And education keeps ‘crisising’ along…

Sri Lanka prides itself on providing free education.  The extraordinarily high literacy levels are frequently cited in self-congratulatory terms by academics, development practitioners and politicians, very often to gloss over telling anomalies, mismatches and bewildering policy decisions pertaining to education. 

Progressive policies designed and implemented several decades ago need to be lauded for the positive benefits they have yielded.  On the other hand, nations and people do not stay still; they move, often with the times, with new realities spawning new challenges and these in turn requiring re-think and re-design to ensure standards, effectiveness and relevance. 

One of the most perplexing issues about the positive results of education policy is that the beneficiaries (i.e. the educated) consistently fail to deliver when they move to positions of power and authority.  Rarely is the right person placed in the right position.  Rare too is the right person in the right position supported with the right kind of personnel and resources.  This is a phenomenon that is not limited to the education sector of course.  Quite apart from a culture of sidelining career administrators in favor of political appointees, a tendency that has caused more problems than yielded benefits, the country is clearly in the throes of a serious human resources crisis.  Two insurrections and a three decade long struggle against terrorism that resulted in the loss of some 200,000 lives have not helped either. 

The country suffers from a continuing mismatch between instruction provided and the skills necessary to move the country forward, an absence of a comprehensive occupation classification to determine skill needs and a lack of systems to ensure quality of education. 

Last week, students of the University of Visual and Performing Arts took to the streets demanding that the University Grants Commission (UGC) re-introduced practical tests for aspiring entrants.  Student leaders claimed that the practical tests that are part of the A/L exam for subjects such as music, dancing and art are of unsound quality with assessments being made by school teachers and not university lecturers.  Scrapping the aptitude tests, they claim, could be to the advantage of students who have scored well in non-related subjects (thereby boosting their Z-scores).

The UGC counters that the quality of the aptitude tests is suspect, alleging inter alia, that the examiners can favor applicants who they themselves train in various private ‘academies’ for music and dance for example, alluding to a conflict of interest.  It is also pointed out that in several instances students who have secured ‘A’ grades in all subjects have failed the aptitude tests.  Since the handbook for those applying to universities has no mention of aptitude tests, it is not possible to re-introduce them at this point. 

Now it cannot be impossible, even given inadequacies referred to above, for a system to be put in place to ensure transparency and also to separate the deserving from the undeserving, either at the A/L itself or through an aptitude test.  The fact that those who have their own academies do not disclose the fact and excuse themselves from screening processes also compromises their integrity and detracts from the legitimacy of their demands for aptitude tests. 

In another example of gross incompetence, the Ministry of Education has assigned placements in a Colombo school to 4 university lecturers as per quotas for that category, without ascertaining whether or not vacancies existed.  That’s basic.  According to the aggrieved parents, they had been brushed off by a senior ministry official, who had allegedly claimed that the ministry doesn’t need university lecturers.  This has prompted the university dons to consider boycotting A/L paper marking.  It is reported that the said lecturers had been abusive during the argument with the official.  Regardless of what was said and done, the fact remains that the Ministry has not bothered to do its homework regarding space availability. This is May, five months into the school year.  Bad.

These are just two of many examples where all round and insufferable incompetence is evident.  We could the imbroglio concerning private medical colleges, the utter lack of supervision of mushrooming ‘international schools’ and various other degree-awarding institutions, a pernicious tendency of student activists to salivate at the prospect of protesting and indeed instigating student unrest, steadily dropping quality levels in many streams of education and other ills.  It seems that saying ‘there is a crisis in education’ is no longer valid, for our education system is ‘crisising’ and has been doing so for far too long now.  It could lead to another bout of youth unrest leading to insurrection and blood-letting, but that’s only one of the ‘possibles’, for in this here-and-now, for all the progress made over the years, the mismatches, incompetency, lack of ethics and ad hoc policy directives impact the entire sector. 

Big words, brash acts and a preference to sweep things under the carpet will not help.  Our tomorrow doesn’t look too rosy. 

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Nihal Fernando: the Lanka lover behind the lens

[In April 2001, I interviewed Nihal Fernando of Studio Times fame and one of the greatest photographers the country has produced.  This morning, I dropped by his house on Skelton Road, just to say hello, see how he was doing; paying my respects, in other words.  Now 81 years of age, not exactly in the pink of health, unable to do what he loved doing and did best, travelling and capturing the beauty, uniqueness and history of the land he loves so much, Nihal Fernando did not however look a lesser version of who he was 11 years ago.  He has lost nothing of his wit, his alertness or his unruffled and genial demeanor.  He smiled a lot.  Made a couple of jokes.  Was affectionate, as always.  I thought I'll post that 11 year old article of a truly exceptional Sri Lankan.  As tribute.]  

