Midweek Review

A Bigger Picture: how the Humanities can widen our perspectives

Published

3 years ago

2021/12/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A scene from the movie, ‘Perfume- The story of a murderer’

by Liyanage Amarakeerthi

(Lecture given at the 18th annual academic sessions of the Sri Lanka College of Psychiatrists

On 16 December 2021 at Grand Kandyan Hotel, Kandy)

In order to understand life as a whole, one needs to focus on the bigger picture of human affairs- perhaps of forces larger than humans. Our lives are increasingly determined by much larger forces that we might not even perceive in our everyday lives. Within our education system, we have developed numerous subject areas that help us uncover those behind- the scene-forces. As a scholar in the humanities, I have no knowledge in many of those subjects. Even within the humanities, I only have some expertise in literary studies. Since literary studies have always been a richly interdisciplinary field, I may be able to touch on some adjacent fields such as history, philosophy, sociology, and so on. My topic should ideally be ‘how liberal arts can widen our perspectives’ because liberal arts includes humanities, social sciences and some natural sciences, but I decided to stick to the humanities primarily for two reasons: I will be making my points mostly with literary examples, and the term, ‘humanities’ is the term often used in Sri Lanka.

Professor Joseph B. Cuseo and Aaron Thompson in Humanity, Diversity and Liberal Arts Education (2015) describe seven socio-spatial perspectives typically developed in liberal arts teaching: Perspective of family, perspective of community, perspective of society, national perspective, international perspective, global perspective, and perspective of the universe (cosmos).

It is extremely difficult to elaborate on all these perspectives with different examples in short speech. Therefore, I decide to focus on one novel. Its film version might be quite familiar to the psychiatrists and psychologists in the audience. I use the novel and the film in my teaching at University of Peradeniya but not necessarily the same way that I am going to use it today. The novel is Perfume, the the film has the same name.

It is the story of Grenouille, illegitimate son of a female fish seller in the 18th century France. Even when he is born, his mother is selling fish. The new born is left on a heap of fish guts, – perhaps most disgusting and unhealth environment for a child to be born in. His mother does not want to raise him, and she could not afford to. He is left alone to die there on the heap of fish waste so that garbage collectors will put away the dead child fish guts in the evening.

The author of the novel, Patrick Suskind, explains the situation in a beautifully-crafted paragraph:

Here, then, on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on the 17th July, 1738. It was one of the hottest days of the year. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard, squeezing its putrefying vapour, a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn, out in to the nearby alleys. When the labour pains began, Grenouille’s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers, scaling whiting that she had just gutted. The fish, ostensibly, taken that very morning from the Seine, already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odour of corpses. Grenouille’s mother, however, perceived the odour neither of the fish nor of the corpses, for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled, besides which her belly hurt and the pain deadened all susceptibility to sensate impressions. She only wanted to put this revolting birth behind her as quickly as possible. It was her fifth (p.5)”

She expects the new born to die there in the heap of fish guts. In the evening, a carter would come and pick up the garbage and drop them on the grave yard or to the river. Then, all her responsibilities will be over. She is still in her twenties.

Dangers of limitless love

But her fifth child does not bring her good luck; Grenouille does not die there. The mother is taken into custody and is accused of killing her previous babies and of attempting to kill the new born. She is decapitated in public. Grenouille grows up in orphanages to become one of the gruesome serial killers in history. But he is not a killer. He becomes one of the most skilled perfumers; he has an acute sense of smell; in some beautiful virgins he finds magically captivating fragrance. He develops the arts and science of extracting that fragrance from those young women’s hair, pubic hair, skin, and so on. By the time he was done perfecting the most fragrant perfume in history, he had killed twenty-five young women. The perfume is so captivating that it can enable people to engaged in acts of limitless love. Limitless love is so dangerous that a group of people madly intoxicated by the smell of the magical perfume, kills Grenouille alive. He literally vanishes from the earth.

None of us has extreme lives of this kind: But the point of narrative art is to intensify human experience and get us to reflect on. Story of this young man is illustrative of many of the perspectives I want to speak of during this speech.

Family determines who we eventually become. Familial impact on us takes place at many levels. Perfume demonstrates that Grenouille’s search for this magical fragrant emanating from some beautiful women, is in a way his desire to regain the warmth of his own mother – a pleasurable warmth he never experienced. His desire for those young women is a sublimated form of hating them. As the fantastic perfume he creates is capable making people engaged in mythical acts of love turns into extreme form of violence, his love for those young women leads to the most gruesome murder of them. Unimaginably violent acts on those bodies such as peeling their skins, are performed in a clinically scientific detachment.

Perfume is a work of art not a scientific treatise on how family or the lack of it shapes one’s character. Thus, the novel does not claim that any illegitimate son, who is forced to grow up without his mother, will certainly end up being a serial killer. Works of art provide us with frameworks for further contemplation not exact mathematical formulas.

