We normally write articles to commemorate and appreciate great
events. In this instance we are compelled, as a great nation to
condemn Portuguese invasion of Sri Lanka. They were infested with a
disease called Leprosy. Local name to leprosy is "Parangi" and the
name "Parangi" is used to identify the Portuguese.
Those plunderers of Portugal invaded our paradise like country in
the year 1505 and some where in November. 18th of November 2005
complete 500 years after their invasion. This foreign invasion did
tremendous harm, damage and irreparable loss to our nation. At the
invasion they pretended to our king that they had come for trade.
However they cheated the king and settled down on the land with the
permission of the then Singhalese king. Gradually and cunningly they
extended the area of settlement and finally they started conquering
the coastal belt.
Once Portuguese established their control over the coastal areas
they started to loot the wealth of the natives and the wealth of the
Buddhist temples and Hindu Devalas. These barbaric men arrived in
Sri Lanka with guns, swards and spikes in their hands. Gradually
they brought down even heavy artillery. This type of weaponry was
not at all necessary for genuine trade. They had pre-arranged plans
to meet with. When they established satisfactorily they didn't want
to bother about the Singhalese king. The Portuguese worriers were so
cruel that most of the natives fled away to the interior. After
having had looted they were in the habit of burning down the
buildings either temples or Devalas or even royal Palaces. Statues
of Buddha and idols of other gods were demolished and they took away
the gold, jewels and ivory. They raped our women and the jewelry
worn by them were snatched tearing their ears. Buddha statues and
the Hindu statues were melted down to make payments to their people.
They had the bible in their hands to convert the Buddhist and the
Hindus to Catholics. They forced the natives to accept the God's
Message and to become Catholics. They did this under the threat of
the gun and the spear. Their mission was so inhuman and cruel, if
the natives failed to accept they had to face tragic deaths. Such
people were inquisioned under the supervision of catholic priests.
Those who refuse to accept God's Message were given mental agony by
pounding the infants in to mash in presence of the mothers. Finally
those mothers too were killed by cuttings their limbs and other
organs.
The Portuguese bastard invaded Sri Lanka during the dark ages of the
world. Sri Lanka was not the only country, which had to face this
calamitous fate. The countries like Philippines had to suffer the
same fate.
Those genocides were done under the direction and permission of the
Pope Alexander VI in 1494. Just 11 years before the Portuguese
invasion. In view of the direction of the Pope the Portuguese and
Spaniards had the freedom to kill and rape innocent people and to
plunder them at mass-scale. When they arrived in Sri Lanka we had a
great civilization, which was over 2000 years old. Agriculturally,
economically and culturally our civilization was unsurpassable. Our
civilization was a hydro-civilization and not a war civilization. If
not for the invasion of our country by those Portuguese barbarians
our country would have taken a different turn. Those invaders
alongwith the subsequent invaders retarded the development of Sri
Lanka. They destroyed not only our temples and the natives but the
leadership of the nation too was destroyed.
The Portuguese killed two of our kings in kelaniya. In 1551 they
killed Buwanekabahu the VII. He was living in a five-storied palace.
Dharmapala the grand son of king Buwanekabahu was christened as Don
Juan Darmapala. Even today we can distinguishably see Don Juan
Darmapalas and Dona Catherinas who are resembling those figures of
the past.
The Portuguese captain Diogo De Melo carried out the demolition
operation of king Buwanekabahu's five storied Royal palace and the
seven storied palace called Kithsimewanpaya built by Dambadeniya
king. The people who opposed to this operation were thrown in to the
Kelani River and drowned them as food for crocodiles. The three-
storied Daladamaligawa of Kotte was pull down to the ground. When
they demolish palaces and temples the material were used to build
catholic churches.
The Vishnu temple at Devinuwara, which was worshipped and prayed, by
Buddhist and Hindu devotees was plundered and destroyed too. Further
Thotagamuwe Pirivena, Weedagama Privena in Raigam Korala,
Sunethradevi Pirivena of Kotte were burnt and destroyed. The student
bikkhus who failed to escape had to die inside. The valuable books
of the temple were destroyed too. The lands, which held temples or
Pirivenas, were confiscated and taken as church lands. Gokanna
Viharaya at Trinkomalee was toppled down to the sea. Rathnapura
Samandewalaya was destroyed too. Today an evangelist priest lives
there.
Colombo fort was constructed with the stones of Kelaniya temple. The
Church called St.Bartholomew Church was built on the foundation of
the five story royal palace of Kelaniya. Weedagama temple and
Pirivena had 400 acres of land prior to the barbaric act of
Portuguese. Now Weedagama temple has been constructed on a small
land of about 2 acres. The great Poet monk Weedagama Maithree Thero
who wrote Lowedasangarawa and Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula were living in
that temple. Portuguese turned a portion of temple land to a
graveyard and some portion to a church.
After doing all the destruction, plundering and mass genocide in Sri
Lanka since 1505 until Dutch invaded Sri Lanka, by the Portuguese
the wealth was carried to Goa and Vatican City. Present day
Portuguese nationals of Goa may be feeling ashamed of what their
forefathers did to a Civilized Great Nation when they visit the
museums in Lisbon. Not only them even the Sri Lankan Christians of
all sects may feel same when they go through the history after 1505
CE.
The writer has quoted above information of the history in terms of
the recorded history and with the intention of making the reader
aware of the related facts.
The Buddhist Times of October 2003 reported that UNP Presidential
candidate Mr.Ranil Wicramasinha had announced in New York that there
would be joint celebrations in Lisbon & Colombo in 2005 to
commemorate the Portuguese connection. By 18th November 2005 five
hundred years have been passed after the invasion of Sri Lanka by
Portuguese. If Sri Lanka arranges a celebration to this effect, it
is a celebration of our own destruction. If anyone thinks of such a
celebration, he should get himself checked for his mental health. We
must make 18th November 2005 to condemn the barbaric acts the
Portuguese committed in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka government should
ask for compensation from the responsible parties. The stolen
valuable property and the items of archeological value should be
returned to Sri Lanka alongwith the dead body of Reverend
Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula carried away to Goa during the Portuguese
period. The Portuguese may abstain from worshiping a dead body of a
Buddhist monk.
Apart from that, the time has come to elect a new President on 17th
November 2005 who can lead our nation while protecting the cultural
values and the Unitary State condition of our motherland. Therefore,
it is our duty to reject the people with foreign affiliated thinking
and specifically Portuguese's puppets at the forthcoming
presidential election.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
Portuguese encounter – Reply to Satkurunathan by Janaka Perera
Raveen Satkurunathan writing in the Asian Tribune of January 8, 2006, seems to have got his wires crossed about the conference on the 500th Anniversary Portuguese Encounter held at the BMICH Colombo on Dec.10-11, 2005. His comments display either total ignorance or total disregard for what was actually discussed at the conference.
He goes at a tangent talking of Gujaratis, Veddas, Mahawansa, Sinha Bahu clan, Diaz Bandaranaike clan, the Celts, Normans Danes, the JVP, etc. etc. – issues that had nothing to do with the confab. Perhaps Satkurunathan is so obsessed with the `evils’ of so-called Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinism that he is incapable of any rational thinking.
Anyone who attended the BMICH conference will know that the topic of discussion was Portuguese colonization in Asia with special emphasis on Sri Lanka and Goa. The Indian participants comprised V. Swami, Shrikant Ramani and Z. Khan.
No conference participant shifted the blame for all of Sri Lanka’s current social ills on to the Portuguese colonizers or alleged that they caused today’s Sinhala-Tamil problem – a subject which was not a topic of discussion. The issue was not who suffered more under the Portuguese administration – Sinhalese or Tamils - but the adverse impact it had on Sri Lanka’s pre-colonial society as a whole and some of its effects that are seen today in relation to the country’s ancestral religion and culture (both Hindu and Buddhist.)
Among the papers presented at the conference was one on oppressive proclamations, decrees and laws enacted by the Portuguese authorities in both Goa and Sri Lanka, and cited as examples various instances of acts of persecution, discrimination and destruction of places of worship of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. The underlying theme of the paper was the cognizance of the irony that some Western countries that champion human rights today and lecture on religious liberty to descendants of the persecuted victims of the Third World are the very same countries that had in the past systematically violated the human rights of the colonized non-Christian societies.
The conference was the result of a year’s exhaustive study by the Portuguese Encounter Group (that included Sinhalase, Tamils and Muslims) on the Portuguese colonization in Sri Lanka.
Every major historical event leads to a chain reaction that is felt for centuries. It is in this context any sensible person ought to study history. – Whether it is Portuguese colonization ore or any other subject.
Satukurunathan talks of positive aspects of Portuguese colonization. Every one with an iota of knowledge of Sri Lanka’s colonial period knows that Portuguese rule was the worst in comparison to the mixed blessings of the Dutch and British colonial regimes. The latter at least left us with some worthwhile legacy in the form of architecture, legal systems, canals, road and railway networks, a global language among others. During their rule violence and armed conflicts were far less when compared to the Portuguese period.
Satkurunathan is free to let his mind run riot. But If he truly wants to ascertain facts about the BMICH conference he may contact Hema Goonatilake so that he can at least have a look at the extracts of what was discussed at the conference.
- Asian Tribune -
He goes at a tangent talking of Gujaratis, Veddas, Mahawansa, Sinha Bahu clan, Diaz Bandaranaike clan, the Celts, Normans Danes, the JVP, etc. etc. – issues that had nothing to do with the confab. Perhaps Satkurunathan is so obsessed with the `evils’ of so-called Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinism that he is incapable of any rational thinking.
Anyone who attended the BMICH conference will know that the topic of discussion was Portuguese colonization in Asia with special emphasis on Sri Lanka and Goa. The Indian participants comprised V. Swami, Shrikant Ramani and Z. Khan.
