Gunadasa Amarasekara and an authentic critic!

This week's cultural scene is devoted to examine how Gunadasa Amarasekara's work has been (mis)interpreted and (mis)represented in Sri Lanka and in the west through the writings of a Sri Lankan academic who teaches Sinhala at Peradeniya University. In order to discuss this phenomenon, I intend to examine a web-based article written by Dr Amarakeerthi Liyanage critiquing Gunadasa Amarasekara and his work. This particular article that I draw from is also published in a daily English newspaper with the same content but under a different title: Closing the Circle: Revisiting Amarasekara.

Amarakeerthi has written several articles on Amarasekara but in this regard my focus is to examine myths and fallacies of the web article titled Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with a sense of gratitude appearing on a website: (http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/03/unlearning_what_gunadasa_amara.html)

In his article Amarakeerthi makes two key observations and one assertion. What are these two key observations and the assertion on Sri Lanka's foremost living author?

Amarakeerthi's first and second observations are: "Amarasekara is ... deeply engaged with his chosen community, Sinhala Buddhist people and, during the last few decades, Amarasekara has influenced nearly all cultural and political discourses of his people."

Sri Lankan academic's assertion is based on these two observations: "There is no other local intellectual who shaped the thinking of radical Sinhala youth ... as much as Amarasekara. A student of medicine from Lumumba University, named Wijeweera, and a dentist from the University of Ceylon, named Amarasekara, were two of the most significant people trying to cure social maladies of Sinhala society. In fact, Amarasekara spent about four decades trying to stuff Wijeweera's Marxist head - taking Wijeweera as a symbol of many others- with 'national thought' (Jathika Chinthanaya), and in the process, one could argue, Amarasekara effectively destroyed a courageous challenger to the Sri Lankan state.."

It is unclear how Amarakeerthi drew evidence on his assertion, how Gunadasa Amarasekara "spent about four decades trying to stuff Wijeweera's Marxist head - taking Wijeweera as a symbol of many others- with 'national thought' (Jathika Chinthanaya).."

This assertion may be based on some extra-ordinary post-modernist theory that Amarakeerthi may have picked up during his doctoral studies in the USA under a Fulbright Scholarship or perhaps through some other source or from his Phd supervisor, Charles Hallisey of Harvard Divinity School.

Amarakeeerthi's first observation that Amarasekara has 'shaped the thinking of radical Sinhala youth." is also unclear. Despite the absurdity of Amarakeerthi's observation and his assertion in my view cannot be considered as a serious critical analysis of Gunadasa Amarasekara's work. In my understanding Amarasekara has done nothing but engaged in writing and producing work for over fifty years. As far as I'm concerned, no socio-anthropological studies have been carried out in Sri Lanka to suggest whether Amarasekara's work has influenced radical Sinhala youth in Sri Lanka or whether he stuffed up "Wijeweera's Marxist head"!

If there is any Sri Lankan NGO based studies or US studies on these issues are available or that Dr Amarakeerthi is aware of supporting papers or evidence, we would invite him to write on such findings for an open and intelligent discussion on the subject.

In this non-refereed article Amarakeerthi also makes some generalisations about Sri Lankan academics in order to praise Amarasekara:

"... Amarasekara is an authentic intellectual. Our universities, political parties and NGOs have not been able to produce such an intellectual. For whatever reason, the university has failed to produce engaging and original thinkers. To put it briefly, there is no one in the university whose stature as a public intellectual equals that of Amarasekara. Of late, mainstream political parties have not been intellectual centres at all. The publications coming out of them suggest that there is no real thought-provoking dialogue inside those parties."

These sharp and sword like observations place not only an entire nation of Sri Lanka into disrepute, and also some brilliant academics, journalists, political analysts, and doctors produced by our university system (Amarakeerthi is included unless he has acquired some wisdom others don't have from his American Alma Marter, the University of University of Wisconsin!)

