Midweek Review

An epic history of reason

Published

2 years ago

2022/09/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Steven Skybell and F. Murray Abraham in Classic Stage’s ‘Galileo.’ Photo courtesy Joan Marcus

Brecht’s Life of Galileo:

By Laleen Jayamanne

Andrea: Unhappy the land
hat breeds no hero.
Galileo: No! Unhappy the land
that needs a hero.

Brecht in Sri Lanka

It is interesting that while three of Brecht’s plays were translated into Sinhala and successfully performed, The Life of Galileo (as far as I know), has not been translated. It was directed by Percy Colin-Thomé in English, with the Aquinas University College theatre workshop, in 1969. A Professor of Physics, Arthur Weerakoon, played Galileo with unabiding interest. The unusual back projections of text and the lively Italian Carnevale scene are still vivid in my memory. I remember revellers in masks and a figure dressed as the sun around which a child dressed as green earth, danced to the cheers of the crowd who well understood what the skit meant. The telescope, an invention Galileo modified and trained on the stars, was sold cheaply as an optical toy in the city streets. The Carnevale scene showed that the astronomer Galileo Galilei’s momentous discovery that the earth moved around the sun had reached the marketplace. Popular pamphlets about it were distributed, songs sung. A new age, they thought, had arrived.

I am now wondering why this play about the struggle between scientific reason, ethics, religious myth and superstition promoted by the all-powerful Catholic Church, failed to interest progressive Sinhala theatre folk of the 1960s. Might it interest Lankan theatre folk and students now, as they struggle to grapple with the current political, economic and ethical turmoil in the country and the role an ethnoreligious state ideology plays in it?

The Second World War – 1939

Brecht wrote his four major Epic plays in exile in Denmark and the US, after he fled Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933. The first of these was The Life of Galileo written in three weeks in late 1938 in Denmark where Niels Bohr was working on the problem of splitting the atom. Unlike his other plays, which were based on parables, Galileo was based on a famous historical figure. Bohr’s assistants advised Brecht on Ptolemaic cosmology which presented the universe as a ‘crystal sphere.’ A model of it became an important prop in the play. It is this ancient static model of the universe (accepted by the church of Rome), which Galileo challenged with his dynamic theory of a heliocentric universe. The history of writing, translating and revising the play is linked to major world historical events. In 1940 when Hitler invaded Denmark, Brecht and family escaped, via Finland, Moscow and Vladivostok to California.

Hiroshima – 6 August 1945

Later, while Brecht worked on the play with the brilliant English actor Charles Laughton in LA in 1945, the US dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In his diary Brecht writes of the horror and mourning expressed by ordinary Americans on the streets, though it meant the end of the war and return of their husbands and sons, victorious. Brecht’s play, which shows the birth of the ‘New Scientific Age’, carried a dark premonition. It also demonstrated the way Galileo betrayed his own rational discovery, by recanting his ideas so as to escape torture and death as a heretic.

Death of Stalin – 1953

After the war Brecht went to live in East Berlin under Soviet rule, where he created his famous Berliner Ensemble with his wife, the great Brechtian actress, Helena Weigel. Brecht reworked Galileo while living in East Berlin when Stalin died in 1953. He would have had a keen understanding of the Stalinist Soviet bureaucracy that ‘purged’ artistes, some of them close friends, including Tretyakov the playwright, who he considered his teacher. Born in 1898, Brecht died in 1956 relatively young, without being able to direct Galileo with his ensemble as he had planned.

The Holy Inquisition of Rome

The 17th Century papal court in Rome was a vast bureaucracy, which controlled knowledge, wealth and the people in a hierarchical pre-ordained structure, just as they imagined the universe to be. In fact Brecht referred to that Church, not entirely ironically, as a ‘secular institution’ in its comprehensive pursuit of power and policing of thought. Pope Urban VIII (who summoned Galileo to the Inquisition), was himself a mathematician. They agreed that Galileo’s math was correct but not the radical conclusions he drew from it, which contradicted church dogma of the earth’s centrality in the universe. Still, for the Church, Galileo alive (as the preeminent and famous astronomer and physicist of Europe) was more useful than burnt-alive as a heretic. This way Italian merchants could use his star charts to navigate the seas. If he was burnt as a heretic all of his knowledge would be proscribed, unable to be put to practical commercial use. The church was a political organisation that kept the peasantry in their impoverished place, as it was preordained in the Bible. Galileo, according to the play, did not join the new mercantile bourgeois class even when he had an opportunity to help form a resisting power block, but instead bowed to Church power and Princely feudal social relations through fear of physical torture.

Brecht in America

California is where a large number of German Jewish refugees went to flee Fascism, hoping to find work in the Hollywood film industry. Many of the highly trained technicians from the sophisticated German Weimar film industry did get employed, enriching Hollywood cinema, as did a few directors. But ironically, some of the Jewish actors had to play bit-roles as German Nazis in Hollywood anti-war films, because of their German accents and poor English! Charlie Chaplin befriended some of these artistes and was deeply concerned about what was happening in Europe, which is what prompted him to make The Great Dictator (1940).

