Features

Disce aut Discede

Published

5 years ago

2020/11/8

by Gamini Seneviratne

Form-mates, classmates perhaps in Mr. J E V Pieris’s IA, I seem to recall also the ‘J’ in J Godwin Perera. His reminiscences of those times past are indeed welcome. What follows here are some additions / amendments.

Given the heading used by Godwin and repeated here, the first of them must surely be the third option that completes that quote: Caedi (be caned). Looking back from present times, a very mild option, one would say. I was caned only once, by Mr. Bob Edwards: he had forgotten what my supposed misdemeanor was and I couldn’t tell him why I was there as I had ceased to know what it was.

Godwin’s mentioned the Senior Lit. and the Best Speaker’s prize. I was never involved in the first and had a spectacular spell at the second. I forget what the subject was but the Principal’s hand had been hovering over the bell as I passed the time limit. The judge was A B Perera, a Barrister who had served as Principal of Ananda and was to serve as our Ambassador to China. In his summing up he said that I had made a very interesting speech – but rules must be observed. He awarded the prize to Mark (L J M) Cooray who had elocuted his forgettable words finishing on the dot. (He went on to obtain all the postgraduate degrees required for a career as an academic. A high point in that was his attempt to prove that the indigenous people Down Under who had built their culture through some 40,000 years “had no right to the land”. There would have been some applause in academe.)

L H Meegama had a bicycle and some days when I didn’t join another gang up Buller’s road to Galle road I went with Meeya to his place on Vajira road. Our Mahappa’s place on Janaki Lane was almost directly across Galle road from there. His senior sister would sometimes be in the kitchen cooking – scraping coconut and such – while her fiancée chatted with her. He took up engineering and I last heard was working in the Port when he died relatively young.

And so did Tyrell Muttiah, superlative scrum-half, who lived on Galle road just by Bin Ahmed’s studio at the top of Janaki Lane. He seemed to have been born smiling and bred in courtesy. He was the most pleasant of friends.

K. Manickavasagar, Manicks, and I were immediate, next-door neighbors but we were not together in Form I A. He went into the pharmaceutical industry and headed Pfizer here before retiring to Canada.

Am sure have missed many in that class. I have asked as many of that Group of ‘Forty Nine as I could locate here: their memory, alas, is as bad as mine.

May we all make a good ending!

In that class chaired by Mr. Nathanielsz, aka “Naetta”, Mr Pieris, aka “Bada” was the presiding deity. His approval took the form of “Mr. Mendis, you are a little gentleman.” Surprising as it may be and far less often than “Mr. Mendis” though it was, he is known to have waved the wand over “Mr. Seneviratne”.

“Mr. Mendis” was Lalith, one in the cluster a few of us occupied. Among the others in it were Chulani Wickremasinghe, Laki Senanayake and Punyadasa Edussuriya. Perhaps Tyrell Mutthiah was in it too.

Of those in the periphery, a failing memory prompts the names – Nimal Fonseka, Wonkie de Silva, P S C Goonatileke, L H Meegama and H C Wickremesinghe.

I present a few notes on that lot.

Lalith was an artist and he sketched a good bit of the time. As a medical doctor he took to the study of filaria and headed that field of research. When he became Director of Medical Services and I saw him there it struck me that he was in the wrong place: he was not built to deal with politicians especially not those in the Department of Health. I suggested that he gets back to his research in an area in which he had already distinguished himself but he passed that with the sweet smile that characterized him.

Laki too did pencil sketches but they were mostly copies of figures, including horses, from the ‘western comics’. Among his skills was the pea shooter and we had exhibitions when Naetta chose to lay his head on his arm and say, “Read”! One after the other we ‘read’ and Naetta awarded marks with his free hand. There were quite a number of zeros and he couldn’t signal any more than five. Laki took aim and sent a spit-ball straight as an arrow to the bald spot on Naetta’s crown.

