"..The biggest single obstacle to peace is the
ideology of Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-supremacy and the hold that
this ideology has on the Sri Lankan State... The historical
imperative that confronts us, Sinhalayo, then is not merely
'constitutional reform'. We must look forward to building a
new Republic or Republics.
We, Sinhalayo, need no longer feel so alone, so besieged and
under threat of dissolution - because we will be part of a
larger, encompassing, regional society. Secession, then, will no
longer be a 'threat' but merely a new configuring of our State
with new forms and structures that enable inter-relationships
between groups and sub-groups. Indeed, 'secession' will lose its
meaning... Surely, with all our modern technology and tightly
connected market economies, could we not envisage a complex of
inter-dependent polities that is as complex as those highly
complex and successful polities that configured our lands in the
past centuries? Is this not 'good news' for The Good (sujana)?"
Comment by tamilnation.org
Mr.Lakshman Gunasekera's Sivaram Memorial
Lecture comes as a breath of fresh air from a Sinhala
intellectual, and if his lecture encourages more and more
Sinhala people and Tamil
people to have an honest conversation with one another, on
the way forward in the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, the
talk would have served an useful and helpful role.
The question
is whether the Sinhala people and the Tamil people sitting
together as equals can honestly discuss political
structures which secure the equality and freedom of each as a
people and which address not only the
aspirations but also the concerns, the fears, and the
apprehensions of each people.
In the end, it is for the Tamil people and the Sinhala people to be unafraid
(yes, unafraid) to have an open and honest conversation with each other and in this
way help mobilise a critical mass of people committed to secure justice and
democracy - a democracy where no one people rule another. An independent Tamil Eelam
may not be negotiable but an independent Tamil
Eelam can and will negotiate. Tamils who today live in
many lands and across distant seas know only too well that
sovereignty after all, is not virginity. But
they also know that it is only the independent who may negotiate
the terms on which they may become inter-dependent.
Admittedly,
the negotiating process may be complex but if Germany and France
were able to put in place such 'associate' structures despite
the suspicions and confrontations of two world wars, it should
not be beyond the capacity of Tamil Eelam and Sri Lanka to
work out structures, within which each independent state may
remain free and prosper, but at the same time pool sovereignty
in certain agreed areas. Mr.Gunasekera is right to ask - "
Surely, with all our modern technology and tightly connected
market economies, could we not envisage a complex of
inter-dependent polities that is as complex as those highly
complex and successful polities that configured our lands in the
past centuries? " [see also
additional
Comment on Marxism &
Nationalism and
Comment on Scots and British]
Sivaram
 I must thank my colleagues, comrades and friends in the Free
Media Movement and the allied journalists' and media
professionals' organisations for the honour they have bestowed
me by asking me to deliver this First Memorial Lecture
commemorating the life and untimely death of journalist/ social
activist and, Tamil nationalist liberation fighter Dharmaratnam
Sivaram. The invitation to lecture came with just over a month's
notice - not the kind of time period one would expect to be
given to prepare for something as formal and significant as a
Memorial Lecture in honour of a distinguished citizen. But,
given the exigencies within which we must live today, I
understood the difficulties of the organisers and accepted,
despite the short notice.
Some in this country and
elsewhere will balk at describing Dharmaratnam Sivaram as a
"distinguished citizen", given his long involvement in rebellion and
guerrilla warfare. Others, more fanatical about citizenship and
nationality issues, would argue over the 'nation' to which Siva
might owe citizenship. Knowing the man as I did/I know that Siva
would have enjoyed the multiple controversy. To me, Sivaram is a
Good Citizen:
That is, a useful member of human society who contributed
something of creative significance to that society.
Again, some
may be repelled by the application of the adjectives 'good' and
'creative' to someone who had enthusiastically engaged in war. I
choose to argue my case for such usage by means of a Lecture
that explores some of the dimensions of the social conflict in
which Sivaram found himself/ the immense compulsions that
overwhelmed him. and continue to overwhelm us in that conflict/
and the enormous challenges that confronted him and continue to
confront us.
