Krystle Reid, from Groundviews, http://groundviews.org/author/krystle-reid/ where the title is “A Welcoming Nation”
The following is a list of things I’m often asked or told, revealing of Sri Lankan perceptions about the Burgher community.
- Are you Sri Lankan?
- Can you speak in Sinhalese?
- ‘You’re a Burgher? You sure don’t look like one’
- ‘Sounds like a Las Vegas stripper name’
- ‘They get drunk every Saturday and go to church the next day, no shame’
- ‘Burghers? Parents must be divorced then.’
- ‘Lansi no? Probably got the job because of her English and the mini skirt’
- ‘Burgher…. like a hamburger?’
I could continue but the real point I was trying to make is that 70 years after independence, our ethnicity is still misunderstood.
Sri Lanka is multicultural and multiethnic, in short, rich in diversity. During nearly every Independence Day celebration, political campaign or ceremony where the public is addressed, minorities are continuously acknowledged. But from what I’ve experienced, it’s only a mandatory or token line in the speeches they deliver.
Coming from both Sinhalese and Burgher roots, I call myself a ‘hybrid’. Growing up with this label was no easy task. My mother told me about the struggles she underwent to get my sisters and I into school. National schools would not take us in, because free education came with labels and perceptions that we didn’t know of beforehand and the ones that accepted us came at a price my mother couldn’t afford.
I have a lot of fond memories from my school time, but that was not always the case. I was 8 years old when I understood what bullying really was, when girls started laughing at me for making pronunciation errors during English period. I was angry then, but I came to realize that these children are mere reflections of what we have become as a country.
The year was 2015, and my nominations were accepted to run for Vice Chair for Policy and Advocacy at the Commonwealth Youth Forum in Malta. I was one of the two Sri Lankans whose nominations were accepted by the Forum. With the support of a few good people like the late Adhil Bakeer Markar, one of the greatest human beings I had the honour of knowing, I made an appeal to the Government of Sri Lanka to, if possible, support me to attend the Forum. I’m no stranger to rejection, but this rejection came with the explanation that I was not accepted to represent my country as a Sri Lankan, because of my ethnicity.
First, I was asked to submit my birth certificate for verification purposes (which I completely understood). They then questioned me in Sinhala to ensure that I indeed spoke the language (perhaps not entirely necessary). Then they made an offensive comment highlighting the trouble the administration would have been in if they had sponsored a ‘suddha’ (irrelevant given that I had proved that I was a Sri Lankan already) and to no-one’s surprise, I was never contacted by the said government office again.
For years, others like me have mastered the art of tolerating these rather discriminatory statements and acts of others. We have learned to manage, but it’s frustrating to know that no matter what we do, we will always be outsiders in our own country. I’ve had more acceptance as a Sri Lankan in other countries, and the reality always hits once I return.
Over the years Sri Lankans have openly accepted personalities like Duncan White, Lionel Wendt and even embraced the ‘baila’ music of Wally Bastian. However, by virtue of our Government’s failure to bring a country together through ethnic sensitisation even after 70 years of Independence, people gradually forget that all ethnicities have played a pivotal role in developing our country and have a right be recognized as Sri Lankans equally.
Life would be easier for most of us if we respected and treated everyone with fairness and equality, but I know it’s not that easy for everyone. I’d ask everyone to take a minute and remember the 1996 World Cup. Our nation was devastated by acts of terrorism at that point but the undying passion, commitment and togetherness of the team, consisting of diverse ethnicities, brought the nation together under one flag. To me that’s what independence should feel like. We may be challenged or obstructed; we may fail or accomplish but above all, we accept each other as one people. Our true independence will be the day we become welcoming to each other as a nation.
from http://www.enablelanka.org/about-us/who-we-are/
A NOTE from The Editor, Thuppahi
The issues raised here are important, but the first caution is to consider measures of generalization: that is, the methodological issue of reaching for broad historical assessments on the foundations provided by individual experiences with their base in subjectivity. The same issue dwells within anthropological studies of village life in Society X or Y.
I may address this at greater length but as further caution I ask: (A) where does class position an caste background figure in the tales presented recently in February 2017 within Groundviews? (B) where does the operation of acts of vengeance among all segments of Sri Lankan society in all manner of situations fit into the surveys of the Sri Lankan world of human interaction.
A reading of these two works should be mandatory for all those kinterested in the sort of issues raised in GV:
- Gananath Obeyesekere: “Sorcery, Premeditated Murder and the Canalization of Aggression in Sri Lanka,” Ethnology, 1975, Vol 14: 1-25
- Bruce Kapferer, A Celebration of Demons, 1983
- Bruce Kapferer: Legends of People, Myths of State 1988 … with new extensions in http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KapfererLegends
- Michael Roberts: “People Inbetween: Ethnic and Class Prejudices in British Ceylon,” 3 August 2015, https://thuppahis.com/2015/08/03/people-inbetween-ethnic-and-class-prejudices-in-british-ceylon/#more-17244
Sadly,as an Aussie and Having Been Married to A Burgher I genuinely Feel the Burghers Have Brought this Situation on Themselves. They Have always Told us and Others in Australia they are Pure Dutch. Of Course we didn,t believe them but wondered Why they said this and also told us they could not speak in Sinhala although we often Heard them Using Sinhala in private.It was also obvious they were not Dutch By their lovely complexions and features which were obviously of Asian/European Heritage. The Genealogies they produced were obviously not accurate and left people out or changed the spelling of their Names. To be approved to come to Australia they initially only had to prove 50% European blood , later changed to 65%. To be a Dutch Burgher only the male had to Have a European name {From Any European Country}. Sir Richard Ottley Chief Justice of Ceylon in 1883 was Asked to Define and Decree what a Dutch Burgher Was. He Correctly defined them As Eurasians. I recall one case of a girl named Wijegunawardane who Married A burgher gent. Before she Married the Burgher parents had her baptised and She was Given The English surname Fry? . Under that name she appeared in Many Burgher Genealogies. That Having Been said they are a fine community who have become excellent citizens of Australia.. GARY ELLIS.
Sri Lanka 70 years after independence is still struggling with basic issies of recognizing basic issues of the dibersity of its population and that everyone ,irrespective of ethnicity or religious belief has a right yo live in peace and harmony. The country does not belong to any particular ethnic group. All the ancestors of present day Sri Lankans have cke from overseas. We need statesman to lead the country not politicians.
When my father contested the Dematagoda ward of the Colombo Municipal Council, in the 1950s, my mother, who was British, canvassed the Burghers in the area. She was amazed to hear the rankest racism from among some of them, disparaging the “natives”.
The colonial masters left behind them a structure of ethnic rivalry, with Burghers on top of stratified communities, down to the mass of Buddhist Sinhalese and Estate Tamils.
Generalisations which do not address this pattern of inequality, or acknowledge efforts at affirmative action as such, merely muddy the waters.