{"id":156369,"date":"2016-01-27T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T18:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=156369"},"modified":"2016-01-31T00:03:46","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T18:33:46","slug":"chandrika-kumaratungas-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/chandrika-kumaratungas-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Chandrika Kumaratunga\u2019s Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Uditha Devapriya<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Uditha<\/a>

Uditha Devapriya<\/p><\/div>\n

Politicians are wont to speak frankly on issues that ail them, particularly with regard to issues they feel should be prioritised in the interests of the country. Sure, there\u2019s no such thing as a clean motive when it comes to them, but it is true that once in a while, they tend to slip up the truth, though conveniently hiding part of it under ideology-garb. Can\u2019t help. With politicians, here and elsewhere, this is as timeless a truism as it\u2019s going to get.<\/p>\n

Former president (and present head of a government-mandated office to promote inter-ethnic reconciliation) Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga<\/span><\/a> was noticeably irked when she delivered a speech recently. She had commented on the trend of some schools in the country to restrict admissions to students of a particular race or religion, and had earned the ire of these schools on social media. She made some points, and attempted to clarify.<\/p>\n

Firstly, she named names. She pointed at Buddhist schools. \u201cStudents in them don\u2019t even get to hobnob with Tamils and Muslims. Is it any wonder that this country breeds wars, when we have a set of educational institutions that breed racialism?\u201d She recounted an anecdote from her term in office, when she\u2019d visited one of these schools and found out that not a single student was outside the Sinhala Buddhist community. She admitted a Muslim student, but that act was opposed when the student had to face harassment at the hands of his \u201cfriends\u201d (not surprisingly, he had to leave).<\/p>\n

And so she offered her bomb: \u201cWe need to enforce a minimum quota of minorities in these schools.\u201d She didn\u2019t drop it. She didn\u2019t need to. That was enough. From that point on, therefore, she became a target on social media.<\/p>\n

One can question (validly) why she picked on Buddhist schools in particular, but to her credit she argued that the situation was just as despicable in Muslim and Tamil schools. The reaction she got was predictable and respectful of historical realities: \u201cThese schools have existed for over 100 years, they were founded at a time when non-Christians were rubbished, and they served a function which continues even today.\u201d Put briefly, the argument is that this country has enough and more space for schools dedicated to \u201cmissionary activity\u201d, but very few dedicated to the faith followed by the majority community.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong in identity-assertion. Human beings are not, and will never be, lotus-eaters who fell from the sky. Even those who brand themselves as identity-less, who renounce faith and embrace a nebulous cosmopolitanism, are marked out well by their cultural, hereditary roots. To demarcate an entire educational institute as \u201cracist\u201d is to miss the point, and to miss some pertinent historical facts.<\/p>\n

The point is that these schools were not started with the intention of preserving race and racialism. They were there purely because the Buddhists of this country couldn\u2019t find a proper set of schools that suited their religious requirements. Neither the Catholic Church nor the Church of England could resist sidelining them, and in the end what happened was the creation of a Sinhala Buddhist consciousness that matured and was stunted in later decades. In other words, this consciousness wasn\u2019t birthed by a need to exclude, but by a need to assert. Which is why, from their inception, such schools welcomed (and embraced) students of other communities.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t marginalise what the former president said. But it does raise a problem. A pertinent one. If we\u2019re so insistent on increasing the minority quota, as she suggested, why do we choose to go quiet over other educational institutions that privilege some and discriminate others? No, I am not talking about Muslim and Tamil schools. I\u2019m talking about schools that are assisted only partially by the state, which are handled and managed by religious denominations. If Kumaratunga thinks that only Buddhist schools indulge in such crass selectivity with respect to admissions, she is wrong. And selectively so.
\nAnd to be fair, the claim that Buddhist schools make \u2013 that very few leading schools exist which cater (exclusively and specifically) to the needs of the Sinhala Buddhist community \u2013 is correct. Compare the number of (leading) schools which cater to the Christians, contrast with the number that exists for the Buddhists, the Muslims, and the Hindus, take into account ethno-religious \u201cproportions\u201d, and you\u2019ll see what I\u2019m talking about. Isn\u2019t it an injustice, then, to claim that such schools should not exist, that they should be branded as racist by those who themselves sanctioned, by omission or commission, selectivity back in their day?<\/p>\n

Of course, the former president hasn\u2019t, to the best of my knowledge, argued for completely doing away with privileging an identity. She has asked for increasing the minority quota (to about five or 10 percent). She has also demanded (implicitly, one can argue) for other schools to follow, though she specifically didn\u2019t mention the Christian ones. She should.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the solution? Promoting an amorphous identity-less identity in our curriculum? Hardly. As I\u2019ve written elsewhere, in our education discourse what\u2019s privileged is secularism, not multiculturalism. Utterly crass. To remove religion and culture from our syllabus on the pretext that both subjects inject and promote majoritarianism and minoritarianism is to call for a reality that doesn\u2019t exist. Not because it\u2019s untenable, but because it\u2019s useless: identities aren\u2019t just created by school, they\u2019re created outside it. Racists aren\u2019t birthed by the syllabus, but by their social conditioning. Change and reform that, and you\u2019ll see peace and harmony eventually.<\/p>\n

I think Kumaratunga\u2019s proposal was misinterpreted on social media. \u201cIncrease the quota,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s asking us to change our history!\u201d howled commentators. To be fair by them, Kumaratunga wasn\u2019t (and isn\u2019t) exactly perceived as a supporter of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. But that\u2019s beside the point. She made a suggestion. Like all suggestions, it was open to debate. Doesn\u2019t mean we should go on a tangent and trash her. And doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t be wary of how that suggestion can be interpreted and abused in favour of those who continue, for worse I should think, to grind an axe with the Sinhala Buddhists of this country.<\/p>\n

The education discourse in this country, as I\u2019ve implied before, is shaped by identity. To do away with it isn\u2019t the answer. But to accommodate the \u201cother\u201d, to get rid of this conception that views minorities as the \u201cother\u201d, and to affirm an identity that\u2019s neither amorphous nor hostile, is the solution. I\u2019m not sure whether increasing the quota is a panacea, because de-segregation without the attendant and necessary changes in mindsets among our people would be useless.<\/p>\n

Put simply, the lady has a point. But that paints just half the picture. Going on a tangent and losing temper isn\u2019t the answer. The answer is to confront the issue, examine history, and be fair to all. Picking on Buddhist schools while sidelining others will NOT help reconciliation. Purely and simply.<\/p>\n

We need to work fast, hence. We need to change ourselves. By ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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