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By Mervyn de Silva
Well, well. The S.L.M.C. founder president, Mr. M. H. M. Ashraff, a P.A. Cabinet Minister turned the spotlight on TRINCOMALEE. It prompted a western diplomat to speak of a sense of dejavu. Some smart-alecs not only in the corps diplomatique but also on our campuses and in the small network of NGO's interested in foreign affairs and strategic studies claim that if there was no Trincomalee harbour in the Island's north-east this dhammadeepa would not be torn by one of the fiercest separatist armed conflict in the world today.Mr. Ashraff has expressed his party's distress and anger over what it regards as the malign neglect of the Muslim community. Recently party officials, including politburo members, had toured several areas of the Trincomalee district, especially areas that required urgent attention from the P.A. administration.
In the Indo-Sri Lanka 'Peace Accord' there is an explicit reference to Trincomalee port and its need for economic development projects. One can argue that the future of Trincomalee and the development of one of the world's finest natural harbours motivated Indian concern and policy. In this Nehru and his daughter, Indira, OXBRIDGE products, inherited British strategic thinking. When the British defeated the Dutch and took over the maritime provinces, including the eastern province, Prime Minister William Pitt rose in the House of Commons to inform Parliament proudly that Her Majesty's empire was more 'secure' - a 'security' as he admitted 'it had never enjoyed before'. When Indira Gandhi, daughter of the Oxford-educated Jawaharlal Nehru was crowned the new Empress of India British's Indian Ocean strategic thinking decided the approach to all problems connected with the defence of India, though Nehru had joined Tito in creating the nonaligned movement. Nehru felt that the post-independence foreign policy thinking of the U.N.P. (D.S. Senanayake) was far too British and distinctly Anglo-American.
His daughter and successor, Indira, not only disapproved of UNP thinking on the Cold War but on vital regional issues. When Junius Richard (J.R.J.) was crowned President he was popularly known as 'Yankee Dicky', Delhi's threat-perception became the cornerstone of South Block's thinking.
The Foreign policy pundits joined the hawks in the Indian army - the army built by Queen Victoria. Indira Gandhi decided on 'covert action' on the grand scale. It led to the training of young Sri Lankan Tamils who could launch a secessionist guerrilla 'war' on the pro-US Jayawardene regime. It had opened negotiations with a Singapore-based U.S. firm, the Coastal Corporation. It had also signed a new agreement with the Voice of America (VOA). This was a clear turnabout of Sri Lanka's nonalignment under Mrs. Bandaranaike. At regional seminars, a popular SAARC ceremony, Indian participants would remind fellow participants that the Indian Ocean is the only ocean named after a country!
The overwhelming factor was the postwar global environment, the East-West or US-USSR superpower contest. Mrs. Bandaranaike had constructed a fairly clear nonaligned policy - partly the outlook of her husband, S.W.R.D., partly the influence of Marshal Tito of Yugoslovia. Mrs. Bandaranaike was one of the leaders who had the privilege of receiving an invitation from the socialist leader who decided that Yugoslovia, despite its ruling League of Communists, should follow an independent path in world affairs.
Thus, Para 2 of the 'Letters' exchanged between Prime Minister Gandhi and President Jayawardene, expressly declared that Trinco and other ports will not be available for military purposes to any country - an issue on which the former Indian High Commissioner Dixit dwells patiently in his book ASSIGNMENT COLOMBO.
Ethnic conflict
The Cold war is over.... to yield place to identity conflicts, race, religion and the Indian sub-continent, caste.Language was the original cause of majority-minority tensions largely because the overwhelming majority suspected the British of playing a divide-and-rule game, promoting the Tamil cause and agitation. The main arena was the north-and-east.
It is the ethnic composition of the eastern province which has presented both the P.A. and the Eelam strategists. The Tamils are the largest group, but a majority. However a strong argument for a north-east merger, that the Muslims were Tamil-speaking. In the Sinhala provinces they spoke Sinhala, fluently.
The Tamil 42% and the 33% Tamil speaking Muslims made an overwhelming majority.
In the age of Islamic revival however religion is the mark of identity - Buddhist Sri Lanka exists in an Islam- dominated environment, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia, and in the west IRAN the home of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Gulf states.
And so Mr. Ashraff demands recognition for his people. Employment too - the development of Trinco. William Pitt was right,ÉÉ security, political stability, economic development, and more concern for that ethnic group Mr. Ashraff represents.
