or problem. And yet, the Buddha, the ever-mindful, declares: “All conditioned states are impermanent. Strive on with diligence.”
But when witnessing the manner in which the words and teachings of the Buddha have been misused, I, perhaps like many others, tend to consider a different moment to have been the most poignant and moving in the entire life-time of the Buddha. That moment comes soon after the Buddha gains enlightenment, and just before Brahma Sahampathi invites the Buddha to preach the Dhamma.
In this moment, the Buddha, with great compassion, wonders (quite unexpectedly, to our minds) as to whether he should or should not go out into the world and preach the Dhamma. It is this moment, this picture of the contemplating Buddha, which captures that poignancy. For, it is a moment when the Buddha, now surveying the world, realizes that the decision to go out and preach the Dhamma contains enormous risks and challenges, that there are many in the world who have a lot of dust in their eyes, that they are deluded by wrong concepts, ideas and beliefs.
In other words, that moment contains the very fundamentals of the philosophy the Buddha thereafter preached: that element of radical impermanence; that blend of the good and the bad; the happiness and sadness that enwraps a single moment and event; the great opportunity that was before the Buddha on the one hand and the tremendous risks that very opportunity carried with it on the other; the incomparable message of freedom that now had to be spread, and the glaring possibility of a restriction of the freedom of others that very message of freedom, if improperly and wrongly understood, could bring to others.
It was perhaps a moment in which the Buddha saw hundreds of men and women cross the metaphorical river with the aid of the raft named the Dhamma and put an end to their suffering, while a thousand others failed, and failed miserably, and in the process, did all manner of things to the raft, the river and all around them. To strive on with diligence is what is required. And those words contain a very valuable lesson to the socially-engaged monk, in particular, who is genuinely and sincerely interested in preserving and promoting the noble teachings of the Buddha.
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Image from WSWS
“Disappearance is far worse than death, because when a person dies, when I know that, so and so is dead, the story ends and somehow or other we close the chapter. But when a person has disappeared, it is an eternal suffering.”
(A.Santhipali, before the LLRC at Jaffna on 12th November 2010)
In the controversial Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 53 LTTE cadres who surrendered during the final days of the war in May 2009 are alleged to have been disappeared and are reported to be under the category of ‘missing’. What happened to these 53 people? Their relatives and close kith and kin say that they were last seen and heard surrendering to the Sri Lankan Army.
In the LLRC report, many family members of former LTTE cadres have complained that their husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters have disappeared after they surrendered to the Sri Lankan security forces. These family members still await the return of their loved ones, not knowing whether they would ever return. Below is a quotation from the LLRC report where a wife complained to the commission about the disappearance of her husband and presented the tragic story, which she is forced to deal with everyday.
“The wife of another former LTTE cadre appearing before the commission at the District Secretariat in Madu stated that on 16th May 2009 she and her three children had come to Mullaittivu from Mullaivaikkal. Her husband had not accompanied them but had joined them on 17th May 2009. On 18th May 2009, in the morning, he had surrendered to the Army at Mullattivu together with some important LTTE cadres (Elamparthy, Kumaran, Ruben, Babu and Velavan). They had surrendered accompanied by Farther Francis Joseph and had been taken away in a bus. She stated that she had not heard from him since then. The Commission made inquiries regarding Farther Francis Joseph from Farther Muralitharan the Parish Priest and Assistant Administrator of Madhu Church, and he stated that Farther Francis Joseph had been a political teacher of the LTTE and people had told him that Father Francis Joseph had been in the conflict area until the end with the LTTE and was supposed to have surrendered and since then his whereabouts were unknown.”
(Page: 111 of the LLRC in the Representations to the commission regarding alleged disappearances after surrender/arrest)
There are 18 such complaints lodged with the LLRC with regard to the 53 disappeared LTTE cadres, who surrendered. Their whereabouts are unknown to this day. Whether they are alive or dead is unknown and presents an extremely tragic and problematic context for their families, who still hope and wait for their return. During a visit this writer paid to Jaffna last January, she was confronted by dramatist in Jaffna who narrated the sad story of many wives whose husbands have disappeared due to the war. The Jaffna dramatist whose name is Dev Annand had done research on the subject and had woven a drama based on real incidents. His words are still alive in my memory.
