{"id":111284,"date":"2021-02-02T16:33:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T23:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111284"},"modified":"2021-02-02T16:33:20","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T23:33:20","slug":"council-of-legal-education-a-black-white-citadel-embraces-the-english-panacea-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/02\/02\/council-of-legal-education-a-black-white-citadel-embraces-the-english-panacea-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Council of legal education, a black-white citadel, embraces the English panacea! Part-2"},"content":{"rendered":"

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This essay was written 20 years ago. It was\na reply to an essay which had strange ideas such as JVP was wicked because its\nmembers did not know English. There were several such odd points covered in the\nessay. But strangely, the point on JVP and English does so closely with the\ndecision to make law college English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only thing permanent in this world is\nimpermanence or change. Therefore, after 20 years I do not think C. A.\nChandraprema has not changed at least some of his views about this human world\nwe live in. I must apologize to him for re-opening an old wound by re-printing\nit. My purpose is to let the council of legal education (CLE) know that the country\nis not full of idiots to accept this kind of stupid decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vice principal of the law college is\nteaching English to law students. Teaching a second language is not a joke,\nsome way to get an extra-income. It requires professional training. There are\ndegree programs to teach\/train how to teach a foreign language. A pass or a\ncredit p has ass is not how one becomes and English language teacher. I wonder\nif there was an assessment of this English teacher\u2019s performance by his\nstudents, and the principal used students\u2019 comments as feedback for the teacher\nto improve his service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLE has a duty to let the country know why\nit took this decision. The impact of this decision is to prevent rural, poor\nstudents entering law college and make it again an academy for the rich,\nEnglish-speaking kids. Reading English books is good but how does it affect a\nSinhala-speaking lawyer\u2019s ability, skill, and power of interpretation of laws\nin Sinhala? Was the corruption we find in the legal establishment, the\nexploitation of poor and innocent clients done jointly by the two lawyers of\nthe opposite sides under an adversarial system of justice and perhaps, with the\nimplied consent of the judge, due to a lack of their English language\nproficiency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLE should develop a strong English teaching\nprogram with labs or make sure students go to such programs in another\nuniversity and get them a working knowledge in English so that they can read\nand understand books written in English. They should not be allowed to proceed until\nthey pass a test of translating a one or two pages of a law text into Sinhala\nand vice versa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important text could be translated into\nSinhala (Tamil students have no such problem as Tamilnad is full of such books)\nby giving contracts to retired lawyers, teachers etc. who are fluent in both languages\n(legal background is not necessary for this).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The general question of giving students a\nworking knowledge in English is a national problem that the officialdom has\nfailed to do despite wasting tons of resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLE\u2019s attempt to take the nation back to\npre-1956 era is like the plan (conspiracy) to make Sinhalaya, Sri Lankan, using\nthe newly designed birth certificate, so that in 100 years there will be no\nSinhala nation. All these fit in with the Orumitthanadu balkanization plan and\nthe anti-Mahavamsa project.  With the\nrumors around that Born Again agents have infiltrated state machinery including\nthe Aluthkade, CLE needs to tell the country why it took this unnecessary step\nto clear any unwarranted suspicions on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, CLE should have non-lawyer members, just\nlike the need for non-medical persons on the Medical Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