In 1947 Brecht himself was called to appear at the Senate hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee held against people suspected of being Communists. He left the States soon after. Chaplin, suspected of being a communist, was also called before this committee after he made Monsieur Verdoux (1947), when American audiences turned against him for playing the role of a benevolent murderer. When he requested a visa to leave and return to the US after a promotional tour to Europe, the State Dept. refused it. Then, quite astutely had his considerable wealth transferred to a Swiss bank and left the US for good. The most popular and loved star-director had become box-office and political ‘poison’ in an America driven by the anti-Communist witch-hunt. Many Hollywood directors, script-writers and actors lost their jobs either because they were or were suspected of being communists. Many progressive American artistes had joined the Communist Party during the 1930s Depression.

An Epic History of Reason

“June twenty-second sixteen thirty-three,

A momentous days for you and me,

Of all the days that was the one

An age of reason could have begun

“

The play explores how a ‘new age of reason’ became a ‘new dark age’ when the church suppressed the truth. The creation of scientific reason and ethics, and their accessibility to ordinary people, are major themes of the play. Brecht demonstrates how and why the authoritarian institution of the church controlled both the people and new knowledge. He does so through his newly formulated idea of epic theatre. He wanted theatre not only to be a place where emotions such as empathy and catharsis are experienced (as in the Greek tragedy), but also a forum for thought. He thought that epic devices such as a narrator or interruptions with song or projection of text and images would stimulate sensory thought.

Brecht’s Galileo was first performed in a small theatre in Los Angeles in 1947 with Charles Laughton in the lead and directed by Joseph Losey who had socialist sympathies and had also visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s. There is a very intricate account of their collaboration, in Brecht’s diary, gold for those interested in Brechtian acting and staging, and his thinking on the new Epic mode.

The play is about several aspects of the life of the great scientist. He is presented as a man who has a robust enjoyment of eating, drinking, teaching, observing, thinking and writing. The play opens with him enjoying his bath and talking about astronomy with his maid’s son, Andrea, who is only nine. He is teaching him the new astronomy that ‘the earth moves’ around the sun through a playful demonstration. The play concludes with Andrea (now a physicist himself), confronting his teacher.

Reason in Buddhist Philosophy

Within the history of Indian philosophy Buddhism offered an interrogation and understanding of the human mind, its processes of thinking and of reason. The Buddha rejected traditional Hindu ideas of animal sacrifice, elaborate priestly ritual and faith in revealed sacred texts. He promoted debate and introspective, yet detached examination of mental processes. He spoke to the people in the vernacular Pali, rather than in the language of learning and power, Sanskrit. But when the Buddha’s teaching became a popular religion over many centuries and received political patronage as in Sri Lanka, it became also a source of superstition and myths, used by rulers to propagate their authoritarian power.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government created an ideology of the ‘war hero’ (ranawiru), in order to win the war against the LTTE. It was promoted as a war to save Lanka as an exclusive Sinhala-Buddhist nation, headed by a leader who was likened to the celebrated ancient King Dutugemunu who defeated the Tamil king Elara. Through this legend, reinforced by a genre of historical epic films, the heavy militarisation of an authoritarian ethno-religious state was normalised, consolidated and enthusiastically embraced by a large majority of Sinhala folk.

Tisaranee Gunasekara issues a timely warning in her article, Prelude to the Elections (GroundViews, 8/21/22). At first she gives a global historical perspective on religious violence.

“When Pope Francis visited Greece, a Greek Orthodox priest called him a heretic. That charge would have led to a gruesome death by fire in most of Europe just a few hundred years ago. If that past seems not just another time but another universe, it was thanks to the work of Christians who struggled for religious reforms and the secularisation of politics, often at the risk of their lives. It is the inadequacy of such struggles or their failure that creates spaces for fatwas against authors and their brutal implementation”.

Then she focuses on Sri Lanka’s recent ethno-religious politics and offers a reasonable suggestion for the next elections in the context of the ongoing Aragalaya.

“Religion and race played a decisive role in the 2019 and 2020 elections and here we are. Minimising these deadly influences is necessary to ensure that the next election produces a parliament that is more moderate and more rational […] the more moderate parties should form an understanding about not giving nominations to clergy of any religion and keeping religious symbols out of politics in general and electoral politics in particular.”

Galileo Betrays Science

Shown the instruments of torture, fearing death by fire, Galileo recants. He denies the scientific knowledge he arrived at by empirically studying the sky through a telescope for the very first time in history and through his mathematical calculations. Saved from death, he lives in relative comfort, under house arrest in Florence and writes his Discorsi in Italian rather than in Latin, the language of scholarship. While he dictated his book to his daughter, a monk would take away each page of the manuscript daily. But each night he would secretly make a copy and hide it inside a large globe!

