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Canadian Sikh Editor Shot Dead In British Columbia
by D . B . S. JeyarajThe pen they say is mightier than the sword. However We live nowadays in the age of computers and firearms. Contemporary life is replete with instances of persons wielding deadly firearms brutally gunning down journalists and writers. Differing not necessarily dissenting opinion is ruthlessly crushed. In recent times these types of killings have been more common in Countries that are classified as developing nations. The so called developed nations of the first world have been generally insulated from this kind of violence.
Canada is one such country where journalists and writers have enjoyed all rights concerning freedom of expression. Journalists in the Canadian mainstream media would never have felt threatened by death or assault for something written by them. Those Canada based organizations concerned about human rights have protested time and again to various third world governments about the rights of journalists being violated in those countries. But they have never been called upon to agitate on behalf of journalists in Canada because the necessity never arose.
Not anymore. Increased immigration from the developing world has seen new problems emerge. One of these is the fact that many people making Canada their new home also bring with them baggage from the old. In short prejudices and political attitudes are transplanted in Canada. Communities having a political crisis in the 'Ole' country tend to replicate it here too . More importantly the urge to forge 'unity'' or 'Common cause' among people of a particular ethnicity itself causes problems. This is more pronounced when the ethnicity in question is in the throes of a bitter political struggle in the mother Country. All those holding different views to that of the dominant section are treated as traitors. Worse still those 'dissidents' are subject to severe hardship and their opinion stifled. Two clear examples of this trend are visible in the Sikh community and the Sri Lankan Tamil community.
Past experiences
The past experiences of this correspondent will serve as an illustration of what goes on in the Tamil community. To strike a personal note I was harassed by numerous telephone calls and anonymous letters at a time when I was trying to run a paper in Tamil for Tamils in Canada. The problem was mainly caused by those adherent of the Tamil Eelam cause. Death threats too were rampant. once I was assaulted and hospitalised by baseball toting thugs. My leg was broken and I was confined to crutches in addition to stitches in the head.Later a campaign was launched to intimidate shop keepers selling my newspaper into not selling them. Also advertisers were threatened. In addition pamphlets attacking me were continuously distributed. Since the paper was dependent on the community shops for distribution and advertisements revenue began to plummet. Although readers remained loyal it became impossible to distribute the paper on economically viable terms. I was compelled to suspend publication in l996. Thereafter I continued a career in freelance journalism but was the target of death threats and abusive articles in LTTE controlled newspapers because of my continuing criticism of the tigers.
I am relating this tale again only as an example of what goes on in the Canadian Tamil community. But the thrust of this article however is to focus attention on what transpired recently in the Canadian Sikh community. In a very serious development a Sikh editor of a Punjab language newspaper in Canada has been assassinated. The first incident of its kind perhaps in Canada.
The cold-blooded murder of prominent Sikh Newspaperman Tara Singh Hayer in Surrey, British Columbia on Wednesday 18th at 5.46 pm has sent shock waves around Canada. The 62 year old publisher cum editor of North America's largest Punjabi newspaper the Vancouver based ' Indo-Canadian Times' was shot dead in the garage of his own home as he was getting down from his car to mount his wheel chair. Hayer was paralysed from waist downwards after he was shot by a Sikh radical youth in 1988.
Hayer self-drives a special vehicle designed for handicapped persons. He was returning home after completing work for his weekly publication scheduled to be out as usual on Thursdays. It was always a strenuous task for Hayer to get down from his car and mount his wheel chair. It took about five to eight minutes. in the day in question Hayer's wife saw his car enter the premises and go into the garage. It was about five minutes later that she heard a report like the burst of a firecracker. Thoroughly perturbed she rushed to the garage to find her husband slumped on the wheel chair. A question that is puzzling policemen greatly is over the mode of assassination. Why did the killer wait for nearly five minutes till Hayer clambered aboard the wheel chair to open fire ? Why did he not kill him just as he was getting down from the car itself ?
The city of Vancouver and its environs including Surrey is within the British Columbia province home to nearly 160,OOO Sikhs. The community has been sharply divided over several political and religious issues and several incidents of violence occurred. Members of the community have blamed the Police for not taking adequate precaution to protect a group of Sikh 'Moderate' leaders of whom Hayer was very prominent.
It is reported that in July this year the Police received information that Hayer was the first of seven names on a hit list of Sikh extremist fundamentalists. After the assassination the police are hastily re-evaluating that information and taking steps to protect the other Sikh Moderates on that list. A national toll free telephone line has been set up in English and Punjabi to facilitate people wanting to provide information to the police on the shooting.
Investigators however are scrutinising closely the 'Indian angle'. Canada's premier law-enforcement agency the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is all geared up to establish an International Toll free telephone line to facilitate the procuring of information from sources outside Canada. Although not explicitly stated In addition police are also likely to contact immigration and border official. The special task force investigating the Air India crash of 1985 is also being requested for information about currents within the Sikh community . Police agencies abroad particularly in India are likely to be tapped.
The reason for probing the 'Indian connection' arises from certain developments occurring in the recent pact. The rise of the Khalistani movement saw most Gurdwaras in North America being controlled by Sikh elements with extreme political and fundamental religious views. The elections to Gurdwaras in Vancouver saw a reversal of this process. The moderates won control defeating the ultra - right Sikhs. Tara Singh Hayer and his 'Indo - Canadian Times' played a constructive role in this - renaissance of moderates.
Thereafter the extremist Sikh forces began raising intra-religious disputes within the Gurdwaras in order to discredit the new temple managements. One such issue was the 'Langar' (community meal) controversy. The Sikhs in North America have been partaking of meals being seated in benches and chairs from, the earliest stages of their migration dating back to the last quarter of the 19th century. The fundamentalists however charged the new managements with apostasy for allowing such a practice instead of compelling every one to be seated on the ground. The 'langar' issue became the flashpoint of tension for both factions and there were several incidents of violence over this. The issue originating in Surrey spread throughout British Columbia to other Gurdwaras in Canada, USA and Britain.
