Villa Saffron Hikkaduwa: Be Entranced!

What comes to mind when you think of Hikkaduwa? The sand and the beaches, obviously. You think of the waves lapping on the shore, the people adorning the coastline, and the sense of being a Sri Lankan – even when you hail from outside.

There’s a charm to the South that virtually no other part of this country can hope to improve on, for the simple reason that when it comes to colour, vibrance, tradition, and culture, there’s no place like here. That is why people come and people stay, and why when they choose to stay, they mean to live in this most quaint and decorative regions of all of Sri Lanka.

Private villas aren’t exactly a new concept to this country. On the other hand, the amount of newcomers entering the market makes it impossible to standardise them in terms of quality, comfort, and hospitality. We have it all – the quintessential Sri Lankan sense of hominess and sense of being welcome at a place you’ll never hesitate to call your home – but what’s lacking is the right blend of comfort, cuisine, and quality to make your stay one which you will never forget.

Villa Saffron is located in Hikkaduwa, about two and a half kilometres to the south of the town. Set against the south-west shores of Sri Lanka, it’s touted as THE destination for travellers and guests (from here and elsewhere) who seek a local experience with all the perks and benefits available in this country.

The minute you set foot inside, you are virtually transported to paradise. What you see is what you get, not only with regard to the superficial cosmetics of the hospitality industry but also the natural bounty that only the South could offer: the palm trees swaying gently with the wind, the sound of the waves of the deep blue ocean, and the breath of the sea, entrancing you wherever you may be.

Villa Saffron was the brainchild of two furnishing enthusiasts, who began their journey in the mid-nineties by fusing old and new furnishings and restoring antiques. Eventually they moved into building and managing beautiful villas. One thing led to another, and more than two decades after they began their journey, they opened their first private villa along some beach property that they’d acquired before the tsunami.

That was then. Since that time they have not been idle. Villa Saffron currently boasts of five rooms and suites – the Garden Room and the Cinnamon, Tamarind, Vanilla, and Saffron Suites. Of these, a personal favourite may well be the characteristically labelled Saffron Suite, with its enviable combination of cosiness, luxury, and unparalleled views of the pristine blue sea. There are facilities and perks and these the Villa has in plenty, from WiFi to transport packages to and from the Airport to play facilities for kids. The rooms are all air-conditioned and fitted with king-sized beds, not to mention the usual amenities: en-suite bathrooms, hot and cold water, and a mini-bar. To top it all, the entire place was designed by the renowned architect C. Anjalendran.

And that’s not all. What strikes you about Villa Saffron is how deeply it’s engaged with the local culture: how, for instance, it ensures that its staff are well versed in the nuances of Sri Lankan hospitality. It’s all “localised”, so to speak, not just the feeling of warmth of elegance but even the food and other amenities provided by the hotel staff. As for the food, suffice it to say that there’s a combination of à la carte and preset menus, with choices ranging from the local to the foreign and including certain healthy items: for breakfast you will be served a customary glass of kola kenda along with fresh juice, while for lunch and dinner you will be enchanted by the aroma and taste of local seafood, ordered straight and fresh from the market in Dodanduwa.

Since January this year, Villa Saffron has been frequented by guests who’ve had nothing but praise and commendation for the entire site. “The staff are fabulous and go out of their way to make your stay enjoyable,” says one happy customer. “A wonderful hotel, with wonderful staff, amazing view, delicious food... Need I say more?” queries another. “Do NOT stay at this 5 room boutique hotel if you want to have the normal 5 star hotel offering that could be anywhere in the world,” describes yet another, who goes on to observe that “if you want a chilled experience of the highest quality,” Villa Saffron is THE place to go.

In fact what comes out of all these reviews is that the Villa isn’t your ordinary getaway spot. It’s not a hotel in that it’s not rigidly conceived as most hotels are: there’s fun, there’s elegance, and there’s freedom, all balanced out to provide comfort in the best possible way. And it’s not inbred and shutout either: you can venture out to see the usual sights prevalent in the South of Sri Lanka, with the Galle Fort just 20 minutes away and the Dodanduwa and Kothduwa Island Temples almost around the corner. The Kailash Yoga Studio, the famous Turtle Hatchery, and of course those countless surfing sites along the beach in Hikkaduwa (including the coast by the Villa itself) are some of the other tentative attractions you can look forward to.