Let me move on to a ‘the perspective of the community.’ A catholic monk named Terrier arranges a wet nurse for the child. Grenouille spends a few months with this extremely religious wet nurse, who believes that the baby is possessed with the devil because he sucks her dry. Yes. The child drinks a lot of breast milk. With his insatiable thirst for breast milk, the wet nurse refuses to keep him at her house. She also believes that the child except for his excrement does not smell at all.

Within this community where Catholic and pagan beliefs shape people’s thinking, the child does not get to develop any motherly attachment to any women. The wet nurse brings the child back to father Terrier and leaves the baby with him. The priest thinks that when a mother breastfeeds a child regularly, the child develops a certain attachment to the mother’s body and gets used to the rhythm of the heartbeat of the mother. This child would never know a mother’s heartbeat. Thus, we can see Grenouille’s character is crucially shaped by his close community.

Then comes the perspective of the society, which invites us to perceive the question at hand within the framework of larger society. Let’s stick to the novel, Perfume. What was the kind of society in which Grenouille lived in? It was 18th century France, fifty years before the French revolution, and it was a country ruled by kings and their regional deputies. The dominant worldview was the religious one. Scientific thought and human reason were still to become the main source of wisdom. Thus, it is no accident that Grenouille’s last and the most precious victim was mythically beautiful Laure, the only daughter of a regional lord. In that sense, the young perfumer’s search for the perfect scent was an individualist attack on a social structure that made him a bastard and an orphan. After all, that is the very society that made his mother kill her babies because she was too poor to raise them. In addition, she was sexually exploited by men in the positions of power in the society. Still in her twenties, her beauty intact, she hoped to find a man to marry, perhaps, aged widower, and settle herself into a better life.

Thus, selling fish is a something temporary for her. But she keeps getting pregnant by men whose names are not revealed to us. Through them she picks up diseases like syphilis as well. What else a poor young woman, living in the most disgusting corner of the city, can do to her newborns other than to hope for their death? The author of the novel situates her character in a larger societal frame and invites us see the bigger picture of life. In teaching a novel like this, insights from history, political science, sociology can be brought in to enrich the discussion.

As Cuseo and Thompson (2015: 15) maintain,” human societies also consist of groups of people stratified into different social classes with unequal amounts of resources and material wealth; those groups occupying lower social strata have less economic resources and social privilege.”(Humanity, Diversity and the Liberal Arts). Grenouille’s birth and death occur in pre-revolution France where social stratification was so pronounced that, in there, many people of the lowest strata lived a subhuman life. It is not surprising that the French word “Grenouille” means ‘the frog.’

Though there are more to be said about the novel, let me leave it that by summarizing my argument so far: the extraordinary life of this young man, Grenouille, can be better understood when he is analyzed through different perspectives such as family, community, and society. In doing so, we not only understand the young man better we also get to look into larger contexts within which human life is shaped.

Other ways of seeing things

Let me now briefly touch on other perspectives the liberal arts education at its best attempts to develop in students. The national perspective is an angle of vision that helps us reflect on how the realities of nationhood, nation state, national boundaries influence our lives. We all are aware of certain realities, obligations, frustrations and so on exist for us just because of the nature of our nation state. We have to live with them by virtue of being citizens of our nation state.

This is the opening sentence of the novel, Perfume, “In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.” We can immediately see that the writer wants to see the main character’s predicament in ‘France’ in the 18th century. This brings us to the international perspective.

One cannot understand France at the time without understanding how France was connected to a host of other countries even before the French Revolution. A central metaphor of the novel is perfume. Many of the ingredients used to make perfume came through in international naval routes in colonial ships. Phenomenal development of perfume industry in France cannot be understood without referring to colonialism and international trade relations that France had developed with other countries. In addition, some of the girls killed are from Italy. During those days, poor Italian peasants came to France as seasonal workers for harvesting. Moreover, the consumers of those extremely expensive perfume were not just French people. The aristocracy in neighboring countries, perhaps, even in far away countries bought French perfume. Thus, one cannot isolate gruesome murders of one unknown French man, whose name means frog after all, from France’s connections with other countries those days.

I must recall here that I am trying to briefly explain all the perspectives by using a single novel. Still, the novel can be used to explain what we mean by ‘global perspectives.’ It is a quite broader perspective than ‘international’ perspective because it takes into account nearly everything that might have contributed to making a phenomenon. Let’s return to the novel. Grenoulle’s life is connected with so many things other than human affairs such as trade and politics which were discussed earlier. “It extends beyond nations to embrace both human and nonhuman life inhabiting our planet and how these life forms interface with the earth’s natural resources (minerals, air, and water). Human’s share the earth with approximately 10 million animal species and more than 300,000 forms of vegetative life, all of whose needs must be met and balanced to ensure the health and sustainability of our planet” (Cuseo and Thompson, p. 18).