No conference participant shifted the blame for all of Sri Lanka’s current social ills on to the Portuguese colonizers or alleged that they caused today’s Sinhala-Tamil problem – a subject which was not a topic of discussion. The issue was not who suffered more under the Portuguese administration – Sinhalese or Tamils - but the adverse impact it had on Sri Lanka’s pre-colonial society as a whole and some of its effects that are seen today in relation to the country’s ancestral religion and culture (both Hindu and Buddhist.)
Among the papers presented at the conference was one on oppressive proclamations, decrees and laws enacted by the Portuguese authorities in both Goa and Sri Lanka, and cited as examples various instances of acts of persecution, discrimination and destruction of places of worship of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. The underlying theme of the paper was the cognizance of the irony that some Western countries that champion human rights today and lecture on religious liberty to descendants of the persecuted victims of the Third World are the very same countries that had in the past systematically violated the human rights of the colonized non-Christian societies.
The conference was the result of a year’s exhaustive study by the Portuguese Encounter Group (that included Sinhalase, Tamils and Muslims) on the Portuguese colonization in Sri Lanka.
Every major historical event leads to a chain reaction that is felt for centuries. It is in this context any sensible person ought to study history. – Whether it is Portuguese colonization ore or any other subject.
Satukurunathan talks of positive aspects of Portuguese colonization. Every one with an iota of knowledge of Sri Lanka’s colonial period knows that Portuguese rule was the worst in comparison to the mixed blessings of the Dutch and British colonial regimes. The latter at least left us with some worthwhile legacy in the form of architecture, legal systems, canals, road and railway networks, a global language among others. During their rule violence and armed conflicts were far less when compared to the Portuguese period.
Satkurunathan is free to let his mind run riot. But If he truly wants to ascertain facts about the BMICH conference he may contact Hema Goonatilake so that he can at least have a look at the extracts of what was discussed at the conference.
- Asian Tribune -
Blaming the Past in Sri Lanka - The Portugese Colonization by Raveen Satkurunathan
Blaming the past for all of Sri Lanka's current ills has become fashionable. The convenient arch villain has been identified as the Portuguese by some Sri Lankan pundits. The recently held "International conference on the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese Encounter at the prestigious BMICH in Colombo" is an attempt in that direction.
If we can blame the Portuguese for today's societal ills, then can the Veddas, the Sri Lankan aboriginals blame the Gujaratis for their current plight? Because as Sri Lankan children have been taught from their kindergarten, it is Gujarat that gave birth to the Sinha[la] bahu clan that was directly instrumental in the cultural and physical annihilation and genocide of the aborigines.
Infact I made the commentary to show how absurd it is to blame the Portuguese for today's ethnic and social problems. But many of the pundits in the conference have conveniently forgotten to mention some of the positive aspects of Portuguese colonization. These positives were accrued mostly by the majority Sinhala Buddhists who are decrying the effects of Portuguese colonization today, which happened more than 400 years ago.
We can say very confidently that it is because of the Portuguese colonization that the Sinhalese find them as an overwhelming majority in Sri Lanka today. As Sri Lanka's written historical anal, Mahavamsa mentions, ethnic Tamils have always found themselves in Sri Lanka in a political culture that promoted Buddhism from the beginning of written history. As a consequence ethnic Tamils have assimilated into Sinhala Buddhist identity since then. It is no different than the invading Normans and Danes as well as indigenous Celts becoming English over a period time in England. Whether Tamils were in Sri lanka prior to this Gujarati colonization or not is immaterial, because the Sinha[la] Bahu clan eventually imposed its cultural traits on everyone.
But this state of affairs did not last a long time. Long before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Tamils had been able to organize themselves as a separate political entity under the auspicious of the Jaffna kingdom. This kingdom was not restricted to the northern Jaffna peninsula alone as biased contemporary Sri Lankan history maps would indicate. It had suzerainty over the pearl rich western Puttalam area and further south as recorded by a traveling Chinese historian Fa Hien of those days. This kingdom provided the political space for Tamils to survive as a separate ethnic group, without the need to be assimilated as Sinhala Buddhist, as they had done in the post Gujarati colonization period.
Further the littoral regions of southern Sri Lanka was inhabited by simple folks of South Indian origin whose main livelihood was fishing, pearling, toddy tapping, cinnamon peeling and being the cannon fodder of local petty kings and chiefs in their constant fights.
These were by and large Tamil or Malayalee speaking Hindus as can be attested by the "Ge" or house names of their descendants today in South Sri Lanka. Their primary function of fishing and toddy taping had prevented them namely the Karave, Salagama & Durave castes from being absorbed into Buddhism as fishing and toddy tapping was an abhorrent profession to the Buddhists.
Although some amongst them due to their military service had ingratiated their lineages with the dominant Sinhala Buddhists through land grants. It is this group that has turned to be the true villains of Sri Lankan history not the Portuguese.
Although most of the descendants of these groups today deny their obvious South Indian origins, true historians know the truth. If left alone most of these coastal people would have coalesced into the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. If that had happened, Tamils might not have been the minority at all. But that is not what happened. The most important contribution that the Portuguese did to the Sinhalese was the elimination of an important social distance indicator between coastal Tamils and Sinhalese in converting both to the Catholic faith. It enabled the age old assimilation of Tamils into Sinhalese to happen again which had come to a halt due to political and religious reasons.
As a caveat during the Buddhist revivalist period instigated by Anagarika Dharnapala who was born into a Catholic Salagama family, many of these coastal Catholics both Tamils, Sinhalese and Sinhalised Tamils converted enmass to Buddhism and even created their own Buddhist organizations because the traditional upper Govi caste oriented prelates refused entry of these newly converted Buddhists of dubious caste origins into their organizations.
Even today Sri Lankan Buddhist prelates are organized by caste such as Govi, Karavae and Salagama because of this very reason. If there is to be a looser due to Portuguese colonization in Sri Lanka, then it is the Tamils more than the Sinhalese. Tamils lost their independent Jaffna kingdom and lost considerably a very large percentage of its ethnic brethren to Catholicism, who have become Sinhalese Buddhist and Sinhalese Catholics all the way from western Puttalam region to southern Matara and beyond. It is only in the Northeastern provinces that Catholics have maintained their Tamil identity.
Today just one village in the Western coast hangs on to its Tamil identity. It is Uddappu. It is one of out of a thousand villages and towns that spoke Tamil and dotted the coastal region once upon a time. All other surrounding Catholic, or Buddhist villages are self considered to be Sinhalese even if they spoke Tamil at home just a generation ago. Further down in the South, Tamil has been replaced as a mother tongue many generations ago. Although as presented in the conference, Portuguese did destroy a lot Hindu and Buddhist places of worship, today’s new Buddhists have taken over many Hindu temples as Buddhist Vihares as can be seen by the statutes of Hindu deity Ayyanar on horseback in these Vihares complexes close to Negombo.
These new Buddhists like, all newly converted around the world overwhelmingly supported and still support the suppression of Tamil language and civil rights since the populist prime minister Solomon West Ridgeway Diaz Banadaranaike came to power in 1956. He himself came from an uppity coastal caste of formerly Hindu then Catholic and later Protestant background. He converted to Buddhism as a way to gain power, only to be shot dead by a Buddhist monk. In a nut shell his family's ascent to power as Sinhala elites from its lowly roots shows the hybridization that is the norm amongst the ruling class. Since him, his clan had provided two more leaders for the country who have managed to push it beyond the abyss.
Sri Lanka has not being able to overcome its colonial history, not because of the effects of colonialism, but because of the lack of vision of its post colonial political class. This cabal owes its current success to its ability to ingratiate it with whoever and what ever was perceived to be dominant. They had appropriated what ever was necessary to succeed. During pre-colonial times, it was for land grants from petty Sinhalese chiefs and titles for offering their kinsman as the cannon fodder for war. During the Portuguese times, it was Catholicism and Portuguese names. During the British time, most had converted to Protestantism and picked up Anglo names. Today they are Buddhists of the first class. Their continued usage of racist supremacy as a political card displays the inner insecurity of the ethnically hybridized ruling class but also primarily their crass opportunistic behavior.
The entire top rung of the pseudo Marxist but ideologically racist JVP (the third larges political party) politburo hails from these littoral whose family origin lie in the murky waters of f the Palk Straits. But today they are upkeepers of the virulently superior Sinhala Buddhists interests. This also applies to the current President and his coterie of Southern advisors and military leaders with Iberian patrilineal last names shown or hidden.
It is this ruling class catering to a narrow, parochial and racialist world view that has brought the country to its current abyss, not the Portuguese colonialism as the conference presenters would have us to believe. The people who pay the price for such opportunistic politics are the common family man, the fisherfolk and the farmer who had from time immemorial wanted to live in peace and loved their neighbors true to their religious teachings, but not the least similar to the corrupt Pajero driving, Swiss bank account holding ruling elites.
If Sri Lanka is to emerge from its current abyss, then its highly educated people need to look at who is leading whom in what direction. Is the tired old virulent Sinhala Buddhist rhetoric used originally by the Diaz Bandaranaike clan and now being offered anew by the Mahinda Rajapakses, JHU & JVP the right message for them?
For whom does this virulent and racist messages benefits? It only benefits the ruling class and their coteries who like the chameleon continues to change its colors to hold on to petty perks at the cost of millions of common people.
They have exploited the country for their selfish interests and its future growth and economic prosperity of the country that would have easily emerged similar to that of Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Just like their ancestors had sacrificed their kinsman for few acres and useless titles today's cabal of Hennanayakes, Bandaranaikas, Rajapakses & De Silvas are burying the birth right of all Sri Lankans.
- Asian Tribune –
If we can blame the Portuguese for today's societal ills, then can the Veddas, the Sri Lankan aboriginals blame the Gujaratis for their current plight? Because as Sri Lankan children have been taught from their kindergarten, it is Gujarat that gave birth to the Sinha[la] bahu clan that was directly instrumental in the cultural and physical annihilation and genocide of the aborigines.
