Can a nation be called as an ‘Imagined Community’?

I would like to move my discussion from History and Historiography to the subject of nationalism in this week. As it has been repeatedly accepted by many prominent academics, the importance of having a fair understanding for the concepts such as nation and nationalism are critically important in the contemporary political setup. Particularly, we should accept that the post-colonial countries like ours have faced fundamental theoretical issues in defining the term Nation and in fitting it into our state-formation process. While accepting that we are a multi-ethnic society today, we should also not forget the fact that some of the ethnic groups, emerged in the post-colonial social-setup, and the fact that they were empowered by then colonial empires for their own benefits and were manipulated to clash with one another just for maintaining the power game.

Meaning of the word Nation

Meanings and the uses of the word nation have been in the center of this debate in the nation-state argument of classical political theories. These discussions sometime move into giving broader interpretations for the concepts of nationality, nationalism and national consciousness in theoretical terms. It is correct to say that the debate of nation becomes a prominent socio-political phenomenon with the inception of nation states in 19^th century. Since the term ‘ethnic group’ has also been used as synonymous to the term of nation, we should look at the linguistic roots of this word. The term ETHNIC comes from Greek word ethnikos which contains the demarcated meaning of some civilized human group from barbarians. And Latin sources say that the word natio which was the root for the evaluation of English word nation, means ‘a group of people who shared collective identity and common culture with identified historical origins of the group. This definition becomes more problematic when it deals with the European concept of Nationalism in late 17^th century.

Issues of Historiography in Sri Lanka

I have discussed some theoretical positioning on history and on historiography in my previous column and I am going to focus another important section of it in this week. As we experience in our day-today lives the importance of the subject of history remains foremost and central to many issues that we prioritize today. In particular, the ethnic issue that we all were engaged with, either inclusively or exclusively according to our standings on the issue, has been a part of the historiographical process of our PAST. The official stand of the sort of narratives, established as ‘state approved histories’, has filled a main part of the ethnic tensions between communities from 19^th century on words.

 

The role of historian, though we have some accepted definitions in many dictionaries and though they don't know their importance in sometimes, becomes a crucially significant profession in the society today. As mentioned by Eric Hobsbawm in his book, On History  this profession has its own dynamics which are rather different from many of other social sciences. He says the  “though history should be based on ‘facts’ and it should be investigated the somewhat  ‘real’ things on a given temporal and spatial context, it should maintain a central position between ‘establishable fact and fiction. Further, it should be in the central position on the studying process of historical statements based on evidence and not only who are subject to those evidence but also who are not’ (p vii).

අසමත් අතීතයෙන් පාඩමක්

මෙම වර්ෂයේ ජනවාරි 8 වෙනි දිනයත් සමඟින් ගෙවී ගියේ ‘යහපාලනය’ යැයි නම් කෙරුණු දේශපාලනයක් කිරීම සඳහා රටේ ජනාධිපතිධුරයට පත්වූ මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මහතාගේ පාලනයේ හතරවැනි අවුරුද්දය. අප දැන් සිටින්නේ පෙබරවාරියේය. මේ කාලයට සාපේක්ෂව ගත්විට පෙබරවාරි මාසය කියන්නේ ජනවාරියටත් වඩා දේශපාලනමය වැදගත්කමක් ඇති මාසයක්ය. පෙබරවාරි සිහිවෙද්දී එක පැත්තකින් අපේ මතකයට එන්නේ මීට වසර හතරකට පෙර එනම් 2015 පෙබරවාරියේ සිදුවූ මහබැංකු බැඳුම්කර වංචාව පිළිබඳවය. මේ සිද්ධිය නිසා දේශපාලන සමාජයේ ඇතිවූ තිගැස්මත් ආර්ථික සමාජයේ ඇතිවූ පාඩුවත් තවමත් ප්‍රධාන මාතෘකාය. 

තවත් පැත්තකින් බලනවිට දිර්ඝකාලයක් කල් දමමින් තිබූ පළාත් පාලන මැතිවරණය පැවතුණේ ගිය වර්ෂයේ පෙබරවාරි මාසයේය. ඒ මැතිවරණය හරහා මේ මාසයට විශේෂ දේශපාලන වැදගත්කමක් ලබාදී ඇතැයි කිය හැක්කේ එක් ප්‍රධාන හේතුවක් නිසාය. 2015 ජනවාරියේ ලැබුණු ‘යහපාලන ජනවරමට’ එරෙහිව අලුත් ජනවරමක් ලැබුණේ 2018 පෙබරවාරියේ මැතිවරණයෙන් ලැබුණු නිසාය. ඒ සියල්ලටම වඩා පෙබරවාරි මාසය අපේ මතකයට ගෙනෙන්නේ රටට නිදහස ලැබුණේ 1948 පෙබරවාරි මාසයේ වන නිසාය. නිදහසින් පසු ශ්‍රී ලංකාව මුහුණ දෙන නව අභියෝග පිළිබඳව සාකච්ජා කිරීමට මේ කාලය ඉතාමත් වැදගත් බව මගේ අදහසය. ඒ නිසාම මේ ලිපියෙන් මා සාකච්ජා කරන්නේ නිදහසින් පසු කාලය පුරාවට මෙරට පැවති හා පවතින දේශපාලනය මුහුණ දෙන ගැටලු කීපයක් පිළිබඳවය.