A later publication, but one wrought over many decades and speaking of centuries gone by and to generations yet unborn

"The aim is at once simple and forthright, and, once understood, the book reveals itself as a lyrical descant, a professional anthem to the compilers’ delicate insight, critical flair, and discerning love of an island, traversed from end to end ceaselessly, and discovered and re-discovered with a rare sensitivity to the essence of its charm, its splendours, and its graces." So says, Ian Goonetileke in introducing Serendip to Sri Lanka: Immemorial Isle, an exquisite pictorial capture of the land, its inhabitants and rich cultural heritage, by Nihal Fernando and his disciple cum colleague Luxshman Nadaraja.

Ian’s eloquence and his own sensitivity to both the visual and the deep waters of the cultural ethos upon which it rests, certainly captures the essence without betraying the joys of what is to come. Typical of the man and his inimitable style, he offers a wonderful introduction to the work. Capturing the man behind the lens, his kaleidoscopic mind and creative flush, is something else, and in many ways, a formidable task, not least of all because Nihal’s simplicity includes a deliberate avoidance of the limelight. He is a man who seems to prefer his work to describe him.

Barbara Sansoni has attempted a characterisation: "What is this man with his small band of disciple photographers from Studio Times? His work tells us he is an explorer, a naturalist, endlessly patient and impervious to the discomfort of mosquitoes and heat, a sensuous man, passionate about beauty but equally passionate for things wild, primitive and free, recording their images with great love, not for study, or commerce, or intellectualism or political use, but in the only way artists act — spontaneously. Nihal Fernando is an artist, a great photographer."

Yes, Nihal is all that, and probably more. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. When a photographer is as passionate about his/work as Nihal obviously is, there comes a point, I believe, that it becomes difficult to separate the artist from the subject. As such, his pictures define him, not in the sense of instant capture on a two-dimensional frame for all time, but as a mosaic of sensibilities that comes through in both the choice of subject as well as its depiction. Nihal would, in this sense, run into several galleries. And this means, that at a certain level, this exercise is doomed to failure.

I found that an "interview" with the man with the intention of gleaning a biographical sketch a fruitless exercise. He did offer me a curriculum vitae of sorts, but infinitely more interesting was what he had to say about the country that he loves, its people and place in history.

He was born in 1927 in Marawila by the sea, and the family lived in a cadjan walled house with a pit latrine. "I still remember the post-hole digger that we used. It was environmentally sound and sanitation was not compromised." His father was a lawyer who practiced only to secure his independence. When he had made enough money he had decided to spend the rest of his life from a small income from agriculture.

"He was a simple man, he sharpened his shaving blades on a glass and used them for months. When he died the only thing of value that he owned was a wristlet and this he had bequeathed to the man who looked after him. My mother was no different. She had only a gold bracelet, which I couldn’t find. She pawned it so many times that I am sure it must be languishing in some pawn shop."

The family had moved to Colombo to educate the children, but financial constraints meant that young Nihal had to be educated at home until he was ten and a half. At St. Peter’s College he had been "a total misfit," not knowing how to get along with other students. It had been tough to survive so he had learned boxing. "I never learnt, I just had a ball. I was sent home regularly for non-payment of fees and delighted in it!"

He had taken up photography using a borrowed camera in order to solve his pocket-money problem. This he supplemented with breeding fish, grafting plants, and rearing chicken. He would go on long bike trips with his friends. On one occasion they had taken their bikes up to Haputale by train and "went all the way to Kataragama on one pedal; it was all downhill". These trips were cheap, says Nihal. "All I had to take was a plastic table cloth". This was both bed and tent, apparently.

It seems clear that Nihal developed a love for the country, its physical beauty, the charm of its people and their customs, and the grandeur of its past, in the blaze of boyhood exploration. And he certainly discovered and perfected the art of making the maximum use of a "click," both as a staff photographer at the Times and after he acquired Studio Times. Thousands of photographs and several exhibitions and collections later, Nihal claims that he is not a technical photographer nor that he possesses a technical mind. "I only have an eye," says the man, adding that Luxshman Nadarajah is a far superior photographer and in fact, in his view, the best photographer in the country.

With this "eye" Nihal saw and gave the world some wonderful images, serene and magical, richness imbued with delicate tones of the simplicity that he lives and appreciates. "This is a country that the gods made for themselves, it has tremendous potential, it has been ruined by politicians and the people who appointed them."