“In the Tamil culture the wife has to wear red kunkuman (a pottuwa) on her forehead if she is married as a custom. But if the husband is dead, they cannot wear this as a ritual. So in the case of ‘missing’ husbands, women do not know whether to wear the kunkuma or not, and they are eternally getting criticized by the elders of their community for this: because those who believe that their husbands are dead, are telling them not to wear it, while the wife’s heart that still waits for the return of her husband wears the kunkuman as hope.”
When this writer contacted the Military Spokesperson, Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasuriya, and questioned him regarding these 53 LTTE cadres who have disappeared and inquired about what actually happened to them, Wanigasuriya stated that the army has appointed a commission called the Court of Inquiry headed by a Major General and also compromises of senior officers of the army to look into the findings of the LLRC report that are directly related to the army.
“This Court of Inquiry will look into all the findings concerning the military that are in the LLRC report, and under that they will look into this issue as well and investigate into this matter. However we have records of 27 LTTE cadres who deserted while they were hospitalized for various illnesses; and 13 other LTTE cadres who suffered natural deaths. The total of 11,995 people came to be rehabilitated in May 2009. This includes LTTE carders who surrendered during war and LTTE cadres who surrendered while they were in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. From this number, 10,874 LTTE cadres have been rehabilitated and reintegrated to the society. From this lot, 655 cadres are with us at the rehabilitation centres now, and 187 are in custody at the Law Enforcement Authority for investigations due to the fact that there are evidence against them”, Wanigasuriya averred.
However, when pressed to answer about the 53 LTTE cadres that have disappeared, Wanigasuriya said that they could either belong to the 27 deserters or to the 13 LTTE cadres who suffered natural deaths and further added that the Sri Lankan army has given away all the LTTE cadres who were caught and surrendered in May 2009 (except for the 655 who are still at the rehabilitation centres) to the Prisons Department and the Sri Lankan Police Department.
During further investigations, this writer contacted the Prisons Department, Prisons Commissioner, A. Hapuarchi, who revealed that there are 500-600 LTTE cadres in the prisons of Jaffna, Vavuniya, Anuradapura, Magazine, Colombo, Bogambara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Negambo arrested under remand warrants. However, when this writer contacted the Police Spokesman Ajith Rohana regarding this matter he refused to comment saying that it is up to the Ministry of Defence.
Nevertheless, though the authorities keep passing the buck to each other (amidst themselves), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman and Jaffna District parliamentarian, Suresh Premachandran, stated that the Sri Lankan army was not only culpable for these 53 lives, but also for the hundreds of other who have disappeared without a trace in this country.
“The army is answerable for this. And it is not just 53, about 200 LTTE cadres surrendered to the army with Father Francis Joseph on that instance. And since then, up to today, no one knows anything about the whereabouts of those surrenders’. No one knows what happened to them and whether they are alive or dead still remains a question mark. The families of these people have not heard from them since. So the families have lost all communications with these surrendered LTTE cadres”, Premachandran added.
Speaking further Premachandran also revealed that in Menik Farm (after 2009) the army had taken away hundreds of boys and girls; and since then the relatives of these youths have not heard anything about their whereabouts. “They have gone missing. One of our TNA members has a list of more than 500 missing personalities who have disappeared from the Menik Farm”, Premachandran stated.
The LLRC report earned different kinds of reactions from the public. Ironically, even the people who were in disfavour of this report at first (and criticized the LLRC while declaring that it is partial) are now urging the government to implement the report as the government has accepted it. One such political activist is Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne. When questioned about the 53 individuals who are noted in the LLRC as ‘missing’ while they were in the custody and protection of the army, Karunaratne stated, “This has to be investigated and reported and action should be taken about this by the government. We heard of many similar situations where LTTE political prisoners have disappeared after they were taken into custody. The government is saying that they are rehabilitating, but they never tell us about where these rehabilitation centres are situated, or how many LTTE cadres are within their custody. And when the TNA MPs tried to visit these rehabilitation camps, the government denied access and did not allow them to visit the rehabilitation camps”.
Speaking further Karunaratne added that the process of rehabilitation is not indicated by the security forces or the government and further revealed that people have disappeared during the process of rehabilitation itself in Sri Lanka.
“We have received many reports from ex-LTTE cadres declaring that many carders disappeared during the process of rehabilitation and did not come out with them (once they were released)”, Karunaratne stated.
