{"id":189230,"date":"2018-03-29T15:51:16","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T10:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=189230"},"modified":"2018-04-01T05:01:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-31T23:31:04","slug":"the-origin-of-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origin Of Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan<\/a> –<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Charles Sarvan<\/p><\/div>\n

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) wrote of the mirror-stage in the development of a human being when, unlike with animals, it realizes that the image seen in the mirror is she, herself: that there is me here.\u00a0 <\/span>The German word <\/span>Fremdeln<\/i><\/span>: <\/i>refers to a behavioural pattern in the development of infants, usually around the eighth month of life, in which a child develops a mistrust, dislike or fear of strangers. (It has been found that the fear is triggered more by men than by women; by adults more than by children.) In a fundamental, biological, sense there is \u201cMe\u201d and everyone else is the \u201cOther\u201d, but this does not throw most of us into some kind of existential despair because we build what I would call bridging relationships: with parents, relations, friends, and through romantic and\/or sexual love: titles such as \u201cI is another\u201d and \u201cCall me by your name\u201d come to mind. In the mid-19th<\/span><\/span>\u00a0century novel, <\/span>Wuthering Heights<\/i><\/span>, Catherine asserts of Heathcliff that he is more her than she is. And going back in time, John Donne (1572 \u2013 1631) wrote in a poem: you \u201care the best of me\u201d. There are several other similar statements and, no doubt, in all the languages of the world. But the concern here is not with the single self but with singulars as members of a plural. In other words, how\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018Others\u2019 see me and those like me <\/span>as members of a group<\/i><\/span>. What follows is a brief sharing of thoughts arising from reading <\/span>The Origin of Others<\/i><\/span><\/a>. The author, Afro American Toni Morrison, is a Professor Emeritus of Princeton University; winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and of the Pulitzer Prize.\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

More people believe in race than in the pseudo-science of astrology. I cite from my \u2018Race and racism\u2019 (24 March 2014): <\/span><\/p>\n

Shlomo Sand, himself a Jew, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University, argues in his \u2018<\/span>The Invention of the Jewish People<\/i><\/span>\u2019<\/i> that there is no biological basis for a belief in Jewishness. The book was written in Hebrew and translated into English by the author. (It is as if a Sinhalese professor teaching at a Sri Lankan university were to write a book in Sinhala, not in English, which questioned a fundamental and much-cherished myth of Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism.)\u00a0<\/span>A Jewish \u201crace\u201d is pseudoscience (Shlomo Sand) yet Zionist pedagogy has produced generations who believe wholeheartedly in the racial uniqueness of their nation. (See also Sarvan, \u2018Groundviews\u2019, 07 March 2013.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than thought controlling our choice of words, our thinking and actions are influenced by words and verbal habits. The result is that often we employ words inaccurately, if not incorrectly: Yeats in his poem, \u2018An Acre of Grass\u2019, wrote of the mind being a mechanically consuming mill. Few of us have the strength and courage, the self-detachment and honesty to examine our words, our long-held assumptions and beliefs. Few of us think on new lines. Gavin Evans<\/a>, in the <\/span>Guardian<\/i><\/span> newspaper of 2 Mar 2018, writes that individuals often share more genes with members of other races than with members of their own race: rather than speak of race, we should use the phrase \u201cpopulation groups\u201d. As I have suggested in the essay, \u2018The term \u201cracism\u201d and discourse\u2019 (included in <\/span>Sri Lanka: Literary Essays & Sketches<\/i><\/span>) race may not exist but racism flourishes. Race is not the father of racism but its child: Ta-Nehisi Coates, <\/span>Between the World and me<\/i><\/span>. It\u2019s those who are race-minded who think and react in terms of race. We may be told that racism is troglodyte but propagating the scientific truth of human likeness cannot undo the power of racism: Karen and Barbara Fields, <\/span>Racecraft<\/i><\/span>. On the contrary, group-animosity has increased recently, and not only in the West because, at root<\/span>, racism has to do with identity-politics<\/i><\/span>. Globalization disregards borders and national infrastructure and there\u2019s a vast migration of peoples: the slaves are leaving the plantations and heading for the mansions of their former slave-masters (Toni Morrison<\/a>). The \u2018Other\u2019 creates a sense of deep insecurity and fear – emotional and psychological states that can, in turn, provoke violence and cruelty. The \u201ctribe\u201d, and success against other tribes, are more important to people than economic success, than even freedom: Amy Chua, <\/span>Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. <\/i><\/span>Those at the receiving end of \u2018population-group\u2019 hostility are not only seen as being different (they are in several ways) but being different \u201cthey\u201d are thought not to be human in the same way as \u201cus\u201d. Race-thinkers assume they are the norm:\u00a0 <\/span>the Other goes to define our-self (selves).<\/span><\/p>\n