If one picks a list of names randomly starting from Edriweera Sarathchandra, Godfrey Goonathilake, Siri Gunasinghe, Wimal Dissanayake, Gananath Obeyesekere, Ranjini Obeyesekere, Dayan Jayathilake, Carlo Fonseka, without any doubt these academics, intellectuals and the medical doctor has world class reputations in their own rights.

Amarakeerthi also rejects (Sinhala) intellectuals of the NGO sector. In his words, "NGOs are, almost by nature, intellectual centres attracting the most radical thinkers in the country. But only a few of NGO operatives could be called authentic. Writing mainly in English, they could not really reach out to the monolingual masses. Therefore, some of them sound like highly paid parrots talking to themselves in an unknown tongue, living in comfortable cages."

However, for Amarakeerthi there is a group of Sri Lankan intellectuals who are exception to the "rule." That is Tamil bilinguals" "Situation in the Tamil community is said to be better, Tamil intellectuals being truly 'bilingual' and developing deep connections with Tamil language cultural worlds."

In my opinion, these categorisation, praises and rejection of intellectuals has been drawn to discredit Amarasekara and his work. The implication is simple. Dr Amaraakeerthi doesn't like anything local or national. That is because of "My Wittgenstein"!

Dr Amarakeerthi explains: “My Wittgenstein, of course he is Western, has taught me that conversation is the essence of humanity. An entire school of mediocre ‘thinkers,’ masquerading as national thinkers, (Jathika Chinthakayas) is constantly at work to rid our society of genuine conversation. In any institution; including the private sector, the people of average skills and knowledge are the most nationalist calling any innovative and energetic person “non-nationalist”.

So for Dr Amarakeerthi, even the essence of “humanity has learnt and acquired from Wittgenstein (who is of course not Western but European!)

In doing so, Dr Amarakeerthi introduce several undefined terminology such as mediocre ‘thinkers,’ national thinkers, and coin the term (Jathika Chinthakayas).

Now let’s look at how Amarakeerthi is developing his methodology to Gunadasa Amarasekara to reject him with a sense of gratitude: “Amarasekara is such an influential writer that it is always rewarding to disagree with him... His brilliance as a writer manifests itself in his mid- career stories included in ‘Ekatamen Polowata’, ‘Ekama Kathawa’ and ‘Katha Pahak’. In them, Amarasekara critically evaluates Sri Lanka’s postcolonial citizen without any overt ideologically leanings. After those stories, Amarasekara the thinker begins to overshadow the creative writer in him and before long literature becomes his surgical knife to cut open various ‘enemies and friends’ of the nation. Even in some those ideologically- motivated literary works there are some moments of brilliance but after the late 1980s Amarasekara becomes increasingly predictable as a writer and his artifice becomes obvious and fails to surprise. They are ideas without delight.”

Who are the “ ‘enemies and friends’ of the nation” and why and how “Amarasekara becomes increasingly predictable as a writer and his artifice becomes obvious and fails to surprise”?

Dr Amarakeerthi doesn’t provide a clear and precise thesis!

Amaraakeerthi, then lists a few of the short stories of Amarasekara and provides his own interpretations without any detail texual analysis: “One of my favorites of Amarasekara’s stories happens to have a title that signifies a turning point in the writer’s career: “Etamen polowata nohot Upadi Dhariniya”. Roughly translated the title means: “Down to Earth from the Ivory Tower or A Female Graduate.”

The collection which includes the story, marks Amarasekara’s revolt against what he calls, “Peradeni literature”. I often use this story in my lectures on postcolonial literature for it is a fine portrayal of what colonial education does to people.”

Isn’t this what a good writer should do by providing a mirror of the nation or a slice of a nation? In Dr Amarakeerthi’s superficial analysis of Amarasekara’s work, he doesn’t provide any insights into Amarasekara’s novels, particularly his heptalogy (seven novels) and Amarasekara as a poet. I consider this as a very weak point of his strategy.