Guru and Shishya

In the penultimate scene Galileo’s former student Andrea arrives (on route to Amsterdam to take up work as a physicist), to say farewell. The exchange between the great master and student who felt bitterly betrayed, is emotionally wrenching and crystal clear in conception. It is all of the following; a discourse, a debate, a lament, a lesson, on the betrayal of reason and of its consequences for humanity in the field of science. It is in every sense a brilliant ‘Epic Pedagogic Demonstration’ of what happens when reason is betrayed by unreason, and the irrational rules. Here, Brecht presents science (with its immense destructive modern technology and the atom bomb), as a matter of interest to all of humanity, not just to a clique of rulers and scientists. An epic articulation of this historical event is what is important here.

The full force of Galileo’s clear-eyed response to Andrea’s rebuke, ‘unhappy the land that breeds no hero,’ is felt here. When Andrea is ready to hail him as hero because Galileo has secretly completed the Discorsi, ‘the first important work of modern physics’, the master categorically refuses the exalted status even as he entrusts his manuscript to Andrea for safe delivery to an enlightened Europe. Galileo warns Andrea to be extra careful when he crosses Germany – as though it were now Europa 1940!

Then, Brecht’s Galileo delivers his infamous speech of self-disgust and trenchant critique in response to Andrea’s high praise:

Andrea: Science has only one commandment; contribution. And you have contributed more than any man for a hundred years.

Galileo: Have I? Then welcome to my gutter, dear colleague in science and brother in treason: I sold out, you are a buyer. The first sight of the book! His mouth watered and scoldings were drowned. Blessed be our bargaining, white-washing, death fearing community!”

Note the brilliant shift of pronouns, modes of address and use of idiomatic cliché as epic devices.

In recanting Galileo says he betrayed the people who believed that a new age had begun. He knew, he said, that for a short while he was as strong as the church and could have, as a single individual, challenged its immense power but didn’t. He was famous across Europe and scientists were awaiting his latest research. But he adds that no single man can do science, that it is a collective enterprise and should concern everyone. It’s this collective social mission of scientific reason and its capacity to alleviate suffering that he thought he had betrayed. The great secrecy of the process of creating the hydrogen bomb in the Manhattan Project and its links to the US military machine were events with great immediacy for Brecht when writing Galileo. Brecht’s Galileo telescopes 17th Century Enlightenment Reason and 20th Century Instrumental Reason; State Violence and Mass-Destruction.

Christian Witch Burning

The final scene focuses on Andrea who leaves an old and blind Galileo behind settling down to eat a roast goose for dinner. He has refused to give his sullied hand to Andrea who he sees as the future of science. At a border crossing while an Italian customs officer checks Andreas’ box of books for contraband, he openly and avidly reads the Discorsi when shouts from a gang of boys distracts him. They point to a little hut nearby saying there is a witch living there. Andrea lifts a boy up to the window and asks him what he sees. He replies, ‘an old girl cooking porridge at a stove’. But as Andrea clears customs and is about to leave he sees the boys pointing to a shadow cast on the house and yelling, ‘Marina’s a witch, she rides a broom at night!’ A new age indeed! Brecht ends Galileo on this disquieting irrational cry, reminding us of a time when women healers, midwives and just any old woman living alone were burnt as witches by Christian Europe, for not fitting into a patriarchal order, not that long ago.

Neither Hero nor Villain

In Brecht’s modern epic presentation of Galileo, he is neither a hero nor a villain. Heroes pitted against pitiless Destiny defined Greek Tragedy. Instead of heroes and villains or more recently goodies and baddies who we can cheer or boo, Brecht offers something quite rare and mighty strange. He offers scene after scene where the relations between the following dyadic terms are so finely calibrated that we really have to learn the irresistible joy of thinking for ourselves in the theatre.

Here are the dyadic terms:
senses and intellect,
gestures and speech,
subjects and objects,
costumes and movements
time and space,
body and mind,
feeling and thought

The terms on the left are rather more sensory and immediate, while those on the right tend to be more abstract, mediated. They are dyads not opposites, so the relays among them are intricate and complex, keeping us engaged. The mise-en-scène of the play is expansive, both terrestrial and cosmic. There is no longer an unmoving centre to the universe nor within the human brain, according to Galileo. Brecht’s Galileo presents both the cosmos and the human brain as dynamic systems. And Brecht’s modern epic theatrical idiom is the necessarily de-centred formal means adequate to demonstrating this new reality.

New Translations?

On October 31st 1992 (after 359 years) Pope John Paul II formally apologised for the ‘Galileo Case.’ It was the first of many apologies during his papacy. Is such a gesture by a ruler even thinkable in the Lankan context? I feel that Brecht’s Life of Galileo may resonate now with some Lankans engaged in the Aragalaya in the long term, as a process critically evaluating many spheres of Lankan life. I hope some folk reading this piece might think the time is ripe for a Sinhala and Tamil translation of Galileo some time soon.

