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Young Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu women in Denmark
- How to find the right spouse?
By Marianne Q. Fibiger
Associate professor in religious studies, Aarhus University, Denmark
Abstract:
In Denmark we have around 11.000 people of Sri Lankan origin out of which around 10.000 are
Hindus.1 The first Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus came to Denmark in 1983 because of the escalating
conflict in Sri Lanka. They were mostly men, and they were categorised as ipso facto refugees. During
the1990s they were reunited with their families left behind or they married Sri Lankan Tamil women
and began to settle down. Most of them were placed in the middle of Jutland, where the industry
expanded in the 1990s.
The new settlers had to learn the Danish language, their education from Sri Lanka was often
not accepted, which meant that they had either to do unskilled work or to go through the education
system once again but on Danish terms. In many ways they felt themselves as socially excluded. This
was also the case in relation to religion. For example they did not find any political or public
understanding or support in relation to building religious institutions or in other ways keeping up their
tradition. This has though changes and today we find six Sri Lankan Hindu temples in Denmark out of
which four of them have been consecrated within the last few years. This, together with the fact that
more than 8.000 of the Sri Lankan Tamils living in Denmark have become Danish citizens, show their
severe whish to settle down in Denmark for good, but still without loosing their relation to Sri Lanka,
which they still understand as a kind of homeland. And compared to most of the other refugee and
immigrant groups in Denmark, the Sri Lankan Tamils are very well integrated in the Danish society;
most of them have work, their children especially the girls are doing well in the Danish schools, and
they often choose to speak Danish to each other. They have in other words been through an adaptionprocess much quicker than many of the other immigrant- and refugee-groups, we have in Denmark (see
www. danmarksstatistic.dk).
When it comes to cultural adaption, more and more of the Sri Lankan Tamils adopt a few of
the Danish tradition2 as for example Christmas Eve, but on their own terms. This inclusion of elements
from the Danish tradition also makes them more aware of the important hallmarks associated with
being Hindu and Tamil, and it provides us with an interesting example of how inclusiveness and
exclusiveness in relation to tradition can have a mutual impact on each other. Because new things are
included in the tradition, other things within the tradition are at the same time emphasized even
stronger. As a Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu father of two children told me:
We do celebrate Christmas with presents and a Christmas tree, decorated with things our
children make at school, in our living room, but we don´t sing Christmas Carols or go to
church - some of our Tamil friends in Germany go to church, but we have decided not to.
1 Because
Statistics Denmark, who register all newcomers to Denmark, do not take religious but only geographic affiliation
into account, it is difficult to give an exact figure when it comes to religious grouping.
It is important to emphasize that the use of tradition in singular and not in plural in this paper, doesn’t insinuate, that
tradition is not understood as a multi-complex and multi-layered, context and person-related phenomenon.
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We think it is important that our children get a relation to our temple instead. It’s not that
they are not allowed in the church - they go there with the school - but just for them to get
an idea about where our tradition comes from or belong to.
This statement touches upon a crucial point when it comes to the relation between adaption and
preservation of tradition, Something changes according to the new setting (adaption), but only to a
certain extent and without losing what seems to be the core features within the same tradition
(preservation). In that way the collective memory understood as a shared belonging within a specific
group, despite of its on going changing form, can still be understood as the caretaker of a presumed
mutually shared tradition. Here the religious institution alias the temple seems of great importance as a
preserver of tradition but also a visible symbol for place-making, which the relatively many temples in
Denmark indicate.3
Today the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus are scattered around the most of Denmark with
smaller groups, who are anchored to many different localities. They have moved after new job
possibilities and some of the second generation of Tamils have moved to the capital Copenhagen or
other university cities as Aarhus to get educated. Most of these are women, they have in contrary to
their brothers, who have been raised in a much more liberal way,4 done well in the Danish secondary
school system and are now ready for an education at the university. In general around 67 percentages
of all Tamils in Denmark are fully employed, which means that, together with the Indians and the
Vietnamese, they have the largest number of employees among all immigrant (and refugee) groups in
Denmark. Also the education level among the young Tamils are high compared to other groups
(Source: www.danmarksstatistics.dk, 2012). One reason for this can be found in the very strong
working ethics that lies implicit in the Hindu-tradition, and the children are raised in an atmosphere
where education matters. And it becomes clear that education is not only understood as an indicator for
how to do well in society on secular terms, but also as a kind of token or offering to god. As formulated
by a 55 years old first generation Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu father:
I have raised my children to understand the importance of education. They have
possibilities in Denmark for education that I myself didn’t have in Sri Lanka – they
just have to fulfill them – from my point of view, God-given possibilities.
This paper will focus on this group of second generation of intellectual Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu
women, who are now living in the university-cities in Denmark. They have after they left their parental
homes begun to speak out loud, criticising matters within the Tamil Hindu tradition, they believe
contradict their lives in a modern Danish society, both as Tamil Hindus and as women. So while a
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The place-making process can also be described as, (1) a process of legitimising the tradition, not only for its members in a
new environment, but also for the Danish society, and, (2) a process of formalising the tradition, allowing it to adapt to the
new setting and, thus, to be preserved and transmitted through the generations.
