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| Sunday, 12 September 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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About another matter - S. Sivasegaram : The voice of the oppressed Reviewed by A. J. Canagaratna This collection of S. Sivasegaram's transcreations is political in the best sense of the word. He is a fluent bilingual who is equally at home in English as in his mother tongue, Tamil. His characteristic tone is a withering sarcasm and his poems go straight for the jugular. As a committed Marxist, he can see the integral connections between tyranny and oppression in different countries; they are all manifestations of the same phenomenon. He writes (About another matter): It is true that when I speak about one thing, it seems to be about another. It is hard to avoid one while speaking of another. Writing about Pinochet is also writing about Suharto, Marcos and Hitler. The man who went missing in Chile remains buried in Chemmani. The mass graves in Mirusuvil and Sooriyakanda were dug as one pit. And the crowbars that demolished Babri Masjid were forged in the fire that engulfed the Jaffna Library, the heat of whose flames blasted the statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan. The poem The killing hands refers to the same phenomenon: The very hands that buried young boys at Sooriyakanda buried young men at Chemmani. In God bless America, the poet dons the person of an American citizen caught in the inferno of September 11 who addresses the President of the United States of AmericA: Your Excellency the President of the United States of America, I, an American citizen, speak from a room in a burning tower where lights suddenly went off following the impact of an air plane that struck like a thunderbolt. The poem is a scorching indictment of America's crimes against humanity, beginning with the nuclear bombing of HiroshimA: But my vision pierces through the darkness and the walls of the building: half a century of history unfolds before me. I see bloodstains on the military hands that uphold American domination. The poem does not confine itself to a mere expression of righteous indignation. It ends in a note of hope: I do not lose heart, for the liberation of America is interwoven with that of the world. Let the collapse of this tower be a symbol of the fall of a terror that made America the enemy of the world. Let it be the beginning of the end of a goddess of evil bearing the trident of exploitation, oppression and war. This powerful poem concludes on an ironic note: Your Excellency the President I love America more than I love my life that will soon depart: not the America that you seek to save, but the America that strives to save itself from you - an America that the whole world would love. God bless that America! If I have given the impression so far that Sivasegaram is obsessed with America, today's sole hyper-power (In Castro's vivid description), I must correct it. If America looms large, it is because that is today's political reality; it is the sponsor and fount of global state terrorism today. A poignant poem like The prison focuses on gender oppression and suffering: I attained age. Eggs, head bath, sari, imprisonment, broker, donation, dowry, thaali. I ended imprisonment at home to be imprisoned elsewhere. Did not my mother know? Did not my sisters know? Did someone forget to tell me something? These lines bring home to me the nugget of truth in the cliche: the personal is the political. His poems on the Trincomalee Harbour and the Kelani River do not dwell, as conventional poems would have done, on scenic beauty, but link them up, respectively, to people waiting for days on end to travel by ship to the North (at a time when the A-9 highway had been closed), and to the bodies of youths killed during the 1987-1989 insurgency and thrown into the river. Sivasegaram's is decidedly a Third World voice, the voice of the oppressed and the downtrodden everywhere clamouring for justice and freedom. His poems do not play hide-and-seek with the reader, who knows
immediately where the poet stands. Labour of love Me yanne koi pare? Reviewed by Malinda Seneviratne Perhaps it is the tragedy of our times that politicians equate 'public submissions' to the casting of votes or else the surrender to tyranny. This shouldn't surprise anyone, because 'consultative process' has been erased from the hard drive called 'democracy'. Or at least as the term 'democracy' is understood by them. And so we have commissions, public inquiries, submissions, forwarding of recommendations and dust gathering. In most instances, the process is an eye wash, because what is more important is not democracy existing, but democracy appearing to exist. If people's representatives actually represented them and not their funding mudalalis, if national leaders had the national interest at heart and not the interests of multinational capital, if public servants actually served the general public and not politicians and their lackeys, and if the public itself not only knew what their rights were but exercised them with responsibility, then ours would be a model society no doubt. Utopian? Perhaps. But would we be asking for the moon if we sought a fraction of Utopia? I don't think so. Forget Utopia and its fractions, the nation and its democratic discontent. Let's talk about the doable, the feasible, the within-the-parameters-of-the-possible. Public comment/submission has been solicited. The government wants to know what the people want and what they believe would work. Maybe the data is just not available