/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-SRI LANKA: Retelling the People’s History

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kumudini Hettiarachchi

COLOMBO, Aug 17 2004 (IPS) - It has been nearly five centuries but the memories are still hard to erase. The day was Nov 15, 1505 when Dom Lourenco de Almeida landed off the harbour of Colombo with his nine ships, quite by accident after being caught in a storm.

And that accident led to one and a half centuries of Portuguese rule that can only be characterised by cruelty, greed and intolerance.

The missionary zeal to spread the Christian religion was obvious in every move of the Portuguese. The new conquerors marched with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.

While Sri Lanka prepares next year to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese, a group of scholars, however, are on a mission to write their own version of history from the perspective of the colonised.

Like detectives going down the corridors of time, with clues and evidence spanning centuries, the band of around 30 people are pouring over ancient palm leaf manuscripts, scouring the museums of Western Europe, studying the details of paintings, checking out ancient tombstones and also digging for any clues from homes and temples.

They are on a voyage of discovery.

”What is history?” asks Dr. Susantha Goonatilake, a well- known Sri Lankan scholar.

”History is written with a perspective and in the case of the Portuguese, like all other colonisers, the perspective is theirs,”Goonatilake tells IPS.

”What of our colonised people’s, perspective?” he asks again. ”Therefore, the documentation of the colonisers needs to be treated with circumspection.”

The Sri Lankan government has other motives with regard to the study.

”We will ask Portugal to admit to the atrocities committed in Sri Lanka and make a public apology, we will also seek reparation for loss of life and property during that time and get them to return the treasures spirited away from this land,” Culture Minister Vijitha Herath told IPS.

The government is banking on the academic study unearthing enough evidence for it to seek compensation from Portugal.

In 1658, the Dutch ended the Portuguese rule of Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon. After the Dutch, the country was under the British until 1948 – when Ceylon gained its independence.

During their occupation of Sri Lanka, the Portuguese fortified their power systematically by manipulating local kings.

”A hundred and fifty-three years after the Portuguese first landed in Ceylon they were expelled from the country, leaving the gloomy word ‘Failure’ written large over all their actions,” summed up Paul E. Pieris, the best known historian of this period.

”That however was not all, for they left the Sinhalese a broken race, with their ancient civilisation brought to the verge of ruin, and their scheme of life well-nigh destroyed,” added Pieris.

There were claims that the Portuguese pilfered and plundered Sri Lanka’s ancient Buddhist temples.

”There is, of course, no written evidence or proof of this,” says minister Herath.

However he reveals that there is evidence the Portuguese destroyed 256 places of religious worship, both Buddhist and Hindu temples along the coastal belt.

Asked whether such an inquiry would stir up religious strife in a country that is already a simmering in a cauldron of religious intolerance, Herath says, ”It will help us to accept what has happened and move ahead to the future…it will put history in its right perspective.”

”We also need to be careful so that it doesn’t stoke the fires of religious extremism,” cautions the minister.

Scores of churches have been attacked in the past two years by majority Singhalese groups, claiming fundamentalist Christians were all out to convert Buddhists.

After the Portuguese study, the research group also hopes to put the Dutch and British periods under the microscope.

Goonatilake is leading the motley group of historians, academics, social scientists and archaeologists on this “reverse voyage” under the auspices of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) – the oldest academic body set up by the British about 160 years ago.

The ‘Portuguese Encounter’ Project was launched this January with network links established in other countries and areas affected by Portuguese occupation such as Goa – across the Palk Straits in India.

At least three scholars from Goa are part of the network.

Prof. K. D. Paranavitana, president of the RAS, says they are planning site visits to places where the Portuguese influence was the heaviest like Devinuwara in the south, Mannar and Jaffna in the northwest and northern regions.

”We are looking at trade, cultural issues and traditions,” he tells IPS.

The question now is why delve into history when no one can change its course?

”It’s a cleansing and healing process,” argues Goonatilake.

”Remember after the Spaniards went west, the Americas went under but though the Portuguese and other colonial powers came here, Sri Lanka didn’t go down,” he points out.