Nihal has, in his photography, not just produced a variegated visual cartography of this "country of the gods" he has in fact helped identify for us landmarks in the never ending journey of discovering who we are, where we came from and the more benevolent paths that we might choose to walk. Yes, he has shied away from its ugly side. "I only wanted to help people appreciate what we have. The ugly side I leave to the foreigners to photograph."

He firmly believes that the future of the country is in the hands of the small farmer. "The small farmer is as much a hero as those who have to sell their labour in the Middle East. He is self-sufficient, he’s not a drain on the economy, doesn’t need foreign exchange, in fact he saves foreign exchange, gets no advice, gets no seeds (of late) and wherever possible he is organic."

His commitment to a different ethos of living is admirably demonstrated in his efforts to promote traditional agriculture. Studio Times has got the Handbook for the Ceylon Farmer, first published in 1965, translated into Sinhala as "Govi Athpotha," the latest edition, with improvements, coming out last April. Interestingly, it carried a short note on a simple method for using phosphate in agriculture. Predictably the book has not been picked up by the relevant state authorities nor by NGO racketeers who make a living out of selling traditional knowledge, sustainable agriculture and participatory development, the buzz words in the aid market.

Nihal himself says, in a prologue to one of his books, that "the fight to keep safe the wild, the free and the beautiful, even in this blessed land, has been long and hard fought — I for one have lost every skirmish." This was way back in 1986. Since then, he has scored one spectacular victory although he would be the first to downplay his role in the battle. One word. Eppawala.

"There were shocking revelations that came from that campaign to save the phosphate deposits from Freeport-McMoran. We were basically being sold down the line!"

Nihal claims that he was only a catalyst. Be that as it may, he was unique in that category as well. He had co-ordinated the Colombo end of the struggle, Mahamankadawala Piyaratana Thero carrying the burden in Eppawala. In Colombo he had soon got disillusioned by the academics. He had felt that they wouldn’t deliver when it came to crunch time. And most of them didn’t. Scientists, environmentalists, religious leaders, trade unionists, writers and diplomats would meet in Nihal’s house once a week and discuss strategy over vadai and ginger beer.

"It was by invitation, anyone who didn’t contribute was not invited again. The two people who were there throughout were two committed grassroots activists, Suranjan Kodituwakku and Channa Ekanayake. They knew exactly what would work and what wouldn’t and they were totally committed to the struggle. We carried out a tremendous press campaign and the writers, including your father Gamini played a critical role. We were also helped by Jonathan Walters, a professor of religion, who kept the campaign alive over the internet. That type of character was essential in a way. He had an open mind, credibility and a certain humility. Bala Tampoe was most useful. His vast experience in organising pickets and ability to get the CMU and nine other trade unions involved was invaluable."

He conceded that it was very difficult to handle people with disparate political views, but maintained that the group secured this country from a tremendous tragedy. "All you had to do was to go into the history of the people who were going to come. It would have been a disaster. All they wanted was a toe in. Their MOUs would have altered the laws of this country."

Typical of the man, Nihal had meticulously gone over all the facts before joining the struggle. He had written to the then US Ambassador with as cogent an argument as was possible, and had received no reply. "I bumped into him one day and asked him about it and he said ‘It’s economics!’" Your economy, not ours, was the answer that the people gave him and the interests he was representing at the end of the day. The case filed in the Supreme Court by the Environmental Foundation won what is perhaps the greatest victory for our people in a long time.

But capital rarely stops to lick its wounds. Nihal gave me a bunch of documents which clearly indicate that the Ministry of Forestry and Environment have basically pawned off our national parks and wild life in the same way.

"They employ a time-tested method. First, they do their homework, study all the people, the NGOs, the scientists, and officials. Then they offer them subtle bribes such as trips abroad, consultancies. Then they come up with the grand claim ‘We have got consensus!’ At the end of it all, the scheme comes out — it’s a sell out that often includes the changing of our laws." The letter from the Secretary to the Ministry to the Policy Coordinator and GEF Facilitator of the Asian Development Bank certainly carried this "consensus" requirement. It says, "The project’s preparatory process has been truly participatory and has brought together all stakeholders from Government, civil society etc etc etc."

Nihal said "The heritage of this country has been sold for a pittance by ‘Ehelepola’ and ‘Keppetipola’," refraining from revealing the true identities of these villains.