====================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(This article appeared on the Island on\nApril 13, 2001 (Sinhala-Tamil New Year\u2019s Day).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gurulugomi to the Rescue: re-Enthronement of the English\nLanguage<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2026Who could deny that a single shelf of\na good European library was worth the whole literature of India and Arabia.\u201d<\/em>  Macaulay (1835) – Macaulay:\nThe Shaping of the Historian, by John Clive, Random House, 1973, p.372<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Chandraprema\u2019s (CAC) paper titled In\nthe footsteps of Gurulugomi..\u201d (The Island,\nJanuary 29), is an example of the sixteen dreams that puzzled the king Pasenadi\nKosol. To understand the genesis of CAC\u2019s paper I asked myself a question, Why\nwas CAC picked up by an NGO to speak on this topic?\u201d Several subsequent\nwritings of CAC throw some helpful light in this regard. CAC was in the past an\nactive socialist and had also served on the Chamber of Commerce (N.M., Leslie\nand Colvin did the same thing).  He\nmaintains that the Sinhalayas are lazy (the Robert Knox complex). He thinks\nthat Sri Lanka should copy\nthe hire and fire\u201d labour laws from the U.S.\n(he should ask Ralph Nader, the third-party candidate at the last U.S.\npresidential election on this matter). He implies that the JVP was a murderous\nclan because its members do not speak English, although he now accepts that\nRichard de Zoysa was behind the JVP killings of bus drivers. Apparently, the\nNGO did their homework. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retired professor of education, Ranjith\nRuberu, recently had an article on this topic titled Hasty changeover [is]\nunwarranted,\u201d (The Island, January 19). \nHow did the professor reconcile this with his previous article in the\nIsland, The need to make English compulsory for university admissions?\u201d\nBecause those who routinely promote English ignore two important concepts\u2014 proficiency<\/strong>\nin a second language and barriers <\/strong>to learning English in public schools\u2014\nit is useful to ask a further question of who is promoting English and why? If\nEnglish teachers trade union is promoting English, one can understand it, if\nthey do not neglect their classroom duty before giving private tuition. But if\nglobalization, McDonalds coming to Colombo, the mushrooming business of\ninternational schools, an ethnic war with a terrorist group, unemployment,\nyouth suicide, corruption, bomb culture and enrichment of some via military\nsupply contracts are some how connected with lack of English knowledge, then\nthose promoters are simply dishonest. If ability to speak English is the path\nto Nirvana, then those countries where English is the mother tongue should not\nhave poverty, unemployment or high school kids taking guns to schools!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pali and Gujarati as Foreign Languages<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Sinhala villagers have enough problems\nalready and they do not need a new Pali problem created by an NGO seminar. They\nhad a Mysore\ndhal\/Bombay onion problem during Lalith\u2019s time. But imagine the eerie feeling a\nBuddhist could go through by differentiating Pali as a foreign language?\nRecently, when my mother-in-law was dying, my wife and her brother were at the\nhospital bedside chanting pirith. I do not know whether any one of the three\nwas thinking at that time that pirith was foreign object like Kentucky Fried\nChicken or a McDonald\u2019s hamburger. In the good old days people used to chant\npirith when chased by a ferocious dog or walking past a cemetery in the\nnight.  Do we consider the Buddha, or the\nchildren of King Dharmashoka, Arhants Mahinda and Sangamitta, as foreigners?\nThe Tooth Relic was from a Pali and not from a Sanskrit mouth. For centuries\nPali was the language of Buddhism just like math has been the language of\nmodern science. It was a dead language required for those who wanted to become\nBuddhist priests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Diaries of Anagarika Dharmapala<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If we look at languages from a\nutilitarian, proficiency perspective, instead of who is not a fool viewpoint,\nthen we do not have to cite Ven. Anagarika Dharmapala\u2019s diaries as evidence.\nThe concept of proficiency strips English of its Kaduwa aspect from the Sinhala\npolitics (Youth Commission Report, page xvii). It becomes just a language, a\ntool like a typewriter, fax machine, computer software or German. Did Anagarika\nDharmapala (1864-1933) use English to show that he was an educated\u201d person in\nthe tradition of Gurulugomi or the senior civil servant Amara Hewa Madduma?  May be Mrs. Annie Besant- with whom the young\nDavid was pleading for a chance to go to the Himalayas to meet with secret\nadepts- asked him to do so, before she found the future Krisnamurthy in the\nbeaches of south India. Or was there a police order for him to keep a record of\nhis daily activities? The point is, we just cannot speculate on such things.