How does civil society respond to the disappearance of these 53 LTTE cadres? This writer spoke to a human rights activist who was closely monitoring violations of human rights in Sri Lanka during the time of the war. The activist spoke to this writer under terms of anonymity, and when questioned about these disappeared LTTE cadres and asked about what could have exactly happened to them, the activist revealed that they could either be killed, held in detention centres, or used as informants.
“Whether they are killed, held in detention centres or used as informants: either way it is illegal and wrong. Their family members should be allowed to see them. If they have done something wrong, then they should be legally charged,” he said.
Speaking further about the disappearance of the 53 individuals, this human rights activist stated, “Thousands of people have seen these people surrendering to the army with Father Francis Joseph. And therefore the army cannot deny it. Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission should question the Brigade Commander in Wattvakal in Mullaitivu as it is during his presence that most of these disappearances took place, and the documents about these arrests and surrenders that are with the military should be taken into careful consideration by the Human Rights Commission. According to the 3596 who have complained, 1018 people have surrendered and disappeared. This shows that the government is not willing to peruse the matter. How can there be any reconciliation without getting to know what has actually happened to these people? There is no point in building roads and monuments without actually finding out what happened to these thousands of people who have disappeared”.
It is not clear how many LTTE cadres who surrendered have disappeared today. The LLRC report says that it is only 53, but in reality whether it is more or less than this figure, the fact remains that many people disappeared during the time of the war. And they still keep disappearing. And every time someone disappears, somewhere, in some corner of this country, someone cries and waits for the return of that person who forgot to bid goodbye.
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- Fr. Jim Brown and Mr. Vimalathas: Five years after disappearance, where are they and what has happened to the investigation?
- Translation of Tamil newspaper reports on the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission hearings held in Killinochchi and Mullaitivu
- THE LLRC AND COMPLAINTS OF DISAPPEARANCES OF PERSONS
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Top left to bottom: Advertisements for Fair & Lovely, Clean and Dry Intimate Wash and Vaseline’s Fair & Handsome, from Meets Obsession
Recently, a close member in my family gave birth to a beautiful boy. I have yet to visit her, but I have seen a picture of the tiny infant. He is adorable. Although, we must all admit that newborns are quite odd-looking with their squishy faces, slightly flattened head, and half-opened eyes that seem too large for their faces. But gazing at the picture, I could see my mother in the corner of my eye, waiting for a chance to comment on something that I had not picked up when looking at the photograph – the colour of his skin.
This angered me. Not surprisingly, I must say as this is just one of those random moments where I remain completely baffled by the way my family thinks. She went on about how my family members, including the mother and grandmother of the baby left the infant alone in the crib. No one was cradling him, no one was going “awww” over him, no one was touching him – all because of the colour of his skin. But what really infuriated me were my mother’s comments. “It’s the first time in our family such a kalu child is born. Everyone was shocked. But the shock will wear off after a day. Then, they will carry the baby”, she said. After I told her that I doubt that’s the reason, considering the colour of the mother, who is considerably tan, she replied “That’s tan no. The baby is really kalu.” She claimed that her statements were based on what people think, and not hers. I let it go, without delving further. But then the next day came and I found out exactly who my mother was. I came across some messages which were sent to my sister abroad. The only thing my mother could think of, to describe the infant was…
“The baby is dark”.
The conversation went on to describe how apathetic they felt to the child because he was “so dark” along with the words “sin no” repeated countless times. When questioned, my mother simply said she was being “realistic, this is how the world is, this is how people think”. Of course I knew this. I even knew that few members of my extended family seemed to think that fair people were prettier than darker people. But these were infants, newborns, babies. Surely, one cannot think such a way?
I am saddened and embarrassed to see this side of my family, to know that people who raised me, people who I’ve grown up with, believe that fair equals pretty and dark is ugly. It is surprising to know that even my sisters think such a way, after years of exposure on effects of discrimination from movies, Youtube clips, newspapers articles and television.
I fail to understand how people, never-mind the older generation, but people in their 20s who are educated and have come to a realization that some parts of yesteryears culture are incredibly unreasonable still think this way? Why is it that dark-skin is not considered beautiful?
But wait a minute.. isn’t there a remedy to this already? Cue the ever-present miraculous tubes of ‘Fair & Lovely’, with commercials that display that side effects of fairer skin include the appearance of one’s true love, increased job prospects, and indubitably gaining the love of one’s own parents, something only ‘Fair & Lovely’ would have you believe is impossible for darker children to gain.