Dharmaratnam Sivaram lived a relatively short life that was
fuller than that of most people in terms of the intensity with
which he lived his various roles and fulfilled the tasks that he
took on. Looking at his life in terms of the ancient social
traditions that he upheld - even as a Marxian social
revolutionary - one can see the dynamism of both the Khatriya as
well as the Brahmana.
But, despite the more recent recognition
given to him as a journalist and "scribe" (to use a label
favoured by mutual friend, the late Ajith Samaranayake), I would
argue that Siva was far more a Khatriya and warrior than a
Brahmana. Indeed, even in his second great career as a
journalist and writer, Siva not only continued the same struggle
he had previously engaged in militarily, but did so exploiting
much of the analytical skill and knowledge that he had honed
during his first career as a guerrilla fighter and strategist of
the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam.
Both as guerrilla warrior and as writer, editor and analyst,
Siva has made a singular contribution to the great cause of a
whole people, a community, struggling - and yet struggling - to
find human security, dignity and fulfillment in new nationhood
and political community.
Thanks to his endeavours (along with
the endeavours of many other Sri Lankans), that people may now
be on the verge of a new political community, while still
undergoing immense pain and tragedy in the process of achieving
it.
Even if he has not seen the formal, institutional,
achievement of Tamil self-determination, Siva did see some of
the early exciting signs of it in
a separate, militarily won and
militarily administered, 'liberated' territory with some
vestiges of indigenously created
'national' institutions such as
a judiciary and administration, however imperfect that they
might be.
Even as a 'journalist', Sivaram located himself firmly
on one side of the barricades he had already helped erect in
defending his community against the awesome odds of a
legitimized, ethno-centric State domination and a
majority
community's social violence. With the relatively high standards
of journalism he met through Tamilnet.com, he helped bring to
the world the Tamil community's own counter-legitimacy; high
standards that he further distinguished by his individual
contribution as probably the most incisive analyst of the
politico-military aspect of the current war.
While I was never a close friend of Siva's, I first knew of him
as a PLOTE strategist and then got to know him personally when
he was astutely recruited by Editor Gamini Weerakoon as a
columnist for The Island - Sunday Edition newspaper in which I
worked at the time. Siva's 'Taraki' column made as much waves,
albeit in a shorter time, as D.B.S. Jeyaraj had previously done
through his 'Behind the Cadjan Curtain' column. If his newspaper
columns were brilliantly analytical; many of
Siva's papers and
commentaries written for various seminars and publications were
even more brilliant.
Even if I had been given adequate time, I doubt whether I could,
in this Lecture, hope to match the kind of intellectual depth
and quality achieved by Sivaram. Lacking the time for the
build-up of specific references and data for my contentions, I
would rather describe my Lecture as "some journalistic
reflections".
In this Lecture I will reflect on my own
experience and perceptions of the functioning of the Sri Lankan
mass media in the context of the on-going ethnic conflict, the
nature of this conflict and the possible Sri Lankan futures
arising from it. Sivaram lived and gave his life for the future
of his people. We can only take up that same spirit of
anticipation and envisioning.
Mass Media, Community and Conflict
The Sinhala Marxist tradition is notable for its failure, unlike
most other Marxist movements, to firmly and authentically base
itself on the intellectual and spiritual wellsprings of its own
society.
It is possible that this failure is due to the
non-availability of a coherent and full-bodied indigenous
tradition following the massive triage of five centuries of
colonial domination. Nevertheless, it is perhaps this immense
theoretical lapse that has contributed most to the waywardness
and debility of the Left's politico-organisational life, indeed
its very failure, so far, as a social movement.
Sivaram is but
one example of how Tamil Marxian revolutionaries transcended
this theoretical weakness and nurtured a revolutionary movement
that was and is largely Marxian-inspired but socially
revolutionary on the basis of both its modernist ideological
goals as well as its profoundly civilised traditions and
culturally derived community identity. The
Tamil national
liberation movement, whatever its failings in terms of military
brutality, patriarchy and authoritarianism (among others), has
never had difficulties in fusing its nationalist and social
revolutionary thrusts.
