The ‘Ex’ In ‘Excellence’

Credit: Greg Rosenke

In the past 18 months, the media has highlighted the work of several Sri Lankans who have achieved success in Western countries for their contributions in many essential fields including medical science, politics and finance. These individuals are often young people in their thirties, and are female. 

Reading the comments on social media in response to these stories and profiles, we discern that the local attitude to expatriate success stories is complex. There is genuine respect and admiration felt and expressed, and understandable curiosity about the people’s familial origins and context. ‘Who and who’ they are related to, and connected with. 

But there are also comments which seem to convey envy and disbelief. At first, this seems ugly and sad, and grudging. But like every such negative on the surface, there are reasons for these attitudes which indicate issues in the bedrock of this society which can be recognized and addressed. 

The ‘brain drain’ from which the country suffers has been going on for decades. The exodus of the Burgher community from the 1960s, for example, was in response to the exclusion of English from Sri Lanka as the national language, and the resulting diminishment of their employment prospects as a community of European origin. 

In the 1970s and 1980s and during the decades of the recent war, thousands of Sri Lankan citizens sought safety and peace for themselves and their families in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. and Europe and the U.K.,from the civil disturbances which disrupted their lives and destroyed their homes and livelihoods. 

The children of these immigrants are the success stories being written about in the media today. 

It is a generalization, but also a fact, that Sri Lankan people are extremely talented. When working and living in an organized and stable environment, they are capable of immense achievement, which benefits not only themselves but the whole community and society in which they live. 

It is particularly notable that Sri Lankan women in countries like New Zealand and England are achieving success and recognition in fields which remain rigidly male-dominated in their country of origin. Despite the racism they must inevitably have faced in their progress, and the rising anti-immigration attitudes  and distrust of refugees which have emerged over the  past 15 years, as the governments of many countries become more right wing in their perspectives, these resilient individuals  have emerged and blossomed. 

Great efforts have been made in Sri Lanka both at the level of governance and in civil society to secure and establish peace in the country, and promote economic growth and prosperity, in the years since the recent war ended. With comparatively less population and economic resources available than Western countries, Sri Lanka has managed to progress in many ways. 

But I suggest we need to look not only at factors of economic prosperity, but to the clearly expressed aspirations and preferences of the younger generation here, who have not had access to the opportunities and resources available to their peers who have emigrated and manifestly flourished. 

They are profoundly frustrated by the blocks placed in the way of their professional progress. By language barriers, by low salaries, and by unrewarding work environments. By the social hierarchies which enable others and disable them. They struggle against fear-based social conditioning which results in their individual efforts being continually undermined and criticized by their own families. 

These young people are often spoken down to by ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ who believe that nothing can change. But the young change makers speak not only out of personal frustration or ‘grievance-laden anti elitism’ as the writer Rafia Zakaria expresses it. Their concerns are not marginal, and they should not be mocked, ignored or dismissed. Rather, we could use these frustrations as signposts to reconstruct the processes of this country. 

They should be addressed as an integral part of the vision we have for Sri Lanka’s future. What are these aspirations? A society which does not block talent, but recognizes it and utilizes it, through consistent policies of gender equity, diversity inclusion, recognition of the rights of the marginalized, and criticism and dismantling of nepotism and cronyism - pernicious and self defeating practices which prevent people of merit from occupying positions in which they could be professionally productive, and help build the society to great heights. There are great opportunities now available in the fields of education reform, law, medicine, industry, media, private corporations and governance. 

It is not just in engineering that people build bridges and roads. Educationists do this too, creating pathways to individual progress through their teaching. It is not just doctors and nurses who save lives. Teachers do this by equipping the future generation with the critical thinking skills and insight they need to thrive. 

Women leaders in key decision-making positions have made great positive change in the countries in which they work. They have done so because they have qualities which are recognized by the people around them as contributing unique and valuable perspectives to their societies, and have moral vision which encompass accountability and the impact of their acts on the people affected by their decisions.

