Midweek Review

‘Race’ and racism

Published

5 years ago

2021/05/26

By Prof. Charles Sarvan

The following is an abridged version of a longer essay: “essay” in the earlier meaning of “to attempt”. Argument generates the heat of emotion but rarely the light of understanding – I attempt merely to share some perspectives on race and racism.

The signifier “unicorn” refers to a non-existent animal. Similarly, “race” seems to be a signifier without a signified. But we are loose in our use of language. We speak of colonialism and colonies in instances where it was imperialism and imperial territories. We talk of “black” (non-white) and “white” people though there are neither “white” nor “black” people. The paper on which we write is white but not the people classified as “white”: Jeffrey Boakye (‘Black Listed’) offers “pinkish beige”. But the dominant West has chosen “white” (associated with cleanliness and purity), and the rest of the world has followed suit through docility or simple laziness. Besides, we have a penchant for sharp dichotomy: the guilty and the innocent, good and bad, etc. Shades in between, nuance and complexity, are mentally taxing and troubling. “The first problem with being black is that it is literally not accurate.” No matter how dark my skin is, it is not black (Boakye). Often in the Western press “race” means a non-white skin-pigmentation. In an article written many years ago, I suggested, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that a certain kind of racism be more precisely termed “Colourism”.

It’s argued that prior to the 1600s and the enslavement of Africans, white people did not see themselves as belonging to a ‘race’. In simple terms, the slaves weren’t Christian and, therefore, could be enslaved. But, as the slaves became Christian, another justification was needed, and it was found in whiteness. But language is conventional rather than individual, so though I am careful to distinguish between colonialism and imperialism; though I refer to the autochthonous as “Native Americans” and not as “Indians”, I find myself writing of “black” and “white” people; sometimes, of “people of colour”.

Human race

Those who believe in race are unable to agree on the number of races presently existing: it ranges from one (the human race) to about seventy. Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University in his The Invention of the Jewish People, first published in Hebrew for a Jewish readership (see, Sarvan, ‘Groundviews’, 07 March 2013), states that there is no biological basis for Jewishness, and that belief in a Jewish race is nothing but “racist pseudoscience”. Race is a social myth and not a scientific fact but “Zionist pedagogy produced generations who believed wholeheartedly in the ethnic uniqueness of their nation”. Another work by Professor Sand has the provocative title, ‘How I Stopped Being a Jew’. Opposition to Zionist policy and practice, particularly against the Palestinians, is deliberately and incorrectly besmirched as racism, more precisely, as anti-Semitism. But there is no Semitic race (Sand). What prevails is but ethno-religious nationalism. Israel today is made ugly by “brutal racism” and a crying failure to take others into consideration (Sand). Israel defines itself as a Jewish state but is unable to define who a Jew is: there is no Jewish DNA (Sand). Professor Sand asserts that he can’t be free unless others are also free. “My own place is among those who try to discern and root out, or at least reduce, the excessive injustices of the here-and-now”.

Ethnicity

Yet another synonym suggested for discredited ‘race’ is ‘ethnicity’. However, the latter term can testify to the resilience and mutability of racism, and the disguises it can adopt. Ethnicity is an aspect of relations between groups where at least one party sees itself as being culturally distinctive, if not unique. This sense of difference influences the perception and treatment of others. Though there are similarities and differences, the former are glossed over, and much made of difference. However, the boundary delimited by one cultural criterion – system of government, language, religion, social customs and practices – does not coincide with those established by other criteria. In short, “ethnicity” may be a Trojan horse bringing back disgraced racism. Ethnicity is a term to be used after careful thought. The term culture can now denote something essential, now something acquired; now something bounded, now something without boundaries; now something experienced, now something ascribed. Race as culture is only biological race in polite language.

Finally, it’s a matter of defining terms and clarifying concepts. Take for example, the word “peace”: Is it peace for the conquerors only? Is peace merely the negative absence of overt war or the positive presence of harmony for all citizens which, in turn, is the product of elements such as justice and a sense of security? (Justice cannot be equated with Law because there can be unjust, discriminatory, laws.)

Nationalism

As with ethnicity, so it is with nationalism. It has been said that a patriot is one who loves his own while a nationalist hates all others. ‘Nationalist’ can be but a euphemism for ‘racist’: some nationalists claim that only members of their group constitute the real and authentic nation. Racists reject a nationality based on citizenship. Some Sri Lankans living abroad claim, often receive and enjoy, legal nationality but vehemently and violently deny it to other groups in Sri Lanka: there, they affirm, nationality is based not on citizenship but on ‘race’.

Though race does not exist, racism certainly does – and flourishes. Race is not the father of racism but its child (Ta-Nehisi Coates, ‘Between the World and Me’). It’s those who are race-minded, who think and react in terms of race: see Flannery O’Connor’s short story, ‘The Artificial Nigger’. As Professor Amy Chua notes in ‘Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations’, the majority projects itself as the norm; others are deviations and subordinate. “Sri Lanka” means for many “Sinhalese Buddhist”, and secondly Sinhalese Christians. Tamils, Muslims and others are beyond the including circle. (The Buddhist scholar, Dr. K. S. Palihakkara, using figurative language, sadly noted: Soon after the death of the Enlightened One, the beautiful clearing he had made was overrun by the surrounding jungle, and now “almost all Buddhists practise more of Hinduism than Buddhism: ‘Buddhism Sans Myths & Miracles’, Stamford Lake Publications, Pannipitiya, 109. If this is so, it obviates the question whether there are Sinhalese Hindus: Buddhists are also Hindu.)