\nFor example, I prefer to write this essay in Sinhala and send it to Divaina,\nthe Sinhala daily\u201d but it is not practicable for me to do so. I did it once and\ndid not know what had happened to it. Does this mean that my intention is to\njoin the educated\u201d class? Does this diary-business put him in the category of\na present-day politician? Didn\u2019t he play an honest game? Just like Simon\nBolivar (1783-1830), the liberator of South America finally left his country of\nbirth, Venezuela in frustration, Dharmapala, the peaceful fighter also left the\nthen Ceylon in disgust, vowing never to come back, so I heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This diary business reminds a previous\ndebate by one Mr. Amaradasa Fernando, who commented on the inability of the\nlate Professor F. R. Jayasooriya to write in Sinhala (The Island, June\/July\n1999). Why is that a group of NGO-sponsored people are not writing about\npoliticians such as R. G. Senanayake or K. M. P. Rajaratne, but target persons\nlike Professor F. R. Jayasooriya, Dharmapala, Munidasa Cumaratunga or the\nChristian-born James D\u2019Alwis (1823-78)? One in this group calculated the\npercentage of Mahavamsa kings who killed a father or a brother to get to the\nthrone! Could we expect that one day this group will cite that Dr. Ananda\nCoomaraswamy was married four times, each time to a white woman? Or after done\nwith the first list of targets, would they then cite G. P. Malalasekara, P. de.\nS. Kularatne and S. A. Wickremasinghe, for\nmarrying white women?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is an educated person?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a famous case in which lawyers of\nan American newspaper tried to prove that Henry Ford was an uneducated\u201d man.\nBut Henry Ford changed the modern world. During the Premadasa regime some\nprofessors were talking about the clique of seven, seven ministers who had\nseventh grade education. When an apple fell on Newton\u2019s head, fortunately he did not ask the\nwrong question, Why did this apple fall on my head?\u201d in which case some say he\nwould have written a long novel. Instead, he asked, Why do apples fall?\u201d\nBecause promoters of English do not ask the proficiency and barrier-related\nquestions, they write about Pali, diaries and Gurulugomi.  The fifth verse in the Subhasitaya<\/em> lists as stupid those who did not know Pali, Sanskrit\nplus TAMIL. Stupidity is also covered in the last verse of the Lokopakaraya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the question is whether one becomes an\neducated\u201d person simply because he or she is bilingual. During the days of Sir\nJohn, there were many taxi drivers and Colombo\nseven Aayas (maids) who were bi-lingual. I knew people who spoke English at\nhome but spell court of law\u201d as coat of law.\u201d Despite the story of Amawatura<\/em> or Subhasitaya<\/em> in the past, the pre-independence Ceylon treated those who knew\nSinhala and English as stupid. Only a handful of white men did not agree with\nwhat Macaulay had to say about the Asian heritage. Rhys Davids (1881-1922) of\nthe Ceylon Civil Service, son of a Christian minister, was one of them and was\nfired from his job because of his strange\u201d views.  Sir William Jones (1783), the first president\nof the Asiatic Society of Bengal was another. Sir D. B. Jayatilaka was an Abittaya <\/em>(temple servant) to Marxists\nbecause he had his early education in a Buddhist temple. Colonial rulers\ndeported him to Delhi so that the seventh-grade, English speaking people who\ndid not know Sinhala or Pali or Gujarati could rule the country. Cumaratunga\nMunidasa (1887-1944) was not qualified to entrust with the task of preparing\nthe Sinhalese Encyclopedia. Ruskin Fernando who contested the Moratuwa seat was\nbi-lingual and he tried to say that he loved his urine-land (muthra)<\/em>\nmeaning his motherland (maathru<\/em>)! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until Colonel Olcott and the Buddhist\nTheosophical Society came to the forefront in the1880s, it was not Gurulugomi\nbut Macaulay and the likes of Sir Ivor Jennings, trusted advisor to prime\nministers, who influenced the education policy in Ceylon. In 1804, just two\nyears after the coastal Ceylon\nbecame a crown colony, the London Mission Society started schools to convert\nchildren. Two other examples would be sufficient to show the Sir\nJohn-kicking-M.S. Themis-on the steps of the parliament building\u201d (compare with\nthe Ratnatunge attack on the Asoka Vidyalaya cricket players) mentality of Ceylon.\nIf a person was sick for more than fourteen days a medical certificate from an\nAyurvedic physician was not accepted. It must be from a western doctor or from\na hospital [written in English?]