What kind of hero do you want to be?

There are two kinds of radicals in universities.  Well, to be honest, I can’t speak for today’s undergraduates.  Back then, in the eighties there were two kinds of radicals and I suspect these two categories exist today as well, wearing different clothes, speaking different languages, screaming different slogans etc., but beneath it all, the same two individuals I noticed when I was an undergraduate. 

The first kind was the more numerous and naturally the more visible.  Here’s a profile.  He is easily swayed by rhetoric.  Has very little analytical skills.  Prefers slogans and sloganeering to persuasive and substantiated argument.  When challenged ideologically or on any theoretical point, slips into ‘action’ (over ‘talk’) and readies to employ fist and not intellect.  Loves revolutionary trappings such as Che Guevara t-shirts and other iconography.  Would readily purchase the full works of V.I. Lenin (at rates heavily subsidized by the Soviet Union), set it all out proudly on table or bookshelf but would be hard pressed to quote him in any relevant, context-bound manner. 

These are those who at the time wore red on ‘strike days’, red on days commemorating students who had been killed, red on May Day.  They were the shobana viplavavaadeen or show-off revolutionaries.  To this day I am not sure why they did this; perhaps to feel bigger than they were or maybe a cover for some insecurity.  A lot of them were very poor students, ‘poor’ meaning that they were not very keen on the learning part of university life.  There were very few ‘revolutionaries’ of this kind who were good at sports or excelled in some creative field.  This ‘lack’ didn’t save them when the UNP-JVP bheeshanaya arrested our land.  They were killed. 

Then there were those who deliberately keep to the background, coming out only if and when necessary.  I would call them ‘doers’.  They didn’t talk much and were not interested in the trappings or the show.  This does not mean of course that they were better read than the other type of ‘revolutionary’.  Indeed many of them were as averse to intellectual engagement.  Some had a theory: we’ve talked and talked and talked but never done anything; now it is time to act.  They took refuge in Karl Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach: ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.’ They knew enough of Marx, Engels and Lenin to throw quote and book at a heckler, but it was mostly about designing plan and using text to justify act.  They still thought they were revolutionaries. 

Unlike the earlier type, many of those who belonged to this category were highly gifted.  They were very articulate, both in the one-on-one of daily politics and the politics of thundering from stage.  There were many who could write.  Poets. Artists.  They too died. 

    

Together they were no more than a handful of students.  And yet, in the late eighties they decided what would and would not happen in the universities.  They were big on rights and small on responsibility, but tried to convince others that they were being more responsible than anyone else in view of the fact that they were putting their lives on line for country, class and history.  That’s another story altogether and one which will be explored some other time.  

What did the others do?  I am not talking about those who were very serious about politics, i.e. those who were affiliated to other political parties or organizations and subscribed to this or that ‘ism’.  I am talking about the led, the vast majority of students who were held to ransom by both ‘revolutionary’ and ‘reactionary’, who was asked to choose one mad adventurer over another. 

Well, they went along.  When the universities were open, they made up numbers in processions and demonstrations, they carried placards, shouted slogans and put up posters.  When the universities were closed they were pushed by local realities.  This was a time when those born in the sixties were seen as ‘JVPers’ and so they were hounded by the police and paramilitaries.  Some joined the JVP because ‘one had to go stand with someone who was strong’.  Some fled. Some were slow. Some are dead.  

Now, twenty years later, I look back at the various kinds of ‘revolutionaries’ of our ‘political moment’.  Some of the show-offs are dead and I feel sorry for them. They were young and wearing a red shirt is hardly cause for assassination.  The ‘doers’ are dead and that’s even sadder for they had far more commitment, integrity to cause and love for country than the fops and more than their assassins.  There are those who were taken for a ride because they were ignorant or were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Many died.  I lament. 

But when I look back twenty years and look at who survived and what the survivors did and did not do, I find the greatest contributors were not those who were ‘red’ or ‘revolutionary’.  The self-effacing, politically laidback or disinterested have done far more than the ‘political personalities’.  This utterly colourless creature was the one who did the hard work, at home, village, community, workplace and indeed wherever he/she happened to be. 

It is good to speak and good to speak up, speak out.  It is good to match deed with word, to put your money where your mouth is.  It is good to do.  It is not so good to talk about doing, or planting bathala with the mouth as our villagers put it.  It is best, I think, to do and be done with, without making a song and dance.  That’s radicalism at its best. 

