There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Canela, the Portuguese, and 'The Portuguese Encounter'
From: "RVS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Call for justice after 500 years
From: "RVS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:28:31 -0000
From: "RVS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Canela, the Portuguese, and 'The Portuguese Encounter'
Canela, the Portuguese, and 'The Portuguese Encounter'
This article is a reply to Janaka Perera's "call for justice after
500 years"
by J.B. Muller
The lure of canela or cinnamon and cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and mace
and all the fabulous riches of the medieval Orient brought the
Portuguese to the coast of Malabar at the tail end of the 15th
century and to the shores of the island of Sri Lanka in the first few
years of the 16th.
Every unbiased authority on the Colonial Period of modern history
agrees that the impetus was primarily trade and profit. A secondary
object was the conversion of people to Catholicism-a highly organized
form of European mainstream Christianity that did not tolerate or
countenance any other form of belief, religious or otherwise.
The two European nations in the leading position in maritime
exploration 500 year's ago were from the Iberian Peninsula-Spain and
Portugal-which marshalled the resources to undertake what, in today's
context, amounted to space exploration to, for example, Mars, because
they set out to sail beyond the then known horizon, upon perilous
seas, in uncharted waters and basically, to unknown destinations full
of people, places, and things unfamiliar to their experience up to
that time.
Just go back in time, to that time, if it is possible for you to
journey in your imagination and consider the great unknown that lies
before you as the voyager-and you'll get butterflies in your stomach
and marshmallows in your knees!
Sometime in either 1517 or 1518 the Portuguese from Goa came to
Colombo to seriously begin trading in cinnamon, other spices, and
other things that this island had to offer by way of trade. And trade
they did to the discomfiture of their hated rivals, the Muslim Arabs
and South Indian Moors who had been controlling and virtually
monopolizing the trade up to that time.
The trade in cinnamon, other spices, gemstones, sandalwood, gold,
silver, porcelain, silks, and other commodities was not a recent
phenomenon as some would imagine but something that had been going on
in the ancient world for millennia.
This island and its ports from Kayts to Mantota to Kolon Tota to
Galle to Hambantota (Sampantota) to Sammanturai (Sampanturai) to
Trincomalee were famous to both the seafaring Chinese as well as to
the Arabs and the sailors of Hiram and Solomon who visited the fabled
port of Tarshish once in three years, taking advantage of the monsoon
winds of the Indian Ocean to come and go.
The Portuguese were the most recent and the first Europeans to be
followed by the Dutch and the British (and, of course the French and
the Danish), who all came to trade and stayed to build empires. With
a tremendous deal of white-hot heat being generated about the 500th
anniversary of the first colonialist European arrival on these shores
and vehemently vituperative statements in the media, on the Internet
and at an international conference to study the impact from the
perspective of the 'colonized' it seems that we also need to shed
some light on the matter.
As a matter of fact, we need a lot of light to expose the faulty
logic, the bias and prejudice, and the extremely subjective views
that have so far been expressed. The private 'political' agendas of
the several participants and their backgrounds must also be exposed
in order to get the correct and a balanced perspective on the arrival
of the first colonial power.
To begin, the Europeans who ventured upon uncharted seas possessed
superior technology in order to begin their odyssey of worldwide
exploration at the end of the 15th century. That technology also
extended to and included the art of waging war and the weapons to do
so that had been developed up to that time. Indeed, comparative
advantage was on the side of the Europeans.
They entered the Indian Ocean to trade and monopolize that trade,
wresting control of it from the Arabs and Moors who had monopolized
it up to that time. Their object was not to create a sea borne
empire, as that was a different game altogether.
Besides the motivation to trade in rare and expensive spices and
other goods, the imperial or royal patrons wanted to ingratiate
themselves with their spiritual head, the Pope who led the Roman
Catholic Church that claimed suzerainty over all temporal monarchs
with the implied title of 'Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.'
It should be clearly understood that the mindset of the medieval
ruling classes was that they had a divine right to rule and that
included the single strong belief that their religion [or mainstream
denomination] was the only true system of belief that could be
permitted their subjects to the exclusion of all others. They had no
knowledge of Buddhism, Hinduism or other eastern religions except for
Islam as the Arab and Muslim rulers of the Iberian Peninsula had
oppressed them for over 400 years.