or reliable. Maybe the technocrats who the public maintain don't to justice to the salaries they enjoy. Maybe the World Bank has run out of ideas. Maybe someone had the bright idea to pass the buck back to the public so that it is possible to say, "don't blame us, this is what you asked for", regardless of whether or not what is finally given is what was asked for. It doesn't matter. We have ceased to count, either way. But until we organise ourselves in ways that we can make what we think really count, until we really learn what civic duty is, we can do one thing, both about budget proposals and adopting common-sense solutions to seemingly insurmountable and complex problems. We can read M.D.H. Seneviratne's book. Indeed, if the creature has not been driven to extinction, the humble, conscientious, willing-to-learn politician would do well to leaf through this fascinating, cogently argued and well written book. The book might actually give the Finance Minister's grey cells a boost. Me yanne koi pare? can be translated simply as 'Whither?' or to be more precise, 'Whither Sri Lanka?' It was clearly not written anticipating a strange government request from a long suffering public, it is only fortuitous that it came out this year. It is, to me, a labour of love from a civil servant who richly deserves that title. Strictly speaking, Seneviratne is not a member of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service. What his book indicates, however is, that he is a citizen in the true sense of the word, a researcher with as astute eye for detail which takes nothing away from his ability to obtain and to obtain it from the larger picture, so to speak. More than all this, he is a nationalist, a man who does not see populations as mere aggregates of individuals, but people as elements of a community. The book has a nice blend of observation and recommendation, something only an alert and creative mind can put together. These are tastefully flavoured with appropriate aphorisms and witty commentary, making the book not just a set of budget proposals, but a thoughtful analysis of what has gone wrong in our country for half a century now and why, not to mention of course, that it is an eminently entertaining read. The breadth of his knowledge and the extent of the reading he has drawn from us can be gauged from the fact that if you name some random topic, a pet area of interest, he is more than likely to have said something extremely pertinent about it. Whether it is governance, issue of land, unemployment, nutrition, education, rural credit, livestock, micro-enterprise development, trade, productivity, transport or any number of other subjects, Seneviratne has done it in his book. No, he is certainly not a pundit for all seasons, but the possessor of a genial and self-effacing mind, someone who must have been smiling throughout the entire exercise, not out of arrogance but compassion, I am convinced. Seneviratne begins his book quoting Parakramabahu the Great, "Where there is no knowledge, there can be no policy, and where there is faulty knowledge, the policies will necessarily be faulty." With this book, no one will be able to plead lack of knowledge or
faulty data, such are its academic merits. Splendour of Splendour Splendours of Ruhuna's Heritage "Splendour of Ruhuna's Heritage" by Gamini de S.G. Punchihewa is an exciting voyage back to ancient civilisation from the 3rd century BC to the 12th century AD. Set in the Southern Province of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, the author covers the historical, religious, archaeological, cultural and wild life aspects of this region. Legendary tales of places, oral traditions and folklore are interwoven into this monograph which includes sites such as Hambantota, Bundala - the bird sanctuary, Tissamaharama the cradle of ancient civilisation of Ruhuna, Kataragama - the jungle shrine, the shores of Kirinda redolent of King Kavantissa and Viharamahadevi's episode. From Yala plains, Lunugamvehera, the Mahayana sites of Buduruwagala and Dambegoda to the waterfalls such as Ravana Ella - the wondrous scenic Ella gap, Ravana's country of Ravana's and Sita's legendary exploits the rock temple of Dowa concluding Hambegamuwa - the abode of the Arahats. The author has succeeded in capturing the essence of this ancient civilisation by the vivid and painstaking description of each site and legend as well as its colourful inhabitants and nature's bounty. This book is an engrossing tale of ancient Lanka which any lover of history and culture should read. Gamini de S.G. Punchihewa is a well-known freelance journalist who has been a contributor to newspapers as well as wildlife and tourist magazines for a span of forty years. His working experience with institutions such as the River Valleys
Development Board,the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka and the now defunct
Gal Oya Development Board has assisted him greatly in his extensive