I’m sure you have all seen the self-deprecating advertisements of fairness creams. The instances are laughable, the context is absurd, and the message, although constantly surprising that the human mind can stoop to such levels, is preposterous. From commercials that depict “You’re so dark, you’ll never get married” to print advertisements that portray “My husband loves me more because I am much fairer now” (here’s looking at you Ponds), the marketing approach of fairness products seem to have affected the way people think. It has seemingly introduced a new set of values to our culture, based on the notion that being fair makes you an object of desire which means people will flock around you like moths to a flame. It has been established as a prerequisite for success in both the personal and professional front, heightening the natural anxiety of men and women and their ability remain comfortable in their own skin. No matter how bizarre the story line is, there seems to be no better way to market a product than to feed on pointless cultural views and human insecurities.
This year a new phenomenon was introduced, which truly, in my personal opinion, heightened the concept of fairness creams to a whole new level. It seems that society has found yet another reason to hate your body, which means another opportunity for women to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex. Turns out that the colour of your lady parts is extremely revolting to our society, so here lies the perfect remedy, an Indian product called Clean and Dry Intimate Wash. Check out the commercial here.
As you can see, it is not simply enough to make people feel bad that they are dark, but now everyone has to be insecure about the natural colour of their lady parts. I was doing some research on this matter and came across a rather hilarious comment by an Indian advertising executive. Here is what he had to say about fairness creams.
“It is hard to deny that fairness creams often get social commentators and activists all worked up. What they should do is take a deep breath and think again. Lipstick is used to make your lips redder, fairness cream is used to make you fairer—so what’s the problem? I don’t think any Youngistani today thinks the British Raj/White man is superior to us Brown folk. That’s all 1947 thinking!
The only reason I can offer for why people like fairness, is this: if you have two beautiful girls, one of them fair and the other dark, you see the fair girl’s features more clearly. This is because her complexion reflects more light. I found this amazing difference when I directed Kabir Bedi, who is very fair and had to wear dark make-up for Othello, the Black hero of the play. I found I had to have a special spotlight following Kabir around the stage because otherwise the audience could not see his expressions.
When you have experience like I have—about 50 years in advertising and more in theatre—then you realise that a lot of people don’t talk out of experience, they talk out of book knowledge. They say, “Oh my God, fairness creams… are they saying that Indians are not as good as Europeans?” It’s nothing to do with that.”
Read more here. So how did we get here?
The colonial legacy in our country is one of the main contributory factors for the belief that fair is powerful, fair is beautiful. The white race subjugating the darker race has been stressed in history, which has established an invisible system where the fairer people are those who are successful, powerful, rich, while the darker people are poor, unsuccessful and powerless. Herein lies the cultural view of fair skin considered as a social marker for high class while dark skin is considered as a social marker for low class while being associated with labour or field work. This has given considerable impetus to the notion of superiority of fairness.
Then, of course lies the American and Indian influences, which has caught the imagination of the masses with its yearly production of celebrities, movies and television shows. Our tele-dramas are often filled with women, who put on layers of make-up to appear fair. A walk down the street, and you will see that such thinking has affected people in all levels of the social ladder, wearing such heavy make-up that it appears similar to a face mask. Matrimonial columns is another depiction of colourism, revealing the influence of a person’s skin colour on marketability to marriage partners. In recent times, it has become clear that men too deal with instances of colourism, heightened by an increasing number of male fairness creams launched in the market today. Check this video here.
Personally, as a Sri Lankan woman with the ability to tan deep brown quite easily, the few occasions I have ever felt uncomfortable with my skin colour has been as a result of people of my own race and not as a result of growing up in a predominantly white country, as anyone would probably expect. This was during my schooling years, when I used to play netball almost every day. An aunt greeted me with a “My… you have got so dark. I remember when you were little. You were so fair”; all this with a tone that meant I had once possessed the fair complexion that is so passionately prized by South Asian communities and now, since I was tan, I was no longer pretty in her eyes.
This needs to change. I am tired of people being judged because of the colour of their skin, which quite frankly, they had no control over. I am tired of people making others feel ashamed because they are dark, to feel burdened by how they look, to feel degraded for their physical attributes.
If darker people do not see people who look like them being regarded as beautiful, this attitude will always remain the same. If they do not receive any positive reinforcements about their skin tone, they will always turn to fairness creams in a desperate need to be accepted by society.
