Midweek Review

A philosopher emperor

Published

4 years ago

2020/12/2

by Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan

The titles of books can be misleading. I recall the surprise of a colleague when she saw me carrying a work titled ‘Why is Sex Fun?’ In that book, biologist Jared Diamond explores why human sexual behaviour is so very different from that of animals, even though we are descended from them and still retain some of their behavioural characteristics. The book’s subtitle is ‘The Evolution of Human Sexuality’. The title of Professor Ronald Dworkin’s work, ‘Religion Without God’ (Harvard University Press), seems to be a contradiction, if not an absurdity. Can an atheistic doctrine (the negating particle ‘a’ + theo) be called a religion? But then atheist Einstein said he was religious: “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty … this knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.” Some have argued that in true Buddhism, that is, as it was preached, there are no gods; even that Buddhism is not a religion but a set of moral precepts and wise, compassionate guidance. So much depends on our definition and concept of terms.

The title of the work that occupies us here, ‘How to Think like a Roman Emperor’ by Donald Robertson (New York, 2019), can initially be misleading. Did all Roman emperors think alike? Not being a Roman emperor, how can I possibly think like one? Again, the book’s subtitle clarifies: ‘The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius’. This brings us to Aurelius (121 – 180 CE) and to Stoicism. Admittedly, I have long admired Marcus Aurelius and, to alter words from Ben Jonson, have honoured him “this side of idolatry”. As a note has it, “Marcus Aurelius was the first prominent example of a philosopher king. His Stoic tome ‘Meditations’, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.”

Socrates, at his trial at which he chose death, said that an unexamined life was not worth living. Aurelius began each morning by thinking about, planning and preparing for the day. The second phase was when he, as emperor, had to act. Finally, at night he reviewed the day and his conduct during it. The ‘Meditations’ was not written for others: it was a kind of “stock taking” of himself, his reactions and behaviour. Aurelius warns himself not to become a Caesar, that is, a dictator. He tried, as far as custom and circumstances permitted, to reduce the pomp which surrounded him (Pope Francis comes to mind) preferring a simple, unpretentious life. As the Greeks knew, we can never see our own face, except by reflection in a mirror. A true friend can act as a mirror, showing us as we really are. Aurelius, therefore, welcomed criticism. Severe on himself, he was patient and kind towards others. As history shows, this extended even to those who had rebelled against him. I wonder if Forster’s comment in his novel, ‘A Passage to India’, that truth is not truth unless spoken gently, derives from the words and example of Marcus Aurelius. Truth, if spoken unkindly, serves only to alienate and antagonise. It may silence the other but does not convince or persuade. In his ‘Meditations’, Aurelius records and rebukes himself when he falls short of the standards he has set himself. The emperor wondered how he could estimate the worth of an individual, and decided it was by seeing to what things that person gave value. In modern terms, it doesn’t mean we must not take an interest in cricket, fashion or food but how much importance and value do we place on such things? Aurelius as emperor couldn’t retreat to his library but had to act. When war broke out on the frontier, he left the safety and comfort of Rome and placed himself at the front with his soldiers. Nor was he solemn and humourless. He is reported to have been good-humoured, affectionate, and close to his family and friends. Before age and responsibilities burdened him, he had hobbies and, as was expected of Roman youths and young men, was active in sports.

At the end, knowing that he was dying; that doctors and medicines couldn’t help, the Emperor calmly and courageously declined food and drink so as not to engage in a futile prolongation of the inevitable. Such an attitude and action are the result of long and serious thought, and preparation: in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ (Act 1, Scene 4) it’s said of a man that he faced his own execution as one who had “studied” how to die. Aurelius must have known the Latin saying that someone who is not afraid of death cannot be enslaved. Changing time and place, John Donne in a sonnet that begins “Death be not proud” argues that since a person can die only once, having killed him, it’s Death that dies. And in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ (Act 2, Scene 2) Caesar says: “Cowards die many times before their deaths”. As he was dying, Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, managed to send a text message to his wife in the language he loved, Latin. It consisted of two words: Noli timere (Don’t fear).

