{"id":58783,"date":"2016-09-16T23:57:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T05:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=58783"},"modified":"2016-09-16T05:12:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T12:12:00","slug":"gunadasa-amarasekaras-sabyathva-rajya-kara-towards-a-civilizational-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/09\/16\/gunadasa-amarasekaras-sabyathva-rajya-kara-towards-a-civilizational-state\/","title":{"rendered":"GUNADASA AMARASEKARA\u2019S SABYATHVA RAJYA KARA (TOWARDS A CIVILIZATIONAL STATE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

DHARSHAN WEERASEKERA<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

It has been suggested, and I think quite rightly, that the most valuable function of a public intellectual is to provide interesting and stimulating ideas for public discussion, which in turn can ground material changes, whether in politics, arts, science, or any other field, in order to benefit society as a whole.<\/p>\n

In my view, Gunadasa Amarasekara\u2019s new book, Sabyathva Rajya Kara<\/em><\/strong> (Towards a Civilizational State) does the above.\u00a0 I shall briefly discuss the main idea in the book, and offer some comments thereon.<\/p>\n

His idea has three components:\u00a0 first, that the political system of Sri Lanka for the past sixty years\u2014i.e. \u2018Westminster\u2019 model, party politics, \u2018democracy\u2019 and so on\u2014has utterly failed.\u00a0 Second, the reason for the said failure is that the said institutions, which were foisted on this country by the British, are inherently at odds with the cultural ethos of the majority of people of this country, i.e. the Sinhala-Buddhists.<\/p>\n

Third, the solution to the above problem is to generate a system of governance that is in tune with the said cultural ethos, which is to say, through a Civilizational State.\u00a0 As far as I understand it, by \u2018Civilizational State\u2019 what Dr. Amarasekara means is the set of institutions, customs and practices (or principles derived from same) that helped sustain a Sinhala-Buddhist kingdom in the island for roughly two thousand five hundred years.<\/p>\n

With respect to the first point, I don\u2019t think any contemporary observer of Sri Lankan politics will disagree with Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s conclusions.\u00a0 Here for instance are some of the things he says about the present stage of evolution of Sri Lankan politics, that is, after Mr. Sirisena came to power:<\/p>\n

\u2018After attaining [the Presidency] he took over the leadership of the SLFP.\u00a0 Using the powers of his office, but without any basis in law, he removed the then-serving Chief Justice and had the previous CJ, who had been removed from that office, re-appointed.\u00a0 Though there was a Prime Minister at this time, he appointed a different one. By making use of the National List, he appointed to Parliament certain persons who had been rejected by the people at the polls, and through this consolidated his power.\u2019[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Given the above facts, especially the last one, about consolidating power by exploiting the National List, (a Parliament formed through such a process is now attempting to introduce a new constitution to the country) it is, as I said, very difficult to disagree with Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s conclusion that the political institutions the British left us (or slight modifications to same) have utterly failed.<\/p>\n

I shall next turn to the reasons for the above failure, and here I think there\u2019s room for debate. \u00a0There are two positions:\u00a0 one, is the reason for the failure the inability of Sri Lankan politicians to make use of the relevant institutions competently?\u00a0 Or, is it that those institutions are inherently unsuited to the local soil?\u00a0 Dr. Amarasekera gives some cogent reasons as to why the answer is the latter.<\/p>\n

In my view, the outcome of the debate is immaterial to the larger point Dr. Amarasekara is trying to make\u2014i.e. the need for a Civilizational State.\u00a0 Dr. Amarasekara points out that, the Sinhala-Buddhists had maintained a kingdom in the island for 2500 years, until 1815.\u00a0 True, the kingdom retracted, and retreated at times in the face of numerous challenges, but it never died out, or was wholly extinguished, throughout that period.<\/p>\n

If Sri Lankans, in the 60 years since independence, have come to the present predicament by relying on the best ideas on government the West has to offer, it makes sense that they should look to their own traditions, see how their ancestors managed a polity for 2500 years, and extract some lessons that might be useful in finding a way out of the present mess.<\/p>\n

The third and final part of Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s argument, his call for a system of governance based on a Civilizational model, is the controversial part of his book.\u00a0 I shall briefly discuss two objections that I expect critics, particularly in the West, to make to his proposal.\u00a0 I make these observations as someone who, for better or worse, was educated in the West, and like to think I understand something of how the \u2018Western mind\u2019 works.<\/p>\n

Dr. Amarasekara bases his concept of a Civilizational State on an idea advanced by Samuel Huntington in his book, the Clash of Civilizations<\/em>.\u00a0 Huntington\u2019s idea, as far as I understand it, is that certain cultural paradigms distinguish large segments of the world\u2019s population, that these paradigms are inherently incompatible with each other, and such incompatibilities will be the primary source of conflict in the post Cold War world.<\/p>\n

By implication, each civilization must rely on its own cultural resources not only to survive, but to progress and develop to its highest potential.\u00a0 When this idea was first propounded (if I recall, in 1993 or so) there was a furor.\u00a0 Huntington\u2019s supporters argued that he had identified a realistic way in which one could go about addressing some of the major problems in the world.<\/p>\n

His detractors, on the other hand, argued that if one accepted the idea of a fundamental \u2018clash of civilizations\u2019 it locked one into considering the relevant segments of the world\u2019s population as perpetual antagonists or enemies, which is not only unhealthy, but unhelpful to solving any problem.<\/p>\n

