Maybe it is important to listen to some ‘Outspoken English’ now and
then
Thirty four years ago I planned with a friend to explore the entire
island of Sri Lanka and unearth all archaeological treasures yet to be
discovered. Ruwinda Gunawardena, the last I heard, was playing with
something called serial and parallel robots at Rice University, but back
then he was determined to explore heritage. We even mapped out the
journey, to be made on mo-peds and over a period of a month, if I
remember right.
A scene from the play ‘Suddek Oba Amathai’ |
This island is larger and holds more secrets, archaeological and
otherwise, than we believed back then. I lost touch with my friend after
leaving school and anyway, I think the explore-bug left us not too long
after we planned our trip. I don’t know about Ruwinda, but for reasons
of curiosity, politics and philosophy I’ve continued to be fascinated
with who we were, perhaps in order to figure out who we are and who we
can become.
I remembered Ruwinda and the trip that got tripped by time, growing
up, and other realities that cut down ambition, when my friend Udayasiri
Wickramaratne, poet, playwright, novelist and may I say, part-time
copywriter, explained what made him produce the highly acclaimed and
genre-expanding play, ‘Suddek Oba Amathai’ (A white man addresses you!).
Colonial project
‘We have shouted against the ‘White man’ for a long, long time, but
have achieved little or nothing by this. Although we complain and
vilify, we in fact follow or mimic them in many spheres if not in every
sphere. They lead, we follow. I am not saying that we should become
masters of the world, but I believe we should be able to choose our ways
independently without being mere followers. This we have not achieved by
our complaints and screams. This is why I thought of trying a different
way of obtaining mental independence. In ‘Suddek’, I praise the white
man to the maximum in order to unravel every bit of servility in
ourselves, revealing the dimensions of our dependence. I believe this
the first step towards true independence or our emancipation. First we
have to accept what we are before starting to fight. This is what I do
in ‘Suddek Oba Amathai’.’
‘Suddha’ or ‘white man’ is a catch-all synonym for all things
associated with the colonial project and as such glosses over the full
range of differentiation of project and implementing creatures, while
footnoting or ignoring altogether those elements that not only rebel
against project and creature but are victims of the same in different
ways. Udayasiri has a point, though. His caricaturing is deliberate. His
most recent poster/ad for the performance on August 14th at the Tower
Hall, has the catchy line ‘OUTSPOKEN ENGLISH’. It is multi-layered in
meaning. There’s the play on the current fascination with ‘Spoken
English’, widely exploited by quack English tutors. There is the hint of
the blustering, self-righteous colonial ready to extract and to justify
extraction in the name of the ‘White man’s burden’.
Final battle
What does in ‘Suddek’ is to use all the anger, all the easy
characterizations, all the blame-shifting to get us to question
ourselves through the voice that we love to hate and hate to love but
nevertheless listen to, that of the colonial, the voice of the
oppressor, enslaver etc. Perhaps that kind of jolt is necessary for all
those among us who believe that naming and shaming is enough and are too
lazy or ignorant to understand that the oppressor or enemy is not only
in some ‘out there’ far away or close, but inside us. We nurture it.
This is the point that’s made in the story of the ascetic Siddhartha
final battle with Mara, who appears not as some terrifying demonic form
but as mirror image, a point echoed (and naturally celebrated) by Louis
Althusser, the French Marxist, more than 25 centuries later.
If what takes us to embark on a journey to discover the rich heritage
as well as tragic history of our past, as collective and as individual,
is a ‘sudda’ barking outspoken English, so be it. What’s important is to
understand that take issue as we must against oppressors and
oppressions, it is also an integral part of the emancipatory project to
recognize and duly expiate those elements within us (in thought, word,
action etc.) that are part of that oppression and which therefore help
perpetuate it.
There was a journey pledged to be undertaken 34 years ago. A journey
of self-discovery. It was made of mopeds and dreams, naivete and boyish
thirst for adventure. Thirty four years later, I would not say
‘impossible’. It is a continuing expedition that any nation seeking to
better itself must undertake in one form or another. Ours has not
sidelined it as ‘unimportant’. And yet, 34 years later, listening to
Udayasiri and having seen ‘Suddek’, the play and heard ‘Outspoken
English’ the reality, I am convinced that there’s a here-and-now
expedition we can all undertake and must too.
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