Gananath review shows nations divided in perception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2012, 01:44 GMT]
“I will confess that, as I write this essay, many do see him [Rajapaksa] as someone who “saved” the nation from the brutal LTTE. Surely such a view is not without its truth. But that truth cannot excuse human rights violations that currently afflict the nation as a whole; or for that matter obscure the looming threat of the cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority,” writes Gananath Obeyesekere, in reviewing a recent book on Sri Lanka. Commenting, a Tamil academic said Gananath’s reference to ‘nation’ in singular confines to the Sinhala nation, for despite differences of opinion on ways and tactics, many Eezham Tamils see the LTTE as something that was checking brutal genocide by the Sinhala state. The divided perception is sign of nations in plural, justifying their separation even for reconciliation in future, the Tamil academic said. 

Further comments from an Eezham Tamil academic in Jaffna follow:

Gananath Obeyesekere giving an interview in 2003

The divided perception is striking, especially when it comes from a veteran Sinhala scholar like Gananath Obeyesekere, pointing to no way other than separation to the affected nation of Eezham Tamils, even to stop the “cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority,” referred to by him. 

Conspicuously, Gananath left out the East, where the process was going on for a long time, preceding the current structural genocide in the north.

• Book review of The Sri Lanka Reader by Gananath Obeyesekere: Biased and Prejudiced Collection on Sri

Professor Gananath Obeyesekere’s book review on “The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics”, edited by John Clifford Holt and published by the Duke University in the USA, appeared in Mumbai-based Economic and Political Weekly, dated 28 January, with the title “Biased and Prejudiced Collection on Sri Lanka.” 

The editor of the book, Professor John Clifford Holt is a leading historian of religion in the USA.

Gananath Obeyesekere, now 82-years old, is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University in the USA. Hailing from a village in southern Sri Lanka, he left the island permanently after the JVP insurrection of 1971. Before that he served in the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya in Kandy.

In the review Gananath didn’t fail to make a comparison between the genocidal war and the state’s suppression of the JVP insurrection:      Full story >>

Biased and Prejudiced Collection on Sri Lank