'Going upstream is important' - Dr. Tissa Abeysekera

by Afreeha Jawad

That Sri Lanka was home to diverse ethno/religious/cultural identities from time immemorial is no earth shattering news. Yet what made all the news was what followed after an alien administrative structure was imposed on this isle - in the strife, killings, bomb explosions and what not that made global headline news and continue to do so even more intensely as I put pen to paper.

To net an entire heterogenous Sri Lankan whole under one umbrella with majoritarian power centredness itself is a loss of integrity of the Sri Lankan collective that once was. The misuse of majority power by Sinhala politicians in unfair legislation giving rise to minority dissent certainly was electorate pandering.

Against this backdrop one could view the external administrative unit's imposition here as a sword in the hands of the monkey a near similarity to the local expression spirited better in Sinhala 'vandurata dali pihiya dunna wagey'.

Dr. Tissa Abeysekera talking to the Sunday Observer recently, described this foreign administrative deposit as one introduced by the British to meet their own ends. "It did not recognize nor even respect local, cultural, provincial, geographical and ethnic boundaries that existed throughout history and was part of our country's texture. I'm all for a unitary state. However, within that boundary there could be different states," he said.

The European nation state synchronises a political state within a particular nation - a formula worked out following the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the thirty years war. According to this treaty the Europeans agreed that each country will be defined by the religion of its rulers. Thus the nation state was born out of religious identity. Parallel to this was the linguistic principle at work.

The nation state itself was contextualized. However, its imposition on us was an administrative facility to suit British needs. We in this country are not very familiar with majoritarianism coming off nation state concept. In fact when the country was administratively divided into Ruhunu, Maya and Pihiti, there was devolution of power. We had no centralized government mechanism. Sri Lanka was home to diverse ethno/religious identities who lived harmoniously."

Squashing popular view of the Elara/Dutugemunu conflict being one originating from ethnicity, Dr. Abeysekera asked "how is it that Velusumana was a great general of Dutugemunu?"

He thus justified the widespread communal harmony of a once golden era. "It was a war of liberation against the foreign invaders. 'Para demala' - is certainly not a derogatory term. Instead, it was used to distinguish between the local Tamils and the foreign ones as the term 'Para' itself in Sinhala means alien. This apart, it was trade that made wars between Chola, Pandya, Chera (Kerala) and Sri Lanka. Notably Sri Lanka's foreign policy in those days was to side the weak, bringing about power equilibrium." Responding to this writer's question on who an intellectual was and what his functions were Dr. Abeysekera said,

"An intellectual is one who rises above all biased feelings going beyond all superficial appearances. He thus gets to the heart of the object or phenomenon and draws rational conclusions. To be rational in an intellectual sense is to look at everything in life without any pre-conceived notions. With such notions one could never arrive at the truth but will keep viewing things in a limited way and the objective as a result will not be attained.

Secondly, we expect an intellectual to reveal things in new light and inspire fresh thinking.

Thirdly, in crisis an intellectual should help people to rise above pettiness, sentimentality, parochialism and take a view of the crisis not in a subjective way. Majoritarianism is what I would call a distortion of democratic principles. It is the rule of the jungle. Majoritarianism is based on the view that might is right. No genuine intellectual can be majoritarian in thinking.

Dr. Abeysekera reminiscing Sri Lanka's very rich intellectual tradition of the past, the Mahavihara and Abeyagiri divide the two schools of Buddhist thought said that from that time the intellectual discourse was part of our historic past right upto the 19th century Panadura debate.

"However, what emerged later was a withering away of that rich discourse when all issues of Sinhala language and culture became part of political agenda. The moment that discourse becomes encoded into political manifestos that whole intellectual process itself is corrupted. Intellectual discourse is in search of truth. Whatever is political is in search of power.

The confusion itself started in the 50s and by 70s it became totally corrupt and today all social discourses bear political motives. What is most important is to revive a non-religious, secular discourse".

Referring to the importance of civil society he said that healthy discourse must start with such society and not at political party level. "Today any discourse starts from political agenda. Writers, artistes, professionals and the like are from where that healthy discourse must start. Even in the worst of times a small, marginal element can turn the tide. The Buddha himself went upstream and history is all about people who dared to go that way."

Against this backdrop the writer was reminded of her one Sunday delivery - 'The Importance of Being Earnest' - a call for identity retention (June 24) that speaks at length on the need to move away from what in ordinary parlance is called the "herd instinct". Will we Lankans ever get there?

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