Thus, it has been extremely difficult, in our Southern society
(unlike in the North or much elsewhere in the world), to
intellectually draw out the complex strands that tie
ethno-cultural identity together with social class-based
differentiations, without facing accusations of obscurantism and
populism.
The intellectual debate among southern Marxists has
preened itself on the podium of
a culturally barren
'rationalism' thereby crucially failing to negotiate, until it
was almost too late, the vital nexus between community and
class. The first generation leadership of the JVP made a valiant
effort at this, but lacked the intellectual depth and
self-confidence to build a solid theoretical discourse. In any
case, the lack of a rich tradition itself undermined that
effort.
Comment by tamilnation.org
Here, there may also be a
need to reflect on the views of those like Benedict Anderson and V.Kiernan -
(see also, generally - What is a nation? and
On Civic
Nationalism & Ethno Nationalism)
"Nationalism has proved an uncomfortable anomaly for Marxist theory
and precisely for that reason, has been largely elided, rather than confronted. How else
to account for the use, for over a century of the concept of the 'national bourgeoisie'
without any serious attempt to justify theoretically the relevance of the adjective? Why
is this segmentation of the bourgeoisie - a world class in so far as it is defined in
terms of the relations of productions - theoretically significant?" (*Benedict Anderson:
Imagined
Communities - Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism )
"'A nation is not merely a historical category , but a historical
category belonging to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism.' Stalin's
formula appears in many ways close to the mark, but it applies much better to the handful
of original nation states in the West than to their imitations further a
field; it applies
far less well still to the majority of nationalist movements as distinct from nations.
Marxism has often slurred over the distinction between these two things,
and made modern nationalism, as well as the classical nation state, an alter ego of
capitalism... Like religion,.. or any other great emotive force, nationalism is ambivalent,
and can escape very completely from a prescribed political channel. Even in its origins,
it was a complex phenomenon, deriving both from the solidarity and from the divisions of
society. It would have astonished Marx to see socialism owing so much to partnerships with
nationalism in Afro-Asia and in the Soviet Union during the second world war... " (V.Kiernan -
'Nationalist Movements and
Social Classes' in Anthony
D Smith (Ed): Nationalist Movements)
If the Southern Left failed to grasp the importance of culture
and community, then one cannot be surprised that the Southern
elite also similarly failed. In the context of such intellectual
debility, it is not surprising that the Sri Lankan understanding
of the specific subjects of communication and mass media also
lacks an appreciation of the subjective, cultural elements. To
the Southern Left as well as to the Southern mainstream, mass
media continues to be largely seen both as a didactic instrument
and as a propaganda tool.
Whether it is the bureaucracy, with
its neo-colonial command-and-control mentality, or social
activist organisers and animators or, politicians, the mass
media is, to them, a useful (seemingly) tool of public
instruction, social guidance and reform, and mobilisation.
Marshall Macluhan and mass communication theory reigns while
Stuart Hall and the Cultural Studies school remains esoteric.
If
there was some appreciation of the political theorising of
Antonio Gramsci, his exploration of the power of consciousness
was less imbibed here.
Benedict Anderson may be toyed with in
relation to 'ethnicity' but
Dick Hebdige,
Raymond Williams,
Michael Gurevitch and Lisbet Van Zoonen are virtually unnoticed.
While in more recent years there has been an increasing number
of academics and intellectuals who have transcended this
theoretical straitjacket, the Culturalist approach is yet a
marginal and maverick tendency in Sri Lanka.
Mass media professionals here have even a less structured
understanding of their societal function although, at the level
of industrial tactic and professional instinct, most successful
journalists are adept at navigating cultural streams and
symbolic markers in making effective connection with audience
and market.
Perhaps the first such local exploration came in the early
1980s/ even before
the cataclysm of July 1983, when a research
project launched by the Council for Communal Harmony through the
Media (CCHM) used hard data gained from the analysis of
newspaper reportage to point to explicit ethnic biases in the
Sri Lankan news media (at the time there was no television and
only the single. State-owned radio station).