Matters came to a head when Jathedar Ranjit Singh intervened and issued a 'Hukamnama' (edict) on April 20th which declared 'Langar' partaken of while being seated on benches as apostasy. He cited a 500 year old tradition begun by Guru Nanak himself. But this edict strengthened the hands of the extremists. Moderates criticised the Hukamnama. In the Surrey Gurdwara Hayer along with a group of moderates were in the forefront of dissidents against the edict.
The dissenters were declared 'Tankhaia' (ex-communicants) and pronounced apostates by Ranjit Singh on July 25th this year. This was after they refused to appear before the Akali Takht. Thus, all Sikhs were barred from business, social or marital contact with the ex-communicated persons. This by extension meant that purchasing Hayer's 'Indo- Canadian Times 'was a religious offence 'Unfortunately for the hardliners Hayer's paper continued to remain number one with the community,
Thereafter Hayer was continuously reviled and ridiculed on media outlets controlled by the hardliner Sikhs. There were even public exhortations by Radio to kill him. He also began receiving a spate of death threats. It was around this time that police received information that Hayer topped six others on a hit list. They too were those declared apostates. The fact that Hayer has been gunned down makes the 'hit lists' a very real and serious matter. It is because of this background that Canadian authorities are concerned greatly about the Indian angle. There is even one theory that a hit squad arrived in Canada from Punjab.
The intra-Sikh turbulence itself has its roots in the politics of Punjab in India. The Khalistani movement initially swamped expatriate Sikhs. The climate was so dominated by the hardliners that the moderate voice was stilled. But subsequently some erstwhile Khalistanis changed their policies. Later with militancy declining in Punjab the moderates were able to assert themselves overseas too. Yet the hardliners unlike in India are able to play ~ vociferous and sometimes violent role overseas thereby leading to several bouts of violence. The 'langar' conflict is just one symptom.
The International Sikh youth Federation The Babbar Khalsa international and Akhand Kirtani Jatha remain potent forces within the Sikh community in Canada. Although none of these outfits have been directly implicated in violence it is generally believed that the violent elements are inspired or instigated by these. The past decade has seen many incidents of violence plaguing the community.
The tussle for controlling Gurdwaras too is tied to finance. The funds generated by the temples from the prosperous Sikh community is coveted by extremist elements. It is suspected that if extremists gain control they could be siphoned off to fundamentalist forces in India. In Vancouver and Surrey elections to the Gurdwara management boards is scheduled for the coming months. More than 70,000 people are expected to vote in the Ross street Gurdwara election scheduled for Dec. 5th. The moderates were expected to retain control again with Hayer and his paper playing a crucial role. The killing in that sense may be both a signal to the moderates as well as elimination of a political danger.
Hayer was born in Paddijagir in Punjab on Nov. 15th 1936. After obtaining a BA he went into the army for five years. Later he got his MA and began teaching. He left India in 1968 and went to Britain. Tara Singh Hayer with his wife Baldev Kaur came to Canada in 1970. In 1978 he founded the Indo - Canadian Times. Initially he was supportive of Sikh militancy but later became disillusioned and horrified by it. When he revised his views and began supporting the moderate politics of sanity and reason he became estranged with the extremist lobby including friends and relatives. Despite threats he continued to publish and soon the paper became the most respected paper in the community.
In 1986 a bomb was planted outside his office. On Aug. 28, 1988 a 17 year old Sikh youth pumped three bullets from a magnum 357 into him. Although paralysed from the waist downwards as a result of the shooting Hayer continued writing and publishing. He would drive his own special car from home to office and back. He was trying to get into his wheel chair from his car when he was shot. It is assumed that the killer or killers were lying in ambush for him at the garage itself. A neighbour however heard only one gun shot.
His daughter in a public statement has called his killers 'worthless cowards'. His son Sukh Dev has vowed that the paper will continue to be published as before. A special edition of the paper with news about the murder was distributed free. Leading members of the Sikh community have announced a 25,000 dollar reward for any information leading to the identification of Hayers killers. Incidentally Hayers killing is the first instance in Canada of an editor being killed for expressing his opinion.
Meanwhile Punjab police chief PS Dogra was quoted by 'The Vancouver Sun' as having described the killing of Tara Singh Hayer as 'A very disturbing development that could have a fall out in Punjab.'.
It is time for Canadian authorities as well as human rights organizations to realise that a new and dangerous trend has begun to emerge in the Country. If the immigrant communities and their problems are going to be viewed constantly as not being part of the mainstream then the violent elements within those communities are going to continue without restraint. The need of the hour is to recognize the problem in all its dimensions and take appropriate action.
I have made it at last!
By C. A. ChandrapremaI was pleasantly surprised to see a news item about me in the last Sunday's Observer on the front page. We journalists are quite used to seeing our own names in print - there's nothing unusual in that. Also after so many years in the writing business there's no thrill in it any longer. Still it is something unusual to "be written about" for a change instead of writing about others as we usually do. I must thank "Nakka" - former Island staffer and my good friend for having deigned to give me some publicity in his esteemed journal. I have reason to believe that this sudden need to give me some publicity was not entirely due to the initiative of Vijitha Nakkawita himself but of powers "above" and that his short piece about me is connected to the slander-and-reply type debate I had last week with the Premadasa Centre. Since the "Island" closed the debate; the Premadasa Centre appears to have turned to the "Sunday Observer" to get the last word in. I have no objections to that - the more publicity I get the better. Haw Haw! Almost everybody seems to have seen that short news item - I"M IN THE NEWS BOYS! OH THE JOY OF IT! THE ECSTACY!