Racism can strengthen the racial consciousness of a minority. While identity is neither single nor simple but multiple and complex, racism and ‘colourism’ focus on just one aspect: ‘race’ or skin-colour. I quote from an earlier article of mine:

“There was a time when most, if not all in the Island, irrespective of language and religion, equally took a measure of pride and encouragement from ancient achievement, temple and lake; an equal measure of happiness in being “Ceylonese”; a time when Tamils described themselves as Ceylonese and not (as some Tamils tend to do now) as “Sri Lankan Tamil”. When in 1915, D. S. Senanayake (later the first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon) and his brother, F. R. Senanayake, were jailed by the British authorities, Tamil Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan went to England to plead their case. On his successful return, jubilant crowds placed him in a carriage, detached the horses, and dragged the carriage themselves. He was not seen as a Tamil who had helped free a Sinhalese, but as a Ceylonese helping a fellow Ceylonese… In 1925-6, when Bandaranayake, as leader of the Progressive National Party, set out the case for a federal political structure for Sri Lanka, he received no support for it from the Tamils (K M De Silva). In 1952, the Kankesuntharai parliamentary seat was contested by Chelvanayagam, as a member of the Federal Party. He was comfortably defeated by a UNP candidate.”

Racism can erase class solidarity: I know individuals who were socialists but later in life proudly succumbed to racism. Even those who have chosen to live outside the Island, while asking for and enjoying equality in their new home, nourish racism in the Island. In the Bible, cruel and persecutory Saul changed dramatically, and became saintly Paul. But with politics, it’s a case of Pauls becoming Sauls, racist and corrupt: life can be corrupting.

‘We can’t breathe freely’

The trampling of the rights of others is often justified by a proclaimed sense of victimhood and vulnerability: “We are victims.” “We attempt only to balance the scales of justice.” “Our identity and survival are in danger.” The last is said even by an overwhelming majority in full control of the state and its apparatus. The struggle for equality by a minority group is deliberately miscast as an attempt at domination, and brutally suppressed: fear, imagined or real, can breed cruelty. George Floyd’s dying words (May, 2020), “I can’t breathe!” have resonated internationally. Oppressed minority groups may gasp: “We can’t breathe freely!”

Inter-racial social and personal friendships do not alter fundamentals, though they are touted as evidence of the speaker being above racism. It doesn’t help if you are against injustice but do nothing at all about it (Henry Thoreau, essay ‘On Civil Disobedience’). Perhaps, the ruling elite in Sri Lanka, including military officers, have Tamil associates, if not friends: “I have a Tamil friend, therefore I am not a racist.”

Racism is also more powerful than religious affiliation: white Christians in the USA joined their fellow whites in enslaving or lynching black Christians. If I’m not mistaken, Sinhalese Christians primarily don’t identify with Tamil Christians but with Sinhalese Buddhists. A sacred text in one hand can inflict more harm than the knife or burning torch in the other. Religion has often willingly lent itself to political and racist projects. Those capable of injustice and cruelty (irrespective of religion), transform those evils into the noble and, most importantly, the holy: sacred, therefore obligatory. Golda Meir asserted that Israel was brought into existence in order to fulfil God’s wish. Similarly, “the Buddha chose Lanka and us. Therefore, we have no choice but to dominate”: not, “Blame me on History” but “Blame me on the Divine”!

For Sri Lankan readers, the contradictions inherent in racism are illustrated by Anagarika Dharmapala .The Buddhism he ‘exported’ was a world religion; broad and inclusive; lofty and noble, but within Lanka, Dharmapala’s Buddhism was narrow and racist. As Patrick Grant writes (‘Buddhism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka), Dharmapala lauded Buddhist tolerance and inclusion but believed in Sinhalese hegemony. He preached that Buddhism was universal, breaking down boundaries and hierarchies of race, colour, caste, kinship but promoted a racist Sinhalese-Buddhist fundamentalism, one which even excluded Sinhalese Christians. He urged young Sinhalese to be scientific but credited the myth of the ‘Mahavamsa’ with literal truth (Grant). Evidently, the Anagarika was not troubled by cognitive dissonance. The “dreams” of some can become terrible and tragic “nightmare” to others. The Anagarika was an irredentist who wanted to recover a paradise that had never existed. In his “dream”, Lanka under King Dutugemmunu was a paradise: The Sinhalese people lived a joyously cheerful life in those bygone times … the streets were crowded day and night by throngs of pilgrims … The atmosphere was saturated with the fragrance of sweet-smelling flowers and delicate perfumes There were “no slaughter houses, no pawnshops, no brothels, no prisons and law Courts and no arrack taverns and opium dens”: see, Ananda Guruge: ‘Return to Righteousness’.

‘Worse than War’

Professor Daniel Goldhagen (Harvard University) sees racism leading to something much ‘Worse Than War’ (eponymous) which he terms eliminationism, racism at its very worst – the transformation, repression, expulsion or extermination of a group. It’s implemented “only when the perpetrators are confident of success, owing to the overwhelming superior force they can unleash against defenceless people” who, though they are fellow countrymen, are seen as foreigners and inferior. The enemy is pursued and killed with veritable “glee”. “They routinely talk to them, taunt them, conveying to them their belief in their deeds’ rightness and justice, and their joy in performing them”. Multiple acts of savagery not only precede and accompany but occur after the death of the victims. Bodies are stripped naked, mutilated and displayed to men, women and even children. The perpetrators express joy, gloat and boast. “They mock the victims and celebrate their death”. Not only dead bodies but places of worship and cemeteries are deliberately desecrated. The rape of women is part of the display of power, intended to humiliate and visit shame, not only on the victims but collectively, on the group.

Eliminationists view their victims as “having inflicted great injury upon them and their society”. Eliminationist action is justified as being essentially retributive and, secondly, preventive of (imagined) future attack. The victims, and not the perpetrators, are seen as the “problem”: They are the cause. They are to blame. They exist. Horrible and horrifying cruelty is seen as obligatory, laudable, even as “sacred”. The aim of eliminationism is to homogenize society, to usher in some dreamed-of pure state.