Infact I made the commentary to show how absurd it is to blame the Portuguese for today's ethnic and social problems. But many of the pundits in the conference have conveniently forgotten to mention some of the positive aspects of Portuguese colonization. These positives were accrued mostly by the majority Sinhala Buddhists who are decrying the effects of Portuguese colonization today, which happened more than 400 years ago.
We can say very confidently that it is because of the Portuguese colonization that the Sinhalese find them as an overwhelming majority in Sri Lanka today. As Sri Lanka's written historical anal, Mahavamsa mentions, ethnic Tamils have always found themselves in Sri Lanka in a political culture that promoted Buddhism from the beginning of written history. As a consequence ethnic Tamils have assimilated into Sinhala Buddhist identity since then. It is no different than the invading Normans and Danes as well as indigenous Celts becoming English over a period time in England. Whether Tamils were in Sri lanka prior to this Gujarati colonization or not is immaterial, because the Sinha[la] Bahu clan eventually imposed its cultural traits on everyone.
But this state of affairs did not last a long time. Long before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Tamils had been able to organize themselves as a separate political entity under the auspicious of the Jaffna kingdom. This kingdom was not restricted to the northern Jaffna peninsula alone as biased contemporary Sri Lankan history maps would indicate. It had suzerainty over the pearl rich western Puttalam area and further south as recorded by a traveling Chinese historian Fa Hien of those days. This kingdom provided the political space for Tamils to survive as a separate ethnic group, without the need to be assimilated as Sinhala Buddhist, as they had done in the post Gujarati colonization period.
Further the littoral regions of southern Sri Lanka was inhabited by simple folks of South Indian origin whose main livelihood was fishing, pearling, toddy tapping, cinnamon peeling and being the cannon fodder of local petty kings and chiefs in their constant fights.
These were by and large Tamil or Malayalee speaking Hindus as can be attested by the "Ge" or house names of their descendants today in South Sri Lanka. Their primary function of fishing and toddy taping had prevented them namely the Karave, Salagama & Durave castes from being absorbed into Buddhism as fishing and toddy tapping was an abhorrent profession to the Buddhists.
Although some amongst them due to their military service had ingratiated their lineages with the dominant Sinhala Buddhists through land grants. It is this group that has turned to be the true villains of Sri Lankan history not the Portuguese.
Although most of the descendants of these groups today deny their obvious South Indian origins, true historians know the truth. If left alone most of these coastal people would have coalesced into the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. If that had happened, Tamils might not have been the minority at all. But that is not what happened. The most important contribution that the Portuguese did to the Sinhalese was the elimination of an important social distance indicator between coastal Tamils and Sinhalese in converting both to the Catholic faith. It enabled the age old assimilation of Tamils into Sinhalese to happen again which had come to a halt due to political and religious reasons.
As a caveat during the Buddhist revivalist period instigated by Anagarika Dharnapala who was born into a Catholic Salagama family, many of these coastal Catholics both Tamils, Sinhalese and Sinhalised Tamils converted enmass to Buddhism and even created their own Buddhist organizations because the traditional upper Govi caste oriented prelates refused entry of these newly converted Buddhists of dubious caste origins into their organizations.
Even today Sri Lankan Buddhist prelates are organized by caste such as Govi, Karavae and Salagama because of this very reason. If there is to be a looser due to Portuguese colonization in Sri Lanka, then it is the Tamils more than the Sinhalese. Tamils lost their independent Jaffna kingdom and lost considerably a very large percentage of its ethnic brethren to Catholicism, who have become Sinhalese Buddhist and Sinhalese Catholics all the way from western Puttalam region to southern Matara and beyond. It is only in the Northeastern provinces that Catholics have maintained their Tamil identity.
Today just one village in the Western coast hangs on to its Tamil identity. It is Uddappu. It is one of out of a thousand villages and towns that spoke Tamil and dotted the coastal region once upon a time. All other surrounding Catholic, or Buddhist villages are self considered to be Sinhalese even if they spoke Tamil at home just a generation ago. Further down in the South, Tamil has been replaced as a mother tongue many generations ago. Although as presented in the conference, Portuguese did destroy a lot Hindu and Buddhist places of worship, today’s new Buddhists have taken over many Hindu temples as Buddhist Vihares as can be seen by the statutes of Hindu deity Ayyanar on horseback in these Vihares complexes close to Negombo.
These new Buddhists like, all newly converted around the world overwhelmingly supported and still support the suppression of Tamil language and civil rights since the populist prime minister Solomon West Ridgeway Diaz Banadaranaike came to power in 1956. He himself came from an uppity coastal caste of formerly Hindu then Catholic and later Protestant background. He converted to Buddhism as a way to gain power, only to be shot dead by a Buddhist monk. In a nut shell his family's ascent to power as Sinhala elites from its lowly roots shows the hybridization that is the norm amongst the ruling class. Since him, his clan had provided two more leaders for the country who have managed to push it beyond the abyss.
Sri Lanka has not being able to overcome its colonial history, not because of the effects of colonialism, but because of the lack of vision of its post colonial political class. This cabal owes its current success to its ability to ingratiate it with whoever and what ever was perceived to be dominant. They had appropriated what ever was necessary to succeed. During pre-colonial times, it was for land grants from petty Sinhalese chiefs and titles for offering their kinsman as the cannon fodder for war. During the Portuguese times, it was Catholicism and Portuguese names. During the British time, most had converted to Protestantism and picked up Anglo names. Today they are Buddhists of the first class. Their continued usage of racist supremacy as a political card displays the inner insecurity of the ethnically hybridized ruling class but also primarily their crass opportunistic behavior.
The entire top rung of the pseudo Marxist but ideologically racist JVP (the third larges political party) politburo hails from these littoral whose family origin lie in the murky waters of f the Palk Straits. But today they are upkeepers of the virulently superior Sinhala Buddhists interests. This also applies to the current President and his coterie of Southern advisors and military leaders with Iberian patrilineal last names shown or hidden.
It is this ruling class catering to a narrow, parochial and racialist world view that has brought the country to its current abyss, not the Portuguese colonialism as the conference presenters would have us to believe. The people who pay the price for such opportunistic politics are the common family man, the fisherfolk and the farmer who had from time immemorial wanted to live in peace and loved their neighbors true to their religious teachings, but not the least similar to the corrupt Pajero driving, Swiss bank account holding ruling elites.
If Sri Lanka is to emerge from its current abyss, then its highly educated people need to look at who is leading whom in what direction. Is the tired old virulent Sinhala Buddhist rhetoric used originally by the Diaz Bandaranaike clan and now being offered anew by the Mahinda Rajapakses, JHU & JVP the right message for them?
For whom does this virulent and racist messages benefits? It only benefits the ruling class and their coteries who like the chameleon continues to change its colors to hold on to petty perks at the cost of millions of common people.
They have exploited the country for their selfish interests and its future growth and economic prosperity of the country that would have easily emerged similar to that of Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Just like their ancestors had sacrificed their kinsman for few acres and useless titles today's cabal of Hennanayakes, Bandaranaikas, Rajapakses & De Silvas are burying the birth right of all Sri Lankans.
- Asian Tribune –
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The record of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka cannot be sanitised by Dr Kamal Wickremasinghe
The recent (500th) anniversary of the Portuguese invasion of Sri Lanka appears to have generated a new wave of retrospection of the evil of colonialism in general and analysis of the impact of the Portuguese on Sri Lanka in particular. Mr P.K.Balachandran’s analysis (referred to in Lankaweb recently), including his observation that there is currently a wave of anti-Portuguese feeling in Sri Lanka was a particularly insightful and accurate one in this context.
The attempts by some writers to ‘sanitise’ the disgraceful historical record of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka in the 16th and 17th centuries appear to be based on the misguided belief that the Sri Lankans are crying out for revenge of the ‘Portuguese’ for past atrocities. However, there is no evidence to prove that the revelations arising from analyses (based on accurate facts) of the historical events during this period, despite inevitably serving as a damning indictment of the Portuguese brand of colonialism, necessarily constitute Sri Lankan demands for retribution or revenge. All Sri Lankans need to be educated on the 450 years of colonial history of Sri Lanka if we are to free ourselves from the bonds that prevent us from reclaiming the glorious past that was the casualty of colonialist vandalism. Such analyses also help us escape and counter the neo-colonialist traps which have not changed qualitatively over the last 500 years!.
One of the first lessons to be learnt about the invasion is that, even though it is conveniently referred to as a ‘Portuguese’ invasion, it was the result of a collaborative venture between the Roman Catholic church and the nobility in Portugal rather than the ‘nation’ of Portugal. (The predominantly peasant populations of Europe at the time had no interest in capturing far-off lands for trade purposes; an observation also applicable to the so-called ‘Dutch’ and ‘British’ invasions of Sri Lanka that followed. Therefore the question of revenge or retribution, let alone an anti=Portuguese feeling should not arise.
The invasion of Sri Lanka followed Vasco de Gama’s invasion of India in 1502. Laurenco de Almeida’s inadvertent sojourn to our shores is said to have occurred while he was on a pirate mission from Cochin where his father Francisco was the viceroy (1505–09). However, the Portuguese invasion in earnest began under the guise of a ‘Trade Delegation’ in 1512, demanding cinnamon trade monopolies and ransom from the king of Kotte. This event laid the foundation for nearly 150 years of economic plunder, desecration and destruction of religious and cultural monuments and unprecedented social change caused by the forced conversion of large numbers of Buddhists and Hindus to Roman Catholicism.
Sri Lanka at the time of invasion
There are many lessons about the importance of national unity, pride and strength, arising from this particular invasion. The Portuguese arrival on the Sri Lankan shores occurred at a time when the island had become vulnerable due to the aftermath of repeated south Indian invasions and control of Sri Lanka over a period of nearly 700 years. By the early 16th century, Sri Lanka had declined from a centrally-ministered vibrant nation with massive technological and cultural heritage to a collection of warring principalities. As Professor K.M. de Silva has noted, “the cumulative effects of repeated invasions on a society already losing its vigour with age” had taken its toll.