In a series of
circulated newsletters titled Media Monitor and Maadhya
Nireekshaka, the CCHM tried to draw the attention of media
people as well as critical audiences to this clearly noticeable
phenomenon of newspapers catering to the perceived ethnic
interests and concerns of their readerships.
The media of the
time as well as the intelligentsia gave little attention to
these arguments by that little band of activist-researchers led
by Reggie Siriwardene. A CCHM study of the school curriculum
revealed an ideological content that alarmingly complemented the
media's ethnic duality of 'majority' identity and 'minority'
identity with its own powerful discourse of a similar duality
and privileging of the 'majority' culture.
Thus it was not
surprising to those researchers that a subsequent survey of a
sample of high school students that was undertaken after the
July 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom had many Sinhala student respondents
describing that episode of mass violence as simply the period of
"jaathi-aalaya" ( = love of race).
If that pioneering work that predates but anticipates the
current ethnic hatreds and paranoia was largely ignored, the
subsequent violent upheavals prompted greater retrospection,
resulting in more and louder voices in a similar vein. Even
though relatively little study has still been done in this area,
there are & few works that have not only agreed with and
legitimised CCHM's early work (without reference to the CCHM,
though) but have also served to mainstream a critical
understanding of the Sri Lankan mass media's contribution to the
conflict's dynamics.
Audience as market and constituency
The cultural studies school has influenced my approach to mass
media and, consequently, I view the media as a system or
structure of social communication; indeed, as the modern,
dominant social communicational structure of our society.
Traditional mass communication theory views the media
institutions as functioning quite separately and independently
of the public and, as having the potential to influence public
opinion in a direct, didactic manner.
The Cultural Studies
School, which influences my perspective, sees the mass media as
representing the interests and views of the public that
constitute its audience. The mass media is ultimately linked to
the public which are its various audiences. The Sri Lankan mass
media, therefore, must be seen as a social communicational
structure involving media institutions (e.g. radio, TV,
newspaper companies) as well as media audiences in an intimate,
mutually influencing relationship.
The most significant aspect of this intimate linkage is the fact
that the audience of the media is not only its market but also
its constituency. That is, the ownership and staff of a
particular media organ (such as the editorial staff,
proprietors, managers etc.) are predominantly constituted by
members of the same social group or cluster of groups that
comprise its audience. It is this social linkage between media
and audience that prompts and enables the media producers to
represent the interests and concerns of their audience.
For example, the ownership of the Sinhala language newspaper
'Divaina', which caters to the Sinhala-speaking people of the
country is, itself, ethnically Sinhala. Almost the entirety of
its editorial staff - that is, the professional communicators
working for that newspaper - are ethnically Sinhalas. Thus the
Sinhala community, which is the principal, if not the sole,
audience of the 'Divaina', also has provided its editorial staff
and its ownership.
A similar logic will apply to the major
Tamil-language newspapers such as the 'Veerakesari' or
'Thinakkural'. Even if the proprietors of a media institution do
not solely originate from a specific language and ethnic
community to which that media institution (be it radio, TV or
the press) caters, the professional staff will. In the case of
the English language media, there is only a slight modification
to this logic.
Even if the owning people are not from the
westernized socio-cultural layers, their media content producers
or editorial staff are likely to originate from those layers.
(Or, they become very hybrid, multi-lingual product operations
that cater to very specific market segments.)
In fact, it is possible to argue that a specific newspaper (or
radio or TV channel for that matter) would not successfully
cater to its intended audience and retain that audience as its
market if that newspaper's editorial staff - i.e. the producers
of its editorial content - did not belong to and culturally be
immersed in the social group that constitutes that audience.
Indeed, the more socio-culturally immersed a media practitioner
is, the more successful will be her/his professional
contribution to the marketing success of that media institution.
Thus one could say that the audience of a media organisation
also constitutes its staff and often its ownership, at least in
cultural and ethnic terms if not also in terms of its gender and
socio-economic class. If I may simplify this formula, it is
possible to say that media consumers also constitute the media
producers.
