• Bishop Duleep de Chickera shares stories of resilience in his book

Sri Lanka’s history is pockmarked by violence and bloodshed. While ancient tales of battles and wars are distant to today’s citizens, having occurred many centuries ago, the internal conflict that ended in 2009 is still fresh in our minds. And yet, this recent history gets overlooked. It isn’t taught sufficiently in school, nor discussed widely in society. This silence leads to forgetting the lessons the armed conflict should teach us, leaving room for a repetition of mistakes.

However, it would be incorrect and unfair to say that efforts are not being made to document stories of resilience from conflict years. One such effort is ‘Beyond Check-points: Stories of human resilience in troubled Sri Lanka’ by Bishop Duleep de Chickera, a State Literary Award winner published in 2023 and now in its second print.

The author, in a discussion moderated by University of Jaffna Senior Lecturer Dr. Mahendran Thiruvarangan, spoke about his book on 12 December at the Diocesan Chambers, Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour, Colombo 7. Prior to the discussion, educator and storyteller Suramya Hettiarachchi Perera read excerpts from the book and shared her thoughts on ‘Beyond Check-points’.

Humour and tragedy

Perera shared that she was hooked on the book from the first sentence. Quoting from ‘Beyond Check-points’, she said: “‘Welcome to Jaffna under the moonlight. We have no electricity.’ The pure romance of the moonlight was due to a lack of electricity in a war-ridden Jaffna. The humour held hands with tragedy.”

She shared that the 14 chapters that unfold within the book were stories and snippets of memories stitched together by a ‘master tailor’. Perera described the reading experience as being similar to watching a cricket match, with its fantastic innings of stories, excellent themes, and classic dialogues. The book too is peppered with cricket analogies.

Despite this, ‘Beyond Check-points’ remains a book on human resilience in troubled Sri Lanka – one about power and what we do with it. “The book speaks about the heavy, patronising baggage that we carry and the social assumptions that remain unquestioned,” Perera said, sharing that Bishop de Chickera, in his writing, recorded different views on politics, suffering, and loss, trying to soften the grim imagery of the countless videos and photographs we have seen and placing himself between these realities and the reader.

“At every difficult point, you feel his presence, guiding you and helping you overcome,” Perera said, adding that she was unable to understand how Bishop de Chickera has lived with these experiences. “Maybe writing the book was therapeutic. The emotional burden of all of this is incredible but perhaps this is where Geetha de Chickera comes in,” Perera said, referring to Bishop de Chickera’s spouse.

“The unwavering strength in a partnership that holds onto each other is a true blessing. But there would be no Bishop de Chickera without Geetha,” she added.

On unlearning and relearning

Dr. Thiruvarangan, quoting a line in the book about unlearning, asked the author why he thought unlearning was important and its role as a form of education.

“We have to relearn that the truth is never only at the centre. In fact, truth is more in the periphery than it is at the centre. The centre has a greater political agenda to distort the truth. In fact, that’s what the centre is all about,” he said, pointing out that often, the centre exploits by distorting.

In terms of what we must unlearn, Bishop de Chickera said we needed to unlearn our current understanding of true humanity, which he said really comes when one accompanies the vulnerable, the poor, and the voiceless.

“Not only is that true humanity, it is also the core of integrity,” he said, adding: “The person of integrity is not simply the person who does not steal or tell a lie. A person of integrity is the one who will step out to embrace, to speak on behalf, and to accompany the ones who need that advocacy and accompaniment the most. This is a process that all human beings need; learning from each other all the while learning to unlearn and to relearn.”

Dr. Thiruvarangan pointed out that an aspect of the book he found interesting was how it didn’t romanticise the armed struggle of the Tamil people. “Sometimes, we get a lot of solidarity from the South when activists and religious leaders and sometimes leftist political leaders speak very critically of the State but they also tend to romanticise the Tamil armed struggle and don’t want to look critically at the way the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) also produced its own forms of exclusion,” he said, explaining that these forms of domination and exclusion included the expulsion of the Muslims from the North, the conscription of children from poor families, and the suppression of dissenting voices within the Tamil community.

Speaking to Bishop de Chickera, he said: “You are very forthright in your commentary on the limitations of the militant struggle led by the LTTE, whether it’s about the expulsion of the Muslims or suppression of dissent.”

In response to being asked why this kind of analysis was important, the author said: “The theory is that any kind of violent confrontation tends to begin with one dominant force and then it creates another dominant force. And then comes the debate of who is to blame, who started it, and so on. But my ability to be impartial in this struggle really came from the civilians we encountered in the North. They distrusted both the LTTE and the military forces, and they had good reasons for that.”

While acknowledging that there has been a problem historically where the minority has been constantly excluded from processes of planning the future in Sri Lanka, Bishop de Chickera pointed out that when democratic methods fail, the discriminated against tend to turn to violence.

“You read this in contemporary history where people with a conscience tend to identify the dominant, violent groups as the real enemy of the people. So, what message does this give us? That words and solidarity at the end of the day become more powerful than the dominant,” he said.

The importance of literature

Actor, cartoonist, and teacher Gihan de Chickera spoke about the role of literature in teaching history and the importance of books such as ‘Beyond Check-points’ in education. “I strongly believe that literature is a wonderful way to teach history. I’ve seen this in my own classrooms,” he said.

He explained that included in the O/L English literature syllabus is the poem ‘Big Match 1983’ by Yasmine Gooneratne, which he teaches to boys of 14-15 years. “I have to start with a bit of context about what happened in our contemporary history and then we go on to reading this very powerful poem by one our foremost poets,” he said, adding that the students discuss the poem among themselves as well as him, asking questions about it. However, according to de Chickera, the discussion usually ends with the students telling him they never learnt about these events in their history class.

This is why literature is important, he said, pointing out that writers can undermine the dominant narrative through their own stories. He added that, in his opinion, the younger generation was less ethno-nationalist, saying that if that can be built on through schools, then hopefully, the country can prevent more unnecessary violence as seen in the past.

PHOTOS Venura Chandramalitha