. Those who came out of the English\nteacher-training college were paid a higher salary than those who came from the\nSinhala medium training colleges. Sinhala became Bible Sinhala,\u201d and a kitchen\nlanguage, the same way that Buddhism became a kitchen religion. Among the many\nsurvival strategies, some Sinhala people had two first names, one\nSinhala-Buddhist (Aryan?) and one western-English (Christian?). They were\nChristians in the office and Buddhists in the kitchen! The great religious\ndebate at Panadura (April 1873) took place under such circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The International Irrigation Management\nInstitute is in Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka had a sophisticated irrigation\nwater supply system in the ancient world. Who were these ancient irrigation\nworkers? Were they bi-lingual? Some Marxists branded king Dutugemunu as a fool\nof bricks\u201d for building the Ruwanvali Maha Saya<\/em>. Yet these same Marxists\nmake trips to Egypt\nto see the great pyramids! I think a person who knows that he does not know is\nan educated person. An educated person knows the art of living in an\nimpermanent world. Martin Wickremasinghe had so vividly described in his\nApegama that the guru-gedara and the village temple were the centers of\neducation and educated people in Sri Lanka, before, during and\ntowards the end of the colonial period. Contrary to what the new NGO-oriented\nwriters think, British governors took full advantage of such native institutions\nlike the caste system, village council, village headman, village tanks and the\ntemple-based village education, all in the name of peace and good governance of\nthe colony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colonial Education Policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As children we\nstudied the colonial education policy from Horace Perera\u2019s history textbook,\nCeylon Under the Western Rule.\u201d For a detailed history, the best source is\nchapter 12 Indian Education: The Minute\u201d of Clive\u2019s book on Macaulay. There\nwere two opposing views. Engrafting\u201d Western knowledge upon Indian cultural\ntraditions by means of Sanskrit and Arabic and downward filtration,\u201d the\ncreation of an educated elite who would themselves become teachers to other\ngreat mass of poor Indian people. The latter policy had an evangelical and\nutilitarian bias.  So, Macaulay said, we\nmust at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us\nand the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and\ncolour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.\u201d Who\ncould deny that NM, Leslie, Colvin, Lalith, Gamini, JRJ, Dudley,\nRanil, Neelan-GL and Chandrika did not qualify as grand children of Macaulay? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its top\npriority was making profits the colonial government left education in the hands\nof religious and private organizations. As summed up by Nehru, colonial masters\nsupported a policy of education for clerks.\u201d In 1851, Radha Kanta Dev, a\nprogressive Calcutta\nmerchant warned against a system, whereby, ..with a smattering knowledge of\nEnglish, youths are weaned from the plough, the axe and the loom, to render\nthem ambitious only for the clerkships for which hosts would besiege the\ngovernment and mercantile offices\u2026\u201d Dev favored agricultural and industrial schools,\nwhere skills could be taught. For him, the prerequisite for these was a solid\nvernacular education. Lord Curzon who divided Bengal\ninto two in 1905, made the same point half a century later (Clive, p. 416). We\nneed to look at Sri Lanka\u2019s\neconomic problems today from Dev\u2019s and Lord Curzon\u2019s wisdom and not from CAC\u2019s\nopinion of a vernacular disaster. In the USA alone, in each major city, dozens\nof vernacular educated Sri Lankans\u2014engineers, doctors, chemists, physicists,\nprofessors and arts graduates\u2014 have successfully competed with those whose\nmother tongue is English in the latter\u2019s own turf by acquiring a simple working\nknowledge in English. English did not give Sri Lankan Americans the brain,\nintelligence, creativity, or the power of analytical thinking. English was only\na vehicle, and they do not carry this raft on their shoulders after crossing\nthe river. Here then is a proven simple model that Sri Lanka should follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Gandhi once\nsaid, it was nothing less than scandalous that people should devote the best\nyears of their lives to mastering a foreign tongue.\u201d Buddha said twenty-five\nhundred years ago that one\u2019s mother tongue was the most appropriate medium of\neducation. Those who think Sinhala is a poor language should try to translate\ninto English the following line of a verse in the Subahsitaya<\/em>, pin\nmada putun siyayak laduwat nisaru<\/em>.\u201d Sir D. B. Jayatilaka, who opposed the\nintroduction of universal suffrage, was convinced that originality of thought\nwas inextricably bound with one\u2019s own mother tongue. He asked, we have had\nEnglish education in this country over a century\u2026but has anyone left a single\nbook in English verse or prose which will survive a generation?