Find the best skilled and qualified people, and place them where they can do their best work. 

For this progress to happen, collective re-evaluation on a societal level must occur, and a multi-levelled commitment should be made and acted on to making our country of origin a fully productive place to live, so that the people with the capacity to enrich our country in an ongoing way will have no reason to ever wish to leave.

Sacred Spaces

How do we behave in spaces which we respect? 

In temples, kovils, synagogues and churches, we generally dress in modest and respectful clothing, covering our tattoos, removing our shoes so we do not track the dirt and dust of the outside world, and sometimes even covering our hair. We do not chew gum, we refrain from drinking alcohol or taking mind (or behaviour) altering substances before entering the place, and we conduct ourselves with responsibility and self restraint. 

I was struck by the imagery in the poet recited by Amanda Gorman on Inauguration Day in the U.S. It seemed to me that she was attempting to cleanse and purify the site on Capitol Hill where, a fortnight before, rioters had  violated the sanctity of that building with their deliberately disrespectful behaviour: defacing and daubing the interior of the building with gross bodily substances, smashing its windows and pillaging offices of people who were trying to perform their public duty, as elected representatives and their support staff. 

Of course, the disrespect was meant to show very public contempt for the incoming President and the authority of his Party. But in the process of displaying this, the perpetrators also disrespected the country they claim to love, as proud American patriots. An American flag was used as a weapon. The outgoing President behaved in such a way as to hold in contempt his own country, and the responsibilities he held. 

The interesting thing is that this clear contempt is denied by him and his followers. The prosecutors who are attempting to impeach him a second time - this time, for incitement of violence - have to literally explain to him what he has done wrong. 

Either he is genuinely psychologically incapable of recognizing this wrongdoing, or he and his team will simply not admit it. Freedom of speech is apparently supposed to cover even the right to threaten, abuse, destroy and damage the peace of others, and the places they value and respect. 

On a smaller scale, I recently witnessed a mirroring of these dynamics in a Facebook group I joined, which has a membership of nearly 25,000 people, and is dedicated to celebrating the talent of the beloved actress Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha Stephens in the long running TV show ‘Bewitched’, which aired in the U.S. in the 60s and 70s, and was rerun endlessly in Australia for many years. 

The actress herself died some years ago, and had a long and varied career in her chosen profession. However, it was this show that brought her into everyone’s living rooms. Her beauty, intelligence, comedic timing and dramatic versatility are showcased perfectly in the show, and her legacy is a wonderful one. 

However, a post was recently put up in this group by a man which showed a picture of the actress as the character Samantha, wearing a top which was ‘see through’ and which showed her breasts clearly outlined under the blouse material. 

To the delight of the man posting the picture, comments in their hundreds rapidly started coming in on the thread, complimenting the body parts of the actress, and particularly her breasts, some of the comments crossing the line from admiration to lewdness and verbal drooling. 

There were many women on this group, and the comments of the men were felt by several members to be pornographic and to be objectifying the actress in a disrespectful way. Predictably, a direct request to refrain from such commentary was met with defiance from the men posting. Some said they were merely ‘admiring’ and ‘appreciating’ the actress by lusting after her publicly, and those demanding that they stop were interfering with their right to express their feelings. 

Others said the actress was gorgeous, and the women who ‘complained’ that they should clean up their comments about her were simply jealous that this lady was the focus of their desire and admiration. (The ‘feminists must be ugly’ doctrine, which assumes that all beautiful woman welcome sexual admiration from all men, and are grateful for the recognition). 

Still others said that Elizabeth Montgomery herself clearly liked wearing short skirts and provocative clothing, so lucky for them that she did! No one forced her to. (And indeed, the actress did seem to have a lot of say in her character’s development in the many years she played her part, and presumably that included her choice of costuming.) 

Having been presided over by a former President who publicly revelled in his own objectification of women and his juvenile excitement at grabbing their body parts seems to have empowered this model of virile manhood in the U.S. 