In this novel, the central character is presented as someone much closer to nature than culture. Hence, the name ‘frog.’ He is born on a heap of fish guts, and in that sense too, he is nearly an amphibian. Later in his life, he spends seven years like an animal in a forest cave separated from human civilization. This is how the author explains the Grenouille’s life in that forest. “He also ate dry lichen and grass-berries. Such a diet, although totally unacceptable by bourgeoises standards, did not disgust him in the least. ” During those, seven years of hibernation or the forest-life, he is portrayed as a part of the larger nature of the planet earth. He is an insignificant and a seemingly innocent part of nature itself. But this very man, after being discovered again by the representatives of human civilization and taken into to the city, begins his adventure of murdering twenty odd young women and perfecting the most fragrant perfume in the world- in fact a perfume that can generate the perfect love.

Let me quickly jump into the last perspective, cosmos. This is a wonderful novel in establishing the fact that man, even the central character, Paris, France or the earth, are not entities that stand in themselves. Here, we are not alone. We are part of larger universe; solar systems, milky ways and so on. No wonder that in the middle ages, astronomy was included in liberal arts. Not only that different entities in the universe are inherently connected to one another, we humans keep looking into what is out there. Just last month, scientists claimed that the moon’s top layer of soil contained oxygen that could sustain 8 billion human lives for more than one hundred thousand years.

Here in the novel, Perfume, the unknown, the unseen, the extra-terrestrial, the cosmic, is always present; and every key incident in the novel seems mysterious connected to something else, and to long chain of ‘something-elses’, some of which might extend as far as the heavens. If it is not the heavens, it is the nature, the Nature with a big N. Let me quote a couple of sentences where a certain character’s disappearance is described: “…The last was seen of him was his silhouette: hands lifted ecstatically to heaven and voice raised in song, he disappeared into the blizzard… [They did not find any trace of him] “no clothes, no body parts, no bones…”(Pp. 187-8).

In this speech, I wanted to show that in order to get at some understanding of Grenouille’s life to one has to enter his story from multiple perspectives. Among other things, liberal arts education aspires to cultivate skills in creatively using these perspectives in students. The life of the young man in the novel is an extreme case and the lives of many of us are not nearly as dramatic, tragic or gruesome. Yet, the intellectual training that we develop by trying to understand his life from multiple perspectives can carry over into our real lives. Even the most insignificant lives or phenomenon exists in complex networks of relations. My speech today hopefully contained some insights that could motivate the psychiatrists here in the audience to reflect on the need of situating their ‘subjects’ in a bigger picture. I hope with much that you will never have to treat a serial killer, any killer for that matter. But the seven perspectives I explained above might suggest that you are more than likely to meet some versions of Grenouille- human beings trying to perfect formulas for producing perfect love in an extremely imperfect world.

(Amarakeerthi is professor of Sinhala, University of Peradeniya)

All News Advertisement

Midweek Review

Bronze statue for P’karan, NPP defeat in the North and 16th anniversary of triumph over terrorism

Published

2 hours ago

2025/05/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

Canada unveiled the Tamil Genocide Monument in Chinguacousy Park, Brampton, on May 10. The organisers declared the monument honoured the memory of Tamil victims, between 1983 and 2009. The National Council of Canadians Tamils (NCCT), in partnership with the Brampton Tamil Association, the City of Brampton and many other Tamil community organisations, contributed to the project. The 4.8 metre tall stainless steel monument features an outline of Tamil Eelam. The surrounding pillars feature details about the decades of war and genocide, according to the organisers. The memorial is estimated to have cost $150,000.

As Sri Lanka marks the 26th anniversary of its dream-like triumph over terrorism, some of those who spearheaded the successful war effort remain categorised as war criminals without any hearings into such wild allegations before a PROPERLY CONSTITUTED COURT, while those in the West, who brazenly carry out genocides and other war crimes, go scot free.

Successive governments failed to counter wild war crimes allegations showing fealty to criminal white masters not having the backbone to rise above colonial subject mentality and simply be servile to suit their agenda. They intensified pressure on Sri Lanka over the years to appease the Tamil Diaspora who now exercised their rights as citizens of various foreign countries. Canada is a glaring example of Diaspora politics. Two Canadians of Sri Lankan origin were recently elected to the Canadian parliament. Veteran politician V. Anandasangaree’s son, Garry was among the two.

Sri Lanka brought the Eelam War to a successful conclusion in the third week of May 2009. Having crushed the Tigers in the battlefield and restored government control over the entire Northern and Eastern provinces, the armed forces declared the end of the war on May 18, 2009. Within 24 hours of that declaration LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon in a one-time LTTE stronghold in the Mullaitivu district.

The Army cremated Prabhakaran’s body, along with that of others killed in May 18/ 19 confrontations. The then Army Chief General Fonseka is on record as having said that his Army cremated Prabhakaran’s body in the same area and threw the ashes into the Indian Ocean.

The Northern branch of the ruling National People’s Power (NPP), in the run-up to Local Government polls, tried to ‘resurrect’ Prabhakaran in a desperate and shameful bid to win the Northern electorate. The NPP handsomely won the entire Northern region, comprising Jaffna and Vanni electorates, at the parliamentary election and was determined to consolidate its power.