\u201d (Legislative\nCouncil Debates, 1928:368). As cited in Professor K. N. O. Dharmadasa\u2019s book,\nLanguage, Religion and Ethnic Assertiveness (1992, p. 215), Ananda\nCoomaraswamy, who was fluent in ten languages, went even further to endorse\nstrongly, the link between one\u2019s creative and intellectual development and\nhis\/her mother tongue. Martin Wickremasinghe, who learned his Sinhala at\nKoggala showed so much creativity. What did the Peradeniya honours graduates\nwho studied Sinhala language in English language produce? Some of them became\ncivil servants such as Charles Abeysekera (English, Sanskrit and Latin?) who\nsat on top of all the state industrial corporations for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\n Lanka has no\nresources! <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This brings us to CAC\u2019s next theory that\nSri Lanka has no resources. He should tell this to a Japanese or a Korean and\nask them to buy the island! Resources are not, they become.\u201d A geography\nprofessor could perhaps enlighten CAC on this topic. But after living in this\nresource rich USA for 21\nyears, I think Sri Lanka\nhas more than enough resources to be a healthy-happy nation. The problem has\nbeen the UNP-SLFP leaders and the Colombo\nclass. For example, when you think of the money paid to baby-sitters and to\npsychiatrists for mental stress in America, the extended family-net and the\nBuddhist way of life in Sri Lanka are two important resources. Agriculture and\nindustry are the two legs of a country helping each other, and a garment\nindustry based on shiploads of cloth or yarn converted to tons of exported\nshirts and pants cannot change this basic truth. About 30 years ago E. F.\nSchumacher, opened our eyes to the path we should have followed in his book\nSmall Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. But politicians and their\ncatchers and officers cannot get commissions unless they invite big projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is poor, and the university educated\nare unemployed not because they do not know English, but the country is lacking\nleaders with wisdom and dedication. What the UNP and SLFP did to the country is\ncandidly summarized by the Sri Lankan prime minister in the presence of the\npresident .. All parties utter lies in their election manifestos and the party\nwhich utter better and more effective lies is the side that wins the\nelection..\u201d (Daily News, February\n 14, 2001). While the old Cinnamon\n Garden class is decaying,\nnew types of classes are emerging in the Kotte-Nawala-Madivela area. Now people\nmake money via politics, war supply contracts, NGOs, and commissions from\nforeign aid contracts. Their children could go at least to an Indian university\nand when they come back foreign companies prefer to hire them instead of the\nlocal graduates. The presumption is that those with an overseas education\nrepresent a higher class and are less radical and less nationalistic. It is an\nirony that poor Sri Lankans go to the Middle East as maids, clean toilets, and\nremit hard foreign exchange to Sri Lanka. Rich peoples\u2019 children who cannot\nenter a Sri Lankan university use that money under the World Bank orders of a\nfree-liberal economy to go to foreign universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vernacular Disaster and the American Civil War<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In Kent, Ohio I met a Physics student who\ngot an assistantship to come for higher studies because he had a physics degree\nin the Sinhala medium. If his English was tested, he had no chance of coming\nhere. But he was blaming SWRD for removing English from the university. A group\nof dedicated Sri Lankans fought to open the doors of the university to the\ncommon people of Sri Lanka.\nWhen the plug was removed, big-fat-rich kids from Colombo and other big cities had no chance.\nIn the early days university admission decisions were made after a personal\ninterview. And at the interview, as reported by Felix Dias B, Sir Ivor asked\nhim, Since your father is a judge of the supreme court are you also planning\nto be a judge of the supreme court?\u201d to which FDB replied, No, I want to be\nthe vice chancellor of the university so that I could select students.\u201d They\nwere just scratching each other\u2019s backs! While Royal, St. Thomas and St Joseph\ndropped out of the scene, village students with 8 distinctions at O.L. flooded\nthe university. With so many qualified students the government added a second\narts section in Colombo\nin 1962, nicknamed the Gopallawa faculty.\u201d In 1962, those who were losing\ntheir post-independence privileges staged a military coup, allegedly with Dudley\nand Sir Oliver\u2019s knowledge. P. de. S. Kularatne\u2019s son-in-law, Stanley\nSenanayake saved the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened to the Philippine Islands,\nAfrica or to some South American cultures did not happen in Sri Lanka, because of\nlife-sacrificing acts of Walane (Panadura) Siddharta (1811-68), whose wisdom\nresulted in the establishment of Vidyodaya (1873) and Vidyalankara (1875)\nPirivenas, Migettuwatte Gunananda (1823-90) Hikkaduwe Sumangala (1827-1911),\nColonel Olcott, and many others.  