Language and visual images conveyed in talk and discussion, newspapers and radio spread the notion that an entire group of people are subhuman and dangerous. Therefore, any study of eliminationism that “fails to give primacy to language and imagery” denies the fundamental reality of how people are cognitively, psychologically and emotionally prepared. Language is the soil that contains the seeds of action. Such eliminationist attacks will not occur if the community in general disapproved, was shocked or expressed revulsion and distaste: there’s general complicity. Intellectuals, artists, university professors, academics, journalists are no different from the illiterate and the lowest in society. Indeed, having status and influence, they are far worse and more culpable.

Soldiers, the paramilitary and policemen play a major role in elminationism. They constitute “pre-existing institutions of violence”, and are either “the lead killing institution or in a critical support role”. During a period of conflict, other countries have difficulty knowing what is happening, and this gives licence to the military to act as it pleases. Soldiers often feel rage because of the danger they face, and because “their comrades, loved ones and people” have been killed, suffered injury or harm. They inhabit a brutalizing and brutalized world.

Detention camps set up by the government and its soldiers are “a spatial, social and moral netherworld” into which the perpetrators herd “a weakened, overwhelmed, unthreatening, and pliant population, including children” . “A principal operational purpose of camp systems is degrading the victims, to make them understand their subjugated, demeaned, and right-less state. Camps are “cruelty’s quintessential sites” and perpetrators create them in a manner guaranteeing the victims will suffer cruelty “regularly, daily and nightly”.

Changing perspective completely, one can argue that racism is inherent and makes us the most dangerous of all animals. We have made the planet and everything on it our prey (‘The Life of Pi’). There’s something fundamentally flawed in our human makeup. Jacques Lacan wrote of the mirror-stage in the development of a human being when it realizes that the image seen in the mirror is she, herself: that there is me here. The German word fremdeln refers to a behavioural pattern in the development of infants in which a child has a mistrust, dislike or fear of strangers. In a fundamental, biological, sense there is “Me” and everyone else is the “Other”. Is racism the result of the individual, rather than being single, seeing herself as belonging to a group, separate from, if not opposed to, other groups formed by other individuals? Does racism go back to our distant past when, armed with stones and sticks, we fought other animals and other groups of humans for our very survival? Professor Harari writes (‘Sapiens’) that tolerance is not a human characteristic, and a small difference in skin-colour, language or religion has been enough to prompt one group of Sapiens to set about exterminating another group. Biological distinctions between different groups of Homo sapiens are negligible yet figments of imagination are transformed into cruel and very real social structures and practice.

Although not based on fact and science, ‘race’ exists powerfully. ‘Race’ exists – for those who believe it exists. To the Stoics, the divine spark in human beings was reason, and Voltaire believed that though doubt is uncomfortable, and certainty can lead to criminality, progress can be made by the use of reason. To my limited knowledge, Buddhism is a philosophy; a moral and ethical code. But a moral position is based on reason. What has struck me about Buddhist doctrine is its beautiful reasonableness (reason + able): no wonder most follow the Buddhist religion and not Buddhist doctrine. Empathy too is needed to combat racism. And a pre-requisite of empathy is a modicum of imagination; the ability to “put oneself in the shoes of another”. Bu this imagination and empathy are lacking – even in academics teaching lofty, compassionate, literary texts.

Racism being irrational, can it be deconstructed by reason? After all, racists first form attitudes and beliefs, and then set about finding justification. Heraclitus famously said, “All is flux”, and the Buddha made transience one of his most important perceptions. But though some things change, some unfortunately don’t. Professor Harari observes that confronting racists with facts, evidence and statistics has no effect because their beliefs are not based on reason.

Professor John Gray argues (‘The Silence of Animals’’) that the idea that history is a story of increasing rationality, decency and ethical progress is a myth.

Lines from a once-popular song: “Oh when will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?” The question is really a sad exclamation. However, as Toni Morrison pointed out,, the more hopeless a just struggle, the greater the honour in not giving up. Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote that she no longer talks to white people about “colourism” because it’s futile. The speech-act theory is associated with J. L. Austin but it can be argued that all speech and writing are acts, and Reni Eddo-Lodge in saying she won’t talk does precisely that. Violence in any form, as Sartre noted, is the failure of human beings to resolve issues without resorting to the crudity of force. Reason and language are what we have to combat racism, and the peaceful existence of several multi-ethnic, multicultural countries attest to the fact “otherness” need not necessarily lead to conflict. Franz Boas insisted on the basic unity of humankind. There was no natural hierarchy of races, cultures or languages. He acknowledged that rejecting traditional beliefs and stories “in order to follow the trail of truth is a very severe struggle”. Boas used the German word “Herzenbildung”, meaning the training of one’s heart to see the humanity of another.

Racists will argue that racism is natural. But doesn’t “civilized” also mean the overcoming of our negative impulses and drives? As I wrote to Martin Jacques, author of ‘The Global Hierarchy of Race’: “Individuals like you have helped to make people confront their prejudices; to increase awareness, and so change attitudes and conduct. Our globe, planet Earth, rotates on its own but social change is the result only of human endeavour and action.”