Now the heading of Nakka's article is something about Ranil having "blushed" over my book "Kolapata Samajaya"...Why should Ranil blush about it - if at all it is I who should blush! And anyway Ranil is no "Brahmachari" Haw Haw! He's not going to lose his chastity by reading my book! I will be very happy if he has read it. And naturally I will be happier still if he has "recommended" it to others as Nakka alleges. And as for having become an "advisor" to Ranil; Haw Haw! I'd like to be one but the only advisors he has are the ones who are OFFICIALLY appointed as such. There are no UNOFFICIAL advisors in the UNP as far as I know and no kitchen cabinets. But if anybody insists (even against my protestations of innocence) on naming me as an "advisor" to Ranil I will not object vehemently.....why should I disdain the RESPECT that is accorded to me thereby. Look at it this way; if I am being thought of as one of Ranil's advisors even when I hold no such position - officially or unoffically - just imaging the kind of RAW POWER and AUTHORITY I will wield if I am acually named as one of his advisors! DROOL! DROOL!
In fact the Sunday Observer was not the first to name me as one of Ranil's advisors - the Sinhala magazine "Matota" said as much a couple of months back - of course in their case I don't think they saw anything wrong with that - they in fact paid me a compliment by naming me as "an eindreeya budhimathek" (organic intellectual) by which they probably meant that they see me as having my feet firmly on the ground....Now the Matota magazine is on the exact opposite of the political spectrum as far as I am concerned. Still those who know both myself and the Matota crowd have told me that there is a very visible convergence of thinking across the political that divide. The Matota crowd adheres to some sort of neo-Marxist viewpoint which I am not at all familiar with. Over the past three months they have published a lenghty review of "Kolapata Samajaya" and the reason for publishing that review as the editor of the magazine had noted was because they felt that I was not getting the publicity I justly deserved. (Nakka! Make a note of that and write something about me again!) TTnk you sirs! I have been wanting to get into a dialogue with the Matota crowd and I would have responded to their review of my book by now except for the fact that I am stuck with a private assignment which I am struggling through right now and 24 hours a day just doesnt seem to suffice....He you MATOTA guys! Make a note of that - I havent wilted before your highly theoretical review....its just that I am stuck for time...I even missed my regular "Lakbima" column last week because of the lack of time.
One of the reasons why I would like to get into a dialogue with Matota is that despite political differences those of a particular modernist way of thinking should close ranks against the common enemy. I was one of the first to welcome the "pem uyana" which the BOI is going to open up for the free trade zone girls to romp in. The Sinhalese badly need a good romp. After a good romp all the cob-web covered ideologies which have held this country back will fall off.... I'm sure of it!... In fact I want to send some complimentary copies of Kolapata Samajaya to the Premadasa Centre so that those who are fighting like cats and dogs with Ranil for control over the UNP will realise the truth and attain enlightenment. They should read Kolapata Samajaya and realise firstly; that as the Buddha pointed out; nothing is permanent - least of all political power. Secondly; they shouuld realise that there are other delightful things in life other than wielding political power - such as for instance blue films; women; boys; men; booze and all other nice things mentioned in Kolapata Samajaya. They should read by book and learn how to coast along in samsara; like the ancient Sinhalese - without being all constipated and highstrung and desperate for power. I have also made note of the significant point that Dayan and Tisaranee are drifting into the Sunday Observer in the same way they did during the Premadasa era. In fact that is what many denizens of the fourth estate are talking about after seeing last Sunday's article about me. They can now command space in the front page of Sunday Observer just as they did during the Premadasa era. That's interesting. Verrry interesting.
Cat's Eye
Minette and Anil de Silva - An AppreciationMinette de Silva, Sri Lanka's pioneering woman architect died at the age of eighty two last Saturday, 21st November. Cat's Eye pays tribute to her and her elder sister Marcia Anil, who died in England two years ago, also in November, at the age of eighty seven. They were both outstanding Sri Lankan women of their time. Courageous, self-confident, talented, innovative and dynamic, they tread into male domains where no women had been before and remained until the end of their lives deeply committed to women's causes, culture, education and progress. Minette the youngest in the family was very much influenced by the charismatic Anil.
Political Household
The daughters of George E. and Agnes de Silva, Minette and Anil, grew up in a political household shaped by their parents' activism and social concerns. George E. de Silva who was President of the Ceylon National Congress in the 1920s, and a Minister for Health in 1943 had a rough start in life. Viciously discriminated against by an upper-caste Sinhala lobby, he fought his political campaigns on behalf of the Kandyan 'depressed' castes and classes and the estate workers he knew well from his boyhood in Nuwara Eliya, and later, Kandy, where he settled after marriage, pursuing a legal career at the Kandy bar. Their mother Agnes, was better connected' than George. The daughter of a leading lawyer in Kandy, she belonged to a prominent Dutch Burgher family and was the niece of Dr. Andreas Nell and his sister Dr. Whilfred Nell, one of Sri Lanka's first women medical doctors. Agnes was at the vanguard of the campaign for universal franchise which Sri Lanka won in 1931, way ahead of other British colonies. She had a strong commitment to gender equality. Giving evidence before the Donoughmore Commission, when asked whether Indian Tamil women labourers should also have the vote her reply was, certainly, they are women, too. We want all women to have the vote.' Both George and Agnes spent time in England from 1928 to 1931 lobbying the British Labour Party for this important milestone on the country's road to independence. Their daughters went to England with them and stayed on there a few years.An Interesting Contradiction In Sri Lanka, the political activities of their parents exposed the young Minette and Anil to the key personalities of the day. These figures included the nationalist leaders of both Sri Lanka and India. Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu were guests of the de Silva's at their Kandy home. Minette and Anil were companions to the young Indira Gandhi when she accompanied her father on visits to Sri Lanka and kept up the friendship with Indira in later years. Minette and Anil straddled an interesting contradiction. On the one hand, they were always aware of themselves as outsiders because of their father's caste. The attacks on Anil in tabloids like 'The Searchlight' and 'The Comrade' in the 1930s on caste grounds were pure political viciousness against her father. On the other hand, they belonged to a Burgher elite, and a political elite, once their father attained national prominence. Their flamboyant lives are the story of how privilege protected and gave them self-confidence, but also of how their determination to succeed in life was born out of disadvantage.
