How Can Singing National Anthems Shape Ethno/religious/linguistic School Curriculum? Controversy in Sri Lanka

• In Event: Exploring (Ethno)Religious Truths in Curriculum Studies: A Dialogue Across Global Perspectives

Abstract

Purpose
Singing the national anthem is a mundane practice in Sri Lankan public schools, universities and other educational spaces. It plays a central part in the socialization process of individuals identifying (or not identifying) themselves with the nation-state that demands self-discipline and participation in state-craft (Asad, 2003). The Sri Lankan national anthem is sung mostly in Sinhala, and it involves a certain performance of being in reverence for the nation’s mytho-historic and eternal existence. This practice devalues Tamil, which is also an official language in Sri Lanka. This paper aims to explore the relationship between religious and linguistic nationalism in Sri Lanka in the context of the controversy on singing the national anthem in Tamil during National Independence Day celebrations. It illuminates how language and religious policy work together to maintain Sinhala–Buddhist hegemony and exclude Tamil speakers as second-class citizens in postcolonial Sri Lanka. As we observe in this paper, the national anthem and pledge performances shape the ethno-religious curriculum of schooling and they frame the nation-state as a monolingual space limiting the possibilities of imagining a multilingual world.

Theoretical Framework
This paper draws on scholarly work on affect (Ahmed, 2004; Stewart, 2007) and ethno-religious nationalism (Asad, 2003; Anderson, 2006; Butler & Spivak, 2007). Through these key theoretical lenses we argue that, for both Tamils and Sinhalese, the national anthem sung in Sinhala creates the effect of “boundaries of bodies and worlds” (Ahmed, 2004, p. 117). The national anthem is a patriotic song, a political statement that draws boundaries tracing an imagined community (Anderson, 2006) configuring ethnic or racial hierarchies and self/other dichotomies in nation-states.

Modes of Inquiry
This conceptual paper includes language and religious policy documents, newspaper articles and YouTube videos to support the key arguments.

Substantiated Conclusions and Scholarly Significance
The national anthem as a site of struggle is a powerful case to explore how nation-states’ actors
mobilize affect, intertwining ideologies on language, religion, ethnicity, geography, and so on to maintain and reinforce dominance over minoritized groups. It places in evidence a crisis in the imagination of nation-states marked by ethnolinguistic and religious conflicts, especially when political power remains asymmetrical. Resisting ethno-religious/linguistic nationalism is fundamentally important to move toward creating a livable society. Therefore, the authors believe that (singing) the national anthem and pledge performances can be a site of study in curriculum theory towards supporting this agenda. As ethnically and racially minoritized groups worldwide are increasingly subjected to nationalist violence (Balibar, 2015), the urgency to problematize and challenge various facets of nationalism (e.g. white supremacy, monolingualism, native speakerism, religious extremism) is more important than ever before. While this paper generally contributes to the scholarly dialogues on religion, language and politics, it also sheds light on understanding the ethno-religious curriculum of schooling in relation to nation state building.

Authors

• Kasun Gajasinghe, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• Priyanka Jayakodi, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author