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This Koran is tattered because Buddhist monks had been tearing the pages out of it. Asked if the monks had tried burning a Koran, I was told no – Caption and photograph by Navin Weeraratne
This is in response to the comments to my previous post – Dambulla Mosque Attack: Is there a hidden hand? At the time of writing this, there were nearly 50 comments displaying a variety of stands taken by commentators. The very positive ones are the ones seeking introspection invoking to put the Buddhist house in order to commensurate with their civilised principles and precepts. This identifies the remorseful feelings of the silent majority of the Buddhist who vehemently deplore the mosque attack as an uncivilized act whilst taking a principled stand on the miscarriage of justice by Senior Political leaders at the highest echelons, law enforcement authorities and other wheeler dealers. This is a positive sign indicating that that the majority are not chauvinistic but inclusive. Their comments were also testifying that on the other side, the extremists too are hijacking the silent majority in their name. This is evidently clear in the modus operandi employed where a mob assembled of hooligans from elsewhere is coordinated to cause trouble in Dambulla. Clear evidence of premeditated trouble making that surprised the people of Dambulla.
Peace loving people in this country should be alert to the machination of extremists who work in collusion with bankrupt politicians wishing to create religious, ethnic and other strife in society so that they can emerge as ethnic/religious saviours creating a new voter bank by taking advantage of an artificially created trouble.
Apart from these, there were also negative and irresponsible comments bordering on naivety and foolishness wishing to fish in troubled waters and sensitise the issue to cause more division in society by citing irrelevant and alien factors that has nothing to do with Dambulla. Drawing cues from these hints, the following negative trend settings are evident in the comments:
Failed State Phenomenon
There were complacent comments trying to disprove the emerging failed state phenomenon. The following are some of the distinct feature of failed state phenomenon as evidenced by this incident.
- Failure of Law Enforcement: Failure of the executive to bring law and order. Dambulla attack is a result of premeditated plan to attack, illegal assembly, organised mob, assault on a public/community asset, taking law to their hands under the gaze of the police/army in broad daylight. Now it is almost two weeks, the violators are yet to be booked.
- Failure of Justice: Rights, feelings and peace of the peaceful place (Dambulla) its community and the sanctity of the Mosque and the Kovil is violated and yet the perpetrators are deemed above law. A clear evidence of inoperability of the justice system in this case. Though there are rules in the statute, application is evidently discriminatory.
- Failure to protect the Constitution: Buddhism is the state religion and it is protected by the state as enshrined in the constitution. The non Buddhists in the country accepts this without reservation on the understanding that Buddhism being a philosophy of humanity would not be discriminatory upon them and therefore their religion and their institutions will have protection under Buddhism as a state religion. The state’s failure to protect Buddhism is evident by their incredulous silence to condemn this un-Buddhist act done in the name of Buddhism violating all principles of moral and legal limits. This silence possibly tarnishes the image of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and abroad by implicitly condoning a wrongful act by failing to be just and the failure to protect the interests of all citizens without discrimination.
- Failure of the state to assert and allowing non state actors to dominate: In this incidence, the state organs miserably failed to prove their credibility as institutions upon which the citizens can repose their trust. The police failed to prevent wrong doings, the sacred land statute/AGA Office failed to define the physical boundaries of the sacred land, the AGA Office/Pradeshya Sabha calls the Mosque an unauthorised structure for a building pre existing Local Government Planning and Building Regulations which effectively came into practice in the region only since 1978. How many buildings in Dambulla have plans approved by the Local Council and how many are built according to the plan as required by the statute? Why did the AGA/Local Council take a discriminatory stand than find a way to regularise and bring such structures within the statute and diffuse social tension. The state authorities are yet to define their stand based on the available statutes, this shows the extent to which the state is equipped to respond to the suffering of the people. This apathy on the part of state rewards ‘non state actors’ and weakens the state supremacy in administration.
- Rule of Law versus Rulers’ Law: Though Sri Lanka is a modern state, the strains of feudalism and neo colonial Brown Sahib mentality is still prevalent. The highest and the sacrosanct entity in a nation state is its constitution where the sovereignty of its people is enshrined. In the day to day life of a citizen one is administered by the rules that govern and not the rulers who govern. The government only governs the people through the constitution and not otherwise. The constitutional ruler is impersonal and everlasting. The failings of modern Sri Lanka is that we are yet to be governed by rules, instead we are still ruled by rulers who yet decide outside the framework of law, like the Prime Minister’s decision to relocate the mosque to diffuse tension without giving time for the possibility of judicial intervention.