The Indian Connection Minette was the first woman student of architecture at the School of Architecture in Bombay in the 1940s, and in 1948, the first Asian woman architect selected as an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA). Anil in turn, was the first Asian woman to enrol for a course in art history at the Louvre in Paris in the early 1950s. Minette and Anil were founder members of the influential Bombay-based journal Marg devoted to a re- appraisal of art and architecture in Asia. They contributed articles on Sri Lankan art and architecture and Anil, in particular, was the first to introduce the paintings of George Keyt and the 43rd Group to the Bombay art milieu, through features in Marg and exhibitions in Bombay. Both sisters integrated well into the highly cosmopolitan and dynamic society that formed the Bombay artistic and political elite of the 1940s. After the confines of Sri Lanka with its caste hierarchies and increasing communal and religious nationalism that gave young women like Minette and Anil little room to be unconventional and innovative, cosmopolitan Bombay was a welcome refuge. These were also the heady days of the Indian nationalist struggle. Minette and Anil were already familiar with its leading personalities and sympathetic to its causes. Anil kept close association with the leading figures of the Indian Communist Party politbureau, and through her friendship with the writer Mulk Raj Anand, was able to influence some of its key cultural innovations. She is credited as having given birth to the idea of the Indian Peoples' Theatre Association (IPTA) which became, like the Progressive Writer's Movement, an influential art form which served the nationalist cause by presenting plays that showed the workings of imperial exploitation. Anil was its General Secretary, and given that these were war years during which many performances were banned by the British government, it was courageous activism.
Minette's pioneer ventures Minette returned to Sri Lanka after Bombay although Anil never did, except for holidays. Minette continued her architectural studies in England. As she wrote, 'The isolation in Ceylon was overbearing and having grown up in two worlds - that of Ceylon and India - the need to be involved with European civilisations was a must'. Influenced by the famous French architect Le Corbusier with whom she was close friends, Minette's first job was to design the Pieris House (1952-56) that was quite revolutionary for the time. It was one of the first modern houses to be constructed on pilotis or columns, although this had been a traditional concept in local architecture. The material for the house was drawn from what was locally available, and throughout her career, Minette incorporated traditional designs, local wood and features that were already part of the landscape. 'She departed from western stereotypes', as her autobiography claims, 'to a combination of ancient craftwork and modern building and to create a modern tradition for building in Sri Lanka.' Private houses were not her only architectural achievements. She was the architect of the Watapuluwa housing scheme in Kandy and the Kandy Arts Centre. She gained recognition for her work recently in the form of a gold medal from the Sri Lanka Institute of Architecture in 1996 and in 1997, the honour of 'Officer dans l Ordre des Arts et Letters' of France. Sadly, she died just before the publication of an autobiographical book entitled 'The Life and Work of an Asian Woman Architect'.
Anil went on from Bombay to Paris where she married a Frenchman - Philipe Vigier, and her interest in Asian Buddhist art, originating with her work for Marg, inspired by the collection of Buddhist art at the Musee Guimet in Paris and consolidated through the course on art history at the Louvre, reached fruition in an adventurous trip to China in 1958. This was to document the cave paintings of Tun Huang and Maichisan. The research team comprised four women - quite something for the time! Apart from Anil there was Romila Thapar, the now famous Indian historian who went as research assistant, Dominique Darbois as photographer and Mingo Wong as translator. The women stayed at sparse monasteries during their trip, climbed sheer rock face to enter the caves, worked in dim light and painstakingly documented and photographed this great tradition of Buddhist art. Two books on the cave paintings came out of that trip. Anil was also the author of Life of the Buddha: 'Retold from Ancient Sources', published by the Phaedon Press in 1955 which contained 160 plates of Buddhist art. Later she was the general editor for a UNESCO series entitled 'Man Through His Art' which featured the progress of human kind illustrated through art, under the themes of 'Love and Marriage', 'The Human Face', 'War and Peace', etc.
Minette and controversy Nor did the sisters ever lead demure, retired lives. Minette led an independent life and her friends included leading personalities, especially in the field of culture - the leading architect of his time, Le Corbusier, the photographer Henri Cartier Bresson and films persons Lawrence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and David Lean. Minette had a lively mind and took an interest in current issues. She remained at the forefront of controversy on issues close to her heart. She was one of the critics of the sitting of the Kandalama hotel on environmental grounds. Always outspoken, she had learnt to be 'tough' in the male dominated world of her chosen profession. Not only were the leading architects of the day male, but also the baases and contractors without which support an architect could not progress. Minette found that she had to be firm with her male workforce, although she did not enjoy the emotional pressures it entailed. Despite her poor health, she was, until the time of her death, keenly alert to politics, with strong views on topics ranging from the on-going war to corruption and consumerism.
The sisters in Cambridge
Minette visited England often and spent time with Anil, who lived in Cambridge during the last decades of her life. Anil had turned her attention to lively mediaeval figures and wrote a book on John of Gaunt which was published when she was eighty three years old. Two years later at the age of eighty five, she completed editing a book on Christine de Pisan. John of Gaunt lived through a significant period of transformation in Europe which saw the first glimpse of the reformation, the decline of feudalism and the rise of the English vernacular. Christine de Pisan (1363-1430) was an early feminist, one of the few women of her time who wrote for the public, advocated gender equality and took on the misogynists of the day with courage. It isn't surprising that these figures inspired Anil.Both Anil and Minette were women who applauded the progressive and the daring who were also great achievers. Their own lives mirrored these aspirations and in their rejection of the confines of borders and boundaries - whether private, public or geographical - they were bold and outstanding Sri Lankan women of their generation with a combination of personality, flamboyance and achievement that make them a rare act to follow.
The Language Lobby
Modern German poetry - authenticity and novelty
by Carl MullerThis Lobby has always made much of poetry and I found that Expressionism becomes both pervasive and inescapable in the works of the Germans. Brecht, as we know, took the trouble to study the social and political institutions of his time instead of merely responding to them emotionally. What Brecht also did was to get rid of a lot of the emotive diction. This was truly a revolution, a kind of neoclassical trend that is close to parody even.