Within the Christian confession in that era there existed only two
dominant contenders for supremacy: The Roman Catholic Church based in
Rome and the Greek Orthodox Church based in Constantinople.
Judaism was tolerated, barely, and Islam was hated along with small
apostolic Christian groups, some of whom kept the Sabbath and others
that did not believe in the Trinity who were labelled 'heretics'
because they did not conform to the official creed of either the
Catholics or of the Orthodox.
Buddhism with its atheistic teaching and Hinduism with its
polytheistic practice were at once strange and utterly abhorrent to
the basically monotheistic Catholic Portuguese and equally, if not
stranger to well-schooled Buddhists learned in the Tripitaka or
Hindus equally well-versed in the Vedic scriptures.
Thus, the true believers in these contending systems of belief were
adversaries in opposite camps and where the dominant party was
hostile to the others as it sincerely believed that Buddhists and
Hindus were pagans or heathens, and diabolic to boot. With such an
extremely bigoted and conservative mindset it would have been
possible for them to kill Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims without a
qualm of conscience and further believe that such killing was
meritorious as it was ridding the land of human beings that were
perceived to be evil and dangerous.
A writer has described an international conference held in Colombo
recently as a 'scholarly' odyssey. However, the words that follow in
a vituperative chain are anything but 'scholarly' and instantly
reveal a total lack of academic objectivity, scholarly impartiality,
or professional integrity.
It is sensationalism ad nauseum et ad absurdum as it proceeds to
describe the Portuguese as "conquerors of Ceylon between 1505 and
1658" as this is also a barefaced and deliberate distortion of
history.
It is true that Dom Lourenco de Almeida, with his fleet of three
caravels was blown off course to these shores in either 1505 or 1506
and that he finally landed at the open roadstead of Kolon Tota
(today's Colombo). Lourenco died in 1508 at Goa in India.
The next visit by an flotilla of 17 caravels came 12 year's later and
was, basically, a trade mission to consolidate the tenuous (at best)
commercial relations that had been inaugurated by Lourenco. It was
not an invasion to conquer the Island.
That 'conquest' actually never occurred! The relationship and
influence of the Portuguese grew over the next 80 years until
Dharmapala, the Island's first and only Catholic monarch died
bequeathing his kingdom to the King of Portugal! The kingdom of Sri
Jayavardhanapura-Kotte was willed through and by a legal document to
the Portuguese! They did not have to invade.
The Island or whatever part of it controlled by the Kotte kingdom,
was handed over on a platter to the Portuguese, who, in any event,
never had more than 400 Portuguese soldiers on the Island of whom,
200 were in Jaffna.
The 'scholarly' odyssey has also blithely ignored the most compelling
reason for the folk inhabiting the coastal littoral to convert so
readily to Catholicism: Caste, with all its degrading, debasing,
demeaning, dehumanizing and humiliating connotations and
implications.
All arguments about barbaric brutality and cruel coercion fail in the
face of a solid residue of Catholics who make up over seven per cent
of the Island's population today! That block of converts has remained
more or less constant down the centuries disproving the canard that
the Portuguese came with 'sword in one hand and the Bible in the
other.' That, actually, is a gross and entirely erroneous
misquotation parented by two sources:
One, history tells us that Isl m was spread through the sword as
anyone who refused to accept Mohammed as the 'Seal of the
Prophets,' 'Allah as the One God,' and the 'Holy Qu'ran' as the
authentic divine utterance, was put to the sword. The slaughter in
Asia, Africa, and Europe, was immense.
Two, it has been said that in Africa that the British came
with 'sword in one hand and the Bible in the other' during the heyday
of British imperial colonial expansion in the 19th. Century.
The Portuguese didn't have to do so. Their primary focus was on trade-
gathering in the cinnamon and other spices. Conversion was a
secondary objective left to the Roman Catholic clergy and not to
other Portuguese officials or the illiterate soldiery who couldn't
care less about who was a Catholic and who wasn't. These were quite
satisfied with food, drink, sex, and sleep and they also had a wholly
normal and healthy abhorrence for work!