Nihal has done much more than his fair share for the country. If those who plunder do not recognise full stops or punctuation marks, then the onus is on all those who love this country to pull out all stops in protecting their heritage. In this effort, Nihal believes that all communities must come together. "The Tamils were the best administrators, in fact a combination of Tamil administrators and the ‘leftovers of the left’ got together we can still pull through." Strong opinions, certainly, but then again, Nihal has never minced his words, and such people you learn to respect even if you disagree.

Being the self-effacing man that he is, he refused to give a picture of himself, so I asked him to select a picture that best represents his beliefs. And he gave the one that was carried in the Eppawala poster. It had the following caption: "ape paduwe inna denna" (LEAVE US ALONE!"). I believe it captures more than an appropriate slogan for a particular struggle, but is the defining political line that can bring us true independence.

Once a World Bank official had invited Nihal to lunch at a five-star hotel. Nihal had said "I can’t afford it." The official had said "No, I will pay." Nihal’s answer is a classic in that it contains the essence of the political economy governing our lives, the threat and the answer to everything that seeks to destroy our way of life and our heritage: "No, you don’t understand, I am paying!"

That’s Nihal Fernando, an odyssey in whose meanderings the heartbeat of our people have been meticulously gathered. Life-giving, to put it mildly.

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Peace: whose business is it anyway?

It has been reported that US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh have ‘agreed to work closely in expediting the Sri Lankan peace process (sic)’.  That ‘decision’ had been taken when the former visited the latter in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Interesting.

First of all, neither Clinton nor Singh are representatives elected by the people of Sri Lanka.  Nor were these individuals mandated to ‘expedite’ any process that concerns Sri Lanka.  Neither of them have bothered to explain what ‘peace process’ means.  Most importantly, neither of them has the moral authority to pass judgment, forward proposal or even comment on things Sri Lankan.  Let us explain.

In March this year, the USA sponsored a resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.  It was a resolution that Sri Lanka objected to, vehemently, and perforce was one roundly seen as an unfriendly move on the part of the USA.  It was a resolution that India supported, thereby dispelling all illusions about that country’s friendship claims. 

If one were to go back further in history, then we can talk of how India ‘expedited’ the ‘peace process’ in Sri Lanka by funding, arming, training and giving refuge to terrorists.  We can talk of how India PREVENTED the vanquishing of the fascist LTTE organization in 1987, postponing that eventuality by 22 years and thereby facilitating that many years worth of carnage. That act of thuggery also helped unleash an insurrection that left 60,000 dead in less than 2 years. 

The USA, for all its anti-terrorist rhetoric, actively sought (through its local representative, Robert O Blake) to throw a lifeline to the fascists in the last days of the conflict, showing generosity of a kind that was and is patently absent in how that country dealt with its armed detractors in Afghanistan, most notably al Qaeda and Taliban operatives including Osama bin Laden.    

Both countries were very active in supporting a largely pro-terrorist Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2002.  There was no ‘expediting’ of anything other than destabilization, chaos, anarchy and separatist drives. 

Despite all these spokes in the wheels, Sri Lanka did defeat fascism.  Sri Lanka opened the doors that the LTTE had closed to peace, normalcy and reconciliation.  Singh and Clinton may have their own definitions of ‘peace’, and they are more than welcome to apply them to themselves, Singh in Kashmir and Clinton in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other places where massive crimes against humanity are perpetrated in the name of democracy. 

Sri Lanka, however, is not another state of either India or the USA. Guns, bucks and inflated egos do prompt people to be presumptuous, that’s human of course.  But this without-any-by-your-leave attitude will not help heal strained relations between these countries and Sri Lanka.        

There is reference to a ‘stalled peace process’.  The wording is telling.  There was a stumbling block to peace in Sri Lanka: the LTTE fascists.  That obstacle was removed.  There are unresolved grievances, yes.  Not all of them are Tamil-specific.  Not all of the articulated ‘grievances’ are myth-free.  Neither are they un-tainted by ‘aspiration’.  There’s nothing among these ‘grievances’ that come even close to the suffering of certain communities in India and the USA.  Indeed if there has been ‘stalling’ it is because of the TNA’s intransigence, its long history of supporting LTTE fascism and its absolute reluctance to come to terms with political realities and historical facts.   

In May 2009, Sri Lanka closed a chapter, the long and bloody story of fascism, spawned by chauvinism of all kinds but especially that of the likes of Ponnambalam Ramanathan, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam and G.G. Ponnambalam, and nurtured by the evil designs of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv.  The meddling of the likes of Blake didn’t help at all.  Singh and Clinton can walk that path.  They have the power to push Sri Lanka back into those terrible times.  That’s not helping ‘peace’. 