- Failure of the state to protect its image: The role and responsibility of the GOSL is questioned by the people, the parliamentarians, and the International Community about this incident. Incredibly the GOSL is silent and not taking any remedial measures to solve this lawlessness. The frailty of the GOSL to protect the image and credibility of the country and doing nothing undermines credibility both within and without.
- Threat to the Government of Sri Lanka: Should this incident go unsolved, the extremist forces that unleashed this attack would potentially snowball to capture more grounds in their turf war. This would make situations worse for the GoSL . Such a situation would require more power and resources by the GOSL to quell and would render this contagion to spill over. It is wise to nip this violent extremism in the bud.
Allegiance Elsewhere
There were also comments hinting against my Sri Lankan posture and trying to paint me as a Rajapakse sycophant and ‘West’ basher. It is a citizen’s responsibility to protect the state whilst fighting within it to correct it to deliver the rights of its citizens. One’s allegiance should not go outside the state just because the state is wrong, as when such allegiance goes outside the state, there is propensity for one to turn anti-state and play into external factors inimical to a state.
Today Sri Lanka is a fractured society however unified it pretends to be. The reality is that as noted above, there are blatant violations by many actors (state and non state) and failure to uphold justice, and fair play. This has marginalized many both within and without and hence there are resentments, grudges and ill will against many such actors which makes the allegiance of some eccentric to state. This unwittingly makes the resentful citizens to be bought over by foreign players and use to espouse their goals. The state inaction to rein in law and order is implicitly undermining sovereignty by spawning dissenters and creating conducive conditions to turn to be perfidious.
Conflict Resolution
Emergence of conflict in any society is natural and it is part and parcel of humanity. Therefore no conflict is unique except how such conflict is caused. In a civilised society too conflicts do emerge and the responsibility of the citizens and the state is to diffuse conflicts and reinstate justice, fair play and bring normalcy and cordiality to seek peace amongst its peoples. Disquiet, conflict and violence does no good to either to the state or the citizens and therefore it is a right and a duty of responsibility to diffuse conflict and ease tensions in society.
When conflicts emerge the first victim is the truth. During such times even the paragons of virtue ally with falsehood as was seen in Dambulla. Therefore saner and responsible citizens do have a duty to mankind to speak the truth even if such truth is against their own interest. This is how civilised nations are built upon and not on the basis of ‘might is right’ and take advantage of opportunities. Any capitalization of the opportunity for short term and parochial gains would cause long term damages to society as have happened before. These challenges are opportunities to prove how civilized one is in the way in which truth, justice and fair play are administered in society and not to boast of history but to be correct now in flesh and blood.
Deplorably, some of the comments advocated ‘a pot calling the kettle black’ paradigm and was fuelling exacerbation of this conflict by citing irrelevantly. These clearly display their ignorance and insidious intents.
The way this crisis in Dambulla is handled is a test to see how credibly the Sri Lankan state and its people depart from chauvinism to a more inclusive and just society.
Unfortunately, Sri Lankans are yet to come out of their ‘mind set created by others for them’ and discover their ‘own by pooling all the positives from all religions and communities’ to build this nation as a model for others as an astute and sustainable nation.
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After the email update reproduced below was sent on 2nd May, less than a week after the Not In Our Name initiative was launched, Deshabandhu Jezima Ismail, senior lawyer and HR activist JC Weliamuna, two-time Secretary to Presidential Commissions of Inquiry into Disappearances MCM Iqbal, well-known economist Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Prof. Michael Roberts and Ranjini Obeyesekere, both leading academics, Tamil activist, poet and academic Cheran, Channa Daswatta, one of Sri Lanka’s best known architects and Harsha de Silva, Member of Parliament, along with dozens of others, have signed up to the initiative.
