{"id":21582,"date":"2013-05-26T00:34:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T04:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=21582"},"modified":"2013-05-26T00:34:42","modified_gmt":"2013-05-26T04:34:42","slug":"ethnic-nationalism-must-give-way-to-economic-nationalism-and-then-to-all-embracing-sri-lankan-nationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=21582","title":{"rendered":"Ethnic Nationalism Must Give way to Economic Nationalism and then to All-Embracing Sri Lankan Nationalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

N.Sathiya Moorthy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The parliamentary exchanges on the UNP joining the PSC should once again set off the thinking on the contours of a national discourse to the \u2018national problem\u2019. It should not end with the forum where the issues are to be debated and decided upon. Instead, it should address the \u2018basic issues\u2019, where ethnic perceptions differ wildly. It is more so if the ground realities are considered. They are different from the political perceptions projected for consumption for both the local constituencies and the international community.<\/p>\n

The parliamentary exchanges were flawed for two reasons. One, the Government\u2019s invitation to the UNP, revived by Chief Whip and Minister Dinesh Gunawardane, came when media reports were talking about the proposed abolition of the devolved powers on Police and Land, which anyway were non-operational under 13-A. For his part, UNP Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe once again linked the party\u2019s joining the PSC process to extraneous issues such as the revival of \u201817th Amendment institutions\u2019, nullified since by the 18-A. The last time the UNP did it, the \u2018Chandrika Package\u2019 with its personalised clauses, went down the line \u2013 and with that hopes of an ethnic solution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The early Ceylonese\/Sri Lankan concept of nationalism may have derived from a perceived need to suppress subterranean tendencies that had the potential to divide the nation. What has however emanated since is not \u2018Sri Lankan nationalism\u2019 but \u2018ethnic nationalism\u2019 distinct to the majority Sinhala-Buddhist community and the more vocal of the \u2018minorities\u2019, namely, the \u2018Sri Lankan Tamils\u2019 in this case. In the process, the other minorities like the Upcountry Tamils and the Muslims got branded as \u2018ethnicities\u2019, whether or not they wanted it, but their muted voices have not been heard.<\/p>\n

An easier way to address the possible concerns of the Founding Fathers could have been to identify communities with the spoken language, and not \u2018ethnicity\u2019 as the marker. If the societal status quo got altered politically after the Donoughmore Constitution introduced universal adult suffrage in 1931, the \u2018ethnic division\u2019 did not serve purpose. Within the Sinhala majority that was on the \u2018denial mode\u2019, constitutional acknowledgement of the status quo in the form of affirmative action strengthened the traditional Left first, and the militant Left later, when the new \u2018nationalist\u2019 Left failed to address deep-seated concerns.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ironical that even the \u2018Left leaning\u2019 leaders on either side of the ethnic divide in the country had problems identifying with a larger \u2018Sri Lankan nationalism\u2019, which if encouraged had\/has the potential to alter the status quo, if only over time. The JVP owed its first uprising or insurgency of 1971 to socio-economic issues that were a threat to the status quo on the Sinhala-Buddhist side of the ethnic divide. When they got a second chance in 1987-89, they had to try and upstage \u2018ethnic nationalists\u2019 by seeking to hijack their \u2018Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist\u2019 agenda.<\/p>\n

The status quoists would not forgive them for the past. Nor could the former trust them with the future should a successful JVP revert to the old ways and old slogans. In addition, the emergence of a leader outside of the status quo could not have suffered competition. The JVP had to go the way it did, despite the shared angst in the name of \u2018Sri Lankan nationalism\u2019, which however was nothing more than \u2018Sinhala nationalism\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was no different with the Tamil community \u2013 meaning the \u2018Sri Lankan Tamil\u2019 status quoists. A \u2018linguistic division\u2019, even if some division had to be identified for maintaining a national equilibrium, if only to keep the Leftist \u2018wolves\u2019 at bay when the \u2018Free World\u2019 was still apprehensive of global communism, could have served the cause. It was not to be, however.<\/p>\n

At the bottom of it was preserving purity of the \u2018ethnic culture\u2019 on either side of the linguistic-divide. It boiled down to the preservation of the \u2018ethnic culture\u2019 of not an \u2018ethnic group\u2019 but that of a vocal, vociferous and thus-dominant status quoist section within either side of the ethnic-divide. The larger and identifiable linguistic-divide was kept out of the \u2018national discourse\u2019 once more.<\/p>\n

This has resulted in \u2018culture\u2019 of the status quoists on either side of the ethnic-divide getting entrenched in mindsets as the \u2018ethnic culture\u2019. In political terms, it first acquired the form of \u2018ethnic nationalism\u2019. In the post-war era, as during the years of war and earlier too, whenever a solution is sought for the \u2018national problem\u2019, it has had the tendency to identify itself (and without asking) as \u2018cultural nationalism\u2019 for a cause. It\u2019s nothing but a defence of, and protection for the status quo.<\/p>\n

The results are there for everyone to see, but not everyone would see it that way \u2013 the way it should be seen and interpreted, if \u2018ethnic nationalism\u2019 has to give way to the more basic \u2018economic nationalism\u2019 \u2013 and on to the all-embracing \u2018Sri Lankan nationalism\u2019.<\/p>\n

(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation)<\/em><\/p>\n

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By N.Sathiya Moorthy The parliamentary exchanges on the UNP joining the PSC should once again set off the thinking on the contours of a national discourse to the \u2018national problem\u2019. It should not end with the forum where the issues are to be debated and decided upon. Instead, it should address the \u2018basic issues\u2019, where …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Ethnic Nationalism Must Give way to Economic Nationalism and then to All-Embracing Sri Lankan Nationalism’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21584,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21582\/revisions\/21584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}