by Ravindra Ranasinha

Created on: June 28, 2010   Last Updated: June 29, 2010

In Sri Lanka, the word 'civilized' has different connotations. In fact, this word has been politicized to such an extent that a person who has a dissenting voice is always branded as an 'uncivilized' by the State. Such 'uncivilized' characters are either annihilated or made to leave the country. This practice itself is self-explanatory of the meaning of the word civilized: "To be in accordance with State ideology." Therefore, a person's civilized condition is simply brought down to the level of 'friend' and/or 'enemy'. 

A deep study on history always proves that 'friend or foe' concept had been in action in deciding the civility of a nation's people. A repressive action has always been visible from time immemorial to build a civilized society. Therefore this notion of 'civilized' becomes a relative point. 

If one asks this question from a Tamil civilian in Sri Lanka who got caught in the civil war, 'How civilized are the Sinhala soldiers at the battlefield?' what would he say? He would definitely come out with incidences of rape, murder, torture, and looting. His answer would show how the Sinhala civilization is thus built. In the same way minorities, marginalized, underprivileged and weak communities will have interpretations as to how their 'OTHER' have become civilized or in turn how they have been made to be uncivilized. The history is a process of misappropriation, exploitation and repression. Therefore, the traditional approach to measure the civilized world is now outdated.

The current practice to measure the civilized world is the literacy indicator. The reading and writing aspect does not mean that a cultured community has been developed. A culture becomes more aggressive when its literacy rate grows! It uses literacy as a weapon to look down upon others who do not have opportunities for learning. In Sri Lanka, knowing the English language or fluency in the language makes one put pressure on the other or to trample the other. This capacity of handling English thus becomes a repressive tool. Not only the language, but the person, too, become the oppressor.

The thought that learning English makes a person a cultured or a civilized person becomes a myth. There are hundreds of schools in Sri Lanka that have not received the attention of the authorities and have just been left to be closed down, making those children underprivileged. Then the question arises, why so much attention to the Colombo children, and are

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