Given their histories and their abilities to rupture old wounds, if they really want to help, it’s best they keep their distance.  Rebuilding is easy and is happening. Curing a nation of old suspicions and animosities that are naturally birthed by conflict takes longer.  If Singh and Clinton are impatient, hard luck! They can look at their own examples if they really want to know about ‘inability to resolve’ and ‘insufferable delays’.  This is Sri Lanka.  It is a country that has its own pace.  Own way.  Those who prescribed, dished out bad medicine.  When that happens, such physicians are not re-visited.    

Dr. Singh and Ms. Clinton are not citizens of ‘peaceful’ countries.  They are both leaders of countries at war; at war with other countries and peoples and at war with their own people.  They are hardly in a position to prescribe solutions to others. 

Peace in Sri Lanka is the business of people who live in Sri Lanka.  They can’t find fault with anyone who says ‘Thank you, but no!’  

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Reflections on love and death in Kiriella

Last afternoon, a man killed a woman. Both were serving in the Navy.  Nadeesha was shot dead by Surendra, who then killed himself. A love story. An ancient one.  It reminded me of another death, another love.  A decade ago.  That happened in Kiriella.

The personal tragedy almost all the time surpasses national tragedy in weight, depth and the unbounded ocean of tears it provokes. There are people who live vicariously off other people’s tragedies. There are others who, understanding the commonality of the human condition, recognises themselves as part players in the unfolding of terrible events and processes. They meditate on them. They too weep. This is perhaps why mothers die a thousand deaths each time they hear of a child being harassed, a child killed in an accident or made to suffer humiliation in school. And why each death always makes us appreciate those close to us.

Maybe it is for all these reasons that the "big news" last week was not about the oil tank farm being leased to India or the many capitulations to the LTTE or the bending backwards of the anti-peace, pro-terrorist lobby which includes the (Eel) National Peace Council, the UNF and host of other naive or servile actors. What splashed across the front pages of newspapers was the story of young Dulmini Iroshika Tillakaratne, an A/L student at Kiriella Madya Maha Vidyalaya, Ratnapura.

According to the police, she was stabbed in 36 places by fellow student J. H. Jayatilleke on account of unrequited love. All human beings know love. They have received it and have given it. But all the tears that were shed in Kiriella and elsewhere last week were not on account of a tragic love story, but a tragedy.

Albert Camus, in what can be argued to be one of his most influential essays, "Reflections on the Guillotine", contesting the argument of capital punishment being a deterrent, makes the observation that a wronged lover has already absolved himself of the murder of the object of his love even before he commits the crime. He argues further that such a person, who has already decided that he can no longer live, would not have one thought about the punishment, however severe it may be. Crimes of passion, says Camus, are seldom premeditated. They often occur on the spur of the moment and there is never enough time to consider the repercussions. Jayatilleke took a knife to school on that fateful day.

Murder must have lurked in some corner of his obviously tortured heart. And yet in his brief conversation with the girl, it was not an intention to kill but to be killed that was expressed. He offered the knife to Dulmini first. Dulmini, apparently, was completely unmoved and probably found the entire drama rather boring. Jayatilleke did not arouse any passion in the girl and clearly not persuaded to do anything more than chide the boy for his foolishness. And the spurned boy, consumed by love, rejection and who knows what else, made her suffer for her disinterest. And with it he signed his own death warrant. He died the moment he was identified as the murderer. He dies again and again in each news story published, in each comment and every time someone reads these things.

He cannot be forgiven. He deserves no pity because he took the life of another human being, who probably had the same passion for life, will to live and fear of death. The best he can expect from an unforgiving world is a soft understanding of the extent of his passion, for he was, like Father Cayetano Delaura in Garcia Marquez’ novel "Of love and other demons", and like many other people across time and space, possessed by the "most terrible demon of them all" Love. And for all intents and purposes, it is not important that pundits point out that "love" cannot be revengeful or demanding. No one can define the contours of this irrepressible creature called "love". Jayatilleke thought he was in love. That is all that is pertinent to the issue.

Dulmini Iroshika was a victim. Her story is tragic. And so very sad. It is a tragedy for her family, her friends, everyone who knew her and now for everyone who would never have known her name if she had not died the way she did. And all this a result of a simple thing. Jayatilleke did not know how to differentiate tragedy from the unfortunate in the matter of love, its acceptance and rejection.