Though I am in no way a specialist in either, I am struck by important similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism. For a start, the cornerstone of both is rationality. The Buddha lived from 563 – 483 BCE and Zeno, credited with being the founder of Stoicism, from 334 – 262 BCE. And long before Alexander the Great reached India in 326 BCE, there were links between India and the West. Did Asian Buddhism play a role in the development of Western Stoicism? If research has been done in this area, it has not received publicity: the most effective way of “sinking” a book is to ignore it. Take, for example, Martin Bernal’s thesis in his ‘Black Athena’ that the roots of Western Classical civilization were Afro-Asian. So too, many a male must have been outraged by Martin Stone when he argued in ‘When God was a Woman’ that the first divinities before whom we bowed our heads or prostrated ourselves were female, particularly the ‘mother goddess’. In Sri Lanka, that lucid and refreshing, if radical, work by Dr K S Palihakkara, ‘Buddhism Sans Myths & Miracles’ (Stamford Lake publishers, Pannipitiya) has not excited much, if any, public discussion. Dr Palihakkara’s declared effort was to rescue and cleanse Buddhism from the accretion over time of “myths and miracles and metaphysics”: these took away what was unique to Buddhism, making it more like other religions.

So much of our attitude to life and death depends on our eschatology, our ideas and beliefs about death and the afterlife. The Stoics were atheists believing that at death we disintegrate into and merge with the material, a material which is itself constantly changing. Whether there’s a similarity here with Buddhism, I leave to the reader. The cardinal virtues of Greek philosophy, as of Buddhism, include wisdom (the product of reason and thought), moderation and justice. With Buddhism, it’s not mere verbal and public protestation but actual practice, and so it was with the Stoics. Stoicism was a way of life, assiduously trained in; exemplified by character and conduct.

While in Islam representations of the Prophet are forbidden, Christianity has many paintings and sculptures of Jesus; Jesus with different expression, including pain, even agony. In contrast, the Buddha is almost invariably depicted as being serene. When we lived in Bonn, I used to admire the swans on the Rhine, their sedateness and dignity but, looking more carefully, one saw that these were the result of their feet working constantly, often against the current. So too, the serenity of the Buddha is the result of thought and effort: as is the calm associated with the Stoic.

Anger is temporary madness. Because a deranged person is not controlled by reason, it follows that someone who is angry, someone whose anger is not under control is, for the duration, mad. True Buddhists and Stoics do not give in to anger; they remain detached; free and above this “madness”.

Stoic calmness, the result of mental control, must not be mistaken for emotionlessness. To feel pain and sorrow is human: what counts is our reaction to them. The operative word here is “acceptance”. Sorrow, while it has its impact on us, must be met with wisdom; pain, with acceptance. (Related to acceptance is the key term and concept of relinquishment.) Thorns hurt, and the Bible advises us not to increase the pain by kicking against them. The Stoic image was of a dog tied to a cart: the dog can either walk along or make things worse for itself by struggling, futilely and painfully. A 20th century philosopher asked for the courage to change those things which can be changed; the serenity to accept what can’t be altered, and the wisdom to know the difference. Donald Robertson, a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, brings in modern terms and concepts to an understanding of Marcus Aurelius, among them the Stoic reserve-clause. Our expectations are ‘reserved’ for what is within our sphere of control: the rest is up to chance or, as believers would say, “Deo volente” or “Deo gratis”. (When I asked a friend why he often said “Inshallah” though he had never been a Muslim and was in fact a thorough atheist, he replied that it was in a philosophical and not in a religious sense: “If my effort and chance will it”.) As with emotions, so with our desires: of importance to the Stoics was (a) what we desired; (b) to what degree, and (c) how we set about achieving these desires.