Words, however, can only describe that much. The eyes were meant to see beyond frill and adjectives. One believes that Villa Saffron is no exception to this truth, which makes it almost compulsory that if you are curious, and if you wish to get away from the hustle-and-bustle of modern life, you must venture into a getaway spot that’s more than just a getaway spot. You must seek the best of both worlds: calm and peace, and adventure and decor. The South is the place for that, in particular Hikkaduwa, which boasts of those little, little amenities that you may specifically need.

Look no further, then. Look to Villa Saffron Hikkaduwa. The new kid in town, with just the right combination of looks, charm, and peace.

For more details, please visit its website at www.villasaffron.com or contact it through the following number (0777772744) and/or email address (info@villasaffron.com)

Written for: ESTEEM Magazine, September issue

A tale of two shows

School shows are worth a dime a dozen. So are concerts. They nurture talent, yes, and the best of them sustain it. But that’s rare. Doesn’t happen always. For the most, then, half of what goes for concerts, school shows, talent competitions, and reality programs do little more than inflate ego and reputation, without really delving into the worth and talent of those involved in them. Competitions are decided by votes, not judgment. Merit, it would seem, has completely if not almost completely been overtaken by popularity. For the worse.

Which is why, when a bunch of schoolboys who clearly have other things to do organise two musical events, an ambitious island-wide competition which precedes an even more ambitious concert, the nation must notice.

The first show began more than 40 years ago. Ananda College had just initiated its first Music Society. This was in 1975. The Society was baptised as the “Oriental Music Society.” Two names stand out in this respect: Hemachandra Jayawardana and Bandula Kodikara, staff members from College. On December 6, 1978, the Society made its first real contribution by providing music for the opening of the Kularatne Hall, more specifically a play titled “Ananda Udawa” staged for the occasion.

Time passed. Bandula Kodikara retired. He was replaced by arguably the biggest exponent of folk music here, Lionel Ranwala. Given that the Society had concentrated on oriental music, Ranwala came and oversaw a transition to more indigenous musical forms. He succeeded.

There were other milestones. In 1986, an oriental orchestra was formed by the then teacher-in-charge, Sunanda Balasuriya. In 1989, the Music Society was renamed as the Music Circle of Ananda College. In 1991, a group of students attached to the Circle started a pop band named “Rhythm of the Maroons.” Its first function was held in 1991, titled “Maroons Fiesta” and featuring Kasun Kalhara, Bathiya Jayakodi and Gaminda Priyaviraj (“Podi Malli”). Five years later, the Circle organised another event, “Rhythm of the Maroons”, handled by Kalhara.

Eight years passed by. In 2004, the Music Circle organised “Miyasiya”, a show to celebrate its 15th Anniversary, and was guided by the current teacher-in-charge, K. M. Rathnapala. In 2006, the Music Circle more or less made “Rhythm of the Maroons” its annual look-forward-to show. It re-emerged on November 19 at the then refurbished Kularatne Auditorium. The following year, it was shifted to the BMICH. The response was overwhelming. It merited an even bigger show in 2008: ROM, as it was colloquially referred to by then, was shifted to the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium.

The second show began three years ago. From 2006 to 2013, ROM continued with the same format. There was percussion, singing, and not a little bit of dancing. Senanayaka Weraliyadda and even Pandith Amaradeva made guest appearances and splashed some colour on an otherwise conventional show. Inevitably and as time went on though, variety gave way to routine. Those who organised and those who participated in it encouraged and retained dedication, and for this reason perhaps, what it lacked in novelty it gained in effort. Still, it needed a fresh lease of life. The organisers wanted something more.

They got that in 2013. They got it by planning out a competition.

The competition had a name. Vocalize.

This year Vocalize marks four years. That’s three winners down and one to come. What’s special is that it’s unprecedented, something “Rhythm of the Maroons” clearly was not. That’s not to say that other schools or institutions don’t organise musical competitions, but they’re all “in-house” and internalised. Vocalize, on the other hand, is “outsourced” and welcome to outsiders. In fact it wouldn’t be wrong to claim, as its organisers do, that it affirms camaraderie.

