On Liyanage Amarakeerthi's anti-Sinhala Buddhist rant

In the United States of America protest demonstrations are about objecting to things and demanding other things. Like in any other country, I am sure. I've attended lots of demonstrations in the USA and in Sri Lanka. There were bound to be differences of course in terms of issues, strategies, approach etc., but there was one difference that struck me. In the USA, I've heard protestors scream the following question: "What do we want?" The response would be another scream, stating demand. There is a follow-up question: "When do we want it?" And the screaming reply is this: "Right now!"

It's the "right now" part of it that struck me. I have never noticed that kind of "urgency" in Sri Lankan demonstrations. There was one exception. This was in the year 1988, at a protest organized by the United Socialist Alliance over the killing of two activists, Chandrawimala and A. Jayantha in a bomb-attack launched by the JVP. This was the line: "Wijeweera me ahapiya; hora thuwakku den evapiya" "Listen, Wijeweera, turn your rogue guns on us right now!". We hear the "diyau, diyau" (give, give) cry often enough, but never the "right now".

I have argued that one of the fundamental errors that a lot of well-meaning people from outside Sri Lanka, especially the West, make with respect to resolving burning social and political problems comes from the conceptualization of "time". We are not a "lifetime" society. We are not the here-and-now times in our understanding of process, moment and aftermath.

This does not mean we are inflexible. I think that we are very much aware that things in this world change very slowly (if they every change at all), as the Eagles say it in that lovely song, "Sad Cafe". When things are done in an almighty hurry, there is rupture. Tragedy. That's the story of the 13th Amendment to the constitution. Thrust down a nation's throat. There was a horrible vomiting of blood to the tune of 60,000 lives. This is why I tend to be wary of people and postulations that appear to be flippant in the factoring in of "time" in analysis. I am thinking particularly about an essay by my friend Liyanage Amarakeerthi titled "The Ideal Sinhalese" which appeared in the magazine "Himal" recently.

Amarakeerthi clearly has trouble with the use of terms; he is careless and incomplete in his articulation of objection. Secondly, he doesn't seem to appreciate the temporalities pertaining to ideas, ideologies and related politics. He begins with a claim that operates as the foundation for the "argument" he presents regarding the Sinhala literary scene and the "Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourse" he finds difficult to stomach (or understand): "Keeping one's critical distance from the dominant ideologies is a precondition of becoming a great writer."

He thinks the "dominant ideology" pertaining to Sri Lanka is "Sinhala Buddhist nationalism", which I believe is nothing more than caricature and a patently careless reading of post-Independence history and politics.

I concur that a critical distance from dominant ideologies (and indeed all ideologies) is useful but to single out a "dominant ideology" as "necessity" for literary excellence has nothing to do with theories about literature but ideological preference. That's essentially proposing that literary effort be submitted to political prerogative. That's turning the entire exercise on its head or putting the cart before the horse. We write a story and the politics comes through; but if we wanted to write politics and used the word as vehicle, we end up diminishing the aesthetic.

Amarakeerthi, as I said, has a problem with Sinhala Buddhists and "nationalists". He says "To make matters worse, most senior Sinhala writers are nationalists themselves". All of a sudden, nationalists are by definition incapable of great writing. Indeed, Amarakeerthi claims that the (alleged) failure of the Sinhaal novel can be attributed to what he thinks is "the dominance of the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourse over the past two decades".

Having (arbitrarily) decided that Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism has been holding sway over the ideological terrain of post-Independence Sri Lanka and in particular the past two decades, Amarakeerthi decides (given his introductory caveat of his essay: critical distance from dominant ideologies) that there is an urgent need to critique "Sinhala Buddhist nationalism".

I am going to ignore the privileging of the political over the literary exercise inherent in this argument. (Aravind Adigar, whom Amarakeerthi cites, wrote a good story which inter alia takes some pot shots, nothing more nothing less, at the status quo of that vast political, cultural, economic and historical entity called India. Whatever critical distance he has vis-a-vis whatever is "dominant" in the India he locates his story in gets written in, but I seriously doubt that Adigar set himself the task of producing "a counter-narrative" of the kind Amarakeerthi is advocating for Sinhala writers.)