It is\ntrue that a postal peon\u2019s son could become a famous Sinhala Civil Servant\n(Ananda Guruge) or a poor school clerk\u2019s son from Panadura could become a\nPeradeniya professor (I. D. S. Weerawardena), and some children of school\nprincipals, postmasters and village landowners had an opportunity to enter the\nUniversity of Ceylon. But the Kannangara Free Education Reforms did not reach\nthe masses until the people\u2019s revolution in 1956 and the decision to teach in\nSinhala and Tamil in the university. In the 1960s, to supplement the university\nbursary system, Dr. N. M. Perera, added a university students\u2019 bank loan scheme\nthrough the People\u2019s Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was not an easy victory. We all know\nwhat Sir Nicholas, the dean of medical faculty told F. R. Jayasooriya when the\nformer was approached to teach medicine in Sinhala, first go and teach your\nSinhala in Sinhala and then come to me.\u201d In this effort FR had the backing of\nI. D. S. W, who pioneered teaching political science in Sinhala, with the\nsupport of his English wife, until his untimely death by a misdiagnosis of\nchickenpox. But professor F. R. Jayasooriya, once told me that at a much later\nstage, when the movement had reached the point of no return, a person non other\nthan R.G. Senanayake asked him, Is it really possible to teach science\n(medicine) in Sinhala?\u201d FR should have cited the king Buddhadasa, the Russian\ndoctors or the Jews medical researchers in Israel. Which is the language of\nmedicine, English, Russian or Hebrew? \nThe language of medicine in Ceylon was class privilege and\nmoney. Private medical schools and private universities are not bad ideas per\nse if, we tell the real reason behind them. People who get rich by just means\ntaking risks must be allowed to enjoy their wealth. Is this against Buddhism?\nBut one should not say that the French enjoy justice and fairness under the\nFrench law because both the rich and the poor are allowed to sleep under the\nbridges in Paris.\u201d\nOne law for the lion and the ox is oppression.\u201d Equality also did not come\nwhen minister Hamid sent trade representatives to the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington, D.C.,\nwho knew no other language except Sinhala. We did not know who was stupid, the\nminister or the ambassador?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a remarkable similarity between\nthe period of Southern Reconstruction after the American Civil War (1861-1865)\nand what CAC brands as the Vernacular Disaster (1956-78). In the final\nanalysis, the American Civil war was a war against slavery. Abraham Lincoln\ngave his life to save the Union. But after\nhalf a million deaths, the terms of surrender were so generous and gentle\nbecause that was what Lincoln\nwished. Slaves became free and in the South for a brief period former slaves\nenjoyed freedom and tasted little bit of political power. This was like what\nhappened in Ceylon\nafter 1956. But soon African Americans in the South succumbed to a reign of\nwhite supremacy, separate but equal laws,\u201d and the Ku Klux Klan. Blacks had to\nwait until Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior led the civil rights movement in the\n1960s. Legally and religiously backed racial discrimination was so rampant that\nwhen the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 31, 1922, blacks were restricted to a\nsection across the road from the white audience. Twenty-one black guests left\nthe dedication in protest (Lies Across America, James W. Loewen, 1999, p. 334).\nIn Sri Lanka, those who came\nto universities from remote villages had to think of buying at least a\npostage-stamp size plot of land somewhere near Colombo\nto send their children to Colombo\nschools. Sri Lanka needs to discard the Colombo paradigm and go towards\nAnuradhapura for a new capital city (The Island, April 21, 1998; Feb 7, 2001).\nThe victimization based on English began with an English language provision in\nthe JRJ constitution and now the department of education is issuing circulars\nto commence English medium public schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Large Dose of English Therapy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Dr. (Mrs.) Kariyawasam, during\nminister Lokubandara\u2019s time, English \u2026 was restored to its pride of place\u201d\n(The Island, May 4, 2000).\nAmong other things, with World Bank funds, a target was set to produce 1000\ngraduate teachers with English as a subject by the year 2000. Was this not an\nexample of CAC\u2019s therapy dose? What has happened in 2001? Sri Lankan president\nsays over 40% of developmental funds in the state sector end in waste (Daily\nNews, Feb 14, 2001).\nDespite talk about regional planning and the development of villages in remote\nareas for the past 60 years, Colombo\nis bursting with dust, filth, and corruption. The housing minister reports that\nhalf of Colombo\u2019s\npopulation live in slum conditions. The problem is second only to San Salvador (Lacnet,\nMarch 7). That is why talk must be matched by walk. Otherwise talk ends up with\nGuinness Book records of youth suicide and international schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macualay never played cricket, which most\nAmericans brand as a lazy persons\u2019 game.