The idea was to find a winner. Now winners can be created through merit or popularity. The Music Circle didn’t want to tilt to either extreme, so they compromised: until the Final Round, which would unveil at ROM, there’d be a board of judges who would shortlist the participants. The final winner, on the other hand, would be decided by a live SMS campaign.

Naturally, word got around. More and more schools came in. Two categories – solo and choir – were created to recognise the individual and collective in music, something the boys at the Music Circle seem to have understood completely.

What comes out, not surprisingly, is the dedication and energy they’ve put in. And not just because of participation. All those hours, days, and months, and all those gruelling schedules adhered to for the sake of timing and perfection have gone a long way in bringing everyone together. Friendships have been made, new faces have surfaced, and commonalities which go beyond school-colour have been recognised.

The winners, on the other hand, have reaped dividends. All three of them – Dhanushka Chandimal, Janith Iddamalgoda, and Piyath Rajapaksha – have in some way made a mark for themselves in the country’s musical sphere, which speaks a lot about the show as a whole. So while the overall format of the competition hasn’t changed over the years, it’s evident that the push, the dedication, and the camaraderie privileged by its organisers have accumulated and more pertinently have become key determinants of the entire event.

Predictably therefore, there’s next to nothing different this year. The title they’ve come up with – “Vocalize Generation 4” – is deceptive because it assumes a new set of members who’re organising it for the first time. Not so. On the contrary, everyone involved with it this time have, for the past four years or so, been deeply engaged with the birth, formation, and development of Vocalize beyond what was intended, and for this reason, they know what they do by heart.

On June 3, Vocalize Generation 4 went through its first round. From nine in the morning to about four in the evening, more than 50 schools participated in both categories. In the end three choirs and 18 solo singers were shortlisted for the second round. As usual participation had been good, it had been attended to by quite a number of schools from outside Colombo, and the competition had been healthy. There had also been a panel of judges most conducive to such an endeavour, including Nadeeka Guruge, Heshan Gamage, Jananath Warakagoda, and Kanchana Jayasinghe.

The second round was unveiled on August 30. Six finalists were selected from the 18 solo singers: Achinthya Sahan, Kanchana Anuradhi, Chamodya Rashmiprabha, Seneli Premaratne, Tharushi Malisha, and Madushi Sulakshani. The stage, as always, has been set for the final show.

Competitions and concerts are a dime a dozen these days, as I implied earlier. So what’s special and unique about ROM and Vocalize. For one thing, they boil down to giving a platform to talented singers and choirs. The President of the Circle Pasan Induwara told me as much: “When we started, all we wanted to do was give these students an opportunity. As time has flown by, we’ve changed our objectives a little, in keeping with our original vision. Now we want to raise these kids higher, to make their platform bigger. We’re already doing this now, with a panel of judges who’re recognised throughout the country, but in future shows we hope to tap into their talent by coordinating their work and efforts with well-known vocalists and artistes here.”

It’s almost impossible to think that an event of this magnitude can be organised by a bunch of school kids, but that’s the truth. I’m not only talking about the hours spent at finding sponsors or organising, but also those hours spent practising and synchronising to the last dot. It’d be a miracle if half of what they plan comes out well, but as those who’ve associated with the event know, everything that’s planned out does come out. For this reason, the Music Circle remembers one name in particular: K. M. Rathnapala.

Before he wrote of insanity and long before he himself became insane, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of music. He contended that music threw out man's individuality and championed the union of humanity. His theory, studied by music lovers for ages to come, was that music embodied the collective. He didn't "assess" concerts, choirs, and singers individually, but he might have found in their unyielding solidarity a confirmation of that same argument.

Nietzsche once wrote: “Without music, life would be a mistake.” The boys at the Music Circle at Ananda know this, I’m sure. And no, not just because that is one of the many quotes they’ve used when promoting their work in these past 10 years.

“Rhythm of the Maroons” will be staged on October 29 at the BMICH.

