{"id":92854,"date":"2019-09-03T14:56:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T21:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92854"},"modified":"2019-09-03T14:56:47","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T21:56:47","slug":"professor-carlo-fonseka-a-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/03\/professor-carlo-fonseka-a-tribute\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Carlo Fonseka – A Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Those who pursue the higher life of wisdom, who seek to live by spiritual principles, must be prepared to be laughed at and condemned.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Epictetus, Greek\n Stoic philosopher (55-135 CE)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    (Following\nis an updated version of an article published in two parts in The Island in the\nlast week of May 2016.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\nadmired Professor Carlo Fonseka as a socially committed intellectual who\nenhanced, with his rare intellect, the quality of his contribution to the good\nof the society in a multiplicity of roles he was called upon to play. Among\nhundreds of quotes about intellectuals I looked at in the internet, I found not\na single one that says something good or positive about them. That may be\nbecause it is usually intellectuals who are quoted, and are they likely to utter\nsomething quotable about themselves. But Noam Chomsky looks askance at a\ncertain type of intellectuals: The respected intellectuals are those who\nconform and serve power interests\u201d. Carlo was not among them. To say this is a\ncompliment that he richly deserves, for he did not follow social or political\nor intellectual norms unquestioningly or adapt his behavior in order to please\nthose who exercise power. Hence the Epictetus quote above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Professor\nCarlo Fonseka\u2019s book of essays titled  ESSAYS OF A LIFETIME (S. Godage\n& Brothers Pvt Ltd, Colombo, 2016), which was his swan song, encapsulates\nhis key ideas about a variety of subjects he had been creatively engaged in\nduring a long lifetime. Of course, he probably had found different fresh\ninsights and changed his original ideas by then, but that does not detract from\ntheir value in relation to the actual contexts of the time in which he\nconceived and expressed those ideas. Also, there are a few overlaps and\nrepetitions between the essays as the author himself admits in his preface to\nthe book. Naturally, such minor lapses are inevitable in a collection of\nwritings by the same writer over as long a period of time as 43 years. The\nsubjects of the essays relate to such diverse fields as science, religion,\nphilosophy, politics, economics, arts and even travel and biography. The volume\ncomprises selected specimens of his writings between 1971 and 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I was an\navid reader of his newspaper articles, texts of his speeches (whenever\navailable,) and, on occasion, his scholarly academic papers which struck me as\nof general interest (to which last, though, my access was extremely limited).\nAs a lifelong learner I drew inspiration from him, though I am from a different\nprofession. Professor Carlo came within my student radar even before his\ncontroversial scientific investigation of the ritual of fire-walking in our\ncountry early in the 70\u2019s decade. I still have a thin volume of 102 pages\nentitled Fire Walking \u2013 The Burning Facts\u201d (December 1972) written and\npublished by one Dr K. Indra Kumar, presumably a former student of Professor\nCarlo, attacking his fire-walking experiments including the famous one at Attidiya\nDewale on February 8, 1971, and a copy of the 1971 issue of The Ceylon\nRationalist Ambassador\u201d, the annual journal of the Ceylon Rationalist\nAssociation, of which Carlo was a prominent member along with the likes of\nAbraham T.  Kovoor. For reasons I have no time or space here to squander\nexplaining, I didn\u2019t take Indra Kumar\u2019s criticisms (bordering on the libelous\nin their vituperative trenchancy) as valid arguments against Carlo\u2019s courageous\nattempt to strike a scientific blow at superstition, the bane of our society\neven today. But, in my silent judgement, Carlo was guilty of too much idealism\nin believing that most ordinary people were that rational minded. Let us\nconsign that to the past. Reading Carlo was always an educative experience for\nme and I was looking forward to the day he would publish a collection of his\nwritings like ESSAYS OF A LIFETIME. Most probably there were many other Sri\nLankans who shared my sentiments in this connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However,\nuniversal acclamation is an unlikely reward for a socially engaged, fearlessly\nargumentative public figure like Carlo, despite the fact that he