My good friends, the Sinhalese

J.B. Muller

Differences: The Island of Sri Lanka in South Asia is inhabited by many different communities of people. These differences range from ethnicity to language spoken to religious affiliation to culture and a broad spectrum of other intangibles.

These differences all contribute to a cosmopolitan society and that means that it is multi- this, that, and the other in a bewildering mixture of 'markers' as identities merge and re-emerge.

As numbers go, the largest community is known as the 'Sinhalese' and they generally speak Sinhala and follow the Buddhist way-of-life. They are generally divided into Low-country Sinhalese and Kandyan Sinhalese. They also adhere to the caste system especially when it comes to marriage and the latter group more than the former.

Education, political favour, the adoption of Christianity [in one of its several forms], and opportunity worked together to create a class system that made an uneasy bedfellow with the ancient caste hierarchy. As Dr. Kumari Jayawardena puts it so succinctly, 'Nobodies became Somebodies' in the 19th Century during the heyday of the Colonial Era.

The Sinhalese are a generally peaceful, unaggressive people with a settled way-of-life. Their social intercourse and religious life are governed by rites and rituals, customs and traditions, and superstitious beliefs as old as Time itself.

Nothing important is done without consulting astrologers, soothsayers, and diviners who would dictate the exact time that anything important should be done, especially marriage. When a child is born, an astrologer is consulted and a horoscope cast that is supposed to foretell the child's future in detail.

Those things being so, everyone comments favourably on the ever-smiling disposition of the Sinhalese. They are welcoming and hospitable, extremely tolerant [up to a point]. Upper caste Sinhalese are courteous but distant and give the distinct impression that they aren't as friendly and hospitable as the so-called 'lower' castes.

Since Colonial times, they are also very 'class' conscious considering themselves to be of the 'upper crust' of local society and members of the upper class.

Long association with the Sinhalese reveals another facet of the Sinhalese character: Their lives are weighed down with an unspoken grief, of unrelieved sorrow and a constant fear of the future-tomorrow just might mean sudden death and destruction! This morose or gloomy outlook colours everything they do or say.

Underlying this generally pessimistic outlook is their belief in the Hindu-Buddhist doctrine of Karma or fate and the endless cycle of rebirths it postulates.

That belief is also grounded in the cardinal Buddhist principle that birth is sorrow, life is sorrow, and that death is sorrow-in effect, that life itself is sorrow and the sole endeavour of the human being is to seek escape in Nirvana or nothingness. This system of belief goes to create a melancholic character that finds itself unable to produce spontaneous, ebullient joy.

Indisposed to expressing any form of real happiness, any feeling of satisfaction is controlled by a seriousness of manner that at most, becomes a smile.

Traditionally, their songs are religious; their dancing is homage to either the Buddha or to the innumerable gods they worship, and their music is dedicated to the same purpose.

The entire gamut of what is known as 'Kandyan,' 'Sabaragamuva,' and 'Ruhunu-rata' dancing is religious, much of it to propitiate various gods, evil spirits and demons.

The popular songs of today are a recent phenomenon drawing its inspiration from the secular music and songs of the West, and here again, the melancholic preoccupation with unhappiness and sadness come through strongly: Love, it seems is a tragedy full of sighs and regrets, moans and groans, as this miserable life uncoils painfully in Samsara.

Then, they are extremely artistic and its expression in something as temporary as tender coconut fronds (go- kola) or something more enduring as granite. Whether it is wood carving, textile weaving, terra cotta ware, ivory, bone, horn, silver or gold, the artifacts turned out are beautiful to behold-some exquisitely so. The mind, the eye, and the hand work together in harmony to bring forth rare delicacy in conception and form.

They have painted delicate frescoes of rare attractiveness and composed elegant poetry. The script of the Sinhala language is, perhaps, the most beautiful in the world and it is phonetic in that it could express almost every sound known to man.

Do the Sinhalese possess a sense of humour? Do they crack jokes? Do they play practical jokes on each other? By and large the answer to all three questions is 'No,' they are much too serious and take life too seriously for that, usually misunderstanding any humour as a subtle attack on their innate dignity and also as pointless frivolity.

They do not possess restless, peripatetic spirits given to wandering. On the contrary, they are very settled both in their villages and in their ways. Though occupying an island athwart the major shipping routes from ancient times there are no records that witness to the fact that they became a seafaring nation. Their experience of the ocean has always been restricted to coastal fishing. They generally make hopeless employees abroad with their constant sighing for home and family.

The ties of home, family, and the extended family of uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, and nephews is very strong and binding and especially those social markers of a birth, of a girl coming of age, of marriage, and death and overlaying all this, that of the self-respect from generation to generation personified in the family name that fixes an individual's 'place' in society.

My good friends, the Sinhalese, have been rudely torn from their age-old moorings by time, circumstance and the relentless march of history. Much like the decline and fall of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mayurans, and the Han Chinese, their ancient civilisation was driven into the wilderness by the repeated invasions of the aggressive South Indian dynasties contending for territory, command, and control over potential rivals.

The destruction of the Heartland and the drift to the southwest disrupted the way-of-life that had developed over many centuries. Insular by nature they withdrew into themselves even more and to such an extent that when the Europeans arrived this Island was ruled by many petty princes each claiming to be supreme overlord over the entire Island.

That arrival is the most pivotal event in the modern history of Sri Lanka and it had a profound effect upon all the Sinhalese. Indeed, five hundred years of European domination, each power more dominant than the earlier one has had a telling impact on the life and lifestyle of my good friends, the Sinhalese. Indeed, they have found adjusting to the new order painful and complicated, even onerous in many respects.

The New Order imposed from outside and from above (with the use of force or the threat of force for non-compliance) paid scant respect to their beliefs, rites, rituals, ceremonies, customs, and traditions, all of which were most unceremoniously relegated to the past to be forgotten.

Alien languages, methods of instruction, and new vocations quite foreign to their nature were introduced. Everything from architecture, administration, attire, military structure, land administration, religion, introduction of exotic varieties of flora, cuisine, furniture, dance, drama, lyrics, songs, literature, and system of justice, was introduced and modified where necessary to suit both rulers and ruled.

If anything, the tragedy that has befallen Sri Lanka has awoken them to the ground realities that now obtain and that is that Sri Lanka is irreversibly a multicultural, multireligious, and multilingual polity moving gradually towards a mature, secular democracy that respects human rights.

Though we call ourselves the 'Democratic, Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka,' my good friends, the Sinhalese prevented this country from truly being that. It could in no wise be called 'democratic' if it denies 30 per cent of its population their fundamental human rights. Many segments of that 30 per cent are not represented and their voice is not heard in any forum. It is certainly far from 'socialist' if we mean the welfare and wellbeing of its entire people.

My good friends, the Sinhalese, should take a long hard look at both their strengths and weaknesses. They should place Mother Lanka first above all narrow, parochial concerns and work to clean up this almighty mess.

When they join all communities to unitedly march to the rhythm of ONE drumbeat, then we'd love to stand, shoulder-to-shoulder with my good friends, the Sinhalese, sing our beautiful National Anthem with resonant voices and really make this 'that other Eden,' a 'land like no other' in which we could live, love, and die peacefully.