Amarakeerthi is correct when he takes issue with the "us vs them" kind of positioning for the reductionism it engenders and the extremist positions it pushes people towards. At the same time, he paints himself into the same Cartesian corner when he riles against certain positions and persons. He doesn't like Sinhala Buddhist nationalism but doesn't tell us why and is cagey about what he is "for". Surely, if one is objecting to something it should be because one feels something else is better! Amarakeerthi is quite silent on this. What he does is caricature "Sinhala Buddhist nationalism". For this he needs to stretch Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism's Hour of Glory to "decades" and even the entire post-Independence period.

What is the truth of "Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism" and its alleged dominance? That was always a poor relation to other ideologies. We had the "Banda years" but as Udayasiri Wickramaratne has pointed out what Bandaranaike did was to do English politics in Sinhala (whereas D.S. Senanayake did Sinhala politics in English). We had "swabhasha" and the trappings of a Sinhala Buddhist resurgence but in effect it was the English-educated, Anglicised and more of then than not non-Sinhala and non-Buddhist elements that called the shots in the high seats of power and control.

Amarakeerthi conveniently forgets the decades and decades when Sinhala Buddhists and anyone tagging "nationalism" with those two terms were vilified (in a far more virulent than that which he has chosen). Sure, he throws in the token anti-Colonial, anti-neo-liberal line, but the thrust of his angst is the nationalism that pertains to "Sinhala" and "Buddhist".

We've had 4 and a half years of Mahinda Chinthana, only part of whose "agenda", "ideological thrust" and politics can be called "Sinhala" or "Buddhists" and even this only on account of the fact that those who are rabidly anti-Sinhala and anti-Buddhists have been sidelined. Does this count for "ideological domination"? Is society so pliant that it can be transformed in such a short period of time? Is taking issue with "Sinhala Buddhist nationalists/nationalism" in politics and literature THE historical task of contemporary writers in Sinhala?

Amarakeerthi maintains that there exists a "nationalist grand narrative". Events over the past 60 years, realities in the spheres of politics, economy and culture, etc do not bear out this thesis. The assertion therefore seems more a personal bugbear than anything else.

Amarakeerthi downplays the threat of foreign intervention in Sri Lanka. He acts as though suspicion of certain I/NGO personalities and other such organizations is irrational.

Sure, sweeping dismissal is not warranted, but why is he not acknowledging that many of these outfits and individuals did play a crucial role in undermining the nation and causing violence to its citizenry? The problem is clearly not just the West, I agree, but Amarakeerthi seems to take up the opposite position; the problem lies with us. I offer that while self-appraisal is an integral part of national liberation and unshackling of post-colonial baggage, pretending that there is no external threat whatsoever is plain silly.

Amarakeerthi very correctly objects to the caricaturing and reductionism engaged by certain Sinhala Buddhsit Nationalists about the West and related "threats", he himself is guilty of the same kind of caricaturing and reductionism. Reading him, one gets the feeling that if someone threw some magic dust on Sri Lanka and "poofed" away Sinhala Buddhist Nationalists, Sri Lanka would be well on its way to post-Colonial Paradise taking a non-neoliberal kind of route.

Amarakeerthi offers us a wonderful poem by Upali Ubayasekare where the poet cynically takes issue of those who do not like "others": "We are the only human beings" (the others are really crazy!). I am surprised that he didn't see that Ubayasekare might have been writing about him, Amarakeerthi. We are all flawed and do our best given our human limitations and frailties, but Amarakeerthi somehow is "above all this". He's a writer, let us not forget. And he writes in Sinhala. Is he saying that he's the exception?

The bottom line is that there is nothing intrinsically objectionable in nationalism or any other isms for that matter. It is the degree to which one grabs hard in asserting an ism or (and this is very important) brushes away (as hard) the same or other isms that prohibits civilised discourse. The underline of the bottom line, I humbly offer, is this: literature doesn't have to worry about these things. One write, regardless.

If there has been a certain poverty in our literature(s), that's no fault of nationalists or nationalisms. That's just passing the buck. And crass politics. Not art.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at [email protected]