Central to Buddhism and Stoicism is an awareness of transience, known in the former as “Anicca”. Heraclitus (500 BCE) famously declared that all is flux. We cannot step into the same river twice because fresh waters are ever flowing in. For better or worse, we are not the same as we were several, or even a few, years ago. We change, others change, relationships change, the world around us changes. All is flux. And as T S Eliot, borrowing from Hinduism, writes in ‘Murder in the Cathedral’, only a fool fixed in his folly thinks he can turn the wheel on which he turns.

I read that there’s a tribe which mourns birth and celebrates death, and Shakespeare in his major tragedy ‘King Lear’ suggests with ironic wit that all infants cry when they are born because they have come to this world! Freud suggested that in as much as we have an instinct for preservation and survival, there can also be a wish for death, for a return to a previous state of non-existence: see terms such as ‘Todestriebe’ and ‘Thanatos’. James Thomson in his poem, ‘City of Dreadful Night’ writes:

This little life is all we must endure,

The grave’s most holy peace is ever sure,

We fall asleep and never wake again;

Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,

Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh…

“And the cessation / of life’s peacock scream / will be relief” (Liebetraut Sarvan).

In Book 1 of his ‘Histories’, Herodotus relates the story of a mother who, full of love for and pride in her two sons, prays in the evening to the goddess Hera that she bestows on them “the greatest blessing” that can fall on mortals. The goddess answers the prayer, and the young men are found in the morning – dead. Diagones (412 – 323 BCE) who had a sharp sense of ‘humour’ requested that his dead body be thrown over the city walls so that the wild animals could have a meal: no longer having consciousness, what was done to his body didn’t matter. Respect for a corpse; gravestones and monuments; memorial services, prayers and rituals are for the living, and not for the dead. Buddhist nirvana means the final deliverance from suffering and sorrow: an escape into freedom effected by ceasing to be.

Given these conceptions of life and death, it is not surprising that suicide (not on impulse; not in despair or in a state of temporary madness) was accepted; indeed, in certain situations it was admired and highly honoured. Shakespeare’s Hamlet contemplating suicide and the “sleep” that follows it, saw death as a “consummation” devoutly to be wished for. Each individual must decide, with utmost clarity and calmness “whether the time is come to take leave of life” (‘Meditations’, Book 3). Or as Aurelius expresses it elsewhere, the chimney smokes and I leave the room (Book 5). To the Stoics, lamentation at death was for the loss that the living experienced, and not for the departed:

No motion has she now, no force

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course With rocks, and stones, and trees

(William Wordsworth)

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) wrote: “I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world.” And so I return to the serenity of the Buddha and to the calm of Stoicism: the aim of both was (through rational thought and conscious, controlled, behaviour) to minimise pain and to increase peace and happiness. Both Buddhism and Stoicism are positive and life-enhancing.

Addendum.

I draw attention to what I wrote in ‘Colombo Telegraph’ (1 February 2018) under the caption ‘Religious doctrine and religion’. If we say that Christianity is a gentle, or Buddhism a compassionate, religion what we mean is these faiths as they were taught – most certainly, not as they are practiced in private and public life. I suggested a distinction between religious doctrine and religion with its rituals, paraphernalia, hierarchy, myths and superstitions. Religious doctrine has a divine or semi-divine origin or is from an exalted, exceptional, individual. Simplifying, one could say: “Religious doctrine is ‘divine’ but religion is a human construct”.

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Midweek Review

With somewhat muddled foreign policy where are we heading?

Published

20 hours ago

2024/10/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

U.S. and Sri Lankan Marines conduct Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) drills during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise in 2023. CARAT Sri Lanka is the largest bilateral military exercise meant to enhance US-Sri Lanka relationship. (Pic courtesy US embassy, Colombo)

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The Sri Lanka Navy will take command of Combined Task Force (CTF) 154 from the Egyptian Navy soon. Since its establishment in May 2023, US (Capt. Oliver Herion), Jordan (Capt. Ayman Al Naimat) and Egypt (Commodore Haytham Elsayed Khalil), respectively, commanded the unit, one of the five Task Forces that operated under the purview of the US-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF).

