Waiting for Aba is over
by Nalin de Silva
(August 13, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I know that this series of articles is becoming more and more voluminous, but these have to be stated and if Mr. R. M. B. Senanayake cannot reply to them then he should stop wasting the time of the readers without pouring his anti Buddhist venom in the pages of newspapers. Let me quote another part from his article that resulted in this series. I am quoting him so that the reader will observe his anti Buddhist attitudes.
"So the finger was pointed at the Tamils as having acquired an undue share of the top jobs and economic opportunities in the government, not by merit but by the preferential treatment shown to them by the colonial authorities. There was deliberate discrimination against the majority Sinhala-Buddhists which was the reason for their relative lower economic status. Whether this was so or not is irrelevant. It was the perception that mattered and in the next few decades this theme was expounded and proclaimed from housetops by Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists. It led to standardization of university marks and eventual limitation of access to university education for the Tamils.
Sinhala Buddhist populist politicians whipped up mass feeling against the Tamils which led to riots almost in every decade. It was based on what economists called 'zero sum economics'.
The national cake is of fixed size and if the Tamils got a disproportionate share of it then the Sinhala-Buddhists would inevitably get less. The nationalists poured out hateful literature in Sinhala directed against the Tamils. The inevitable result of the manufacture of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is that it led to a similar Tamil nationalism. Fortunately for the Christians it did not take the form of Hindu nationalism since the Tamil leaders were themselves of Christian background.
Knowing that they were in a weak position the Tamil political leaders did not go the whole way to mobilize the Tamil masses as the Sinhala-Buddhist leaders have done. Ranil is a good man who has lost his way amidst this cacophony of nationalists. He deserves our admiration. I wonder whether his upholding Sri Lanka nationalism may not be based on his Christian background although he is a Buddhist. That task was left to a new generation which was driven to despair by the actions of the government. Initially the claim was for regional autonomy for traditional Tamil areas. But over the years it has led to a demand for secession through armed conflict. They had to re-write history to justify their claims. Again it was the perception that mattered, not the facts."
The above quotation clearly shows the anti Buddhist attitude of RMBS. He accuses the Sinhala Buddhist leaders of whipping up mass feelings against the Tamils, and claims that it led to riots in every decade. Then he says the Tamil leaders did not go the whole way to mobilize the Tamil masses as the Sinhala Buddhist leaders have done. He forgets the so called saintly figure S J V Chelvanayakam who attempted to mobilize not only the Tamils in the east and the north but in the upcountry as well. SJVC went further and tried his best to mobilize the Muslims as well against the Sinhala people, under the banner of so called Tamil speaking people. The so called non violent sathyagrahas of SJVC were open invitations to violence and he could be called the father (Aba) of violence, as the reader Rasalingam also has observed. RMBS is happy that Tamil leaders were of Christian background and Tamil nationalism did not take the form of Hindu nationalism. His Christian biasness is further exposed when he "wonders" whether Ranil Wickremesinghe’s upholding Sri Lanka nationalism may not be based on his Christian background although he is a Buddhist. What a pity that most of the present day Sinhala leaders are not of Christian background as otherwise we would have had peace in this country!
I presume that RMBS is a Catholic though he may not be the mouthpiece of the Catholic Church. What he does not realize is that the Catholics are without power in the world and they have been all ruled by the Christians during the last four hundred years or so. The western modernity is a creation of the Christians and not of the Catholics, and ever since the Christians became dominant the latter have been ridiculing the former. In the academic fields the Christian intellectuals have coined terms such as dark ages to refer to the period of Catholic dominance in Europe while calling their achievements as renaissance and enlightenment. This is an insult to the achievements by Catholic Chinthanaya but the Catholic intellectuals have no option other than to repeat these concepts following the Christian intellectuals. It is pathetic to hear and read Catholic intellectuals themselves referring to the period of Catholic dominance in Europe as the dark ages. In my own way I have been fighting against western Christian modernity and criticizing such concepts as renaissance, dark ages, age of reason and enlightenment, and I would invite any elite Catholic to join me to protect the dignity of the Catholic Chinthanaya, if it is not demeaning to join a Buddhist in this struggle. The Pope himself has been confined to a few hectares in Vatican and he has been made to serve Bush in addition to serving the God. The fate of the Catholics in Sri Lanka has not been different from that of Pope since the arrival of the Dutch but the Catholics have not fought against the Dutch and the English. It was left to the Sinhala Buddhist king in Senkadagala to protect the Catholics from the Dutch reformists. The Sinhala Buddhist king exercised his right to protect the citizens, and settled down them in places such as Vahakotte off Matale. However at present there are some elite Catholics who protect the so called right to protect of the western Christian hegemonic gang, calling themselves the international community, against the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. Under the British the Catholics were second class citizens, the Sinhala Buddhists being not even third class citizens but the Catholics did not raise a finger against the former. Like the Pope the elite Catholics both clergy and the laypersons are willing to serve western Christianity and join them to suppress the Buddhists. The elite Catholics should have joined the Buddhists (and the others) to fight western Christian modernity but have been content with crumbs thrown out to them by the English Christian governors and others, and for sometime have been protecting if not aiding the LTTE in the hope that the terrorists would destroy the Sinhala Buddhist culture.