They also pointed out that, \u2018civilizations\u2019 were not monolithic, and the historical record showed that every civilization had borrowed from, or been nourished by, other civilizations, hence there was no factual basis for saying there were insurmountable incompatibilities<\/em> between them.<\/p>\n

To turn to Sri Lanka, a critic will say that, if Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s idea becomes a reality it will split this country into hostile camps, i.e. Sinhala-Buddhists, Tamils, Muslims, etc. for perpetuity.\u00a0 Such a situation (they will say) will only exacerbate the problems of this country, not solve them.<\/p>\n

The present review is not intended as a critique of the \u2018Clash of Civilizations\u2019 thesis, or to assess its relevance to Sri Lanka.\u00a0 I can only say that, as far as my reading of Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s book is concerned, his use of the idea of a Civilizational State is for its regenerative<\/em> power, that is, its capacity for inspiring or instigating creative thinking among the Sinhalas, in order to generate lasting solutions to present-day problems.<\/p>\n

Dr. Amarasekara emphasizes that the Civilizational State he proposes has to be accompanied by a parallel cultural revival.\u00a0 He says, for instance:<\/p>\n

\u2018Because the cultural invasion that the Foreigner carried on for two centuries, and which the \u2018Macaulay Generation\u2019 that he created carries on to this day, what we have today is a nation of persons who are devoid of any civilizational understanding, and are in effect \u2018headless.\u2019\u00a0 Until a \u2018head\u2019 is fixed on these people, it is impossible to think of going towards a Civilizational State, let alone any other journey [towards national liberation]\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In the first half of the last Century, Anagarika Dharmapala launched his \u2018Cultural Revival\u2019 because he understood this.\u00a0 He realized that no national liberation was possible in this country until the cultural knowledge that lay dormant in the minds of people, was re-awakened\u2026.What we must do today is to start where he [Dharmapala] left off\u2019[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

To repeat, Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s idea of a Civilizational State involves re-awakening or rejuvenating a cultural tradition dormant<\/em> within the Sinhalas:\u00a0 the idea (if I understand it correctly) is that the said re-awakening will result in a renewed vibrancy in the intellectual and moral climate of the country, and it is this vibrancy<\/em> that is expected to produce the relevant solutions.<\/p>\n

It follows that, if there is friction with other groups, the creative forces unleashed by the revival will prompt novel solutions to such situations as well\u2014solutions, at any rate, possibly better that the ones that imported modalities of thought have produced thus far.<\/p>\n

The second objection that I think a critic will make is that Dr. Amarasekara is proposing a return to Nativism, or Ultra-Conservatism, and the danger in this is that it can lead\u2014and indeed has led in various countries\u2014to evil, for instance, to Fascism, Nazism, and so on.\u00a0 Is it possible that Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s idea can be exploited by some demagogue (or politico, as the case may be) in order to do evil?<\/p>\n

I have two replies.\u00a0 First, a public intellectual can be expected to present ideas, but they cannot be expected to anticipate, far less control, the uses for which those ideas may be put by others.<\/p>\n

Second, and more important, I think that as a substantive matter Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s idea is not amenable to being exploited by demagogues, because of the following reason.\u00a0 As pointed out earlier, Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s idea is predicated on there being a parallel cultural revival.<\/p>\n

To the best of my knowledge, a cultural revival involves a process that goes far beyond people merely collecting information about their history and culture and being proud of the accomplishments of their ancestors.\u00a0 A cultural revival, in essence involves a transformation within each individual member of a culture, whereby they change, at a fundamental level, their basic outlook on the world.\u00a0 Such a process, by definition, requires intense introspection on the part of each individual.<\/p>\n

I am hardly an expert on group behavior, or the dynamics of mobs, but it seems to me that, where demagogues have succeeded in firing-up a crowd by exploiting culture and history, it is by evoking the grandeur of the past in order to trigger various emotional responses in the hearers.\u00a0 In such situations, I don\u2019t see the hearers engaging in introspection.\u00a0 In fact, it seems to me that, introspection on the part of the hearers will work counter to the purposes of the demagogue.<\/p>\n

In any event, to turn to the question of whether Dr. Amarasekara\u2019s idea can be exploited by a demagogue, or politico, in order to gain some nefarious end, in my view, if the \u2018Civilizational State\u2019 is understood as something that has to be accompanied by a cultural revival also, it is not amenable to such abuse.<\/p>\n

In sum, Dr. Amarsekara has put in play a very powerful idea.\u00a0 It is up to the Sinhalas to decide what they do with it.<\/p>\n

Dharshan Weerasekera is an Attorney-at-Law.\u00a0 His latest book, The Relevance of American Constitutional Principles to Solving Problems of Governance in Sri Lanka<\/em><\/strong>, will be in bookstores shortly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Gunadasa Amarasekara, Sabyathva Rajya Kara<\/em>, Visidhunu, Colombo, 2016, Pg. 9<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, pg. 50<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DHARSHAN WEERASEKERA It has been suggested, and I think quite rightly, that the most valuable function of a public intellectual is to provide interesting and stimulating ideas for public discussion, which in turn can ground material changes, whether in politics, arts, science, or any other field, in order to benefit society as a whole. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58783","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=58783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}