THE REFLECTIONS OF SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR OF JEAN

ARASANAYAGAM AND KAMALA WIJERATNE

The Cause of Sri Lankan Civil War:

Under the colony of British empire Sri Lanka has enjoyed the social, economic

and political status. In the year 1948, Sri Lanka has got independence from Britain and

they formed independent government. The aesthetic and social source made some poets

to inspire and to settle in England. There are different cultural exposures in the foreign

land by the settling of local writers. The Tamil communities are dissatisfied with the

rights that are extended to them by the Independent Sri Lanka. Later LTTE, the militant

group has initiated terrorism, demanding a separate state, for the Tamilians with in Sri

Lanka, in north and east of island. This issue led to a war, in the year 1983, because of

war 68,000 peoples died in the Sri Lanka’s population and economy slowed down

rapidly. The LTTE is banned as a terrorist Organization in 32 countries including India,

U.S.A, Canada, Australia and Europe. Though ceasefire is declared in the year 2001, the

conflict raises again by the death of 4,000 people in November, 2005. The War between

the two is unstoppable and unending. Deborah Winslow and Michael D. Woost, says that

the war is grounded not just the goals and intentions of the opposing sides, but also in the

every day orientations, experience and material practices of all Sri Lankan people.
New Generation Poetry:

The tranquil origins of Sri Lankan poetry, which flourished with the poetic

creations by sympathetic colonial influences, have changed. The new generations have

started using poetry as a medium to react to various complex social, political and cultural

issues and upheavals in the small community of Sri Lanka. Breaking the sentimental and

complacent thinking of the Kandy Lake poets, the new generation poetry is more

committed and provocative with the involvement of poets like Yasmine Gooneratne,

Patrick Fernando, Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, Lakshmi de Silva, HLD Mahindapala and

Anne Ranasinghe. The entries from Regi Siriwardena, Kamala Wijeratne, Chandra

Wickremasinghe and others are direct reactions to violence which took place in Sri

Lanka. Poetry becomes an instrument of social and political criticism in their hands. The

readership for English poetry in Sri Lanka is small but influential. It has the potential of

an international readership. Few poems of Jean Arasanayagam and Kamala Wijeratne are

examined in this paper to determine how they portray the violence and bloodshed,as rhe

impact of war in their poems.

Jean Arasanayagam is a popular Sri Lankan poet, who won the National award for

Literature in 1984. She is by birth a "Dutch Burgher" - The "Dutch Burghers" are the

offspring of intermarriages between Dutchmen and women of the indigenous

communities - a split inheritance. She is married a Tamil, but this marriage totally

unaccepted by her husband's family. In July 1983, the antagonism between Sri Lanka's

Tamil minority and its Sinhalese majority has culminated in bloody riots. Her family

becomes refugees; this incident influences her to a great extent to write innovative poetry.
While her writing reflects her own life and immediate experience, her short stories and

poems reflect the tragic ethnic, social and political conflicts of Sri Lanka. She refers to

herself as an "outsider". The outsider can be the best witness of the bloody riots.

At the same time, in the middle of chaos, horror and humiliation, loss of safety

and loss of identity. Jean Arasanayagam has experienced a paradoxical sense of freedom,

in exploring herself in the outer world:

Someone smashed in the door

And gave me my freedom

To walk out into the world

Free, free from the prison of myself

Jean Arasanayagam's titles speak of socio-political, spiritual fragmentation:

“Shooting the Floricans” (1993), “Trial by Terror” (1987), “All is Burning” (1995), “The

Outsider” (1989) and “The Cry of the Kite” (1984). Her poems seem to inculcate

kindness and sympathy in the hearts of the people. Her opening line is exceptional. Her

elegant wording, symbolism, imagery, presentation, freshness of vision and her

sensitivity maintain her as popular poet. The poet's descriptions are exclusively her own

technique, vivid, picturesque and appealing, touching, arousing the reader's feeling,

anxiety and sympathy. Michael Ondaatje has praised her as "a wonderful writer and she

should be read everywhere, by everyone."

 Jean Arasanayagam's poem “Political Prisoner”, she talks about the death of a

political prisoner at dawn. The prisoner dies alone with his whimper and silent scream.

The poet asks a rhetoric question there:

Who mourned?

Was it a person or a nation?

In the poem “In the month of July,” Jean portrays the unity of people by ‘the child

hood games’. The children take the pebbles and use this as the source of playing game:

The childhood is far away

Beneath a tree

They toss the pebbles in the back of the hand in to the palm and they repeat this activity

by using some magic words. This activity has required certain skill as that of using

magical words in the ritualistic incantations. Jean exaggerates that as that of a person

grows older; the pebbles too grow into great stone but the unity disappears in them.

As one grows older

the pebbles grows too

into a great stones

In the month of July, a man moves away from his pursuers, he is chased by the mob, he

climbs a tree, the angry mob throw stones at him at one time his grasp loosened and he

falls down from there. The man is already filled with blood by the serious damage that

they have done to him. The angry mob step heavily on his body and crushed him to death.

