Independence is (still) another country
My
younger daughter asks strange questions. She had recently wanted to know
who it was that first came up with the word/idea called ‘good’. This was
followed by another question: how can we tell if god exists? She is just
five years and says that she needs to ask these questions before her
akki asks them.
Independence, what Sri Lanka is yearning for. AFP |
My older daughter asks different kinds of questions. She wants to
know why we have two ‘independence days’. That’s not a strange question,
considering we have at one time in our history celebrated May 22, 1972
as the true Independence Day. That was, after all, that we first became
a Republic. So the two, technically, could be February 4 and May 22.
She was not thinking of May 22 though and not surprisingly because
that day has been shunted off the history books and the sensibilities of
our children since 1978. She was thinking of another day. A May day, but
not the 22nd; she was thinking of the 18th, the day it was announced
that the war was over. The argument was simple: ‘that was also a day
when we got our nidahasa and it came after 30 years, didn’t it?’
They didn’t grow up in the country we grew up in, and similarly,
their children will grow up in a totally different country. The
political configurations and concerns of the particular time will no
doubt indicate importance-value of the particular generation and the
particular individual. We should understand this and not grudge those
who are to come later the right to dismiss that which inspired passion
in those who came before.
If the law is the will of the ruling class, as Lenin said, then I
suppose it is ok for people in different times and different
circumstances to place greater or lesser importance to event and
personality, in accordance with the particular power configuration of
the time. So who can tell what will be considered ‘national’ in the year
2034 or what would be considered the most important day of the year by
those living in the year 3219? That’s not something we should worry
about.
What is of relevance is that we are living in 2010, that today is
officially ‘Independence Day’, that May 22, 1972 was significant but
somehow J.R. Jayewardene didn’t think so and preferred to celebrate the
half-baked kind of ‘independence’ that is associated with February 4.
What is of relevance is that even as we celebrate ‘independence’, we
still have to worry whether or not some country or set of countries with
barbaric histories are going to give us some kind of trade-related
concession. What is of relevance is that certain bullish diplomats act
as though they have viceroy status and we can’t really kick them in
their behinds. What is relevant, also, is the fact that a nine year old
girl thinks that May 18 is as or more important than February 4.
After more than a quarter of a century we will be celebrating
‘independence’ without the shadow of a terrorist falling across the
length and breadth of our Motherland.
For years, decades in fact, Independence Day was made of lengthy
speeches punctuated by all kinds of promises to rid the country of the
terrorist threat, bring about lasting peace and so on. Last year such
promises were actually believable. Today, there is a sense of
accomplishment, of actually living the promise and inhabiting that
fear-free country of our childhood or that marked with longing from the
time we were born (depending on how old one is).
This ‘Independence Day’ is different. For years the defining
characteristic of our people and our nation has been self-doubt. We’ve
always asked ourselves the question, ‘can we?’ and invariably concluded,
‘no, we can’t’. For years we chose to inhabit someone else’s version of
reality and therefore allow that someone else to determine what we
should and should not do.
For years we were goaded into acting against our national interest
and fooling ourselves into believing that we were not. For years we were
ready to compromise our sovereignty and territorial integrity because a
thug had turned myth into fact.
For years we took as ‘word-of-god’ the lies that powerful people in
the West threw at us because they were attended by that thing called
‘aid’. We genuflected again and again, even as we celebrate
‘independence’ year after year.
The money came in of course. And a lot of money went out. At the end
of the day, we hardly had a country, had an economy that was on the
verge of collapse, a culture that had been ravaged by multiple forces,
and a people that had all but given up hope. A lot of that changed
during the last year.
No, I am not saying we are out of the woods yet. We are still far too
'dependent' on outside forces to claim we are truly 'independent'. We
still suffer from post-colonial angst and to a greater or lesser degree
are far more embarrassed of the dark regions of our past than we ought
to be, especially considering that most people who point fingers at us
have darker histories. We still let foreign experts pick our brains,
mine our traditional knowledge systems, recycle, regurgitate and sell us
truths we've known for centuries as though it's all 'modern science'.
We are still ashamed to say clearly and boldly who we are and have to
tie ourselves into knots trying to subscribe to value systems and
governance structures that have no intrinsic worth other than the fact
that they seem to work for some rich and powerful nations whose wealth
and sway were obtained by subjugating other nations and peoples to
slavery and by perpetrating genocide and all kinds of crimes against
humanity. We still try to mimic them in dress, custom and even religion,
foolishly believing that this would turn us into them, give us
membership in 'civilization', make us 'good' or 'better' or 'worthy of
veneration' when in fact it is the ultimate form of servility. We try to
learn the language(s) of the powerful not to acquire a weapon to protect
ourselves, but to join their ranks (as foot soldiers or servants) and
swing these same blades at their lesser privileged countrymen and women.
We venerate our oppressor and laugh with him as he insults and
humiliates the common people of our country.
We are still a nation, let us not forget, where a tiny minority of
people, Colombans (living within the Colombo Municipal Council limits,
wanting to do so or believing they are), are still capable of pushing
the country into anarchy just because they feel they have some kind of
birthright to control the lives of the rest of the citizenry.
We have a long way to go before we can celebrate 'independence' and
until such time the 'date' and relevant 'reference' of our 'Independence
Day' will not mean much. Until such time that we realize that our
oppressor is not sitting in some room far away, enjoying a lifestyle
that he inherited thanks to the fact that his ancestors slaughtered our
ancestors but a something that resides in our minds and our ways, until
such time we realize that he is still at it, even after seemingly
'leaving' 62 years ago, until such time we realize that the kurahan
saatakaya is not a piece of wardrobe but a metaphor for a different way
of being, living, thinking and engaging, and one that is firmly rooted
in who we are and where we have come from, we will not be 'free'.
We will not be independent in any real sense. We will remain a
colonized, poor, fettered people; we will remain a land in chains.
Should we not celebrate, then? We should! We should celebrate the
'small victory' of defeating terrorism. We should celebrate the 'small
victory' of defeating the narrow, selfish and incestuous projects of the
Colombans. We should celebrate the fact that we responded to the
question, 'can we?' with an emphatic, 'we can!' and followed it up with
the assertion, 'we did!'.
We should celebrate the fact that we came together as a nation at a
critical time to give our children a spectacular moment for reflection,
a moment when they were persuaded to question the meaning of
'independence' and weigh the relative merits of choosing one day to
celebrate over another.
There is a good and there is a bad, but these are relative and the
choosing part of it depends on where we stand, where we put down roots
and the wells that quench our cultural and national thirst. There are no
gods, but ourselves; no messiahs, no deliverers, but ourselves. This too
we have to understand.
And as for what's the most appropriate day to celebrate independence,
let us remember that there is work to be done and still a long way to
go. Let us be sober. Let us learn again that when we come together no
one can harm us and that when we are divided we are kicked in our
collective teeth. We are a smiling nation. We need our teeth. Dentures
somehow do not do it. Let's just remember that for the moment.
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