Living with forged sense of uniqueness

Dr. Sarath Gamini de Silva’s article “Early education towards racial harmony” appearing in The Island of 3rd February (Midweek Review) contains commendable ideas towards eschewing socially acquired and divisive identities of race and religion. It begins describing how a baby, who is born with no ‘identities’ attached to her, gradually gets ‘labelled’ by family members, according to the ‘identification process’ of their culture. Thus, as the child grows, up, she gradually begins to define herself on the basis of the ‘stickers’ stamped on her.

Many have worked towards promoting ethnic harmony but few have attempted to look at the issue in more fundamental ways. Decades ago, Dr. E.W. Adikram, a free thinker and promoter of nonviolence, rejected ‘ethnicity’ offhand as a social construct.

In his article, “Isn’t the Nationalist a Mental Patient?” Adikaram argues how a child acquires a sense of racial identity through an unshakable process of conditioning. He says:

As that child, who is common to the entire human race grows up, he will be given a name and will be deemed to belong to a particular race or nationality. That child who… cannot discern fact from non-fact … accepts unthinkingly and unknowingly the nationality that has been thrust upon him. Having accepted it, he gradually comes to believe that he belongs to that particular nationality.

What he underlines is the subjection of a child to a tagging process whereby she is given a sense of belonging in a community of people who have been subjected to the same process as children. This is a multifaceted conditioning programme in which the child’s first language becomes the principal apparatus through which she constructs her identity, the ‘building blocks’ of which are as varied as family environment, customs, habits, beliefs, education, value systems and many other social and cultural factors, including religion. However, since all these formative experiences are laced through her first language, it becomes the principal marker of her identity. Thus a child born to Sinhala-speaking parents and subsequently adopted by Tamil-speaking ‘parents’ would identify herself as a Tamil, her first language being Tamil. Thus her intuitive identity or, ‘gut-feeling’ identity of herself, would be Tamil. Accordingly, as a grown-up, she may vigorously fight for Tamil rights!

Now, how can society label her? Is she Tamil or Sinhalese? Does she have a ‘real’ ethnic identity and if so what is it? If she ever gets to know that her biological parents were Sinhala speaking, what factors would influence her to decide whether she should:

• continue to fight for Tamil rights
• stop fighting but remain with her Tamil speaking parents
• go back to her biological parents (Sinhala speaking)
• go back to her biological parents and join a group fighting for Sinhala rights
• begin to work towards ethnic harmony while living with either of the two families

The above are some of the likely options. In fact, we can only speculate but her final decision would be made through a complex process involving a subconscious process of sifting diverse factors such as her emotions, age, her level of intelligence, education, pressure from peers, the strength of her family bonds, etc. One thing we can be sure of is that the unexpected ‘discovery’ would enable her to become much more contemplative and complex with respect to her hitherto fixed notions of ‘ethnic identity.’ No matter whatever decision she may take, the ‘finding’ would jolt her to question her entrenched perceptions of ethnicity at a deeply personal level. Her situation will demonstrate the wobbly nature of what we take to be our ethnic identity. Who can give a conclusive answer to what she should do – which family should she live with?

Those who would advise her to join the Sinhala-speaking family may argue that she has ‘Sinhala blood’ and consequently, she is Sinhala. In opposition, those who would recommend the other option would contend that she is Tamil in every imaginable way – to herself and to the whole world, except for the “four parents” who were privy to the secret. Of course a DNA test would establish her link with her biological parents. However, shorn of the social context, wouldn’t the biological proof be the least important for her to make up her mind regarding who she should live with after the unsettling event? Undeniably, her future relations with either family would significantly depend on her shifting emotional undercurrents combined with multiple sociocultural and even economic factors relevant in the context- surely, not the DNA factor taken in isolation.

It is true that various well-intentioned groups try to promote peace in multicultural societies. While it would be worthwhile to push for campaigns directed towards ‘ethnic harmony,’ we may take a moment to ask ourselves whether our ‘ethnic identity’ is something intrinsic in a physical sense. Is it situated in any part of our body, or, alternatively, is it the inevitable result of our being socially programmed? Would the child in the above example have ever felt at any point in her life that she wouldn’t belong to the family in which she grew up? By the way, how many of us have asked ourselves whether the two people who we have known in all our life as mother and father are our biological parents? How far would the establishment of this biological link through a DNA test change your relations with them, one way or the other? Consider this hypothetical situation. If two babies born around the same time were swapped without the knowledge of their mothers speaking two different languages, would the babies subsequently develop an instinctive dislike for their ‘parents,’ which could be traced to their genetic discrepancy?

Is it worth living this elusive ‘reality’ at the price of recurrent conflicts sometimes leading to mutual destruction, while trying to move heaven and earth in an attempt to ‘solve’ what are smugly labelled as ‘ethnic conflicts?’ May it not be possible for us to see that this fluid notion of ‘ethnicity,’ has constantly proved to be a needless blinker and not something that would foster our collective happiness? Isn’t the genetic factor the weakest ‘rationale’ in the entire game of perpetuating the notion of ‘ethnic difference?’ Isn’t it time we brought the concept of ‘ethnicity’ under the pressure of rational discussion, if we really wish to rid the world of at least one of its societal blights.

Diversity may be beautiful, but not all are lucky enough to appreciate it. Just think of animals. Hare and deer, being at the bottom of the food pyramid, would not obviously have the peace of mind to enjoy the diversity of nature to the degree a lion or a tiger would. When it comes to cultural diversity, you may enjoy it cosily seated in an air-conditioned theatre watching culture appearing in its more urbane forms like music and dancing- but not when it bares its fangs insidiously moulded by indoctrination. Culture may not always have a smiley face, but many of us would be shy of admitting it.

The following assertion made by the American anthropologist, Donald Symons, throws light on how ‘culture’ may give an aura of legitimacy to blatant acts of cruelty:

If only one person in the world held down a terrified, struggling, screaming little girl, cut off her genitals with a septic blade….the only question would be how severely that person should be punished… but where millions of people do this, instead of the enormity being magnified millions-fold, suddenly it becomes ‘culture’ and magically becomes less, rather than more, horrible…

The labelling process, which may pass as a completely normal and innocuous practice within the framework of culture, may entail equally appalling consequences.

Susantha Hewa