|
|
|
| Sunday, 26 June 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Modern politics played out to ancient war drums Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake The term 'tsunami' has become such a catch phrase today that it fails any more to evoke the enormous human tragedy that Boxing Day last year produced. In the hands of the editorialist and the sub editor writing his headlines it has become a synonym for calamity. So perhaps it was no surprise that the Government's move to set up a structure to alleviate the sufferings of the tsunami-stricken should have produced what these cliche-merchants would no doubt characterise as a political tsunami leading to the wrecking of the UNFPA Government installed barely a year ago. It was Karl Marx who said that history repeats itself first as tragedy then as farce. In Sri Lanka, however, it seems to repeat itself purely as farce in varying stages of burlesque. True to form therefore the Government's move to establish the somewhat comically-named P-TOMS was attended by two bravura performances by bhikkhus threatening fasts unto death, attempts by young braves in robes to storm the barricades, incendiary charades by others and other such side shows. Now that the dust has settled down and the uncharacteristically robust-looking fasting monks have left hospital what is left is a tear gas-shrouded landscape where strange new political configurations are assuming dim shape. Now that the JVP has left the Government and its four young Ministers have made an unprecedented political sacrifice we can see the principal players somewhat self-consciously assuming their new roles. They seem to have mastered their new lines, however, with great alacrity. Those who were hailed as the architects of the alliance are busily distancing themselves from their erstwhile allies. Comrade Somawansa Amarasinghe, the eminence grise of the JVP, goes about making bombastic speeches. The old red comrades of the LSSP and the CP now anointed with cabinet office have taken to the streets (Minister Tissa Vitharana even exchanging his sober tunic suit for a red shirt) demanding the P-TOMS. The firebrand twins of the New Left, Vasu and Bahu, are also all for it. So is the TNA which staged a vociferous demonstration in Colombo Fort in the company of Opposition MP. P. Chandrasekeran, the bete noire of Mr. Thondaman on the plantations. What this ingathering of strange bed fellows signifies is the isolation of the JVP and the JHU on the other side of the political divide. What is more knives are out in their contest for the extremist Sinhala Buddhist soul. The JHU ran away with the JVP's clothes by being the first to stage a fast in the shadow of the hallowed Dalada Maligawa while the JVP's Bhikkhu Front had to be content with the hum-drum portals of the Fort railway station. But apart from their extremist Sinhala posturings the two have little in common. One cannot visualise the JHU embracing socialism just as it is unlikely that a future JVP Government will give Buddhism the foremost place in the Constitution. What unites them therefore is a visceral antipathy towards the LTTE and a deep suspicion of the intentions of the Tamil political movement as a whole. This in turn stems from the deeply-embedded phobia in the Sinhala psyche about the Tamils, the traditional Other against which they define themselves. Sri Lanka is the home of the Sinhala Buddhists chosen for the role of the custodians of Buddhism by the Buddha no less on his death bed. It was on the same day as the Buddha's 'parinibbana' that Prince Vijaya, the founder of the Sinhala race, setforth on his armada. Since then Buddhism and the Sinhala race have been inseparable just as Buddhism and the Sinhala State have been synonymous. It was the role of the Maha Sangha to advise and guide the Buddhist kings and individual monks such as Theraputtabhaya even shed their robes to join the Army when the Sinhala race and Buddhism were in peril. That peril, of course, came from the Tamil invader, the power-hungry Chola kings who made periodic forays into Sri Lanka and even conquered its principal kingdom at times such as Elara whom the legendary Dutugemunu defeated in single combat. Another great hero was King Gajaba who one night going in disguise about his kingdom as it was his wont to find out at first hand the grievances of his subjects heard the wails of a mother who had lost her son who had been taken hostage with others by an invading Tamil king. This inspired King Gajaba to cross the Palk Straits (legend has it that his giant, Neela, had parted the waves with one mighty thrust of his sword) and successfully wage war and bring back double the number of hostages from South India. These legends and heroic tales have coloured the outlook of the radical JVP no less than that of the conservative JHU. We do not know how much of this shapes the outlook of a new generation of children and young adults in this electronic age of mass 'masala' culture but when we were young these mythic tales of heroism were very much in vogue in supplementary reading materials and the 'daham pasal' discourse. In a country therefore as much shaped by legend and folk history as modern political science and sociology it is no wonder that present day politics should be played out to the quaint music of ancient drums as shadowy ancestral armies take on imaginary foes and invaders in heroic battle. So we have the JHU and the JVP marching separately but striking together. They are the legitimate descendants in their own eyes of the forces of Dutugemunu battling Elara or the armies of King Gajaba triumphantly invading a South Indian kingdom. So Comrades Somawansa and Weerawansa don Dutugemunu's regal regalia (republicans though they might be) while Ven. Athuraliye Ratana, the hero of the Kanda Uda Rata Aid Meeting, nurses fond illusions of being Theraputtabhaya, the warrior monk. Cast in the role of villain, of course, is Mr. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the modern avatar of Elara but since Mr. Prabhakaran is not close at hand they vent their purely verbal fury on anybody whom they see as advocating the Tamil cause among the Sinhalese, the Government, Left political parties, NGOs, influential figures of civil society. The battle, of course, is not fought in the wilds of the Wanni but the streets of Colombo with the President's House as the chosen target for storming by the patriotic troops. What all this demonstrates is the need to separate history from myth, fact from legend before we embark on any task of restructuring the State and polity in keeping with the demands of the new century. New forms of State or new political structures can hardly be expected to co-exist with ancient phobias or primordial myths. On the same token arrangements of power-sharing or guarantees by the international community can hardly be a bulwark against old fears and deeply-embedded myths of nationhood sanctified by religion. This does not mean that the Sinhalese and the Buddhists who form the bulk of society should turn their backs on their heritage and their roots for this would only make for a deracinated people, a set of mimic men. What it means is that they should recast themselves in terms of the best of modern society. For one thing it means discarding the incantation of Sinhala Buddhist. Buddhism being a religion is essentially an individual factor and should cease to be part of politics and the state. Likewise being Sinhalese is a matter of collective identity, of values and mores and ways of life which have little to do with religion as demonstrated by those Sinhalese Catholics of Negombo, belonging to an earlier generation who were fierce nationalists or Marxists or adherents of Munidasa Kumaratunga. If at all Sinhalese and Buddhism is to be combined that should derive from the broad humanism of the compassionate Buddhist faith rather than the tribal war cries spawned by mythic history. The Sinhalese can be a greater rather than a lesser people even at this
eleventh hour by shedding this parochial past and recasting themselves as a
modern people yet rooted in the best in tradition for the alternative will
be a long wallowing in self-created misery. |
|
||||||||
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