1999 Budgetary impact on agriculture
An analytical view from the Low Country Products AssociationBy Mr. Clinton Rodrigo
Vice Chairman LCPA
We note that the 1999 Budget has given some incentives and concessions most noteably to the construction and financial sectors of business, perhaps for good reasons, but we also observe that for the second consecutive year the budget has overlooked the plantations most noteably the ailing Rubber Smallholder Sector. In this context it is relevant to mention that about 45% of the land area in this country under rubber is in the hands of the rubber smallholder. By virtue of this fact they no doubt must be given greater recognition.It is regrettable to note that this and other important areas of the food, agriculture and plantation sectors have not even been given any consideration despite representations and comments in the media subsequent to the previous years budget analysis done by this association. It is hence strongly recommended that suitable effective relief measures by way of duty concession subsidies infrastructure development and packages be granted to at least the worst affected areas of the plantation and agriculture sector as tax and investment relief. This should to some extent alleviate the prevailing scenario in the light of decrease in profits and or increasing losses due to world market fluctuation.
The incessant and insistent plea by the rubber smallholder who constitute about 170,000 growers located in the low grown elevation of generally below 1000 ft. above sea level to arrest forthwith the importation of raw latex from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand etc., in an effort at the multinational companies involved in the manufacture of rubber based products being compelled to buy their raw latex from the poor rubber smallholder, on a predetermined formula by government, basing same with advantageous benefits to the producer-supplier, and no loss to the purchasing factory owner. We faintly recall such an agreement at the time of signing the contract with Ansell/Dunlop - the largest rubber based private sector product factory owner to buy their raw latex from the local producer and if need be then from the JEDB and the SLSPC - the public sector management agencies as far back as we recall in the early 1980s. However if a compulsion cannot be enforced due to contractual provisions then to prevent importation of raw latex - then the government could and should impose heavy import duty taxation to act as a disincentive.
The recent creation of a Rubber Smallholder Development Authority (RSHDA) by the government although not dealt with in the text of the budget is a positive development and the significant incentives given to the seed producers and the animal husbandry sector is welcomed by the L.C.P.A.
The L.C.P.A. which has fought long, strong and hard for the creation of such a body similar to the TSHDA (Tea Smallholder Development Authority) is anxiously awaiting the implementation of this act and the operation of same without much delay in the implementation of the needed logistics at least in the Kalutara, Ratnapura and Kegalla districts being the high density rubber growing areas.
The situation that now prevails consequent to the above facts and situation analysis narrated has resulted in serious consequences to the ruber industry of Sri Lanka - and especially the poor rubber smallholder. They have been compelled to abandon their rubber lands stop replanting of tapped out rubber, cutting rubber trees and selling for firewood and those helpless small - smallholders in consequence to the above situations have reached a stage of financial bankruptcy. By this existing position on this matter the government in effect is unfortunately not alleviating the poverty problem, even now prevalent in this country, and in effect unconsciously, accelerating same - which no doubt is detrimental to the country's low income poor people.
By Nalin de Silva
The scientists of the country are attending the annual sessions of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, this week, at the University of Sri Jayawardhanapura. More than hundred research papers will be read in various fields, the guest speakers will deliver their lectures, the Presidential addresses in each section will be listened to by the scientists from other sections as well, few popular lectures will be attended by the general public and at the end of the week, the scientists will be looking forward to the next annual sessions.Are the western scientists in Sri Lanka, satisfied with the state of science in the country?
I am not a great admirer of the western standards. The western science is dominated by the western white males. It is they who set the standards for the rest, including the white females in the western world, to follow. The western scientists whether they are from Sri Lanka or Zimbabwe have to learn to think as the western white males do. Most of the scientists in Sri Lanka look towards the west in every aspect of their subjects and they would go to the extent of claiming that the standards in the scientific education in the country are high, meaning, of course, that we have been very good imitators of the west.
Very often science teachers in our universities speak with pride of their students who do well in their postgraduate and post doctoral work in the western universities. They also sometimes talk of the performance of our students at the graduate record examination, which students who want to enter the American universities for their graduate studies have to sit. However the question is what happens to all these students who have done so well?
Occasionally we hear of a scientist who has come on holiday from a university or research institute in the west talking to us how close he (very often he, and virtually no she) is to the Nobel prize. Every year we wait in anticipation for the Swedish Academy to announce his name in the Nobel list. After few years we learn that the person had only being close to a Nobel prize winner and he had only used some kind of 'logic' that runs as, if A is close to B, and B is close to C, then A is close to C.