was selflessly\ndedicated to the values of humanity, fairness and truth in public affairs as\nwell as in his professional life as a medical professor and scientific\nresearcher. The reason for this is that, just as there were those who genuinely\nadmired him or just tolerated him, there were  his detractors who were\ncynically sceptical about his good intentions, and those who felt uncomfortable\nabout certain ideological and political positions he tried to defend in the\narena of public debate as an intellectual and social activist. The thirty-four\npieces of writing contained in ESSAYS OF A LIFETIME\u201d are obviously meant to be\nrepresentative of the intellectual offerings he made to the general public\nduring well over four decades in the recent past and they may be taken to\nreflect some of the reasons for this mixed reception that, I think, was\naccorded to him by the Sri Lankan society in the sunset years of his life. Nevertheless,\nthe well deserved celebrity status and public esteem that Carlo was actually\nhonoured with by the vast majority of our people were least diminished by that\nfaint suggestion of societal ambivalence towards him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Right \nfrom the beginning, as far as I am concerned (that is, since immediately before\n1971, and extending back to my secondary school days) I was attracted by \ncertain admirable qualities in Carlo as a human being and as a public\nintellectual (I am using the latter term in the complex, highly nuanced sense\nmost people understand it) and a man of science: these are his intellectual\nprobity, his freedom from pedantic posing, sharpness of mind, personal\nhumility, generosity towards others, lightheartedness and his irrepressible\nsense of humour, all of which enrich the essays in this selection. One of his\nmajor preoccupations in life, I think, was social development through education\nby banishing baleful superstition and by promoting rational scientific thinking\nand ethical conduct. Buddha and his teachings are frequently invoked throughout\nthe book, which reveals an important source of his ethical principles. Carlo is\ndeeply ethical without being \u2018religious\u2019 in the traditional sense and that is\ncompatible with the rational Buddhist beliefs that he seems to have acquired.\nApparently, he identifies these with the ethical essence of the Christian\nreligion to which he was born.  The essay under the title The Humanity of\nJesus\u201d (pp. 216-219), which is the text of a convocation address he delivered\nat a school in 2006, is a case of a rational thinker demystifying Jesus of\nsupernatural mumbo-jumbo with a view to highlighting his message of universal\nlove that embraces the whole human family; he preached this as an\nextraordinarily moral human being who was subject to birth, suffering, and\ndeath like other ordinary human beings. Carlo may not have officially abandoned\nhis birth religion (clearly, a meaningless formality he\u2019d hardly think it\nnecessary to perform). But he was an exemplary follower of the Buddhist\nteaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Needless\nto say, Carlo regarded  ethical values as of prime importance not only in\nhis own medical profession, but in other spheres as well, (something that is\nclearly evident in all the thirty-four essays that constitute the book). Incidentally,\nthe essays are grouped into ten sections of which the first is, appropriately,\nMedicine (\u2018appropriately\u2019 because that is his professional field with which he\nis most familiar). It contains six essays. The first three are almost entirely\nconcerned with the ethical aspect of medicine, while in the other three, the\nethical aspect is strongly implicit, though his main focus there is on other\nthemes. In the grimly ironic opening essay To Err Was Fatal\u201d (pp. 13-21),\nCarlo describes five errors he committed through certain lapses on his part\nthat led to the death of his patients during  thirty-six years of clinical\npractice; he implies that he could have avoided those fatal errors if he had\nfollowed the Buddha\u2019s advice to the Kalamas. Towards the end of the piece, he\nrefers to the Buddha for the possible sources of intellectual error\u201d, and\nadduces the Buddha\u2019s famous words of wisdom to the Kalamas. Referring to\nhimself in his characteristically humorous, self-effacing manner, he writes:\n\u2018Although Alexander Pope did indeed famously preach that, To err is human, to\nforgive divine,\u201d it will be murmured that only a fool will err fatally five\ntimes in 36 years. So the prospect must be squarely faced: this paper may\nembody nothing more or less than the confessions of a fool. If, however, by\nconfessing to the world a fool could help to promote ever so slightly the ideal\nof error-free patient care, I believe that the fool has a scientific and\nethical duty to confess.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Carlo draws a moral (for doctors) from his analysis of his five\nfatal errors in the form of the following \u2018Key Messages\u2019 as he calls them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    • All\ndoctors are fallible.<\/li>
