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Gleanings:
Culture: International
K. S. Sivakumaran
I read an interesting book in the early 1980s titled Asian and
Western Writers in Dialogue: New Cultural Identities. Lankan poet and
scholar, the late Guy Amirthanayagam, father of the poet Indran
Amirthanayaham, edited it for Macmillan Press Ltd.
The book focuses on problems of translation, the use of English as an
international language, the use of lesser known languages, the effect on
literature of the shift from the oral tradition to print, and the
influences on audiences of spreading education and the impact of mass
media.
The writer claims that the breakup and renewal of traditional
cultural forms in many countries is a central theme of this book.
The book is divided into two parts: Literary and Cultural Roles,
Literary and National Identities.
There is an array of writers who air their views on these subjects.
Some of them are well known in English studies and the others respected
in their own fields but not so widely known.
Apart from Guy Amirthanayagam, there are Malcolm Bradbury, Kenneth
Burke, Leon Edel, Maxine Hong Kingston, U.R.Ananthamurthy,
C.D.Narasimiah, Iluko Astami, Revel Denney, Nissim Ezekiel S.C. Harse,
Nick Joachim, Peter Hacksoo Lee and our own the late Ediraweera
Sarachchandra.
This is what Sarachchandra wrote: "Side by side with a denunciation
of western civilization and a revival of Buddhist education and the
stabilization of the Buddhist religious order, the last half of the 19th
century witnessed the spread of English and the emergence of an English
educated middle class, to which people of the new profession, like those
of lawyers, doctors, teachers and journalists belonged."
Continuing his essay titled "Tradition Overturned: A Modern
Literature in Sri Lanka", the writer who was also a dramatist added that
"It was out of this new class who were strictly speaking bilingual that
is, who read English and even spoke it but who were able to express
themselves with greater ease in Sinhala and were western oriented in
their attitude, that there arose the creative writers of the next
century, who experimented with the literary forms with which they
acquainted through their knowledge of English" Sadly, no mention was
made regarding the English educated middle class Thamilians who also
contribute to the Lankan Literature per se.
The moot point Sarachchandra makes should be noted.
He justifies the stance of the national-minded people thus:
"...westernization aggravated class distinctions creating new classes,
which alienated themselves from the common people by language difference
and by adoring different ways of life which being those of colonial
masters, naturally placed them in an apparent position of superiority to
the rest of the people. Class antagonisers were thus created and they
bred revolutionary tendencies".
But now the need to learn English and through which the need to know
and understand the world has become a reality despite the extremists.
Let me conclude this piece with a quotation from Malcolm Bradbury:
He contends that "the ultimate definition of nature is that is an
international humane experience"
May I add: In the exuberance of extreme nationalism, we have
sidetracked humanism?
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