The stillborn artificial Sri Lankan identity – IX

A genuine Sri Lankan identity

by Nalin de Silva

(September 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is obvious that there are not many Tamils, Burghers and Muslims in Sri Lanka to compete for membership in the cricket teams Tamil Union, BRC and Moors respectively with the Sinhalas. In the past it was possible to field a Tamil Union cricket team consisting entirely of Tamils but today it is not the case. Many Sinhalas play for the Tamil Union and for other cricket teams named after various ethnic communities. Either there are not enough Tamils around or the standard of cricket has come down among the Tamils.

There is no need to conduct a survey to find out what has happened in the cricket and other teams of the elite clubs named after ethnic communities. The teams in general represent the national proportions and with many Tamils and others migrating to other countries the "ethnic clubs" have not been able to find sufficient number of talented players from the respective ethnic communities.

The schools run by the good Bishops and other clergy also are in the same situation and they have to be satisfied with national percentages of players reflected in the percentages of players of various ethnic communities in the sports teams. The Sinhalas were underrepresented then as there was a bias against the admission of Sinhala students to the elite schools those days whether one calls it discrimination against the Sinhalas or not.

It was this under representation of Sinhalas whether in the schools, sports teams, professions and the legislature, in addition to suppression of the Sinhalas by the British that was the cause of the problem and not the so called Sinhala supremacy read as Sinhala Buddhist supremacy as formulated by Tamil and other Chauvinists. (It has become standard in this country to refer to Sinhala Chauvinism, Sinhala supremacy etc., as if the other communities have been upasakas who had been democrats, humanists, respecters of human rights and what not.)

The Ceylonese identity of the Burghers and subsequently of the Tamils envisaged a Ceylon where the Burghers and then the Tamils became the leaders of the country with the connivance of the British. As we have demonstrated monthly if not weekly as Mr. R.M. B. Senanayake claims in another context, I am afraid without any understanding of western science, its Christian background not the Catholic background, and of the philosophy of constructive relativism that we have formulated, the discrimination against the Sinhalas by the British, it is not necessary to go into details. (I will deal with RMBS on science and other matters next week.)

However, what is intriguing is the repeated attempt by the Tamil Chauvinists to shout from roof tops that the so called ethnic problem commenced with the so called disenfranchising of the Tamils, the official language act when the problem goes back to the discrimination of the Sinhalas by the British with the assistance of the Tamil elite.

I have dealt with each of these from so called disenfranchising, university admissions official language to the national anthem but nobody up to date has come out with any counter arguments. If one is interested my arguments can be found in "An analysis of Tamil Racism in Sri Lanka" available in some libraries. The Sinhala original of this book "Prabhakaran ohuge seeyala baappala ha massinala" can be downloaded free from the website www.kalaya.org.

The Sinhalas did not fight for a bigger share of the cake but for independence from the British from the very early days. As we said last week there were three major struggles in 1817-1818, 1845 and towards the end of the nineteenth century. The so called independence struggle of the English educated commenced in the twentieth century was not an independence struggle as such but a petitioning movement for some reforms. The ordinary Sinhala people were dissociated from these English educated petitioners who could only beg for reforms in English, and there was no political leadership for them until about 1952 an year after the formation of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

However, in the meantime there were other cultural movements and they were agitating for independence to Ceylon with Sinhala as the official language. There was and there is nothing wrong in agitating for Sinhala as the official language as it had been the official language for more than two thousand years in this country. (for details please refer the above mentioned book). The SLFP and Mr. Bandaranaike only followed the Sinhala national movement where as Tamil chauvinism that was based on not recognizing the significance of Sinhala culture in the country was forced on the Tamils by an Anglicized (meaning Christianized as well) elite assisted by the British who were anti Sinhala Buddhist.

It was the British and the Tamil elite mainly Christian who were responsible for Tamil Chauvinism and it was they who prevented a proper Sri Lankan identity being formed in this country. Those Tamils and the Sinhala elite who are opposed to Sinhala Buddhists could be more informed if they read articles by Mr. Rasalingam who presumably lives in Canada. The LTTE is a creation of the Illankai Thamil Arassu Kadchchi (the so called Federal Party) the TULF and of course the Ponnambalam brothers – Ramanathan and Arunachalam (Ponnambalam Coomaraswamy hegemony) of the early twentieth century and the Ponnambalam of the mid twentieth century (GG). The terrorists were "our boys" to the latter day leaders of this heritage and they were all grand uncles, uncles and cousins of Prabhakaran. The uncles, grand uncles and the cousins are all responsible for the present day plight of the Tamils, not to mention the British and the Dutch.

A Sri Lankan identity where the significance of the Sinhala Buddhist culture is recognized could have been created if not for the anti Sinhala Buddhist activities of these leaders as well as Some elite Sinhala Christians and Catholics both clergy and lay persons who were interested in creating an artificial Ceylonese identity where western Christian culture was not only the significant culture but the dominant culture as well.

The artificial Ceylonese culture was stillborn but that does not mean that a Sri Lankan identity cannot be created. Just as much Pandukabhaya (not the Aba as depicted in the film now being screened) created the first unitary state and probably the first nation in the world some two thousand four hundred years ago the Sinhala people especially the Sinhala Buddhists would come out with ideas and concepts to form this Sri Lankan identity. Those who oppose the significance of the Sinhala Buddhist culture would only delay the process.
(Concluded) - Sri Lanka Guardian