He took his artistic skills to Dambulla where he sold his drawings, signed kali, to tourists. Laki was and is casual about things. When, on my way to Jaffna, I dropped by to see him at Diyabubula, he had a high fever and looked quite ill. He had obtained medication from the Dambulla Hospital, he said, as he coughed out a typically c & b story – and was sharing the pills with workers who showed the same or similar symptoms. He had been ordered bed-rest and he had complied, he said, by lying flat in his jeep as it juddered around the jungle. A mutual friend, Chandra Subasinghe, lived not many miles away by the Dambulu Oya and managed to get the patient to the Matale Hospital ‘just-in-time’. (Chandra was quite as inventive as Laki and had informed the water-tax collectors from the Mahaweli that for many years his pumps had been accustomed to pumping water from the Dambulu Oya and would continue to do so. If those gentlemen had sent down water there from the Mahaweli and the Sudu Ganga, his pumps knew nothing about that).

Two desks away was Chulani who had the most inclusive collection of westerns – the Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger, Tom Mix & co. freely available to us all. Such knowledge was not prescribed for us at school and Chula suffered a ‘take down’. He made up for it by topping the City & Guilds exams , migrating out there and on to the USA and thence to South America where, by his account, he out-samba’d all the experts that Rio could gather.

Punya Edussuriya’s father and mine had been at Ananda around the same time; Punya claimed that his father would have taught mine. That is unlikely – (I didn’t know it at the time, but my father had won the Senior English Essay prize in 1923 and his father could not have been that much his senior). They sat together in the pavilion at the Royal Thomian. In our first year we were among dozens of boys who encroached into the Oval grounds as the match neared its end. The boundary rope moved up or down and when Bradman Weerakoon was given out caught, Wignarajah the fielder was behind us and well behind the boundary line. We were right there and yelled that it was a six. Nobody listened. Years later when I mentioned it to Bradman he was unaware that he and St. Thomas’ had so been denied a right royal victory. Not the first time it happened and won’t be the last: the evidence of eyewitnesses is swept under, justice given no opening at all. Happens all the time.

Not many years later Punya and big brother Piyasiri were moved across to Ananda – a school that figured prominently in our family. Beginning with mother’s maternal uncle D B Jayatilaka’s contributions at the start, all our male relatives ‘on both sides’ as they say had been at Ananda: my father and his brothers, mother’s brothers, all our cousins. I was the ‘out’ chap and it happened like this. At the same time as I qualified to enter Royal I had been awarded the ‘Entrance Scholarship’ for Ananda – creating sort of competing claims. Regardless of having served on the academic staff at Ananda in the early 1900s father’s eldest brother had said, “Royal”! – after all he lived in Bambalapitiya and could keep an eye on me. That was convenient, a convenient story, but as the old man had told me the previous year (when I was a little over 9) he was disappointed in his sons.

That was the product of another pressure point. Our paternal grandmother had a cousin called Arthur Wijewardena; we had nothing to do with him but Mahappa had been in touch. All I remember is that he was an unsmiling kind of man who lived down Vajira Road next to Visakha; it had a nice garden and there was a son who sort of floated in and out of the verandah and drawing room offering biscuits. What was pertinent at the time was that he had been our Chief Justice and Mahappa had expected his sons to take to the law likewise as he himself had done. But what did they go and do? – One became an engineer on diesel locomotives and went on to become a chemical engineer (he built and ran Kelani Valley Canneries our best fruit processing factory) and the other an architect who also played piano, painted, sculpted and would you believe it? did ballet dancing. I was sort of the last chance to get the law back into his half of the family. I was to prove a disappointment too, but no one suspected it at the time.

In later years, though not for long, I made my peace with Ananda when Principal S A Wijetilleke recruited me as an English teacher. There I was to establish a friendship with V Thanabalasingham, the senior in that field, that continued as circumstances permitted through the rest of his life. Mr. Thanabalasingham’s intellectual acumen was quite on par with that of B St. E de Bruin or S Constantine at Royal. I had come to know of him earlier when, following the communal riots of 1958, my cousin, Asoka Gunasekara, wrote a short story around Thane’s experiences of those days; titled vibhagaya it was one of the best bodies of writing in Sinhala. In later years, when I mentioned vibhagaya those who had read the Kelani University literary magazine, Vimansa, assumed I was referring to a short story of mine in it that had the same title [that had to do with an actual vibhagaya, the government’s ‘efficiency bar’ exams.]