Many people revere actresses for their physical beauty, and indeed elevate them to the stature of goddesses, based on their roles in the movies or TV series they star in.  

Some men in the comments on the post in question said most men commenting in a provocative way were confined to online activity for their expression of their feelings, and so for them the border between pornography and entertainment had been scraped thin by frustration. 

Their rights to express themselves outweighed the responsibilities they had to respect the preferences of others. Like the rioters on Capitol Hill, they were trying to take over the building, and defacing its icons to show - apparently - their right to claim it entirely as their own. 

It seems quite animalistic, doesn’t it? To mark territory by physical expression and a measure of bodily impulse. 

So the Facebook group is now deciding if it is going to be a more generalized group for the celebration of the actress as a whole person, or a group for specifically salivating over her body parts, which would limit it as a source of interest and enjoyment for many of its members. As one person pointed out, that’s what Porn Hub is for. 

One lady commented that a lot of the men seemed to say this actress was their first crush, as her beauty and charm so impacted them. She formed their idea of beauty in women. And their appreciation of her was largely visual, although as they grew up they appreciated her intelligence and acting ability as well. 

I think it’s no accident that the actress herself was a blue eyed blonde with a beautiful face and lovely body shape. Much as the actress in ‘I Dream Of Jeannie’ was, and many of the bombshells and pinups of the 50s and 60s in the United States. The men commenting so lewdly were formed by their white supremacist culture, which is now saturated by pornography and correlated with various forms of misogyny. 

The backlash against feminism can be seen in the reversion to the defiant right to physically grab and verbally assault women, and in the thinking that makes some men feel that women should be available to them at all times, solely for their entertainment. Actresses or models are often equated with sex workers, in this way of thinking. 

The men commenting in a reductive and objectifying way about this actress, like the rioters on Inauguration Day, are clearly wondering what the fuss is about, and I suggest many of them probably also generally wonder why women and girls seem to feel uncomfortable around them. 

Then they wonder why women want to have ‘female only’ spaces or groups. Or why people who also have rights feel offended by their sanctuaries being defiled, or their values disrespected.

Exceptional and Entitled

Image credit: Boho Peak

There are several extremely interesting correlations we can observe, a year into the global Covid-19 pandemic, between people who do not wear masks according to Covid 19 minimizing protocol, and those who do. 

Politically, in many nations, they tend to describe themselves as ‘libertarian’. Economically, they are advocates of ‘laissez faire’ doctrines. They do not rely on a welfare state, nor do they want to support it, so they generally want their personal taxes to be reduced. They do not like ‘parasites’ and they despise the ‘needy’ - because they do not think that the strong should support the weak, nor the powerful extend generosity to the vulnerable. 

They believe in herd immunity, they have faith in their own robust immune systems, and they advocate risk taking. They are investors, and taking chances in uncertain times makes them feel bold, and alive. They believe they are exceptional, and they believe they are immune from the ills that plague their fellow citizens. Not because they are cocooned by wealth or privilege, necessarily, although many of these kinds of people are economically protected by good financial planning, and tremendous assets, but because of their overwhelming self belief. 

It’s a kind of modern day elite coalition. Those who do not want to be compliant, and mock those who act in more socially responsible ways as ‘craven’ or ‘puppet-like’ or ‘controlled by fear’, and therefore intrinsically less worthy and valuable than they and their ilk are. 

Doctrines of self belief, self activation, self rule and sovereignty govern their lives. They pride themselves on being independent thinkers. In the U.S., they advocate the carrying of guns for personal use, and demand the right to free speech. They are often heard describing those who seek to restrain or restrict the damage their pursuit of their freedoms causes as ‘fascists’ or ‘the leftist mafia’. 

The balance between individualism and recognition of social responsibility is created by constant tension between these dualities. If a society is able to manage this continuous underlying tension well, and with absence of lapses into extremism at either end of the spectrum, social progress is possible. 