I remember the unnecessarily murdered. I salute the commitment and integrity of those who were powered by a need to inhabit a different time, a different country where the terms of exchange were not as skewed against the poorer classes as they were then.  I bow low before those apolitical ladies and gentlemen who never used the words ‘comrade’, ‘sahodaraya’ or ‘sahodaree’ and was not addressed or referred to in this way, but who did the ‘little little things’ that made a difference. 

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Just checking: would you like to be a king (or queen)?

Imagine a world full of doctors.  Visualize a hospital in a world made of doctors.  All the patients would also be qualified physicians, specialists in this or that, surgeons and such. There would be no nurses or attendants.  Doctor would have double up as nurse, attendant, ambulance-driver, lab technician, receptionist, record-keeper, cashier, pharmacist, electrician, mason, cook, cleaner, plumber etc. etc. 

And it is not just about hospitals and attending to the sick.  We will have doctor-presidents, doctor-ministers, doctor-mayors, doctor-engineers, doctor-accountants, doctor-teachers, doctor-bakers, doctor-journalists, doctor-administrators, doctor-jailors, doctor-prison guards, doctor-actors, doctor-singers, doctor-teachers, doctor-bums, and doctor-children. Infants would come out of their doctor-mothers’ wombs carrying an MBBS and who knows, perhaps even with a stethoscope.  They would grow up eating food produced by doctor-farmers and sold by doctor-vendors.  They would marry other doctors, in ceremonies presided over by doctor-marriage-registrars and doctor-kapuwas,  When they die, their corpses would be dressed up by doctor-undertakers, the paansukoola presided over by doctor-bikkhus and buried or cremated by doctor grave-diggers or crematorium-keepers.

You can replace ‘doctor’ with any other professional title, skilled or unskilled, with or without certification, and end up with a world that is as unpalatable and untenable as what I’ve described above.  The world is not made like this.  Thankfully!

An occupational hierarchy in terms of preference can be constructed, this is true, but we all know that not everyone wants to be a doctor.  Still, if the choice was doctor or coolly I think most would pick the former.  Few would spurn riches.  Few would say no to power.  Not many would decline the crown if offered, what do you think?

I was thinking of Victor Ratnayake’s endearing and hopeful ditty ‘Api Okkoma Rajawaru’ (We are all of us kings) recently.  It is not impossible, I believe.  I mean, it is easy for everyone to be ‘king’ and for a king-ful society to be tenable compared to a doctor-world.  The important thing to remember is that ‘king’ is less title than metaphor. As metaphor you can be king of any number of territories, geographical, professional and personal.  You can be your own king, the king of the household, the king of the village.  You can be queen of a professional association, corporate entity or a court of law.  The nice thing about ‘king’ or kingdom (if you will) is that crown is as conferred as it is self-made and worn, and not just in a self-delusional manner.

The problem is that when someone says ‘king’ we immediately picture an all-powerful man, sitting on a throne, passing judgment.  When we hear the word ‘leader’ we associate the title with power, an apex position in some structured hierarchy and not as ‘person achieving excellence of one kind or another’.  So when we think of ‘leadership training’, it is more about training to become a person who leads others, who gives orders, makes plans, executes, hires/fires etc., and not about being the best we can be. 

Our education system does devote much effort to training people to be leaders or to help children acquire leadership qualities.  There’s one thing missing.  They are not taught that being a leader does not mean you should not allow yourself to be led.  The king of tennis is not necessarily the king of filling tax forms.  The king of lawyers is not necessarily able to dress a simple wound.  The queen of chess might not know how to cook.  The king of the word might have fingers too twisted to even play the arpeggio on a keyboard.  The king of thieves might not be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat and the king of clowns might not be able to piss straight. 

It is about learning which territories one can ‘rule’ best and of course the ‘how’ of it all.  It is about learning humility too; of acknowledging that being great or good in something doesn’t make you expert on all things.  It is also about learning that kingdom and kinghood are not synonymous with ‘happiness’ or contentment, that a crown is not guarantor of joy and peace.  It is about figuring out what we can do best, what would sustain our interest over a relatively long period of time. 