During the LG polls campaign, the NPP declared its intention to build a memorial hall in memory of Prabhakaran and a bronze statue of the terrorist leader, ignoring all the grave crimes he and his terrorist band committed to dismember this country in the name of an Eelam they vowed to achieve. The ruling party obviously disregarded possible consequences as it sought to lure the electorate with catchy slogans that depicted the slain terrorist as their national leader.

The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the United National Party (UNP) conveniently remained silent on the delicate issue. None of the political parties in the fray criticised the NPP’s declaration to erect a memorial hall and a bronze statue of Prabhakaran in his hometown of Valvettithurai. The SJB obviously felt that a hostile response to NPP’s offer may adversely affect the party at the LG polls. Therefore, the SJB refrained from questioning the NPP’s despicable move.

The NPP seemed to have believed Prabhakaran can be appropriately used in its own campaign. But the Northern and Eastern electorates obviously believed that separatist agenda cannot be advanced by marketing Prabhakaran. Instead, Jaffna voters once again threw their weight behind the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) that once declared the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil-speaking people.

What really surprised the NPP was why particularly the Jaffna electorate, having backed President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s party at the general election in Nov. 2024 again switched its allegiance to the ITAK.

Whatever the outcome of the LG polls, the NPP certainly owed an explanation to the country as to why its Northern branch promoted a separatist agenda at the expense of national security interests. In fact, the ITAK never ever promised to put up a memorial hall in Prabhakaran’s memory or build a statue of him. The NPP, in a cheap bid to capitalise on public sentiments, particularly ahead of the so-called Vellamullivaikkal commemoration, sought to exploit Prabhakaran’s death.

Former parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran declared the outcome of the Local Government polls in the Northern and Eastern regions as being significant and decisive. The President’s Counsel emphasised that the results proved the Tamil people’s unwavering commitment to their nationalist aspirations, Sumanthiran said so addressing the media at the Jaffna Press Club. The ITAK contested 58 local councils, across the North-East, and secured administrative control in 40 of them.

The NPP should be mindful of the developing scenario in the North, particularly Jaffna peninsula. Obviously, the outcome at the recently concluded polls would boost the ITAK’s chances at the now long overdue Provincial Council elections expected to be held before the end of this year. Ironically, it was with the ITAK support that Ranil Wickremesinghe put off the PC polls last time.

Against the backdrop of severe setbacks suffered by the NPP in the Northern and Eastern regions, the significant drop in countrywide vote, compared to what the party polled at the parliamentary election, must have compelled the top leadership to discuss ways and means of addressing the developing situation.

NPP presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake polled 5.7 mn votes (this includes 105,264 preferences) in Sept. 2024, the NPP secured 6.8 mn votes at the parliamentary election and now the support recorded a significant drop with the NPP managing just 4.5 mn votes at the recently concluded LG polls. The situation can deteriorate further at the forthcoming Provincial Council polls.

The failure to retain the support of the predominantly Tamil-speaking areas must be a matter of serious concern for the ruling party. Having boasted of uniting the country by bringing both the North and the South under one political banner by winning all electorates, except Batticaloa, at the last general election, the NPP justly suffered a devastating and unexpected setback at the LG polls with its readiness to betray the South.

N&E outcome

President Dissanayake spearheaded the LG polls campaign. Premier Dr. Harini Amarasuriya threw her full weight behind the campaign. President Dissanayake focused on the Northern and Eastern regions as the ruling party quite clearly understood the pivotal importance in consolidating its hold in the former LTTE strongholds. The NPP’s offer to honour Prabhakaran, who fell with his die-hard inner circle in the last encounter with the security forces, on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, must have surprised even the ITAK as such a sentimental election promise tend to influence the electorate in a big way. But, the electorate ignored that NPP’s offer and reiterated its commitment to the ITAK.

The ITAK obtained 13 seats to secure victory at the Jaffna Municipal Council. The All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) took the second position with 12 seats whereas the NPP ended up in third place with 10 seats.

The All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) won the Valvettithurai Urban Council while the ITAK took the second place. The NPP was pushed to a distant third place though Valvettithurai was the centre of the NPP campaign, literally backing Prabhakaran’s macabre feats. The NPP ended up with just three seats. Jaffna MC, VVT UC and all other Local Government bodies at Point Pedro (UC), Chavakachcheri (UC), Karainagar, Kayts, Delft, Velanai, Walikamam west, Walikamam north, Walikamam south-west, Walikamam south, Walikamam east, Vadamarachchy south-west, Point Pedro (Pradeshiya Sabha), Chavakachcheri (PS) and Nallur were all won by Tamil nationalist parties.

The outcome at the Vavuniya MC was really interesting. The Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA), Sri Lanka Labour Party and the NPP won four seats each in the 21-member council. However, the NPP won Vavuniya south (Tamil) PS and Vavuniya north PS by winning six seats each and Vavuniya south (Sinhala) PS though it couldn’t secure a majority.