The whole operation is spearheaded by Bahrain headquartered US Fifth Fleet. SLN, under the previous regime led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, joined the CMF in 2023 as its 39th member. Meanwhile, strange bedfellow Argentina is the latest addition to it. To make matters worse for that country, Buenos Aires, under eccentric right wing President Javier Gerardo Milei, wants to make the US dollar its official currency..

SLN disclosed the CMF’s move in a press release dated Oct, 02 under the new JVP/NFF regime that dealt with CTF commander Commodore Haytham Elsayed Khalil of the Egyptian Navy meeting Sri Lanka Navy Commander Vice Admiral Priyantha Perera.

CTF 150 focuses on maritime security in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean, CTF 151 leads regional counter-piracy efforts, CTF 152 handles maritime security in the Arabian Gulf, CTF 153 is responsible for operations in the Red Sea, and CTF 154 is tasked with training, thereby improving operational capabilities to enhance maritime security in the Middle East.

The CMF’s overall strategy should be examined taking into consideration the widening of the Middle East conflict, with Israel simultaneously taking on Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in Gaza, Hezbollah (Party of God) based in Lebanon and Iran widely accused of financing Hezbollah. In the wake of further destabilization of the region as a result of Israeli ground forces entering Lebanon and Iran firing missiles at the Jewish State in retaliation for terrorist acts committed against it, inside Iran, and elsewhere, the US and the UK bombed Yemen where Iran backed Houthis are trying to disrupt ship movements in the Red Sea. Since Israel launched a war against Hamas, in Gaza, and using that as an excuse, is committing acts of genocide against the Palestinians to create a homogeneous Jewis state, Houthis have meanwhile targeted nearly 90 merchant vessels in the Red Sea to force a halt to Israeli terror tactics to drive out or kill the Palestinians. Hezbollah and other resistance groups from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, too, are stepping up attacks to turn the tide against the extremist Jewish state.

Sri Lanka is now ironically among the coalition backing Israel battling Iran and Tehran-backed groups on multiple fronts and thousands of our workers are now employed in the Jewish state because of the extreme poverty here. Did Israel, in spite of knowing the impending Oct. 07, 2023 Hamas raid, targeting Southern Israel, conveniently turn a blind eye to pave the way for a sustained offensive? In other words, did Iran backed groups walk into an Israeli trap. The Israeli onslaught appeared to have been a meticulously planned response. The triggering of explosions in pagers used by Hezbollah, or those in some way connected to it in Lebanon and Syria, in the third week of September, before the killing of Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut, and the Israeli ground invasion, suggested the Jewish State planned a knockout blow against the Iran-led coalition. What Netanyahu did not bargain for is that the present day resistance is made up of committed fighters unlike the Arab armies that met Jewish state’s terror tactics in earlier wars as in 1948 and 1967. Though the Western media tries to paint Iran as the villain over the whole issue, Iran, nor its proxies, have caused needless bloodletting among Israeli civilians. Two major missile attacks that Teheran has so far carried out against the Jewish state had taken extraordinary measures not to target civilian infrastructure thereby hardly harming any noncombatants there. This is unlike Israel that has caused unimaginable harm to Arab civilians.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s suggestion that Israel shouldn’t hit Iranian oil or nuclear sites in response to a massive missile strike but consider other alternatives underscored the gravity of the rapidly developing situation.

Whether the world likes it or not, the war in the Middle East, as well as Ukraine, where the US and its major allies (all part of CMF) are trying to wear down Russia, is being politicized. There cannot be a better example than Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump’s declaration that he believed Israel should strike Iranian nuclear facilities in response to the recent Iranian missile barrage.

