By Ravi Perera –

Ravi Perera

“What did the others know of history? Passing ripples, little eddies, and breaking waves. They wondered at the changing forms of the surface and could not explain them. But we had descended into the depths, into the formless, anonymous masses, which at all times constituted the substance of history; and we were the first to discover her laws of motion. We had discovered the laws of her inertia, of the slow changing of the molecular structure, and, her sudden eruptions…” – Darkness at Noon- Arthur Koestler

“These forfeited food surpluses fuelled politics, wars, art and philosophy. They built palaces, forts, monuments and temples. Until the late modern era, more than 90 percent of humans were peasants, who rose each morning to till the land by the sweat of their brows. The extra they produced fed the tiny minority of elites-kings, government officials, soldiers, priests, artists and thinkers-who fill the history books. History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets”-  Sapiens- Yuval Noah Harari

So complete has been the failure of the ostensible ‘elite’ of this country that a very large percentage of the voters have now decided to place their fate in the hands of the NPP, a combination of political groups predominated by the JVP, a political party putatively Marxist. In the context of global realities, Marxism is not what it was usually associated with. China will display a huge portrait of Karl Marx (a German Jew) at their May Day parade, the next day the ‘politburo’ of the Chinese Communist party may take steps to bolster its stock market, a mechanism which has enriched millions of Chinese in the past two decades.

This failure of our ‘elite’, constituted broadly of political, financial, managerial and even professional classes, is all encompassing. In the seventy-five years since independence we have only proven our inadequacies, a consistent failure. So vacuous are the ‘elite’, that a game of Cricket played by few teenagers has become an icon of elitism. Blind to the dilapidation all around them, they gather from all corners to act the goat under the sweltering March sun, declaring their faithful adherence to a supposed tradition originating in a game of Cricket between Eton and Harrow, two public schools in England. Oblivious to the gaping differences between the achievements of the English and them, unembarrassed about the illegitimacy inherent in the colonized attempting to mimic the habits of the colonizer, this melee has become our elite’s most visible statement. After all the hoopla of seventy-five years, Sri Lanka has managed to reach a Per Capita GDP of about 4000 US dollars, while the United Kingdom is more than dollars 50,000 per Capita. That sobering fact alone should have made our elite pause before imitating something so incompatible with their character make-up.

What the ‘elite’ sanction the plebeians follow, now every boy’s school in the country has begun its own ‘big’ match, a rowdy free for all!

What is history?

It being commonly said that a people are a product of their history; a shared culture, a particular language and a certain way of looking (at the world), the relevance of the subject matter needs no emphasis.

By its very scope and substance history invokes controversy. On a given set of historical dates or events there could be cautious agreement among historians, however, when it comes to interpreting them, or understanding their relevance, differences of opinion, sometimes irreconcilable, arise.

Who owns the land of Israel? Does it belong to the very first Sapiens, hunters and gatherers, who inhabited the area? Does possession confer ownership? Who determines the issue?

There could be broad agreement as to the day on which the Second World War commenced, at least when the guns began firing. Then again, months and even years before that, economies were militarized, armies mobilized, and countries occupied forcibly. And, as to the guilty party, it depends on who you speak to; it is a truism that the victors write the history. Were the Axis powers to be blamed solely for the carnage of that world-wide war (1939-45)? Did the peace terms dictated by the victorious Allies after the First World War (1914-18) make the sequel inevitable? History throws up more questions than answers it seems.

Closer to home, let us look at the story of our political journey, post-independence. Departing fundamentally from what had gone on for more than two millennia, we now had to elect our leaders; no more kings. This is a change deeper going than usually given; we did not foreswear the Kingly system; it was taken away by foreign intervention. The vote, a new idea, empowered the people as never before in their history. In the new system, the voter’s character and outlook became the key factor. A democratic system was put in place, however, democratic impulses were alien, almost from the very beginning election violence became a common feature in the hustings. Winning, whether by means fair or foul, was all that mattered. A few powerful families who were well placed for electoral battles, were able to consolidate political power. Reflecting long accustomed feudal habits, politics descended into a family business.

Without much difficulty we can tabulate the dates on which every election was held since 1948, list the candidates, give the winners, the number of voters polled and the percentages of the votes obtained by them. However, that degree of clarity will not be possible when we attempt to decipher the philosophy, policies and achievements of the various governments so elected. Here, we will come across contrasting interpretations and opinions. If we were to dig deeper into questions like the responsibility for the election violence, the mismanagement of the country or the gradual erosion of public institutions, opinions will be wildly divergent.

Uncertainty is present in all history, more so of days gone by, events to which we are not witness. If what is reported to us now, in real time, is conflicting and even challengeable, how much more doubtful the history of days lost in the mists of time!