Written for: The Island LIFESTYLE, October 16 2016

Royal College grills the country

When I was in Grade Three we had to study a new subject. General Knowledge. We had to learn what the biggest mountains, the longest rivers, the smallest animals and birds, and countless other things were. We had to commit them to memory and we had to know the answer whenever we were questioned. My class teacher, Mrs Manel de Silva (whose son Kumar I knew then as host of “Bonsoir” and met 15 years later as an amiable acquaintance) was very particular about memory. She didn’t privilege by-hearting, but at the same time wanted us to know about our surroundings, and those little, little facts which could help us understand who we were.

That subject was scrapped after we passed out, for reasons I can’t quite explain. From Grade Four what we learnt and collected, we got from the school library. We had a General Knowledge Club but not many joined, perhaps enamoured of other, more alluring Clubs and Societies (especially the Model United Nations or MUN). Sure, we had teachers who’d venture outside their terrain and teach us outside-syllabus topics to instil a love and thirst for knowledge in us. But that was rare.

I joined the Club when I was in Grade 11. I realised soon enough that it was misnamed: “general” implies everything and anything under the sun, but what we were learning was particularised, formalised, and rigid. I remembered what we did in Grade Three and I remembered how ready we were with answers to out of the blue questions. That was the kind of Club I wanted and that was what we soon got, when our team decided to transform it into what it has become today.

It was then that I realised what Quizzing was. I soon realised that far from being the extra-curricular activity it’s usually touted as, it was actually linked to what we were learning for our exams.

Perhaps that is why it never became “fashionable” among students. I wouldn’t know. All I know is that since then I’ve seen Quiz Competitions, and I can say this for them all: they may look generic, bland, and hence useless, but at the end of the day they help us understand this world and this country. They help us, in short, to get out of our wells and stop being the frogs we usually are. More importantly, They yield the ultimate reward: not marks and trophies, but the satisfaction gained from knowing the correct answer.

This is a story of one such Competition. On Friday, October 21, the General Knowledge Club of Royal College will unveil the Blue and Gold Quiz. This will be the 26th time it’s been organised, which makes it the longest running such Competition in Sri Lanka. The Club itself is the oldest in Sri Lanka, with its 40th Anniversary this year. All fine and well and reason for complacency, no doubt.

Quizzes take on various formats and not all of them are the same, so for that reason the Royalists have branded their Competition in their own, indelible way. It’s a fallacy that Quizzes are merely about memorising and parroting out preconceived answers, since ideally, the questions asked are completely random. On the other hand, schools have compartmentalised these Competitions, which is to say that they've been divided into various rounds – history, the arts, science – to ensure variety and interest in its participants. In one sense this is for the better: it ensures a uniform format that participants can move into with ease.

The Blue and Gold Quiz doesn’t operate that way. The President of the Club at Royal, Nimsara Seneviratne, told me why. “Unlike many inter-school quizzes, we don’t have rounds devoted to particular themes. It’s more or less a classical format where you come, listen to the questions, and jot down answers. Moreover, most schools end their competitions with a final oral round. We don’t have that either. It’s not particularised, in other words.” No doubt that makes it more open to contenders, though I have come across past participants who argue that this makes the entire Quiz look like a veritable “malluma.”

And in one sense, this is correct. With a Quiz that’s divided into rounds, it’s easier to assemble a formidable team: take in members who have a penchant for one or more of the themes covered in those rounds and you’re good to go. By doing away with such divisions, you’re basically making it more challenging and therefore, less compartmentalised.

Not surprisingly, most schools don’t opt for this method, which is probably what makes the Blue and Gold Quiz stand out. And to make it all look more challenging (I guess), it’s been opened to every school in the country: “We start at 1 PM and registration will be on a first come, first served basis,” Nimsara explained, “We can accommodate up to 40 teams, so participation must be confirmed as soon as possible.”

When I was small I thought that General Knowledge was about knowing what the biggest airplane was. I realise now that I was wrong. Quizzes aren’t that easy and more importantly, they're not meant to be standardised. You don’t study for them and even if you do, the most you can expect are questions based on Current Affairs (given that they are, after all, based on recent incidents). In all other respects – history, the arts, even science – you can never be sure as to what will be asked.

That’s what makes it fun. What makes it indelible. And what makes it tick. The Royalists seem to have understood well with their format, and with a history going back to 1976, they would doubtless continue with what they’ve shaped for a great many more years and decades to come.