On History

Due to two important reasons that I thought I should write a little piece on HISTORY as the Keyword of this week. The first reason for me to get ‘back to history’ (or rather get ‘history back’ to me) relates with the longstanding indulgence that I have had on this subject. I have been a continued fan of reading history as an inherent part of social and political developments of the world and therefore, it was one of the favorite areas of study for me apart from my studies at the department of Philosophy since my undergraduate years up to now.

Further, it is also a known fact that we had a best group of academics on South Asian History at Peradeniya at that time. It is important to note here that most of them were not just academics who were keen about their promotions and salaries, they were very influential people in sociopolitical thinking of the country. Moreover, they had been taking critical positions on the socio-political debate in the country at that time. If we barrow a term from Gramsci, they were kind of ‘organic intellectuals’ related to different social forces to which they were attached. So, politically motivated students like me was always welcomed by some of these senior staff members at the department of History and, I would like to note that friendship in turn has sharpened my interest towards this discipline.

Second reason that I thought to write on History was due to the timely importance of the subject in our society today.  We are a country, which has an ongoing conflict over our past.

Whither CIVIL SOCIETY?

I think that the way we use the term of civil society in modern Sri Lankan context, has created a very much debatable and problematic meanings. This complex nature commences from the point of giving a meaning to this concept up to the practice of it under different contexts. In addition to the above, vagueness of the nature of using ‘civil society phenomenon’ in our time leads us to think that the practices of civil society mean either ‘everything under the sun & the moon’ or ‘it does not represent anything at all’. I have mentioned in my previous column that the ‘civil associational net works’ in Sri Lanka can be identified in a three-fold manner according to the historical times in the political evolution in the country. I would like to continue today’s column from that point onwards.

We could easily identify that the ‘later part of the colonial rule and the first 30 years of the independent Sri Lanka’ as the first phase where the ‘non state elite actor’ emerged as new outside partner to the governing mechanism. This trend was developed up to the new introduction of volunteer organizational network in the country.  If we barrow a word from Alexix de Tocqueville’s we could argue that the ‘idea of associationalism’ was mainly introduced to post-colonial Sri Lanka in the form of clubs and/or religious reformative initiatives in this time. These civil spaces were then identified as the gathering-grounds of elites under their respective engagements. Creation of cricket clubs such as the SSC or the NCC and the formation of religiously colored gatherings such as the YMBA or the YMCA are some of the examples for these civil networks.  Since the indirect colonial influences were still dominating then official Ceylonese government, the trend of civil associational engagements were spread into further divisions and categories of the society. 

Was ‘Civil Society’ Robbed? (Part I)

As I have mentioned in my previous column, the main task of this piece is to discuss the keyword, CIVIL SOCEITY, with reference to the contemporary social-political affairs, in our country.  Since it has openly been mentioned by many critics that the term of civil society has been ruthlessly misused in the recent past, I think it is important to revisit (or rather to retake) the ‘use of this term’ not only as a concept in the political vocabulary but also as a tool in contemporary political practices. Thus, questions that we should be asking includes, how this term means to us in our day today affairs, what impact it has placed on us in understanding the political situation in our times, and most importantly, what is the role that the civil society plays in larger social settings such as the State mechanism and its apparatus. 

According to the text that I have discussed in my previous column, Keywords for Today: A 21 Century Vocabulary, the term CIVIL has derived from Latin and French, then later started to be used in English with varied meanings. That different meanings vary from words such as ‘polite’, ‘courteous’, ‘not rude’ up to ‘Rights’ related meanings in political theory. It further mentions that, in terms of political theory, the meaning of word Civil has been changed dramatically from one end to another. For example meaning of the term CIVIL starts  ‘accepting the State by limiting the power of monarchy’ and goes to the level of ‘limiting the State by accepting the rights of the individuals’. It should be noted here that this change has not happened overnight in a quick manner but it took a long journey starting from English (rather Scottish) philosophical tradition beginning with John Lock up to the Continental European thinking which was developed mainly based on Germen enlightenment. It was in this development that we could see Hegel’s famous definition of it, which says that “civil society means a space of activity by citizens who belong neither to family nor to the state!” This is the definition that was used by classical Marxism to analyze the role of this phenomenon (Civil Society) as part of the bourgeois society.

Unmaking ‘the’ Meaning

It has been quite a sometime that I was invited to write a column to the newly published newspaper, SUNDAY MORNING, by its editor Mandana Ismail. Though I have promised to contribute to the paper, I was not able to fulfill it until this week. The reason for my failure was partly based on the usual fear that I had in mind on the difficulty of the task of providing a regular weekly column without any delay. On the other hand, I was also bit reluctant to start a new column due to the uncertain nature of the political situation in the country. As some would agree with me, it is very difficult to judge the ongoing political situation in the country and it is not possible at all to forecast the future of our political arena. Since the situation got very complicated while taking an unpredictable shape as such, I have been postponing Mandana’s offer to write a column until now.