The political and cultural impact of south Indian occupations had changed Sri Lanka irrevocably: the Chola rule in particular had brought about the most significant and lasting change through the shifting of the capital from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruwa due to strategic reasons. Despite re-capturing Anuradhapura, Vijayabahu I chose to rule from Polonnaruwa, starting a dynasty that lasted for nearly 150 years but only matched the glory of Anuradhapura briefly, under the reign of Parakramabahu I (1153–86). The Kalinga capture of power and the callous and disastrous rule of the Kalinga king Magha (1214–55) led to a disintegration of centralised power from Polonnaruwa, giving rise to a number of self-proclaimed ‘kingdoms’ in the provinces, moving periodically for strategic reasons.
Vijayabahu III (1232–36) had founded the Dambadeniya kingdom and his descendents moved the capital to Yapahuwa and later to Kurunegala and to Gampola. In 1412, Parakramabahu VI (1412–67) took the capital to Kotte, and for a brief period, the Kotte kingdom expanded and acquired sovereignty over the island.
By the end of the 15th century however, the fragmentation of the State had become complete with a Tamil kingdom in the Jaffna peninsula under the Arya Chakaravartis and Kandy had been semi-autonomous since Veera Parakramabahu’s reign (1484–1518). Around this period Sri Lanka had contemporary ‘kingdoms’ (which in fact were no more than independent principalities) also at Gampola, Peradeniya, Dedigama and Kurunegala.
The disintegration of central administration had brought about drastic consequences on the economy and society in general. Migration of population away from Rajarata following the fall of Polonnaruwa had taken away the expertise and labour needed to maintain the irrigation system, leading to its disintegration causing in turn, a decline of agriculture and reduction in the revenue base of the kings and the temples. The absence of strong political authority also affected the Sangha, leading to indiscipline and schisms. Hinduism began to exert a marked influence on Buddhist practices with Hindu-style rituals and the worship of numerous Vedic deities becoming widespread. Other Hindu institutions such as the caste system began to take root in Sri Lankan society. This combination of factors weakened the foundations of the once glorious island civilisation: the water storage and transportation network that underpinned rice farming and the social structure centred around the ‘wewa, dagoba and pansala’ paradigm.
In the early 16th century, at the time of Portuguese landing, Kotte under (Vira) Parakrama Bahu VIII (1484-1509) was a weak administration having no control over Kandy (ruled by Senasammata Vikramabahu, 1469-1511) and Jaffna (ruled by Pararajasekaran, 1478-1519). The politically and administratively weakened Sri Lanka was highly vulnerable to the Portuguese designs (which had been previously tested and proven effective in Africa and Latin America).
Portuguese in Sri Lanka
Despite over a century of trying, the Portuguese never managed to fully conquer Sri Lanka. Except for the nominal control of Kotte (1524-1597) through ineffective puppet kings, their sphere of control was largely confined to the coastal regions. A number of attempted incursions in to the hinterland ended unsuccessfully, costing them large numbers of men and immense suffering to the surviving troops. It is a remarkable fact of history that the Sri Lankan nation withstood the Portuguese invasion and ultimately repelled them, despite their control of the high seas, possession of more destructive weaponry, reinforced forts, and crucially, the treachery of some local converts to their religion and culture. The few successes of the Portuguese resulted from lapses of judgement of Sri Lankan kings due to greed, paranoia and naivety rather than clever planning on their part.
The analysis of key domestic events and interactions between the Sinhala rulers and the Portuguese during their period in Sri Lanka reveals that the relationship was governed by mutual mistrust, supplemented by intense revulsion on the part of the kings and criminal intent on the part of the Portuguese. However, the Sri Lankan kings were prepared to set aside the reserves of mistrust and revulsion when confronted with internal threats: they never hesitated to approach the Portuguese for military help to fight internal wars.
The kings of Kotte and Kandy, at different times, sought Portuguese help against Mayadunne of Sitawaka. Mayadunne himself, despite his strident determination to expel the Portuguese, surprisingly, coalesced with them against the kingdom of Kandy. The Portuguese objective at all times was to exploit divisions within the local ruling clans, firstly by subjecting any military assistance to religious conversion of kings (isolating them from the Buddhist power base) and secondly by eliminating the more capable rulers who were an obvious threat to them.
Despite their need for Portuguese military assistance, the kings were cautious about religious conversion: king Bhuvenekabahu who depended desperately on the Portuguese was reluctant to convert. His son-in-law Vidiya Bandara (regent until infant heir Dharmapala was ready to be enthroned) was fiercely Buddhist and was only forcefully baptised while in their custody. King Jayaweera Bandara of Kandy appears to have converted for ‘tactical’ reasons, never practicing the alien religion.
A supreme example of such ‘tactical’ conversions was that of Konappu Bandara: Having an ‘axe to grind’ with Rajasinghe of Sitawaka for killing his father, Konappu joined the Portuguese and was sent to Goa by them and converted to Catholicism. Having won their confidence, Konappu overthrew the 12 year old ‘puppet’ king, proclaimed himself king as Vimaladharmasuriya (1593–1604) and began championing Buddhism. One of the most fascinating episodes (and debilitating to the Portuguese), of the entire era is King Vimaladharmasuriya’s scuttling of Portuguese plans to place Dona Catrina on the throne at Kandy. He inflicted one of the heaviest defeats on them at the battle of Danture on 9 October 1594. To add insult to injury, he took Dona Catrina as his queen securing a legitimate link to the throne.
The events leading to and following the Portuguese sponsored ascent of Dharmapala marked the end of the Kotte kingdom. Dharmapala had been baptised under the name of the reigning Portuguese monarch, John III. Upon his becoming king in 1551, the Franciscans coerced him to acquire and transfer to them the temples, lands and other assets and revenues the former kings had donated to the Buddhist clergy. The Franciscans destroyed Buddhist monuments and converted some of the temples to churches. Between 1561-65 young prince Rajasinghe of Sitawaka inflicted significant losses on the Portuguese, with the battle of Mulleriyawa (1561) being the most devastating. By 1565, Mayadunne, aided by his son Rajasinghe, riding the wave of popular uprising against the desecration of temples and took Kotte, forced the Portuguese and Dharmapala to retreat to the fort of Colombo where they were under siege until about 1580.
The Portuguese launched two unsuccessful attempts, in 1560 and in 1591, to take the Jaffna kingdom. Jaffna repelled these attacks, sometimes with help from Kandy. Jaffna finally fell in 1619 and the incumbent ruler Sankli Kumaran and his family were taken to Goa and was hanged in 1621. Filipe D’Olivera, the commander of the Portuguese army proclaimed himself the governor and started one of the most despicable episodes of desecration destruction and vandalism of religious monuments in recorded human history: Nallur Kandasamy Kovil was razed down and the stones were used to build a Christian church at Nallur and the Jaffna fort; Saraswathy Mahal, the oldest Tamil museum and library that housed valuable historical documents was burnt down.
These events (and their consequences) need to be fully documented for the benefits of future generations of Sri Lankans, serving as a Case Study of the destructive effects of colonialism, and perhaps more importantly, how disunity and greed for power can lead to disastrous results for a nation.
(http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items05/231205-4.html)
The attempts by some writers to ‘sanitise’ the disgraceful historical record of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka in the 16th and 17th centuries appear to be based on the misguided belief that the Sri Lankans are crying out for revenge of the ‘Portuguese’ for past atrocities. However, there is no evidence to prove that the revelations arising from analyses (based on accurate facts) of the historical events during this period, despite inevitably serving as a damning indictment of the Portuguese brand of colonialism, necessarily constitute Sri Lankan demands for retribution or revenge. All Sri Lankans need to be educated on the 450 years of colonial history of Sri Lanka if we are to free ourselves from the bonds that prevent us from reclaiming the glorious past that was the casualty of colonialist vandalism. Such analyses also help us escape and counter the neo-colonialist traps which have not changed qualitatively over the last 500 years!.
One of the first lessons to be learnt about the invasion is that, even though it is conveniently referred to as a ‘Portuguese’ invasion, it was the result of a collaborative venture between the Roman Catholic church and the nobility in Portugal rather than the ‘nation’ of Portugal. (The predominantly peasant populations of Europe at the time had no interest in capturing far-off lands for trade purposes; an observation also applicable to the so-called ‘Dutch’ and ‘British’ invasions of Sri Lanka that followed. Therefore the question of revenge or retribution, let alone an anti=Portuguese feeling should not arise.
The invasion of Sri Lanka followed Vasco de Gama’s invasion of India in 1502. Laurenco de Almeida’s inadvertent sojourn to our shores is said to have occurred while he was on a pirate mission from Cochin where his father Francisco was the viceroy (1505–09). However, the Portuguese invasion in earnest began under the guise of a ‘Trade Delegation’ in 1512, demanding cinnamon trade monopolies and ransom from the king of Kotte. This event laid the foundation for nearly 150 years of economic plunder, desecration and destruction of religious and cultural monuments and unprecedented social change caused by the forced conversion of large numbers of Buddhists and Hindus to Roman Catholicism.
Sri Lanka at the time of invasion
There are many lessons about the importance of national unity, pride and strength, arising from this particular invasion. The Portuguese arrival on the Sri Lankan shores occurred at a time when the island had become vulnerable due to the aftermath of repeated south Indian invasions and control of Sri Lanka over a period of nearly 700 years. By the early 16th century, Sri Lanka had declined from a centrally-ministered vibrant nation with massive technological and cultural heritage to a collection of warring principalities. As Professor K.M. de Silva has noted, “the cumulative effects of repeated invasions on a society already losing its vigour with age” had taken its toll.
