An insidious ideology in ha-ho over Halal?
One can’t pick up a paper or peruse the blogosphere these days without stumbling across a bulletin on the whole halal controversy. On the one hand there are the apparently passionate (read, “rabid”) ethno-religious chauvinists; on the other a stubborn self-righteous minority that often refuses to see a smidgen of reason and negotiate (even, “accommodate” or “compromise”) with the mores of the society they are part of.
Thus, being at my wit’s end again at the myopic mindset of majoritarian mayhem (mm-hm), methinks it is time to revisit the provenance of our own form of ethnic nationalism. In the next month of Sundays, your columnist will attempt definitions of ethno-nationalist chauvinism; outline underpinning principles and values derived from them; survey the rise, prevalence, and trajectory of the phenomenon in Sri Lanka; and suggest some possible remedies by engaging this ideology’s tenets with commonsensical values. All this while discerning opportunities for ethnic reconciliation and integration.
In the discourse on the halal controversy, ‘ethnic nationalism’, ‘ethnocentrism’, and ‘ethnonationalist chauvinism’ are used often interchangeably. In our perhaps simplistic understanding, race and ethnicity are approximated, reflecting ground realities in our pluralistic society. From an ‘etic’ (anthropology: “outsider’s”) view, we – Sinhalese, upcountry Tamil, Indian Tamil, Moor, Malay – are all of the same race: Asiatic. But from an ‘emic’ (anthropology: “insider’s”) perspective, we comprise a kaleidoscope of ethnic identities: Sinhala-Buddhist, Tamil Catholic, Muslim. Often, where race ends and ethnicity begins is a moot point. (e.g. Which race does the Sri Lankan Veddah belong to – Caucasoid or Negroid? Whose identity does the child of mixed Hindu-Islamic parentage who converts to Christianity appropriate?)
Based on a personal (and admittedly deracinated) interpretation of the post- conflict Sri Lankan milieu, I’d suggest that the type of ethnocentric nationalism seen today is the pseudo-patriotic assumption that the dominant nationalism based on ethnic identity and related socio-political factors is not only preferable, but inevitable. You can like the island as it is, or leave it. If you do, you’re a traitor. If you stay and protest the status quo, you’re a troublemaker. Folks from all walks of life and diverse ethnicities may espouse this worldview.
To understand why ethno-nationalism is a – if not the – dominant ideology in marketplace Sri Lanka today, sociologist Thorstein Veblen’s idea may be apposite: “Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.”
Interestingly and ironically, nationalism was originally a mindset that all Sri Lankan citizens could subscribe to. Regrettably, it has degenerated into a worldview threatening violent exclusion of everyone who does not embrace the majority’s ethos. More accurately, the violence of the exclusivity is at the hands of a minority SinhalaBuddhist faction peddling their own egregious brand of ethnic chauvinism. The development of this pernicious nationalism into a treacherous racism with attendant gross human-rights violations is our country’s cautionary story.
Today’s ethno-nationalist chauvinism is a virulent form of ethnic nationalism wherein the nation is defined and governed in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, and other related cultural markers. It is the professed ideology of citizens ostensibly loyal to the motherland; but, as it is practised by a minority smacking of majoritarianism, it is less subscribed to than imagined by those keen to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka. While a Sinhala-Buddhist ethos appears dominant, the scope of our many other nationalisms is such that Sri Lankan national identity has been seen as more or less equivalent to Sinhala-Buddhist identity, and the minorities have been left to accommodate themselves to this circumstance as best as they can. The rise of the Tamil separatist movement, the emergence of the Muslim Congress, and the proposal a few years ago for a political party for the Christians demonstrates that this is an accommodation that minorities are increasingly unwilling to make, as many commentators have noted.
Such Sinhala-Buddhist identity in the hands of a deviant mob of rabble-rousers with one eye on the main chance and another on the profit motive has mutated into a chauvinistic form of ethnic nationalism. The vulgar mob has adopted ethnocentrism and perverted it into a rabid type of racism; comprising unequal parts of jingoism, ultranationalism, militarism, and patriotism. Religious fervour and political ill-will, driven by blatantly political opportunism, have created a dominant and growing ‘national project’ that perpetrates injustices, marginalises minorities, causes discontent, stirs ethnic tension, starts civil wars, and once set Sri Lanka ablaze for decades – our 30-year conflagration consuming scores of both proponents and opponents of this inflammable ideology.
As Miroslav Volf, a respected academic, and a victim as well as commentator on the Yugoslavian holocaust, wrote in his thought-provoking book ‘Exclusion and Embrace’: “Evil engenders evil, and like debris from the mouth of a volcano, it erupts out of aggressor and victim.” We wonder if we’re walking willingly into another internecine war again. When we ever learn? The country doesn’t need an international court of justice if it continues in this vein... because we would have already been judged by our own posterity.