RMBS does not have to wonder whether Ranil Wickremesinghe’s upholding Sri Lanka nationalism may not be based on his Christian background although he is a Buddhist. Though this statement by RMBS is a calculated attack on the Buddhists it boomerangs on him. In fact it is the Christian background of Ranil Wickremesinghe that makes him to uphold the so called Sri Lankan nationalism. This brings us to the main theme of the series and I will deal with it now leaving how Tamil racism was instigated and inspired by the British against the Sinhalas to the next part of the series. It is not the so called zero sum economics of the western economists (what a crude concept to be formulated – compare this with the so called laws of conservation as formulated by the western Physicists. Though one may not agree with what the western Physicists create, at least there is some elegance in what they do) nor the standardization of marks at the GCE (A/L) for university admissions that created Tamil racism. (For details please refer "An introduction to Tamil racism in Sri Lanka". If RMBS is interested and if he is fluent in Sinhala, he can read the Sinhala version of this book that can be downloaded free http://www.kalaya.org/book06.html ).
The Sri Lankan nationalism or identity as understood by RMBS is not the only such identity. The particular Sri Lankan identity that the elite think of is a product of the English schools established under the British, spearheaded by Colombo Academy. Except for the Colombo Academy, which was a government school, the other schools were established by the missionaries of various Christian denominations. The Catholics also followed with establishing their schools, however the pride of place going to the Anglican schools and the Colombo Academy which was supposed to be secular, though this school has produced more Anglican Bishops than the Anglican schools. Those who were responsible for the initial formulation of this particular Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) identity were mainly Burghers. They were Christian in culture and in religion. Their nationalism was a very limited nationalism, and at best demanded a collective identity among the various ethnic groups on an equal footing and dominion status in the British empire (The computer insists that empire is spelt as Empire!). It has to be emphasized that there was no demand for dominion status at the beginning and it took nearly a century to evolve that concept.
The Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) identity merely imitated what the westerners, especially the British, had to say on nationalism without even analysing what was happening in Britain. The Sri Lankans (or the Ceylonese) wanted to show the British that they could do what their masters did as a collective body. These Ceylonese were interested in defeating the British in their own games if possible and coming first in the British empire in examinations conducted by the British. They imitated the British in social manners from holding wineglasses to wineglass like figures, without the latter missing the Victorian limp. They wanted to build the Ceylonese nation from scratch with the help of the old boys (and girls) of the elite English schools. It has to be remembered that when the British established the Education Department, they appointed the Anglican Bishop as the first Chief Inspector of Schools, a position equivalent to that of the Secretary, Ministry of Education.
The so called Ceylonese had no idea of what was going on in the villages, except perhaps through a novel by a Woolf, but then who said that Woolf had a knowledge of the village, except the so called Ceylonese. It was a case of blind leading the blind and they went on in circles scratching the backs of each other. They went round the mulberry bush singing and showing their masters that they brushed their teeth like the latter, and never thought of going round a coconut tree at least to find out whether the buffalo tied to it had brushed its teeth. Of course there were creepers creeping round tea bushes planted by the British, in between rugby football matches. The back scratching is still continuing with some Sinhala educated also getting on to the footboard of the bandwagon. The Ceylonese like the Romans considered the villagers to be countrymen and not citizens.
It is this artificial nationalism, a nationalism that had English as the lingua franca that was stillborn. It is true that the Burgher leadership was replaced by a Tamil leadership and subsequently by a Sinhala leadership, but the attitudes did not change as they were all from the same Christian background in culture whether they are Buddhists or Hindus in religion. The Ceylonese wanted to build the Ceylonese nation ignoring the work of Panduaba, and not Aba (the father in Hebrew please refer Vidusara for details), who had built the Sinhala nation some two thousand four hundred years ago. Though the artificial nationalism was stillborn the Ceylonese have kept the corpse, again by artificial means in the hope that may be Aba will resurrect it. However Aba will come only to Cinema halls and it is good to see that RMBS has now realised that there is no hope of resurrecting the corpse of artificial Sri Lankan identity, and that the particular identity is nothing but dead.