Those who had compared the decimation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 by the Sri Lanka military and the war between Hamas and Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 07 raids, included New Delhi based Narayan Swamy, who served UNI and AFP during his decades long career. While acknowledging that no two situations were absolutely comparable, Swamy, who currently serves as the Executive Director of IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) declared: “Oct 7 could be a turning point for Hamas similar to what happened to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka in 2006. Let me explain. Similar to Hamas, the LTTE grew significantly over time eventually gaining control of a significant portion of Sri Lanka’s land and coast. The LTTE was even more formidable than Hamas. It had a strong army, growing air force and a deadly naval presence. Unlike Hamas the LTTE successfully assassinated high ranking political figures in Sri Lanka and India. Notably LTTE achieved this without direct support from any country??? Well Hamas received military and financial backing from Iran and some other states [emphasis is mine]. The LTTE became too sure of their victories overtime. They thought they could never be beaten and that starting a war would always make them stronger. But in 2006 when they began Eelam War 1V their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran couldn’t have foreseen that within three years he and his prominent group that the world was led to believe as being virtually invincible, especially by the Western media and so-called military experts, would be defeated. Prabhakaran believed gathering tens of thousands of Tamil civilians during the last stages of the war would protect them and Sri Lanka wouldn’t unleash missiles and rockets. Colombo proved him wrong. They were hit. By asking the people not to flee Gaza, despite Israeli warnings, Hamas is taking a similar line. Punishing all Palestinians for Hamas’ actions is unjust just like punishing all Tamils for LTTE’s actions was wrong. The LTTE claimed to fight for Tamils without consulting them and Hamas claimed to represent Palestinians without seeking the approval for the Oct.7 strike. Well two situations are not absolutely comparable. We can be clear that Hamas is facing a situation similar to what the LTTE faced shortly before its end. Will Hamas meet a similar fate as the LTTE? Only time will answer that question.”

In a way, the circumstances of the ongoing Middle East conflict and the emergence of Tamil terrorism here is so dissimilar, the situations cannot be compared at all.

GoSL stand on ME conflict

In the first week of January, this year, the then President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief, in addition to being the Defence Minister, Ranil Wickremeisnghe, declared his intention to deploy an SLN vessel in the Red Sea in support of the ongoing CMF operations. The specific US-led effort meant to overcome the Houthi challenge was called ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian.’ In spite of statements attributed to various spokespersons at that time, we are still in the dark as to the actual implementation of Wickremesinghe’s directive.

How could Sri Lanka undertake such a costly deployment in the absence of at least one properly equipped vessel to operate in missile and drone environments at a time the Wickremesinghe administration claimed it couldn’t hold Local Government polls for want of sufficient funds?

Why on earth Wickremeisnghe wanted a role for SLN in ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’, launched in Dec. 2023, when some of Washington’s allies were skeptical about the initiative?

With the further deterioration of the Middle East situation, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government should take stock of the situation. Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB) leader AKD, in his capacity as the Commander-in Chief of armed forces and Defence Minister, should receive a comprehensive briefing regarding the current situation.

In the absence of a properly constituted foreign policy, Sri Lanka found itself in a deepening quandary. The armed forces, as well as the JVP that had been at the receiving end, in 1971 and 1987-1990, of the counter-insurgency campaigns, need to work together in an environment caused by AKD’s unexpected triumph over the two-party system.

Let me examine the JVP/JJB stand on the SLN’s Read Sea deployment as desired by Wickremesinghe. It would be pertinent to mention that the SLN joined the CMF during Wickremesinghe’s tenure as the President.

On behalf of the JVP/JJB, Sunil Handunetti strongly condemned Wickremesinghe’s declaration on the Red Sea deployment. The former JVP parliamentarian questioned the rationality of Wickremesinghe move while warning of dire consequences. The one-time head of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), a vital parliamentary watchdog committee, accused Wickremesinghe of joining a US-led effort supportive of Israel. Warning Sri Lanka could earn the wrath of certain countries by participating in such US-led endeavours, Handunetti asked whether President Wickremesinghe could decide on active participation in an international operation.