    • The\nnatural reaction of doctors to errors is to hide them or to rationalize them\naway.<\/li>
    • It is\nunscientific and unethical to refuse to face our errors.<\/li>
    • There is\nno cathartic ritual in our profession to expiate the sense of guilt generated\nby our errors.<\/li>
    • Since\nknowledge grows mainly by error recognition, facing our errors squarely is the\npath to medical wisdom.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      (p. 20)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      In\nanother essay in the same section entitled Development of Health in Sri Lanka\u201d\n(pp. 36-60), which is extracted from a 2003 issue of the Sabaragamuwa\nUniversity Journal, Carlo takes a glance at our unique history of medicine\ninspired (as he reminds the reader) by Buddhism, according to whose teaching\n\u2018care of the sick is a meritorious act of the highest order\u2019. Even kings such\nas King Buddhadasa (362-400 CE) learned and practiced medicine. The very\nconcept of hospitals has been found to have originated in Buddhism. At the end\nof the essay under the title Towards a Concept of the Ideal Doctor for Sri\nLanka\u201d (pp. 26-35), which was originally the Deshamanya Nandadasa Kodagoda\nFifth Memorial Oration, 2002, Carlo articulates his thesis succinctly in these\nwords: I conclude that the ideal doctor for Sri Lanka should be an embodiment\nof western medical science and Buddhist values represented by contentment over\nacquisitiveness; cooperation over competition; compassion over perfunctory\nsympathy; and altruistic service over selfish indulgence \u2026.\u201d. The last two\nessays in the Medicine section (found on pp. 61-74) are about tobacco and\nalcohol control. He was the founder chairman of the National Authority on\nTobacco and Alcohol to which post he was appointed in 2007, a rare instance of the\nright person being put in the right place in our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The\nsecond group of writings is subsumed under Science and occupies more or less\nthe same space (pp. 76-154) as that devoted to Medicine. The first item there\nis Fire-Walking: A Scientific Investigation\u201d, which is a reproduction of a\npaper published in the Ceylon Medical Journal of June 1971. It relates to the\nfire-walking tests and contests I referred to above. As described in the paper,\nCarlo applied the usual steps of the scientific method in his attempt to prove\na hypothesis he had arrived at as a scientist about the secret of certain\nindividuals being able to walk on live embers without sustaining burns.  I\nthink Carlo\u2019s hypothesis is similar to or identical with the scientific explanation\nof the phenomenon that physicists accept today. Other essays in this section,\nfor example, The Intrinsic Wisdom of Scientific Materialism\u201d, Of Religious\nScientists\u201d, and Eulogy for Richard Dawkins\u201d also embody the theme of\npromoting ethical values while fighting superstition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I will\nnot touch on all the ten sections of the book like this for fear that this\narticle would be too long for accommodation in a newspaper column. But before\nconcluding this piece, I must very briefly suggest something  about why I\nconsider Carlo to be one of the few iconic national figures we should be proud\nto have had among us as Sri Lankans. In any country at any time the advent is\nusually rare of individuals born with the highest intellectual abilities,\ncoupled with compassion for fellow humans, and a desire to serve them. Of\ncourse, there are no morally perfect human beings even among such. That is part\nof human nature. Carlo was arguably one of those rare individuals, impaired\nwith his own personal limitations, no doubt, like all of us. But since the\nimperfectability of human nature is a common denominator, I\u2019d like to \ndwell here only on what distinguishes Carlo from the average majority of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Carlo\ntold us that he was himself an early beneficiary of free education introduced a\nfew years before independence, although he was learning in the English medium.\nInitially free education benefited the English medium students more than it did\nthe poor children learning in the swabhasha (Sinhala and Tamil) mediums. This\nwas because the English medium schools which used to charge fees before, did\nnot have to do so after education was made free for all. We have to remember\nthat English medium education catered only to the tiny privileged minority of\nthe population.  