\u201d We were taught that it symbolizes\nthe British cabinet form of government. When the Royal-Thomian match was\nreported in the Ceylon Daily News, in villages we played cricket with coconut\nbats and Kaduru<\/em> balls. Our Elle is America\u2019s\nmost popular game, the baseball. But to talk \u2026 make English so widespread that\nthere is no status attached to it like cricket\u2026\u201d is misleading and cheating.\nAccording to this theory English-speaking countries have no ruling (Colombo) class and no\ninjustice. If we take the predominance of African American in American sports,\nthen if CAC is right, African Americans must also be presidents, CEOs, and\nsenators by the dozen. In Sri\n Lanka nobody laughs at you if you cannot\nplay cricket, but if you make a mistake in English, a language full of\nexceptions and few rules, you are ridiculed and condemned. Here we come to the\nquestion of denied access and opportunity, the class power of those who climbed\nup the English language ladder kicking down the Sinhala and Tamil-speaking\nmajority. I often wonder why we do not consider learning English the same way\nwe try to learn how to ride a bicycle. When the time comes, we do not give up\nit until we get the balance and able to take that first magic ride to freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colonialism and English<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I think Ceylon was fortunate to come under\nthe British in 1798, instead of any other colonial master. When the Portuguese\nfinally abandoned Angola,\nthere were no native stationmasters to man the few railway stations it had! In\nthe streets of London,\nEnglish workingmen and women fought for a fair deal for the colonies. This was\nwhy Gandhi said that except India\nhe would prefer to live in London.\nWhen the stone heads of Lenin and Marx came tumbling down, starting with Lech\nWalesa\u2019s Polish shipyard strike, Karl Marx\u2019s was peacefully sleeping in his\ntomb in England without a single sentry to protect him. The old lion Prins\nGunasekara, who could not return to Sri Lanka because of death threats, live\nsafely in London in exile along with the JVP leader who is also in the same\nboat. The story was that a certain viceroy of India was behind the formation of\nthe Indian National Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our admiration of the West and the English\nlanguage need not become an obsession. \nBlind faith in everything western and American could become a mental\nsickness. For example, why is that Colombo\npeople embrace things coming from America, which even the Americans\nhere are rejecting and protesting. A good example is the McDonald hamburgers\nnotorious as an unhealthy fast food (The McDonaldization of Society, George\nRitzer, 1993). It is widely believed for good reasons that the Buddhist India\nand the Greece of Socrates and Plato had exchanges of ideas. In Buddhist\nsocieties, both amongst layman and monks, one could find the existence of several\nmodern democratic principles. The Buddhist temple with its own chief incumbent\nfunctions as one of the most decentralized and independent religious and civic\ninstitution in the modern world, at least before the ministry of Buddhism and\nits officers of the party in power started allocating government money to their\nfavorite temples. In America,\nnative American (e.g., Iroquois nations in the 1740s) ideas of liberty,\nfraternity, and equality found their way to Europe\nto influence social philosophers such as Thomas More, Locke, Montaigne,\nMontesquieu, and Rousseau. These European thinkers in turn influenced American\nsuch as Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison, the authors of the U.S. constitution (Lies My Teacher\nTold Me, James W. Loewen, 1995, p. 111).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of such knowledge is that it\nhelps one to appreciate the lesson in a Buddhist Jataka story telling us not\ntake the raft on to our shoulders after we used it to cross the river. English\nis only a raft and it need not be a Kaduwa. English is a very economical\nlanguage. Because it is so widespread proficiency in English is a passport to\nsee the world. It has a rich vocabulary, flexible and has relatively simple\nspelling and pronunciation. If a standard western typewriter keyboard were to\nexpand to take in every Chinese ideograph it would have to be about 15 feet\nlong and 5 feet wide (The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Bill\nBryson, 1990, p. 118). There is no reason to love English, and there is no\nreason to hate it. Politicians and their henchmen-officers are playing the same\nold game when they say that Sri Lanka is in a mess because English was ignored.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barriers to English Proficiency <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