I've been dipping into some the 'modern' German poetry and I couldn't help feeling that here was a sort of board game - a game of snakes and ladders... advances, retreats, leaps and falls, consolidations and dead ends, reverses and reprises. All most intriguing and, to say the least, exciting. There is novelty of one kind or another and a sure authenticity that cuts through false distinctions of stature.
But, tell me, what is major poetry and what is a major or minor poet? Even a man who gives us a small body of poetry can be considered a major poet if his work is considered truly authentic. Frankly, I dislike, even distrust classifications. People tend to place poets by movements, politics, nature, etc., and I don't think even the best of poets are aware of such divisions when they write.
Take Oskar Loerke's 'Winter Evening, Berlin,' which he wrote in 1934. We are told that Loerke was the initiator of a new nature poetry widely written by young poets just after the last war. Would you call this a nature poem... or a city poem?
Houses, dim boards, daubed with a searing script
That twitching calls out and begging affirms.
Stars are at pasture in clouds,
Summer's blue flax was garnered long ago.
Naked trees like brooms of the unemployed.
Above them tramps the free wind.
A breath from the south makes the eye go blind;
Very far the fragrance range of mimosa extends.
The diversity and complexity of trends I have met with can hardly be done justice to. One sees a sort of manifesto in Franz Werfel's 'Song' - a manifesto that points to his need to reject Expressionism:
Once once -
We were pure.
Sat small on a boundary stone
With many dear old women
We were a gazing-up at the sky.
A little wind in the wind
In front of a churchyard where the dead have no weight.
Looked at a half-dismembered gate
Bumble bee hummed through the hawthorn tree,
A rightful of crickets grew vast to the ear.
A girl was winding a daisy-chain And we felt our death, felt a sweet pain, Our eyes turned utterly blue - We were on earth and within God's heart, Sexless our voices broke into song, Our bodies were pure and right. Sleep carried us through a passage all green - We rested on love, a holy weft, Our time was outside us, shifting and long.
Johannes R Becher also gives us a manifesto in his 'The New Syntax,' and here we see a leaning towards a later Expressionist practice. But it can still be read as a poem, a funny poem, if you like:
The Bengal butterfly adjectives.
They circle humming around the lofty freestone structure of nouns
A bridge participle shall rock and give! give!
While the bold verb a whirring aeroplane whiring up from the ground.
Articile dance nicely twitches little pendulum legs,
In titter rhythms a floor swings up and down.
But then metalically ringing a pure
Stanza leaps out of the trapeze. The chain
Of street arclights splinter one into the other.
Despite that most colourful lady's holy vocative.
A young poet for himself puts subjects together.
Drills the object's tunnel.... The imperative
Steeply shoots up. Flame-licking over a fantastic landscape Of sentences. Blows seven hydra tubas. Clouds down are hurled. And blueness flows. Mountains in armour surge up. So we burst into flower in the gleam of a May-time super-world.
I feel that it is time we gave serious consideration to German poetry. We must remember that most of the more significant German and Austrian literature went into exile between 1933 and 1938. Again, since 1948, Germany was politically divided. These may be bare facts but they do cover a multitude of circumstance that affected German writers and poets. Outward instability always places the poet or writer in one or more, (or this or that), complex of circumstances. Else Lasker-Schuler (do read her 'Homesick) left Berlin for Switzerland, then Palestine where she died. One sees the tragedy of tearing away, being torn, in 'My People':
The rock grows brittle
From which I spring,
To which my canticles I sing...
Down I rush from the track
And inwardly only ripple
Far off, alone over wailing stone
Toward the sea.Have flowed so much away
From the wine ferment
Of my blood.
Yet endlessly, yet even now that echo
In me.
When eastward awesomely,
The brittle rock of bone,
My people,
Cries out to God.Rainer Maria Rilke found his part of Austria become Czechoslovakia. He moved about all over Europe, between Russia and Spain, died in Switzerland. So we see, in these writings an intricacy of social, ethnic' religious and ideological aspects which discard all geographical and national locations. You will find this quite well-put in his 'Idol' written in 1925. And what is this idol? There are pointers, true; but can you truly fix on the subject?
God or goddess of the sleep of cats,
savouring deity that in the dark
mouth crushes ripe eye-berries.
grapejuice of seeing grown sweet,
everlasting light in the palate's crypt.
Not a lullaby -=- gong! gong!
What conjures other gods
Lets him go, this wily god,
to his power that collapses inwards.
Rilke's was a middle-class background (just as Brecht's) but Rilke, unlike Brecht, drew up a noble pedigree for himself, while Brecht liked to assume a working-class persona. You will find this excellently put in his 'Friends Everywhere',:
Finnish working men
Gave him beds and a desk
Writers of the Soviet Union saw him on to the boat
And a Jewish laundryman in Los Angeles
Sent him a suit: the enemy of the Butchers
Found friends.
This column does not allow me to 'cover' all I'd like to but I hope the selections I have given will evoke a greater interest in what Germany holds for us. I have, sadly, not given time to Gunter Grass or Nelly Sachs, Franz Wurm or Reiner Kunze. i simply can't cover them all. But, believe me, many of the German poems of this century are considered landmarks in post-1945 developments. Since the sixties, political and social concerns have coloured the offerings but these are constraints that are no longer. What we see from the early years of this century is a body of good and remarkable poetry of every kind.
The century is now drawing to a close... and it was high time I took note. I'm not too late, am I?
Mannar’s unique ‘Zone of peace’
Jehan PereraThe Madhu refugee camp is located in the midst of the Wanni jungles in the mainland part of the Mannar district. It surrounds the shrine that is the most famous and possibly the most sacred Catholic shrine in the country. It was into these thick jungles of the Wanni that the remnants of the Catholic converts of Mannar island fled in 1544 after more than six hundred of them were massacred by the Hindu King Sangkili of Jaffna. Among the dead was the king's own son, who had also converted to Catholicism by the Portuguese Catholic priests and had given up his ancestral Hindu faith. Only a small group, who escaped with a wooden painted statue of the Virgin Mary, had made it successfully to Madhu, which confirmed the belief in the statue's miraculous powers. The survivors put up a church which, before the outbreak of the war, used to attract more than 70,000 Sinhalese pilgrims annually from the south of the country.