For ancient history we are dependent on those who recorded them, in times when literacy was limited only to a handful. Very few of those present then could have challenged the veracity of the words being carved on stone, and if the carving had the king’s endorsement none would dare! For ancient history we are dependent on limited sources, one or two stone carvings or surviving scrolls. Even these scanty histories were rarely contemporaneous, the recorder writing about events happening few generations back, based on what has been passed from mouth to mouth. We do not know whether the exacting academic standards of today were demanded of the recorders then. Whether it was dispassionate scholarship, or propaganda by an interested party, remains open. Newly developed sciences of carbon dating and even DNA are shifting many previously held opinions of history.

The change

Until about the 15^th Century most civilizations evolved more or less on their own, what happened in Rome mattered little to the Chinese, the Incas had no concept of the Egyptians, for those living in ancient Judea, Rome, its imperial master was only a concept, very few Judeans had travelled further than a few kilometres of their birthplace. When, with all the advantages we enjoy now, there are so many misconceptions about other nations, what the ancients thought of faraway lands would have been mainly in the realm of mythology. Each civilisation, isolated in its own location and trapped in its own thought processes, resisted change, assumed itself perfect and declared itself content.

With the advancement of technology, particularly in transport and shipping that began around this period, global trade volumes multiplied, men travelled the world, colonisation followed. In the five Centuries following, the world changed, old attitudes and methods were challenged like never before. Today, you can fly around the world faster than the time it took a pilgrim fifty years ago to travel from Colombo to Kataragama. Then, a trip to Kataragama was undertaken with a certain solemnity, one of those special journeys of your life. Now this journey could be done in half a day, leave early in the morning to return to Colombo for lunch.

In today’s shrunken world, barriers have no place, we know everything about everybody else. Comparing and contrasting comes easy; what is the other’s Per Capita income, productivity, efficiency, skill level, corruption indication? If you want to compare relative physical strengths or athleticism of different nations, we can look at the Olympics medal tally or the rankings at the Soccer World Cup. There are innumerable statistics on life expectancy, calorie intake, consumer choices available to a citizen, quality of services of a country, the strength of a nation’s Passport, which all go to tell a complex story.

Our cultural imperatives as well as historical records indicate an agrarian society principally absorbed in rice cultivation, our staple and the prime source of carbohydrate. It appears that Sri Lanka’s ancient systems were passively immobile, continuing more or less on the same model from King Vijaya to Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, two thousand years later. A King and his feudal “lords” ruled the country. The economy was basic, nearly all efforts being absorbed in the growing of rice. Other economic arrangements, land holding and the legal system were also unyielding to changing times. We don’t have much of an idea about our war methods, military formations or tactics; relative to the European continent, proper wars were few and far between in this island. Perhaps an unwarlike nation pays little heed to arms; the bow and arrow and the sword, remained the standard weaponry through the Centuries.

Whatever changes that happened only came by way of foreign agencies; guns, commercial crops, land titles, a judiciary separated from the executive and later the vote, the parliament, Marxism and political parties were foreign ideas. Although Sri Lanka bears no comparison with the nations credited with these ideas and institutions, we adopted them nonchalantly. We would read about them, talk about them, however, did we understand the essence of the concept? As later events have shown, the adoption was reckless; every concept was misapplied, while every institution was misused in this country. The ‘Politburo’ (political bureau) for example, is an idea that owes its origins to revolutionary exigencies of the Bolshevik Party of Slavic Russia. The Bolsheviks were unrelenting atheists, openly at war with the idea of religion. Subsequently, the Soviet Union went on to become a global superpower. Although the two nations are complete opposites, in little Sri Lanka even small Muslim parties have ‘politburos’ now!

The denouement

When European ships arrived on our shores, we reached a moment of truth. The foreigners may not eat rice, but were not any less vigorous. Their King may only be a figurehead, but their administration was no less effective. They were not given to meditation, but were not lacking in initiative and new ideas. In short, they were very strong and we were pitifully weak. To get a sense of the buffoonery and the corruption the Europeans perceived in our so called leaders of yore, one has to only refer to the records of their encounters.

The European conquests were not achieved solely by feats of arms, the foreigners came with a host of fresh ideas, which were eagerly embraced by the natives.

Essential to the new political ideas that came from the West was the rejection of the autocratic rule of Kings and their feudal systems. In this island, the attitudes were very different, the King was perceived as a munificent presence endowed with infinite wisdom. The King is gone, in his place, we have an apparatus called the State.

Since people make the history, it goes without saying that history cannot march ahead of the people. In other words, history cannot deliver something that the particular people are not capable of or are not suited for.

When compared with other similar countries, our post- independence journey has been run-of-the-mill. A lot of hype and big talk, but statistically a poor performer. Despite repeated failures, most people still see greater State intervention as the way forward. Take the case of the Srilankan airline which adds millions of rupees every day to our accumulated debt, further impoverishing us all. Yet, in the common belief, the airline is owned by the State, therefore, it is a national asset. A small matter; a new plan and a change of management, and, everything will be good.

Yes, a history cannot rise above that people!

The NPP promises to reverse a historical trend. Everybody else has failed. We have reached a dead end.

For a forlorn nation, a leap of faith awaits.