All what a Sri Lankan child needs is one\nclass period of quality English every school day from grades 2-10. As Dr.\nKariyawasam reported, of the 40,000 English teachers, nearly 19,000 recruited\nin 1972, came with a credit pass in English at the G.C.E. (O.L.). Three decades\nlater are we doing a better job in solving this problem of quantity and quality\nof English language teachers? How many schools even within a 25- mile radius\nfrom Colombo could claim that they have enough qualified English teachers?\nThose officers in the education department who plan English medium schools must\nfirst complete the simple task of providing teachers who can teach English as a\nsecond language. Teaching English as a foreign language is not the same as\nspeaking English. Sri Lanka\nhad a reasonably good textbook translation service in the 1960s and who killed\nit?  There is no one path to make\nchildren proficient in English. But it can be done without killing their mother\ntongue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The education department has failed\nmiserably to develop an educational policy that helps the country. Instead, it\nbecame a service department to politician ministers giving jobs to party\nsupporters. No wonder education has gone to the dogs. How can it develop\nEnglish medium schools when it could not solve the English language teachers\u2019\nshortage for the past twenty to thirty years? Is it planning to import teachers\nfrom India\nto teach the other subjects in English? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those days there were night schools\nattached to Temples\nwhere English was taught free. Who killed that concept? Why cannot this method\nbe revived? This is a low cost, village level approach suitable for those\ngenuinely concerned with helping the masses. We commemorate with gratitude what\nthe American Olcott did for us in the 1880s. He helped to establish schools for\nthe Buddhists at a time the government was not willing to help. Ironically,\nthose who had the responsibility of continuing Olcott\u2019s mission neglected\nteaching English to Buddhist monks attending temple- pirivenas<\/em>. It is much harder to learn Sanskrit, but student-priests\nlearned Sanskrit and Pali and not English. Buddhist priests had to rely on the\nEnglish knowledge of the lay Buddhist leaders. Same thing happened with the\nMarxists. The leaders spoke English but the ordinary members, the laborers and\nclerks did not know it <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Providing a working knowledge of English to\nthose who study in their mother tongue should not be a matter of\nAnto-Jata-Bahi-Jata. There is low cost, more effective, user-friendly,\ncommunity-based solutions people can do without getting under the iron heel of\nthe education department or party politics. For example, two years ago a\nvillage temple at Walana, Panadura started an evening school to teach English\nto children who cannot go to English tuition classes. The school (Sri Siddhartha\n English School)\nis open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00-6:30\n p.m. and now has over 150 students. It is mainly for those who come\nto the temple\u2019s Sunday-school, but no one is excluded because of his\/her\nreligion. The children are provided with basic learning materials and strict\ndiscipline is maintained regarding attendance. The chief priest of the temple\nis surprised and moved by the dedication of the retired and other voluntary\nteachers who made this a success. They are also planning to start a night\nschool for the working adults. In this case everybody is a winner. Teachers do\nsomething meritorious. Parents feel they are recognized. Children receive free\nEnglish tuition to supplement their regular school English class. This is\nself-reliance and this is what we call access and opportunity. This is also an\nexample of the Global Paradox mentioned by John Naisbitt, – the bigger the\nworld economy, the more powerful its smallest players (1994).  A small fraction of the World Bank money,\nused by Colombo officers for big projects, if diverted to night schools,\nevening and weekend schools, retired teachers and other dedicated citizens at\nvillage-level are able to propagate English like cricket. I sincerely wish that\nMr. Chandraprema and professor Ruberu would take a leadership role in organizing\nan evening or night English school in their hometowns. It will not be difficult\nto find a thousand sponsors from the U.S.A. alone if they could find\nthousand temples to offer free English classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C. Wijeyawickrema was an assistant\nprofessor at Kent State University,\n Ohio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D. Introduction This essay was written 20 years ago. It was a reply to an essay which had strange ideas such as JVP was wicked because its members did not know English. There were several such odd points covered in the essay. But strangely, the point on JVP and English does so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-wijeyawickrema"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}