Media as representing Ethnic interests
This interaction and relationship between audience and media
content producers will help explain the conclusions by analysts
in studies of the Sri Lankan media. What little studies that
have been done have found that the different linguistic sectors
of the media function differently and cater directly to the
interests of their language-defined audiences.
Thus to quote a recent analysis of the Tamil press: "... .the
impact of the press was also seen in ........ the inculcation of
a sense of pride among the Tamil-speaking groups in their
cultural and literary heritage.... ." Similarly, "..... the
private sector Sinhala dailies..... ..have been ever mindful
that they depend on a Sinhalese (predominantly Buddhist)
readership, and have shown sensitivity to the attitudes,
responses and interests of that segment of the population,
especially in respect of the ethnic conflict.
Another study observes: "Sri Lankan newspapers of the three
language media cater to sets of individuals who inhabit
different worlds and espouse different worldviews."
That same study concludes that "Broadly speaking, the effect of
the Sinhala-English coverage of the North and the East is to
create and nurture a war mentality.. .. When combined with the
findings that media reportage of the conflict offers different
perspectives to different audiences based on ethnicity and
language, these and other studies that have been done have all
gone to show that the content of the mass media's production and
the behaviour of the mass media institutions themselves, in
terms of owners' policy and media professionals' behaviour and
attitudes, have had a bearing on the ethnic conflict."
It is abundantly clear that more than the deliberate intentions
of the media content producers themselves; it is the compulsions
of the market that drives ethnically biased media content. This
is why it is wrong to simply 'blame' the mass media for 'bias'.
Very often media practitioners tilt their content emphasis quite
unconsciously in accordance with their instinctive reading of
audience preferences and sensibilities rather than in accordance
with deliberate policy or political motive. This "instinctive
reading" is derived by these media practitioners own affiliation
to the social groups that comprise their audience. This is not
to downplay the degree of influence of policy and human motive
on media content.
The studies referred to above, however, are primarily an
assessment of print media behaviour and impact and were done
when the electronic media was only just beginning to make its
presence felt in Sri Lanka. The past decade has seen the gradual
market consolidation of television and radio and, today, the
sizeable impact of these media must be seen as having a
considerable influence on social attitudes and social
consciousness. The difference in the nature of audio-visual
media opens up new possibilities in terms of audience responses.
In terms of ethno-cultural differentiations, the rise of the
audio-visual media has some significant outcomes. If the print
media, by its very logo-centricity, sharply divided audiences
linguistically, the audio-visual media/ by its very graphic
communication capacity, does the opposite.
The captivating power
of the audio-visual breaks through the linguistic divide to
encompass a range of, otherwise separated/ audiences into a
single, unified meta-audience that collectively enjoys the
visuals and the ambience within the aesthetic of a regionally
common culture.
Thus, Tamil and Hindi language films and
teledramas gain the largest audiences by far, bringing together
the entirety of the non-English speaking population – Sinhala,
Tamil, Muslim - in a collective aesthetic enjoyment that serves
to bridge cultural differences seamlessly.
The constant
trans-cultural identification can only help draw together ethnic
communities rather than distance them. The emergence of
indigenous fusion music on the platform of a multiplicity of
radio stations is also a new cultural bridge that is helping
bring Sinhala and Tamil speakers together in a single musical
entertainment market.
Of course, the devastating trajectory of the ethnic conflict has
been such that the power of the trans-cultural audio-visual
media is wholly inadequate today to overcome the rigid barriers
of communal hatred and vengeance that have arisen along with the
sheer attrition of the war.
For that, there has to be a comprehensive change across the
canvas of the Sri Lankan social configuration. This is something
to which the mass media can contribute, but ultimately it is up
to the peoples of this island to adjust their perspectives, make
realistic choices and/ to discard fantasies - both of hegemony
as well of vengeance.
From Cultural to Political Community: the problem
of ethno-supremacism
Such a scale of transformation at a socio-cultural level must
necessarily involve the Sinhala community in a very central way.