Now the houses built by those regular pilgrims for their use during their short stays at Madhu, are used differently for they house a part of the 8,000 or so refugees still in the camp. At its peak in 1993, the camp housed 36,000 refugees, and last year the figure was about 25,000. Most of the refugees live in temporary huts, while a fortunate few have access to the permanent structures put up by the pilgrims of the past. The camp resembles a little town, with its markets and streets, except that it looks a very poor town indeed, in which the majority of dwellings are of mud and thatched leaf.
Due to diligent supervision by the Catholic authorities, the camp is extremely clean, much cleaner in fact than a regular Sri Lankan town. In addition, no alcohol, music or entertainment videos are permitted within the camp, on the grounds that it is within the precincts of a sacred site. Infringement of this rule, whether by refugees or by NGO staff, is punishable with expulsion.
The Church authorities have also had to assert themselves to maintain the integrity of the shrine and its precincts as the country's only "zone of peace" or demilitarised zone. No one is permitted entry into the church precincts with arms. Maintaining this integrity has not been easy as the church is located in the "uncleared" area controlled by the LTTE, and within striking distance of the Sri Lankan military.
There have been some tensions between the LTTE and the church authorities over the regular LTTE practice of using the deaths of its cadres as a celebration of their "martyrdom" and an opportunity for recruitment. While the church authorities permit the LTTE to bring in the bodies of dead LTTE fighters into the church premises for funeral rites to be performed and for the showing of respect, they have resisted permitting the use of loudspeakers to announce the sombre occasion inside the church precincts and the showing of videos.
The success of the Madhu "zone of peace" is due to several factors, and gives the hopeful message that war is not the only relationship that the government can hope to have with the LTTE. There can also be mutual cooperation in the best interests of the people. The crucial factor that preserves the peace at Madhu is that a strong voice of civil society exists there to mediate between the two contending parties.
Mannar district in which Madhu is located is a predominantly Catholic (65 percent) area. The army in the Mannar district are open in saying that they see the Catholic Church as the bridge between themselves and the people. The LTTE are possibly more grudging of this, as they claim to be the "sole representatives" of the Tami people. But even they have to face the reality of the people's closeness to the Church.
BUREAUCRATIC CALLOUSNESS But despite these positive features the fact remains that for the people within the Madhu camp and the other "uncleared" areas, life has no forward progress in it for them. Due to the stringent economic blockade by the security forces, which prevents fertiliser, cement and fuel getting in, there is no economic enterprise or development possible. There is little or no possibility of self-reliance that gives people their full sense of dignity and worth, and there is no brighter future that those people can see for themselves and their families.
Ironically, the security forces at the field level may be more sympathetic to the plight of the people, and more willing to be flexible in sending in supplies and in providing money for development. With their first hand observations, the field commanders appear to be also be having a better inkling of the tensions between the LTTE and the people than the politicians and bureaucrats in Colombo, some of whom appear to be pathetically small minded in their approach to the suffering people.
While the field commanders see people of dignity living in pathetic conditions, the small minded politicians and bureaucrats in Colombo may be thinking in abstract terms about how best to use food and money as tactical means in their prosecution of the war against the LTTE. Thus, there is an economic embargo on many items, so that in the "uncleared" areas a generation of children are growing up who are mentally and physically stunted, who have had exercise books rationed to them, and have never eaten chocolate, because it is believed by some bureaucrats that the LTTE also eats chocolates.
In addition, the refugees are classified by the government bureaucracy according to the military operation by which they became displaced. Riviresa 1, Riviresa 2, Sathjaya, Edibala and Jayasikuru are the more common classifications. For reasons best known to the bureaucratic mind, refugees who were displaced in some of these operations, such as Riviresa 2 and Sathjaya, are excluded from the category of those eligible for rations. But they are present in the refugee camps, which creates problems for those responsible for feeding the refugees present in the camps.
The strategy that most camp administrators have adopted is to share out whatever they get among all the refugees, which means reducing the already meagre rations provided for those who are deemed to be eligible, while giving a part of it to those who are deemed to be ineligible. Recent decisions taken by the government to further reduce the dry rations by about half have worsened the situation.
Unless the refugees have some other source of finances, they simply cannot survive on the government rations they are provided with. They have to buy food on the "open market." But the prices in this market are extraordinarily high. A loaf of bread costs Rs 11. A bottle of kerosene costs Rs 70. A bottle of Pepsi costs Rs 105. In general, prices are way above the prices in the rest of the country. A Catholic nun, who works among the refugees, said that "The least I can give a person who begs me for money is Rs 100. Often it is Rs 1000. Anything less is of no use to them." How ironic, and tragic, that in a desperately poor place the value of money is less and not more.
Fortunately, many of the refugees from Jaffna have relatives abroad who send them money. But most of those from the Wanni region do not have such good fortune. They have to either beg or find some other means of generating an income in a context in which employment opportunities are very scarce. In the Madhu camp, men, women and children can be seen leaving early morning at 4 am on an exhausting 15 mile trek each way to get to the main road, so that they can get to Mannar town from where they can purchase items that are unavailable in the "uncleared" areas, and bring them back to sell at a profit. But to leave the "uncleared" area, even for a temporary visit, the people have to pay the LTTE a tax of Rs 200. So on both sides, the poor and powerless people are mercilessly squeezed.
FORCED OUT What makes this situation so very unfair, is that almost every one who comes to a refugee camp, comes because he or she has no alternative. The unfairness is aggravated by the fact that having deprived people of the capacity to earn their own living, due to a failure of governmental policy that has led to protracted warfare in their home areas, these people are also denied the assistance that must rightfully be theirs in such a situation.
People come to refugee camps because they have nowhere else to go, perhaps because a military operation undertaken in the area by either the government forces or LTTE has forced them to leave their homes. Sometimes they cannot go back to their homes, because the security forces are in occupation of parts of their villages, if not of the entire village. Some others may have left their homes, because they cannot cultivate their lands due to the embargo on fertiliser and fuel, or due to the disrepair of the irrigation system. Indeed, at least four churches have been occupied by the security forces, which demontrates an insensitivity to the religious sentiments of the Catholics.
