DISTORTION OF HISTORY BY TAMIL RACISTS
Mr. Sivakumaran, according to himself is "not a scholar in the field of sociology" but "only a literary columnist" (Midweek Review -15th September 2004). I do not know his standing with respect to history but he writes on history as well, sometimes quoting others sometimes with his comments. I had to comment very briefly on something, he had written on August 11, 2004, attributing it to him. Later he said that it was stated by Mr. C. V. Wigneswaran who is a justice of the Supreme Court. Then I had to say that he should be careful when quoting others without acknowledging. On the 8th of September he states that he is hurt for two reasons. He claims that firstly he does not quote others without acknowledging, and the second thing that hurts him is "to generalise all legal luminaries as persons using 'racial remarks'". He goes on to say that the particular justice is never racial in outlook and he asks me "how could one be a 'racist' if one speaks on behalf of his race just as much as the thinker Nalin de Silva speaks on behalf of the 'Sinhala consciousness". Then he declares the following. "I am against 'mono-racism' of any community, since we are all of the same ethnic groups with different toungues in a multi-cultural and multilingual society. Believe it or not, I love the enlightened Sinhalayas just as much I love Thamilians. And also the Islamites and other communities. True."
It may be true and I am inclined to believe. Mr. Sivakumaran loves Tamils, Islamites and others in general. However he loves the enlightened Sinhalas. What about the other Sinhalas? Does he love them or not? Now who is an enlightened person? Is there an "objective" definition of an "enlightened" person? All definitions are the works of human beings, and they are relative. People tend to use words as if they have absolute meanings and occasionally it is in order to remind ourselves that the words have relative meanings, and that they have to be very often taken in together with other words. Now according to the way I use the word "enlightened" I am not an enlightened person. An enlightened person for me is one who is a product of western Christian modernity that commenced with the "renaissance" in the fifteenth century and gained grounds with the "enlightenment" in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I do not subscribe to the logic and the chinthanaya of western Christian modernity, and for sometime I have been fighting this kind of "enlightenment". As far as I am concerned I am only an "upasaka", and not a thinker. In my view thinking too much takes one away from attaining Nibbana. In any event Mr. Sivakumaran loves the Tamils "enlightened", as well as, shall we say, not so "enlightened", while loving the "enlightened" Sinhalas. In Sinhala there is a saying that goes as "kata boru kivvath diva boru kiyanne nehe" (even if the mouth lies the tongue does not lie).
This selfsame Mr. Sivakumaran (he is not quoting anybody else) has referred to Dr. Susantha Goonethilake as somebody who "is now preoccupied with a seemingly anti-Thamil stance" (15th September 2004). Of course Mr. Sivakumaran would say he is only talking of a seemingly anti -Thamil stance and not of an anti-Thamil stance. Whether seemingly or not what is an anti -Tamil stance? First define an anti-Tamil stance and then we can decide whether it is seemingly or not. Is pro Sinhala equivalent to anti Tamil? Or is speaking truth as one sees it anti-Tamil? Of course truth is also relative, and we would come to that later when we analyse the history as presented by Mr. Sivakumaran quoting others or by himself.
Mr. Sivakumaran has also quoted one K. Gunaraja who gives "interesting information on hitherto unknown details about Kalooran" a poet (July 28, 2004). This is what Mr. Gunaraja has to say on Kalooran the poet. " The poet has had close contact with JVP comrades during the year 1978 and he was greatly disappointed and dissatisfied with their activities. He symbolizes Karl Marx, Lenin and Castro only to convey that he was much interested in communist philosophy and that he lost faith in it due to chauvinistic activities of the so-called comrades." Now this a quotation by Gunaraja on Kalooran. It is Kalooran who refers to the chauvinistic activities of the comrades meaning the JVP activists and not Marx, Lenin and Castro, though it is not very clear. We will assume that Marx and Company were not Chauvinists. Now this is not a statement by Mr. Sivakumaran. However he has no objection to Gunaraja writing that Kalooran had lost faith in communist philosophy due to the chauvinistic activities of the so-called comrades, meaning the JVP activists. When and how did the JVP activists become chauvinistic? Mr. Sivakumaran does not find fault with Gunaraja or Kalooran for referring to the JVP activists as chauvinists. Mr.Sivakumaran does not say "how could one be a 'chauvinist' if one speaks on behalf of his race just as much as the thinker Nalin de Silva speaks on behalf of the 'Sinhala consciousness'". It is assumed in this society as a result of the west and the western sponsored NGOs that only the Sinhalas could be "racists" and "chauvinists". If a Sinhala or a party predominantly of Sinhalas is referred to as a 'racist' or 'a chauvinist" no questions are asked, but if a Tamil is referred to as racist, then there are questions and questions to be answered. It is not only the west that has double standards. People such as Mr. Sivakumaran are not inferior to the westerners in that respect. They try to give the impression that they are "objective", impartial, loving all irrespective of race, religion etc., but reading between the lines one could see what they mean by their statements.