Troops carry Velupillai Prabharakan’s body following his death in a chance confrontation with the Army the day after the government declared victory over the LTTE
(pic Army)

The bottom line is that the NPP cannot be happy with its performance in the Northern and Eastern regions. The NPP must be really disappointed with the beating it received in the Jaffna peninsula where the ruling party released more land held by the military, lifted restrictions imposed within high security zones by opening a vital section of the Jaffna-Palaly road and generally eased military presence.

The NPP repeatedly pledged to release Tamil political prisoners though such a category didn’t exist. That promise was also made during presidential and parliamentary election campaigns last year. The truth is over 12,000 LTTE cadres, either surrendered or were apprehended during the final phase of the ground offensive in the Vanni east region, had been released over the years. The war-winning Mahinda Rajapaksa government as well as successive administrations didn’t resort to legal action against those who surrendered on the battle field.

Whatever the critics say, Sri Lanka has been credited with carrying out a successful rehabilitation programme that paved the way for former terrorists to reintegrate with the civilian population. The ITAK or other Tamil political parties refrained from backing the government effort. In fact, they did everything possible to undermine the rehabilitation programme. The successful rehabilitation project, spearheaded by the Army, exposed the lies propagated by various interested parties hell-bent on undermining the post-war reconciliation efforts.

Retired Supreme Court Justice C.V. Wigneswaran’s allegation had been at the forefront of these destabilisation efforts. During the Yahapalana administration, Wigneswaran caused a furore when he accused the Army in charge of the rehabilitation programme of poisoning 104 detained LTTEers. The declaration that had been made during the US Air Force exercise in the Jaffna peninsula, in August 2016, was meant to attract maximum public attention. Wigneswaran went to the extent of declaring that some of those who survived lethal injections would be examined by the US Air Force.

Having uttered such blatant lies against the war-winning military, in his capacity as the TNA Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council ,Wigneswaran successfully contested the 2020 general election from the newly registered party, the Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootan (TMTK).

A forgotten war victory

Sri Lanka paid a huge price to bring the war to an end, avoiding civilian casualties as much as humanly possible. The result was that the security forces suffered more casualties. In the absence of a cohesive strategy to counter politically motivated unsubstantiated war crimes allegations, the war-winning Army ended-up mired in controversy. The Army, too, must take responsibility for its pathetic failure to address accountability issues over the years. Thr post-war Army never sought to press the government to adopt a holistic approach as the Geneva–based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the Western powers declared humiliating punitive measures against selected officers on hearsay allegations.

Canada went a step further. Ottawa not only categorised former Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa as war criminals by blindly accusing them of gross and systematic violations of human rights, without a shred of evidence, and then, in a similar cavalier way, declared that Sri Lanka perpetrated genocide. While blacklisting of six persons, including the two Presidents, took place in January 2023, the Canadian Parliament made the declaration, pertaining to genocide, in May 2022.

Unfortunately, the current government, too, is yet to take tangible measures in this regard as it struggles to cope up with political-economic-social developments as its chief Western benefactor itself is now mired in an economic catastrophe of its own making. The government seems simply disinterested in challenging the continuing western campaign against Sri Lanka.

The worrisome situation should be examined taking into consideration the treacherous Yahapalana administration co-sponsoring an accountability resolution against the war-winning armed forces. The despicable 2015 move shook the public conscience. President Maithripala Sirisena and Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should be held responsible for the great betrayal. Subsequent action taken by the UNHRC, as well as other countries, cannot be discussed leaving out Sirisena-Wickremesinghe betrayal simply to be on the good books of the West.

No political party represented in Parliament, not even the UPFA/SLPP that gave political leadership during the war, bothered to take it up vigorously in Parliament. That is the ugly truth. Harsh reality is that none of the political parties really want to address this issue. Against the backdrop of the Pahalgam massacre in the Indian administered Kashmir, Sri Lanka should have discussed ways and means of reviewing the accountability issues. Instead, the ruling party ended up declaring its intention to honour Prabhakaran responsible for thousands of deaths, including many civilians, and ruining the lives of many more.

Perhaps the NPP should launch an internal inquiry on its northern branch for acting contrary to the policy of the party. However, if the top leadership had been aware of the move to glorify Prabhakaran in a bid to entice the electorate, the party should seriously rethink its treacherous new Northern strategy.

The final phase

In late March this year, the UK imposed sanctions on four persons, including Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda and General Shavendra Silva, wartime commander of celebrated 58 Division. They played an extraordinary role in Sri Lanka’s triumph over the LTTE, often considered invincible on the battlefield, until the experts were proved wrong. The US, too, blacklisted both Karannagoda and Silva during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency. However, the decision on the part of the US and UK not to sanction tough talking Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka whose leadership ensured seemingly undefeatable LTTE collapsed on the northern theatre of operations is a mystery.

Having backed Fonseka’s presidential bid in 2010, the US may find it embarrassing to sanction the Sinha Regiment veteran. For the British, there cannot be any plausible reason whatsoever not to agree with the US in backing Fonseka’s candidature. Could there be anything as ridiculous as the TNA backing the US initiative, having accused Fonseka of putting Tamil civilians to the sword. Similarly, the TNA backing for Fonseka and the mysterious US and British decision to leave Fonseka out of the sanctioned lists has made the whole selective accountability exercise nothing but a farce.