Before I continue, a brief note on the Royal Post Primary to which boys who failed to go over from Royal Prep were sent. There they were expected to adjust their focus more towards studies and away from, say, sports. One of them that year was Brindley Perera, generally regarded as the most gifted 10 year old batsman in our schools. (His nephew, Brendon Kuruppu, gave hints of how strong the genes were). Most of those who slipped at that point showed their caliber in later life. Those I recall include Susantha Samaranayake, the first Lankan to be appointed a Director / Manager at IBM; Dharmasiri Pieris, who had a distinguished career in the public sector including that of Secretary to the Prime Minister; and Sarath Weerasooria, Chairman of FINCO. My brother had moved there from Ananda and had the distinction, besides scoring a near-double century versus Carey, of being the first (only) – student to pass the SSC in the first year that Thurstan students were presented for that exam. He moved back to De Mazenod where he ended with a flourish as Senior Champion at athletics, Captain of cricket and winner of the General Proficiency prize. The police grabbed him then – and a young lawyer grabbed his girlfriend, much the prettiest schoolgirl seen at our railway station. I had written poems to her on his behalf and delivered them as she took a detour down Janaki lane where I lived on her way from the HFC to the railway station.

In the lot who got to Royal College that year (1949), 35, fully one-third, were from schools other than Royal Prep. Perhaps that accounts for the special distinction which seems to have marked that batch.

Even among 10 year-olds, Nimal / Nimma stood out for being pugnacious but was never a bully. He turned his hands to several part-time occupations at one of which, the Hotel De Universe’ he employed school friend Raja (Rahula) Silva when the then government failed to do him justice. When Raja fell asleep at wrong time of night Nimma functioned as bouncer at his hotel bar. An expatriate in England of long standing Nimma became a teetotaler I presume in mid-life: when he took leave of his business and related activities he was in great demand at parties – for drive-home services. “They get cocked and talk cock” he said, “so I stopped going for parties”. He continues his interest in topology and is last known to have remained more or less certifiably sane.

W K N Silva was a Proprietary Planter with tea and rubber in the Ratnapura district. I believe that two of his sisters married a pair of brothers. In his latter days he took exception to being called “Wonkie”; he said it should have been applied to Nalin (WNK) Fernando, journalist, because the name fitted him, initials and all. He had a sufficient number of siblings to retain the bulk of their estate after Land Reform.

Occasionally initials provided a convenient name – say, Jabba for JB. Susantha Goonatileke’s PSC was tempting and tempted. He chose engineering as did his cousin C L V Jayatileke (who proceeded all the way in mechanical engineering) but he took his BSc (Eng) and changed course towards the social sciences. It was a move that opened a range of intellectual challenges for him and brought his academic work into discussion at fora around the world. His son is perhaps way and away the wealthiest among us in the next generation.

H C (Channa) Wickremasinghe was one of the brightest among us but health-related hiccups prevented his full development as a scholar. Turner, his architect brother was a left arm spinner of a most mean disposition who played for Royal. Channa was content to send down mostly friendly off breaks of which he had a good opinion.

Godwin relates an incident concerning our ruggerites et al and he attributes the report on it to Mr. Orloff, Principal of Trinity College. As I recall, the Trinity Principal at the time was a Mr Walters and the incident had occurred not in a room at the Trinity hostel but on the train down from Kandy. However that may have been punishment was meted out as Godwin says. I was co-editor with Nihal Jayawickrema of the school magazine and inserted some quotes in the space for footnotes: one and all pointed towards the merits of forgiveness.

The Principal, Mr. Dudley K G de Silva, sent for me. I was met at his door by Mr. Elmo de Bruin who served as Manager of the Magazine. When the Principal saw that I was not without back-up he asked Mr. Bruin whether he had approved the insertions and he replied, “I have the fullest confidence in their judgment, Sir” spreading the blame.