Not everyone can be king, either in a chosen field or in a political territory.  Countries have kings, yes. They also purohitha bamunas (Chief Advisors), court jesters, architects, engineers, farmers, teachers, fathers, mothers and children.  We play multiple roles.  Our roles are sometimes assigned to us; often with little reference to proven skill or training. 

It is rarely that the right person gets the right job.  Crowns are tossed around and the person who grabs them are not necessarily the best person for the relevant job.  There is no point in lamenting that which one cannot change.  We can consider for a moment the ata lo dahama, the vicissitudes of life and try to treat them with equanimity.  That’s one way of acquiring wisdom, divesting ourselves of ignorance, doubt, fear and the burden of ego.  This way we acquire new eyes, see territories we did not know existed and crowns too, those that truly fit our heads and hearts and are ‘tailor-made’ to our skills, attitudes, energies, goals and relevant humilities. 

Do you think you are a king?  Think again.  Do you think you are not?  Think again!  We are all kings and citizens; we are all mothers, fathers and children.  Some are crowned kings and some not. All kings. All citizens.  We can all be tall, as long as we know how short we can be and indeed are. 

[First published on September 30, 2010, in 'The Daily News']

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Reflections on the preeminent national embrace

Years ago and long before I realized that one had to become a parent in order to begin to understand one’s own parents, a conversation took place in Cambridge, Massachusettes about parenting and gratitude.

I was at the time a student and was staying with a Sri Lankan family. I shared a room with a 15 year old boy, the only child of a gracious couple who were university contemporaries of my parents. The boy and I were on one side of the argument, his mother our adversary. The topic was ‘caring and gratitude’ as it related to the relationship between parents and children.

‘Only we know what we have done for you, what we have sacrificed, how much we have worried and how much we love!’ she said and then lectured us on gratitude and how children ought to take care of their parents when they, the parents, are old and feeble.

We took up the position that having brought us into this world it is the responsibility of parents to take care of us. We conceded that it is nice if children take care of their aged parents but insisted that it was not a responsibility. My young friend, a decade this side of become a father, and in the full arrogance of his youthfulness and emboldened by confusion between debating skill and wisdom, wasn’t ready to concede point: ‘The main difference is that we didn’t ask to be born, but you wanted us!’

‘Ungrateful child! Do you know how much we suffered and sacrificed?’

‘That may be true, but the point is that it’s something you wanted; otherwise you could have used condoms!’

That was it. We were chased out of the house and ran out laughing.

Time has passed. My friend and I, with the passing of time and the willing (condom-less) choice of parenting, realized that debating points, as they say, are nothing more than half-truths. We discovered, each in his own way, that there exists an entire class of worries and anxieties which are conferred on us the moment we become parents. Our children are still too young for the parry and thrust that precedes the triumphant exclamation ‘Touché!’ They best us though, frequently enough.

Time passed and we each understood our parents better than we did. He’s in Australia now and I am here in Sri Lanka. And here, in Sri Lanka, we are ready to celebrate our New Year, the Aluth Avurudda, the most ‘national’ of all our festivals and for many reasons the most meaningful too. It is not about parents and children, but ‘generationality’ is certainly an important part of the traditions and customs.

This is our most eminent coming together moment. A moment when almost the entire nation at one auspicious moment decides to strike a match and light a heart; where almost an entire people, at one auspicious moment partakes of the traditional Avurudu meal, kiribath. From the loving hand of a parent. As per tradition. A time of giving and sharing, the humility and love of kneeling before elders with a sheaf of betel, a time to forgive and bless.

We are here on this earth for but a moment. A blink in fact when considering the long, long and still longer span of time, longer than even traditions. Short enough to hold back word and not hold back hand. It is not about planned parenthood, but the realities of being, of nurturing and interdependence. Not about balancing accounts and seeing beyond simplistic equations and partial truths. Not about give and take but of wholesome existence.

Colombo will be deserted during the Avurudda. That’s because the ‘village’ and the nation’s heart that inhabits Colombo goes back home and to root, renews ancient covenants, drinks deep from the wells of heritage and recovers energies necessary to live and triumph over adversity.

If there needs to be gratitude, then perhaps we should thank those who came before who in the fullness of experience and reflection crafted a culture, a host of traditions, and a universe of meaning predicated on a single thing: community.