It is a fact that none of our scientists working here or abroad has not only won a Nobel prize but has not been elected to the Royal Society of London. We do not have Sri Lankans who are Fellows of the Royal Society. No Sri Lankan can use the letters FRS after his or her name. After nearly hundred years of teaching western science we are no where close to the centre, intellectually and creatively, though we may be there physically. I am not trying to say that we should be guided by the western standards, but those who are proud of their Ph. D.s, M.R.C.P.s, F.R.C.S.s, M.I.C.E.s, F.I.E.E.s etc., have to be concerned with the FRS s and the Nobel prizes as well.
The so-called intellectuals in what is known as the third world live as prisoners in a cultural world dominated by the westerners. They dominate the rest through knowledge. The knowledge is created by them and our research is very often confined to some application of their general theories. It appears that, in general, people who are brought up in South Asian cultures are not good at creating general theories in western science.
Even in the case of diplomacy and management the rules are set by them. If somebody from the non-western world wants to succeed then he or she has to be guided by the rules. The system is such that there is room for the occasional protest, but that again has to be staged in a format laid down by them.
Sometimes we find our fellow country men/women being appointed to top positions in the international bodies. While admitting that those people are undoubtedly gifted, I must say that, in general, it is not only their talents, which have earned them these positions. Very often we find our parliamentarians going for various conferences, having being elected as chairpersons, claiming that they have brought honour to the country. But the chairs, to these worthies are elected, are nothing but musical chairs set out by the westerners to please, in rotation, their 'subjects' from the non- western world.
The westerners have studied the mentality of the intellectuals (I include the bureaucrats also in this category) in this part of the world. After all it is they who trained these people and they know the values that were imparted to the intellectuals in the non- western world, through the education. As long as the world is run according to the way they want, the westerners are prepared to give some managerial posts to those who come from the non western world. In fact they know that it pays off well asÐ
(i) it acts as a good safety valve and
(ii) the bureaucrats from one country in the so-called third world can be used in a different country or sometimes in the same country, to implement western 'solutions', giving the impression that the 'solutions' are worked out by the 'third world' itself. .
In Literature things are not very different. First it was the era of the Latin Americans, and then the Africans. Now all of a sudden the westerners have discovered that there are really fantastic writers in Asia. Those who have studied this phenomenon know that it is only a fantasy, but the rest believe that these writers are really fantastic. The writers would naturally want to see their books read and to achieve that end the books have to be sold. Who is in control of the world book market? Certainly not the M.D. Gunasena and Company or the Lake Hose Publishers.
It is not that the book has become a commodity product and that the prices and the sales of books are determined according to some objective economic laws the western economists have formulated. These laws themselves only mislead us creating the impression that there are some value free objective economic laws governing world trade including the book market. The books are valued by the western culture, and the western booksellers will make sure that the books written according to their 'standards' would get good reviews, good publicity, and finally the prizes. It is not only the profit motive that governs world trade. The individual company may be after profit, but on the whole the west is more interested in their cultural hegemony. The western economists will make sure that the cultural hegemony does not become a factor in their economic theories. Their theories, which are created relative to the western culture, have to hide the importance of cultural hegemony in world trade. It is not only the political economy that one has to study but the cultural economy as well.
Nobel prize for literature is not something that cannot be won by a Sri Lankan. Even within the 'objective' world of the mainstream western intellectuals there is some kind of relativism in the field of literature. Thus a Sri Lankan writer with some talent even today can win a Nobel prize, provided the work satisfies certain criteria determined by the western culture.
The western world, not satisfied with awarding an occasional Nobel prize to a novelist from the non-western world, in the last few years have been busy creating other prizes in literature mainly for those African and Asian writers who would satisfy the western cultural criteria. These criteria would include criticism of the traditional societies in Africa and Asia from a western point of view.
In the field of social sciences and humanities, including history and philosophy the relativism is lesser than in the case of literature and hence the game is little tougher. I have sometimes come across statements to the effect that Peradeniya university has produced scholars of international repute in fields such as sociology and history but not in economics. Surely it cannot be due to some extra brilliance of the sociologists and the historians vis-ˆ-vis the economists. Sri Lankan sociologists have won prizes and recognition while the economists have had to satisfy themselves with fellowships and conferences due to some other reason. Before we proceed further it has to be emphasised that international repute means a reputation in the west. The west is the world as far as recognition is concerned, but we do not seem to be conscious even of that fact.
When it comes to economics, creation of general theories is what is mostly required for recognition, where as in sociology, and more so in history, it is usually phenomena particular to a country or a region that are analysed in the background of the general theories created in the west. A historian is entrusted with the task of writing the history of Sri Lanka >from the perspective of the general European history, according to which the establishment of nation states is a recent phenomenon.