(To be continued)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
by Nalin de Silva
(August 13, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I know that this series of articles is becoming more and more voluminous, but these have to be stated and if Mr. R. M. B. Senanayake cannot reply to them then he should stop wasting the time of the readers without pouring his anti Buddhist venom in the pages of newspapers. Let me quote another part from his article that resulted in this series. I am quoting him so that the reader will observe his anti Buddhist attitudes.
"So the finger was pointed at the Tamils as having acquired an undue share of the top jobs and economic opportunities in the government, not by merit but by the preferential treatment shown to them by the colonial authorities. There was deliberate discrimination against the majority Sinhala-Buddhists which was the reason for their relative lower economic status. Whether this was so or not is irrelevant. It was the perception that mattered and in the next few decades this theme was expounded and proclaimed from housetops by Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists. It led to standardization of university marks and eventual limitation of access to university education for the Tamils.
Sinhala Buddhist populist politicians whipped up mass feeling against the Tamils which led to riots almost in every decade. It was based on what economists called 'zero sum economics'.
The national cake is of fixed size and if the Tamils got a disproportionate share of it then the Sinhala-Buddhists would inevitably get less. The nationalists poured out hateful literature in Sinhala directed against the Tamils. The inevitable result of the manufacture of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is that it led to a similar Tamil nationalism. Fortunately for the Christians it did not take the form of Hindu nationalism since the Tamil leaders were themselves of Christian background.
Knowing that they were in a weak position the Tamil political leaders did not go the whole way to mobilize the Tamil masses as the Sinhala-Buddhist leaders have done. Ranil is a good man who has lost his way amidst this cacophony of nationalists. He deserves our admiration. I wonder whether his upholding Sri Lanka nationalism may not be based on his Christian background although he is a Buddhist. That task was left to a new generation which was driven to despair by the actions of the government. Initially the claim was for regional autonomy for traditional Tamil areas. But over the years it has led to a demand for secession through armed conflict. They had to re-write history to justify their claims. Again it was the perception that mattered, not the facts."
The above quotation clearly shows the anti Buddhist attitude of RMBS. He accuses the Sinhala Buddhist leaders of whipping up mass feelings against the Tamils, and claims that it led to riots in every decade. Then he says the Tamil leaders did not go the whole way to mobilize the Tamil masses as the Sinhala Buddhist leaders have done. He forgets the so called saintly figure S J V Chelvanayakam who attempted to mobilize not only the Tamils in the east and the north but in the upcountry as well. SJVC went further and tried his best to mobilize the Muslims as well against the Sinhala people, under the banner of so called Tamil speaking people. The so called non violent sathyagrahas of SJVC were open invitations to violence and he could be called the father (Aba) of violence, as the reader Rasalingam also has observed. RMBS is happy that Tamil leaders were of Christian background and Tamil nationalism did not take the form of Hindu nationalism. His Christian biasness is further exposed when he "wonders" whether Ranil Wickremesinghe’s upholding Sri Lanka nationalism may not be based on his Christian background although he is a Buddhist. What a pity that most of the present day Sinhala leaders are not of Christian background as otherwise we would have had peace in this country!
I presume that RMBS is a Catholic though he may not be the mouthpiece of the Catholic Church. What he does not realize is that the Catholics are without power in the world and they have been all ruled by the Christians during the last four hundred years or so. The western modernity is a creation of the Christians and not of the Catholics, and ever since the Christians became dominant the latter have been ridiculing the former. In the academic fields the Christian intellectuals have coined terms such as dark ages to refer to the period of Catholic dominance in Europe while calling their achievements as renaissance and enlightenment. This is an insult to the achievements by Catholic Chinthanaya but the Catholic intellectuals have no option other than to repeat these concepts following the Christian intellectuals. It is pathetic to hear and read Catholic intellectuals themselves referring to the period of Catholic dominance in Europe as the dark ages. In my own way I have been fighting against western Christian modernity and criticizing such concepts as renaissance, dark ages, age of reason and enlightenment, and I would invite any elite Catholic to join me to protect the dignity of the Catholic Chinthanaya, if it is not demeaning to join a Buddhist in this struggle. The Pope himself has been confined to a few hectares in Vatican and he has been made to serve Bush in addition to serving the God. The fate of the Catholics in Sri Lanka has not been different from that of Pope since the arrival of the Dutch but the Catholics have not fought against the Dutch and the English. It was left to the Sinhala Buddhist king in Senkadagala to protect the Catholics from the Dutch reformists. The Sinhala Buddhist king exercised his right to protect the citizens, and settled down them in places such as Vahakotte off Matale. However at present there are some elite Catholics who protect the so called right to protect of the western Christian hegemonic gang, calling themselves the international community, against the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. Under the British the Catholics were second class citizens, the Sinhala Buddhists being not even third class citizens but the Catholics did not raise a finger against the former. Like the Pope the elite Catholics both clergy and the laypersons are willing to serve western Christianity and join them to suppress the Buddhists. The elite Catholics should have joined the Buddhists (and the others) to fight western Christian modernity but have been content with crumbs thrown out to them by the English Christian governors and others, and for sometime have been protecting if not aiding the LTTE in the hope that the terrorists would destroy the Sinhala Buddhist culture.
