The International Community and their agenda on Sri Lanka - Part VI:

Nationalism and Western values

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This is the Part VI of the serialized excerpts from a forthcoming publication titled ‘Sri Lanka - the War fuelled by International Peace’ by Palitha Senanayake. These extracts from Chapter 16 of the book are published with the kind permission of the author. Part V was published on July 7.

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The West surreptitiously try to manipulate the thinking of small nations even through international awards made for various occasions from time to time.

The Noble prize for peace was never awarded to Mahatma Gandhi who introduced the Buddhist concept of Ahimsa (non violence) to the modern world, because Gandhi used non-violence as a positive force against the imperialistic violence of the British.

Noble prize for peace

On the other hand Menacham Begin, the belligerent Israeli leader who killed thousands of Palestinians, grabbing their homesteads was awarded the Noble prize for peace. Even Chandrika Kumaranatunge was very nearly awarded the Noble prize for peace and it was believed that all her ‘peace activity’ in Sri Lanka were aimed at pleasing the West because she had her covetous eye set on the Noble prize for peace.

The booker price is another prestigious price the West award for English writers. Those who have won this price, mainly from third world countries include journalist who denigrate nationalist values and indigenous religious sentiments in those countries. Salman Rushdie has won this award twice and he was an unknown writer who shot to fame after he wrote ‘Satanic verses’ criticizing Islam. Arundathie Roy, the Indian writer is another winner of this award. Her book ‘God of small things’ is nothing but a deprecating view of the conservative Hindu culture from a Catholic perspective.

After having adopted an attitude of ‘anathema towards nationalism’ in third world countries, the West then criticize these same countries for lack of good governance, lack of transparency, corruption etc..

The simple logic that escapes Western thinking here is, that ‘unless a man is building his own house, you cannot expect him to labour so dedicatedly, honestly and altruistically’, and that is equally true of nations.

An analytical examination of the success stories of some nations during the past 60 years, such as China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea will reveal that those nations either had strong national leaders or had strong sense of nationalism that bounded them together to rise up helping one another. Nationalism is the primary responsibility of a citizen in a country towards his society and that should well be the beginning of his public consciousness.

Collective development

Without a sense of nationalism there will be no collective development and without collective development the country and the individual would not develop. The enlargement of world boundaries will make the citizen of a particular country think in world terms and thus his responsibility towards global citizenship. Hence to advocate and inculcate anti nationalism would be to create a set of people who are negatively self-centered unable develop himself or his society.

In fact these tendencies are beginning to manifest in countries like Sri Lanka where the majority of the people think that main thing is to get their personal needs attended to whatever happens to the country, i.e. to get their children educated in foreign countries, to have their business independent of national thrift, to seek employment abroad, etc.

In such a scenario how do we expect the leaders of the nation, who have been subjected more to the Western servility, to stand up and be uncorrupted, transparent and conduct themselves according to the rules of good governance? Hence we see that the West while discouraging nationalism in new nations on the one hand criticizes them for corruption, which is, but a result of lack of nationalism. Thus the new nations have been put in a vicious ‘perception cycle’ from which it is difficult for them to extricated themselves to build their nations.

Basic human rights

Further the West brings along with their standards their cultural, commercial and political values too, and consciously or unconsciously attempts to impose those on the developing countries.

For instance, the West identifies cultural conservatism with prudishness and believes liberalism will take care of itself in socio-cultural development. Their culture, like their commerce is laisser-faire. But the Easterners believe that there has to be a degree of control especially where the young are concerned when moulding their characters and values. Hence this is a conflict in value and not a conflict in bestowing the rights. For instance, in Sri Lanka just as much as the parents have a duty by the children, the children too have a duty by their parents.

In the West, a minor could sue the parents but in Sri Lanka such a prospect is unimaginable and would be considered an extreme situation where human values have been thrown out of balance. But the West believes that countries like Sri Lanka are either violating human rights or are ‘backward’ in their thinking when they do not pass laws that facilitates the son to sue the father.

The West believes that the consumer is king and one of their development indexes is the level of consumption by the public. In the East people do not consider commercial values to dictate their day-to-day life styles to such an extent and specially in Buddhism unbridled consumption is a sin and a sign of decay rather than of development. Buddhism advocates moderation in everything and for that matter even in development.