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Midweek Review

A question of national pride

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/11

Sahan Weerasooriya

Marshal of the Air Force Roshan Goonetileke speaking with Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka. Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda is in the middle (pic by Nishan S. Priyantha)

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who also holds the Finance and Defence portfolios, caused controversy last year when the Defence Ministry announced that he wouldn’t attend the National Victory Day event. Angry public reactions over social media compelled the President to change his decision. He attended the event. Whatever his past and for what he stood for as the President and the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, Dissanayake cannot, under any circumstances, shirk his responsibilities. The next National Victory Day event is scheduled in mid-May. The event coincides with the day, May 18, when the entire country was brought back under government control and the Army put a bullet through Prabhakaran’s head as he hid in the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, on the following day. The government also forgot the massive de-mining operations undertaken by the military to pave the way for the resettlement of people, rehabilitation of nearly 12,000 terrorists, and maintaining UN troop commitments, even during the war.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The majestic presence of Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda and Marshal of the Air Force Roshan Goonetileke, though now more than 16 years after that historic victory, represented the war-winning armed forces at the 78 Independence Day celebrations. Their attendance reminded the country of Sri Lanka’s greatest post-independence accomplishment, the annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009.

Among the other veterans at the Independence Square event was General Shavendra Silva, the wartime General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the celebrated 58 Division. The 58 Division played a crucial role in the overall Vanni campaign that brought the LTTE down to its knees.

The 55 (GOC Maj. Gen. Kamal Gunaratne) and 53 Divisions (GOC Brig. Prasanna Silva) that had been deployed in the Jaffna peninsula, as well as newly raised formations 57 Division (GOC Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias), 58 Division and 59 Division (Brig. Nandana Udawatta), obliterated the LTTE.

Chagie Gallage, Fonseka’s first choice to command the 58 Division (former Task Force 1) following his exploits in the East, but had to leave the battlefield due to health issues then, rejoined the Vanni campaign at a decisive stage. Please forgive the writer for his inability to mention all those who gave resolute leadership on the ground due to limitations of space. The LTTE that genuinely believed in its battlefield invincibility was crushed within two years and 10 months. Of the famed ex-military leadership, Fonseka was the only one with no shame to publicly declare support for ‘Aragalaya,’ forgetting key personalities in the Rajapaksa government who helped him along the way to crush the Tigers, especially after the attempt on his life by a female LTTE suicide bomber, inside the Army Headquarters, when he had to direct all military operations from Colombo. And he went to the extent of addressing US- and India-backed protesters before they stormed President’s House on the afternoon of July 9, 2022. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, wartime Defence Secretary, whose contribution can never be compared with any other, had to flee Janadhipathi Mandiyara and take refuge aboard SLNS Gajabahu, formerly of the US Coast Guard. The same sinister mob earlier ousted him from his private residence, at Mirihana, that he occupied previously without being a burden to the state. It was only after the attack on his private residence on March 31, 2022, that he came to reside in the official residence, the President’s House.

The presence of Fonseka, Karannagoda and Goonetileke at the Independence Day commemoration somewhat compensated for the pathetic failure on the part of the government to declare, during the parade, even by way of a few words, the armed forces historic triumph over the LTTE against predictions by many a self- proclaimed expert to the contrary. That treacherous and disgraceful decision brought shame on the government. Social media relentlessly attacked the government. To make matters worse, the elite Commandos and Special Forces were praised for their role in the post-Cyclone Ditwah situation. The Special Boat Squadron (SBS) and Rapid Action Boat Squadron (RABS), too, were appreciated for their interventions during the post-cyclone period.

The shocking deliberate omission underscored the pathetic nature of the powers that be at a time the country is in a flux. If Cyclone Ditwah hadn’t devastated Sri Lanka, the government probably may not have anything else to say about the elite fighting formations.

The government also left out the main battle tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, tank recovery vehicles and various types of artillery, as well as the multi barrel rocket launchers (MBRLs). The absence of Sri Lanka’s precious firepower on Independence Day shocked the country. The government owes an explanation. Lt. Gen. Lasantha Rodrigo of the Artillery is the 25th Commander of the Army. How did the Commander of the Army feel about the decision to leave the armour and artillery out of the parade?

The combined firepower of armour and artillery caused havoc on the enemy, thanks to deep penetration units that infiltrated behind enemy lines giving precise intelligence on where and what to hit.

The LTTE suffered devastating losses in coordinated attacks mounted during both offensive and defensive action, both in the northern and eastern theatres. The current dispensation would never be able to comprehend the gradual enhancement of armour and artillery firepower over the years to meet the growing LTTE threat. The MBRLs were a game changer. President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s government introduced the MBRLs in 2000 in the aftermath of devastating battlefield debacles in the northern theatre. (If all our MBRLs had been discarded after the successful conclusion of the war in May 2009, there is no point in blaming this government for non-display of the monster MBRLs. But, there cannot be any excuse for the government decision not to display the artillery.

Even during the three decades long war and some of the fiercest fighting in the North and East, the armour and artillery were always on display. It would be pertinent to mention the acquisition of Chinese light tanks in 1991, about a year after the outbreak of Eelam War II, and T 55 Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) from the Czech Republic, also during the early ’90s, marked the transformation of the regiment. Let me remind our readers that both Armour and Artillery were deployed on infantry role due to dearth of troops in the northern and eastern theatres.

No kudos for infantry

The Armour and Artillery were followed by the five infantry formations, Sri Lanka Light Infantry (SLLI), Sinha Regiment (SR), Gemunu Watch (GW), Gajaba Regiment (GR) and Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment (VIR). They bore the brunt of the fighting. They spearheaded offensives, sometimes in extremely unfavourable battlefield situations. The team handling the live media coverage conveniently failed to mention their battlefield sacrifices or accomplishments. It was nothing but a treacherous act perpetrated by a government not sensitive at all to the feelings of the vast majority of people.

The infantry was followed by the Mechanized Infantry Regiment (MIR). Raised in February 2007 as the armed forces were engaged in large scale operations in the eastern theatre, and the Vanni campaign was about to be launched, at the formation of the Regiment, it consisted of the third battalion of the SLLI, 10th battalion of SR and 4th battalion of GR. The 5th and 6th Armoured Corps were also added to the MIR. The 4th MIR was established also in February 2008 and after the end of war 21 battalion of the Sri Lanka National Guard was converted to 5 (Volunteer) MIR.