At nightfall on the last day of my stay in Madhu, at around 7:30 pm (old time, as the LTTE has refused to go along with the half hour move forward to "new time" by the Sri Lankan government), a solitary light dimmed out in a shed near the access road to the refugee camp. Three families were spending their last night in the Madhu camp. Early next morning, before sunrise, they would be setting out through the jungles, holding up a white flag, towards the Sri Lankan army lines. They would "surrender" themselves to the army, and from their would be taken by the army to a refugee camp in the "cleared" area. At least there they would be fed better. The trek through the jungles would be to avoid paying the exit fee levied by the LTTE, which would be difficult for them to pay.
So it may seem that the government's strategy of bringing more and more territory under its control, while making it harder for people to live within the "uncleared" areas, is paying dividends. It might be said that the people are voting with their feet. But people who are forced to go where they would rather not, and who have to leave their homes areas and properties in the process, will be people with a sense of grievance on whom the LTTE can continue to replenish itself.
Beneath the normalcy in the "cleared" areas of the Mannar district there is a turbulence, for everyone who resides there knows that where there are Tamil people, there will also be the LTTE. The LTTE can destabilise the situation at any time. The members of the small legally armed Tamil political parties know this well. They confine themselves, and their poster campaigns, to the town centres, and dare not go into the villages. The villagers are relieved because those Tamil groups are accountable to no one and tax them heavily in the town. There may be a kind of peace, but security and justice are still a long way away.
(This article is based on a visit to Madhu in July and to Mannar town in November)
A problem of history - revisited
by Nalin de SilvaMr. E. A. Naganathan, who thought that he was re-examining my article on "A Problem of History" that appeared in the midweek review on the 28th of October 1998, appears to be a confused person. Writing to the midweek review on the November 18, he tells us more about his family than of the history of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. He intends writing of families of histories but ends up writing on the history of the family. Mr. Naganathan, rather his ancestors, are fortunate for we do not pass judgement on them on the basis of what he writes.
In my article I showed that the interpretation given by the Tamil racists to the Dutugemunu Elara story based on what Dr. Siriweera has written does not stand up to the facts. It is true that anybody can give any interpretation to the facts but unless it is consistent with the other relevant facts (for example archaeological evidence) and interpretations it has no merit. Dr. Siriweera's thesis that Dutugemunu and Elara were participants in a feudal power game stands on flimsy grounds. His only argument, other than what he has to say on the Mahavansaya in general, is developed on the single fact that there were Sinhala soldiers like Miththa, Gamani and Dighabaya in Elaras's army.
This does not establish that the Tamils lived in this country then with the Sinhala people. It only goes on to prove that, even then, there have been Sinhala people who served the foreigners, invaders and the like just as much we have them today among us. If there were Tamils living in this country at that time, as people of Mr. Naganathan's ilk seem to believe, and if Dutugemunu Elara war was a fight between two feudal chiefs why were there no Tamils in the army of Dutugemunu? Dr. Siriweera creates a suspicion among the readers that Velusumana was a Tamil. Unfortunately for him, and some others who have come to the conclusion that Velusumana was a Tamil, Velusumana is the Pali translation of the name of that particular soldier as it appears in the Mahavansaya. Velu in Pali, as I have already mentioned, means bamboo and we do not know how the name appeared in the Sinhala original, Sihalattha katha mahavansaya, which was translated into Pali and edited by Rev. Mahanama. We should remember that Rev. Mahanama had translated Sinhala names like Digaba and Bintenne into their Pali equivalents Dighabhaya and Mahiyangana.
Now let us examine whether Mr. Naganathan has got anything to add to this argument. He starts by giving us the qualifications of Mr. Anthony Gnana Pragasam and of his wife, who happens to be an aunt of Mr. Naganathan, for the sole purpose of quoting Justice de Sampayo, who had given tuition to Mrs. Gnana Pragasam. This reminds me of the naya (cobra) story very often referred to by the undergraduates. Apparently one lady has once described to her friends how a naya had crept into her home. She had started by saying how the naya crept under her brand new refrigerator, which had stored very expensive items brought from the shops with big names and then how the naya had crept near the wardrobe, then a description of all the new sarees and the other dresses, and so on and so forth. At the end of the story her friends did not know anything about the naya or what happened to him and her, I mean the naya and the lady, but knew all about what the good lady possessed or claimed to posses. I only hope that Mr. Naganathan would not make use of the naya story to 'prove' that he and the Tamils are descendants of the Nagas. With the kind of logic he employs he is not incapable of doing that.
Mr. Naganathan appears to make fun at the Sinhala Buddhist consciousness and seems to believe that the Sinhala Buddhist consciousness originated with Vijaya. He says Elara was the 13th ruler of Sri Lanka, 'assuming the Mahavihare postulate of a "single nation state" reflecting a Sinhala Buddhist consciousness'. Unfortunately for Dr. Naganathan, on this count even Dr. Siriweera does not agree with him. This is what Dr. Siriweera has to say in his article published in "Ethnicity and Social Change in Sri Lanka". "It is no wonder then, that the author (Rev. Mahanama) selected Dutthagamani, who unified the whole island under one banner for the first time in history and was the patron of the Mahavihara establishment as the ideal king." (Pg. 56) " In the final battle, Elara fell, pierced by his rival's dart, and subsequently Dutthagamani united Sri Lanka under one royal umbrella." (Pg. 59) "Thus the author of the Dipavamsa gave articulation to the Sinhala -Buddhist consciousness which was strengthened by subsequent chroniclers." (Pg. 55)
It is very clear that even Dr. Siriweera, the 'objective historian' who is not sympathetic to the Sinhala Buddhist cause has to admit there was a Sinhala Buddhist consciousness at least from the time of Dipavansaya and that Dutugemunu united Sri Lanka under one umbrella (eksesath) for the first time in the history. I agree with him on this for the simple reason that it is not his fiction (interpretation) and represents the truth and nothing but the truth. The eksesath rajya is the unitary state in the vocabulary of the western political scientists and it was king Dutugemunu who established the Sinhala Buddhist unitary state in the country. The countdown of the kings in the unitary state should begin with king Dutugemunu and not with Vijaya. Thus Elara was not the 13th ruler of Sri Lanka but was an invader who ruled Anuradhapura until he was defeated by the liberator Dutugemunu. Mr. Naganathan, using the methods of Tamil racist propagandists, tries to confuse the readers by projecting Elara as the 13th ruler of Sri Lanka.