All News Advertisement

Related Topics:Brecht’s Life of Galileo:F. Murray Abraham Joan Marcus Steven Skybell

Up Next

The Kandy-floss Tea-Dance, or Walk like an Elephant

Don't Miss

Challenge of Sadness

Sahan Weerasooriya

Click to comment

Midweek Review

North: A change in status ahead of Maaveerar Naal

Published

6 days ago

2024/11/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

Premier Dr. Harini Amarasuriya receives her letter of appointment from President Dissanayake. The NPP government’s success will largely depend on the duo: AKD, who entered Parliament in 2000 and new entrant HA (pic courtesy PMD).

* One-time LTTE mouthpiece TNA is no more

* N & E Tamil speaking representation enhanced

* Fresh look at Sarath Fonseka’s performance at 2010 Prez poll in North required

The new government’s main challenge is ensuring the full implementation of the IMF-led post-Aragalaya economic recovery in line with the Economic Transformation Bill approved by the previous government without a vote. Whatever the side-shows, the focus not only of the government but the Parliament should be on preparing the country to resume debt repayment in 2028 or be ready to face the consequences.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

In a way it was a great thing for the country that the National People’s Power (NPP) scored an emphatic victory at the Nov. 14 general election. Now the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led NPPers can have no excuses for not being able to fulfill their promises as would have been the case if the preceding September Presidential election outcome was repeated with the combined Opposition having the lion’s share of the vote, which would have left the country with a virtual hung Parliament of no benefit to anyone other than creating a parliamentary stalemate, leading to fresh political chaos.

We will, however, grant the fact they have a very tall order to fulfill after the previous governments having virtually signed away our sovereignty with the deals they had inked during their tenures.

But we do have a nagging suspicion about someone working in not so mysterious ways against us behind the scene, after what the former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, publicly stated not too long after the defeat of President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the 2015 presidential election when he crowed to the whole world how they had spent several hundred million dollars for regime change operations at the time in several countries, including Sri Lanka. Then we also know since then how a US engineered coup ousted the popularly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan by way of parliamentary and military shenanigans, and then the more publicised way they ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh and then virtually ruined that country as was the case during the Aragalaya here in 2022 to oust the legally elected President, with a wide mandate, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The NPP has accomplished the impossible, even in the North, in the form of securing the Jaffna electoral district at the recently concluded parliamentary election. The NPP obtained three seats, nothing but a historic watershed.

The ruling party also won the Vanni electoral district, the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the Eelam War IV (Aug 2006-May 2009). Securing Jaffna and Vanni consisting of Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu administrative districts, is as difficult as eradicating the conventional fighting capability of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The NPP won two seats in the Vanni.

The final phase of the ground offensive was conducted in a corner of the Vanni electorate where LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran met his maker.

The NPP secured two seats in Trincomalee and one in the Batticaloa districts, whereas Digamadulla gave President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s party four more seats. Altogether 12 out of 29 parliamentary seats available in the five above-mentioned electoral districts ended up with the NPP.

The NPP delivered the stunning blow to those who still pursued separatist agenda, regardless of the LTTE’s demise over 15 years ago. The combined armed forces brought the war to a successful conclusion in May 2009.

The Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)-led Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that dominated the Northern and Eastern provinces since 2001 hadn’t been in the fray at the 2024 general election. The TNA that had been in the grip of the LTTE, during 2004-2009, disintegrated 15 years after the end of war, with the ITAK unceremoniously ending the partnership. Ex-TNA members, EPRLF, TELO and PLOTE contested the general election under the ticket of Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA).

The ITAK obtained seven seats (Batticaloa three, Jaffna one, Vanni one, Digamadulla one, Trincomalee one) whereas DTNA won just one (Vanni one). It would be pertinent to mention that ITAK and DTNA fielded a common list for the Trincomalee district to ensure a split in the Tamil vote wouldn’t cost the community much valued representation therein. ITAK Trincomalee leader Kathiravelu Shanmugam Kugathasan, who replaced R. Sampanthan in Parliament at the last Parliament, won that seat.

In addition to the seven elected, the ITAK that contested under the ‘House’ symbol won one National List slot. Ahila Ilankai Tamil Congress (AITC) was the only other party to secure a seat (Jaffna/ Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam) while Independent Group 17 (Jaffna/ Ramanathan Archuna) won one. Altogether Tamil political parties obtained 11 seats, one less than the NPP.

M.A. Sumanthiran (ITAK/Jaffna), Dharmalingham Siddharthan (DTNA/Jaffna) and Sashikala Nadarajah (DTNA/Jaffna), widow of slain ITAK MP Nadarajah Raviraj were some of the big losers. In the east, one-time Chief Minister of the Eastern Province Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pilleyan, formerly of the LTTE, failed to retain his Batticaloa district seat. Former LTTE field commander and ex-lawmaker Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan aka Karuna Amman made an unsuccessful bid to re-enter Parliament also from the Batticaloa district.