You can confirm your school’s participation at the Blue and Gold Quiz by contacting the following people: Janith at 0773777047 and Ravindu at 0774672331

Written for: The Island YOUth, October 16 2016

The mother that bullied

The language of love is silence, some have told me. I suppose that’s what the poets have been telling us, subliminally of course, in much of what they wrote, composed, or sang. The opposite must then be true: the language of hate and abuse is cacophony. It also must be true, hence, that this remains valid for all kinds of love and hate. Including a mother's love and especially in a culture which privileges the mother as much as we do, I should add.

There probably are as many kinds of mothers as friends in this world, though I wouldn’t know. Those who ended up portraying them onscreen (here and elsewhere) took note of one important point: the division of the mother-figure into love and hate wasn’t stark, and inasmuch as they showed affection through silence, they were imperfect and flawed. That explains why only a few, very few in fact, ended up depicting mothers in all their complexity. The rest either faded away or went on to depicting other characters, characters that lived and existed in a universe that had no shades of grey and instead subsisted on that black/white dichotomy much of our cinema rests on.

Three actors, as I have pointed out in this column, managed to typify the mother in our cinema. Each of them depicted a different figure: Irangani Serasinghe was overprotective, Shanthi Lekha indulgent and helpless, and Denawaka Hamine raw. They were all perfect in their own way, and while it’s not hard to have favourites from them, it was always difficult nevertheless to point out who was the most perfect. But one thing strung them up together: they may have pampered and indulged their children (onscreen) and they may have given the impression that they knew more than their offspring about what was best for them (when they did not), but all in all, they meant well and hoped for the best.

I forgot to mention, I realise now, that there was another actor who ended up portraying the mother. She was different. Not like the other three. She may have meant well in what she did, but she always ended up spewing malice. She wasn’t raw like Denawaka Hamine’s characters, but beneath her superficial charm and refinement she was almost unhinged. She made you think that she was gentle and then, at the very next moment, frightened you into realising that she was not. She was Ruby de Mel.

Unlike Irangani Serasinghe and pretty much like Shanthi Lekha, Ruby didn’t embrace the mother-figure immediately. She was there with some of the earliest stars of our cinema, almost always in the sidelines but present nevertheless. Like many other actresses of her time, she entered the cinema through the theatre. Her initiation into the medium was frowned on at a time when women were discouraged from indulging in the performing arts. Her credits were many, her characters diverse, but she is best remembered for the kind of woman who irked and irks us wherever we are: the mother that bullied.

Ruby Jasmine de Mel was born in Moratuwa in 1917 to a fairly middle class family. After attending Princess of Wales College in her hometown and Newstead College, Negombo, she took up a job at Radio Ceylon as an announcer. Back then the radio and the cinema had just opened up, and the sky was the limit. Ruby teetered on and off and managed to enter the theatre. T. B. Ilangaratne was staging his play Handahana and “discovered” her. She was immediately given a role in it and she ended up catching the attention of B. A. W. Jayamanne, who like most other directors at the time (and after) used to visit and watch plays to spot out promising actresses.

Her debut role was in Jayamanne’s film Mahathabada, in 1955. One year later of course, the Sri Lankan cinema would be born with Rekava, with a revolution that compelled a paradigm shift not only in the conception of films but in the way actors, scriptwriters, and even directors were perceived by the public. For the time being however, Ruby went under a different name (Vinodha Rasanjali) to escape her family’s censure: as stated before, women were not supposed to take to the cinema and if they did, more often than not, they were almost always isolated by those who knew them.

Success however wasn’t hard to find in those heady, sky-is-the-limit days, and so after a few films Rasanjali reverted to her original name. At a time when quantity and not quality determined an actor’s popularity, she got to act in a modest number of films: Perakadoru Bana, Suraya, Surasena, Kawata Andare, Handapana, Bicycle Hora, Penawa Neda, Ihatha Athmaya, and Aparadaya saha Danduwama. By the time she acted in those last four films (all directed by K. A. W. Perera), she was baptised into her signature role: the matriarchal, bullying mother. Things would never be the same again.