Principal de Silva tended to take the word of fellow Principals a bit uncritically. I noticed that the Thomian magazine that year had carried a poem published some years previously in ours and wrote a little note to the Thomian editor, Ranjith Wijewardena, ribbing him about it. Instead of writing back in similar vein Ranjith had taken my note to his Warden – who had promptly phoned our Principal. Predictably I was sent for. As the fates decreed, I ran into Bruno on my way there. He heard me out and strolled into the Principal’s office ahead of me. He asked me to show the evidence to the Principal and suggested that “if ‘these Thomians’ had any sense they could have said they don’t retain past copies of our Magazine”! Writing from Jamaica a life-time later, Bruno recalled such and other ‘happenings’ of his years at Royal. There must be hundreds still around who miss him.

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Features

Empowering Futures: Navigating intersection of innovation in globalised eduscape

Published

9 hours ago

2025/07/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

In a recent interview with BBC’s Katty Kay, Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy and author of Brave New Words, presents a compelling and optimistic vision for the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into classrooms. His views align closely with the themes of innovation, equity, and lifelong learning that frame current debates in global education.

The global education landscape is undergoing profound transformation, driven by rapid technological innovation, shifting socio-economic demands, and the imperatives of globalisation. As education systems, worldwide, grapple with questions of relevance, equity, and sustainability, the emergence of a fluid and interconnected learning ecosystem—what scholars and policymakers increasingly term the eduscape—demands urgent attention and critical reflection. This eduscape is not merely a digital evolution; it encapsulates the convergence of pedagogy, policy, and technology in a transnational context, marked by both opportunity and inequity.

A tool: Powerful assistant

At the forefront of this transformation is the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into teaching and learning. Khan articulated a compelling vision for AI in education during the interview with Katty Kay. He envisions AI not as a substitute for educators but as a powerful assistant—enhancing personalisation, supporting creativity, and facilitating lifelong learning. His perspective reflects a growing body of scholarship that positions AI as a tool to augment human capabilities and address long-standing structural challenges in education.

However, the promise of innovation cannot be separated from the realities of educational inequity. The digital divide, disparities in access, and uneven capacity for adoption threaten to widen existing gaps. Moreover, the global diffusion of educational technologies raises questions about cultural homogenisation and the erosion of local pedagogical traditions. To navigate these tensions, a nuanced approach is required—one that blends technological advancement with inclusive policy, pedagogical integrity, and cultural responsiveness.

Investigation

I attempt to examine how innovation, equity, and lifelong learning intersect to shape education systems capable of empowering future generations. Drawing on recent developments in AI-enhanced learning, theories of constructivist and competency-based education, and global policy frameworks, such as Global Citizenship Education (GCE), this analysis aims to illuminate the pathways through which education can become more adaptive, inclusive, and transformative. Ultimately, this investigation seeks to articulate a vision for education that is not only future-oriented but also grounded in ethical and humanistic values.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into education, as envisioned by Sal Khan, represents a transformative yet complex shift in pedagogy. Khan presents AI as a tool to personalise learning, re-engage students, and augment rather than replace the role of educators. While this perspective aligns with broader scholarly enthusiasm for educational technology, critical examination reveals the nuanced challenges and conditionalities associated with implementing innovation within global educational systems (see Figure 1: ChatGPT-AI generated infographic).

Innovation: Transformative but Conditional

Technological innovations, such as AI tutors, learning analytics, and immersive simulations, have reshaped learning environments by enhancing personalisation and engagement. Tools like Khanmigo (AI-powered tutoring assistant developed by Khan Academy) demonstrate AI’s potential to support differentiated instruction and enable formative assessment in real time. These innovations are congruent with constructivist learning theories, which emphasise the active construction of knowledge through interaction and experience.

However, innovation is not inherently emancipatory. Some argue that without critical pedagogical grounding, digital tools risk reinforcing pre-existing hierarchies and inequalities. For instance, AI systems that lack cultural and linguistic sensitivity may marginalise diverse learner populations. Additionally, algorithmic systems can over-standardise learning and diminish opportunities for creative and critical thinking, if not guided by thoughtful instructional design. Hence, innovation must be deployed with a clear alignment to pedagogical goals and equity principles.

Equity: The Persistent Digital Divide

Equity remains one of the most pressing challenges in the digital eduscape. Although AI-enabled education offers tools to support inclusion, the digital divide persists across and within nations. In many contexts, students lack consistent internet access, digital devices, or the digital literacy required to navigate AI-mediated learning environments. As UNESCO underscores, technological access alone does not guarantee inclusion; educational systems must also invest in teacher training, inclusive curricula, and culturally responsive pedagogies.