Against that background, President AKD and his Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath should make Sri Lanka’s position clear in respect of the Middle East conflict. Regardless of the country heading towards parliamentary elections in a couple of weeks, the President will have to keep an eye on developments as various interested parties pursue strategies which may not align with our own.

The developing situation in Lebanon, as well as Syria, compelled the Foreign Ministry to issue travel warnings in respect of both countries while keeping its options open on Israel. The second Iranian missile barrage carried out against Israel in October obviously didn’t influence Sri Lanka to issue a travel warning. Iran mounted its first bombardment in April also this year. Sri Lanka maintains diplomatic missions both in Tel Aviv and Beirut.

Developing dilemma

One can easily understand bankrupt Sri Lanka’s dilemma when India finds itself in an unenviable situation. In spite of denials at different levels, India made ammunition, explosives and other equipment that are used by Israel and Ukraine, with the latter using them against Russia, one-time major supplier of armaments to India. The late Indian Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit, who at times behaved like a Viceroy when he was their High Commissioner in Colombo in the ’80s, in his memoirs ‘Foreign Policy Makers of India’ defended Indira Gandhi’s controversial decision not to condemn the 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan due to their heavy dependence on the Soviet Union for defense needs.

New Delhi obviously cannot ignore Washington’s requirement to ensure a steady supply of ammunition to Israel and Ukraine alike.

Reuters declared on Sept. 19, 2024, following the publication of a New Delhi datelined exclusive headlined “Ammunition from India enters Ukraine, raising Russian ire,” India’s Foreign Ministry described the report as ‘speculative and misleading.’

The news agency quoted Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal as having said: “It implies violations by India where none exist and, hence, is inaccurate and mischievous.”

“India has been carrying out its defence exports taking into account its international obligations on non-proliferation and based on robust legal and regulatory framework, which includes a holistic assessment of relevant criteria, including end user obligations and certifications,” Jaiswal said.

The bottom line is that even strategic alliances are changing or done away with. India-Russia relationship, built largely on defence ties, can be cited as an example. Indian’s backing for Ukraine and Israel meant that the former’s role in the world stage has undergone a drastic change. That is the undeniable truth.

India skipped the U.N. General Assembly vote on February 23, 2023 on a resolution that underscored the need to reach as soon as possible a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in Ukraine in line with the principles of the U.N. Charter. India won’t condemn Russia over the war in Ukraine either. But, that wouldn’t prevent New Delhi from supplying Israel and Ukraine while Indians serving with the Russian Army battling Ukraine remains an issue. New Delhi, too, is obviously playing both sides like most of the Arab regimes when dealing with Israel and the issue of hapless Palestinians as we have explained earlier.

In the run-up to the presidential election here, the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government was accused of turning a blind eye to ex- and serving military personnel joining Russia. Although both Russia and Sri Lanka promised to address the concerns of men on the Ukrainian-Russia front, as well as their families, the current situation is not known.

The former Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, PC, intervened in this matter and ex-Defence Secretary General (retd.) Kamal Gunaratne, especially, visited Moscow to explore ways and means of reaching consensus on the issue at hand. However, the AKD administration should examine the whole issue afresh as combat experienced Sri Lankans serving with foreign forces can be a social issue.

We know Sri Lanka paid a heavy price for failing to take remedial measures after Sri Lankans reached Syria during the Yahapalana administration (2015-2019). Had the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government acted on a warning issued by its own Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakse, PC, as advised by the intelligence services, the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage may have been avoided.

At that time, some speculated that 45 persons of nine families joined ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Taking into consideration the arrest of four Sri Lankans by Gujarat police on terrorism charges during the general election in India, the new government should also pay attention to emerging threats. The arrests, last May, proved that security concerns remain. However, the All Ceylon Union of Muslim League Youth Fronts (ACUMLYF) repeatedly questioned the failure on the part of the previous administration to take up this issue with India.