The political and cultural impact of south Indian occupations had changed Sri Lanka irrevocably: the Chola rule in particular had brought about the most significant and lasting change through the shifting of the capital from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruwa due to strategic reasons. Despite re-capturing Anuradhapura, Vijayabahu I chose to rule from Polonnaruwa, starting a dynasty that lasted for nearly 150 years but only matched the glory of Anuradhapura briefly, under the reign of Parakramabahu I (1153–86). The Kalinga capture of power and the callous and disastrous rule of the Kalinga king Magha (1214–55) led to a disintegration of centralised power from Polonnaruwa, giving rise to a number of self-proclaimed ‘kingdoms’ in the provinces, moving periodically for strategic reasons.
Vijayabahu III (1232–36) had founded the Dambadeniya kingdom and his descendents moved the capital to Yapahuwa and later to Kurunegala and to Gampola. In 1412, Parakramabahu VI (1412–67) took the capital to Kotte, and for a brief period, the Kotte kingdom expanded and acquired sovereignty over the island.
By the end of the 15th century however, the fragmentation of the State had become complete with a Tamil kingdom in the Jaffna peninsula under the Arya Chakaravartis and Kandy had been semi-autonomous since Veera Parakramabahu’s reign (1484–1518). Around this period Sri Lanka had contemporary ‘kingdoms’ (which in fact were no more than independent principalities) also at Gampola, Peradeniya, Dedigama and Kurunegala.
The disintegration of central administration had brought about drastic consequences on the economy and society in general. Migration of population away from Rajarata following the fall of Polonnaruwa had taken away the expertise and labour needed to maintain the irrigation system, leading to its disintegration causing in turn, a decline of agriculture and reduction in the revenue base of the kings and the temples. The absence of strong political authority also affected the Sangha, leading to indiscipline and schisms. Hinduism began to exert a marked influence on Buddhist practices with Hindu-style rituals and the worship of numerous Vedic deities becoming widespread. Other Hindu institutions such as the caste system began to take root in Sri Lankan society. This combination of factors weakened the foundations of the once glorious island civilisation: the water storage and transportation network that underpinned rice farming and the social structure centred around the ‘wewa, dagoba and pansala’ paradigm.
In the early 16th century, at the time of Portuguese landing, Kotte under (Vira) Parakrama Bahu VIII (1484-1509) was a weak administration having no control over Kandy (ruled by Senasammata Vikramabahu, 1469-1511) and Jaffna (ruled by Pararajasekaran, 1478-1519). The politically and administratively weakened Sri Lanka was highly vulnerable to the Portuguese designs (which had been previously tested and proven effective in Africa and Latin America).
Portuguese in Sri Lanka
Despite over a century of trying, the Portuguese never managed to fully conquer Sri Lanka. Except for the nominal control of Kotte (1524-1597) through ineffective puppet kings, their sphere of control was largely confined to the coastal regions. A number of attempted incursions in to the hinterland ended unsuccessfully, costing them large numbers of men and immense suffering to the surviving troops. It is a remarkable fact of history that the Sri Lankan nation withstood the Portuguese invasion and ultimately repelled them, despite their control of the high seas, possession of more destructive weaponry, reinforced forts, and crucially, the treachery of some local converts to their religion and culture. The few successes of the Portuguese resulted from lapses of judgement of Sri Lankan kings due to greed, paranoia and naivety rather than clever planning on their part.
The analysis of key domestic events and interactions between the Sinhala rulers and the Portuguese during their period in Sri Lanka reveals that the relationship was governed by mutual mistrust, supplemented by intense revulsion on the part of the kings and criminal intent on the part of the Portuguese. However, the Sri Lankan kings were prepared to set aside the reserves of mistrust and revulsion when confronted with internal threats: they never hesitated to approach the Portuguese for military help to fight internal wars.
The kings of Kotte and Kandy, at different times, sought Portuguese help against Mayadunne of Sitawaka. Mayadunne himself, despite his strident determination to expel the Portuguese, surprisingly, coalesced with them against the kingdom of Kandy. The Portuguese objective at all times was to exploit divisions within the local ruling clans, firstly by subjecting any military assistance to religious conversion of kings (isolating them from the Buddhist power base) and secondly by eliminating the more capable rulers who were an obvious threat to them.
Despite their need for Portuguese military assistance, the kings were cautious about religious conversion: king Bhuvenekabahu who depended desperately on the Portuguese was reluctant to convert. His son-in-law Vidiya Bandara (regent until infant heir Dharmapala was ready to be enthroned) was fiercely Buddhist and was only forcefully baptised while in their custody. King Jayaweera Bandara of Kandy appears to have converted for ‘tactical’ reasons, never practicing the alien religion.
A supreme example of such ‘tactical’ conversions was that of Konappu Bandara: Having an ‘axe to grind’ with Rajasinghe of Sitawaka for killing his father, Konappu joined the Portuguese and was sent to Goa by them and converted to Catholicism. Having won their confidence, Konappu overthrew the 12 year old ‘puppet’ king, proclaimed himself king as Vimaladharmasuriya (1593–1604) and began championing Buddhism. One of the most fascinating episodes (and debilitating to the Portuguese), of the entire era is King Vimaladharmasuriya’s scuttling of Portuguese plans to place Dona Catrina on the throne at Kandy. He inflicted one of the heaviest defeats on them at the battle of Danture on 9 October 1594. To add insult to injury, he took Dona Catrina as his queen securing a legitimate link to the throne.
The events leading to and following the Portuguese sponsored ascent of Dharmapala marked the end of the Kotte kingdom. Dharmapala had been baptised under the name of the reigning Portuguese monarch, John III. Upon his becoming king in 1551, the Franciscans coerced him to acquire and transfer to them the temples, lands and other assets and revenues the former kings had donated to the Buddhist clergy. The Franciscans destroyed Buddhist monuments and converted some of the temples to churches. Between 1561-65 young prince Rajasinghe of Sitawaka inflicted significant losses on the Portuguese, with the battle of Mulleriyawa (1561) being the most devastating. By 1565, Mayadunne, aided by his son Rajasinghe, riding the wave of popular uprising against the desecration of temples and took Kotte, forced the Portuguese and Dharmapala to retreat to the fort of Colombo where they were under siege until about 1580.
The Portuguese launched two unsuccessful attempts, in 1560 and in 1591, to take the Jaffna kingdom. Jaffna repelled these attacks, sometimes with help from Kandy. Jaffna finally fell in 1619 and the incumbent ruler Sankli Kumaran and his family were taken to Goa and was hanged in 1621. Filipe D’Olivera, the commander of the Portuguese army proclaimed himself the governor and started one of the most despicable episodes of desecration destruction and vandalism of religious monuments in recorded human history: Nallur Kandasamy Kovil was razed down and the stones were used to build a Christian church at Nallur and the Jaffna fort; Saraswathy Mahal, the oldest Tamil museum and library that housed valuable historical documents was burnt down.
These events (and their consequences) need to be fully documented for the benefits of future generations of Sri Lankans, serving as a Case Study of the destructive effects of colonialism, and perhaps more importantly, how disunity and greed for power can lead to disastrous results for a nation.
(http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items05/231205-4.html)
The record of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka cannot be sanitised by Dr Kamal Wickremasinghe
The recent (500th) anniversary of the Portuguese invasion of Sri Lanka appears to have generated a new wave of retrospection of the evil of colonialism in general and analysis of the impact of the Portuguese on Sri Lanka in particular. Mr P.K.Balachandran’s analysis (referred to in Lankaweb recently), including his observation that there is currently a wave of anti-Portuguese feeling in Sri Lanka was a particularly insightful and accurate one in this context.
The attempts by some writers to ‘sanitise’ the disgraceful historical record of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka in the 16th and 17th centuries appear to be based on the misguided belief that the Sri Lankans are crying out for revenge of the ‘Portuguese’ for past atrocities. However, there is no evidence to prove that the revelations arising from analyses (based on accurate facts) of the historical events during this period, despite inevitably serving as a damning indictment of the Portuguese brand of colonialism, necessarily constitute Sri Lankan demands for retribution or revenge. All Sri Lankans need to be educated on the 450 years of colonial history of Sri Lanka if we are to free ourselves from the bonds that prevent us from reclaiming the glorious past that was the casualty of colonialist vandalism. Such analyses also help us escape and counter the neo-colonialist traps which have not changed qualitatively over the last 500 years!.
One of the first lessons to be learnt about the invasion is that, even though it is conveniently referred to as a ‘Portuguese’ invasion, it was the result of a collaborative venture between the Roman Catholic church and the nobility in Portugal rather than the ‘nation’ of Portugal. (The predominantly peasant populations of Europe at the time had no interest in capturing far-off lands for trade purposes; an observation also applicable to the so-called ‘Dutch’ and ‘British’ invasions of Sri Lanka that followed. Therefore the question of revenge or retribution, let alone an anti=Portuguese feeling should not arise.
The invasion of Sri Lanka followed Vasco de Gama’s invasion of India in 1502. Laurenco de Almeida’s inadvertent sojourn to our shores is said to have occurred while he was on a pirate mission from Cochin where his father Francisco was the viceroy (1505–09). However, the Portuguese invasion in earnest began under the guise of a ‘Trade Delegation’ in 1512, demanding cinnamon trade monopolies and ransom from the king of Kotte. This event laid the foundation for nearly 150 years of economic plunder, desecration and destruction of religious and cultural monuments and unprecedented social change caused by the forced conversion of large numbers of Buddhists and Hindus to Roman Catholicism.
Sri Lanka at the time of invasion
There are many lessons about the importance of national unity, pride and strength, arising from this particular invasion. The Portuguese arrival on the Sri Lankan shores occurred at a time when the island had become vulnerable due to the aftermath of repeated south Indian invasions and control of Sri Lanka over a period of nearly 700 years. By the early 16th century, Sri Lanka had declined from a centrally-ministered vibrant nation with massive technological and cultural heritage to a collection of warring principalities. As Professor K.M. de Silva has noted, “the cumulative effects of repeated invasions on a society already losing its vigour with age” had taken its toll.