Until a ‘well heeled’ human being directly experiences personal loss and the deprivation, fear, humiliation and personal anguish caused by losing their social protections, they usually have very little empathy or concern for the less fortunate. 

Back in the days of total feudal governance, it took a lot of personal suffering for a monarch to become aware of the life challenges endured by the common man: the daily wage earners, the unprotected, the untitled, the unresourced, the unentitled. 

People become oblivious to the suffering of others because of the way they grow up, and the way people defer to them. They call themselves winners, but they lose their humility, which protects them from the dangers of greed and egoistic delusion. 

Shakespeare’s King Lear, a monarch famous for his disastrously late recognition of his responsibilities as a leader of his country, and governed almost entirely by narcissism and vanity, expressed his abrupt awareness in some powerful dramatic poetry:

‘They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ‘ere the black ones were there. To say “ay” and “no” to every thing that I said! “Ay” and “no” was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not leave at my bidding; there I found ‘em, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men o’their words: they told me I was every thing; ‘tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.’ 

As I read these words today, I think of the public anti-masking statements made by the now ex-President of the U.S., of the laxness of protocol he advocated, and the refusal to heed or comply with the advice of medical experts which he modeled for his followers. The way he seemed to recover so rapidly from the illness, himself, which seemed to prove his own personal cult of exceptionalism, and the defiant way he removed his mask as he made the announcement he was now ‘immune’ to the virus. In fact, by doing so he was symbolically implying that he was ‘ague-proof’. This was in the face of the evidence coming in that the virus was mutating, that many people seemed to be getting sick twice or even three times, and that no human being can truly be 100% sure to be safe from a globally transmissible infection. 

King Lear, in contrast, had experienced actual homelessness, had made bad errors of judgment, made fatal assumptions as a result of which he  thought his foes were his friends, and banished those who were truly loyal to him, had been hunted down by two of his own ungrateful children, and had realized that power is arbitrary: ‘a dog’s obeyed in office’. He had - for the first time, and very late in his life - questioned his own views and learned experience of ‘the great image of authority’. 

Because this play is a Tragedy, these realizations come too late to save Lear’s family, his reign and his life. But we, the readers and witnesses to his downfall, can see in his story some compelling truths. 

If we prefer surrounding ourselves with those who flatter and lie to us for their own short term gain, then we will eventually lose any moral judgment we have. To be able to recognise our true friends, and differentiate them from those who under their assumed masks do not wish us well, we need a personal moral compass in good working order. 

Look at the early life of Prince Gautama Siddhartha, who was brought up to believe that there was no suffering in the world, and whose father created an airbrushed and sanitized world for him to inhabit. He walked away from this privileged and disconnected life to confront the experiences which all human being beings endure, to find truths that could enable all of us to transcend the fetters of suffering. Central to his awakening was the knowledge that we are mortal. 

We are not ague-proof. Not one of us. 

Pearls For Girls

When Kamala Harris was elected Vice President of the USA, women of colour rejoiced all over the world. Because she is openly proud of her bloodlines and multi-ethnic heritage, African American women and South Asian women in particular see in her a person to admire and respect. She is qualified, capable and resilient. And she is articulate and resolute in her public utterances. 

It was impressive that Joe Biden chose her as a political partner, despite her being publicly critical of his position on race matters in the past. And it probably is too early for the USA to embrace a female leader of colour as their highest ranking authority figure. When she ran for Senate and later as President, campaigns fuelled by misogyny and skepticism of her race and gender portrayed her as ambitious and ruthless. But she has also managed to maintain a scandal free personal life, a blended family who publicly respect and love her, and regularly shares her love of cooking and recipes as a strategic message that she can multi-skill enough to step mother the whole country as well as guide the policy by which it is governed. 

As Vice President, Kamala Harris holds significant public space and position, and in looking at her life path, I note that, as she has earned these over the years, she has chosen to recognise and praise every positive aspect of her life. This has enabled people to invest their belief in her, and also to respect the way she has brought her intelligence and her communicative capacities to bear, as she undertakes her work. 

