Is there no one left at all to speak out on race-hate?
View(s):First, they came for the independent media and dissenting voices. Then, the chamber heads and strong-minded big business. And, at last, the professionals with opinions as well as academics in civil society who sadly followed suit and shut up. Today, there is only the middle class left to take a stand against the threat of ethnic chauvinism. We it is who need to develop and apply a philosophy of race and ethnicity to serve the nation and all its people. No one else can or will or seems to want to. Now is the time.
Such a philosophy will have some critical suppositions for redefining the overarching identity of our culture, our community, and our civilisation. For only a newly defined inclusive Sri Lankan-ness will stem, stop, and reverse the rot that is gnawing away like rabid mice at the edges of our societal fabric. Beginning with the end in mind, our nation-building enterprise must culminate in a Sri Lanka where the environment is decidedly neo-mono-ethnic. An all-encompassing ‘island-race’ in which Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim fit; as well as any Other (perhaps this last, miscellaneous, category being the most important one).
The creation of a new philosophy of race will embrace a truly Sri Lankan identity to serve as a challenge to, and a critique of, the latent ethnic prejudices of our people. The urban middle class itself must become a model of this, by design, so that the country may become the same by default.
Today, unbridled ethno-nationalism haunts society through its many expressions of social and political inequality. We see it in the way many Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims are beginning to become suspicious of ‘the Other’ all over again. When we congregate joyfully to celebrate anything together, it’s usually short-lived (like a national cricket victory). And when some notice that the skipper is a Tamil Christian, the resultant euphoria among those naïfs is agnostic to the harsher realities beyond the stadium’s camaraderie.
It is somehow deemed convenient or even expedient that we unite for national events, but rarely if ever is it desired by all in the same spirit. Add the egregious elitism of the so-called ‘English-speaking populace’ and there is exclusivism at best and ethnocentrism at worst. Not even the recent excesses of an ultranationalist group of monks has roused up the urban middle class from its ignorant (“we don’t know”) and apathetic (“we couldn’t care less”) default mode of co-existence.
It may be instructive for modern Sri Lankans to define a new national identity that strives beyond lip-service-paying efforts to retain the customary ‘unity-in-diversity’ criteria. We must insist that all Sri Lankans be included in the enterprise of redefinition. And there is no better way to do it than to require that those born into any ethnic identity do seek inclusion into a new supra-ethnic national identity.
If, for example, the born Sinhalese must make himself a Sri Lankan to retain citizenship, there will no longer be anything authentic, exceptional, intrinsic, outstanding, or unique about Sinhalese ethnic identity. Similarly, working on the premise that the born Tamil or born Muslim must work towards making herself a member of the larger island-race, there will be nothing authentic, exceptional, intrinsic, outstanding, or unique about Tamil or Muslim cultural identity. Although people from every island-tribe and island-tongue are part of the island-race, there will be nothing special about their ethno-cultural identities per se that set them apart or over and above ‘the Other’ – any Other!
In practical terms, even when ‘Sinhalese’ or ‘Tamils’ or ‘Muslims’ engage with and enjoy their own culture, we must never think or allow them or anyone else to make it out that there are any inferior or unworthy citizens in terms of ethnic identity or cultural distinctions. Only this will give every individual of every ethnic belonging in the island a remarkably desirable status before their fellow islanders. The ultimate climactic view of a united-but-diverse Sri Lanka must portray people of all ethnicities as members of a larger national identity. Thus, a key facet of this neo-mono-racial identity is that such a ‘Sri Lankan-ness’ cannot be connected exclusively to any ethnic community.
If only chauvinists could see this intrinsic value and worth in people of other ethnicities – and if only those marginalised by them could see the same potential worth in chauvinists – it would be a first step towards true national reconcilliation and integration. All of us in Sri Lanka today need to imagine and recapture that vision. To fail to respond to ethnic nationalism in its worsening mood is not only an opportunity cost, but a failure to live out the country’s constitutional imperatives that set our civilisation apart from mere culture.
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