In armed confrontations, barbarism is the rule rather than the
exception. Wars in those days were not fought according to the
Queensberry Rules or the Geneva Convention. Extreme brutality was the
norm and how could we, 500 year's on, judge the protagonists by our
rules of today? In all wars, people are hacked to death, children are
bayoneted, women and girls ravished, and the injured and aged, simply
bludgeoned to death. The idea is to terrify one's opponents and
compel them to surrender.
The treatment of prisoners, too, was extremely brutal and we have
explicit descriptions of Sinhala and Tamil brutality against the
Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British and vice versa. That's war for
you. Weren't the military extremely brutal in 1971 against the
insurgents? That was repeated with even more brutality in 1987-89,
again, against the insurgents in the South.
Isn't there brutality between the military and the terrorists, each
side trading accusations of barbarism against each other? Aren't
these Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus who both subscribe to a
belief in ahimsa or non-violence? And, all this is today, not 500
years ago! Certainly, the Portuguese and their native or Malay
lascoreens did not hold a patent on either barbarism or brutality-
that's an indelible part of human nature common to mankind.
It is quite apparent that the proceedings were anything
but 'scholarly' or objective or in pursuit of the plain truth about
the first era of colonialism in this country. Therefore, the
organizers stated aim to claim compensation from Portugal for
reparations, begs the question as warped logic based on the modern
concept of 'crimes against humanity' will not and cannot sustain a
claim for compensation. It would only make Sri Lanka an international
joke and, perhaps, a pariah, because of the crass stupidity and
profound ignorance of some 'scholars.'
If such a claim were to be acknowledged by Portugal or any other
former colonial overlord, it would open a veritable Pandora's Box or
claims and counter-claims as the whole world would go to court-the
International Court of Justice at the Hague.
For one, the People's Republic of China, the several 'Stans' in
Central Asia, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Hungary, Romania and Austria could claim billion in reparations for
the Mongol depredations under Genghis Khan and his fearsome
successors-they took over 20 million lives in the most diabolic
fashion in the 13th. Century.
African nations could make claims against Britain, France, Portugal,
Brazil, the United States, Belgium, and the Netherlands for the slave
trade that flourished for about 300 years. Indeed, atrocities have
been committed by most nations-the stronger against the weaker, since
the beginning of recorded history.
Within Sri Lanka itself one does not have to look far: The plantation
Tamils [of recent Indian origin] have worked on tea and rubber
estates for over a century in near slave-labour conditions and have
been treated as sub-human beings or worse and some are still treated
that way even as this is written. Have any of these 'scholars'
and 'eminent' academicians looked at the plight of these people or
for that matter, at the Rodi at Kanatholluwa and Waduressa, the
Kinnara, the Ahikuntaka, or the Veddhas? Or of the people who live
around the Kunugoda down Bloemendhal Road?
Why are these bleeding hearts moaning and whining about
the 'atrocities' committed by the Portuguese 500 years ago? What
about the cruelties of the Dutch? And the genocide committed by the
British to suppress the Kandyan Uprising, 1818-22 as detailed by the
late Dr. Vimalananda Tennakoon?
Colonialism was cruel, inhuman, degrading, enslaving and everything
else but it is long gone and we are a free nation today-57 year's
free-and practice the same inhumanity amongst ourselves. Just go, not
far and look at the shanty town sprawl in Colombo North.
If we were to adopt the logic of the 'Portuguese Encounter' group,
the whole world would be at the International Court of Justice at The
Hague, filing suit against each other for the depredations committed
since men kept historical records.
My dear countrymen and fellow-citizens: They came for canela, for
cinnamon; so did the others that followed in their wake. They have
all gone now as others have come and gone doing both ill and good and
leaving their legacies, and genetic footprints, behind. So it has
been since time immemorial and so will it be as we pass from one era
into another.