The producer may have responsibility towards the consumer but he is by no means the king. The concept of the consumer being the king may even go against Christianity because if the consumer is the king where could be the kingdom of God? This betrays the reality in Western values because although they preach about an almighty and compassionate God their fate is ultimately decided by the consumer and that is why they venerate the consumer in practice while contributing to a concept of a God in theory only.

Therefore today, in the West, you have the Kingdom of the consumer and hence there is no room for God.

The West believes that the South Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have dynastic politics and therefore there is no true democracy. The issue here is that the concept of ‘King’ is different in the East from the West.

In the East the king is the symbol of fair play, development and the very sustenance of the country while in the West the King resembles autocratic rule. Christianity is a one way command structured religion where everything depends on the wish of the God. God is the sole source of all worldly powers and when the King swears to rule by the laws of his religion, he himself has to be a dictator.

An analysis of the European history will reveal that it was King Henry the V111 of England who revolted against the Church and laid the foundations of freedom. European historian Simon Heffer writing to public papers on April 24, 2009 issue maintains that, “When the convocation of the Canterbury of the Church of England agreed in march 1531 to accede to Henry’s demand about Church governance that included the clergy’s recognition of him as Head of the English Church, it also triggered a process of such profound economic and political change that even today there is still a dispute about the extent of the consequences. Without the reformation we would not have had the expansion of England, we would not have had the middle class educated and powerful enough to initiate the industrial revolution, we would not have had the empire we did, and would not have had the land and see power that kept us free from invasion and foreign influence: not to mention the theological consequences”. Hence we see that lesser the degree of Kingship in Europe, the more the countries like England developed.

On the other hand the Eastern religions and specially Buddhism has been one of the most democratic religions where faith takes a back seat to conviction.

The Buddha always encouraged his followers to question and follow his doctrine through enlightenment. Kings in countries like Sri Lanka were expected to follow Dasa Raja Dharma which is inclusiveness and 100 percent democracy.

The King by virtue of his position is the repository of the peoples trust and he is expected to be the trustee and not the owner of the land. Even though the King is not elected he is responsible to the people and feels greatly obliged on account of the unlimited trust people have reposed in him. Absolute power may corrupt a person absolutely but a king is not only and embodiment of power but also an embodiment of absolute trust and hence feel more bound and obliged than a ruler who is elected to serve for a limited period. In Sri Lankan history, the country has prospered when the king is reasonable and wise and vice versa when the King is unreasonable and unwise. Yet the civil society and the clergy always had a significant role in the rule of the King. Hence despotism has been rare but if and when that occurred it has always ended in disaster. On the other hand with reasonable and accommodative Kings the nation has prospered with 100 percent democracy. Hence the Kingship in Asia has been more of an asset than a liability.

We have also observed in previous chapters the perils of 51 percent democracy. It may prevent a despot coming in to power but it will also prevent a 100 percent democracy and the ideal Government. Therefore people in the developed countries with a history colonialism and servility always look for kings for wise leadership and that is why they have a proclivity for dynastic politics. In other words that is their way of seeking the ideal Government with 100 percent democracy. The West does not understand the plight and the thinking of South Asians and hence look down upon them for dynastic politics. Again judging the others by their own standards and culture!

Therefore these differences in cultural, commercial and religious values have often played a part in South Asia earning the prejudice of the West for being different.

Domestic values and foreign values

It should be plain to any man with common sense that the West have no principals but only interest in their foreign relations. But there are certain values that we could always admire the West for. The most compelling of these is the West’s technological accomplishments and the accompanying material sophistication. This is the result of inclusive paradigms adopted by the Western nations and their Governments from the 16th Century ushering in the age of enlightenment in Europe. But having achieved the pinnacle of world power and materialism, the West, albeit the world leader, would not apply the same values to the whole world. The Western Governments would always have a very inclusive and accommodative policy to govern its own country while adopting an extremely opposite policy towards the rest of the world.

We could cite the Monica Lewinsky affair during President Bill Clinton’s time as an example of Western double standards. Monica’s seamen strained dress made such a big issue in US politics that it very nearly impeached President Clinton. But then again when President Bush initiated action to kill thousands of people in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, such action does not even earn a whimper of protest from the American public. No American President, even with the best foreign policy records, could win an American election unless he has a proven domestic policy. How could the seamen stained dress of Monica Lewinsky be more important than thousands of lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine? But to the average American the principal involving Monica was more serious because that effects their domestic policy and the value system.

Next: Part VII