The rocks that are thrown in the violence smashed the skulls and spilled the brains. The

pavement, which is splattered with the large drops of blood stains is captured by the poet.
 Kamala Wijeratne is one of Sri Lanka’s foremost English poets. The common

themes of her are identity, history and religious faith, the old and the new, the landscape,

the personal and the nostalgic, cultural pride, friendship and love side by side with

violence, bloodshed fear and mistrust. Her poems have encapsulated the worldwide fears

and concerns, in thoughtful and elegant melancholic words. Her voice is compassionate

and philosophical, some times emotional, embittered and edgy, but often revealing a

hopelessness of human barriers, violence, and death. The foreboding of death is

ubiquitous in her poems. The sense of isolation and absurdity that the poet conveys as she

communicates in her poems suggest the philosophy behind her effort. Kamala Wijeratne

in the poem “Shades of Green” describes about the ‘perishing…green’ in Sri Lanka. In

the poem “Frozen”, she discusses the danger of common people, who needs help from the

others.

In the poem “On Seeing a White Flag Across a By-Road”, the poet describes the

death of a soldier, who is not praised for his bravery, not given flowers and banners. His

body is simply brought to his house and the body is ready in the Coffin to burry at the

Sunset. In the beginning lines there is a sad tone in the poem, it announces about the

arrival of dead soldier with the wet, untidy white flag.

only that white Flag

bed raggled

rain-sodden

announces your arrival.

The next stanza visualizes the dead soldier who is kept in sealed box, so that one cannot

identify or form any opinion about the way he died in the war :

The sealed box

has defied

all identity;

has even stopped speculation

about the way you died.

Hearing the death of her son, the mother is shocked and unable to feel and react. She

whimpers in dull agony. His ‘sister / her years crippled / stoops by the dimming candle’.

The persona raises a question suddenly after this description, that he has fought for

country does it respect him :

you, who fought for king and country

where are your plaudits?

where are the flowers?

where are the banners?

A Blue bottle in pain cries a speech praising this soldier. The comrades have struggled in

the war, brought him to his home. The nation has saluted this soldier for his brave death

without haggle, they rest him in peace. In the neighbour’s house sitting in and around

they hear the cricket news and drink coca-cola gazing and mesmerized in it. They hang in

a relax way and watches carefully in the compound end where popular music expletes.

For the betrothal, in the next door of the neighbour, crackers explode. The candle light

gives the dark outline of silhouettes in the light background, people moves away from the

frame of coffin and the bier of him will be buried at sunset.

 People file past your bier

They will bury you at sunset.

In another poem ‘To a Student’, Kamala Wijeratne describes about the nature of

Warfield in Sri Lanka. Wijeratne in this poem addresses to a student about the need of

peace in Sri Lanka. In the beginning lines, there is a contrast, of student’s eye moving

away from the poet’s eye:

I know your eye’s leap away

when they meet mine,

why they quickly stray

from their quiet contact.

The poet says there is no fixed eye contact and the students do not listen to the

voices of hers. She knows their ear drums are blocked with the sounds of gun-shots and

grenades. The eyes of both of them visualize the dead bodies, human flesh suspended

from the bushes and trees. There are fragments of splintered bones shredded. The roads

flow out in human blood and hear echo burst of land mines. There are men of our family

and relatives as corpses:

My eyes as they see yours

See torn pieces of human flesh,

Suspended from bushes and trees;

Fragments of splintered bones,

Shreds of olive green;

The roads spewing human blood

My ears echo burst of landmine

 (I tremble for men of kindred blood)

The black balls of the student eye cannot lock with the poet. She asks that ears

should stop hearing these unkind noises. The poet asks the student to shake off the brand

names and search for herb that can give cooling effect and to cure the swelling and pain

of crazy people. Leave all these antiques to the antique dealers. There must be fresh plan

to stop the war. The poet is not ready for another Hiroshima.

Leave behind these Ilions and carthages to antique dealers,

Let us plan fresh methodology to stop other Hiroshimas.

Conclusion:

Jean Arasanayagam, who was born as a Burgher, writes in English, was reared

as a Christian, married a Tamil, and lives in a region of the country dominated by

Shinhala Buddhists. Arasanayagam's political consciousness is shaped entirely by her

personal experiences, which invest her with a sense of marginalization and alienation in

society. In the poem “In the month of July”, she discuss about the antagonism between

the majority and the minority in the month of July 1983 which culminated in blood riots.

The poem talks about the unity that disappeared in the land that once was with them.

Where as Kamala Wijeratne, on the other hand, crafts a socio-political consciousness in

her work that entirely subsumes the personal. Her poems openly express the havoc done

by the war, and the need of restore peace in the land. She confesses that they are not

ready for another Hiroshima. The poetry of both becomes a medium to react to various

complex social, political, cultural issues and upheavals of the society. The theme of
violence and blood shed can be traceable as the common themes in these poems because

of the on-going civil war in Sri Lanka.

Works Cited:

Goonetilleka, DCRA. Sri Lankan English Literature and Sri Lankan People 1917-2003.

Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2005.

Jeyawardena, Kumari and Malathi de Alwis., eds. In Embodied violence: Communalising

Woman’s sexuality in South Asia. London: Zed Books, 1996.

Narasimhiah.C.D.,ed. An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry.Chennai: Macmillan

Press,2006.

Wilslow, Deborah and Michael D. Woost. Economy, Culture and Civil war in Sri Lanka.

N.p. Indiana university Press, 2004.