Daily News
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:30:32 -0000
From: "RVS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Call for justice after 500 years
Call for justice after 500 years
by Janaka Perera
Galle Fort with Old Harbour in foreground
"HOW long illustrious companions, shall we live as slaves to these
vile Portuguese, whose harsh servitude you have borne for nearly 125
years without any other liberty than what they permit us?... If they
put up with us, it is only to make use of us and that with our own
arms we may be the executioners of our own lives, the creditors of
our riches, our precious stones and spices, for there is not a year
when all that there is in Ceylon does not pass to Goa and from Goa to
Portugal."
- Lascorin Commander Don Cosme Kulatunga Wickremasinghe Mudaliyar
addressing his kinsmen at his house stirring them to rebellion that
was a sequel to which the Kandyan Army routed the Portuguese forces
under General Constantino De Saa De Noronha at Randeniwela, Baddula
in 1630.
(The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon by Fernao De Queyroz
Vol.II pages 762-764)
December 19 next year marks the 45th anniversary of the liberation of
Goa, South Asia's last Portuguese colonial stronghold, following a
lightning attack by the military forces of our immediate neighbour
India.
This operation also exposed then as now the West's utter hypocrisy
towards Asia's developing nations.
Western governments, which did not raise a finger to pressure
Portugal (then under a fascist dictatorship) to quit Indian
territory, suddenly began pontificating on the values of non-
violence, reminding the Nehru government of Gandhian principles and
condemned India's use of armed force to kick the enemy out.
Goa figures prominently in the life of the great Sri Lankan monarch,
King Vimaladharmasuriya I (1591-1604) alias Konappu Bandara who had
combat training there under the Portuguese until the opportunity
dawned on his return to Sri Lanka to rise against the enemy in
Danture, in the Kandyan hills in 1594.
His victory prevented in the nick of time from Sri Lanka becoming
another Asian aberration like the Philippines. The Portuguese called
him the "Traitor of Kandy".
But Sri Lanka's real traitor was Portuguese puppet King Don Juan
Dharmapala whose prime objective to make this country a vassal state
of Lisbon.
Luckily for our nation at the time Dharmapala bequeathed his Kotte
kingdom to the King of Portugal in 1580 he had virtually ceased to
rule his kingdom.
The forces of King Rajasinghe I of Sitawaka had not only chased him
away to Portuguese-controlled Colombo fort but also besieged the city
itself.
The legal validity of Dharmapala's gift to the Portuguese king was
also in question since no Sri Lankan monarch had the right to
ownership of the lands he ruled. He was only a trustee under the law
that prevailed, though he had executive powers.
Addressing the recent international conference on the 500th
anniversary of the Portuguese Encounter at the BMICH Colombo,
Attorney-at-Law Senaka Weeraratne noted that the precedent set by
Dharmapala in transferring his kingdom to a foreign sovereign had
implications in influencing the conduct of post-independence Sri
Lanka's ruling policy.
"Dharmapala's betrayal has echoes in events that have unfolded in
contemporary Sri Lanka," said Weeraratne.
The Portuguese Encounter Group in association with the Sri Lanka
Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Asiatic Society
and the Archaeological Society organized the two-day (Dec.10-11)
conference.
Its importance centered around the fact that 16th century Sri Lanka
was the major Asian civilized entity that fell victim to Portuguese
plunder, genocide and cultural rape under the Pope's 1492 Treaty of
Tordisellas.
The Portuguese were the first colonial power to pave in this country
the way to almost continuous religious tensions - the reprercusssions
of which is felt to this day in Sri Lanka.
Prior to the their arrival local Buddhists had appropriated the Vedic
(Hindu) deities while the Hindus accepted there were many paths to
spiritual liberation and regarded the Buddha as one of god Vishnu's
several incarnations (since Hinduism is not monotheism).
Buddhism was also able to co-exist with indigenous beliefs and local
deities. Thus all of the island's inhabitants considered themselves
as largely belonging to a common religious culture.
The Muslims kept their Islamic beliefs to themselves and did not
interfere with the religious practices of the Buddhists and Hindus.
No group engaged in proselytizing. But the Portuguese encounter
changed all that and led to a contemptible policy that other European
Christian missionaries too subsequently followed to varying degrees.