Actually, inclusive education is not a technical issue but a structural one, requiring curriculum redesign and institutional commitment to address barriers related to disability, language, gender, and geography. AI can support equity only when these broader systemic factors are simultaneously addressed.

Lifelong Learning: Expanding Educational Horizons

AI-facilitated learning also intersects with the growing emphasis on lifelong learning. The concept of education as a continuous process aligns with global workforce demands and the emergence of micro-credentials, modular online learning, and flexible learning pathways. Also, lifelong learning environments, supported by AI and personalised platforms, offer learners greater autonomy and alignment with real-world competencies.

Nevertheless, these innovations carry risks. Without adequate institutional support, learners may be overwhelmed by fragmented learning opportunities and credential inflation. Moreover, those in marginalised communities may struggle to participate in such systems due to digital exclusion or lack of social capital. Thus, while lifelong learning is vital, it must be equitably accessible and embedded within coherent policy frameworks.

Globalisation: Balancing Global and Local Needs

Globalisation plays a dual role in shaping educational transformation. On one hand, it facilitates cross-border collaboration, knowledge exchange, and technological diffusion. On the other, it can homogenise educational practices and marginalise local cultures. While platforms, like Khan Academy, aim to offer globally accessible learning, they may inadvertently reflect dominant cultural assumptions about knowledge, language, and pedagogy.

To mitigate this, UNESCO promotes Global Citizenship Education (GCE), which encourages students to engage critically with global challenges while valuing local identity and diversity. Integrating GCE into AI-driven systems presents an opportunity to foster civic-mindedness and ethical engagement, but it also requires intentional curricular design and policy support.

Human Agency: Anchoring Ethical AI Use

Despite the capabilities of AI, the role of teachers remains central. As Khan emphasises, educators provide the social-emotional scaffolding, ethical guidance, and cultural context that AI lacks. Further, AI should support teachers in making informed instructional decisions, not replace them.

The impact of AI on learning depends less on the technology itself than on the values, intentions, and pedagogical frameworks that shape its use. Ethical AI integration requires professional development, participatory design processes, and safeguards to prevent misuse or over-reliance. Teachers, students, and communities must be active agents in determining how technology shapes learning.

Synthesis

While AI offers powerful tools to enhance personalisation, access, and creativity, its implementation must be grounded in inclusive, context-sensitive, and ethically informed practices. The global eduscape is marked by asymmetries in infrastructure, capacity, and cultural fit. Therefore, empowering futures requires more than technological adoption—it demands a reimagining of education that is human-centred, culturally responsive, and globally aware.

Conclusion

As the global education landscape evolves, the integration of innovation, equity, and lifelong learning emerges not as optional enhancements but as foundational pillars for sustainable educational transformation. Sal Khan’s vision of AI as a pedagogical scaffold—rather than a replacement for human educators—epitomises the balanced and ethical approach required to navigate the complex terrain of the modern eduscape. His insights underscore the importance of

aligning technological tools with human-centred values, equity-focused frameworks, and culturally responsive pedagogy.

Artificial Intelligence, when applied judiciously, holds immense potential to personalise learning, re-engage students, support teacher decision-making, and foster creativity.

Yet, its transformative capacity depends heavily on the context in which it is embedded. Without adequate attention to digital infrastructure, teacher training, policy integration, and socio-economic disparities, the very technologies designed to democratise education may inadvertently deepen inequalities.

This attempt is to explore the interplay between global innovation trends and local educational realities, highlighting both the possibilities and the perils of rapid digital transformation. It affirms that lifelong learning—flexible, modular, and competency-based—must be central to educational planning in the 21st century, especially in preparing learners to adapt to technological disruption and global change.

To truly empower future generations, education systems must be agile yet grounded, innovative yet inclusive, and global in outlook yet locally relevant. This requires not only investment in technology but also a commitment to inclusive policy design, community engagement, and ethical foresight. Moving forward, sustained cross-national research, policy experimentation, and institutional collaboration will be essential to shaping an eduscape that serves all learners—equitably, creatively, and sustainably.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT, Malabe. The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal.)

