On the brink of apologies!

"The time has come", the walrus said, "to talk of many things, of ships and sails and sealing wax and why the fish have no wings". In parallel, the time has come for the Britishers to apologise for many a misdeed around the world machinated in the name of colonialism and Empire building. Misdeed indeed is an inadequate word for the heinous crimes committed around the world including genocide and severe destruction of indigenous land and property.

Of course the trend was set by other European nations as the Iberians and the British can simply say that they just followed the trend like babes unable to discriminate between right and wrong. I was motivated to write this piece by an incidental view of elderly Kenyans who had gathered in "downtown" Nairobi. The photo shows the group elated for the British High Commissioner has just said that Britain "sincerely regrets" for the acts of torture carried out against Kenyan freedom fighters. When were they fighting? In our life time, that is in the 1950s and 1960s, some years after we had won our independence.

What matters is that the High Commissioner was just expressing regret, never apologising. This seems to be a new game the descendants of the conquistadors of the West are engaged in to salve their conscience. Just go round, saying sorry. Very simple as that. Kenya of Obama fame is not the first and last example. There is the Buddha land, the sub-continent of India that initially became the treasure hunting ground of the British East India Company. Then it all went on to end up with the British monarchs dubbing themselves with the Emperor/Empress of India title. That the Indians did not give in easily is a fact that need not be reiterated. The various mutinies were capped by that at the Golden Temple of Amristar that affords a singular case of "being on the brink of apologising" but stopping there.

Colonial history

Killing 400 Indians or even more going up to 1000 according to unofficial reports, was one of the most dastardly crimes in Indian colonial history. What is more, most of the victims were innocent women and children who had visited the shrine premises.

The colonial officers had ordered some rebels to crawl on their knees around the temple for some offence. Now descended the British army in full force misinformed that a Punjab mutiny was in the offing and shot the rebels and the "sightseers".

Everyone was appalled at the extent of the crime including the war secretary at the time, Winston Churchill who ordered those responsible suspended and sent home.

As this is no abbreviated tale of India's fight for freedom we will stop at that. But what is interesting is that two heads of Britain had visited the famous Golden Temple after that but had deigned to apologise though the Indian leaders expected it. The present queen of Britain (May she live longer!) had visited the temple to feast her eyes on its astounding beauty mirrored in a water stretch around the temple. Though she had dressed herself in an orange hued dress as a mark of reverence and was perhaps shown the place of the crime never did she apologise.

And closer in time is the British Prime Minister Cameron who visited the place this time with a scarf tied around his head to show his reverence. "Apologise,apologise , the Indian leaders, mostly Sikh, almost screamed. But he never did.

The Sikhs had made a lot of preparation to elicit a scene of apology, even getting down the descendants of those who had died there subject to the folly of two British officers, the Governor of Punjab and his brigadier. They were lined up for show. But Cameron had not even looked at them. Why should he? Maybe if pressed on he would have argued that he was not even born at that time., the second decade of the 20th Century.

Queer pieces

I just stumble on queer pieces as that of the British PM's wife Samantha being heir to an amassed wealth, which comes down to her from a great grandfather who was in the slave trafficking business which traded on oceanic waters selling humans as merchandise. One can visualise the number of families in Europe that bloated with prosperity fed on the tears and labour of poor Africans and Asians.

Back home in our country what happened? Many a figure of note from our colonial power has visited us ever since, some even invited and received with much pomp and pageantry.

This tradition began with the entry of queen Victoria's second son, Alfred to our land. The peaceful race we are no one ever took up cudgels against the visitors. No one had the imagination to round up the descendants of those killed in various combats and ask for apologies. For one thing, finding them would be an arduous task for our freedom fighters had exhausted themselves by the end of the first half of the 20th century, unlike in India and even in some African states as Kenya.

So no iconic leader arose from the devastated Uva terrain, after Keppetipola Disawa. The inhabitants bore every woe inflicted on them grudgingly or in keeping with Asian Maitree ideals.

The family memoirs of a Weerasinghe nee Kotelawala reveal the extent of damage the colonial masters inflicted on Uva as a revenge for the uprising led by Keppetipola Maha Disawa. It was left to her great grandfather to forge Uva's links with modern civilisation by initiating a transport system and also by setting up the first schools in the city of Badulla. There were no apologies for the genocide and the destruction of fertile green paddy fields starving a whole population. No apologies for the ruin of age old tanks that fed the Uva population.

Good humour

The good humour of the average Sinhala Buddhist man and woman in Uva and elsewhere fed the equanimity. So much so that when Prince Alfred to show off his prowess in hunting shot and killed a harmless pachyderm roaming in the wilds, the people gathered had emitted a 'Hurrah', perhaps an exclamation of joy learnt from their new benefactors.

Many a chieftain erected a pandal before their Walauwas and waited anxiously that the prince comes in and confers a title on him.

But the prince full of whims would bypass that road and take another route as he was too tired by all that show of salutation so germane to Asian hospitality.

Did anybody ask him to apologise him? No one did and even if he was asked, he would get away saying like the British High Commissioner in Nairobi, "I sincerely regret".

But no apologies would come forth. Perhaps queen Victoria who carried even a correspondence with our temple heads and in turn had her image floating on the face of temple murals amidst celestial figures would have advised her son before his departure.