Successive governments, however, failed to utilise all available information, ranging from US dispatches from its missions in Colombo, as well as other parts of the world, British HC missives from Colombo and Norwegian documents, to build a iron clad defence of our valiant security forces. In fact, 17 years after the eradication of the LTTE, Sri Lanka is yet to reach consensus on countering unsubstantiated war crimes allegations. Sometimes we wonder whether we are represented by top diplomats or ‘diplomuts’ at such high cost to the taxpayer.

Both the US and British wartime defence advisors, serving here on the basis of information available to their respective missions, denied uncorroborated war crimes accusations. Lt. Colonel Lawrence Smith of the US made his disclosure in support of Sri Lanka in late May 2011, whereas Lord Naseby on the basis of Lt. Colonel Anthony Gashes’s dispatches from Colombo (January to May 2009) countered the main UN accusation pertaining to the massacre of over 40,000 civilians. Lord Naseby made his declaration in mid-October 2017. But the duplicitous Yahapalana government, having betrayed the country at the UNHRC, totally ignored the disclosure made in the House of Lords.

The SLFP, too, fully cooperated with the disgraceful UNP strategy meant to advance the government’s political relationship with the TNA at the expense of the armed forces. When the writer raised the pathetic failure on the part of the government to utilise all available information, particularly Lord Naseby’s disclosure, the then Cabinet spokesman Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera accused The Island of causing unnecessary friction.

Parliament, as the highest institution in the country, never sought to examine the circumstances under which the Yahapalana government co-sponsored the contentious Geneva accountability resolution at the expense of war-winning armed forces. The writer on many occasions referred to the attacking speech made by Maj. Gen. Chagie Gallage at the time of his retirement, but feel the need to mention it again. The Gajaba Regiment veteran, strategist Gallage questioned why he is having to retire as a war criminal after having faithfully and diligently served the country. Successive post-war governments should be ashamed for their failure to mount a proper defence of the armed forces whose sacrifices made Sri Lanka safe for all.

Eradication of the LTTE brought an end to the use of children as cannon fodder. The LTTE indiscriminately used child soldiers in the battlefield, with hundreds thrown into high intensity battles. The LTTE tried forced recruitment of children until the very end as the ground forces approached their remaining crumbling defences in the former Mullaitivu stronghold.

Sri Lanka could have avoided post-war turmoil if retired General Fonseka refrained from being part of the UNP’s 2010 political project. In hindsight, Fonseka’s abortive bid at the presidency caused a crisis and paved the way for western powers targeting Sri Lanka over war crimes accusations.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

Storytelling, Fiction and Cinema

Published

2 hours ago

2025/05/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

A scene from the movie ‘Animal’ (2023)

Storytelling has been a medium of joy and entertainment since the inception of human history. The art of storytelling has evolved in the form of an expression of human experiences including the escapades they embarked on, the beliefs and the myths passed down through generations while commingling the imaginations of the human mind.

Since time immemorial, the art of storytelling has passed down through orature, encompassing unwritten, spoken form of stories. The subsequent systematised written form of storytelling is considered to be the cornerstone of a ‘great tradition of fictional masterpieces’.

World’s oldest known written fictional story is considered to be the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, written in the Akkadian language, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia four thousand years ago. The epic poem is based on five Sumerian poems written about Gilgamesh, the third king of the Uruk dynasty. The Ancient Greek epic poem ‘The Shield of Heracles’ or widely known as ‘Hercules’ written by an unknown Greek poet is another breakthrough in storytelling. Italian mythographer and historian Natale Conti, in a chapter of his book ‘Mythologiae’ (1567) extensively summarised a range of myths concerning the biography of the legend under his Roman name ‘Hercules’. Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ written in the 8^th century BC, Mahabharata (4-3 BC) which is traditionally attributed to Vyasa (Vedas), and the Bhagavad Gita (Songs of God) believed to be dated back to the 2nd or 1st century BC, Valmiki’s ‘Ramayana’, which dates back to 7to 3 BCE are referred to as milestones of a great literary tradition emerged in the world through many epics, myths, legends, historical fiction, as well as religious narratives.

Advancing another step forward, world’s first novel ‘The Tale of Genji’ written by Murasaki Shikibu in the eleventh century, was turning point in the conception of a wide array of fictional genres in subsequent times. The fictional literature has greatly influenced the fictional narrative of cinema. The cinema, as a medium of storytelling marked its inception in the nineteenth century. The first silent film with a narrative was “The Great Train Robbery,” a movie with a twelve minute runtime and directed by Edwin S. Porter in 1903. With the release of American musical film ‘The Jazz Singer’, the first talkie to synchronise sound with dialogues directed by Alan Crosland in 1927, marked the ascendency of a global tradition of great talkies, ending the silent film era.

