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Thursday, 4 February 2010

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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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