The political and cultural impact of south Indian occupations had changed Sri Lanka irrevocably: the Chola rule in particular had brought about the most significant and lasting change through the shifting of the capital from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruwa due to strategic reasons. Despite re-capturing Anuradhapura, Vijayabahu I chose to rule from Polonnaruwa, starting a dynasty that lasted for nearly 150 years but only matched the glory of Anuradhapura briefly, under the reign of Parakramabahu I (1153–86). The Kalinga capture of power and the callous and disastrous rule of the Kalinga king Magha (1214–55) led to a disintegration of centralised power from Polonnaruwa, giving rise to a number of self-proclaimed ‘kingdoms’ in the provinces, moving periodically for strategic reasons.
Vijayabahu III (1232–36) had founded the Dambadeniya kingdom and his descendents moved the capital to Yapahuwa and later to Kurunegala and to Gampola. In 1412, Parakramabahu VI (1412–67) took the capital to Kotte, and for a brief period, the Kotte kingdom expanded and acquired sovereignty over the island.
By the end of the 15th century however, the fragmentation of the State had become complete with a Tamil kingdom in the Jaffna peninsula under the Arya Chakaravartis and Kandy had been semi-autonomous since Veera Parakramabahu’s reign (1484–1518). Around this period Sri Lanka had contemporary ‘kingdoms’ (which in fact were no more than independent principalities) also at Gampola, Peradeniya, Dedigama and Kurunegala.
The disintegration of central administration had brought about drastic consequences on the economy and society in general. Migration of population away from Rajarata following the fall of Polonnaruwa had taken away the expertise and labour needed to maintain the irrigation system, leading to its disintegration causing in turn, a decline of agriculture and reduction in the revenue base of the kings and the temples. The absence of strong political authority also affected the Sangha, leading to indiscipline and schisms. Hinduism began to exert a marked influence on Buddhist practices with Hindu-style rituals and the worship of numerous Vedic deities becoming widespread. Other Hindu institutions such as the caste system began to take root in Sri Lankan society. This combination of factors weakened the foundations of the once glorious island civilisation: the water storage and transportation network that underpinned rice farming and the social structure centred around the ‘wewa, dagoba and pansala’ paradigm.
In the early 16th century, at the time of Portuguese landing, Kotte under (Vira) Parakrama Bahu VIII (1484-1509) was a weak administration having no control over Kandy (ruled by Senasammata Vikramabahu, 1469-1511) and Jaffna (ruled by Pararajasekaran, 1478-1519). The politically and administratively weakened Sri Lanka was highly vulnerable to the Portuguese designs (which had been previously tested and proven effective in Africa and Latin America).
Portuguese in Sri Lanka
Despite over a century of trying, the Portuguese never managed to fully conquer Sri Lanka. Except for the nominal control of Kotte (1524-1597) through ineffective puppet kings, their sphere of control was largely confined to the coastal regions. A number of attempted incursions in to the hinterland ended unsuccessfully, costing them large numbers of men and immense suffering to the surviving troops. It is a remarkable fact of history that the Sri Lankan nation withstood the Portuguese invasion and ultimately repelled them, despite their control of the high seas, possession of more destructive weaponry, reinforced forts, and crucially, the treachery of some local converts to their religion and culture. The few successes of the Portuguese resulted from lapses of judgement of Sri Lankan kings due to greed, paranoia and naivety rather than clever planning on their part.
The analysis of key domestic events and interactions between the Sinhala rulers and the Portuguese during their period in Sri Lanka reveals that the relationship was governed by mutual mistrust, supplemented by intense revulsion on the part of the kings and criminal intent on the part of the Portuguese. However, the Sri Lankan kings were prepared to set aside the reserves of mistrust and revulsion when confronted with internal threats: they never hesitated to approach the Portuguese for military help to fight internal wars.
The kings of Kotte and Kandy, at different times, sought Portuguese help against Mayadunne of Sitawaka. Mayadunne himself, despite his strident determination to expel the Portuguese, surprisingly, coalesced with them against the kingdom of Kandy. The Portuguese objective at all times was to exploit divisions within the local ruling clans, firstly by subjecting any military assistance to religious conversion of kings (isolating them from the Buddhist power base) and secondly by eliminating the more capable rulers who were an obvious threat to them.
Despite their need for Portuguese military assistance, the kings were cautious about religious conversion: king Bhuvenekabahu who depended desperately on the Portuguese was reluctant to convert. His son-in-law Vidiya Bandara (regent until infant heir Dharmapala was ready to be enthroned) was fiercely Buddhist and was only forcefully baptised while in their custody. King Jayaweera Bandara of Kandy appears to have converted for ‘tactical’ reasons, never practicing the alien religion.
A supreme example of such ‘tactical’ conversions was that of Konappu Bandara: Having an ‘axe to grind’ with Rajasinghe of Sitawaka for killing his father, Konappu joined the Portuguese and was sent to Goa by them and converted to Catholicism. Having won their confidence, Konappu overthrew the 12 year old ‘puppet’ king, proclaimed himself king as Vimaladharmasuriya (1593–1604) and began championing Buddhism. One of the most fascinating episodes (and debilitating to the Portuguese), of the entire era is King Vimaladharmasuriya’s scuttling of Portuguese plans to place Dona Catrina on the throne at Kandy. He inflicted one of the heaviest defeats on them at the battle of Danture on 9 October 1594. To add insult to injury, he took Dona Catrina as his queen securing a legitimate link to the throne.
The events leading to and following the Portuguese sponsored ascent of Dharmapala marked the end of the Kotte kingdom. Dharmapala had been baptised under the name of the reigning Portuguese monarch, John III. Upon his becoming king in 1551, the Franciscans coerced him to acquire and transfer to them the temples, lands and other assets and revenues the former kings had donated to the Buddhist clergy. The Franciscans destroyed Buddhist monuments and converted some of the temples to churches. Between 1561-65 young prince Rajasinghe of Sitawaka inflicted significant losses on the Portuguese, with the battle of Mulleriyawa (1561) being the most devastating. By 1565, Mayadunne, aided by his son Rajasinghe, riding the wave of popular uprising against the desecration of temples and took Kotte, forced the Portuguese and Dharmapala to retreat to the fort of Colombo where they were under siege until about 1580.
The Portuguese launched two unsuccessful attempts, in 1560 and in 1591, to take the Jaffna kingdom. Jaffna repelled these attacks, sometimes with help from Kandy. Jaffna finally fell in 1619 and the incumbent ruler Sankli Kumaran and his family were taken to Goa and was hanged in 1621. Filipe D’Olivera, the commander of the Portuguese army proclaimed himself the governor and started one of the most despicable episodes of desecration destruction and vandalism of religious monuments in recorded human history: Nallur Kandasamy Kovil was razed down and the stones were used to build a Christian church at Nallur and the Jaffna fort; Saraswathy Mahal, the oldest Tamil museum and library that housed valuable historical documents was burnt down.
These events (and their consequences) need to be fully documented for the benefits of future generations of Sri Lankans, serving as a Case Study of the destructive effects of colonialism, and perhaps more importantly, how disunity and greed for power can lead to disastrous results for a nation.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Portuguese encounter:Getting to know and coming to terms with the past
The interest aroused by the island’s Portuguese encounter was demonstrated by the spate of articles in the print media and programmes on the visual media that appeared recently on what was popularly imagined to be the 500th anniversary of their first arrival. The definitive event however to mark the anniversary, 499th really, was the International Conference organized by the Portuguese Encounter Group and held on December 10 and 11.
The brain-child of Dr. Susantha Goonetilake, this was a group of like-minded researchers who had come together for the express purpose of exploring all aspects of the Portuguese presence and to present their findings as an unbiased and objective study from an entirely non-colonial perspective of the whole of the island’s Portuguese experience.
Setting the tone and the whole rationale of the Conference one of the chief speakers at the inauguration emphasised that if the past was being raked up it was not as an exercise in religious fanaticism or pseudo-nationalism. But that did not mean either, he was careful to explain to a burst of spontaneous applause, that they were going to run away from the past. What they aimed at doing, he said, was to know the past and expose the past, expose it unemotionally and dispassionately so that by knowing the past we come to terms with it.
The plenary session of the conference was held at the BMICH on December 10. The cyclonic weather conditions that prevailed that morning delayed the arrival of two of the many international participants and even the inauguration itself, but despite the pouring rains the hall was overflowing when the proceedings commenced.
The opening session was devoted to presentations on the global overview of Portuguese colonialism. Making the opening address, Dr. Susantha Goonatilake spoke on “The Shadow of 500 Years” and was followed by D. G. B. de Silva who spoke on “Portugal Prepares for Expansion” and Gaston Perera on “The Ideology of Violence”.
The presentations in the afternoon and evening sessions dealt with the destruction caused to religious sites by the Portuguese.
The technical sessions were held the following day, the 11th, at the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science. The wide spectrum of papers presented that day was the clearest indication that the work of the Group was in no way slanted or biased but also of the width of the range of interests of the Group. Certainly religious and historical issues were dealt with but presentations were not confined only to those issues. Some dealt with the naval and military aspects of the Portuguese occupation and included presentations on military strategy and weapons. Others dealt with the Portuguese influence on the island’s music, architecture, languages, coins and the transfer of plants. The technical sessions concluded with presentations on issues related to Apology and Compensation.
It is intended to publish a consolidated edition of all the papers on which presentations at the technical sessions were based. These would be available shortly and those interested are invited to telephone Gaston Perera on 2585302.
(The Sunday Times 2006/01/01)
DIFFERENT ENCOUNTER
500 years after the arrival of the Portuguese, a group of Sri Lankans has come together to make right what went wrong during those years of colonial occupation. Chandani Kirinde reports
It is the high point in more than two and half years of tedious and painstaking work for a group of local historians, archaeologists and intellectuals, the end result of which is an international conference on the Portuguese Encounter in Sri Lanka. The conference, to be held on December 10 and 11 will seek to create awareness on this much neglected period of history and make a case for an apology and compensation from the Portuguese for atrocities committed during their nearly 160-year stay in the island.