RMBS does not have to wonder whether Ranil Wickremesinghe’s upholding Sri Lanka nationalism may not be based on his Christian background although he is a Buddhist. Though this statement by RMBS is a calculated attack on the Buddhists it boomerangs on him. In fact it is the Christian background of Ranil Wickremesinghe that makes him to uphold the so called Sri Lankan nationalism. This brings us to the main theme of the series and I will deal with it now leaving how Tamil racism was instigated and inspired by the British against the Sinhalas to the next part of the series. It is not the so called zero sum economics of the western economists (what a crude concept to be formulated – compare this with the so called laws of conservation as formulated by the western Physicists. Though one may not agree with what the western Physicists create, at least there is some elegance in what they do) nor the standardization of marks at the GCE (A/L) for university admissions that created Tamil racism. (For details please refer "An introduction to Tamil racism in Sri Lanka". If RMBS is interested and if he is fluent in Sinhala, he can read the Sinhala version of this book that can be downloaded free http://www.kalaya.org/book06.html ).
The Sri Lankan nationalism or identity as understood by RMBS is not the only such identity. The particular Sri Lankan identity that the elite think of is a product of the English schools established under the British, spearheaded by Colombo Academy. Except for the Colombo Academy, which was a government school, the other schools were established by the missionaries of various Christian denominations. The Catholics also followed with establishing their schools, however the pride of place going to the Anglican schools and the Colombo Academy which was supposed to be secular, though this school has produced more Anglican Bishops than the Anglican schools. Those who were responsible for the initial formulation of this particular Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) identity were mainly Burghers. They were Christian in culture and in religion. Their nationalism was a very limited nationalism, and at best demanded a collective identity among the various ethnic groups on an equal footing and dominion status in the British empire (The computer insists that empire is spelt as Empire!). It has to be emphasized that there was no demand for dominion status at the beginning and it took nearly a century to evolve that concept.
The Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) identity merely imitated what the westerners, especially the British, had to say on nationalism without even analysing what was happening in Britain. The Sri Lankans (or the Ceylonese) wanted to show the British that they could do what their masters did as a collective body. These Ceylonese were interested in defeating the British in their own games if possible and coming first in the British empire in examinations conducted by the British. They imitated the British in social manners from holding wineglasses to wineglass like figures, without the latter missing the Victorian limp. They wanted to build the Ceylonese nation from scratch with the help of the old boys (and girls) of the elite English schools. It has to be remembered that when the British established the Education Department, they appointed the Anglican Bishop as the first Chief Inspector of Schools, a position equivalent to that of the Secretary, Ministry of Education.
The so called Ceylonese had no idea of what was going on in the villages, except perhaps through a novel by a Woolf, but then who said that Woolf had a knowledge of the village, except the so called Ceylonese. It was a case of blind leading the blind and they went on in circles scratching the backs of each other. They went round the mulberry bush singing and showing their masters that they brushed their teeth like the latter, and never thought of going round a coconut tree at least to find out whether the buffalo tied to it had brushed its teeth. Of course there were creepers creeping round tea bushes planted by the British, in between rugby football matches. The back scratching is still continuing with some Sinhala educated also getting on to the footboard of the bandwagon. The Ceylonese like the Romans considered the villagers to be countrymen and not citizens.
It is this artificial nationalism, a nationalism that had English as the lingua franca that was stillborn. It is true that the Burgher leadership was replaced by a Tamil leadership and subsequently by a Sinhala leadership, but the attitudes did not change as they were all from the same Christian background in culture whether they are Buddhists or Hindus in religion. The Ceylonese wanted to build the Ceylonese nation ignoring the work of Panduaba, and not Aba (the father in Hebrew please refer Vidusara for details), who had built the Sinhala nation some two thousand four hundred years ago. Though the artificial nationalism was stillborn the Ceylonese have kept the corpse, again by artificial means in the hope that may be Aba will resurrect it. However Aba will come only to Cinema halls and it is good to see that RMBS has now realised that there is no hope of resurrecting the corpse of artificial Sri Lankan identity, and that the particular identity is nothing but dead.
(To be continued)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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