In any event I am neither thinker nor that I speak on behalf the "Sinhala Consciousness". Is it the Jathika Chinthanaya that Mr. Sivakumaran has in mind? Chinthanaya is not consciousness and I am not responsible for the words used by the others. I am propagating the concept of chinthanaya which I cannot translate into English and I am of the view that the western Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya has been forced on us by the west.
Mr. Sivakumaran claims that he acknowledged Mr. C. V. Wigneswaran in his column on the 11th of August 2004. It is true that Mr. Sivakumaran has "Justice C. V. Wigneswaran's observations" as a subtitle, though I am of the view that the observations should have been attributed to Mr. Wigneswaran and not to Justice Wigneswaran. However, Mr. Sivakumaran has other subtitles as well. There were three other subtitles namely, The worship of Nagas, Sinhala, and News the Colombo media missed. My comment was on an item that was under the subtitle "The worship of Nagas". This particular item could have been an observation by Mr. Wigneswaran but then the statement "one of the women drivers in London Transport was a Lankan Thamilian" that was stated under the subtitle "News the Colombo media missed" also could have been attributed to him in support of the history that he and the Tamil racists try to create. Mr. Sivakumaran does not say where the statements by Mr. Wigneswaran end and where his observations commence. Mr. Sivakumaran could go on common sense and other yardsticks to distinguish between Mr. Wigneswaran's and his comments, but he should have been specific.
I will give another example for being not clear when Mr. Sivakumaran quoting others. On the 18th of August, Mr. Sivakumaran quotes one Dr. S. Thiyagarajah under the subtitle Buddhism and ancient Thamilians. Mr. Sivakumaran has quotation marks at the beginning but he does not close them. Then at the end of that particular section Mr. Sivakumaran says "More from Dr. S. Thiyagarajah's article later". The missing of the quotation marks at the end may be a printing error, but how are we to know? Are we to assume that what appears in between the quotation marks and the last sentence in that section are statements by Dr. S. Thiyagarajah? If so Dr. Thiyagarajah has been inconsistent in the space of two paragraphs. Otherwise we could have said the first paragraph in that section is by Dr. Thiyagarajah and the rest is by Mr. Sivakumaran and left the matter at that.
In the first paragraph that begins with the quotation marks apparently Dr. Thiyagarajah has said the following. "During the age of Gauthama Buddha, there was no religion as Hinduism. In northern India, there was the vedic religion (Brahmanism). In Southern India there was vaishnarism and 'Saivaism. Only in the 16th century, all these religions combined and came to be known as Hinduism. In northern India, Jainism and aasweevakaism were also in existence." The first paragraph ends there without informing us whether the quotation ends there or not. Then the next paragraph begins with the following classic statement. "Siddhartha who was born a Hindu abhorred caste distinction, slaughter on the altar, eating flesh or meat etc. He therefore propagated reformed vedism".
If there was no religion as Hinduism during the "age of Gauthama Buddha", the prince Siddhartha could have been born a Hindu, if we were to assume that there was a religion as Hinduism when the prince was born, but soon after he became Buddha, Hinduism disappeared. However, it appears that Dr. Thiyagarajah has said that "only in the 16th century, all these religions combined and came to be known as Hinduism". Unless there was another form of Hinduism at the time of the birth of Prince Siddhartha and in the sixteenth century Hinduism had a reincarnation, it is difficult to reconcile these statements if they were made by the same person Dr. Thiyagarajah. However, as stated above if it is Mr. Sivakumaran who makes the latter statement on the prince being born as a Hindu we do not have to worry about it as two persons are not debarred from making statements, one contradicting the other.
However, when either Mr. Sivakumaran or Dr. Thiyagarajah claims that the Buddha propagated reformed vedism one cannot agree. It is somewhat like saying that Quantum Mechanics is a reformed Newtonian Mechanics. Though there may be similarities in certain aspects Quantum mechanics is based on an entirely different logic that the west still finds it difficult to understand, more than hundred years after the concept of quantum was formulated. Though there may be similarities between Veda and Buddha Dhamma they are based on two different epistemologies and ontologies. I do not wish to go into details but suffice is to mention of anicca and anathma in Buddha Dhamma and to say that vedic people look for vimukthi in "amara" or non death while for Buddhists "vimukthi" is "associated" with "unbornness".
(To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
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