Features

Government’s success in building trust needs to expand

Published

1 day ago

2025/07/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

President Dissanayake with Turk

The government has been trying to overcome the most serious economic breakdown in the country’s modern history. By negotiating without prevarication with the International Monetary Fund and by allowing the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, the police and the courts to do their work, it has persuaded foreign partners and the general public that it can be trusted. That credibility now gives the government an opportunity that its predecessors failed to obtain. It can and must use the trust it has gained to confront the legacy of war and heal a country that is still divided.

The clearest indication of its credibility is the new relationship with the IMF. Last week the Executive Board of the IMF completed the fourth review of the Extended Fund Facility and authorised the disbursement of another USD 350 million to Sri Lanka. At the same sitting it granted waivers after the government admitted that it had under reported expenditure arrears during earlier reviews and outlined steps to improve the integrity of its data. Instead of imposing penalties, the IMF was lenient to acknowledge the corrective action and the deeper commitment to fiscal transparency.

In other cases, as in Ukraine in 2001 and Dominican Republic in 2004, the IMF has frozen assistance when borrowers misstate information. That it refrained on this occasion speaks well about the confidence it places in the government’s determination to reform. Tariff increases, steeper taxes and the withdrawal of blanket subsidies have caused economic hardship to the people, yet the government has persisted. Reserves have stabilised, inflation is low and output is returning to modest growth even as turbulence in global trade poses fresh risks. Debt restructuring with bilateral and commercial creditors is close to completion, and the automatic electricity tariff formula, another unpopular measure, has been brought into play.

People’s Priorities

As a result of inflation that took place in the past, and the failure of salaries to catch up, real income is still below precrisis levels. A survey undertaken by the National Peace Council in August 2024 just before the presidential election revealed that the first priority of people in their choice of candidate was economic development. The study conducted by Dr. Mahesh Senanayake and Ms. Crishni Silva of the University of Colombo offers valuable insights into the key drivers of voter behaviour within Sri Lanka’s dynamic political context. Despite the continuing economic problems, voters seem willing to wait as they continue to place their trust in the government’s sincerity.

The NPC survey examines how factors such as economic concerns, perceptions of leadership, trust in public institutions, and prevailing social issues influence electoral decisions. The research showed that voters overwhelmingly prioritised candidates who would offer clear strategies to address Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, fight corruption, and ensure good governance. 93% of respondents indicated they would vote based on a candidate’s ability to resolve the economic crisis. 83% prioritised candidates committed to tackling corruption. 86% favoured candidates with strong educational backgrounds, signaling a preference for qualified, competent leaders over political dynasties.

Trust also depends on tackling corruption. Nothing corrodes confidence faster than impunity. It is in relation to accountability for economic crimes that progress is most visible. Recently, a bench of three judges, acting on an indictment filed by the Bribery Commission, sentenced two former ministers to prison terms of twenty and twentyfive years for misappropriating public funds in a sportsequipment procurement scandal. The convictions, the first of their scale against former cabinet members, signal that no office is beyond the reach of the law and that economic crimes will be answered in court.

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption together with the police and judiciary is showing that state institutions can tackle the problems of corruption if the government does not interfere to block them discharging their mandates. The same principles should hold where it concerns non-economic crimes as well. The recent arrest of a former Karuna group cadre for the murder of the Vice Chancellor of Eastern University nearly twenty years ago, shows this is possible. The success in dealing with economic crimes and making those guilty of those crimes accountable to the law and the courts shows the way to dealing with the festering problem of human rights violations that took place during the three decades of war.

International Involvement

The failure of successive governments to deal satisfactorily with the issue of war crimes has led to demands for international involvement in ensuring accountability for war crimes and serious human rights violations. This has been resisted by successive governments on the grounds that direct international involvement in the form of being investigators, prosecutors and judges will be an unacceptable erosion of national sovereignty which will give power to those from the international community who have no longer term stake in the country in the same way Sri Lankan citizens have. In the past this was also an excuse for inaction.

UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Turk dealt diplomatically with this issue. His offer of international assistance was to offer support to domestic mechanisms. He said, “Sri Lanka has struggled to move forward with domestic accountability mechanisms that are credible and have the trust and confidence of victims. This is why Sri Lankans have looked outside for justice, through assistance at the international level. Ultimately it is the State’s responsibility and it is important that this process is nationally owned – and it can be complemented and supported by international means.”

However, the reluctance to get into the area of war crimes persists due to the possibility of political backlash. The visit of the High Commissioner to the Chemmani mass grave site was made possible because the Magistrate’s Court in Jaffna stood firm and acceded to the demand made by human rights lawyer K. S. Ratnavale that the High Commissioner should be given access to the Chemmani site. The court overruled objections by the government representatives who said that the High Commissioner should be given access only to the entrance to the Chemmani site and not to the mass grave itself. A process that is independent and open to scrutiny would strengthen the government’s standing both at home and abroad.

Winning Trust

Allowing independent observers to monitor evidence preservation, witness protection and laboratory analysis could offer the assurance victims now demand. The government already has a model for such openness. It has accepted extensive external oversight of its fiscal policy. IMF staff examine Treasury books each quarter, verify information and insist on course corrections when targets are missed. The general population now believes this supervision helps rather than weakens the country. It is regarded as a seal of confidence that attracts investment and assures taxpayers that rules apply to all.

Sri Lanka will not lay the ghosts of its war to rest until the truth about the missing persons is ascertained. Although not much reported in the media in the English and Sinhala languages, in the north and east, the issue of the Chemmani mass grave has revived painful memories and made this the topic of everyday discussion. In view of justifiable concerns and past failures to protect evidence, an international role in safeguarding evidence can be considered. In addition, international experts can be brought in to ensure that the evidence is gathered and analysed in a scientific way drawing on international experience.

Just as the government has won the trust of the IMF and the general public regarding its commitment to improving their economic lives, it can win the trust of the people of the north and east who lost their loved ones in the war. The government can design an accountability process that is credible, nationally owned and internationally respected. This can pave the way for national reconciliation of which Sri Lanka can be an example to the world that is increasingly conflictual and divided.

by Jehan Perera

Features

Oh Palestine, Palestine: Unchaining education

Published

1 day ago

2025/07/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Struggle for food in Gaza

Why do the books deceive?
Why is every letter of the alphabet chained,
every human mouth bridled

From Concerto Al-Quds by Adonis (On Palestine): Trans: Khaled Mattawa

Why is every letter of the alphabet chained, indeed, as this poet asks. If I may attempt an answer to this question, I will want to raise it as an epistemological and pedagogic concern. And I do have to raise it as a question of Palestine as well, for our lives caught in the systems of knowledge production, and shaped by their parameters, have to reckon with one of the greatest political infamies of our shared global history: Palestine.

Many of us watch with horror the war on Gaza. We are anxious about the ongoing conflict, and the uptick on the war, with USA bombing Iran and the counter offensives. The war in Ukraine had already raised concerns about an impending World War III. Continuous wars, one leading to the other, had always been a part of our lives in recent times. We had always put it down to geopolitics and the West’s need to dominate and shape the world order in the way it wants to. Palestine had always been central to this. But this understanding, important as it is, has to be combined with a theoretical and semiotic understanding of what Palestine stands for, in very material terms; its peoples, the multiple dispossessions that the land has undergone, the horror of war and mayhem, the resistance of the Intifadas – in other words, in historical and political terms. We need to do this as our own act of solidarity and strategy, because our “books deceive.”

Colonialism, Neocolonialism and Neoliberalism

Let me begin, genealogically, with neoliberalism, the current political and economic moment. It is no overstatement to say that today neoliberalism as an economic and cultural truth of modernity (progress) has become naturalised, an uncontested premise of our economic and political system, an economic and political world order that combines colonialism with extreme economic appropriation, misappropriation. Neoliberalism is a neocolonial moment, in which the world’s working population is turned into an exploited (reserve) army of labour for global capital. We see colonial capital reinvented as global capital and financial markets, crisscrossing the world and masquerading as the new world order, the messianic deliverer. Yet, Palestine tells us, no!