The 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka fell on November 15, but the day went by almost unnoticed with people too wrapped up in the political changes taking place in the country with a presidential election just two days away. Thus the historical significance of the week was swamped by the present-day political turmoil.
But for a small group of people who have made it their mission to make this particular time in Sri Lanka’s history not become a forgotten cause, the conference, to be held in Colombo next weekend will be only the beginning of a continuous process, which they hope will become an eye-opener to the relevant authorities both in Sri Lanka and Portugal for the need for an admission of, and an apology for the atrocities committed during the period of Portuguese rule in Ceylon.
The idea to put together the Portuguese Encounter Group was the brainchild of Dr. Susantha Goonatilake, who was spurred into initiating such a group after the former United National Front (UNF) government announced in 2002 that it hoped to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese.
“I have been studying colonial history for over 30 years but it was this announcement that made me take a special interest in the subject. How can we celebrate our own destruction? This is the slavish mentality of some of our leaders going on bended knees to the occupiers,” Dr. Goonatillake said.
And it is this same “slavish mentality” that he hopes the conference will help to banish as almost all other countries that were under foreign occupation have managed to do. “India, Malaysia and even the Philippines have moved ahead of us in this aspect. The fault (in Sri Lanka) lies with the supine products of this period. That is why we have never had a real ruling class in this country unlike in India,” he explained.
The Group has, over the past two years, been conducting extensive research and study into the Portuguese period in Ceylon. They have visited and documented over 50 sites destroyed by the Portuguese from Jaffna to Devundara, from Kotte to Kelaniya and Batticaloa.
“We have studied the historical documentation of these religious places of worship - Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim - that existed in the maritime provinces before the arrival of the Portuguese and compared them during and after the Portuguese left the country by gathering information from all available sources,” Dr. Goonatilake said. The unfortunate truth is that in their overzealous eagerness to convert people to Catholicism, these sites were razed to the ground and churches put up in place of many of them, he says.
Around 50 presentations will be made during the technical sessions of the conference covering various aspects of life in Ceylon before the Portuguese arrived and how things changed during their occupation. ”We want to try and answer several questions like what kind of society existed in Ceylon before 1505, how advanced they were in various fields such as warfare, how people interacted, their marriage customs and how these were influence by the arrival of the Portuguese,” Dr. Goonatilake said.
Another interesting presentation of the conference will be on the “Portuguese jewellery”, much of which now adorns museums across Europe in cities ranging from Lisbon to Vienna to Munich and London. Some of these items were gifted to the Portuguese by the Ceylonese Royalty of that time and others sold to them. It was a time when Ceylon jewellery became a fashion in Europe.
Writings by Portuguese authors clearly illustrate large amounts of valuable gems and jewellery that were taken to Portugal for the pleasure of Queen Catherine of Portugal. In 1551, in a letter to the Queen of Portugal, the Viceroy of Goa- who represented the King of Portugal – wrote, “The Viceroy sends to Your Highness ninety one points of gold and gems, which Doigo Vaz brought from Ceylon and likewise thousand more small rubies and five hundred emeralds and a piece of not having more of those, which your Highness ordered him to send for, and nine marked three ounces of amber and a collar and a bracelet of gold and stones, which the King of Ceylon has sent as a present.”
These were in turn gifted by the Portuguese royalty to other royal families in Europe and now occupy pride of place in museums across these European capitals. Given the controversial as well as sensitive nature of this subject, there are various opinions on how Sri Lanka can find “resolution” for the colonial hangover.
Senaka Weerarathna, another member of the Encounter Group will be presenting three papers at the conference including one on the Portuguese reign of terror against Buddhism, Don Juan Dharmapala – the donation of a kingdom and its legal validity and a claim for compensation from Portugal.
One of Mr. Weerarathna’s papers will examine the precedents set by Dharmapala in transferring his kingdom to a foreign sovereign and its implications in influencing the conduct of the ruling polity of post-independence Sri Lanka.
He will also discuss if Sri Lanka has a tenable claim for compensation based on the principle of international law and contemporary precedence such as the judgements of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.
“The compensation does not have to be in terms of money but by way of scholarships or assistance to rebuild what has been destroyed by them and other similar ways,” said Mr.Weerathana, a lawyer by profession. He also proposes sending a Theravada Buddhist delegation to open a Buddhist Centre there.
(The Sunday Times 2005/12/04 )
Blaming the Past in Sri Lanka - The Portugese Colonization by By Raveen Satkurunathan
Blaming the past for all of Sri Lanka's current ills has become fashionable. The convenient arch villain has been identified as the Portuguese by some Sri Lankan pundits. The recently held "International conference on the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese Encounter at the prestigious BMICH in Colombo" is an attempt in that direction.
If we can blame the Portuguese for today's societal ills, then can the Veddas, the Sri Lankan aboriginals blame the Gujaratis for their current plight? Because as Sri Lankan children have been taught from their kindergarten, it is Gujarat that gave birth to the Sinha[la] bahu clan that was directly instrumental in the cultural and physical annihilation and genocide of the aborigines.
Infact I made the commentary to show how absurd it is to blame the Portuguese for today's ethnic and social problems. But many of the pundits in the conference have conveniently forgotten to mention some of the positive aspects of Portuguese colonization. These positives were accrued mostly by the majority Sinhala Buddhists who are decrying the effects of Portuguese colonization today, which happened more than 400 years ago.
We can say very confidently that it is because of the Portuguese colonization that the Sinhalese find them as an overwhelming majority in Sri Lanka today. As Sri Lanka's written historical anal, Mahavamsa mentions, ethnic Tamils have always found themselves in Sri Lanka in a political culture that promoted Buddhism from the beginning of written history. As a consequence ethnic Tamils have assimilated into Sinhala Buddhist identity since then. It is no different than the invading Normans and Danes as well as indigenous Celts becoming English over a period time in England. Whether Tamils were in Sri lanka prior to this Gujarati colonization or not is immaterial, because the Sinha[la] Bahu clan eventually imposed its cultural traits on everyone.
But this state of affairs did not last a long time. Long before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Tamils had been able to organize themselves as a separate political entity under the auspicious of the Jaffna kingdom. This kingdom was not restricted to the northern Jaffna peninsula alone as biased contemporary Sri Lankan history maps would indicate. It had suzerainty over the pearl rich western Puttalam area and further south as recorded by a traveling Chinese historian Fa Hien of those days. This kingdom provided the political space for Tamils to survive as a separate ethnic group, without the need to be assimilated as Sinhala Buddhist, as they had done in the post Gujarati colonization period.
Further the littoral regions of southern Sri Lanka was inhabited by simple folks of South Indian origin whose main livelihood was fishing, pearling, toddy tapping, cinnamon peeling and being the cannon fodder of local petty kings and chiefs in their constant fights.
These were by and large Tamil or Malayalee speaking Hindus as can be attested by the "Ge" or house names of their descendants today in South Sri Lanka. Their primary function of fishing and toddy taping had prevented them namely the Karave, Salagama & Durave castes from being absorbed into Buddhism as fishing and toddy tapping was an abhorrent profession to the Buddhists.
Although some amongst them due to their military service had ingratiated their lineages with the dominant Sinhala Buddhists through land grants. It is this group that has turned to be the true villains of Sri Lankan history not the Portuguese.
Although most of the descendants of these groups today deny their obvious South Indian origins, true historians know the truth. If left alone most of these coastal people would have coalesced into the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. If that had happened, Tamils might not have been the minority at all. But that is not what happened. The most important contribution that the Portuguese did to the Sinhalese was the elimination of an important social distance indicator between coastal Tamils and Sinhalese in converting both to the Catholic faith. It enabled the age old assimilation of Tamils into Sinhalese to happen again which had come to a halt due to political and religious reasons.
As a caveat during the Buddhist revivalist period instigated by Anagarika Dharnapala who was born into a Catholic Salagama family, many of these coastal Catholics both Tamils, Sinhalese and Sinhalised Tamils converted enmass to Buddhism and even created their own Buddhist organizations because the traditional upper Govi caste oriented prelates refused entry of these newly converted Buddhists of dubious caste origins into their organizations.
Even today Sri Lankan Buddhist prelates are organized by caste such as Govi, Karavae and Salagama because of this very reason. If there is to be a looser due to Portuguese colonization in Sri Lanka, then it is the Tamils more than the Sinhalese. Tamils lost their independent Jaffna kingdom and lost considerably a very large percentage of its ethnic brethren to Catholicism, who have become Sinhalese Buddhist and Sinhalese Catholics all the way from western Puttalam region to southern Matara and beyond. It is only in the Northeastern provinces that Catholics have maintained their Tamil identity.
Today just one village in the Western coast hangs on to its Tamil identity. It is Uddappu. It is one of out of a thousand villages and towns that spoke Tamil and dotted the coastal region once upon a time. All other surrounding Catholic, or Buddhist villages are self considered to be Sinhalese even if they spoke Tamil at home just a generation ago. Further down in the South, Tamil has been replaced as a mother tongue many generations ago. Although as presented in the conference, Portuguese did destroy a lot Hindu and Buddhist places of worship, today’s new Buddhists have taken over many Hindu temples as Buddhist Vihares as can be seen by the statutes of Hindu deity Ayyanar on horseback in these Vihares complexes close to Negombo.
These new Buddhists like, all newly converted around the world overwhelmingly supported and still support the suppression of Tamil language and civil rights since the populist prime minister Solomon West Ridgeway Diaz Banadaranaike came to power in 1956. He himself came from an uppity coastal caste of formerly Hindu then Catholic and later Protestant background. He converted to Buddhism as a way to gain power, only to be shot dead by a Buddhist monk. In a nut shell his family's ascent to power as Sinhala elites from its lowly roots shows the hybridization that is the norm amongst the ruling class. Since him, his clan had provided two more leaders for the country who have managed to push it beyond the abyss.