research into the history, culture and archaeology of ancient Sri Lanka. Boyle on Knox's word : It began with Anaconda Former film producer and scriptwriter Richard Boyle has devoted much of the past two decades to research concerning cultural aspects of Sri Lanka's British colonial period (1796 - 1948) In 2000 he began assisting the Oxford English Dictionary in the revision of the entries for words of Sri Lankan origin, contained in the Dictionary's second edition. This work resulted in Knox's words, a fascinating book which goes beyond just a study in etymology and lexicography, to expose Knox's influence on subsequent writers and provide little known information in Sri Lanka in the late 17th century. Richard Boyle discusses his book with Carol Aloysius. Q: Your book has a curious title. Can you tell me what it is about? A: Knox's Words is an etymological study of 25 words of Sri Lankan origin or association first used in the English language by Robert Knox in his book An Historical Relation of Ceylon, and which are recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. These words include illuk, kabaragoya, kittul, kurakkan, and perahera, whose usage is essentially restricted to Sri Lanka. Others, such as, Kangany, torana and vihara, enjoy regional usage. Then we have betel-leaf, bo-tree, Buddha, poojah and rattan, which are now used internationally. But they were all first exemplified in English by Knox because his book was, of course, the first about the island in the language. Of all the Knox words, Buddha is arguably the most important. As I write in my book, "It is apt that Knox's legacy should include the first occurrence in English literature of a word so hallowed by such a large percentage of the island's population." Q: So how did you come to write this book? A: There are several crucial events that lead to my writing Knox's Words. The first occurred in Ceylon. However, it began in London in 1879 with an appeal made to the English-speaking world by the newly-appointed editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), James Murray. Murray had been charged with creating the definitive English dictionary. This meant that besides providing derivations and definitions, the new dictionary would include illustrative quotations from literature to chart the history of each word. So Murray needed an army of volunteer readers to comb through publications old and new, not only for words to include in the dictionary, but also their illustrative quotations. The appeal was sent to booksellers, newspapers and libraries. Some copies no doubt arrived in Ceylon in the packages of books ordered by administrators and planters. At the time there lived in Ceylon a researcher called Donald Ferguson, the son of A. M. Ferguson, the editor and proprietor of the Ceylon Observer. Ferguson was one of thousands who answered Murray's call. He was assigned to read Knox, probably around 1880, and, as a result, proposed scores of words from the book. The next event occurred a century later during the 1980s with the computerisation of the OED. Until that time most studies of the dictionary were problematic because, being so large, statistical information could not be accessed with any degree of accuracy. The last event was an appeal made by the current chief editor of the OED, John Simpson, in 1999. Like Murray before him, Simpson called on volunteers around the English-speaking world, this time to help revise and update the dictionary so as to create a third edition. I readily answered the call as I was then researching the etymology of a most interesting word of Sri Lankan origin, Anaconda. It wasn't long before I realised the significance of Knox's unknown contribution to the English language, and I felt compelled to document it. Q:It is an unususal book. What makes it different from other books written on the English Language? A: There aren't many studies of such a small number of words, although earlier this year a book by the late American sociologist Robert Merton on just one word was published. Not only that, it concerns a word with a Sri Lankan connection - the much-abused Serendipity. 'Knox's Words' is also unusual in form in that it has no chapters. It consists of a lengthy introduction to the subject - the background to the writing and publication of Knox's book, information on the OED, and the like. The main section, which is in the dictionary format, covers the words in question, providing definitions and derivations and also a range of illustrative quotations from English literature pertaining to Sri Lanka from Knox in 1681 to Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost in 2000. Then there are appendices concerning Knox's total contribution to the OED - some 90 quotations illustrating mostly obsolete or unusual English words - and the full list of 250-odd words in the OED with Sri Lankan origin or association. Q: It sounds rather academic. How will the general reader find it? A: While it is a study, I have tried to write it in an interesting way to appeal to a wide readership. The introduction has been described by Dr. Neloufer de Mel, English Department, Colombo University as a detective story. And that in essence is what it is. Etymology may appear dry and boring, but in fact there are amazing stories behind words - anaconda and serendipity are perfect examples. But the heart of the book is in the 650 illustrative quotations that support the Knox words. Read together or separately, these are of tremendous appeal on their own, as they provide fascinating glimpses of Sri Lanka, its people, and their customs spanning 325 years. Q: Sri Lankans are not as familiar with Knox as they used to be. Do you think it should be taught in schools? A: Knox's book is not as well-known today as it was a generation or two ago, it's true. This is a shame, for it is still considered the best account of the island in English, with James Emerson Tennent's Ceylon and Leonard Woolf's Village in the Jungle not far behind. Certainly Knox's importance to Sri Lankans increases with the discovery of his contribution of so many loan words of Sri Lankan origin or association to the English language. Perhaps the school curriculum should have better coverage of Knox. |
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