Hostage to the Past
Mervyn de Silva 7th Death Anniversary, June 22 In the UTHR-Jaffna
publication 'SRI LANKA: THE ARROGANCE OF POWER: Myths, Decadence &
Murder', Rajan Hoole drew attention to the fact that "the late Mervyn de
Silva (Men and Matters, Sunday Island, 2. 2. 92) referred to the
un-stated truth about July 1983 that "cries out to be heard": "At least
a week before that savage eruption, there was talk of 'something about
to happen'.... something nasty, of a 'lesson' to be taught."
Mervyn's response to Black July 83 and his understanding of Sri
Lanka's ethnic issue are encapsulated in the article we reproduce here,
which appeared six months after July 83, originally entitled 'Paradise -
and Hostage to the Past' in the Far Eastern Economic Review, January 26,
1984, pp.22-23.
by Mervyn de Silva
The main resolution at the annual conference last December of Sri
Lanka's ruling United National Party (UNP) read:
'The UNP, which was founded on 6 September 1946 on the broad-based
principle of eschewing communal and religious differences, has ruled Sri
Lanka for 20 of the 35 years since independence.
'The constant principle of our party has been to avoid thinking in
terms of race, religion or caste, and give equal rights and privileges
to every citizen ... We request all party branches, youth and women's
leagues, trade unions and student unions to take strong steps towards
building a united nation, and peace and prosperity."
Motion
The motion was proposed by Industries Minister Cyril Mathew, the most
consistent and uncompromising champion of majority Sinhalese rights. The
seconder was Home Minister K. W. Devanayagam, the party's most senior
Tamil member.
The resolution thus seemed to represent a clear-cut commitment from
both sides of the racial fence to eradicate the problems which sparked
last year's communal violence. It is significant however, that
Devanayagam represents a constituency in the Eastern Province, which,
though it has a large Tamil community, is not a Tamil majority area. The
Northern Province, on the other hand is almost 100% Tamil, and Jaffna,
its capital, is the traditional home of Tamil culture and the centre of
Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka.
However, neither the UNP nor Sirimavo Bandaranaike's opposition Sri
Lanka Freedom Party have a single MP representing the Northern Province.
All its MPs represent the secessionist Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).
This is a measure of the great divide between the two sides and the
appalling difficulty of bridging it.
A further measure of those difficulties came in the debate
accompanying the conference resolution. Mathew told the conference he
was opposed to the TULF because it was 'not a political party but a
communal organisation that supports terrorism.' The history of Sri
Lanka, he added, was the history of the Sinhalese, 'and nothing else.'
His resolution to the national question was 'to settle Sinhalese, Tamils
and Muslims in all parts of the country on a system of proportional
representation.'
It is this sort of polarisation and distrust which, running through
the whole tragic history of the Tamil issue, now permits the past to
hold the future hostage. And it is in these singularly unpropitious
circumstances of lost opportunities and lately renewed enmities that
President Junius Jayewardene embarked on the 10-20 January all-party
conference as the first step in the delicate and possibly dangerous task
of trying to defuse tensions and pull the country back from the brink.
To suggest that Jayewardene's self-imposed endeavour may require him
to dismantle the intricate, centuries-old mechanism of distrust could
seem fanciful. In fact, it is depressingly close to the truth. Separate
identities have been sustained and fortified by deep antagonisms and
wildly contested facts which extend over two millennia and more.
Atavistic fears
The island's pre-colonial (16th century) history was so persistently
punctuated by South Indian - Tamil - incursions which often decided the
rise and fall of Sinhalese kingdoms that the Sinhalese mind is crammed
with atavistic fears. So before he goes into polemical battle, the
Sinhalese combatant - be he politician, teacher or trader - reaches for
the Mahavamsa, the great Pali chronicles written over centuries by
Buddhist scholar-monks, and now the repository of all that is Sinhalese.
'For the Sinhalese,' wrote E. F. C. Ludowyk, the first Sri Lankan to
be professor of English at Ceylon University, 'the legend provides the
story of a tribe miraculously descended from the union of a lion and a
princess ... the people of the Lion race, who - banished for their
misconduct from the Indian mainland - fled over the seas and set up a
kingdom in Ceylon.
'Buddhist legend gave the migration of a totemistic tribe a special
significance and endowed it with the qualities of divine election ... In
the Sinhalese legend, as the Buddha lay dying ... he foresaw that the
Sinhalese prince, Vijaya, would arrive in Ceylon. He therefore entrusted
the people and the island they were to inhabit to the special protection
of Sakka, king of the gods, for there the religion of the Buddha would
be established and flourish.'
Thus it is that, though not all Sinhalese are Buddhists - many are
Christians - the term 'Sinhalese-Buddhist' has quietly and predictably
infiltrated the Sinhala-language press, and to a lesser degree, the
other newspapers to replace the formerly usual 'Sinhalese'. In a period
of special stress, numbers are sacrificed in the interests of a more
rigorous exclusivity in self-identification. As well as having this
feeling of being a 'chosen people' many Sinhalese are deeply affected by
a myth which goes to the heart of the conflict with the Tamils.
This is the story of the best-loved warrior prince of the Sinhalese,
Prince Dutugemunu, who marched with 10 paladins and a hastily gathered
people's army to confront the Tamil King Elara. He defeated Elara in
single combat and set up the Anuradhapura Sinhalese kingdom.
Each fresh confrontation and every violent eruption becomes an
instant invitation to an overpowering onrush of self-righteous
recidivism, against which reason can only erect the feeblest defences.
Nonetheless, not all members of the liberal intelligentsia, mainly
English-educated Sinhalese, are swept away by the tidal wave of tribal
loyalty and militancy.
Speaking on the 'nature of aggression', a Sinhalese consultant to one
of the island's leading government hospitals told a distinguished
audience that two myths have contributed to the present discontent. The
first had to do with race and racial origins; the second with the
Dutugemunu-Elara battle. Patriotism, he observed, was a composite
manifestation of three animal instincts: herd, hunger, aggression.
'We find high-sounding excuses such as 'save the race and country' to
justify arson and murder. If our social status does not permit
participation we give it armchair approval, blind to the consequences,
which may include suicide', he concluded.
Also among the liberal voices is a group called the Committee for
Regional Development (CRD), which in a new year report argues that in
the chronicles the crucial identification of Buddhism and Sinhalese
ethnicity was asserted 'in opposition to external enemies', whereas it
was the late 19th and early 20th century Buddhist revivalist movement
which reasserted that identification in relation to internal
adversaries, notably British colonialism and colonial policies.
The early establishment of Christian missionary schools, a seemingly
beneficial and neutral but, in fact, discriminatory system of state
grants for education, and British government recruitment procedures in
the much-coveted field of public administration nurtured the suspicion
and anger of a deprived majority. Since the colonial regime tended to
use Christianity as a political instrument, the Sinhalese leaders turned
Buddhism into a counter-weapon, resulting in the politicisation of the
religion.
Colonial policy
The British have long departed. But a disquieting conviction that the
minorities, Tamil as well as Christian, were the pampered children of a
crafty 'divide and rule' colonial policy has remained. So have the scars
on the Sinhalese-Buddhist psyche.
The limited delivery capabilities of a post-independence political
system increasingly gripped by chronic Third World economic pressures
have failed to erase those scars by fulfilling rising aspirations of
social and economic advancement. Thus, the questions posed by an earlier
CRD report offer a surer guide to understanding the ethnic tensions
which now threaten the Sri Lankan polity:
* Why is there a popular impression that Tamils have an unduly high
share of state-sector jobs?
* Would this position be changed by ethnic quotas?
* How do the communities stand in relation to employment in general?
* What is the position in respect of income levels?
* Do Tamils gain admission to universities in numbers far in excess
of their population ratio?
* Why should Tamil students fare better in the competition to get
into certain 'coveted' university faculties?
* What of the allegation that Tamil examiners cheat?
* Are the sources of credit for business have been one of the main
avenues of Tamil social advancement?
The CRD received a spirited reply from a former member of the Sri
Lankan and international civil service, a Sinhalese. Welcoming the
report as a 'catalyst', and appreciating its effort in 'a laudable and
necessary cause to redress the balance in favour of the Tamils', the
rejoinder makes the basic point that it is the 'rural poor of both
communities' which constitute the most disadvantaged group.
But if this is true, the killers, the arsonists and the looters did
not rise from the ranks of the most disadvantaged. It was Colombo that
was burning on 23 July 1983. The fires spread to other towns and distant
bazaars later. The social complexion of the marauding mobs was markedly
urban - not only such marginal metropolitan groups as shanty dwellers,
but strong-arm brigades and 'rapid-deployment forces' which recently
emerged under political patronage and semi-educated youths tantalised by
a new cult of violence and captivated by newly acquired life-styles.
The tourist cautiously returning for another 'taste of paradise' (the
somewhat tattered slogan of national flag-carrier Air Lanka) finds to
his delight that the rural countryside still wears a sweet serenity.
But Colombo, the more politically conscious and commercialised
south-western coastal belt, and the island's principal towns continue to
be centres of mounting discontent. Six years of soaring consumer prices,
rents and transport fares have steadily made poorer the urban salariat,
which includes a bloated bureaucracy, the corporation executive class
and the mid-level professional.
The Sinhalese traders and businessmen have joined the disaffected for
other reasons. Indian dominance of the wholesale trade has been a
traditional source of Sinhalese hostility and the Indian business
community was as much a target of envy in Sri Lanka as in some African
countries. Unable to look to a solution such as Uganda's deportation
programme, the local trader and a nascent national bourgeoisie have
relied on the state for protective intervention.
Perception
Under the 'state capitalism' of Mrs. Bandaranaike and her late
husband Solomon Bandaranaike, a new merchant class was attentively
nurtured.
Now Jayewardene's so-called open economy has allowed the Indian and
Tamil industrialist to bounce back, often as the hand-picked
collaborator of foreign investors because of their overseas contacts and
better access to capital and credit. Their Sinhalese rivals' perception
is that the Indians and Tamils have not been dislodged after all from
the commanding heights of the economy's private sector.
In 1977, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the
United States administration greeted Sri Lanka as a potential Third
World showcase. At a free and fair election, a mature constituency had
rejected an etatist regime and voted overwhelmingly for a party that
stood for private enterprise and for opening the door to foreign
capital. The island's human-rights record was clean by Third World
standards; its non-aligned credentials were impeccable; the population
of 15 million was manageable, and the infrastructure quite adequate.
But now, just as the World Bank and IMF are urging the removal of
even those controls and subsidies which have been retained, the question
of whether the new economic strategy has in fact exacerbated old
conflicts presents unexpected dilemmas for both policymakers and their
foreign advisers and patrons.
Serious challenge
Ordinarily, the urban Sinhalese upper middle class could hardly offer
any serious challenge to a government led by a president who won a
second term in October 1982 and then postponed elections for six years
through a national referendum. From 1977 onwards, the regime has very
effectively dealt with all its opponents - Mrs. Bandaranaike has been
deprived of her civic rights, the Left is fatally fragmented; the trade
unions demoralised and cowed, the students and radical intelligentsia
battered into submission.
But, as in the Shah's Iran, suppressed dissent has found refuge in an
impregnable forum, the temple, and an articulate spokesman whom nobody
dares to touch, the monk. Having co-opted the clergy, can militant
Sinhalese-Buddhism rely on support from the armed services, too?
Frustrated Tamil regionalism-nationalism raised the separatist
banner. But, however successful it was as an election slogan, the
separatist gesture was largely rhetorical, and the 'Liberation Front'
label adopted by the party had a touch of bravado.
But a new generation of Tamil radicals took to the gun and the
expertly planned ambush of 22 July 1983 in which 13 Sinhalese soldiers
died, cannot be read as anything but a clear military challenge.
Having swept to power on an emotional tide of Sinhalese-Buddhist
revivalism, Bandaranaike made a deal with the Tamils. The pact promised
them regional councils. Jayewardene, then the UNP's No.2, launched a
march from Colombo to the Sacred Temple of the Tooth in Kandy to
denounce Bandaranaike as a traitor.
Riots broke out. Bandaranaike scuttled the pact and ducked for cover.
It did not save him from a monk's bullet 18 months later.
In 1966, it was Mrs Bandaranaike's turn to repeat history. Dressed
all in white, the Buddhist Boadicea hit the vengeance trail against a
bill to introduce district councils, part of a UNP agreement with the
Tamils. Police opened fire and it was a monk this time that died.
The UNP abandoned the agreement as quickly as her late husband had
abrogated his. Now regional councils are coming up for air for the third
(and last?) time. All the political parties are discussing the proposal,
a shrewd Jayewardene move to gain endorsement from a national consensus.
But has political power already slipped out of the hands of
politicians?
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