In the previous Parliament, there had been 16 MPs representing five Tamil political parties (ITAK, AITC Eelam People’s Democratic Party [EPDP], Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal [TMVP] and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kuttani [TMTK]. Last week’s poll eliminated EPDP, TMVP and TMTK while new entrant NPP created political history by winning 11 seats.

In spite of the humiliating setback suffered by those who had been previously in Parliament, the NPP tally has increased the total strength of the Tamil-speaking group representing N & E in Parliament. Perhaps, the successful formation of NPP’s Tamil-speaking wing may influence other political parties to re-examine their overall political strategy. They may not have any other alternative as failure to do so can further weaken their position at the forthcoming Provincial Council and Local Government polls. PC and LG polls are expected to be held next year.

Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, who re-entered Parliament with a convincing win in Batticaloa, consolidated his position, within the party and the district, due to ITAK’s admirable performance there. If not for three Batticaloa seats, ITAK aka Federal Party would have been in an utterly embarrassing position. Batticaloa electoral district is the only one that the NPP couldn’t win. Therefore, the outspoken Rasamanickam can be really happy to have thwarted the NPP in the eastern district.

Now to bury the hatchet between the two or, more correctly, the three literally warring communities here, NPP will have to think out of the box to find a solution that may be by way of sharing power at the centre rather than the periphery, as was successfully done under the Donoughmore Constitution.

Accountability issues

At the presidential election held in Sept. the NPP couldn’t win at least one electorate in the North but did so well several weeks later, it could win Jaffna and Vanni electorates. If not for that sterling performance, the NPP couldn’t have secured an unprecedented 2/3 majority. President AKD should be ever grateful to the northern and eastern electorates for facilitating a 2/3 majority.

Since the introduction of the proportional representation at the 1989 Parliamentary election, no party succeeded in securing a 2/3 though many alleged the Rajapaksas abused such huge mandates. They were, of course, referring to the UPFA securing 144 seats and 145 seats at the 2010 and 2020 general elections, respectively. For a simple majority, the winning party needs 113 seats while 2/3 means 150 seats.

Against the backdrop of NPP’s victory in the N & E, the new Parliament should review Sri Lanka’s response to post-war accountability issues. Since the eradication of the LTTE, the TNA propagated politically motivated unsubstantiated war crimes allegations, both here and abroad. Finally, the treacherous Yahapalana government (2015-2019) betrayed the war-winning armed forces at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Oct 2015. The accountability resolution that had been co-sponsored by the US-led grouping and Sri Lanka was meant to pave the way for a new Constitution aimed at doing away with the country’s unitary status.

Interestingly, the war-winning Army Commander, Sarath Fonseka, who had been promoted to the rank of Field Marshal, in March 2015, served in that Yahapalana Cabinet, chaired by President Maithripala Sirisena. The role played by the then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe and the late Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in that despicable act is in the public domain. The failure on the part of Fonseka, who served President Sirisena’s Cabinet to vigorously oppose the government move is still a mystery.

The writer repeatedly discussed the failure on the part of Parliament and urged concerned political parties to raise the Yahapalana-TNA Geneva operation after the same lot fielded Fonseka as the common presidential candidate in 2010. Although Fonseka lost the contest by a massive 1.8 mn votes to war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he handsomely won the Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Digamadulla electoral districts at the same election.

The NPP’s excellent showing in the N & E at the recently concluded general election should be examined taking Fonseka winning the former war zones 14 years ago.

Having alleged Fonseka’s Army of war crimes throughout the northern campaign, the TNA had no qualms in backing the Sinha Regiment veteran. Unfortunately, political parties represented in Parliament never bothered to raise TNA’s duplicity. Instead, all of them shamelessly and brazenly played politics with the issue, seeking petty political advantage at the expense of the armed forces. There hadn’t been a single instance of a war-winning country betraying its armed forces hitherto anywhere in the world. It was only the Maithripala Sirisena/Ranil Wickremesinghe govt. that achieved that dastardly act.

The JVP, though being not part of the Yahapalana Cabinet, never opposed the government’s move against the armed forces. However, the NPP’s victory in the North, perhaps would give an opportunity for President AKD, who is also the Defence Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, to address the issue at hand afresh. President AKD retained the Defence portfolio when the new Cabinet of Ministers was sworn in last Monday.

The developing situation in the North may help post-war national reconciliation efforts. Successive governments deliberately allowed further deterioration of relations between the two communities by not taking apt remedial measures. Those who propagated lies were allowed to do so much to the disappointment of the armed forces. Parliament turned a blind eye even when the US and Australia et al denied visas to retired and serving officers and US imposed travel ban on the then Army Commander Gen. Shavendra Silva, the incumbent Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Maj. General Chagie Gallage, now retired, is another victim of external reprisals.