In response to The Island queries, the grouping’s President Sham Nawaz said that though they had made representations in this regard to the then State Foreign Minister Tharaka Balasuriya in the first week of June, the Foreign Ministry at least didn’t bother to respond. In fact, there hadn’t been any response whatsoever until the change of the government in September. Perhaps, Nawaz should make representations to new Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath.

Another US ship

Sri Lanka will receive another mothballed US Coast Guard Cutter, gratis, courtesy the USA. Over the years, the US transferred three Coast Guard Cutters to Sri Lanka, also gratis. The transfer of the fourth US Coast Guard Cutter will take place during President Dissanayake’s tenure, perhaps mid next year and marks a significant development in bilateral relations. The US intention to transfer the vessel was announced in late February this year during Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Richard Verma’s visit. Verma also visited the site of the West Container Terminal (WCT), a deep-water shipping container terminal in the Port of Colombo. The WCT, is being constructed by Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT) Private Limited with $553 mn in financing from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. But the real danger is we are being increasingly dragged into a quagmire of American making vis-à-vis the bloc led by Russia and China. As the old saying goes there is no such a thing as a free meal. Let us hope comrades who are leading us now realise it as well before it is too late.

The CWIT is a consortium consisting of India’s largest port operator, Adani Ports & SEZ Ltd., Sri Lanka’s major listed conglomerate, John Keells Holdings PLC, and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority. The consortium is set to develop the CWIT on a Build, Operate, and Transfer agreement, for a period of 35 years.

The US investment at the Colombo Port should be viewed against the backdrop of Chinese presence at the Colombo Port, in addition to China having Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease and other projects. India is keen to expand its influence here and, as a Quad member, seems to be working with others (the US, Australia and Japan) to bolster defence ties.

The expansion of China Bay, the Trinco-based No 03 maritime squadron, is a case in point. The squadron that had been moved to China Bay five years ago consists of Beech King Air B-200 and Dornier 228. A Beechcraft King Air 360ER equipped with cutting-edge technology is to be inducted to the squadron tomorrow (10) to further boost SLAF’s ability to patrol its waters and address maritime threats. The US is the donor of Beechcraft King Air 360ER.

Another maritime surveillance aircraft is expected to join the squadron before the end of this year. The donor is Australia that provided two patrol boats to SL years ago and paid for fuel for vessels engaged in anti-human smuggling operations. What we need to understand is the support received as part of the often repeated free and open Indi-Pacific strategy pursued by Quad. Valuable support received/offered for enhancement of Sri Lanka’s hydrographic capabilities from Australia and Japan should be considered accordingly.

Midweek Review

Ahambakaraka : A postscript

Published

21 hours ago

2024/10/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Ashanthi Ekanayake

Liyanage Amarakeerthi’s Ahambakaraka, received much attention when it was first published and then went on to win many accolades. The most recent among them was the Vidharshana Literary Prize for best translation in 2024. It is a novel with immense possibilities and offers multiple readings and interpretations. When it first came out, it received the attention of Captain Elmo Jayawardena, who is also a writer of some substance. He wrote a comprehensive review of the novel in The Daily News of 19 October 2016.

In his review Captain Jayawardene describes the protagonist of the novel, Bandula Balagalla, using a somewhat unfortunate turn of phrase, and twists the “born with a silver spoon in the mouth” into a different expression which will not be quoted here. It must be said that a reader’s take on what is read depends entirely on their world views, the theories of reading they encounter, and also mainly the experience they gain as readers.

As the translator of the novel under discussion of which the English title reads as The Maker of Accidents, I must say that what motivated me to translate the novel was these very same possibilities for multiple readings. The novel offered among other things a reading which aligned closely with Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus, capital and power. This brief attempt is simply an opening to the immense possibilities of the novel. I will unfortunately not be able to deal with the topic adequately and do it justice but I will try my best and leave a deeper exploration for another occasion.