A sociologist 'analyses' the resurgence of nationalism in Sri Lanka from a so-called western secular point of view, which in essence is the European Christian point of view. The sociologist and the historian would be naturally recognised in the west, whereas an economist who studies the external trade patterns in Sri Lanka will not gain the same recognition even though he himself uses some economic theory created in the west. The economist does not achieve significance simply because his work is not that significant for the westerner. The intellectuals achieve significance in the eyes of the westerners, in genaral, only if their work is significant from the cultural and economic point of view the western world.
In the so-called hard sciences the situation is grimmer. Our scientists will not gain recognition by analysing the chemical constituents of the 'kuppemaniya' plant, using the methods and theories developed in the west, however much it is important to the west from western medicinal point of view. To the westerners kuppemaniya does not have the same social significance as the 'keppa mania' associated with the homeland concept. The chemists will have to be satisfied with a workshop in a five star hotel.
In general, prizes are awarded to non-westerners in any field from cinema to chemistry, not only on the merit of the work itself. Various other factors such as cultural and political, are taken in to consideration when awards are made. We should not pretend that these other factors are not in operation when announcements are made. Even among the westerners the Nobel prize or any other prize winner is not selected entirely on merit.
Even if the west wants to award a Nobel prize for physics to a Sri Lankan, or to elect a Sri Lankan Mathematician as a fellow of the Royal Society of London, they cannot do so, as not much creative work in these fields are done in general theory (or in high powered experiments), by the Sri Lankans. The same is applicable in the other fields as well. Also, the work done in the hard sciences, by the Sri Lankans, in general, is not of cultural and political significance to the westerners, say, as in the case of sociology, history, literature, cinema, human rights, diplomacy etc., and as such very little importance is attached to the 'hard scientist' in general. The Sri Lankans in the fields of hard science, I am afraid will have to be satisfied with the scholarships and fellowships awarded to them.
By D. B. Kappagoda
'Mavakage San-gramaya' the Sinhala version of Bertolt Brecht's play 'Mother Courage' which will go on board at the Lionel Wendt theatre on December 18 and 19.The producer of the play Somalatha Suba-singhe has a 15 players cast.
Vishvajith Gunasekera, Giriraj Kaushalya and Somalatha Subasinghe in "Mavakage Sangramaya'Somalatha wrote the Sinhala script using the spoken idiom making the play more down-to-earth. Somalatha plays the lead as 'Mother Courage'. In the 70s when Henry Jayasena staged the just version 'Diriya Mava Saha Age Daruwo' Soma-latha played the lead on alternate days with Manel Jayasena.
The forthcoming play was selected to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Bertolt Brecht who was born in 1898 in Ausbsburg (Ger-many). He lived at a time when Europe was engulfed in war. He witnessed two world wars. He was to be a doctor but opted to be a playwright.
His reaction to the horrors of war made him a Marxist. He thought it to be the only way to bring about social justice and economic upliftment in Germany.
Vishvajith Gunasekera and Somalatha SubasingheWhen Hitler came to power he left Germany and lived in excile. His reaction to the Nazi regime is reflected in his writings. He wrote his plays and poems devoid of dreamy situations. His plays are referred to as epics because they narrate stories in a tradition common to the East as well as West. His plays are not dreamy and they are not escapist. His plays are powerful that will suit the modern stage. The story in Mother Courage centres round a woman pushing her canteen cart doing a brisk sale among soldiers and people.
She did not like the war but she wanted to make money by selling her goods. This was the objective way of looking at life and men. By doing so he made the people think rationally. It was his way of educating the people. Most of the playwrights create illusions in their writings. The emotional feelings thus around will not make the people see reality.
Brecht made the people to look at life objectively. It was his answer to man's contradictory way of looking at each other. His comments on man's character at different situations can be seen in his numerous plays. At the end of the play we tend to question what are we doing.
Mother Courage tries to save her three children from the war front but they get killed. On hearing this sad news she continues with her trade because she has to live.
Speaking about her play Somalatha said, 'there is a similarity to what Brecht tried to convey. We faced similar incidents.'
'There is no ideal person or ideal situations in life. I selected this particular play because it contained Brecht's philosophy which is relevant to us.'
In the past Ger-many went through a period that lasted 30 years engulfed in religious wars. The rulers fought in the name of religion and the country was devastated by fighting in these wars.
Somalatha said, 'I was introduced to Brecht by Henry Jayasena. He gave me a good training in the theatre craft. His production was highly successful and the interest he created in me grew over the years.'
She added, 'my players are from my theatre group. They like to take part in this play which can be called a modern classic with dedication. It is an experience for my effort in bringing Sinhala theatre to the people'.
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