Let me draw from widely acclaimed Wimal Dissanayake’s observations of Amarasekara’s work:

Prof. Dissanayake has chosen the seven novels of Gunadasa Amerasekara commencing with Gamanaka Mula (1984), as the third illustrative moment of Sinhala literature. The seven novels, the Dissanayake identifies as a further evolution of Sinhala novel and the complex manner in which contemporary social and political history can be woven into fictional representation.

In conclusion, the Dissanayake points out that Gunadasa Amerasekara can be marked for interpreting history and his seven novels go beyond the classical definition of realistic fiction on many counts.

Commenting on Gunadasa Amarasekara’s heptology centering around the main protagonist ‘Piyadasa”, Prof. Dissanayake highlights that all these seven novels “... pertaining to contemporary social history and density of social formations. The historical consciousness that informs the narrative of these seven novels compels us to re-think the dynamics of the public sphere with a greater sense of purposes and complexity and how they are linked to literary representation.”

Prof. Dissanayake concludes that “Gunadasa Amarasekara ... carries forward the conversation that [Martin] Wickramasinghe initiated in his fiction in relation to the dynamics of contemporary Sri Lankan social history.”

So as Amaarakeerthi suggests the issue is not to unlearn from Amarasekara’s work but to engaged in a meaningful dialogue and analysis of his work.

It is evident that Amarakeerthi has placed a significant importance and emphasis of his non-refereed print and repeated web-based article on Amarasekra. For example, when Dr Amarakeerthi gave a seminar titled “Practicing Cultural Criticism in Contemporary Sri Lanka” at US Amherst College on Monday, 29 March 2010 , his brief biography listed on the College website contained the following:

“Professor Amarakeerthi has written 15 books of fiction, poetry, criticism and translation, and is well- known for his essays of cultural criticism, which have appeared in many newspapers and journals in Sri Lanka. His publications include “Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with a sense of gratitude,” “Sahrada Sakshiya” (“Conscience/Witness of the Connoisseur”) and “Atavaka Puttu” (“Children of the Half Moon”), which won the National Literary Award in Sri Lanka in 2009.”

So in the USA he gets a “promotion” for a one and half hour seminar and had the courage and confidence to cite his non-refereed article on Amarasekara. Is this part of a larger strategy to discredit Amarasekara’s work in the West?

Just to conclude this brief column in defence of Sri Lanka’s foremost writer, I would like to quote from Dr Amarakeerthi’s non-refereed article on bashing Amarasekara:

“The critique is worthwhile only when the critiqued is authentic.”

That is the question about Amarakeerthi’s non-referred work on Amarasekara!

Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with a sense of gratitude

by Liyanage Amarakeerthi

transCurrents: Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with ...

17 Mar 2009 ... Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with a sense of gratitude. by Liyanage Amarakeerthi. DRGA0317.jpg Gunadasa Amarasekara turned ...

transcurrents.com/tc/.../unlearning_what_gunadasa_amara.html

http://www.island.lk/2009/03/18/midweek2.html

1. Amherst College | Events

29 Mar 2010 ... His publications include “Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with a sense of gratitude,” “Sahrada Sakshiya” (“Conscience/Witness ...

events.amherst.edu/2010/3/29/

DETAILS

Liyanage Amarakeerthi, of the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, will speak on “Practicing Cultural Criticism in Contemporary Sri Lanka” on Monday, March 29, at 5 p.m. in Paino Lecture Hall (Earth Sciences Building), with a response by Professor Charles Hallisey of Harvard Di ...

Liyanage Amarakeerthi, of the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, will speak on “Practicing Cultural Criticism in Contemporary Sri Lanka” on Monday, March 29, at 5 p.m. in Paino Lecture Hall (Earth Sciences Building), with a response by Professor Charles Hallisey of Harvard Divinity School.

Prof. Dissanayake concludes that “Gunadasa Amarasekara ... carries forward the conversation that [Martin] Wickramasinghe initiated in his fiction in relation to the dynamics of contemporary Sri Lankan social histroy.”