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Thoughts of a
Basil Fernando
Sinhalese see no link between precepts and practice
Daily religious instruction repeated many times a day gives precepts against killing, lying, sexual misconduct, theft and bearing false witness. However, while fervent repetition of such precepts is considered wholesome; trying to bring these into actual social life is not considered as a matter of great importance among Sinhalese. For example there is no strong reaction against murder or even mass murder. Torture remains quite acceptable, massive fraud is just a normal part of life and no really serious attempts are made to eliminate these evils. The absence of the will to link precept and practice has lead to the poor development of common standards within society. That in public life, legal and other methodologies should be developed to deal with evils that these precepts try to prevent is a very important component of the life and society among the Sinhalese. When criticised about their social norms and standards the Sinhalese may retaliate by talking about the importance of the great teachings of Buddha they have inherited but will refuse to discuss as to how these things are in fact actually practiced. The usual retort is that there is always a gap between precepts and practice of any philosophy or religion. However, what such thinking misses is the absence of constant struggle personally and socially to bring behaviour closer to the precepts society claims as its own.
Sinhalese do not attach much value to the truth
People are used to the habit of expecting that what they are told is usually not true. Sinhalese do not attach much value to the truth. Falsehood, exaggeration, denial of truth does not come as much of a surprise or shock to them. Their attitude is to treat falsification as just a normal way of life. It is honesty and frankness that surprises them. Their attitude towards honesty and frankness is that it is naïve to behave like that will lead to danger. The Sinhalese are very deeply scared about speaking the truth about matters of which they have some knowledge. This is particularly so regarding those matters which are outside purely personal affairs. They are afraid to complain except within their very limited circles. Sinhalese do not trust others including other Sinhalese. The fear of betrayal is very deep. Therefore, distrust is also very deep.
The lack of the habit of attaching value to truth is manifested in the general lack of protection of the people. The politicians, religious leaders and others having public roles do not encourage the truth telling about the grievances of the ordinary folk. The people do not expect such leaders to tell the truth about anything. In fact the assumption is that they will tell falsehoods. This leads to a cynical attitude towards public statements. Sinhalese treat public statements that they know to be untrue with cynical amusement rather than any anger or outrage.
No strong sense of wrong
The attitude towards the wrong in the Sinhalese is to take precaution not to be a victim of a wrong rather than any strong determination to eliminate serious wrong doing. Even the attitude towards things such as murder does not raise a very strong opposition to it. People try to rather to shield themselves personally from being victims of wrong doing rather than trying to overcome such wrongs by common action.
It may appear that desire for revenge is a very common Sinhala habit and that may be seen as an opposite to the habit of resistance to wrongs. Revenge is the means of retaliating to something that has personally hurt the person victimised and the solution to such hurt is to hurt the person who caused the hurt directly by way of personal retaliation. In fact the desire for revenge, meaning personal revenge through gods or other means is a result of not having any trust in the social habits of resistance to wrongs. What goes often as tolerance is the lack of resistance to wrongs. As much as the Sinhalese fear strong habits of truth telling they also fear any strong resistance to wrongs. There seems to be a very deep apprehension that strong resistance to wrong may have bad consequences.
Attitudes regarding equality
Within the Sinhalese society there is no recognition of equality. Instead Sinhala society is deeply divided. It is first divided in terms of elites and the ordinary folk. Sometimes this is spoken of as waedagath minissu, meaning people that need to be respected and samanya minissu, meaning the ordinary or simple folk. This division is clearly expressed in terms of families, waedagath pavul meaning the families of the respectable people and those others which do not deserve any respect. Thus, the sense of importance is in terms of birth or acquired status of migrating to those waedagath pavul. The inherent dignity of all persons and the equal value of all persons are alien to Sinhala culture.
Psychological warfare of the elite against the ordinary folk
Elites in Sri Lanka have acquired through centuries of habit various forms of humiliating and other psychologically hurting the families of those whom they consider to be of inferior status. The very words used for ‘you’ when addressed to someone considered inferior are very different to that of an equal or someone considered to be above others.
Manifold forms of harassment and the causing of humiliation helps people from waedagath pavul to dominate others. Various forms of crude humour are developed to make jokes out of the poor and the week who want to assert themselves and express themselves. The methodology is most to crush the self confidence of those who are considered week.
The extent to which this form of psychological warfare would be beyond the imagination of any outsider to understand. Such habits of humiliating the week are usual as habitual practices in courts, schools and all other places where social interaction takes place. In the courts the ordinary folk are not given any form of recognition and often the type of language used even within the communication within the court, the court officers such as clerks and interpreters and judges also often do not manifest a respect for equality.
When elites suffer wounded pride they retaliate disproportionately
The elite, if they find that they do not get the respect they think they deserve, or are by some other means humiliated, like for example someone going to court to complain about something they have suffered at the hands of such a person, the elite in all likelihood will retaliate by such acts as murder, by using their influence to have fabricated cases filed against their enemies and all the time using the most humiliating and crude language against those who have challenged their authority by direct or indirect means.
To be continued.
A Sinhala version of this paper is available and can be obtained from the AHRC.