That role came up quite starkly in H. D. Premaratne’s Sikuruliya. In it she was the mother to a dwarfish, fragile, but ruthless hamu mahaththaya (played by Bandula Galagedara), who’s looking for someone to marry and falls in love with a village damsel (Swineetha Weerasinghe). Being the mother of an aristocrat, she harbours her doubts, but given how impossible her son is with women, concedes to his request. She then gets the girl’s father (Piyadasa Gunasekara) in, serves him a drink and gives him an offer to consider: get the girl married to her son. The father hems and haws. The mother (and this is where Ruby showed how ruthless and scheming her characters were) offers him more drinks. Mumbling incoherently, he agrees to her request.

Ruby de Mel doesn’t appear again thereafter (neither, for that matter, does her son, after his wife deserts him with their driver, Joe Abeywickrama), but she didn’t need to. In nearly every film she was in after that, she played secondary women, brutal and ruthless and insistent in whatever she wanted. In Dharmasena Pathiraja’s Bambaru Avith, for instance, she was the mother to Helen (Malini Fonseka), who views her daughter’s affair with Baby Mahaththaya (Vijaya Kumaratunga) with trepidation and warns her to stop it immediately.

At times she towered over her own husband (Helen’s father), to a point where, apart from the antagonist of the story (Victor aiya, played by Joe), she concentrated its tension, energy, and conflict within herself. Sure, she was there for about a fraction of the time Victor aiya was, but she made up for that amply whenever she was present. With a voice that hid the rage and savagery she concealed beneath a superficial charm, she helped in aggravating an already inevitable conflict.

On that count, there couldn’t have been another woman to act out Maha Kumarihamy in Amba Yahaluwo, authored by the same person who had initiated her into the theatre. Asoka Peiris (who portrayed Nelum Bandara, her aspiring son) once said that when he consulted T. B. Ilangaratne, the man told him quite frankly that each of three main characters represent different epochs in history: his son (Sunil) for socialism, Maha Kumarihamy for feudalism, and Nelum Bandara for the transition from the one to the other. Bandara's downfall at the end of the story, Kumarihamy's fall from grace and arrogance, and Sunil's growing friendship with Nimal all reflect the gradual erosion of feudal values and the embrace of humanism.

By default, with television you have to get displays of emotion in your characters out at once. That probably explains the caricature-like exhortations, exclamations, and admonishments of Kumarihamy, who in Ruby’s hands turned out into a larger-than-life version of what her character represented. Her snide remarks to Nimal (“You needn’t waste any more time at school, come here and work for us!”), her patronising attitude towards his father, and her alternating attitude of condescension and hatred towards the peasantry, made up the most stark role she ever got in her career. Sure, there was hardly any complexity there, but that had less to do with the script than with the fact that the author intended her to represent a slice of history, with no room for shades of grey (except at the end, when she falls from grace).

She died in 2004. She was not quite 90 at the time. Long before that, she had donated her house, and together with a few other philanthropists in her hometown, had founded a home for handicapped children (which stands even today in Katukurunda). At the time of her death, she was making peace with herself at an Elders Home in Rajagiriya. She did not pass away unnoticed, but perhaps on account of the fact that she didn't get many leading roles, she was not bestowed with that kind of posterity conferred on larger stars.

Doesn’t mean she wasn’t a star. She was. As she continues to be.

Written for: Daily News TOWN AND COUNTRY, October 12 2016

Whither the withering State?

Karl Marx was fixated on creating a classless Utopia in which laws, norms, traditions, and all other forms of social conditioning were done away with. He inferred (correctly, one is forced to conclude) that where there was a State, there was oppression.

Half a century later, Fernand Braudel would contend that the Western State, far from facilitating free market capitalism, actually hindered it by encouraging financiers, renters, and profit-makers in general to collude and indulge in anti-market activity that led to distortions in various industries and even economies. In the writings of both these social scientists, you come across the same motif: the State acted in its interest, and if that meant privileging one community over another, they did just that with no qualms.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent shift in power from the Iron Curtain to Western Europe and the United States did not, as most commentators thought, create a multi-polar world. What happened was the replacement of one clash with another: as Samuel Huntington famously noted, history did not end and it transformed, slowly but surely, to a clash between two civilisations (Christianity and Islam). I suppose it’s superfluous to add that while no one has won the clash, wars have been waged and won or lost, and along the way, terms and concepts which were thought immutable have been redefined to suit those who call the shots in the international sphere.