Compared to literary fiction, the cinematic fiction, due to its profound capacity to influence the audience through emotionally impactful and visually rich storytelling and its immersive and captivating nature of moving images are the contributory factors for its enduring audience appeal. The main reason for this is that the artistic medium of cinema has audio, visual and three-dimensional characteristics. This is due to the fact that the text of cinema consists an array of technical and artistic components such as cinematography, editing, music, casting considering the literary ‘Text’.

Elaborating his ‘Dual-Coding Theory’, Allan Paivio, a former professor in Psychology at University of West Ontario, says human memory stores information in forms of ‘Image Codes’ and ‘Verbal Codes’. When an image code is stored in memory, the both image and the words associated with the image are transmitted and stored simultaneously. A verbal code is stored in the mind merely as a word. Based on the ‘Dual-Coding Theory Paivio establishes the theory of ‘Picture Superiority Effect’ which refers to the fact that images are memorable than words because they have more representation in the memory. Therefore people tend to remember information more effectively through pictorial contents than verbal contents in the process of communication. The popular saying “A picture paints a thousand words” reflects this phenomenon.

The cinematic narratives are unfolded by means of both fictions and non-fictions. There is no clear borderline which distinguishes fiction from non-fiction. The term ‘Fiction’ originates from the Latin word ‘Ficto’, means Making, Fashioning or Molding.

A scene from the movie
‘Get Out’ (2017)

In fictions ‘imagination’ of the author or screenwriter acts as a fundamental aspect of the creative process. Even though standard definitions on ‘What is a fiction’ suggest the fact that ‘ Fictions are not based on true events’, the one who fabricates the story, capitalizes on real events or characters to a greater or lesser extent in addition to ‘Imagination’. Human imagination is not a random or accidental occurrence. The Imagination is a byproduct of human memory.

Personal life experiences, societal movements, educational background, psychological characteristics, and the social and ideological formations upon which the creator is based fundamentally influence the generation of this imaginative power.

Accordingly, it can be said that the content created in fiction is not entirely fabricated. There may be some true facts and events embedded in it. There is no specific yardstick that can distinguish a fiction from a true story or a non-fiction story. A Fiction is often created by combining elements of both reality and imagination. The creative work based on empirical facts, real characters, or events is classified as a non-fiction. The both works of art can be categorised as creative narratives. Autobiographies, Memoirs, Travelogues belong to the category of non-fiction. The filmmakers have creatively adapted them in cinematic productions.

A cinematic narrative can either be realistic or unrealistic. Realistic cinematic portrayals explore stories and characters grounded in reality by means of creative re-production or re-enactment of true incidents taken place in the distant or recent past, or an existing social issue or transformation, as well as a character or group of people who are living or dead in society.

In realistic cinematic narratives much emphasis is given to creative re-production and re-enatment. In this creative endeavour the characters or chain of events are depicted with creative changes in time, space, and personal names, by harnessing the facts and fiction.

The realistic cinematic work are often fall under the tags such as ‘Based on true story’ and ‘Inspired by true events’.

The screenwriter is subjected to ethical considerations in realistic cinematic work when real names of individuals and locations are used for creative purposes. This paves the way for maintaining an accountability to avoid harmful interpretations of such characters and not to present false information about any person living or dead. That is the globally accepted method to present the story honestly, accurately, respectfully and truthfully avoiding sensationalism. This is where the importance of in-depth analytical and explorative research on characters and their mannerism, locations, historic incidents intended to portray, manifests.

Professor Stuart Fischoff, a former media psychologist in California State University, emphasising the responsibility of the filmmaker says “Generally the audience assumes the movie is correct. They get their lessons from films and don’t go back to check.so we are cultivating a nation of people who see history through the eyes of a Panaflex movie camera”.

‘Small Things Like These’ (2024), directed by Tim Meilants, based on the novel ‘Small Things Like These’ written by Claire Keegan in 2021 is a clear example for portraying a true historic atmosphere in a movie where its plot focusses on the infamous Magdalene Laundries operational in Ireland between 1922 and 1998. Anthony Maras’ film ‘Hotel Mumbai’ (2018), which revolves around the terrorist attack on Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace hotel in 2008 is based on a real-life atrocity inflicted upon hotel residents by terrorists killing approximately hundred and fifty unsuspecting people. Another example for real-time environment of social and economic downturn is ‘Nomadland’ (2020), directed by Chloe Sao, which centers around the lives of senior citizens who chose to live a nomad life by packing their possessions in campervans and set off on the road after becoming homeless during America’s Great Recession in 2008.The movie ‘Nomadland’ was based on the non-fiction book of the same name written by American journalist Jessica Bruder.

On the other hand ‘Unrealistic Cinematic Fiction’ is where the creation is solely based on the imagination and creative grammar of the screenwriter, frequently described as a creative narrative that is imaginatively constructed characters, spaces, events, and objects which are nonexistent in the empirical world. These narratives are based on imaginary spatial and temporal spheres, separated and disconnected from real-life situations. Genres such as science fiction, mystery and horror, animation, fantasy drama fall under this category.