Maaveerar Naal (Great Heroes’ day)

The Tamil Diaspora must have been quite surprised by the outcome of the general election. Some interested parties played down the importance of NPP victory in the North on the basis of low turnout of voters. It would be interesting to observe how the Diaspora and political parties here mark this year’s Maaveerar Naal. Commencing 1991, the LTTE used to celebrate Nov. 21-27 week as Great Heroes Week. During the period the group wielded power, the weeklong celebrations and activities received even international media attention.

This year, Maaveerar week is scheduled to commence on Nov 21 (tomorrow), the day the 10th Parliament meets. What would those elected from the NPP, ITAK and other parties do this year? Would interested parties seek to cause some unnecessary commotion in a bid to embarrass the government. Let us hope the government would handle the situation cautiously as opportunistic elements on both sides seek to exploit the developments. ITAK’s Sivagnanam Shritharan paid tribute to fallen Maaveerar at Kanagapuram, Kilinochchi.

The NPP’s unexpected victory in the north may compel not only Tamil Diaspora but Western countries, particularly Canada, to review their position.

Canada declared May 18 as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day as Premier Justin Trudeau’s government sought to appease Canadian voters of Sri Lankan origin. Canada cannot under any circumstances ignore the Tamil vote received by the NPP as people discarded unsubstantiated war crimes allegations directed at the government, for the second time. Had the northern electorate believed the Army wantonly killed civilians on the Vanni east front in 2009, as alleged by the UN, they wouldn’t have voted for Fonseka. Perhaps, the people wanted the government to bring the war to an end at any cost. Having waged two terror campaigns in 1971 and 1987-1990, the JVP should be able to comprehend the need and the responsibility on the part of the government of the day to take whatever measures necessary to deal with the challenge.

The NPP was formed in 2019 just months ahead of the presidential election as the JVP realized it couldn’t push ahead on its own but needed wider public support. The NPP achieved that with ease within six years.

In August 2006, the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa went ahead with an-all-out campaign against the LTTE after failing to convince them to negotiate for a final settlement. President Rajapaksa had no option but to go on the offensive after the failed LTTE assassination attempts on the then Army Commander Lt. Gen. Fonseka (April 2006) and then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa (Oct. 2006). The TNA remained committed to the LTTE’s murderous cause until the very end.

A matter for serious concern

An unbelievably large number of voters skipped the general election. All political parties, including the NPP, should be concerned over the unprecedented deterioration of voter interest, especially after a thrilling presidential election brought AKD to power just six weeks ago. A substantial increase for the NPP from 5,634,915 votes (42.31 %) at the presidential to 6,863,186 (61.56%) at the general election just weeks later shouldn’t be allowed to divert attention to the massive drop in public interest. Well over half a million rejected votes, too, must worry all.

The NPP won 159 seats, including 18 National List slots, nine more than required for a 2/3 majority. At the presidential election 3,520,438 voters refrained from exercising their franchise. But that figure increased to 5,325,108 at the general election while the number of rejected votes, too, recorded a significant increase. According to the Election Commission, at the presidential poll, the number of rejected votes was 300,300 while the general election recorded 667,240 rejected votes.

What really caused such an increase in the number of rejected votes was when the number of polled votes dropped from 13,619,916 votes (79.46%) to 11,815,246 (68.93%)? In other words of the 17,140,354 people eligible to vote, a staggering percentage decided not to. Voter apathy is not healthy. Not healthy at all.

A rethinking on the part of the SJB and New Democratic Front (NDF/consisted of former SLPP lawmakers and UNP) is necessary as they couldn’t at least retain the number of votes received at the presidential election. SJB that polled 4,363,035 votes (32.76 %) at the presidential poll could muster only 1,968,716 (17.66%) at the general election, while NDF could secure 500,835 (4.49%) having polled 2,299,767 (17.27%) just weeks ago. The SJB and NDF ended up with 40 seats (including five NL slots) and five seats (including 2two NL slots) while the SLPP that won 145 seats at the 2020 general election had to be satisfied with three seats, including one NL slot.

Both Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe should seek remedial measures before the EC announced PC and LG polls. Perhaps, divided groups have to unite under one banner either under SJB or UNP or face annihilation at the PC and LG polls. For Premadasa and Wickremesinghe time seemed to have run out.

The SLPP obtained 350,429 votes (3.14%) at the general election up from 342,781 (2.57 %) at the presidential election. For the SLPP a rapid recovery process will never be possible as its only NL member and leader of the minute group Namal Rajapaksa is likely to be the target of corruption investigations. The SLPP group consists of Namal Rajapaksa, newcomer Chanaka Sampath (Galle) and D.V. Chanaka (Hambantota).

Fifteen political parties represented the last Parliament. They were SLPP (145), SJB (54), ITAK (10), NPP (03), EPDP (02), AITC (02), TMVP (01), SLFP (01), MNA (01), TMTK (01) TMTK, ACMC (01), NC (01), SLMC (01), UNP (01) and OPPP (01). The new Parliament will be represented by 13 political parties and one independent group – namely NPP 159, SJB 40, ITAK 08, NDF 05, SLPP 03, SLMC 03, Sarvajana Balaya (NL), UNP (01), DTNA (01), ACTC (01), ACMC (01), Jaffna Ind. Group 157 (01) and SLLP (01).