The contingent of MIR troops joined the Independence Day parade, without their armoured vehicles. Perhaps the political leadership seems to be blind to the importance of maintaining military traditions. Field Marshal Fonseka, who ordered the establishment of MIR must have felt really bad at the way the government took the shine off the military parade. What did the government expect to achieve by scaling down the military parade? Obviously, the government appears to be confident that the northern and eastern electorates would respond favourably to such gestures. Whatever the politics in the former war zones, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB) must realise that it cannot, under any circumstances, continue to hurt the feelings of the majority community.

The description of Commandos and Special Forces was restricted to their post-Ditwah rehabilitation role. The snipers were not included in the parade. Motorcycle riding Special Forces, too, were absent. The way the Armour, Artillery, Infantry, as well Commandos and Special Forces were treated, we couldn’t have expected justice to other regiments and corps. In fact, the government didn’t differentiate fighting formations from the National Guard.

The National Guard was raised in Nov. 1989 in the wake of the quelling of the second JVP-led terrorist campaign. Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s government swiftly crushed the first JVP bid to seize power in April 1971. The second bid was far worse and for three years the JVP waged a murderous campaign but finally the armed forces and police overwhelmed them. On Nov. 1, 1989, prominent battalions that had been deployed for the protection of politicians were amalgamated to establish the first National Guard battalion and upgraded as a new battalion of the Volunteer Force.

The Navy and Air Force, too, didn’t receive the recognition they deserved. Just a passing reference was made about the Fourth Attack Flotilla, the Navy’s premier offensive arm. The government also forgot the turning point of the war against the LTTE when Karannagoda’s Navy, with US intelligence backing, hunted down Velupillai Prabhakaran’s floating arsenals, on the high seas.

Karannagoda, the writer is certain, must have felt disappointed and angry over the disgraceful handling of the parade. The war-winning armed forces deserved the rightful place at the Independence Day parade.

The government did away with the fly past. Perhaps, the Air Force no longer had the capacity to fly MiG 27s, Kfirs, F 7s and Mi 24s. During the war and after Katunayake-based jet squadrons thundered over the Independence Day parade while the Air Force contingent was saluting the President. Jet squadrons and MI 24s (Current Defence Secretary Air Vice Marshal (retd) Sampath Thuyakontha commanded the No 09 Mi 24 squadron during the war (https://island.lk/govt-responds-in-kind-to-thuyaconthas-salvo/). Goonetileke’s Air Force conducted an unprecedented campaign to inflict strategic blows to the enemy fighting capacity. That was in addition to the SLAF taking out aerial targets and providing close-air-support to ground forces, while also doing a great job in helicopters whisking away troop casualties for prompt medical attention.

Chagie’s salvo

Maj. Gen Chagie Gallage

The armed forces paid a very heavy price to bring the war to a successful conclusion. During the 1981 to 2009 period, the Army lost nearly 24,000 officers and men. Of them, approximately 2,400 died during January-May 2009 when the Vanni formations surrounded and decimated the enemy. (Army, Navy and Air Force as well as police suffered loss of lives during the campaigns against the JVP in 1971 and during the 1987-1989 period) At the crucial final days of the offensive, ground forces were deprived of aerial support in a bid to minimise civilian losses as fleeing Tigers used Tamil civilians they had corralled as a human shield. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as revealed by Wikileaks acknowledged the armed forces gesture but no government sought to exploit such unintentional support for Sri Lanka’s advantage. That wasn’t an isolated lapse.

In the run-up to the now much discussed 78 Independence Day parade, Gallage caused unprecedented controversy when he warned of possible attempts to shift the Security Forces Headquarters, in Jaffna, to the Vanni mainland. The GR veteran’s social media post sent shockwaves through the country. Gallage, known for his outspoken statements/positions and one of the victims of global sanctions imposed on military leaders, questioned the rationale in vacating the Jaffna Headquarters, central to the overall combined armed forces deployment in the Jaffna peninsula and the islands.

Regarding Gallage’s explosive claim, the writer sought clarification from the government but in vain. About a year after the end of the war, the then government began releasing land held by the armed forces. In line with the post-war reconciliation initiatives, the war-winning Mahinda Rajapaksa government released both government and public property, not only in the Jaffna peninsula, but in all other northern and eastern administrative districts, as well. Since 2010, successive governments have released just over 90 percent of land, once held by the armed forces. Unfortunately, political parties and various local and international organisations, with vested interests, continue to politicise the issues at hand. None of them at least bothered to issue a simple press release demanding that the LTTE halted the forcible recruitment of children, use of women/girls in suicide missions and end reprehensible use of civilian human shields.

The current dispensation has gratefully accepted President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s proposal to reduce the Army strength to 100,000 by 2030. Wickremesinghe took that controversial but calculated decision in line with his overall response to post-Aragalaya developments. The Island learns that the President’s original intention was to downsize the Army to 75,000 but he settled for 100,000.

Whatever those who still cannot stomach the armed forces’ triumph over the LTTE and JVP had to say, the armed forces, without any doubt, are the most respected institution in the country.

Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe can never absolve themselves of the responsibility for betraying the armed forces at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Oct. 2015. The treacherous JVP-backed the Yahapalana government to co-sponsor a US-led accountability resolution. That massive act of unprecedented betrayal should be examined taking into consideration primarily two issues – (1) the Tamil electorate throwing its weight behind Sirisena at the 2015 presidential election at the behest of now defunct Tamil National Alliance [TNA] (2) a tripartite agreement on the setting up of hybrid war crimes court. That agreement involved the US, Sri Lanka and TNA. Let me stress that at the 2010 presidential election, the TNA joined the UNP and the JVP in supporting war-winning Army Commander Fonseka’s candidature at the first-post war national election. Thanks to WikiLeaks, the world knows how the US manipulated the TNA to back Fonseka, the man who spearheaded a ruthless campaign that decimated the LTTE. Fonseka’s Army beat the LTTE, at its own game. Then, the Tamil electorate voted for Fonseka, who won all predominately Tamil speaking electoral districts but suffered a humiliating defeat in the rest of the country.

Let us not forget ex-LTTE cadres as well as members of other Tamil groups who backed successive governments. Tamil men contributed even to clandestine operations behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, successive governments had been pathetic in their approach to counter pro-Eelam propaganda. Sri Lanka never had a tangible action plan to counter those propagating lies. Instead, they turned a blind eye to anti-Sri Lanka campaigns. Dimwitted politicians just played pandu with the issues at hand. The Canadian declaration that Sri Lanka perpetrated genocide in May 2022 humiliated the country. Our useless Parliament didn’t take up that issue while three years later the Labour Party-run UK sanctioned four persons, including Karannagoda and Shavendra Silva, in return for Tamil support at the parliamentary elections there.

Victory parade fiasco

In 2016, the Yahapalana fools cancelled the Victory Day parade, held uninterrupted since 2009 to celebrate the country’s greatest post-independence achievement. By then, the Yahapalana administration had betrayed the armed forces at the UNHRC. The UNP-SLFP combine operated as if the armed forces didn’t exist. Sirisena had no option but to give in to Wickremesinghe’s despicable strategy meant to appease Eelamists whose support he desired, even at the expense of the overall national interest.

The Victory Day parade was meant to mark Sri Lanka’s triumph over separatist Tamil terrorism. It was never intended to humiliate the Tamil community, though the LTTE consisted of Tamil-speaking people. Those who complained bitterly about the May Victory Day celebration never wanted to publicly acknowledge that the eradication of the LTTE saved them from being terrorised any further. All concerned should accept that as long as the LTTE had the wherewithal to wage terror attacks, peace couldn’t have been restored. As Attorney-at-Law Ajaaz Mohamed repeatedly stressed to the writer the importance of UNP leader Wickremesinghe’s genuine efforts to address the national issue, he could have succeeded if the LTTE acted responsibly. The writer is also of the view that Wickremesinghe even risking his political future bent backwards to reach consensus at the negotiating table but the LTTE exploited the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) arranged by Norway, to bring down Wickremesinghe’s government.

Wickremesinghe earned the wrath of the Sinhalese for giving into LTTE demands but he struggled to keep the talks on track. Then, the LTTE delivered a knockout blow to his government by withdrawing from the negotiating table, in late April 2003, thereby paving the way for President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to take over key ministries, including Defence, and set the stage for parliamentary polls in April 2004. The LTTE’s actions made Eelam War IV inevitable.

The armed forces hadn’t conducted a major offensive since 2001 following the disastrous Agnikheela offensive in the Jaffna peninsula. Wickremesinghe went out of his way to sustain peace but the LTTE facilitated Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victory, at the presidential election, to create an environment which it believed conducive for the final war. Having killed the much-respected Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, in August 2005, and made suicide attempts on the lives of Sarath Fonseka and Gotabaya Rajapaksa in April and Oct 2006, the LTTE fought well and hard but was ultimately overwhelmed, first in the East and then in North/Vanni in a series of battles that decimated its once powerful conventional fighting capacity. The writer was lucky to visit Puthumathalan waters in late April 2009 as the fighting raged on the ground and the Navy was imposing unprecedented blockade on the Mullaitivu coast.

The LTTE proved its capabilities against the Indian Army, too. The monument at Battaramulla where Indians leaders and other dignitaries, both military and civilian, pay homage, is a reminder of the LTTE fighting prowess. India lost nearly 1,500 officers and men here (1987 to 1990) and then lost one-time Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide attack in Tamil Nadu just over a year after New Delhi terminated its military mission here. The rest is history.

Midweek Review

Theatre and Anthropocentrism in the age of Climate Emergency

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/11

Sahan Weerasooriya

Saumya Liyanage as Silindu in Beddegama (Village in the Jungle) television series directed by Priyantha Kolambage. Photo credit Priyantha Kolambage.

A few days ago, I was in a remote region of Sri Lanka, Hambantota, a dry zone area, where people mainly live on farming. The farming methods are still very primitive. I was engaged in a television series, titled Beddegama, directed by Priyantha Kolambage. The character I play is ‘Silindu’, a hunter. Silindu is a character created by Leonard Woolf, a colonial administrator, who lived in Sri Lanka in the early 20th century. In his widely read book, Village in the Jungle, Silindu, the hunter lives with his two daughters and his sister in a mud hut in the forest. They are one of the few families in this village struggling to survive amidst drought, famine and overbearing government authority.

Phenomenologically speaking, Silindu is an environmental philosopher. He believes that the jungle is a powerful phenomenon, a living entity. He thinks that the animals who live in the jungle are also human-like beings. He talks to trees and hunts animals only to dull the pangs of hunger. He is an ethical man. He believes that the jungle is an animate being and its animals are his fellow travellers in this world. His younger daughter, Hinnihami, breastfeeds a fawn. His sustainable living with fellow animals and nature is challenged by British law. He kills two people who try to dominate and suppress poor villagers by using their administerial powers. He is sentenced to death.

What I want to highlight here is the way our predecessors coexisted with nature and how they made the environment a part of their lives. Silindu’s philosophy of nature and animals is fascinating because he does not think that humans are not the centre of this living environment. Rather humans are a part of the whole ecosystem. This is the thinking that we need today to address the major environmental crises we are facing.

