Colombo, Kandy and Peace
Colombo at night, long exposure. View more.
Robert Kaplan discussed Kandy in the latest issue of Atlantic magazine. He described how Sinhala kings took Tamil brides and Buddhist temples hold Hindu icons. ‘Only when Sri Lanka’s political leadership recognizes that legacy will communal peace be at hand,’ he said. Long ago that was the nature of our imagined community. Through royalty and religion, the races were bound. Today, however, I think the model is more Colombo than Kandy. Today our common imagination is defined more by economy than ritual. For peace today, Colombo may hold the key.
Colombo
Colombo is Sri Lanka’s commercial and political capital. Tamils and Muslims make up over 50% of the population and Tamil is generally their first language. This is a deeply cosmopolitan city where religions, races and languages mix. I know of government ministers married to Swiss citizens and former generals married to Tamils. In Colombo we do not necessarily get along, but we do live together.
To quote a captured suicide bomber, “One day, I came across the Tamil shop owner speaking in fluent Sinhalese to another person who was Sinhalese. This surprised me: During our training in the LTTE, we were impressed upon that the Sinhalese were the bitterest rivals of the Tamils” (National Post, Canada).
Imagined Community
What, however, makes us Colombian? We don’t even have a name for ourselves, so what is our identity? We don’t come here on pilgrimage, and we don’t come here based on race. We come here mainly for the money. This is where the jobs are. This is where you find good schools. People in Colombo live together because that’s how you make a living.
This political and economic identity is a kind of ‘imagined community,’ to use a term from Benedict Anderson. It’s very different from our Kandyan past. That identity was sustained by ritual and marriage, solid things that could communicate over great distances via word of mouth. Modern imagined communities, however, are defined by political economy and media.
Even the poorest slum dweller will dress their kids in pristine whites for school. Even the most son-of-the-soil politician will come to the city to do business. This bright (and unrealistic) sense of opportunity is communicated in a visual language of milk and telecom adverts. The mythical good life is shown above kades islandwide, but its highest concentration is in Colombo.
Imagined Geographies
This community of opportunity, however, does not extend far beyond the city and the western province. What holds outstation is what Edward Said called ‘imagined geographies’, the perception of space as a way to control. He used the term in reference to the western concept of the Orient, which didn’t really exist. In Sri Lanka it applies most to Tamil Eelam.
Tamil Eelam is an imagined geography that Prabhakaran used to take power. Using that idea he expelled Muslims, hacked Sinhalese villagers and killed anyone who didn’t agree. Many in the diaspora still believe that imagined geography, though they would never live there. Many local Tamils, in fact, still believe.
Sri Lanka, of course, has its own imagined geography, but to a far lesser degree. We celebrate a united Sri Lanka, but Wannians don’t have the same rights as you or me. Though the Wanni is on our map, those people are not a part of our community. They don’t vote, they can’t move and they can’t speak. Until they’re a part of our community Sri Lanka is not entirely whole.
Common Space
So, how do we go from a unified map to a unified people? Mr. Kaplan points to our religious and royal history as a hope for communal peace. That ship, however, sailed with the British. I think those concessions to Tamil culture would be incredibly powerful, but Mahinda’s post war visits have been to temples and spots to shore up his Sinhala base. Building more kovils and marrying the Rajapakse sons to Tamils would help, but is not especially likely.
Instead, the idea seems to be security and development. Fishing, roads, airports, power plants, ports. It’s not the grand model of Kandy, but it’s not the nightmare of Tamil Eelam either. I live in Colombo, a lot of diverse races live in Colombo and we seem to get along and get by. The Colombo model might not be so bad.
originally published in the Sunday Leader
I agree with 500% that particular ship sailed with the British.
The only lasting solution is the Colombo model. Robert’s perspectives one must not forget are that of a complete outsider.
He does not have the lived experiences in Kandy. As a minority living in Kandy we only move amongst those of us within our community but in Colombo we have tons of Singhalease and Burger friends. kandyans to this date are rather insular and still think that they are protecting the last kingdom of sinhala.
Indi – is this the sort of understanding we are aiming for?
lankanewsweb
There will always be some revisionism going on in the world.
Case in point:
History book for Grade 5 (in 1969) mentions that Dutugemunu’s father as KavanTissa . It was explained as meaning the “Golden Tissa”, i.e. KahaVan Tissa.
If one reads the “Winds of Sinhala” by Colin de Silva I think he devotes a couple of pages to the whole color thing of Kavan Tissa. (Very readable and enjoyable all the same).
If check the Mahavamsa the name is Kakavannatissa.
Gothabhaya’s son, known by the name Kakavannatissa,[7] the prince, reigned there after his death. Viharadevi was the consort of this believing king, firm in the faith (was she), the daughter of the king of Kalyani.[8]
Kakavannatissa, means crow colored Tissa. Maybe this what is called a white lie.
Fake video of Sri Lankan ‘War Crimes’?
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=35256686001
You’re basically talking about economic sops as a solution to a conflict whose roots (or whose legitimatory roots, at any rate) lie in purported cultural and linguistic slights. The trouble with this model – the Colombo model, as you call it – is that it rarely works. Sure, Tamils live with Sinhalese in Colombo and get along well with them (as they do everywhere, to be honest). But that doesn’t mean they’re happy with the status quo – in point of fact, as far as I can see, whilst most Colombo Tamils put up with things as they are, they’re not content with their status or the status of their language and culture in Sri Lanka, and it’s from that discontent that troubles flow. At the end of the day – as academic research has shown – where a conflict has deep symbolic elements (as the Sri Lankan conflict has), trying to fix it using purely economic means isn’t just inadequate – it’s counter-productive.
And this is why the Kandyan model is important, because it makes those all-important symbolic cultural concessions. Sri Lankans – not just Kandyans – have historically understood this. That’s why Polonnaruwa kings like Vikramabahu II ostentatiously adopted Vedic rituals after tossing the Cholas out. It’s why Rajasimha I declared himself a staunch Shaivite when his kingdom was under threat from the Portuguese and he needed Tamils to buy into his campaign. It’s about getting minorities to feel that their communities are part of the state, and that – therefore – the state belongs to them in the same way it belongs to the majority.
This has worked so well in Sri Lanka until so recently. Where else in South Asia would you have had the equivalent of Sinhala peasantry, led by a Vedda, rising in rebellion in support of a Tamil claimant to the throne? Incidents of that sort are uniquely Sri Lankan. And that spirit – and not mumbled promises of economic growth – is what you guys need to rediscover if you want peace. From what I’ve seen of your country and your people, this spirit – call it Lankatva, or whatever you like – runs very deep in your blood, and I’m optimistic that once the politicians are done faffing around, you folks will come back to it.