Cinema is a powerful artistic tool that touches the human soul and capable of etching life-long and indelible emotional imprint on human memory, shaping social perception by acting as a mirror reflecting human society. In cinematic creations, the writer’s personal interests, tendencies, and behaviours are transmitted in consciously or unconsciously to society through the characters depicted. Accordingly, various political, religious, and social beliefs, behaviours, ideologies, and trends, particularly those reflected in the personal dynamics and self-expression of the storyteller, can have both positive and negative impacts on society.

In fictional writings, pleasant as well as unpleasant life circumstances the storyteller has encountered are possibly be manifested in their artistic expressions in various ways. After all storytellers are human beings and they possess all the dynamics other humans possess as well. The perspectives and ideologies stemming from their personal beliefs, prejudices they were subjected to, traumatic experiences, marginalisation and alienation they endured, poverty or deprivation they went through, the negative situations such as physical punishment, sexual abuse are permeated in creative work in some way or the other.

A scene from the movie ‘Small Things like This’
(2024)

This is a physiological tendency called ‘Negativity Bias’ which referred to as a cognitive phenomenon where individuals pay more attention to negative information than positive information. The concept of ‘Negativity Bias’ suggests the emotional responses of humans towards negativities are proportionately high compared to positive circumstances of the same magnitude. This tendency is common in cinematic expressions equivalently where both filmmakers and audiences are probably proned to pay more attention to negative stimuli than positive stimuli.

The mystery film ‘Get Out’ (2017), written and directed by Jordan Peele, is a pragmatic example to prove the amplified unpleasant circumstances that individuals undergo have profound impact on the creative work they are engaged in. The plot revolves around an African-American young man who visits his white girlfriend’s family estate during a weekend where he experiences loneliness, isolation, alienation, entrapment and fear.

The director and screenwriter Peele presents the superficially visible ‘Liberal elite’ ideology which overtly states ‘we are not racist’ and covert and subtle conveyance of ‘color matters’ and stigma and body shaming Afro-Americans experience due to their dark skin complexion through creative storytelling.

Jorden Peele in an interview with The New York Times says “This movie is also about how we deal with race. As a black man, sometimes you can’t tell if what you’re seeing has underlying bigotry, or it’s a normal conversation and you’re being paranoid. That dynamic in itself is unsettling. I admit sometimes I see race and racism when it’s not there”.

The film industry is a global business with billions of dollars invested where the investors or producers decide on the creative content which should be transmitted to the audience, with the sole purpose of making money at the end of the day.

Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s 2023 film ‘Animal’ sparked a controversial debate in society due to its extremely violent behavior and harmful toxic masculinity. Javed Akhtar, a renowned Indian lyricist and screenwriter, once said that “commercially successful films with questionable scenes are a dangerous trend. For example, in a certain movie, a man tells a woman to lick his shoe to prove his love for her,” and he says,” if a film communicates the idea that it is okay to slap a woman, it is very dangerous, no matter how popular that film is”. Critics labeled the film ‘Animal’ as misogynistic and extremely violent. Despite severe criticism, the film was well-received by the audience becoming the third highest-grossing Indian film in 2023, grossing 950 million Indian rupees.

Considering the potential negative impact and perpetual harm on society inflicted by such controversial films, the importance of going along with ethical considerations emerges. Cinema ethics referred to moral guidelines and principles that influence the responsible and accountable creation, production, and dissemination of movies. This ensures the cinematic content is respectful of individuals or groups living in society. It helps elevate audience’s trust while refraining from promoting harmful content.

An artist converts a personal experience into universal or common experience in order to make it a shared experience. The artist must be capable of determining how beneficial or appropriate it is to turn that personal experience into common shared experience. On the other hand an artist is equipped with a creative privilege of shaping the society by means of their work of art. The artistic license they bear should be used in a responsible manner for the betterment of society by disseminating humanity, empathy, and compassion through their creations. American filmmaker Martin Scorsese giving much emphasis on the importance of portraying humanity in cinema states “Filmmaking is a journey through the soul of humanity, captured frame by frame”.

The term ‘fiction’ is a tool that provides novelists, screenwriters, and filmmakers with freedom for their creativity. But an artist is not licensed to stereotype, misinterpret or misrepresent the characters using freedom of creativity. The responsibility of an author to avoid such matters is brought to attention in the article ‘The Ethics of Writing Novels on True Events’ by American author Joyce Carol Oates. She articulates ‘fiction writer should be as transparent as a glass full of clean water.

When creating works of fiction or non-fiction based on real life stories and real names, the characters should not be harmed, distorted, misrepresented, or ridiculed. Artists must take upon themselves the responsibility of acting in accordance with the principles of natural justice. Ron Hansen, an American Novelist and Professor of Arts and Humanities in University of California, said this with the intention of keeping the criteria of novelists, screenwriters, and filmmakers close to humanity.

by Bhagya Rajapakse
bhagya8282@gmail.com