The poor swabhasha students already had a sort of free\neducation. The replacement of English with swabhasha as the medium of\ninstruction expanded educational opportunity to embrace children from all\nsocial backgrounds. Considering the disdain in which the Sinhala medium school\nchildren were held and the insulting attitude adopted towards them by the\nWesternized English speaking elite at that time (about which Carlo must have\nknown well, though absolutely no reference is made to the subject in these\nessays). I learnt about such discrimination many years later from our teachers,\nand books. His identifying of himself as a beneficiary of that epoch-making\nchange (i.e., the introduction of free education) is unique. Most local\nintellectuals of his time and before his time had usually developed a pro-Western,\nanti-national cultural bias. Carlo was free from that, and took a serious\ninterest in educationally modernizing our country for the benefit of all its\nchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      In the\nfirst entry under Education titled Reforming Education: Finishing the\nUnfinished Task\u201d (originally, the script of Dr C.W.W. Kannangara Memorial\nLecture \u2013 2009) pp. 282-297, Carlo mentions his theme: I propose to suggest\nways of finishing the unfinished task of reforming free education, to make it\nrelevant for the globalized world of the 21st<\/sup>\ncentury\u201d. A major component of the recommended \u2018reforming\u2019, I think, involves\nthe best management of the language factor in education (My caution to the\nreader: this has nothing to do with politics): Education must be bilingual \u2013\nSinhala or Tamil, with English. Apropos of university education in the same\nspeech, Carlo quotes (Sinhala professor) Dr Sucharitha Gamlath from another\nsource as having said: one who knows only Sinhala doesn\u2019t know even\nSinhala\u201d.  In the same context Carlo refers to Dr Gamlath quoting with\napproval a remark that Dr N.M. Perera had made in parliament: Teaching in\nSinhala is alright, but government must ensure that students acquire a sound\nknowledge of English\u201d. May our country have the right people in the right\npositions to bring about this and other reforms recommended in Carlo\u2019s essay\njust mentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      While\nbeing engaged in the medical field, Carlo rendered a great service as a\nbilingual scholar of genius. It was actually his English that first attracted\nme to his writings in my student days. He was an exemplary master of the\nEnglish language, who was deeply read in its literature. As far as I am\nconcerned, I look up to him, even today, for he used to model good writing in\nhis journalistic contributions as much as in his academic writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Professor\nCarlo\u2019s book has essays that deal with the heroic qualities, great ideas, and\nadmirable doings of some genuine Sri Lankan intellectuals of the past, such as\nleft politician Dr N.M. Perera, Sinhala writer Martin Wickremasinghe, rationalist\nsuperstition-buster Dr Abraham T. Kovoor,  surgeon Dr P.R. Anthonis, and\nBuddhist reformer Dr A.P. de Zoysa. There is no doubt that Carlo owed his\nspecial qualities to their influence on his character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      In our\n(predominantly Buddhist) culture, the medical profession is the most highly\nhonoured among mundane occupations. Buddha himself is described as a spiritual\nhealer or physician who relieves samsaric<\/em> suffering. Then there is the\nsaying: rajakama naethnam vedakama\u201d, which roughly means If you can\u2019t become a\nking, become a physician instead\u201d. Among ordinary people, it is taken for\ngranted that doctors are or ought to be particularly humane, compassionate and\nethically beyond  reproach. Carlo\u2019s concept of the ideal doctor for Sri\nLanka well accords with that public expectation. Carlo was not just a\nphysician. He was a teacher of physicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      However, when he heard some people making disparaging remarks\nabout him, especially regarding his politics (he was a Card-Carrying Member of\nthe Lanka Sama Samaja Party), he must have found solace in the words of Greek\nStoic philosopher Epictetus (55-135 CE): Those who pursue the higher life of\nwisdom, who seek to live by spiritual principles, must be prepared to be\nlaughed at and condemned.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island Those who pursue the higher life of wisdom, who seek to live by spiritual principles, must be prepared to be laughed at and condemned.\u201d Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher (55-135 CE) (Following is an updated version of an article published in two parts in The Island in the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92854","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=92854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}