With the demise of Communism, Europe was haunted by spectres of the past and needed a way of conjoining its socialist past with this new clash. It did so, I believe, by retaining a key motif in Marxist thought that remains the favourite byword of self-appointed ideologues the world over today: the withering of the State.

For Marx, the State existed only to be done away with once the Revolution was over: otherwise, the government of the country in which the Revolution unfolded would want to perpetuate itself and reverse the gains made by the proletariat. I need hardly add that not even Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin could stop themselves from institutionalising the State.

The writing was on the wall long before the Iron Curtain opened, not surprisingly: throughout the late seventies and early eighties, Marxist movements throughout the world were (for the lack of a better way of putting it) “hijacked” by agencies hardly known for their sympathy with the Left. This to me represents the end of the Marxist movement as our forefathers and ancestors knew it.

What explains this? The across-the-board cosmopolitanism of the movement would have entranced these agencies, for the fact of the matter is that what they did challenged the authority of the State (which is not a bad thing) and in turn its legitimacy (which is). Now “authority” is a strong word, sometimes even a byword for authoritarianism, but legitimacy, as any student in political science will tell you, is a keystone in modern democracy. What these agencies were doing was hijacking democratically elected governments to adopt paradigms set by outfits far removed from the countries in which they operated. No legitimacy there, period.

There was a name for these agencies: they were called Non Governmental Organisations, or more colloquially, NGOs.

The name itself tended to confuse: as Malinda Seneviratne once correctly observed, “N-G is for Non-Governmental. Thus anything that cannot be categorized as a government institution/body would theoretically be an NGO. Every corporation is an NGO. From the most powerful and visible multinational to the petti-kade at the street corner and the maalu laella and the paththara laella are countless NGOs.” Malinda has a way with words and speaks his mind when he writes, but what he noted there stands to reason: NGOs could include outfits like churches, temples, and even maranadhara samithi throughout the country.

What differentiated these conventionally termed NGOs from all other organisations not affiliated to the government, therefore, was this: they were funded from outside and solicited funds to effect a change, SOME change, in the country.

History, it must be said, does not paint a pretty picture of these organisations. As various studies have confirmed, they were funding anti-government activists in countries where leftists were in power. Dawn Paley, a freelance journalist reporting from South America and Central America, baptised this rather dubiously as the “NGO-Industrial Complex”, in which NGOs were funded to oust governments not amenable to the “big shots” in the international sphere.

Paley brought up Haiti as an example, pointing out that a Montreal-based NGO promoted groups in that country hostile to the leftwing Fanmi Lavalas party (through which Jean-Baptiste Aristide had been democratically elected over the Duvaliers, who were dictators supported covertly and overtly by the US courtesy its anticommunist policies). She then observed that Haiti was chock-a-block with various groups (not affiliated to the government) which were doing a great job of bemoaning the Lavalas government as a means of soliciting foreign funds.

Sri Lanka hasn’t been too open to NGO-twiddling but it certainly hasn’t been immune to it either. In here the problem was compounded because of one pertinent point: the NGO sector managed to invade the Marxist movement, well on its way out long before the Iron Curtain collapsed. There are, as always, reasons for this (prime among them being the fact that such agencies needed a bulwark against the Jayewardene government, which despite its confusing stance on the ethnic conflict at least had the guts to try and end it by 1987), but the objective of this article is to track down some of the more dangerous precedents, statements, and self-contradictions birthed by this unholy alliance between the NGO mafia and the Left.

Professor Susantha Goonetilake is a sociologist and compiler. He writes with enough fidelity to facts to keep you from questioning his comments (which are far in between in his work) and broader canvas. His book Recolonisation: Foreign Funded NGOs, which unfortunately never got the attention it deserved from the intelligentsia in this country (apart from a blisteringly positive review by H. L. D. Mahindapala), explores the aforementioned alliance between the political and the NGO mafia rather unflatteringly. I am no sociologist (nor am I a compiler), so I’m not qualified to question his credentials. On the other hand, I believe his book holds true on many counts in explaining the tragic impasse we as a country have allowed ourselves into.