From what I know, to love someone is a beautiful thing. To desire that person and to want that love reciprocated is natural. If such reciprocity is not forthcoming, it is unfortunate, but not tragic. Tragedy in love is when two people whose hearts beat in unison cannot be together for reasons that have nothing to do with them. If they cannot express their feelings for each other freely and the ways they want because of caste, religious, ethnic "incompatibilities" imposed by family and social norm; they can’t be together because they discovered each other too late (the "too late" always being a condition imposed by notions of propriety), because they "belong" to other people, because there is an "unacceptable" age difference, etc., that is tragic.

Today there is a victim and a villain. Probably beautiful in their own way, they would have been endearing to their parents who would have had fond hopes for their future. Each a prince and a princess to those who loved them. One dead, wept over and made immortal and not without cause. For she was absolutely innocent. Another alive, murdered over and over again for being alive. Not without cause. One was killed, the other committed suicide and opened himself to eternal damnation.

And all I can say is that my senses are wrapped by a certain numbness, perhaps like other people too, especially all those who have loved, experienced its disappointments and understood the magic of its inexpressible sorrows and indescribable joys. Dulmini is dead. So is Jayatilleke. May they rest in peace. Someday.

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Let’s locate ‘Dambulla’ on the world map of (in)tolerance

The controversy surrounding ‘sacred areas’ in Dambulla yielded a heady mix of the sacred and profane, powered predictably by ‘religious’ leaders/spokespersons.  It also brought out of the woodworks the usual suspects in the time-honored vocation of bashing Buddhists and Sinhalese. That particularly selective commentariat has been waxing lyrical about Buddhist intolerance, Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism, the sanctity of secularism and generally vilifying all Sinhala Buddhists in the country as the primary and only source of ethnic and religious disharmony and other such ills.  All this, even as Buddhists, including both lay and clergy, condemned the acts of certain Buddhists and Buddhist clergy in attacking a Muslim place of worship. 

It must be stated that if there was anything illegal about the mosque, then it is up to the law enforcement authorities to deal with it.  If the existence of the mosque contravened some regulation, then whoever sanctioned the construction must be taken to task.  If relevant acts of parliament are unclear about what to do with places of worship or any other building located in an area zoned as ‘sacred’ or of archaeological interest prior to the selfsame act coming into effect, then that piece of legislation needs re-visitation and amendment.   There should be clarity about what constitutes ‘place of religious worship’, for people can and have set up ‘prayer areas’ (which could be anything from a room in a building to a prominent mosque or church) which are used without any fanfare and out of the public eye, allowing for later claims that ‘This existed for decades’.  If objections went unheeded and led to unfortunate and violent incidents, then part of the blame must accrue to those who turned a deaf ear. 

Regardless of the validity of objection, the act of objecting must be legal and, in this case, affirm and not contradict the teachings of the Buddha.  Where compassion and reason are footnoted or ignored and in their place hatred and emotion come into operation there is nothing ‘Buddhist’ about it.  Rather, it refers to anxieties that are this-worldly, transient and placed in the middle of cultural-religious politics that have nothing to do with doctrinal tenet.  It is not an indictment of either doctrine or true follower, just as fundamentalists who burn, plunder and kill in the name of Jesus Christ or Allah can hardly be claimed to be adherents of those teachings or their acts sanctioned by the word of their teachers. 

Lost in the vilification game, naturally, is context.  The selectivity and its pernicious character is evident in the fact that the aforementioned commentariat has been conspicuously silent about encroachment by Muslims of places of historical, archaeological and religious significance to Buddhists.  The ancient Buddhist shrine at Kooragala is a case in point.  The encroachment of lands belonging to the Muhudu Maha Viharaya, a place of immense archaeological importance, is another. 

Let’s call that our General Sri Lankan Screw-Ups. Let’s move to places from which people are pointing fingers at Sri Lanka and especially Sinhala Buddhists and engaged in endless and foul-mouthed name-calling.  Karunanidhi forgets what Hindus do to Muslisms in India, but he’s just an also-ran in Tamil Nadu and a desperate political refugee. Let’s go further. To Europe. 

Let’s begin with Switzerland.  In November 2009, there was a referendum on a constitutional amendment banning the construction of new minarets. It was approved by 22 out of 26 Swiss cantons.  The referendum followed an initiative by the Swiss People’s Party and the Federal Democratic Union, the former maintain that minarets are ‘political symbols’ and designing fliers that featured a veiled woman against a background of a Swiss flag pierced by several minarets resembling missiles.

