Globalisation – the universal codeword for the latest stage in the uneven development of capitalism at the planetary scale – points neither to a 'global village' nor to a 'flat earth'. Indeed, popular metaphors of vanishing space and virtual networks represent only a misleadingly limited view of this eminently dialectical and contradictory historical process, the very internationalism of which has given rise to a potent wave of postcolonial – but hardly anti-imperialist – nationalism.
The latter, in contrast to the anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century, today typically assume cultural-political agendas focused on ethno-religious matters, rather than political-economic projects promoting social democracy. These days, the fundamentalism of cultural identity, particularly in the garb of Southasian nationalisms, stands in inverse proportion to its inability to muster opposition to the globalisation of neoliberalism. Yet the relentless colonisation of this region by the logic of capital, following the last salute of Lord Mountbatten, has much to do with the current successes and excesses of communalist politics within it.
The recent resurgence in Sri Lanka of Jathika Chinthanaya, which translates from Sinhala as 'National Ideology' or 'National Consciousness', offers an instructive case in this regard. This discourse refers primarily to a set of influential ideas concerning the cultural identity and historical trajectory of the country. In the context of neoliberal globalisation and ethnic conflict, it assumes an urgently prescriptive tone, by drawing on the island's traditional cultural-historical virtues to formulate an authentic model of 'development'. Invariably, the 'national' aspect of it centres, in ethno-religious terms, on the dominant Sinhala-Buddhist community.
All major Sri Lankan political parties, except those specifically representing Tamils and Muslims, draw on Jathika Chinthanaya's 'common sense' to various extents. While Jathika Hela Urumaya (the JHU or National Heritage Party), which is controversially led by Buddhist monks, espouses the most aggressively Sinhala-Buddhist version of it, only a negligible fraction of the Buddhist clergy actually belong to this small but vociferous party. The popularity of this ideological formation owes less to party politics than to the dispersion of Buddhist sentiments throughout civil society. Thanks to the literary efforts of its organic intellectuals in the Sri Lankan public sphere and in cultural life more generally, Jathika Chinthanaya has become the discursive ether through which cultural-political debate now necessarily moves in Sinhala-Buddhist milieus.