One of the enduring colonial characteristics of the neoliberal moment is the way land in the third world, and in colonised regions across the globe, has been a chief marker of the process of dispossessing people of their livelihoods in their places of living. Global capital recolonises land through marketising it as a commodity. Colonialism has always been about land, the control of land, the control of the people of the land, the exploitation of land, and the exploitation of the labour of its people.

In the neocolonial, neoliberal world we live in, this colonial legacy repeats itself not just as farce, but as tragi-comedy. And then we have the tragedy of Palestine. Neoliberalism can be understood as the deep vulgarisation of the tragedy of colonialism. As neocolonial subjects, we gleefully adapt, change and create policies on education that have become a blanket endorsement of the global north’s, and the global order’s, politics and policies. Committees, Commissions and Collaborations converge to market these policies. The books continue to deceive.

Decolonising Knowledge: The Other

Decolonising knowledge has gained some traction in the postcolonial world, particularly in the areas of knowledge production and in education. It does put up a valiant challenge to colonial premises of advancements. Yet, much of this interesting trend, a politically demanding one, has become entangled for the most part, in creating east/west or north/south binaries. More often than not decolonisation merely re-narrates colonial paradigms in nationalist idioms, an act that Frantz Fanon, the arch anti-colonialist theorist warned us against in Black Skin White Masks and Wretched of the Earth. While we look on with horror at what is unfolding in Palestine, a century after the brazenly racist, colonialist Balfour Declaration that inaugurated the settlement of European Jews in Palestine, Palestine might well be a starting point for us to engage in a conversation on decolonisation. In such a re-examination of what Palestine was and is today, we may have to side step geopolitics as the point of entry and instead recentre colonial pursuits and persuasions as our primary focus.

The area around West Asia (called the Middle East from the European perspective) has always been, materially and metaphorically speaking, the pathway to the land masses around Russia, China and the Indian subcontinent in Asia. Politically and culturally, it was the crucible in which a European identity was forged, forming its crucial Other. The crusades are an early indication of it. In early modernity, the lines harden. Can one forget the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492, the same year, Columbus lands in Bahamas, to inaugurate that side of the genocide project? When Emilia in the play Othello, tells Desdemona, “I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his [Lodovico] nether lip,” we can immediately see the central role Palestine plays in the nascent colonial imaginary of Shakespeare’s Europe. Shakespeare’s classic play on race immediately centres this othering of Othello as a question of the European Christian versus all others, including other Christians. The play is not just about race, but is about race and sexuality, one of those constitutive anxieties of the European psyche that helped shape colonial appropriations in the name of a putative moral superiority. Sometimes we seem to be still stuck in early modernity. Tracing the place of Palestine in the colonial imagery is important for any epistemological project of decolonisation.

Epistemologically and pedagogically, the question of Palestine should lead us to question our own nationalisms and nation state prerogatives. The Naqba in Palestine was in 1948, the same year, the people of Malaiyaham in Sri Lanka were disenfranchised, just a year after the conflagration that the independence of India and Pakistan was. These were not fortuitous. We have story after story to tell of this series of dispossessions. As Mahmood Mamdani insists, in Neither Settler nor Native, writing on Palestine, one needs to think beyond the nation and nationalism. Beyond the specificities of the conflict and war in Palestine, solidarity for Palestine may want to begin with this exploration of our shared colonial legacy, leading us into far reaching queries about the sociopolitical order of global capital in the world today. Decolonisation lies at the heart of an active democratisation process of the polity, both nations, and nation states, challenging the global world order at the same time. In any project that examines our knowledge systems, and in any putative attempt to decolonise education, we may need to begin with that.

As Adonis, the poet, writer and theorist, has enjoined us, every letter of the alphabet needs to speak freely, openly and honestly. Palestine, in 2025, has to show us the way and the friends of Palestine have to set the tone for this challenge. And then, just then, we may be able to turn around and look back at what happened in 1996, in Chemmani, and look at the children buried in the shallow graves of mass murder, without flinching, all while accepting responsibility.

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy … ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.

From, “In Jerusalem” by Mahmoud Darwish

(Sivamohan Sumathy is attached to the Department of English at the University of Peradeniya)

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies

by Sivamohan Sumathy