They may have been ‘extremists’ but the Swiss people supported them.  None of them would say that a church steeple was a ‘political symbol’, never mind the fact that ‘Christian Politics’ moved them to do what they did and that the cross has both ecclesiastical as well as crass political meaning.  What was ‘politically relevant’ was the claim that Christian churches would not be allowed in the Arab world.  That ‘sauce for goose and gander’, for some reason, is not considered applicable to Sri Lanka. 

In ‘democratic’ Europe, from Norway to Italy, from Portugal to Austria, the religious building landscape is monolithic: if one travels from Oslo to Napoli and from Lisbon to Vienna, one would see only Christian churches along the way. Muslim places of worship are confined to apartments in flats in all these countries, despite having considerable Muslim populations and despite the fact that current growth rates indicate that Muslims would form the majority of most European countries. Still, no mosques would be allowed around the areas surrounding major cathedrals in Europe.  No mention of ‘intolerance’ here. 

There’s more to ‘secularism’ in Europe. I am thinking of the French Revolution and all the secular rhetoric at the time and since.  France has public holidays, like any other country.  France has 5 civil holidays: January 1 (New Year), May 1 (Labour Day), May 8 (End of WW II), July 14 (Bastille Day) and November 11 (End of WW I).  Surprise, surprise, France has 6 more ‘secular’ holidays: Easter (sometime in April), August 15 (to celebrate the Assumption of Mary), November 1 (All Saints’ Day), a Thursday in Mid-May (39 days after Easter, to celebrate Jesus’ Ascension), Pentecôte (50 days after Easter, usually on a Monday by the end of May) and of course December 25 (Christmas).  And just the other day, France’s lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.  Nothing ‘wrong’ there, but everything that Buddhists do in Sri Lanka to preserve heritage is wrong, and I am not talking about excesses by un-Buddhistic ‘bikkhus’ but even the articulation that questions the validity of multi-religious (i.e. one religion, one-vote logic) descriptive given population disparities and historical facts. 

Now compare European ‘tolerance’ described above with the landscape of Sri Lanka, if you travel from Jaffna to Matara or from Colombo to Batticaloe.  All places of religions worship, whether Islamic, Hindu or Christian are of the traditional architecture of each religion. Despite the violence unleashed in the name of Christ, including the destruction of Buddhist and Hindu temples and wide scale book-burning, the adherents, their right to worship and places of worship were not only allowed by the victims of that violence but were also treated with utmost respect utterly disproportionate to the kind of ‘respect’ meted out to Buddhists and Buddhism by ‘Christians’.  Muslims know that it was the largesse of a Buddhist king, Senarath, that spared them from being massacred by ‘Christian’ Europeans. 

 
The invective of fundamentalist Muslims reacting to the Dambulla incident, similarly, is hardly representative of the entire community, which has for example, opposed the division of the country along ethnic lines, a ‘political’ need that is of great significance to Buddhists, the vast majority of whom are Sinhalese.

Just to illustrate the slant in the commentariat ranting and raving about Buddhist intolerance, I am awaiting some word, any word in fact, from that bunch about Ven Ampitiye Sumana Thero’s abduction. The Venerable Thero of the Mangalaramaya was abducted and manhandled by some TMVP members, taken to the Wellavali PS Chairman’s office and threatened.  He was told ‘The East belongs to Tamil’.  In this context, should Sinhala Buddhists even entertain proposals that grant land and police powers to provincial councils, one can ask.  Anyway, the abducted was a Buddhist, a member of the Maha Sangha.  Silence from the anti-Buddhist commentariat that talks of religious tolerance, secularity and so on.   

Now what if anything like this happened to a member of the Islamic or Christian clergy? Someone offered that ‘not only the entire Muslim community and the entire Christain community would be up in arms in one voice with all the human rights activists et al. with Al Jazeera and BBC taking this all round the world calling for a regime change etc.’  He added,  ‘the Cardinal would walk into the President's house and threaten that unless immediate action was taken he would boycott all government functions and the President would simply cow down’.

There’s inequality here, clearly.  That ‘inequality’ which refers to the disingenuous politics and global political economy of religion speaks of both tolerance and intolerance.  Today is Vesak, and it is best to point these things out in the interest of reason.  And so I conclude that if we are to see reason and tolerance triumph, we must understand anxiety, we much acknowledge history and heritage, we must be conscious of context and proportionality. 

[Published in 'The Nation' of May 6, 2012]

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May is for flag-waving

May is a month of flags.  May comes wrapped in red, the signature color of protest, of labor, trade unionism and left-wing politics.  Later May moves from single color to multi color with the advent of the Vaishakya Mangalyaya, Vesak, commemorating the themagula (birth, enlightenment and parinibbana) of the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama, most of the country decked in the colours of the Buddhist flag along with lanterns, thoran (pandals), dansal and other decorations. 