“I put my name here just to give evidence to my children that at some point in the future, if they happen to suffer from communal violence as a result of what happens under president Rajapakse Government, their father did his bit to condemn his silence.” – Thrishantha Nanayakkara
“The conduct of some of the Buddhist monks at Dambulla was disgraceful. It was an insult to the Buddha.” – Mangala Moonesinghe
“Sri Lankan; not Parsi, not Burgher, not Eurasian, not Sinhalese, all to which I have claim. Not in our name.” - Hans Billimoria
“All Buddhists, especially the prominent members of the Buddhist clergy, should hang their heads in shame at this racist, mediaeval and un-Buddhist act. The government should institute legal proceedings for treasonous public statements undermining the authority of the duly elected President of the country.” – Prof. H.L. Seneviratne
“Certainly not in my name. The Dambulla violence and intolerance can provoke another cycle of mindless chauvinism unless the silent majority voice their unanimous condemnation compelling the Government to act decisively and speedily. The true Sri Lankan patriot, anchored in a rich past of tolerance and co-existence, is a not a racist or religious bigot.” – Jayantha Dhanapala
“This attack and the clumsy, unacceptable handling of it by the authorities has quite certainly not been done in my name.” – Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
These are excerpts from longer comments in response to the online campaign Not In My Name. In just under a week after it was launched and at the time of sending this email, around 940 have signed up to the campaign. It has been shared over 1,000 times on Facebook alone. The campaign, and why it was established, has been featured on TV in Sri Lanka.
Hundreds have tweeted about it, some have written their own blog posts encouraging more to sign up and many more have emailed all their email contacts the campaign and shared it with professional colleagues on networks like LinkedIn. Those who have signed up to date include,
- Deshamanya Bradman Weerakoon, one of Sri Lanka’s most senior and respected civil servants
- Popular TV personalities, actors and singers: Ranjan Ramanayake, Narada Bakmeewewa, Kasun Kalhara
- Popular theatre personalities and directors: Steve de la Zilwa, Tracy Holsinger, Ruwanthie de Chickera, Nadie Kammallaweera, Shanuki de Alwis
- Gratiaen Prize winners Shehan Karunatilaka and Senaka Abeyratne
- Leading authors: V.V. Ganeshananthan, Shyam Selvadurai, David Blacker, Pradeep Jeganathan
- Former Sri Lankan of the Year Chandra Jayaratne
- Leading journalists, Editors, media personalities and media owners: Hana Ibrahim, Dilrukshi Handunetti, Dharisha Bastian, Easwaran Rutnam, Anoma Rajakaruna, Savithri Rodrio, Lal Wickrematunge, Hilmy Ahamed, Sharmini Boyle
- Human rights activists: Kumudini Samuel, Ruki Fernando, Dayapala Thiranagama, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu
- Gifted cartoonists like Gihan de Chickera
- Well-known photographers like Deshan Tennekoon and Asanka Brendon Ratnayake
- Prominent artists like Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Nelun Harasgama and Jagath Weerasinghe
- Former Secretary General of the JVP, Lionel Bopage
- Prominent bloggers like Jehan Mendis and Subha Wijesiriwardena
From a 73 year old grandmother to leading academics, from atheists to Hindus, Saivites and Christians, from Burghers and Sinhalese to Tamils and Muslims (and fascinating combinations of these beliefs and groups), the sheer diversity of those who have signed up to Not In Our Name unequivocally condemning the violence in Dambulla is incredible to read, both for what has been written and by whom.
As noted on the blog, after a month, the names and comments of those who signed up will be printed out and sent to the Presidential Secretariat, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Religious Affairs & Moral Upliftment, along with the Department of Buddhist Affairs, Department of Christian Religious Affairs, Department of Hindu Religious and Cultural Affairs and the Department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs.
Already, this campaign is a unique collection of comments opposed to violence and extremism. Please read them, and consider adding your own name today.
[contact-form]Young Asia Television asked the following questions about the Not In our Name initiative for their weekly Connections TV digest, broadcast over public TV this week.
- Not in Our Name: Is it focusing just only on the incident in Dambulla or is it looking broadly at religious extremism in Sri Lanka ?
- Judging from the responses so far , what do you feel is the general pulse on the role of the State in addressing religious extremism in Sri Lanka ?
- How will such incidents impact on communal relations and attempts at bringing about ‘National Reconciliation’?
- In the end what purpose will this initiative serve?
- A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)
- Not In Our Name: Against religious extremism in Sri Lanka
- The middle finger to the middle-path in Sri Lanka
- Bigoted monks and militant mobs: Is this Buddhism in Sri Lanka today?
- “There is a right way and a wrong way to use violence”: Interview with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka