The status quest - a Lankan lunacy

by Afreeha Jawad

Behind every status conscious lunacy is an undying thirst for power that speaks of control and dominance, needless to say its conspicuous presence even at communal, national and international levels.

Oft' heard references such as, "he worked under me at one limit (with emphasis on 'under'), "Oh! that chap was my subordinate" or "he was my understudy" is noteworthy vis - a - vis the 'status intoxicant'.

We also hear of minorities and majorities not to forget terms such as first and third world. Talking of majorities and minorities it was short termed President D. B. Wijetunge who referred to minorities as grapevine that created much controversy inviting resentment from ethnic minorities. Perhaps an unintentional utterance - a clear indication of a lack of sociological knowledge.

Social divisiveness

Accompanying social divisiveness is the chain of command, social stratification, gradation, class and what not that breeds much social inequity followed by a frustrated social whole.

Prior to the advent of systemic indulgence, natural man in his natural environs was not confronted with whatever is social dichotomy or divides, of gender, class strata and so on. Yet the concept of power gained foothold with civisational growth reversing even the noble ideals contained in such advancement.

Moral decline followed civilisational rise. Family as an institution meant for social organisation led to heightening of 'I', 'me' and - 'mine' - an ego inflating state. Prior to familial onset, devoid of such ego, a child's birth saw its deposit into the community following whatever was maternal instinct.

For instance a mother wouldn't have known who her child was because he/or she later became community belonging. Come to think of it, there perhaps would have been countless of King Vessantara's paralle who in an act of selflessness even gave away his two children to Joothaka Brahmin. Thus man's first organisational attempt in familial construct led to so many other unstitutions moving him away from his natural state. As a result organisational man ended up in a highly disorganised state as he orchestrated selfish ends into power and domination.

Locating ourselves in local setting, let's take for instance the feudal social/economic structure. Caste then was benchmark to all systemic activity and existence. The importance of one's cattle herd and yardstick to affluence - the preference of male buffaloes over females and cows over bulls was widespread for their workload and milking capacity. An increase in herd numbers was considered a man of means. Not to be missed were pronouncements such as "Haraka baana honda hati thiyena kenek." In assessing wealth, the importance of paddy land was not to be overlooked.

"Haraka baanata amatharava Kumburu yaayakma thiyanava nova".

These status symbols of a bygone era when contextualized in today's class economy runs like this, "Loku yaana vaahana, kolomba hathay loku bangalawak, kada peyliyak - yamak hamak tiyena wedagat aya."

Cattle and paddy land have found replacement with luxury vehicles, business ventures instead of fields and farmland and what's more - all this is even passport to virtue (note reference to 'vedagat aya').

Status symbols

Thus cast based status symbols were different from those in class environs. In one the people served their kings while the other sees the social whole working for imperialist forces.

The names of popular business enterprises today, have become important land marks which in earlier times took the form of huge trees.

Kos gaha mula kaday, siyambala gedera, delgaha langa kadey - these then are getting back to earlier reference of social stratifications today's class based elite strata are the 'neat replace' of the Radhala or aristocratic top layer in caste environs - namely the Kandyan and Govigama aristocracy. One never knows where today's contemporary elites' forbears may have belonged in the earlier social set up - evolution being so rapid what with those ' Ge' names changing as fast as pillows. Yet one notices significantly the aversion to root tracing for obvious reasons bringing to writer mind the famous or rather infamous book 'The nobodies that became somebodies'. Though there are chances of better social placement under what is called competitive examinations, yet in job entry, 'top connections' do matter. The rate of politicisation builds a new power group of elitists whereby a difference between the two systems is not visible.

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