When I first addressed Aesthetica, the International conference on Performing Arts, as a keynote speaker, at Christ University, Bangalore, in 2018, in my keynote address, I emphasised the importance of understanding the human body, particularly the performing body as an embodied subject. What I meant by this term ‘embodied subject’ is that over the centuries, our bodies in theatre, rehearsal spaces and studios are being defined and described as an object to be manipulated. Even in modern dance, such manipulation is visible in the modernist approaches to dance. The human body is an object to be manipulated. However, I tried to show the audience that the performing body was not a mere object on stage for audience appreciation. It is a being that is vital for the phenomenological understanding of performance. The paradox of this objectification is that we objectify our bodies as something detached from the mind and similarly, we assume our environment, the world as something given for human consumption.

Performance and Sustainability

Just to bring the phenomenological lexicon to this discussion, I will draw your attention to one of the chapter in my latest book, titled, Lamp in a Windless Place: Phenomenology and Performance (2025) published by VAPA Press, University of Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo. This project is based on Sarah Kane’s famous play text 4.48 Psychosis. In this chapter I wrote phenomenological environmentalists explain the two ways that human beings interact and engage with the life-world. The one way of this engagement is defined as ‘involvement’ we involve with various activities in the world and it is one of the ways that we are being-in-the-world. The second way of being-in-this-world is that we ‘inhere’ in the world meaning that we are built with worldly phenomena or we are made out of the same stuff of our environment. (James cited in Liyanage 2025, pp. 98-99). This coupling and encroachment between our bodies and the environment occur mostly without our conscious interference. Yet, the problem with our human activities, and also our artistic practices is that we see our environment (human body) as an object to be consumed and manipulated.

Today, it is more important for us to change our mindsets to rethink our daily practices of performing arts and understand how human, nature, space and non-human species are vital for our existence in this world. Sustainable discourse comes into play with the United Nations initiative to make humans understand the major crises we are facing. In 2016, 195 parties agreed to follow the treaty of the Paris Agreement, which is mainly focused on climate change and the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Major scientists are talking about the ‘tipping points’. Tipping points indicate the current crisis that humans and other-than humans are going to face in the coming years.

Among those sustainable goals, the most important and the urgent point to be focused seems to be the climate emergency. Leading scientists of environmental sciences have already warned that within a few years, global warming will increase up to the level that the consequences will be catastrophic and dangerous to all, human and non-human. Ice sheets are shrinking; sea water level is increasing, and coral reefs are dying. It is becoming increasingly evident that countries in our region, particularly in South Asia, have been experiencing major climate shifts over the past few decades. Recent Cyclone Ditwah and the catastrophic flood devastated parts of not only Sri Lanka but also Malaysia, Sumatra, India, etc. Professor Missaka Hettiarachchi and Devki Perera published a landmark book, titled Nature – based method for water resource management (2025). In this work Hettiarachchi and Perera clearly argue that flood, erosion, and landslides are a part of the geological evolution and transformations. They are inherent activities in nature, which form new landscapes and conditions in natural environments. But the problem is that we experience these natural events frequently and they abruptly occur in response to human-nature collisions.

Climate Emergency

Professor Jeffry Sachs stresses the importance of taking action to prevent future climatic change. For him, we are facing three mega environmental crises: 1. Climate crisis leading to greenhouse gas emission due to fossil fuel burning. We have already come to the 1.5 warming limit now. He predicts that humans will experience 2.0 degree Celsius within two decades. 2. Second is the ecological crisis. This is the destruction of rainforests in South East Asia, Amazon and other regions. He argues that Amazon has reached the tipping point, meaning that the rain forest is in danger and it would be a dry land in a few decades time. Because of ocean acidification, scientists have already warned that we are in the wake of the destruction of coral reefs. The process is that high carbon dioxide dissolves in the water and it creates the carbonic acid. It causes the destruction of the coral reef system. 3. The third ecological crisis is the mega pollution. Our environment is already polluted with toxic chemicals, our waterways, ocean, soil, air and food chains are polluted. Micro plastics are already in our blood streams, in our lungs and even in our fetuses to be born.

The climate crisis is not just a natural catastrophe; it is political in many ways. Greenhouse gas emission is still continuing, and the developed countries such as the United States of America, Canada, China and Germany produce more carbon than the countries in the periphery. As Sachs rightly argues, the US politics is manipulated by the biggest oil companies in the world and President Trump is an agent of such multinational companies whose intention is to accumulate wealth through oil burning. Very recently, the US invaded Venezuela not to restore democracy but to gain access to the largest oil reserves in the country. We have seen many wars, led by the US, due to greed for wealth and natural resources. The US has withdrawn from the Paris agreement. President Trump calls climate change a hoax! So, the world’s current political situation is directly linked to the future of our environment, our resources and climate change.

Anthropocentrism in Performance

Back to creative arts. In the modernist era of our artistic practices and culture, we mimicked and replicated proscenium theatre inherited from Europe and elsewhere and revolutionised the ways that we see performance and perceiving. Our traditional modes of performance practices were replaced by the modern technology, architectural structures, studio training methods and techniques. Today, we can look back and see whether these creative arts practices have been sustainable with the larger human catastrophes that we experience almost daily. Eddie Patterson and Dr. Lara Stevenson have recently published an important and influential book, titled Performing Climate (2025). Being performance studies scholars, Patterson and Stevenson’s book contains 14 chapters interconnected and explores the human and non-human or more than human elements in the world. Patterson and Stevenson write that ‘performance is a messy business; a bloody mess’. ‘Performance is a mess of matter, climate, things, actors, and affects: neither a dramatic or postdramatic theatre but a network of dramaturgical elements; a site of birth and death, decay and renewal’ (Patterson and Stevenson, 2025, p. 1). In this book, they further explore the new ways of reading performance, making performance and perceiving performance. They argue that ‘we are interested in analyzing performance not as an insulated, exclusive art form predicated on human centrality but as a process that celebrates the transformative properties of waste – bacteria, debris and breakdown – composting and mulching within a larger network of bacteria, fungi and microbes embedded in the skin, air, soil and interacting with cellular networks and atmospheric conditions’ (ibid).

