Mount Kosciuszko

Names Are More Than They Seem

Thisuri Ranasinghe

The recent election has presented a vastly more ethnically diverse Parliament, mostly from the Labor side of politics. The ALP, faithful to tradition, made all new members sign the caucus book. New MPs Zeneta Mascherenas and Cassandra Fernando shook hands with the new Prime Minister but interestingly, while signing, both apologised.

Zeneta, for having a long name, and Cassandra, for having a long signature. Once again, because of her name.

For a moment, I was furious. Because at that moment I saw myself. I saw myself, being sorry for having a long name, letting people put whatever spin they like on it, conceding, “it’s okay, I answer to most things.” For people of colour, before someone even reaches an attempt of pronouncing their name correctly, it feels as though a judgement has been made: of inherent impossibility.

The proper articulation of a name is not an entitlement that should be selectively awarded. It is an assurance of dignity. Names are an entwining of histories and aspirations, representations of journeys across borders and echoes of forgotten pasts. Not pronouncing them properly is not just lazy, it’s a denial of respect. The impact has the power to nullify a person’s existence. Therefore apologies are no longer enough.

I am a Sri Lankan, of Sinhalese descent, and naming practices tend to be an elaborate decadence between higher beings and mere mortals. A birth chart is drawn up by an astrologer, based on ancient knowledge of the movement of stars. The chart represents planet placement in relation to the star signs at the time of a child’s birth. In accordance with this, the astrologer bestows the parents a letter from the Sinhalese alphabet, and then a list of names starting with that letter. This practice has continued for generations. Reading the stars and being at the mercy of them to bring goodwill to the child every time their name is spoken.

A name is a portrait. For the eyes to see, for the ears to hear. It is a record of our outer selves that connects integrally with our inner selves. For most colonised people, names are a praxis of a history deprived and a hope that a future may be their own. Sinhalese sought to name their children British names during the colonial era and in the British Dominion as a guarantor of upward social mobility. It was a trick that never failed to deliver. In the modern-day, the fact that names like mine are spoken at all, despite every attempt to make them devoid of any significance, is a testament to the survival of an entire people. But more importantly, their liberation.

Colonialism “thingifies”, meaning it dehumanises. It turns the colonised into commodities, for exploitation on every single level, violating every aspect of their humanity. That is why it was so important to silence their names. To destroy the one thing that each and every one of us call our own, and ultimately the only thing we may take to our grave.