Identity Crisis

As our loyal readers are well aware, The Sunday Leader is not afraid to be politically incorrect. Goodness knows we've trodden on more corns, touched more raw nerves, than anybody else in the business. And for our trouble we've been assaulted, shot at and burned down, only to rise from the ashes of our former selves to yet new heights. No ivory tower, be it ever so tall, have we spared: in our battle for transparency and objectivity no quarter has been asked and indeed, none given. And today will be no exception, for we intend to probe our sense of national identity.

On May 22 each year, Sri Lanka honours its national heroes. We stop work, stay home, and presumably think grateful thoughts about those folks who have been an example to us all, rising to the highest heights of heroism. OK, then, name three. You find yourself stuttering, don't you? It isn't as if you're stuck for choice: in fact, you'd be hard pressed at the spur of the moment to name just one. And even if you did name him or her, you'd have to chew on your pencil a good long while before you recalled just what their deed of heroism was.

Ask an Indian the same question, on the other hand, and he'd rattle off a string of names: Mahatma Gandhi, Srinivas Ramanujan, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Salman Rushdie, Zubin Mehta and even naturalised Indians such as Tenzing Norgay and Mother Theresa. And that's not counting philanthropic heroes of the ilk of Jamsedji Tata and his heirs, who give billions to charity each year.

When we Sri Lankans ponder on who it is in our past or present that we should look to as role models, it is invariably someone from the dim, distant past, such as King Dutugemunu. Ask them what his most notable act of heroism was, and chances are you'll be told it was to defeat the (Tamil) King Elara in battle. Many of us would also recall the name of Keppitipola Dissawe who, having been party to the secession of Kandy to the British in 1815, abortively led a rebellion against British rule three years later. After that, however, we begin to scrape the barrel.

There's Weerahennadige Francisco Fernando, alias Puran Appu, whose accomplishment in defying the British, if you call a spade a spade, was nothing more than that of any of the thousands of young men who are "making the supreme sacrifice for their motherland" even today. Then there's Don David Hewavitarne alias Anagarika Dharmapala who, for all his Buddhist ideals, held views on Aryan supremacy that would have made Hitler wince: "This bright, beautiful island was made into a Paradise by the Aryan Sinhalese before its destruction was brought about by the barbaric vandals. Its people did not know irreligion... Christianity and polytheism (i.e. Hinduism) are responsible for the vulgar practices of killing animals, stealing, prostitution, licentiousness, lying and drunkenness."

It is almost unnecessary to point out that while the Sinhalese consider themselves Aryan (whatever that means), the Tamil's have no such claim to fame: they are Dravidians. Or to put it in words the Anagarika might have, Barbaric Dravidian Vandals.

The object of this essay, however, is not to deride people safely dead, but to draw attention to the peril in which we place ourselves when we struggle to establish a contemporary national identity. Sadly, we as a nation have yet not learned from the examples of so many other countries that a nation's identity has little or nothing to do with its history. Gazing on the splendour of Angkor Wat, who would have thought that the Buddhist architects of the marvel would be the progenitors of the Khmer Rouge, whose barbarism resulted in the slaughter of millions of innocent Cambodians?

Before Sri Lanka's own Buddhist zealots get their brickbats out we should hasten to add that none of this is intended to denigrate religion, whether Buddhist or of any other hue. We strongly support the right of all people to subscribe to their own set of personal - if wholly arbitrary - beliefs. But in sculpting a national identity for ourselves, we need to be careful about the labels we use. It has now become almost de rigueur that whenever the word 'Sinhala' is used, it should be coupled with 'Buddhist.' The culture, values, traditions and so on that define our identity, far from being Sri Lankan, have become 'Sinhala-Buddhist.'

Not uncommonly one hears apologists for this sorry state of affairs argue that while there are 80 million Tamils in the world, there are only 16 million Sinhala-Buddhists, and so the idea of Sinhala-Buddhism needs all the support it can get. That arithmetic sounds convincing until you consider that Jews - an infinitely more powerful minority than Buddhists worldwide - number a mere 13 million. Sadly, in today's materialistic world, influence is directly proportional to wealth, not to the strength of one's convictions.

One of the most insightful observations in the autobiography of Lee Kuan Yew was the distinction he made between the direction in which he opted to take Singapore after its independence from Malaysia, in sharp contradistinction to the path Sri Lanka's post-independence leaders chose to tread. The Sri Lankans, he noted, were living in their glorious past, to which their sorry present-day society bore no relationship. Lee, on the other hand, chose to strengthen Singapore's existing, largely colonial institutions, not changing so much as a street name.

Ditto the new communist rulers of Hong Kong: in the decade that has passed since that island reverted to the People's Republic, there has been no hint of any attempt to change its identity. There has been no new cultural revolution, no attempt to erase Hong Kong's brazenly colonial flavour. Queen's Road, named for Queen Elizabeth II, continues to be the street on which its key financial institutions are based.

Not so the post-independence progress (we use the word loosely) of sunny Sri Lanka. Sixty years after independence, with a whole generation having passed on, we remain deeply xenophobic, voice our historical virtues with hysterical defiance, and are more obsessed with our past than our future. No recent example could better exemplify how mistaken we are than the Chinese.

Under communism, China was a nation hated and feared by the rest of the world. The Chinese had become an alien people, dressed in grey tunics and - bogged down in economic stagnation - extolling the virtues of their glorious past. But look at the New China we see today: politician wearing smart Western suits, a booming economy, increasing openness to the outside world and, though short on democratic freedoms, a far cry from the dark days of Maoist uniformitarianism. Most promising of all, millions of Chinese today flood the world's tourist hotspots, clicking away at their cameras, buying up souvenirs and soaking up the way the world works. Today, China is beating the West at its own game - capitalism. But has it torn down the Great Wall? Burnt the Imperial Palace? No. Chinese culture, tradition and identity are alive, well and thriving.

