KAMALIKA PIERIS

The book Archive of memory, reflections on 70 years of independence” curated by Malathi de Alwis and Hasini Haputhanthri was published in 2019 by HistoricalDialogue.lk.(ISBN 978-642-5313-00-6) There was also a traveling exhibition which displayed the same objects and text given in this book. The book and exhibition seem to have been planned together, to cater to     those who   like to see something displayed before them and for those who prefer the printed page. However, there is no mention of the exhibition in the book.

The late Malathi de Alwis was a well known feminist writer and anthropologist with a commitment to   Tamil issues. Hasini Haputhanthri is a graduate in sociology and has specialized in Oral History and Museum Anthropology at Columbia University, New York.

 Historicaldialogue.lk   says in its website that it aims at creating a critical discourse on historical dialogue in Sri Lanka, to bring together researchers, organizations, journalists, students and anyone with an open and questioning mind” interested in issues relating to memorialization and the post-war situation in Sri Lanka. It   explores the various narratives related to the country’s history of violence and supports those specializing in the field of memory.  Critics say that Memory”, unless selectively used, is a very questionable approach to history.

 Historicaldialogue.lk is supported by European Union, British Council and two German government agencies, German Development Cooperation, and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).  The idea for this book came from Christoph Feyn of the GIZ.

Archive of Memory is a collection of 70 narrative fragments, selected from over one hundred and fifty stories, received or collected. They contain multiple observations which include several events in one recollection. Each narration has a catchy title and a full page black and white photograph facing it. Dates are always given, date and month not just year, indicating a terrific long term memory, especially in the case of traumatized persons. A few narrations sound authentic, such as ‘Baby shoe” but others appear artificial, and some seem highly doubtful.  All this is shown in the episodes described   in this essay.

Our primary criterion was that the narrations should be thought provoking, compelling narratives which recalled key moments in Sri Lanka political economy or cultural history and were associated with a particular object, said the curators. They were ‘distilled from lengthy reflections and recollections that were submitted to us or shared with us during face to face as well as phone and email conversations.  We stopped as seventy to recall the 70   years of independence.

The photographer, Sharni Jayawardene had the difficult task of making everyday objects, look interesting and evocative. They were photographed in isolation and not as part of a still life composition. The photographs are very effective.  Some of the objects photographed were the very ones mentioned in the stories.This adds to the authenticity of the work.

The book has a lofty purpose. We have curated a collection of memories that foreground the complexity and contradictions that inhere in historical narratives and collective memory. These aspects are woefully absent in our history and social studies textbooks, which are compulsory reading for successive generations of students. 

 We hope that his book will   stimulate a discussion on history making and how we recall and reflect on our many varied pasts, fostering a deeper and more complete understanding of contemporary Sri Lanka history, politics and culture, particularly from a people’s perspective. This we believe is crucial to nurturing tolerance, sympathy and empathy within our fissured and fractured society of today. We urge you to more reflect more deeply on the events that are recounted in this book and the joys and tragedies that are entwined in them, concluded the curators.

Now let us examine the contents of the book. This book is not the result of a spontaneous outpouring of emotions and memory waiting to be tapped. The respondents were searched out and encouraged to speak. Stories that ‘did not fit the ambit of the book’ were left out.

Majority of the story tellers were introduced to us by family members, friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances, said the curators. They either approached us or we approached them.   Others   had helped by spreading word of our book, introduced us to potential story tellers, and collected stories on our behalf.  A significant number of respondents wished to remain anonymous and two did not want their locations revealed.

This book is not interested in marking the major events that took place in the past 70 years. These are well known but they are apparently too much for Memory”.  The important political moments which Memory recalls in this book are lopsided.

Here is the full list as given in the book : Pageant of Lanka 1948, Sinhala only Act of 1956,    First woman head of state  in 1960,  Bread queues of 1970, Anti Tamil riots of 1983, World cup victory of 1996,  Tsunami of 2004 and End of civil war in 2009.  This list is a howler all by itself.  Winning the cricket World Cup was not the most important event in Sri Lanka in the 1980s and the tsunami was an external event unconnected to Independence.

Some of the events mentioned in the book are highly personal and have no historic significance whatsoever. Sunethra Rajakarunanayake recalled that when she was small, reading material was scarce and she read the newspaper cone in which all the dried goods were wrapped in the kade.  Sunethra Bandaranaike wrote of the   necklace her mother Sirimavo had gifted to her. Irangani Serasinghe wrote of her role in Yashorawaya.Sumitra Pieris mourned the loss of the Golden Peacock award which was stolen at Lester’s funeral.

Some references are isolated ones, such as the recollection of Ven. Gangodawila Soma’s funeral around Christmas time . British rule is recalled nostalgically, through the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954. They were a lovely couple and the country was agog with excitement, said the narrator in the episode white Cadillac’. This recollection is dead correct. I also remember this period.

 There is a sentimental recall of a lovely rubber estate, with a stream and panoramic views.  It was their playground, said the narrator. They sold rubber seeds and brought their school books with the money. After land reform, the plantation has been divided up into building allotments. Later generations will probably not know what a rubber seed looked like, lamented the narrator.

 The JVP is presented in a sympathetic manner. In ‘Rifle’ the narrator said he was assistant superintendent at Penrose Estate Nawalapitiya in 1988 during Bheeshanaya time. A  JVPer came to demand the planter’s rifle. They had a chat. JVPer said his grandparents were robbed of their land, by the British. He had sat for A levels but would probably end up as a laborer. There is another howler here. The Waste Lands Ordinance was enacted in 1897 long before grandfather. In Saree pota”   the narrator recalls seeing several bodies of young men burning on a pile of tyres.

 In the episode”Radio” narrator said her father was principle of a school in a remote village in Matale district in 1988-1989. This village was a JVP stronghold. The Sri Lanka army had taken a school building near the principal’s quarters and used it as a torture chamber at night. They had instructed father to play the radio at full blast to drown the screams. He did so. He used to listen to Radio Veritas before that. (Radio Veritas Asia is a Catholic radio station broadcasting to Asia from the Philippines.)  

 In the episodes ‘T 56” the narrator said had been a member of the JVP and in the late 1980s, he had met an air force officer who had told him that he, the narrator, was on the top of their hit list. The officer did not shoot the narrator. Instead the officer said he was leaving the Air Force and was going to find a job in Qatar. Better stay vigilant of the military”, he warned.

The Muslim community is presented in a sympathetic manner. One item Stethoscope’ presents a Muslim lady doctor as a caring person who reverted from curative to community medicine to serve society better. In ‘Jujubes’ the narrator says that father’s shop was located opposite a mosque. In the 1950s I woke up to the call to prayer, no body considered this to be a nuisance then.  In the episode ‘Beef lamprais’ the narrator sympathizes with the Muslim butcher in Kalutara who lost his livelihood because Buddhist monks intervened to stop tenders for butcher shops.

In the episode ‘Handbill’ Razeeka Rajabdeen records that she was the first Muslim woman to contest a pradeshiya sabha election. She was nominated by ITAK. (IllankaI Tamil Arasu Kadchi).  She lost the election.  (continued)