Our modern theatre has always been anthropocentric. Even in Sri Lanka, the father of modern Sinhala theatre, Professor Ediriweera Sarachchandra adapted traditional dance drama and developed a modern theatre for middle class theatregoers. This modern theatre was anthropogenic, patriarchal and marginalised the subaltern groups such as women, non-human beings, environment and so forth. The traditional dance and dramas, nadagam and kooththu were much more embedded in rituals performed by communities for various social, cultural and spiritual purposes were uprooted and established in the proscenium theatre for the audience, whose aesthetic buds were trained and sustained by the colonial theatre and criticism. Even traditional dance was uprooted from its traditional setting embedded in the ecosystem and placed on the proscenium theatre for the sake of modernisation of dance for the modern theatregoers. A new group of spectators, theatregoers, were produced to watch those performances which took place in city theatre buildings, insulated architectural spaces where the black boxes were lit up with expensive lighting technology and air-conditioning. As Patterson and Stevenson argue, the Western theatre has been obsessed with the human drama or autobiography. This western history of theatre has been ‘blind to the non-human agency and the natural world has always been in the background to the human centred stories’ (Patterson and Stevenson 2025).

Carbon Emission theatre

The performance practice that we have inherited and is continuing even today is highly problematic in the ways that we centre human agency over the non-human and the environment. This anthropocentric performance practice, as German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk called it, is ‘biospherical’. The biospherical theatre sees human action in the artificially constructed atmospheres for artistic innovations (Patterson and Stevenson 2025). Biospherical theatre is proto-laboratories and human greenhouses – in which able-bodied actors are trained and perform within air-conditioned black boxes; or more tellingly white people in white cubes’ (ibid).

Patterson and Stevenson further assert that ‘biospherical theatre is an enclosed Western form it is labour intensive, carbon intensive, hierarchical, exclusive, inaccessible extractive rather than generative of new knowledge and different ways of being with the world (ibid, p. 10). We inherited this hierarchical, exclusive, and carbon-oriented performance space from our past; as a colonial heritage. This colonial heritage of labour intensive, carbon intensive theatre is the major practice of performance in our societies. I am currently the Chairman of the National Theatre Sub-Committee under the purview of the Arts Council of Sri Lanka. Theatre practitioners today in Colombo are highly critical of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs for not having quality enclosed theatres in major cities in the country. They do not see the problems pertaining to the performance practice that is not ecologically sustainable for island nations like us.

We are possessed with the model of Globe theatre, which has been the model for theatre and entertainment in our regions for centuries now. However, today, we are forced to revisit and rethink this model of Globe theatre in the wake of the climate emergency. Patterson and Stevenson remind us that ‘inside these globes, art develops in enclosed and air-conditioned bubbles (laboratories, rehearsal rooms, conservatories, and galleries). This kind of theatre is biospherical: a human centric endeavour, evolving inside the globe, largely upholding the fantasy of itself as disconnected from atmospheric and environmental interactions beyond the human’ (Patterson and Stevenson 2025, p. 16).

Conclusion

According to Jim Bendell, it is not enough for us to develop resilience towards the climatic emergency; we need to embrace relinquishment (Stevenson, 2020, p. 89). It is the letting go of certain assets, behaviours and beliefs. Grotowski articulated this concept many decades back in his actor training at the Polish theatre laboratory. Grotowski developed the idea of via negative, letting go, or elimination for actors. Letting go of all the acculturations as Eugenio Barba articulates, to tap into the pure impulses and action. Grotowski even rejected the audience participation in his later works, para theatre, like Antonin Artaud, who rebelled against the dialogic, bourgeoisie theatre in France at the time. So, the modernist theatre directors have shown us that the Globe theatre is no longer a sustainable pathway for performance practice. It is time for us to rethink the carbon intensive, labour intensive, hierarchical, exclusive, and class-oriented theatre and performance.

References

Hettiarachchi, M., & Perera, D. (2025). Nature-Based Methods for Water Resources Engineering. The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka.

India Today Global. (2025, September 24). “U.S. government is in an open war against the Sustainable Development Goals”: Jeffrey Sachs. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb4Jpqq4wvE

James, S. P. (2009). The Presence of Nature A Study in Phenomenology and Environmental Philosophy. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN IK.

Liyanage, S. (2025). Lamp in a Windless Place: Phenomenology and Performance. VAPA Press. (Original work published 2025)

SDSN. (2024, October 11). Sustainability Fundamentals with Jeffrey Sachs. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJR0Q8ueQpc

Stevens, L. (2019). Anthroposcenic Performance and the Need For ‘Deep Dramaturgy’. Performance Research, 24(8), 89-97.

Stevens, L., & Varney, D. (2022). The Climate Siren: Hanna Cormick’s The Mermaid. TDR, 66(3), 107-118.

Woolf, L. (2012). The village in the jungle. Forgotten Books.

Author wishes to thank Himansi Dehigama for proofreading this manuscript.

Professor Saumya Liyanage is a professor of Drama and Theatre Currently working at the Department of Theatre Ballet and Modern Dance, Faculty of Dance and Drama, University of the Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo. He is the chairman of the State Theatre Subcommittee.

by Saumya Liyanage