A few days before her inauguration, I was invited to join a private Facebook Group, called Wear Your Pearls. To honour Kamala’s achievement and stand with her symbolically, women all over the world pledged to wear pearls: necklaces, earrings, bracelets and coronets; chokers and multiple strands; white pearls and rare black pearls; pearls combined with precious and semi-precious stones; pearls both faux and real; pearls which were bought by themselves and pearls handed down in their families for generations. 

Why pearls? They shine. And with their sheen and subtle allure they have come to epitomize glamour, elegance, sophistication and feminine beauty. Women of many cultures and generations inherit pearls from their mothers and grandmothers and wear them on special occasions as a visual tribute to the event they are attending.

Women of all ages and races and in different time zones enthusiastically celebrated this occasion in a
spontaneous expression of global sisterhood. Many women shared photographs of themselves wearing their pearls, and often showed images of their baby girls dressed in their own pearls as well. They described showing their toddlers the pictures of Kamala Harris being sworn in on the 20th of January, and telling their daughters and granddaughters: ‘Look darling, see -  the Vice President looks like us’. 

Many of the African American and Latina women wear their pearls as they go into or recover from surgery. So many of these photographs show us the resilience and courage of these ladies. They are disproportionately likely to suffer from illness: to experience disadvantage both medical and financial, because of their race and the lower sociocultural status accorded to them at birth by the societies in which they live. 

The economic disadvantages experienced by their communities make the images we are shown of ladies proudly wearing their pearls to commemorate their own midlife graduations, and the graduations of their daughters and granddaughters, even more admirable, and poignant. What a tribute it is to their ongoing dedication and determination to gain an education, to commit to ongoing progress, to develop themselves to levels of exceptional success, capability and achievement, and refuse to accept second or third class status in their societies. To survive, and to thrive. 

Many ladies in this group dress up in glamorous gowns and stylish outfits to show off their pearls, in all their irridescent diversity, and many of them share the pictures of themselves wearing their pearls on their birthdays. It is a wonderful sight, to see so many women of all ages celebrating their beauty, strength and personal self worth in this uniquely lustrous way. 

Kamala Harris herself wears her pearls to commemorate her own sorority group, Alpha Kappa Alpha, the oldest black sorority group in the U.S. This sorority was founded 113 years ago, at Howard University, in Washington, with the aim of encouraging academic and scholastic excellence, fostering a spirit of service and having as a central focus the improvement of the status and recognition of women in a community which has suffered intensely from systemic barriers of intersectional oppression and the limiting views and practices imposed by racist policy. 

Throughout the 20th century, this sorority contributed substantially to their community during The Great Migration, The Depression of the 1930s and the Civil Rights era. They have also worked internationally to support struggling communities in Africa through development programmes focused in rural areas, to increase education and improve employment opportunities. 

This sorority has focused on community building in the areas of health, education, business and family, and has contributed in the career building enterprise and advancement of many women who are credited with breaking barriers and shattering the glass ceilings of power and influence in contemporary American society. 

As we share our photographs, and start and join in conversations with these women, we understand more fully what ‘standing up for ourselves’ means in societies where being born female has traditionally been a hindrance to individual success. We see women of all physiques and facial features, dressing up to honour one of our own.

And now it’s been a fortnight since the Inauguration Day, the group numbers almost half a million members internationally, and many have suggested we carry it further, to wear our pearls on every 20th of the month, for example, and for every occasion we have opportunity to celebrate - not only our personal and professional achievements but our courage in ordeals and tribulations. 

The name of the group is now ‘United By Pearls’ and we have an opportunity going forward to organize and build a ‘tribe of successful women’ to support and encourage each other’s success. 

It has been fascinating to be given insight into the lives and celebrations of women in other countries, in this vivid and personal way. Pearls look wonderful on dark skin in all its vibrant tones. And as Sri Lanka has long been known as ‘the Pearl of the Indian Ocean’, it’s especially good to see many of the ladies here joining this international celebration of sisterhood.