A New Conscientization For People Building

By Rehan Derrick Fernando –JUNE 11, 2021

Rehan Derrick Fernando

The whole world is going through an ideological conflict. All that we see and come across is a culture-bound, age-dominated, sex-discriminated, male-dominated, procapitalist, nonrevolutionary, anticommunist, and over-theoretical world system. In other words, a superfluous world system has been created in the fields of political, social, economic, religious, and cultural. What Sri Lanka is today, on the one hand, is a result of this wrong-turn of the world system; on the other hand, it is the socio-political instability of the country that does not support a better conscientization anymore[1]. However, there can be specific resolutions, mobilized through determination and hard work if the citizens of the country make a genuine effort. In this article, I attempt to analyze how a people building could be made in Sri Lanka through such practical efforts even though ideological theories might be useful in another context.

Dominated World Systems

Considering the events of the history of the world and its system in all continents, there is a dominated world-system due to colonization, which now is sieged by neo-colonial structures and exploitation, which also have paralyzed the cultural-religiosity of those societies. Such mismanaged paradigms and operative systems have also destroyed human cultural relationships in the same communities, undergo difficulties with modern techniques of development that is at the heart of people-building capacity. Ultimately, what is left as a formula is nothing but a world system that is created by the elites who have forcefully come to a position to dominate all other systems in the world being experimented by smaller countries with limited resources. This unilateral domination in my opinion, is a destructive, unethical, and devastating paradigm. When we see the unethical distribution of land, multifaceted companies and investments, world population growth, forceful economic structures, exploitations of trade union structures, multinational corporations, global cultural dominations, cultural myths, racism, classism, sexism, dissimilarities and so forth, we understand how world system has failed to introduce a better paradigm for the daily living of the people[2]. Due to such world systems, many ordinary people suffer immensely, and forced poverty, oppression, and suppression have become significant and maligned components of this system, which in fact stand contrary to the very concept of people building.

It is obvious how the failures as mentioned above of the world system have dramatically fallen into a category of the destruction of this planet, especially in the context of ecological crisis. Global warming and the reports on the possible depletion of the ozone layer, and the other ecological imbalances that the planet earth experiences with immense destructive forms now proven beyond a reasonable doubt are due to negative approaches and misuse of technology of human beings. It seems that any new world-system came to the scene as an alternative to change the previous system, but it ended harming even the key rich cultural-religiosity and socio-political methodologies in the world. It has also damaged the quality of life which is reserved for the whole planet. Words of Pope Francis in his outstanding encyclical Laudato Si would appropriately explain the idea mentioned above; “Although change is part of the working of complex systems, the speed with which human activity has developed contrasts with the naturally slow pace of biological evolution. Moreover, the goals of this rapid and constant change are not necessarily geared to the common good or integral and sustainable human development. Change is something desirable, yet it becomes a source of anxiety when it causes harm to the world and the quality of life of much of humanity.”[3]

There have been many socio-political theories that appeared in the system of the world; such as Anarchism, Absolutism, Communism, Conservatism, Environmentalism, Fascism, Liberalism, Nationalism, Socialism, Social Capitalism, Social Democracy, Marxism, Capitalism, and Pancasilaism. However, none of these theories were sufficient enough to present an effective paradigm shift for a people-building agenda. Instead, these ideologies and theories demolished the developing capacities of the people. Considering the Euro-Western colonial regimes, it is evident how the native people of Asian, African, and Latin American continents were massacred in destroying their lands and grabbing their right of living.

When this ideological conflict is applied to the Asian context, Western-educated and modernized elites have introduced certain socio-political theories such as Social Capitalism, Capitalism, Marxism, and Communism in Asia that directly harmed the primary conduct of ordinary people who live in rural areas. Thus, unsustainable and impertinent methods unduly blocked the accessibility and opportunity for their local productions as such. In other words, those socio-political theories were dysfunctional, and they subverted the socio-political spirit of Asia. In Asia, there had been ancient and traditional techniques for food production, construction, business, management that led its communities to sustain the livelihood. However, different alliances of elites and their socio-political theories have already damaged and displaced those traditional methodologies, which were the primary sources of people-building-capacity of Asia. The major crises such as poverty, forced landlessness, unemployment, elimination of handcrafts, and artificial fertilizing system in Asia are due to Westernized modern capitalism and feudal systems geared by those elites and business classes. Such disfigured assumptions, in my opinion, are myths that created Euro-western power hunger but not liberative forms for a developing society. Asia, therefore, goes through a negative structural change, which gives constant failures for socio-political stability. And, the shortcomings of Asia also are results of this ongoing crisis. Among them, discrimination and political divisions (ethnic divisions) are fundamental issues in Asia, which paralyze peoples’ development in Asia.  Western capitalism has already made certain political divisions in Korea and Vietnam. Considering all Asian countries and their internal socio-political struggles, in the latter part of the war in 2009, Sri Lanka was almost at the edge of experiencing the same South-North division to many extents. Asia, particularly as a continent, is still undergoing the victimized mentality of those Western methodologies, which also misled the Asian ways and means.

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