To get straight to the point: Professor Susantha cogently records some rather self-contradictory statements issued by key representatives of these agencies. These statements are self-contradictory not (only) because they were at variance with the norms of democracy and the rule of law, but (also) because they were at variance with what these representatives spouted against the previous regime. This can only be explained by what the inimitable Noam Chomsky (himself no fan of the Sri Lankan government) once wrote on US foreign policy: “In any confrontation, each participant tries to shift the battle to a domain in which it's most likely to succeed. You want to lead with your strength, play your strong card.”

That strong card here, ladies and gentlemen, was the minority issue. Despite its trysts with socialist governments, Sri Lanka was nominally nonaligned: even the most rightwing governments it had (under Jayewardene and Ranil Wickremesinghe) made some concessions to the Left movement in economic terms. While the battle in Latin America and Eastern Europe was based on the Left/Right dichotomy, in Sri Lanka the Left was actively used to further and entrench the doublespeak of the international community: the end-result, not surprisingly, was separatism. That determined the support of the NGO to the government and that explained its later shift to advocating regime-change whenever the State defied outside intrusion.

Here’s what Professor Susantha wrote about the Indian Accord of 1987:

A flawed Presidential election followed the uprising against the Indo-Lanka Accord. To avoid earlier malpractices and ensure a free and fair election, several organisations and individuals called for a set of preconditions such as the disbanding of paramilitary groups and government death squads. Later, some foreign funded NGOs, which were in favour of the Accord, also supported this move by mainly the local, non-foreign funded civil society. This election was later boycotted by the JVP on grounds that the preconditions had not been fulfilled. It also “advised” others to do the same, using more than just a hint of violence.

In a context where both the State and the JVP asserted power rather crudely and bloodily, where were the NGOs? Supporting the government, of course! Professor Susantha undressed them all when he quoted a key representative of the NGO sector (Jehan Perera):

He said that the Sri Lankan Army was the “envy of Asia” as it was fighting for “democracy”. He was all praise for the newly elected President and declared: “Let us be proud to be in Sri Lanka and stop looking abroad for countries to emulate or emigrate to”. It was during this era and under this president that the most intense human rights violations took place through the activities of special units of the armed forces and other death squads, resulting in over 60,000 disappearances.

60,000 disappearances, ladies and gentlemen. Compared with that, the excesses of the previous regime seem like kadju-kos, though no one who excused the excesses of the 1988-1989 insurrection will accept that. I’m willing to bet that for every act of defiance and for every protest made by this English-speaking intelligentsia in charge of the NGO sector, there ought to have been stronger acts and protests made against the abuses and misuses of power by the government of 1988 and 1989. Professor Susantha leaves that question unanswered, not because he can’t resolve it but because, given the breadth of his scholarship, the answers are there for all to see. Telling, I should think.

So let me get this straight: a government that empowers its Army to kill over 60,000 people under the fiction of legality (the Bar Association, not surprisingly, falls into disrepute under Professor Susantha’s pen, owing to what he alleges as its impotency in the face of the then government) gets congratulatory messages from the same people who, when writing against a successive government that committed abuses on a much smaller scale, growl and protest at the slightest noise from those in power. Where’s the logic or consistency in that, one can legitimately ask.

The NGOs, like the capitalists whom the Marxists (yes, the same Marxists who have abandoned class for race and have scripted out more compelling issues in their so-called struggle) have conveniently forgotten and/or joined hands with, called the shots. Always. They partied and they had a ball. That party and ball never ended. They twisted and contorted the very idea of representative democracy (which, despite its less than flattering deficiencies, remains the only channel of communication between the elector and the elected) to suit their parameters.

That is why they continue to demand for devolution at all costs, even if it means subverting the will of the numerical majority and even if it means ignoring the President’s own comment about the nine provinces of the country being a colonialist construct. That is why they fudge around with the realities of democracy when they claim that a referendum should precede the North-East merger and then conveniently add, “But only when the Joint Opposition is done for good and the people are not swayed by majoritarian passions!” And that is why they will continue to ignore instances of racism, caste-ism, and gender-based violence in the very same communities they defend against the numerical majority on the flimsiest grounds.

The time for undressing has come, I believe. The choice has already been made. We can seize the moment or let it pass. We can take it or leave it.

Written for: Ceylon Today, October 11 2016