In order to do justice to the commemoration of an
anti-hegemonist fighter such as Sivaram, I will, in this final
section of my Lecture, focus on the complex issue of Sinhala
hegemonism. This is a subject that I have focussed on often in
the past, especially in my
'Observations' column in the Sunday
Observer.
The biggest single obstacle to peace is the ideology of
Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-supremacy and the hold that this ideology
has on the Sri Lankan State. To put it simply, peace can come to
Sri Lanka only with the defeat of Sinhala-Buddhist
ethno-supremacism. True, there are several other major elements
in the Sri Lankan crisis that also need resolution, especially
the question of a democratic self-rule for the Tamils, but
Sinhala-Buddhist supremacism is at the core of the problem.
In exploring this problematic, it is imperative that I do so
from the point of view of the interests of the Sinhalas
themselves. This requires an examination of the Sinhala
collective mindset - the mass psychology of supremacism (to
paraphrase Wilhelm Reich).
After all, the very intent of Sinhala
supremacism is the perceived survival and future of the 'Sinhala
jaathiya' (or, race). The object of this ideology is the
supremacy of a defined 'Sinhala jaathiya' over the Sri Lankan
State and the maintenance of a State with a configuration that
enables the continuity of this ethnic hegemony.
The rationale
for this hegemony is the threat perception and presumed survival
need for this defined "sinhala jaathiya'. What I will examine is
the
self-understanding of the Sinhalas as to their identity
which would include narratives of their social evolution
(history) as well as the contours of their ethnic description or
self-description.
Most significant is the fact that the modern definitions of
'Sinhala' attribute a central role to a purely (or largely)
internal or indigenous socio-cultural evolution without
sufficient acknowledgement of the continuous other (i.e.
'external') influences in a way that would expose the composite
nature of the Sinhalayo. Rather than giving an equal weight to
the obviously very powerful influences from outside the island,
the modern practise of Sinhala identity emphasises primarily an
isolated, island-exclusive civilisation.
This historiographical logic then results in a major difficulty
experienced by the Sinhalas in recognising the co-existence
today of (a) various sub-Sinhala demographic groups as well as
(b) other non-'Sinhala' ethnic groups, mainly the Tamils and
Muslims/Moors/Malays.
This lack of a pluralist or, composite, perspective of communal
Self (as comprising several closely linked sub groups) and
related Others is in stark contrast to a similar island society
that is the 'nation' of Great Britain. The Sri Lankan social
evolutionary experience is similar to that of Britain and not of
Japan or Taiwan or other off-continental island societies which
are far more homogenous.
Just as Britain and its earliest
indigenous population of Picts suffered successively or
simultaneously very dislocative and powerful external influences
via the Saxon, Angle, and Norse invasions, the Roman invasions
and the Norman invasion, the Sri Lankan island and its
population also underwent similar major intrusive experiences. Given this historical memory, today's 'British" people
simultaneously also identify themselves as being a composite of,
firstly Scots, English and Welsh, and secondly, of mixtures of
Nordic, Germanic and Norman (Norse-French) peoples.
Comment by tamilnation.org
Here, there may be a need
to reflect carefully on the views of those like Alex Salmond and Sean
Connery -
"The 18th-century Union (of England and Scotland) is past its sell-by date. It's gone stale for
both our nations. What we both need now are the political and
economic powers to make our nations work, to tailor policies to suit
our different circumstances, and to speak for ourselves in Europe
and the wider world -while acting together where our interests
converge... As our world has become more complex and inter-connected, the need
for nations to be independent with a direct say in regional and
global affairs has become more important - not less. In 1945, there
were only 51 members of the new United Nations. In our new century,
there are nearly 200 independent UN members - and more than 30 of
these have emerged since the end of the Cold War. Thus in the modern world, the processes of independence and
interdependence are mutually supportive and reinforcing. The
political imperative to share the same state for reasons of building
a large domestic market, or great power projection, is a
fundamentally outdated 19th-and 20th-century concept. In the self-determination stakes, the people of Scotland are ahead
of the game both in thought and deed. But I suspect that the people
of England are beginning to catch up. .."
