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| Sunday, 09 March 2003 |
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The role of cinema in fostering ethnic harmony Text of a speech delivered by the writer on the occasion of the OCIC salutation '88 on March 20th 1988 at Tower Hall Theatre, Colombo. Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake Continued from last week
Admittedly it is not an easy task to deal sensitively and realistically with communal relations in a multi-communal country. In Sri Lanka this is made doubly difficult by the fact that the communal problem has been treated as the 'dirty little secret' of politics. We have on the whole tended to ignore it thinking that it would go away. The lack of such openness has ensured that the question should become a mine field which few creative artistes, let alone film-makers, have ventured into. The historian of culture and ideas in Sri Lanka will note the period when a Sinhala Department functioned at the Jaffna University as a time when attempts were made to change this situation somewhat. During this time young Sinhala intellectuals and creative artistes came into contact with their Tamil counterparts and each group was exposed to the culture and thinking of the other. Two significant cinematic creations flowed form this experience - Dharmasena Pathiraja's 'Ponmani' and Sunil Ariyaratne's Sarungale, 'this latter film based on an idea of Gamini Fonseka's. The first film dealt with the role of case in jaffna society and how it pulls asunder two star-crossed lovers. The other dealt with the whole question of Sinhala - Tamil relations during a time of communal disturbance (in this case the 1958 communal riots) with the emphasis on how communal differences disrupt one particular life, that of the protagonist Nadaraja. Both films drew heavily on the sights and sounds of Jaffna and if for no other reason have to be noted for introducing the northern Tamil milieu into the consciousness of the Sinhala film-goer. Moral cowardice 'Ponmani' is one of the more notable Sri Lankan Tamil films in conception and execution but was perhaps too much in advance of the Tamil consciousness of the time in its discussion of caste. In 'Sarungale' we see a Tamil public servant coping with the fact of his Tamilness in a predominantly Sinhala office milieu and a somewhat sleazy lumpen proletarian background. He had been in love with a Sinhala woman just as his own sister had been in love with a young man of a lowly caste. At a time of heightened communal feelings the film-maker contrasts the moral cowardice of the middle-class Sinhalese with the much more healthy and robust reaction of the urban thug although in a moment of intoxication he is capable of communalism. While men are either good or bad the whole communal problem is attributed to 'third class' or 'dirty' politics. But it is precisely this dirty or third class politics which consume. Nadraja and it is not merely enough to blame the dirty little politicians. There are social forces which have created the contemporary communal cleavage and these have to be identified. Again in Gamini Fonseka's own 'Kotivalige' the victim of a communal attack joins a terrorist group. But who or what forces were behind this communal attack ? Isn't it the same forces which had made it impossible for the honest police officer who is the film's protagonist to do his duty ? Without a deep-going discussion of the political origins of communalism in our time no clear picture of the problem is possible. Unfortunately in Sri Lanka we do not seem to have matured still for such a discussion to be conducted dispassionately not to mention the tabooes imposed by politically-motivated censorship on the film maker. Daring All this does not mean that I underestimate by any means the difficulties facing the film-maker venturing into the political mine field of communal relations. In fact tribute has to be paid to the above film-makers for daring to tackle however partially the problem when most politicians and intellectuals until recently were opting to bury their heads in the sane. Given the sense of guilt suffered by most sensitive and progressive artistes towards the Tamil people any attempt to treat this theme can well produce exercises in mawkishness or self-laceration. They can well end up by upholding a kind of exalted humanism represented for example by the profusion of children singing Sinhala-Tamil songs in tele dramas which we see these days. In a sense we are still too close to the crisis of our times to see it dispassionately let alone discuss it critically. For this reason I can not foresee any attempts in the near future to treat the theme of inter-communal relations in any meaningful way in a creative work. In fact much has happened since the late 1970's when films like 'Ponmani' and 'Sarungale' were made to radically transform our consciousness of the ethnic problem. The rising Tamil militancy which assumed anarchic and nihilistic forms, the anti-Tamil violence of July 1983, the escalation of the civil war in the north and the east and now the advent of the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord and the Indian Peace Keeping Force have altered everybody's perception of the problem. The rising violence on both sides of the communal barricades have hardened views on both sides while the minority of moderates and enlightened observers of the problem are being increasingly driven to the wall. This is another reason why a dispassionate scrutiny will not be possible in the near future. However the film-maker and the television artiste can do something to negate some of the communal stereotypes which are common in popular culture. As far as the cinema and television are concerned. I must say that this is far less common than in the Sinhala theatre which recently was plagued by 'Neinage Suduwa,' 'Sergeant Nallathambi', 'Sathasivam and the like almost as if Tamil or Muslim stereotypes were necessary to enrich the Sinhala theatre. Such stereotypes are mercifully very much less in the cinema and television. In fact one of the major challenges in these areas will be how to project. Tamil and Muslim characters through the film and television without caricaturing their accents and mannerisms. Polarised attitudes Therefore to summarise, before any discussion of communal relation is possible on screen and over the box a major political dialogue is called for on the nature of the communal crisis of our times. At the moment we are only still going through that process and only the vaguest outlines and contours of such a dialogue is discernible at the moment. Moreover the polarised attitudes of the two main communities has pushed back considerably any possibility of a consensus or a common identity of interests. What the artiste can do in this context is limited. At best he can only uphold the values of a broad humanism and appeal to the soul of the people above the din of the political market place. At worst he will himself succumb to that din and add his voice to the hub-bud of the contemporary communal jungle. For anything more tangible we will have to look to the future and not the very near future either. |
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