Midweek Review

‘Ramayanizing’ Sri Lanka by Courtesy of SriLankan Airlines

Published

6 days ago

2024/11/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

Srilankan advertisement

(The author is on X as @sasmester)

SriLankan Airlines’ five-minute commercial promoting the so-called ‘Ramayana Trail’ in Sri Lanka is being accepted very naively as an enticing and heartwarming advertisement by Sri Lankan and Indian viewers across social media. Predictably, the video has also gone viral. It shows a young child being educated about aspects of the Ramayana legend by his grandmother, while zooming in on locations in Sri Lanka where local mythology has made associations with some narratives of the Ramayana. Beyond the rave reviews of the commercial in Sri Lanka and India, an astute observer would in fact see it as a very problematic rendition for one simple reason. That is, when viewed from the perspective that it is paid for by SriLankan Airlines, a government entity funded by local taxpayers, what is said and promoted, in effect, would be through the voice of the state and the government. Therefore, for instance, when the granny tells the child, “all the places in Ramayana are real. Today, we know Lanka as Sri Lanka”, in one careless and ill-thought-out fell swoop, SriLankan Airlines has given credence to belief as evidence, myth as history, fiction as fact, asserting Ramayana’s Lanka as present-day Sri Lanka when numerous Indian renditions of the story locate parts of Ravana’s Lanka well within contemporary India.

Admittedly, the commercial will certainly attract Indian tourists and pilgrims, particularly from the northern parts of the country. The question that comes to mind however is whether this is the only way to promote the trail? Many of my friends have already made the trip without the nudging of the new advert. The advert also begs the question, whether local sensitivities and cultural meanings linked to the Sanskrit epic were ever considered when it was conceptualised, or at any point even after in the process. More importantly, who gave the final seal of approval?

The hegemonic narrative in the commercial is what one might call a ‘North Indian Brahminic’ approach to the Ramayana, which erases other versions of the epic including the Ravana-centric myths in Sri Lanka itself. Unfortunately, it is this hegemonic narrative that has been making the rounds for some time in India with Rama as its protagonist and Ravana as the absolute villain, the all-evil-encompassing antagonist. In this rendition, it is no longer simply an ancient epic or a story of innocence and faith, but a contemporary political narrative with considerable cultural power, authority and reach, performed and used by the state itself. This narrative feeds directly and indirectly into the somewhat imperialist designs of certain contemporary Indian political forces so aptly encapsulated in the hegemonic political concept of Akhand Bharat. However, in real life, understandings of the Ramayana have never been this simple or linear.

The title of Prof A.K. Ramanujan’s seminal essay, ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’ offers a clear indication into the many versions of the Ramayana and the complex narrative traditions of both India and lands beyond where aspects of the epic have become part of local myths, folktales or performance traditions. Interestingly, Prof Ramanujan’s essay was dropped from the Bachelor of Arts in History (Honours) degree programme at Delhi University in 2011 amidst considerable agitations lead by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a right-wing students’ organization, precisely because its contents complicate the way in which the political narrative that is the Ramayana today is presented.

It is truly unfortunate that the narrative given prominence in the Sri Lankan Airlines advert stems from this dominant, parochialized and utterly politicized version of the Ramayana which sweepingly demonizes Ravana. This broad-brush demonization reaches its peak in India during Dussehra, the festival during which effigies of Ravana are burnt to symbolize the vanquishing of evil (Ravana) by good (Rama). However, interestingly, in many of India’s tribal areas, the narrative is closer to that in Sri Lanka, where Ravana is seen as a hero, and importantly as a source of knowledge and ethics. In 2017, in the Katol area in the State of Maharashtra, tribal people forced the local administration to stop the burning of Ravana effigies during Dussehra. In Nashik, also in Maharashtra, tribal folklore suggests that the area was part of Ravana’s kingdom and was governed by his sister Surpanakha along with her husband. This understanding of Ravana’s kingdom is nowhere near Sri Lanka as promoted by SriLankan Airlines. In some tribal Gond villages in Maharashtra, Ravana is worshiped as a god, clearly evident during Dussehra. He is also worshiped in many other locations including, Mandsaur and Ravangram in Madhya Pradesh; Bisrakh in Uttar Pradesh; Kangra in Himachal Pradesh; Mandya and Kolar in Karnataka, and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Similar practices are seen in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal as well.