It’s not an argument between an indignant mother and a precocious child. It is an agreement touched by the sathara brahma viharana, compassion, kindness, equanimity and the ability to rejoice in another’s joy. A national embrace, nothing less. If you want a more current word, we could call it ‘reconciliation’, but somehow that would sound poor and malnourished, like all things crafted in some other land and rudely thrust down throat.

I can’t remember the day my friend’s mother hoofed us out of that apartment, but I do remember that even in that country so far away from here, there was ‘Avurudu’. That’s who we are, deep down, I thought. I still think. 

May this Aluth Avurudda be made of reunion, sharing, festivities and a return to and appreciation of abiding commonalities!

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Inhabit the common ground!

There’s a pernicious adage that many people treat as an article of faith: ‘If you are not with me, then you must be against me!’  It is easy to piece out life in binary terms. It makes for easy analysis and easy strategizing.  The problem is that the premise is erroneous and the error gets multiplied as life and living travels the Grand Road of Binaries.  It is something that plagues our political culture.

In the mad rush to ensure that ‘enemy’ doesn’t obtain advantage, the mistakes, waywardness and even worse transgressions of friend and loyalist are ignored and sometimes even defended and justified.  And when the ‘enemy’ slips or is made to slip, there’s raucous laughter and ridicule. The most pernicious corollary to this erroneous operational device is ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’.  This is something we saw in the 2006-2009 period where mindless regime-haters bent backwards to support that which was thought to be the enemy’s biggest enemy, the LTTE, never mind the fact that suicide attacks and bomb explosions didn’t whet potential victims for party affiliation. 

A few weeks ago Sri Lanka was ‘defeated’ by the USA in a classic case of naduth haamuduruwange baduth haamuduruwange (the USA had the bucks, was positioned to arm-twist and absolutely no moral authority to do what it did and Sri Lanka was like an Under 13 ‘C’ team battling Michael Clark’s Australians in a Test Match.  The hurrahs of the TNA were to be expected and has to be read as an emphatic ‘NOT INTERESTED’ in the matter of post-conflict reconciliation.  The UNP’s decision to partner the TNA in May Day celebration, however, is problematic. 

The UNP’s positions regarding the entire issue over the past few years demonstrate how deeply subscribed it is to the friend-enemy binary; going from pooh-poohing the military option to jeering at rehabilitation and resettlement efforts to endorsing ill-willed moves against Sri Lanka initiated by pro-LTTE elements abroad to being dismissive of the LLRC to demanding full implementation of LLRC recommendations to virtually backing the USA at the UNHRC in Geneva to post-Geneva triumphalism to arm-in-arm with the TNA, known apologists of terrorism.   

Fascination with binaries is not the preserve of the UNP leadership of course.  The ruling party is as or more guilty.  Indeed given power-edge and incurable arrogance the big guns of the Government do not seem to be willing or able to peel away rhetoric and debating point in order to obtain the substance of legitimate objection.  If there’s criticism it’s brushed away as ‘conspiracy’ or the natural chagrin of those out of power or the invective of those seeking power. 

It is in this context that the stand taken by the UNP-led opposition of the Boralesgamuwa Pradeshiya Sabha has to be applauded.  They stood firm in denouncing moves against the country and especially the revenge-heavy machinations of the United States of America.  That is not, however, an endorsement of all decisions taken by the UPFA in Boralesgamuwa or elsewhere.  That is, however, responsible opposition. 

The truth is that we are not a society that has no history is seeing past false dichotomies.  We are not an either-or people.  We are civilization that is more sophisticated in philosophy and practice. Common and commonality are an integral part of who we are.  Tolerance and accommodation are integral to our world view.  This is true of all communities living in this island.  Whatever hardships we face, we find time for one another, find ways of giving and sharing. That is what the Aluth Avurudda is about.  We rejoice together and mourn together.  We understand ‘times of need’.  We know how to put aside the petty and objectionable.  We know how to embrace, how to reconcile.  

If a key is missing in the larger processes of getting over and past the conflict, then the Aluth Avurudda is a moment, an event, a celebration, an idea and symbolic of a way of being in which that missing element can be found.  If that key has a name, then it must be commonality.  It’s accessible by all and if politicians are not interested that does not mean citizens have to follow suit. 

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