Sri Lanka has not being able to overcome its colonial history, not because of the effects of colonialism, but because of the lack of vision of its post colonial political class. This cabal owes its current success to its ability to ingratiate it with whoever and what ever was perceived to be dominant. They had appropriated what ever was necessary to succeed. During pre-colonial times, it was for land grants from petty Sinhalese chiefs and titles for offering their kinsman as the cannon fodder for war. During the Portuguese times, it was Catholicism and Portuguese names. During the British time, most had converted to Protestantism and picked up Anglo names. Today they are Buddhists of the first class. Their continued usage of racist supremacy as a political card displays the inner insecurity of the ethnically hybridized ruling class but also primarily their crass opportunistic behavior.
The entire top rung of the pseudo Marxist but ideologically racist JVP (the third larges political party) politburo hails from these littoral whose family origin lie in the murky waters of f the Palk Straits. But today they are upkeepers of the virulently superior Sinhala Buddhists interests. This also applies to the current President and his coterie of Southern advisors and military leaders with Iberian patrilineal last names shown or hidden.
It is this ruling class catering to a narrow, parochial and racialist world view that has brought the country to its current abyss, not the Portuguese colonialism as the conference presenters would have us to believe. The people who pay the price for such opportunistic politics are the common family man, the fisherfolk and the farmer who had from time immemorial wanted to live in peace and loved their neighbors true to their religious teachings, but not the least similar to the corrupt Pajero driving, Swiss bank account holding ruling elites.
If Sri Lanka is to emerge from its current abyss, then its highly educated people need to look at who is leading whom in what direction. Is the tired old virulent Sinhala Buddhist rhetoric used originally by the Diaz Bandaranaike clan and now being offered anew by the Mahinda Rajapakses, JHU & JVP the right message for them?
For whom does this virulent and racist messages benefits? It only benefits the ruling class and their coteries who like the chameleon continues to change its colors to hold on to petty perks at the cost of millions of common people.
They have exploited the country for their selfish interests and its future growth and economic prosperity of the country that would have easily emerged similar to that of Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Just like their ancestors had sacrificed their kinsman for few acres and useless titles today's cabal of Hennanayakes, Bandaranaikas, Rajapakses & De Silvas are burying the birth right of all Sri Lankans.
(http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=16681)
If we can blame the Portuguese for today's societal ills, then can the Veddas, the Sri Lankan aboriginals blame the Gujaratis for their current plight? Because as Sri Lankan children have been taught from their kindergarten, it is Gujarat that gave birth to the Sinha[la] bahu clan that was directly instrumental in the cultural and physical annihilation and genocide of the aborigines.
Infact I made the commentary to show how absurd it is to blame the Portuguese for today's ethnic and social problems. But many of the pundits in the conference have conveniently forgotten to mention some of the positive aspects of Portuguese colonization. These positives were accrued mostly by the majority Sinhala Buddhists who are decrying the effects of Portuguese colonization today, which happened more than 400 years ago.
We can say very confidently that it is because of the Portuguese colonization that the Sinhalese find them as an overwhelming majority in Sri Lanka today. As Sri Lanka's written historical anal, Mahavamsa mentions, ethnic Tamils have always found themselves in Sri Lanka in a political culture that promoted Buddhism from the beginning of written history. As a consequence ethnic Tamils have assimilated into Sinhala Buddhist identity since then. It is no different than the invading Normans and Danes as well as indigenous Celts becoming English over a period time in England. Whether Tamils were in Sri lanka prior to this Gujarati colonization or not is immaterial, because the Sinha[la] Bahu clan eventually imposed its cultural traits on everyone.
But this state of affairs did not last a long time. Long before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Tamils had been able to organize themselves as a separate political entity under the auspicious of the Jaffna kingdom. This kingdom was not restricted to the northern Jaffna peninsula alone as biased contemporary Sri Lankan history maps would indicate. It had suzerainty over the pearl rich western Puttalam area and further south as recorded by a traveling Chinese historian Fa Hien of those days. This kingdom provided the political space for Tamils to survive as a separate ethnic group, without the need to be assimilated as Sinhala Buddhist, as they had done in the post Gujarati colonization period.
Further the littoral regions of southern Sri Lanka was inhabited by simple folks of South Indian origin whose main livelihood was fishing, pearling, toddy tapping, cinnamon peeling and being the cannon fodder of local petty kings and chiefs in their constant fights.
These were by and large Tamil or Malayalee speaking Hindus as can be attested by the "Ge" or house names of their descendants today in South Sri Lanka. Their primary function of fishing and toddy taping had prevented them namely the Karave, Salagama & Durave castes from being absorbed into Buddhism as fishing and toddy tapping was an abhorrent profession to the Buddhists.
Although some amongst them due to their military service had ingratiated their lineages with the dominant Sinhala Buddhists through land grants. It is this group that has turned to be the true villains of Sri Lankan history not the Portuguese.
Although most of the descendants of these groups today deny their obvious South Indian origins, true historians know the truth. If left alone most of these coastal people would have coalesced into the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. If that had happened, Tamils might not have been the minority at all. But that is not what happened. The most important contribution that the Portuguese did to the Sinhalese was the elimination of an important social distance indicator between coastal Tamils and Sinhalese in converting both to the Catholic faith. It enabled the age old assimilation of Tamils into Sinhalese to happen again which had come to a halt due to political and religious reasons.
As a caveat during the Buddhist revivalist period instigated by Anagarika Dharnapala who was born into a Catholic Salagama family, many of these coastal Catholics both Tamils, Sinhalese and Sinhalised Tamils converted enmass to Buddhism and even created their own Buddhist organizations because the traditional upper Govi caste oriented prelates refused entry of these newly converted Buddhists of dubious caste origins into their organizations.
Even today Sri Lankan Buddhist prelates are organized by caste such as Govi, Karavae and Salagama because of this very reason. If there is to be a looser due to Portuguese colonization in Sri Lanka, then it is the Tamils more than the Sinhalese. Tamils lost their independent Jaffna kingdom and lost considerably a very large percentage of its ethnic brethren to Catholicism, who have become Sinhalese Buddhist and Sinhalese Catholics all the way from western Puttalam region to southern Matara and beyond. It is only in the Northeastern provinces that Catholics have maintained their Tamil identity.
Today just one village in the Western coast hangs on to its Tamil identity. It is Uddappu. It is one of out of a thousand villages and towns that spoke Tamil and dotted the coastal region once upon a time. All other surrounding Catholic, or Buddhist villages are self considered to be Sinhalese even if they spoke Tamil at home just a generation ago. Further down in the South, Tamil has been replaced as a mother tongue many generations ago. Although as presented in the conference, Portuguese did destroy a lot Hindu and Buddhist places of worship, today’s new Buddhists have taken over many Hindu temples as Buddhist Vihares as can be seen by the statutes of Hindu deity Ayyanar on horseback in these Vihares complexes close to Negombo.
These new Buddhists like, all newly converted around the world overwhelmingly supported and still support the suppression of Tamil language and civil rights since the populist prime minister Solomon West Ridgeway Diaz Banadaranaike came to power in 1956. He himself came from an uppity coastal caste of formerly Hindu then Catholic and later Protestant background. He converted to Buddhism as a way to gain power, only to be shot dead by a Buddhist monk. In a nut shell his family's ascent to power as Sinhala elites from its lowly roots shows the hybridization that is the norm amongst the ruling class. Since him, his clan had provided two more leaders for the country who have managed to push it beyond the abyss.
Sri Lanka has not being able to overcome its colonial history, not because of the effects of colonialism, but because of the lack of vision of its post colonial political class. This cabal owes its current success to its ability to ingratiate it with whoever and what ever was perceived to be dominant. They had appropriated what ever was necessary to succeed. During pre-colonial times, it was for land grants from petty Sinhalese chiefs and titles for offering their kinsman as the cannon fodder for war. During the Portuguese times, it was Catholicism and Portuguese names. During the British time, most had converted to Protestantism and picked up Anglo names. Today they are Buddhists of the first class. Their continued usage of racist supremacy as a political card displays the inner insecurity of the ethnically hybridized ruling class but also primarily their crass opportunistic behavior.
The entire top rung of the pseudo Marxist but ideologically racist JVP (the third larges political party) politburo hails from these littoral whose family origin lie in the murky waters of f the Palk Straits. But today they are upkeepers of the virulently superior Sinhala Buddhists interests. This also applies to the current President and his coterie of Southern advisors and military leaders with Iberian patrilineal last names shown or hidden.
It is this ruling class catering to a narrow, parochial and racialist world view that has brought the country to its current abyss, not the Portuguese colonialism as the conference presenters would have us to believe. The people who pay the price for such opportunistic politics are the common family man, the fisherfolk and the farmer who had from time immemorial wanted to live in peace and loved their neighbors true to their religious teachings, but not the least similar to the corrupt Pajero driving, Swiss bank account holding ruling elites.
If Sri Lanka is to emerge from its current abyss, then its highly educated people need to look at who is leading whom in what direction. Is the tired old virulent Sinhala Buddhist rhetoric used originally by the Diaz Bandaranaike clan and now being offered anew by the Mahinda Rajapakses, JHU & JVP the right message for them?
For whom does this virulent and racist messages benefits? It only benefits the ruling class and their coteries who like the chameleon continues to change its colors to hold on to petty perks at the cost of millions of common people.
They have exploited the country for their selfish interests and its future growth and economic prosperity of the country that would have easily emerged similar to that of Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Just like their ancestors had sacrificed their kinsman for few acres and useless titles today's cabal of Hennanayakes, Bandaranaikas, Rajapakses & De Silvas are burying the birth right of all Sri Lankans.
(http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=16681)
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