There was a May that came three years ago when one flag obliterated the usual colours of Vesak.  That was when the country was rid of the terrorist menace.  It was the lion flag, of relief and celebration (mis-identified by some as ‘triumphalism’) that fluttered in the four corners of the island and across the length and breadth of the land.  Time passed and May was May, red on the 1^st and blue, yellow, red, white and orange on Vesak Day.  This May was different.  For ‘flag-reasons’. 

There were two flags that need to be flagged here. First, an LTTE flag spotted in the UNP-TNA May Day procession.  The organizers have since claimed that it was a put-up job by a state-run TV station.  The second was the national flag that TNA leader R Sampanthan held in his hand and waved.  Mavai Senathirajah, TNA General Secretary, addressing a Media Day event in Jaffna on May 3^rd said ‘it (the flag) was surreptitiously handed over to Sampanthan by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe’ and proceeded to apologize on behalf of the party to the party faithful.  Sampanthan has now stated that he sees no reason for any apology, and, seasoned politician that he is, claims that even if he has reservations about the flag, it remains the national flag and since the TNA stands for a solution ‘within a united (he doesn’t say ‘unitary’) Sri Lanka, there’s nothing wrong in waving the national flag. 

Carrying an LTTE flag is an indicator of ideological position and pernicious though that position is it is nevertheless not illegal.  The flag-carrier could be questioned under the PTA but that something the carrier must resolve to contend with.  When a party like the TNA, with a long history of supporting both terrorism and separatism, picks up the national flag, it is politically significant, especially since the flag-waver happens to be the party leader.  The national flag, after all, embodies everything that goes with nation, including structures of the state, in this case officially ‘unitary’ in character. 

It should not be ‘news’ since the 6^th Amendment to the Constitution still holds and is officially affirmed by all parliamentarians, even though such affirmation at swearing-in is immediately disavowed by statement of intent to scuttle the unitary character of the state.  But that’s how things are. The country, after all, shows a healthy tendency to disregard triviality and willingness to suffer mavericks and even separatists.  What’s ‘news’ is the fact that Senathirajah had to ‘apologize’, in affect claiming that his party is not interested in a Sri Lanka or a Sri Lankan solution to grievances, while all the while benefitting immensely on account of citizenship, representative power in the very same state and of course the policy choices of the very government the TNA chooses to vilify at every turn.

What is important is not flag but what flag represents.  What is important is not chest-beating patriotism but on-the-ground patriotism.  What is missed by flag-stories is the fact that flag-waving of the kind seen in Jaffna on May Day was made possible by a regime with a particular policy framework with regard to dealing with terrorism, a people ready to back those choices and a defence establishment equipped to put plan into action. 

Tissa Attanayake, the UNP General Secretary, brags that the party got the TNA to wave the national flag.  Senathirajah says Sampanthan was hoodwinked.    Sampanthan says ‘nothing wrong’ and rejects the hoodwink claim.  Braggadocio, complaint and explanation/disavowal, are all ‘possibles’ with respect to the national flag simply because there is democratic space in Jaffna today, something that did not exist when fascism reigned in that part of the island. 

More importantly, flag-waving misses the point about flag-meaning and moreover it’s a point-missing that all parties are guilty of, including the ruling party.  For flag to have meaning, country must have meaning, citizenship must have meaning, all economic, political, cultural and social processes must have ‘national’ (and not multi-national, for example) character.

The question is, ‘are we there yet?’  Are we united enough to deserve a single flag? Are we conscious enough of history and heritage? Are we enlightened enough to recognize our common humanity and our common human frailties?  Are we humble enough to recognize what the communal ancestors did or did not do to build this country, this civilization and this way of being, making something that is distinctive and amenable to be called ‘Sri Lankan’?   In short, what is the meaning, the length, breadth and depth of our citizenship?  What is the true meaning of the ‘democracy’ we enjoy?  Are all the anomalies around us embedded or else do they find representation in our national flag?  

May is a flag-month.  This May there were additional flags.  Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether flag-waving affirmed nation or if it waived away or else glossed over much of that which is important in ‘nation’.

Red flags don’t wave away exploitation, Buddhist flags don’t confer enlightenment and national flags don’t 

make nations.  And that’s all there is to know about flags, this month of May.  

['The Nation' Editorial, May 6, 2012]

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