{"id":77427,"date":"2018-05-16T16:14:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T23:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=77427"},"modified":"2018-05-16T16:14:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T23:14:20","slug":"the-colonial-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/05\/16\/the-colonial-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Colonial Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

Mr Senaka Weeraratna writes with great warmth on the cultural depredation and the wanton foisting of an alien culture by the Colonial Overlords of historic Sri Lanka. He \u2013 like many high-spirited nationalists and floridly patriotic folk \u2013 see the advent of the marauding foreigner and the foisting of elements of an alien culture as an unmitigated disaster for the people of this country. Let us note first that \u2018historic\u2019 Sri Lanka was very far from being a role model for the rest of the civilized world. For long centuries a brutal overlord \u2013 the King \u2013 ruled the land with an iron fist. Human rights and democracy were very late cultural imports that we owe to the civilizing West. The \u2018oriental \u2018 world-view was that \u2018might is inalienably right\u2019 and that life is \u2013 for most – a punishment that has to be stoically endured \u2013 and that any alleviation is a gift from above through supplication and prayer. <\/span><\/p>\n

Two \u2018cultural imports\u2019 from the West destroyed the foundations of this this primitive view of human existence – as a \u2018proving ground\u2019 for the admission of the elite to celestial abodes above \u2013 and. more importantly the punishment of the wicked.\u00a0 The great \u2018liberators\u2019 \u2013 imported from the West of course – were \u2018secularism\u2019 and \u2018humanism\u2019 . \u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0 secularist message was that we humans are the masters of our fate and that the supposed divine edicts are socially malicious in that they are devices that help to maintain an unfair status quo. These are concepts arguably alien to our culture and religion but they are the source of our standing as a civilized nation. The oriental view of the sovereign as the \u2018deputy\u2019 of the avenging God and Life as a Trial\u00a0 – were painfully expelled by the forces of secularism originating in the West . Humanism became politically prominent when those of the Protestant faith declared that God was within us \u2013 that a spark of the divine is within each and every human being. That this lofty concept made the principles of democracy and human- rights a part of the cultural heritage of mankind as a whole must be respectfully acknowledged. Ancient Sri Lanka \u2013alas \u2013 neglected mankind and found solace in the Gods.\u00a0 A final word or two about language and culture to round off this comment – the English language that the foreigner has given us is more than an efficient means of communication \u2013 it is the bearer of a culture incomparably richer than ours \u2013 for which we should be thankful. The pitiful view that English is a kind of \u2018Trojan Horse\u2019 left behind by the departing Colonial Power has done incalculable damage to our standing as a modern nation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma Mr Senaka Weeraratna writes with great warmth on the cultural depredation and the wanton foisting of an alien culture by the Colonial Overlords of historic Sri Lanka. He \u2013 like many high-spirited nationalists and floridly patriotic folk \u2013 see the advent of the marauding foreigner and the foisting of elements of an alien […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77427","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=77427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}