Charles Sarvan [Ponnadurai], courtesy of the author –with title being the Web Editor’s imposition …… This is a review of Ben Bavinck, Of Tamils and Tigers: a journey through Sri Lanka’s war years, Vijitha Yapa Publications, Colombo, 2011.
“The moving finger writes”, and having written, it moves on. Neither virtue nor intelligence can erase half a line, and tears cannot “wash out” even one word. (Adapted from ‘The Ruba’iyat’)
Bavinck, missionary-teacher, born in 1924 to Dutch missionary parents, came toCeylonat the age of thirty; lived, worked on, and for, the island for about thirty years. He died in 2011, age 97, having helped in the publication of this Diary, Volume 1, covering the years 1988-94. The brutal occupation of Holland by the Nazis left a deep mark on him, strengthening moral commitment and deepening humanitarian resolve. At the outset, one should try to understand what being a missionary-teacher meant to Bavinck. To the best of my recollection, neither the word “Jesus” nor “Christ” appears in the Diary. Bavinck does not attempt to seduce with the joys of heaven nor frighten with the torment of hell. Some Christian sects may see “speaking in tongues” (p. 273) as the distinguishing mark of spiritual salvation but for Bavinck what marks a true Christian is a life of quiet, but active, commitment to other human beings. (1992 finds him in Baddegama, attempting to learn the Sinhala “tongue”, so as to better understand, and work for, the Sinhalese poor.) He felt that the missionary today shouldn’t primarily preach doctrine but be, in his person and action, “a messenger and a symbol of solidarity” (p. 126) with the unfortunate. There was for Bavinck a “connection” (p. 249) between the suffering of “the Lord and the concrete liberation of the suffering poor and oppressed” of this world. The messengers of Christian peace (p. 279) should directly share in “the bloody reality faced by the ordinary people”. As I have written elsewhere, prayer must be prelude and preparation – and not an easy substitute – for action. (Here, Bavinck reminds me of Fr Paul Caspersz of Satyodaya.) For Bavinck, to be religious meant, above all, a life of care for others. The Introduction suggests that some Protestant Christian groups had an affinity with Tamils because of certain shared characteristics: independence, individualism, industriousness, thrift, privacy, plainness “and the voluntary self-deprivation of needs and desires and / or their delayed gratification” (p. 16). Continue reading →
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