Professor M. U. de Silva (Kelaniya and Ruhuna Universities) told the
conference that the unsympathetic approach of the Portuguese towards
local religions and a wave of unethical conversions of 'heathens'
under Portuguese padroado real or royal patronage, created a separate
local group, marking a clear deviation of the existing relationship
of State, religions and society.
The newly converted indigenous Catholics never paid the same respect
to age-old customs and traditions. This was the beginning of today's
so-called multi-religious society in Sri Lanka and the resulting
religious friction.
>From 1574 onwards the Portuguese continuously destroyed Buddhist and
Hindu temples in the Maritime Provinces. Portuguese missionaries
established their own churches over their ruins. Bhikkhus were driven
away from their temples or killed.
The Buddhist resistance to Portuguese religious policy took the form
of Ganninnanse - a type of militant bhikkhu - clad in white robes and
not ordained according to vinaya or canonical law, but pious.
They attended many ritual needs of the Buddhist community and kept
the Sinhala-Pali Buddhist tradition alive during the Portuguese rule.
Their untiring efforts brought religious freedom to the people of the
littorals during the Dutch administration of the maritime-provinces.
The Portuguese adopted a scorched-earth policy to terrorize the
inhabitants and crush armed uprisings. Some villages suffered
wholesale destruction and remained depopulated.
Yet, the will of the people, said Prof. Silva, could not be effaced
till the Portuguese were driven out of the lowlands through the joint
efforts of Rajasinghe II and the Dutch.
Social Scientist Dr. Susantha Goonatilake recalled the strong
protests by native Americans against moves to celebrate in 1992 the
500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus reaching the Americas and
the resulting apology by the Pope for the crimes the Spanish
Conquistadors had committed.
Dr. Goonatilake noted that similar plans to mark in 1998 of the 500th
anniversary of Vasco Da Gama's arrival in India had also been
challenged whereas in Sri Lanka a former Prime Minister had planned
to celebrate this year the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese
encounter, which would have been tantamount to "celebrating slavery".
Dr. Goonatilake however said that present day Portugal was not the
Portugal of 500 years ago. Today's Portuguese were very nice people
and in their own way they were trying to atone for the past by having
museums depicting horrors of the Inquisition.
Writer and novelist Gaston Perera told the audience: "All these
happened a long time ago. They are shrouded now in the mist of time.
You may ask why we are raising this now? It is because we are not
going to cover up the past.
We are not going to sweep the past under a carpet. We want to know
it. We want to hold it up and expose it dispassionately, objectively,
unemotionally and clinically so that we know what our past is and
then hopefully we come to terms and reconcile with our past."
Attorney Senaka Weeraratne stressed the need for a public apology and
reparations and compensation from Portugal for crimes against
humanity such as mass murder, war crimes, religious and ethnic
cleansing, the theft of Sri Lankas; cultural artifacts, forcible
conversion, large-scale destruction and plunder of Buddhist and Hindu
Temples and seats of higher learning in the country.
The points he raised were based on the principles of international
law and contemporary precedents such as the Judgements of the
Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal.
He concluded:
"The claim for compensation is not an appeal for voluntary charity
but to simple justice. In any code of ethics restitution must be made
for unjust gains at the expense of another. Portugal is a Christian
country. Christian forgiveness requires that the sinner must admit
his or her guilt.
Seek forgiveness and make restitution for any damage done. Any
possibility of reconciliation between Portugal and Sri Lanka requires
initially repentance and restitution on the part of Portugal.
We have to work towards making a presentation of colonial history to
the colonizer, which will lead them to repentance or at least to make
restitution for the sins of their forefathers.
Generally oppressors forget and their grandchildren are never told
that there is anything to forget. But it is our duty to keep alive
the memory of the past so that the oppressor remembers their
oppression and in addition present and future generations of Sri
Lankans will not make the mistakes of their forefathers.
In conclusion what can we expect? I read somewhere that there is a
Jewish proverb, which says, "A child that does not cry dies in the
cradle."
Likewise if we do not ask we will not get anything. We believe that
there is a strong case for restitution both on moral and legal
grounds. Present day-Portugal must come to terms with its past.
Daily News
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