No sex please! We are Sinhalese

Hermann Goering, Hitler's Luftwaffe (Air Force) Chief is attributed with the remark: 'When I hear anyone talk of culture, I reach for my revolver.' Goering was a man not to be admired nor followed but we get the same inclination of Goering when culture tsars and commissars not  knowledgeable nor competent to deal with culture, take upon themselves to dictate to Sri Lankans on what our culture is and what it is not.

Last week the Minister of Sports and Public Recreation Gamini Lokuge announced his decision to ban 18 Russian girls who were cheerleaders at cricket matches following an appeal made to him by the Cultural Affairs Minister Mahinda Yapa.

The cheerleaders had been performing at the last two one day international cricket matches but now by ministerial diktat they will be kept out of the remaining matches. Yapa had decided that these performances were against our (Sinhala?) culture

Flowers in spring

These girls as one gushing report said were as 'pretty as flowers in spring;' brought down at great cost and booked in to the expensive Hotel Kandalama by sponsors of this tournament. We too, now in our declining years, are not enthusiastic about these girls in gini jungis (hot pants) and flimsy bras gyrating before the pavilions. In fact it is our opinion that they are incongruous with this dull game invented by the English where flannelled fools play on for days battering a leather ball with a willow in a wide green.

The cheerleaders in our opinion go against the cricketing culture even though international cricket has come to accept them. Our objection to the ban is: Who made Lokuge and Yapa the arbiters of Sinhala culture? What knowledge and experience have they in matters cultural?

Final cultural arbiters

Lokuge had been a strong arm UNP trade unionist of the Jatika Sevaka Sangamaya breaking up opposition trade unions which he is now in cahoots with, after crossing over from his old party. Yapa's affiliations with Sinhala culture are not known to the public even though he has been made the Minister of Culture in a cabinet numbering over 100.  Who made them the judges, jury and executioners of the Russian cheerleaders?

The danger of having these self appointed arbiters of our country's culture is that we may be inundated with cultural tsars and commissars breathing down our necks telling us what is exactly good and not good for us.

Already we have some killjoys at work sniping away with scissors on films in the guise of protecting our youth from the evils of tobacco and alcohol. With part censorship in public performances in the arts, now are we shifting onto sports? Censorship in fields such as arts, literature and sports run parallel to the establishment of political dictatorships.

Political culture

These custodians of Sinhala culture should realise that far more important than sports is the practise of political culture. For the past few weeks there has been a full flow of the country's political culture for world viewing. Lokuge has said that the performances of cheerleaders at the ODIs shown worldwide may give the wrong impression about Sri Lanka.

What impressions will the world at large gain about the sordid political thuggery now being practised in the election campaigns to provincial councils of the North Central Province and Sabaragamuwa? Consider the political culture practised at the sacred and holy city of Anuradhapura last week.

Citation of one incident, the attack on the main UNP office at A'pura would suffice. The office was housed in the residence of a respected senior UNP member, Dr. Raja Johnpulle, one time the country's ambassador to Russia. The office had been stormed by over 500 thugs who set fire to it in the presence of about 100 policemen. Ten vehicles parked in and around the premises had been set on fire or damaged by the mob. That was the raw exhibition of Sinhala culture and blood sports that the world would see.

Which would be more damaging:  Flimsily dressed dancing young women or marauding thugs destroying houses and property of political opponents and violating the laws of the land while the arm of the law looks on benignly?

Vermin

What of the political culture of Mervyn Silva, the Minister of Labour? His misdemeanours are too detailed to be recorded here but he appears to be blessed with patronage at the highest level.

Most disgusting is that he was an honoured guest at a wedding reception of the President's family after all his violations of the law had been exposed by the media. The only culture about Mervyn (now 'affectionately' called Vermin) is bacteria, observes a cynic.

Orders by the judiciary do not seem to have an effect on the political culture of President Mahinda Rajapakse. Punchi Banda Jayasundera who had been fined Rs 500,000 by the Supreme Court for his part in granting a contract to a private firm was in the President's entourage to China and attended the President's talks with top Chinese officials! Some characters under the Rajapakse regime are above the law.

Kama Sutra

Thus the Minister of Culture, Yapa seem quite broadminded about the prevailing political culture but appears to be squeamish when he sees flimsily clad women prancing about in the open. These women it has to be said have been performing at the Indian Premier League cricket tournament with tens of thousands in attendance.

Indians, we thought, were prudes and do not want to see sex in the open even if it was the country that gave the world the Kama Sutra.

But now our sub-continental brothers and sisters seem to going back to the days when sex was not considered something dirty as is evident from their ancient sculptures and drawings but something to be enjoyed.

But our ruling tsars and commissars, it is evident, don't like sex. We are Sinhalese. But we still have quite a high rate of birth and how do we do it? A well informed biologist tells us that we are still in the preliminary stages of evolution. Like amoeba we do it by parthenogenesis - one amoeba simply splitting up into two or more.