Comments on: Living in a very small world: and dying to have a piece of it

By: Humanist

Humanist — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:29:16 +0000

Harendra, thank you for this extremely well-written, perceptive and mature account of what it means to be a human being in a society torn by war and conflict. I look forward to future episodes.

Re: the Portuguese, the reason they integrated so well partially, was that they didn’t bring their women, unlike the Dutch (who brought some) and the British (who brought the most number of compatriot women). Lankan women made sure that their partners/husbands integrated… And partially because the Portuguese were adventurers and missionaries rather than empire builders – in fact, before the empire was consolidated and the British East India company was the more powerful player, the company used to gift a gold coin to each child born of mixed marriage in India – thus, the British too promoted integration in the early trading period. As for changing names, people in most historical periods have wanted to make sure that they can benefit from the opportunities available to them…if you are relatively free of identity crisis and ideological baggage, changing a name is not a big deal, after all.

By: SomewhatDisgusted

SomewhatDisgusted — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:11:45 +0000

I personally think Sam’s right at some level. The number of people who can actually afford to live/work abroad in a developed country are generally from this thinner upper strata. So it’s not too much of a stretch to see why this phenomenon exists. As the late Tarzie Vittachi said, our real act of independence in a post-colonial era was the introduction of the free-education system, which was the only real way that people have managed to blur these neo-colonial class distinctions. Otherwise, how else can the poverty stricken majority ever aspire to get a visa or even buy a ticket to get into one of these countries?

The other reason I think is the naturally closely-knit fabric of Sri Lankan society (as in being very nosy and curious but has the positive side-effect of creating more inter-personal relations ), which makes the oh-look-we-have-mutual-friends phenomenon more profound 🙂

By: Talking Head

Talking Head — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:58:33 +0000

Hi Sam,

Are you an Englishman from England or from one of the colonies? Man I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say here; I wish I finished my high school. Okay, let me guess: you mingled with middle class Sri Lankans and, for you, this constitutes the “higher strata” of Sri Lanka society. Oh my, my!

Ta ta!!!

By: Sam Clark

Sam Clark — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:38:08 +0000

I’m an Englishman who has lived in Sri Lanka and I came accross the mutual friend thing alot. From an outsiders perspective it seemed to me more a class urban thing – as the higer strata of Sri Lanka society is very smal indeed and relatively speaking Sri Lanka has a very small urban population. In fact having lived in and around Colombo for a year, I struggle not to find a mutual friend when I meet a middle class urban Sri Lanka…

Still, what would I know?

By: Haren

Haren — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:20:46 +0000

Rukmankan, my expressed views about the portugese can and must be contested – it’s about a point in time beyond any living memories and few verifiable facts remain in our grasp from that era. apart from converting the heathens, colonialists of those times were very much interested in enslaving them as well – the fact that we would not have been the ideal ‘slaves’ (as Russell Peters animates in his comedy) not withstanding.

By: Rukmankan Sivaloganathan

Rukmankan Sivaloganathan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:53:45 +0000

Nice! I struggle as well to explain the minuscule degree of separation we Sri Lankans have non- Sri Lankans. 20 million is a large population compared to a lot of more prominent countries and people are constantly amazed at how Sri Lankans always seem to have a mutual friend.

Re. the bit about the Portuguese names. I’m not sure if it was a case of the Portuguese integrating with the locals. From what I understand the Brits and Dutch were interested primarily in empire building and trade while the Portuguese (and the Spaniards..but we didn’t have to deal with them!) were essentially out to convert the ‘heathens’. Hence people either converted or, like the Koreans with the Japanese, just changed their names to make it look like they had converted.

Not sure if my theory is 100% accurate though…