TAMIL SUPREMACY AND OBAMAS - II
Before we proceed further it may be useful to define an Obama following the western system of knowledge that is best exemplified by western Mathematics though the formalism of the German Mathematician Hilbert has been demolished ironically by a Jewish Mathematician by the name of Gödel. It can be said that after Quantum Physics and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems the western system of knowledge collapsed, long before the present economic crisis and shortly before the recession in the thirties. Western Christian modernity is still going on, albeit limping, due to the momentum that it has acquired in more than four hundred years, and even without the second law of motion which of course is not applicable here, it is easy to predict that the system will come to a standstill if it does not crash violently before that.
An Obama is a nobody originally, who becomes a somebody, and later elevated to the status of leader of a state. However, this definition like the other definitions depends on further definitions, which is a weakness of the western system which is a linear system unlike the Sinhala Buddhist system which is circular. Now nobody or somebody is not an absolute concept and one becomes a somebody relative to a culture. For example Arundati Roy whose name appears in the local press very often these days is somebody among the so called educated people belonging to a certain culture. She became a somebody overnight after the publication of God of Small Things, and recognized by the western world. Her recognition by the western world is due to the same reason that Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars this year. One does not have to read or watch these works to infer that the western world recognised these works because they exposed, criticised some aspects of Indian culture. Of course, one can come out with thousand apologies or so called postmodernist readings claiming them to be great works of art but we have enough experience with the western system to read between the lines of writings of postmodernist readings. Roy's unsubstantiated comments on a war and killing of innocent people in Vanni expose her further not as a goddess of the Hindu Pantheon but as a woman of small things, who serves her masters in the west. She may sometimes take a stand left of the centre making her further a woman of small things. This somebody unless she substantiates what she says has to be ignored as these people are used by the western world to criticise whom they do not like. In fact she was made a somebody for that purpose. As far as the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists are concerned she is nobody, and nobody recognises the uttering of a nobody. Praising of somebody in Asia or Africa by the western world is very often a clear indication that the body is being used by them.
One becomes a somebody relevant to a certain culture and not in a void in the abstract. There is no absolute somebody or an absolute nobody. Einstein would have been a somebody in the USA after he migrated there but if he were to come and live with the Veddas, he would have been a nobody there unless he had become a specialist in bow and arrow. Thus we should not forget the background culture before we call a person somebody or a nobody. The parents of D. S. Senanayake would have been somebody in the Sinhala Buddhist community. D. S. Senanayake was a nobody with respect to the western Christian modernity but through hard work of adapting to the western culture was able to become a somebody in that culture and an Obama later. Now S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was a somebody in the western Christian modernity but was nobody in the Sinhala Buddhist culture in Siyane Korale though the people around Horagolla would have respected him as the son of the Gate Muddaliyar. However, through hard work as a politician as well as with an insight into the politics he became a somebody and an Obama later. There may be others who would prefer to call S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike an anti Obama, defining anti Obama as a person who becomes the leader of state after becoming somebody in a culture other than the western culture.
President Mahinda Rajapakse is not an Obama as he has been somebody with respect to the Sinhala Buddhist culture from the very beginning. Being a Rajapakse from Medamulana he was destined to become a somebody whether he became a lawyer, politician or not. Now the anti Sinhala Buddhists (there are Sinhala Buddhists among anti Sinhala Buddhists) complain that a non Sinhala Buddhist cannot become the President of Sri Lanka. In other words they claim that a non Sinhala Buddhist cannot become an Obama in Sri Lanka. Now before a non Sinhala Buddhist becomes an Obama he has to be a somebody in the Sinhala Buddhist culture. Of course, at this point some of these non Sinhala Buddhists, especially people such as English speaking privileged Christians (the ordinary Christians do not entertain such ideas) who were close (not necessarily physically) to the governing elite before 1956, would say that is what meant by Sinhala supremacy. Why should one need to be a somebody in Sinhala Buddhist culture for him to become the President of the country? It has a simple answer though in the form of a similar question? (Answering questions by asking questions is also in the Sinhala Buddhist culture and even Buddha had resorted to this method. I can imagine a Pundit wanting to find out whether Buddha was a Sinhala Buddhist!) Could one become the President of USA without being somebody in the White American Christian culture? If one does not know the answer to that question one could ask Obama, meaning of course the original Obama.
The original Obama was humble enough to accept that the White American Christian culture was the significant, in fact the dominant, culture in the USA. He did not claim that the Black Muslim culture is being discriminated and did not go round the country asking for devolution of power to the Blacks in the southern states. Unfortunately in Sri Lanka there are some non Sinhala Buddhists, and especially those who enjoyed privileges up to 1956 who still think that the Sinhala Buddhist Culture is not the significant culture in the country. There are some Sinhala Christians who would like to go back to the pre 1956 period where the significant culture in Sri Lanka was the British Anglican culture. In fact the so called revolution in 1956 was based on displacing the British Anglican Culture from the dominant status it occupied and making the Sinhala Buddhist culture the significant culture in Sri Lanka. It was only a step in the direction of achieving independence from the western Christian modernity and associated colonialism in political, economical and cultural spheres, which commenced in 1506 and continued after 1815. Most of the Burghers who did not want this change decided to migrate to Australia and other places where the British Anglican culture was the dominant culture. In 1956 USA was virtually a non entity among the elite in Sri Lanka, and it was in the mid sixties that USA gained "recognition" among the Sri Lankan elite.
Though the Burghers migrated to Australia the Tamils except for a minority among them did not want to migrate as they continued to think as the super race destined to become the ruling race in Sri Lanka. This is an idea that had been driven into the heads of the elite English speaking Tamils, and Tamil supremacy beginning with the establishment of the Legislative Assembly has been in Sri Lankan politics among the English educated Tamils initially and then among other educated Tamils as well. It is this supremacy that would not allow the Tamils to accept Sinhala Buddhist culture as the significant culture in Sri Lanka. Instead they go on adding Myths on Sri Lankan history to "prove" that Sinhala Buddhist culture is not the significant culture in the country.
As said before if Obama the original went round USA demanding that American white supremacy devolve power to the blacks he would not have been the Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. However, the Tamil racists as well as some Christians among the Sinhalas not to mention the Marxists who can only hope to become bonus MPs want the Sinhala Buddhists to elect those who deny the Sinhala Buddhist culture its due place in the country as Presidents. These Tamils and Christians would interpret any privileges they lost after 1956 as injustices forgetting that while enjoying those privileges they had done injustices to the Sinhala people who built a unique culture in the country that is found nowhere in the world. The Christian elite last attempted to reverse the 1956 process directly in 1962 when they attempted to oust the government of Mrs. Bandaranaike by a coup carried out by some elite lay leaders of Christian and Catholic community. Since then they have been supporting the Tamil separatist movement not because they loved the Tamils, but since they wanted to undermine the Sinhala Buddhists indirectly hiding behind Tamil racism.
Though the Sinhala Buddhists have not elected a non Sinhala Buddhist as the President of the country they have elected so many non Sinhala Buddhists as MPs, some of whom had gone to become ministers, Mayors etc. How many non Sinhala Buddhist electorates have elected Sinhala Buddhists as MPs? The Sinhala Buddhists will elect a non Sinhala Buddhist as the President the day an Obama appears in the Tamil political spectrum. Unfortunately the Tamils cannot produce an Obama as long as they practice Tamil supremacy in politics, economics and culture.
Professor Nalin de Silva
>
>
>