Morrison observes that to be American is, for many, to be white. Professor Amy Chua (op. cit.) writes that many African Americans do not feel \u201cAmerican\u201d in the same way that many white Americans take for granted. (More precisely, many African Americans are <\/span>not allowed<\/i><\/span> to feel fully American.) In other places too where more than one population-group shares geographic space with other groups, the majority will project their identity as subsuming the entire country: for example, \u201cSri Lanka\u201d equals \u201cSinhalese Buddhist\u201d (secondly and secondarily, Sinhalese Christians). In turn, exclusion and subordination strengthen, if not create, minority identity. The so-called assimilated Jews of Germany felt their Jewishness was accidental rather than important, much less essential. Several fought and died for Germany in the First World War: ironically, Hugo Gutmann, a senior officer who recommended that Hitler be awarded the Iron Cross, was Jewish. Soon Hitler and the Nazis made it brutally clear that the Jews were Jews and not German. One thinks of the early decades of the 20th<\/span><\/span>\u00a0century and those Tamils who worked ardently for (what was then) Ceylon\u2019s independence. The following is slightly edited from my <\/span>Public Writings on Sri Lanka<\/i><\/span><\/a>, Volume 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a time when most, if not all in the Island, irrespective of language and religion, equally took a measure of pride and encouragement from ancient achievement, temple and lake; an equal measure of happiness in being \u201cCeylonese\u201d; a time when Tamils described themselves as Ceylonese and not (as some Tamils tend to do now) as \u201cSri Lankan Tamil\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>When in 1915, D. S. Senanayake (later the first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon) and his brother, F. R. Senanayake were jailed by the British authorities, Tamil Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan went to England to plead their case. On his successful return, jubilant crowds placed him in a carriage, detached the horses, and dragged the carriage themselves. He was not seen as a Tamil who had helped free a Sinhalese, but as a Ceylonese helping a fellow Ceylonese\u2026 In 1925-6, when Bandaranaike, as leader of the Progressive National Party, set out the case for a federal political structure for Sri Lanka, he received no support for it from the Tamils (K M De Silva). Even after the trauma of Standardisation (\u201cracial\u201d quota) in relation to University admission beginning in 1971, and the Draft Constitution of 1972, the All Ceylon Tamil Conference declared, \u201cOur children and our children\u2019s children should be able to say, with one voice, Lanka is our great motherland, and we are one people from shore to shore. We speak two noble languages, but with one voice\u201d (Nesiah, p. 14). In 1952, the Kankesuntharai parliamentary seat was contested by <\/i>Chelvanayakam, as a member of the Federal Party. <\/b>He was comfortably <\/i>defeated <\/i><\/span>by a U.N.P. candidate<\/i><\/span>.\u201d <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Since race-thinking seems ineradicable, there is the temptation to give up but a book such as <\/span>Why I\u2019m No Longer Talking to White People About Race<\/i><\/span> by Reni Eddo-Lodge, despite the title, is not surrender but a call for action. Ignoring race-thinking and practice; pretending they don\u2019t exist, is felt by some to be a tactful, sensitive, gesture but it is finally unhelpful: Toni Morrison, <\/span>Playing in the Dark<\/i><\/span>. Surely, the more hopeless a struggle seems (and the cause just), the greater the honour in not giving up? <\/span><\/p>\n

There is only one race, the human race; there are no foreigners but only different versions of ourselves (<\/span>The Origin of Others<\/i><\/span><\/a>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":80832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Origin Of Others - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Origin Of Others - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-29T10:21:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-03-31T23:31:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"294\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"353\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/\",\"name\":\"The Origin Of Others - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-29T10:21:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-31T23:31:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/06bce8bf9f41a5840ebf978cfbe2330d\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg\",\"width\":\"294\",\"height\":\"353\",\"caption\":\"Dr. Charles Sarvan\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Origin Of Others\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\",\"name\":\"Colombo Telegraph\",\"description\":\"In journalism truth is a process\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/06bce8bf9f41a5840ebf978cfbe2330d\",\"name\":\"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ab34a930e4da24a59ba58f654e6ed7e8664f751e76f52826a7746a49468b5c33?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ab34a930e4da24a59ba58f654e6ed7e8664f751e76f52826a7746a49468b5c33?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/charlesps\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Origin Of Others - Colombo Telegraph","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Origin Of Others - Colombo Telegraph","og_description":"[…]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/","og_site_name":"Colombo Telegraph","article_published_time":"2018-03-29T10:21:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-03-31T23:31:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":294,"height":353,"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/","name":"The Origin Of Others - Colombo Telegraph","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg","datePublished":"2018-03-29T10:21:16+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-31T23:31:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/06bce8bf9f41a5840ebf978cfbe2330d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg","width":"294","height":"353","caption":"Dr. Charles Sarvan"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-origin-of-others\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Origin Of Others"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/","name":"Colombo Telegraph","description":"In journalism truth is a process","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/06bce8bf9f41a5840ebf978cfbe2330d","name":"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ab34a930e4da24a59ba58f654e6ed7e8664f751e76f52826a7746a49468b5c33?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ab34a930e4da24a59ba58f654e6ed7e8664f751e76f52826a7746a49468b5c33?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan"},"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/charlesps\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Charles-Sarvan.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189230"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189345,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189230\/revisions\/189345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}