On
Scotland and the "English Question" - Alex Salmond, Scottish National Party
Leader, 20 March 2007 "..My
politics come from a simple belief: that my country, Scotland, should have
equal status with the nearly 200 other independent countries around the
world."
Sean Connery,
in Making History in Scotland,
Dawn 28 May 2007
For the
Sinhalayo, however, a linear, very simple and singular
composition of 'Sinhala' alone and none other is accepted as the
civilisational identity of this island population.
The
successive or parallel intrusions over millennia from the
-sub-continent as well as from Arabia and from South East Asia
have not been accommodated in the self-definition of 'Sinhala'
even though some of the very ancient texts that are referred to
for founding myths explicitly indicate variety in demographic
origins. There is no practice of identifying 'Sinhala' with a
composite mix of Veddahs, Prakrit speaking northern
sub-continentals, Prakrit-Tamil speaking southern
sub-continentals, Keralites, Tamils, Arabs, Burmans, and
Javanese.
Mahaavangsa and the 'feel-good' factor
Our community's very self-naming as "Sinhala" is a contemporary,
lived, practice of a selective interpretation of especially the
Mahaavangsa text, in, fact of its most mythic section, and of
other texts that derive from it (the Teeka, Saamanthapaasadikaa,
Raajaavaliya, Poojaavaliya, etc).
Even if an individual
Sinhalayaa has not read or does not read the Vangsa Kathaa, that
Sinhalayaa's life practices are explained through the
interpretation of these texts by other Sinhalayaas and, indeed
by whole social institutions, including the State, social
scientific professions, education, the Sangha, other processes
of ideological production which derive their moral
justifications from this corpus of texts and, finally, the mass
media.
And the whole experience of self-identification via these
ancient texts is further sanctified by that thread of
justification that runs through the Mahaavangsa:
"Sujanappasaada-sangvegaththaaya". And the Mahaavangsa declares
this at the end of every chapter as this maha kaavya that we
treasure inspires us with its imagery, metaphor, narrative, and
direct moral instruction giving meaning to numerous currents of
our lives here and now.
In our act of possessing the Vangsa Kathaa as "our" history, we,
Sinhalas, then take possession of all its norms and definitions.
Hence, the "Sujana" (in 'Sujanappasaada-sangvegaththaaya') that
is, "the good people", are we, the Sinhalayo and defined today
in accordance with the simplistic historical interpretations
described above. And, the telling of our history is done for our
further "pasaadaya" (prasaadaya) and "sangvegaya". That is, the
telling of this history to ourselves, the "Good people", then
makes us feel good (or better).
All the Vangsa Kathaa taken
together enable us, Sinhalayo, to call ourselves many other
beautiful things as well, including being the race of people
that protected and nurtured a 'pure' form of humanity's 'most
enlightening' philosophy (i.e. Buddhism) - 'most enlightening'
as defined by these texts and the interpretations of these
texts.
In short, we Sinhalayo, love ourselves and our ethnic community
(as ideologically denned), and regard ourselves as being the
'best' (or greatest) community of humans in the world, and
insist that we must have our own nation-state - which we already
possess today in the form of the Democratic Socialist Republic
of Sri Lanka. In these living acts of self-definition, both
individually and communally, as well as living acts of the
self-love that is a part of that self-definition, we are no
different from many other ethnic groups, be they the Americans,
English, Indian, or Japanese in their own concrete affirmations
of nationhood.
And, in a world where political relations are defined systems of
relationships between political entities based on
ethno-political communities, be they nation-states/ kingdoms or
provinces, we, Sinhalayo too, are under the compulsion to fit
into the dominant world system by 'being' a nation-state – Sri
Lanka/ Heladiva/Sihaladiva/Hela/Lanka. Given this compulsion,
the aspiration for, and retention of nationhood could be seen as
perfectly justifiable and a viable practice of political
community.