Why then is Sri Lanka still bogged down in its yearning to create an identity? Do we wish to be something other than ourselves? The problem seems to be that deep inside, we are for the most of us, mere Mervyn Silvas. Take for instance the name-change Colombo's Dickmans Road underwent last year. For decades, Dickmans Road (three syllables) was a minor roadway that connected Galle Road to Havelock Road. We've all forgotten who Mr. Dickman was, but no doubt the city fathers had good cause to eponymize him at the time. Last year Dickmans Road fell victim to Sri Lanka's search for identity, and was renamed "Doctor Lester James Peiris Mawatha" - 10 syllables and by any yardstick, something of a mouthful. Now we would all admit that Dr. Peiris has encountered some modest success as a movie director and many of us have enjoyed his films. But not even Hollywood has named an avenue for Steven Spielberg, unarguably the greatest director of all time. After all, he isn't even dead yet. And it is not as if Dr Peiris had no control over this bit of comedy: he actually graced the ceremony and evidently saw nothing wrong with the entire farce. Thus it is that if nothing else he has one thing in common with Mervyn Silva: a doctorate honoris causa, and a name-board to prove it.

Not even Buddhist monks have been above this kind of nonsensical vainglory. A few years ago another innocuous lane, Model Farm Road (four syllables), became "Venerable Pelpola Vipassi Himi Mawatha" (15 syllables). Again, the Venerable Vipassi was still among us when he was granted this signal honour, and did nothing to uphold the Buddhist teachings against all forms of vanity by so much as writing a letter of protest to the authorities who thrust this upon him. What his act of heroism was we are yet to learn.

So bankrupt are we as a nation of people to whom we can look up, that we have sunk to inventing heroes of the ilk of Dr. Peiris and the Venerable Vipassi. If they are the models to whom we must look up, it is hardly surprising that Sri Lanka is in the sorry state in which it is.

An identity is something that must evolve spontaneously: it is not something that can be manufactured. Despite not having erased any of its colonial legacy, there is today still a powerful Singaporean identity. That little nation had none of the grandeur of ancient Sri Lanka: it was a small trading outpost made up mostly of shabby Chinese immigrants. Yet, in the course of the past 40 years, those lowly immigrants have formed a nation that is the envy of their neighbours. Singaporeans have no need to search for a national identity: they know who they are.

Sri Lanka needs to realise that it can modernise without risking its sense of self. The colonial era is now past: there is no need to fear white people any more. And yes, we need to come to terms with the fact that there is much beauty in diversity. It is only by finding room for all that each of us - from Atheists to Zoroastrians - can contribute to enriching the national identity that we all seek. We need to look beyond seeing ourselves and each other as Sinhala-Buddhists or, for that matter, Karawe-Catholics.

But the tide of present-day nationalism is against us. The Rajapakse government, even as it becomes more and more ensnared in its violent solution to the Tamil question, has like all good scoundrels, taken refuge in patriotism. Increasingly, the government tells us what to do in keeping with its so-called Buddhist ideology. This is nothing new: every post-independence government before it has been guilty of much the same thing. After all, it was Dudley Senanayake who made every day on which the moon stands in opposition to the sun a national holiday. We have got so anaesthetised to this ludicrous custom that we fail to see anything strange in it. Today, anyone questioning the principle of Poya holidays is looked upon suspiciously, as a pro-West, anti-Sinhala-Buddhist traitor. But sooner or later we have to come into the real world and recognize that there is more to life than holidays.

Likewise, in the guise of preventing children from exposure to pornography, we have now become one of the few nations on the planet to censor the internet (the others are all dictatorships - surprised?). It has to be an exceptionally naive government that believes that censorship can protect children from vice. Besides, kids nowadays are so tech-savvy that, censorship or not, they can get their hands on just about anything on the internet, just as anyone who wants to can download Tamilnet, even though it is censored. Indeed, a lot more kids will in all probability now access porn sites through elaborate means such as proxy servers simply because it is forbidden. Kids love a challenge.

Our hypocrisy in striving to establish a national identity does not stop there. The government prohibits the sale of alcohol and meat on Poya days. Yet no one is allowed to ask why. After all, if this is to appease the Sinhala-Buddhist majority, surely alcohol and meat should be banned in perpetuity, as liquor and pork are in Muslim countries? Or else, the state should trust Sinhala-Buddhists to have the self-discipline to avoid a tipple and stir fry whenever the moon is full.

Regardless of such sophistry, government establishments such as rest houses do brisk business in meat and alcohol sales whenever the moon isn't. And what price our wholly state-owned national carrier, Srilankan? What about a spot of mathata thitha there? Wouldn't those business-class passengers en route to London on Flight 512 on Poya days love to be told to sit back, relax and enjoy their papaya juice and parippu?

Just as the national identity that Mao strove to stamp on China from the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to his death a decade later did not outlive him, the artificial identity zealots of Sinhala-Buddhism seek to stamp on Sri Lanka too, will be all too transient. Mao's dream lies today like that of Shelly's Ozymandias: "Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare."

Eventually we will wake up to reality and, like the hated 1970-77 era, write this off as a bad dream. But the damage that is done to those of us who must live through this charade and voicelessly mouth its lines is enormous. Please, Sri Lanka: the 21st century is here. Let's get on with the job of living in it.