Mr. Naganathan then moves on to Elara, Sena and Guttika, and Mutasiva. We shall first consider Mutasiva, who according to Mr. Naganathan has 'somewhat a Saivaite sounding name'. One of Mutasiva's sons was 'Mahasiva -again the Saivaite ring' says Mr. Naganadan. He says 'viewed totally, with a son of Pandukhabaya enjoying the name of Mutasiva, ... Devanampiyatissa's second son ...bearing the name of Mahasiva, and the number of Nagas abounding in the regnal titles of Mr. Nalin de Silva's "single Sinhala Buddhist nation state" i.e. Khallatanaga, Cholanaga etc., we cannot help agreeing with Dr. Siriweera's (in my view) understatement that "the Mahavamsa was more a national epic of the Sinhala Buddhists of the orthodox Theravada sector (and I would add of the Mahavihare sect) than a dynamic history of the island." ' What Mr. Naganathan does not seem to know is that Siva in Pali means Nibbana. However as I do not make use of the logic of Mr. Naganathan I am not going to suggest any rings around the name Mutasiva.
Dr. Naganadan, not satisfied with what Dr. Siriweera has written on behalf of Tamil racism tries to extract more out of his article. As I said in my previous article the history as revealed in Mahavansaya is relative to the Mahaviyaraya, just as much the stories written by Dr. Siriweera and Mr. Naganathan are relative to Tamil racism. When there is no objective Physics it is futile to talk of an objective history. The question is whether these relative histories are consistent with the other relevant facts. For example the history as revealed in Mahavansaya is not only consistent with the archaeological evidence found in Sri Lanka it is also consistent with the Indian history during the Asokan period and has helped to identify the king Asoka. Neither Dr. Siriweera nor anybody else can produce a so-called objective dynamic history of the island. They can only produce "histories" relative to Tamil racism, which are not consistent with the other facts and are full of internal contradictions.
Mr. Naganadan then discloses more of his total view. For him these 'Nagas' were the yet unabsorbed residue of the original people of the country. Now what Mr. Naganathan does not explain consistently and without any internal contradictions, is why according to this residual Naga theory Khallatanaga was not absorbed (presumably) into the Sinhala nation while his father Saddha Tissa and uncle Dutugemunu were absorbed. Similar situations can be observed in the cases of Valagamba and his son Cora Naga, Vasaba and his grand son Mahallaka Naga who was the brother-in-law of Gajaba I. Were Dutugemunu, Saddha Tissa, Valagamba, Vasaba and Gajaba also Nagas? They were all Sinhala kings and the Naga in the names of some of them did not make them non- Sinhala. Nagas by that time were absorbed into the Sinhala nation and however much Mr. Naganathan may try he would not be able to show that the kings and the others who had the part Naga in their names were Tamils.
The irony is that people of Mr. Naganathan's ilk have no source other than the Mahavansaya even to talk of these Nagas. In my article 'TULF, Budget and the original people' that appeared on the 12th of November, I have quoted Dr. Indrapalan to show that the arguments of Gnanapragasar, who was mainly responsible for the theory that the Nagas were Tamils, are not valid, and as such I do not want to repeat them against Mr. Naganathan. Mr. Naganathan in his total view wants to combine the residual Naga theory with the 'insights to be gained from the epic Ramayanaya', for the lack of any other source. Until and unless Sri Lanka is identified definitely as the Lanka of Ramayanaya it is futile even to drag that epic into any discussion on the history of the country.
Even without Ramayanaya it is not difficult to accept that there were tribes such as Yaksha, Naga . Rakshasa and Deva in this country before the Aryans arrived with their culture. Mr. Naganathan states whether there were four such tribes or fewer, 'we shall never know as long as we cling to the Mahavansa for divination'. The irony again is that without Mahavansaya we would not have known much about these Nagas and Yakshas. Now Mr. Naganathan having taken his total view expresses the following opinion. It is an opinion or a view whether total or partial without any corroborative evidence archaeological or otherwise. "Scattered throughout the land would have been these units of skilled, efficient and organised people, but their interaction with each other and the Tamil immigrants and their Saivaite priests, and the Prakrit -speaking immigrants from 'Lata' and 'Lada' identified as Bengal and Gujarat, and the Pali- speaking Buddhist missionary monks, we will never be able to learn, let alone get to know, if we remain as deaf, dumb and blind as Mr. Nalin de Silva, except to the effusions of the oracle, otherwise called the Mahavansa."
What is clear from the above is the total hatred of Mr. Naganathan towards the Mahavansaya. His total view is nothing but his total aversion. Let us assume that Mr. Naganathan is not deaf, dumb and blind. Now how did he come to the 'conclusion' or view or whatever that there were Tamil immigrants with their Saivaite priests presumably around the same time that the Prakrit-speaking immigrants came with the Buddhist monks. Or did the Tamil immigrants come much earlier? Where is the evidence? He has no source other than his 'total view'. His eyes are wide open so much so that he could see the Tamil immigrants and their Saivaite priests interacting with the Yakshas and Nagas and the other tribes scattered throughout the land. Sometimes this kind of experience is referred to as day dreaming. I suppose this is an example of the dynamic history of the country that the Tamil racists are talking about.
Mr. Naganathan at least appears to admit that the original Nagas in this country were not Tamils, as in his total view the Tamil immigrants have come later and interacted with them. That is a deviation from the Gnanapragasar theory that the original Nagas in the country were Tamils.
To be continued next Wednesday