Colonised nationhood
However, the shape of this political community of nationhood is
one that also derives from historical realities that are
somewhat beyond the control of the Sinhalayaas. We have
inherited, today, a structure of a State that was defined, in
its immediate past not so much by us as by our European colonial
masters.
After half a millennium of European colonial domination
and manipulation, this island and its communities of people has
been subverted, exploited, re-ordered and traumatised to a
degree that with withdrawal of the British after the Second
World War, we could do little but accept the half-baked,
inorganically designed political structure that we were happy to
call in 1948 the independent State of 'Lankaava' (Ceylon). The
fact that we have, since then, tried to reform that State twice
already (1972,1978) indicates the inadequacies of that State in
effectively managing the various aspirations for social
community on this island of ours.
The simplistic form of 'nation-state' left behind by the
hurriedly departing British, was convenient to the simplistic
self-conception of the Sinhalayo themselves. Given that our
self-image is that of a 'pure', island-exclusive 'race' (ethnic
group) which refuses to acknowledge the composite nature of our
'Sinhala-ness', the Sinhala defined 'nation-state' also fails to
institutionally and symbolically accommodate the extremely
composite 'nation' of people with several different identities
that live within the boundaries of that nation-state.
Hence, the
crucial failure of the successive post-colonial Sri Lankan
polities (the Dominion State, First and Second Republics) to
acknowledge the equal national-cultural significance of Tamils,
Veddas, Burghers, Moors, Malays, and others, including the
various Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim castes.
In fact, all three efforts at conceiving a 'State' were efforts
and processes manipulated by the Sinhalayo without adequate
regard not only for their own sub-Sinhala complexity, but also
for other co-existing ethnic groups.
Consequently, the polities that emerged, including the current
Second Republic, reflect that simplistic exclusivism. This
exclusivism, however, today has the respectability of a vision
of supremacy over the island 'State' - in short, a fantasy of
empire. When Sinhala ultra-nationalist politicians today insist
on something called 'unitary' (further revealing their English
colonial subservience!), they are doing nothing more than
clinging to that fantasy of empire.
But such polities cannot survive for long without making
adjustments to accommodate those previously ignored
complexities. Thus, we have been experiencing the pangs of the
internal crisis in all three successive polities - since 1948.
Today, since the succeeding polities have not only failed to
remedy the problem but worsened it, the crisis is so severe as
to bring the very survival of the Sinhala-dominated State itself
into question.
Towards a New Republic: 'Good news' for The Good
The historical imperative that confronts us, Sinhalayo, then is
not merely 'constitutional reform'. We must look forward to
building a new Republic or Republics. Our self-identification
has to undergo a radical transformation so that our very
practice of identity will begin to be more inclusive and
cognizant of the composite nature of our collectivity. In fact,
if we become less singular in our self-identification, we will
gain greater self-confidence in ourselves as being 'related' via
our various composite elements to our neighbouring ethnic
communities.
In short, we, Sinhalayo, need no longer feel so alone, so besieged and
under threat of dissolution - because we will be part of a
larger, encompassing, regional society. Secession, then, will no
longer be a 'threat' but merely a new configuring of our State
with new forms and structures that enable inter-relationships
between groups and sub-groups. Indeed, 'secession' will lose its
meaning.
Such a re-configuring of our 'national' identity enables us to
fearlessly aspire to a new range of political communities,
perhaps a series of republics, ranging from the local to the
regional and even sub-continental, where 'nation' is not
necessarily bound by a geographical island and our islands are,
once more, the inviting, beautiful, safe havens to the many
'sujana' who arrive and depart from these shores.
We could then
envision not only a composite nationhood but also a composite
statehood not restricted by western colonial borders but
inspired by our own centuries-old sub continental political
traditions that have supported powerful polities and wonderful
civilizations.
Surely, with all our modern technology and
tightly connected market economies, could we not envisage a
complex of inter-dependent polities that is as complex as those
highly complex and successful polities that configured our lands
in the past centuries? Is this not 'good news' for The Good
(sujana)?
|
