On the ‘reasonable use of Tamil’
I
am all for identity assertion. I do not think that submerging culture
associated with language, custom, faith etc in an overall mishmash that
is even more amorphous is necessarily good or better. Make no mistake, I
am not against anyone wanting to be Sri Lankan and feeling that his/her
overall national identity (Sri Lankan) overrides other identities (Sinhala,
Tamil, Moor or Burgher; Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Catholic); but I sense
that if we are not Sinhala or Tamil in the first instance, for example,
our being Sri Lankan becomes less meaningful.
I consider myself a Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist and I am aware that
my reluctance to shed ‘Sinhala’ and ‘Buddhist’ in favour of a
meaningless Sri Lankan monolith has earned me tags such as ‘chauvinist’,
‘extremist’, ‘racist’ by people who think they are above identity (when
they are not).
That’s ok. Just as much as I assert the Sinhala and Buddhist elements
of my overall identity, I would and have championed the rights of
Tamils, for example, to assert theirs. Asserting identity is one thing,
riding roughshod on other communities, including the orchestration of
land-theft (as in the Eelam project) or violent cultural invasion (as in
the colonial project), is another. I would and have opposed the latter.
There are ways to assert identity, the best of course being living
that identity. There is however a thing called ‘limits’. Where my
assertion encroaches on another’s cultural space, there can be and
usually is conflict.
Invariably, in these situations, there is at least one aggressor or
at least a perceived aggressor. And once the spark is lit, everyone
borrows from the fire and we get people torching one another.
My attention to identity issues was drawn from a different kind of
identity-assertion, though. I read a news story in the Sunday Island
(September 27, 2009) titled ‘Sri Lankan Tamil sentenced by Dutch court
for human smuggling’. The story had been picked from the Daily Herald.
We know that news stories are about who, what, where, when, why and that
reporters try to get in as much information as possible.
On the other hand, the degree of identity-profiling tends to be
selective. In Sri Lanka, we see news stories about crime where the
suspected criminal’s ethnic identity, religious faith are mentioned and
this is typically done if he/she is not a Sinhalese or Buddhist.
‘Muslim trader charged for selling goods past the expiry dates’ is
‘ok’, for instance. ‘Tamil lodger arrested for selling heroin’ is also
‘ok’. We don’t see often headlines such as ‘Sinhala man rapes
school-girl’. Or ‘Buddhist woman arrested for running brothel’.
If the identity of an alleged wrongdoer is so important, why don’t
reporters go the whole hog, mentioning the person’s ethnicity, religion,
age, location, sexual preference, gender, political affiliation if any
and other such markers? Will there ever be a headline,
‘Sinhala-Christian heterosexual school-dropout teenage male from Ragama
who is a member of the UNP and comes from a broken family and aspires to
be an astronaut arrested for piddling in public’?
I am sure there are Tamils who saw in Velupillai Prabhakaran a hero
and that other are ashamed for tarnishing the image of the Tamil people.
I am ashamed, as a Sri Lankan, that this country produced such a
monster, just as I am ashamed by other monster, Sinhalese included,
produced by this country.
I am sure that many Tamils are proud of Muttiah Muralidharan and I am
sure that many of them are proud of the fact that this country produced
such an exceptional cricketer. I recognize that Murali is a Tamil and I
am proud that he represents Sri Lanka in the cricketing world.
I was particularly happy to read of the exploits of Anusha
Dhanabalasingham (Vavuniya Saivapragasa Ladies College) in the Discus
Throw and of Sunukarasha Thanuja of Arunothaya College, Jaffna in the
Pole Vault at the National School Games recently.
That had less to do with the fact that they are Tamils but that they
are from areas that have been right in the heart of the conflict zone
for several decades. It is the triumph of the human spirit that I find
most appealing in these two athletes, more so than the fact that they
are Tamils or Sri Lankans.
Language is political and we all know this. Identity issues are
sensitive.
Profiling has a place in all societies but there is always an
‘appropriate’ involved and consequently an ‘inappropriate’ as well.
There is no rule book in this regard of course, but I believe we lose
nothing by being sensitive and alert to all this.
In previous articles I have used the term ‘sudda’ for example. I have
been accused of using a racist term. I am not sure I have, but I am
planning to revisit the term shortly. When I do, the ‘reasonable use of
Tamil’ as per appropriate/inappropriate use of the term as qualifier
would be useful, I am convinced.
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