In Tamil Nadu in India’s south, there are many people who align themselves with ‘Dravidian’ ideologies, promoting Ravana as a politico-cultural icon. One source of motivation for this stems from the manner in which Ravana is eulogised for his valour in Kambaramayanam – the Tamil version of the Ramayana – even though here, too, the main premise of the hegemonic account is maintained. The more obvious source for this reverence is Ravana Kaaviyam written by Pulavar Kuzhandhai and published in 1946. It is a 20th century attempt to deconstruct the Ramayana based on the argument that the mainstream Ramayana was an attempt to establish the supremacy of the ‘Aryan race’ who lived in northern India, over the ‘Dravidians’ in the south. Here, Ravana is seen as a ‘Dravidian’ king, and in essence very similar to the Sinhala renditions of Ravana. In both these popular Sinhala and Tamil versions, he is presented as a noble king, epitomising justice, courage and compassion, and also a wise person and scholar. While categories such as ‘Dravidian’ and ‘Aryan’ as ethno-cultural references as opposed to linguistic references are not part of my academic vocabulary, the attempted deconstruction is nevertheless interesting as it also offers a glimpse into the manner in which 20th and 21st century hegemonic North Indian politics are understood by some sections in the country’s south.

What is evident is that a counterculture movement is currently mobilising tribal and Dalit communities in several Indian states such as the above to vindicate Ravana and ‘rescue’ him from the negative light in which he has been portrayed in the current dominant version of the Ramayana, the one SriLankan Airlines has blindly based their commercial on. Due to this blindness, these interesting and telling complexities and intriguing political and cultural references have no resonance whatsoever in the SriLankan Airlines advert.

I come again to the question posed at the beginning of this essay: is this the only way to do such a promotion funded by the Sri Lankan government? Cannot the state-funded national carrier attract Indian tourists and pilgrims by presenting the places the local tourism industry and Indian tour and pilgrimage operators want these travellers to visit by offering the local interpretation? After all, Sri Lanka does not have a performance tradition of the Ramayana and hardly any concrete memories of the epic and its numerous episodes as a specific text. Instead, fragments of these exist scattered on the landscape throughout the island as places where specific incidents related to the Ramayana had supposedly happened. These manifest through several local folk tales and myths where Ravana is ever present as a local hero and Rama is virtually absent except when contextually required. Moreover, some of these places refer to many other stories too, which have been historically more prominent locally than the Ramayana-related narratives. However, right now, the Ramayana ‘stories’ are given considerable local and national prominence as a rational economic decision taken by people in these areas in the interest of tourism which translates into simple commercial gain. This is understandable.

The question is, what prevented SriLankan Airlines from beginning its advert with the famed flying machine of Ravana known in Sinhala as dandu monaraya (and in India as Pushpaka Viman), often referred to in influential local interpretations as the first of its kind, and predating the Wright Brothers’ invention? Is it a lamentable lack of imagination and creativity, or sheer ignorance? After all, the logo of Air Lanka, the predecessor to SriLankan Airlines, found its genesis in this story, which continues to date in a different form. This way, potential tourists could have been shown the same locations referred to in the current advert, but viewed from the sky, as if one were flying in the dandu monaraya like Ravana may have done in mythical times. This would also be very similar to the way ancient Sri Lankan poets of the sandesha tradition described local landscapes and built environments from the point of view of a bird in flight taking a message to a king, a Buddhist monk or some other such personality. Salalihini Sandeshaya and Hansa Sandeshaya written in the 15th century during the Kotte Period come to mind.

In this manner, the core places in the ‘Ramayana Trail’ could have been flagged for tourist and pilgrim interest while maintaining a distinct sense of local culture and identity that SriLankan Airlines should ideally be marketing. This is not to make Indian tourists and pilgrims cast aside their own beliefs, narratives and interpretations when visiting Sri Lanka. That is their right and not in any doubt. The crux of the matter is, why would SriLankan Airlines be so north Indian and Brahminic, and willingly succumb to the dominant and exclusivist version of the Ramayana promoted by the Indian state and many ordinary people to the exclusion of all other narratives in India itself? By doing so, SriLankan Airlines is taking itself, the government, the state and by extension all of us Sri Lankans, right into the bosom of the Indian state’s cultural and political colonialism typified by the concept of ‘Akhand Bharat’ as noted earlier. If picked up by opposition forces in the politically polarised Sri Lankan society, the advertisement can become a political statement, which has the potential to create needless rifts within Sri Lanka itself.

But then again, one cannot expect these complexities to be understood by the decision makers at SriLankan Airlines who obviously are far removed from the local cultural terrain as well as existing cultural hegemonism emanating from across the Palk Strait. The national carrier, in its haste to soar, as well as absence of foresight and lack of enlightenment of local culture has imprisoned Sri Lanka in a hegemonic North Indian politico-cultural narrative. This is also a sign of lacking national pride despite constant and oftentimes annoying rhetoric. One can only hope, the Sri Lankan government will revisit how this was done in the first place and ensure this kind of culturally crude reductionism of our own traditions and folklore does not take place in the future in state-sponsored activities carried out with public funds.

I cannot but be reminded of a quote by Voltaire when reflecting on the manner in which politics of this kind flow, emerge, and reemerge in Sri Lanka while nothing is ever learned: “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”