In many of his works Bourdieu describes these notions as that which inscribe in us a certain social status. Amarakeerthi’s novel while dealing with the socio-political upheavals which span a wide period of time also brings out these aspects of society as presented by Bourdieu.

Bandula Balagalla is an affluent man and his conduct and his aspirations, or lack thereof, create in the mind of the reader the image of someone who has everything in life and can live without being burdened by new ambitions. He can simply live a contented, if self-centered life. The novelist creates some doubt in the reader’s mind by making the reader challenge the notion of BB as the protagonist because the narrative describes him as a smug, self-satisfied person in contrast to Vijaya Wickramasinghe who in addition to all other drawbacks has to also resort to being mute for simple survival and thus be denied language and the use of it to his advantage.

Language and the “symbolic power” languages have, as discussed by Bourdieu is a primary if mostly ignored theme in this novel. Balagalla strives to create a space for language in his township as does the novelist by giving prominence of place to the different languages the characters resort to. Radha is a teacher of language and performance. For her language is performance. Language is in the Marxist sense a commodity in the novel as described by the narrator. When engaging in the translation, too, I made a conscious effort to use language suited to the different characters. Some were anglophiles, and they might not code mix or code switch easily, and they would attempt to sound more “English.” Some were more at ease with the Sri Lankan English variety. Some would use “broken English.” As a teacher of language this was partly my fascination with the novel.

Translating some Sinhala turns of phrase turned out to be a gratifying exercise because of the novelist’s natural playfulness with Sinhala and language as a whole. Just as the protagonist made up the rules of his game similarly the novelist too played with language. Rather than being obstacles, the quaint expressions and the intricate plot made me realize how correct I was to see the immense potential it offered for a “Bourdieusian” reading.

To put it simply Bandula Balagalla through his upbringing and privileged position is always at ease in any situation. This is a clear manifestation of habitus as explained by Bourdieu. He has symbolic, cultural and linguistic capital. He in fact has everything Wije does not have. Radha, who is from a more middle class upbringing and background is also somewhat “vulgar” in her aspirations in comparison. A case in point is her venture “to make ladies” of the lady-doctors of Kurunegala. Balagalla has good taste in food, music, other matters of life-style and also literature. The first narrator attempts to compete with Balagalla’s taste in literature in this sense. The ironical choice of name for the bookstore i.e. Tower of Babel is a case in point of the sense of power Balagalla wields. He has cultural, and social capital. He is well connected and he is almost native like, not simply in his use of English but also by disposition. He has the right connections as the occasion calls for. In contrast Wije with his rags to riches back story has economic power but is lacking in all other aspects. This is what he pursues and hankers after. Although he is good at “hustling” he is lacking in other ways. Here the question of class and social prestige also come into question. The Balagalla Wallauwa provides Bandula Balagalla with social standing and the right type of connections and also an inbred (in the sense of innate), or even inculcated cultural awareness which helps him navigate society. Social, cultural and symbolic capital need to be accompanied by the “economic” to help a person gain distinction. The crowns and swords that Wije seeks are but symbols of prestige which he is continuously denied. He seeks social mobility and believes that he will gain it by being in possession of these symbols which are part of what the Balagalla estate entails.

This is in fact the most thrilling aspect of the novel. One does not have to be limited to Bourdieu’s theories. However, it cannot be denied that Ahambakaraka, which means the maker of accidents or alternately the planner of coincidences is a rich novel as it offers multiple readings.

There is an interesting plot, full of twists and turns which will be gratifying for any reader. However, if one seeks to read deeper and engage with theory it does not disappoint. The three women for whom the novel is initially written are also a fascinating aspect of the story. The characters are so intricately developed and thought out that a feminist reading of the female characters also proves to be a fruitful endeavor.

My ultimate aim was to highlight these very obvious aspects of the work which were not addressed in the earlier reviews.