4
It has been a common statement from both second-generation Tamil men and women, how the sexes are raised differently.
While the boys are allowed socializing with the ethnic Danes in all aspects: partying, drinking alcohol, being out late, the
girls are most often not allowed to do so. Instead their parents demand them to stay at home and do their homework, without
hesitation. Slowly though this pattern seems to change. More Tamil boys today are getting educated. And compared to boys
from other immigrant- and refugee-group, they are doing well.
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permanent re-interpretation process is going on for the whole group as such, I find both a generation
gap but also a gender gap in this process. They all seem to emphasize being both Tamils and Hindus in
their self-understanding, but what they put into these categories seems in many aspects to differ.
Whereas first-generation immigrants generally try to keep up the tradition, as they knew it from Sri
Lanka, second-generation immigrants do not (Fibiger 2011). They reinterpret or pick out elements from
tradition, which help them to engage in the society they are now a part of and at the same time link
them to the tradition they share with their parents.
This double-bound of linking and de-linking is something the second generation of Sri
Lankan Tamil Hindus share with all young immigrants living as minorities in a diaspora situation, but,
what I will state in this paper, the Hindu tradition being so difficult to decipher seems to contribute
with arguments that fits both to the idea of belonging to a specific tradition as well as giving arguments
that fits to the life situation for the modern second-generation intellectual Tamil Hindu women in
Denmark. Also when it comes to gender matters. But what kinds of arguments or duties that should be
left out and which ones should be emphasised or reinterpreted in relation to strī-dharma (“strī =woman,
dharma =duty”) has raised a debate especially among young Tamil intellectual women both in relation
to their self-understanding and in relation to the question on how to find the right spouse here in
Denmark, that can live up to their new norms and ideas being a modern woman in Denmark but with a
Tamil Hindu background. They are openly caught in a conflict between following the parents marriage
patterns in relation to caste or kin and to follow their new strive for finding a equal educated husband,
without loosing the possibility to link their children to the tradition, they understand as an important
identity-marker, and also as an important resource in many matters of life. And despite of their openminded critique of the way they are raised by their parents and toward parts of the Tamil Hindu
tradition, they understand as disbelieve, most of them emphasize their role and duty as caretakers and
transmitters of tradition. This can be the main reason for questioning a marriage with an ethnic Dane5
as the following statements given by second-generation Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu women indicates:
I don’t want my children to become rootless. I do have roots here, but anyway. The Tamil
language, but also the Hindu temple, must play a role (Female, 24 years old).
The language is something I will transmit to my children. When I was a child myself, I
didn’t put much attention to the language, but being 25 years, I now begin to think that the
Tamil language is important. (Female, 25 years old).
Hinduism doesn’t take up much space in my daily life, but it is still part of my identity
and it is part of my wish to keep up traditions; for example in relation to marriage and
raising up my children. I feel I have a duty (caused respect to the tradition) to keep up the
relation to Tamilness and to Hinduism, but caused loyalty not as a forced duty (Female,
27 years old)
Different surveys and research on Hindu Women’s role in diaspora emphasises how Hindu women plays and important
role as cultural/religious caretakers and transmitters (Hole, 2001; Knott, 1996, 2000; Lourenco, 2011; Rayaprol, 1995,
1997)
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In these statements it becomes obvious that tradition matters, but what is of special interest for me as a
scholar in Hindu religion is to understand why or which elements of the tradition seem to be of such a
great importance for the young Tamil Hindu women, that they both want to preserve it and transmit it
to the next generation, and relate to it in their self-understanding and strive for what they presume as
being the “ideal life”.
Therefor it seems difficult for the women to cope with the idea of getting an ethnic Dane as
husband; or as one of my informants underlined:
For me it is about the balance between our Tamil background and our Danish upbringing.
I try to combine the good thing from both cultures. I would like to have a husband who
thinks the same also in relation to the upbringing of children, in relation to education,
values, religion, boys/girls, alcohol etc. (Female, 24 years of age)
As stated before this particular group shares many of the same problems than other young second and
third generation of women have in Denmark or in diaspora in general (identity constructions, double
belonging, generation conflicts, gender conflict, cultural hybridization, relation to tradition, multiple
identities etc.), but this paper will also state that these processes also are shaped in a particular way
being Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu woman in Denmark. This negotiation between being Hindu (religious
identity), and Tamil (cultural and social identity) as well as being a Danish citizen (social and cultural
identity) is constantly in play, and shapes their particular understanding of belonging, not only to a
place in history or in the world, but also in the mind. What I find as interesting is, that they don’t seem
to want to let any of these anchoring points to go and they appreciate this form of cultural hybridity.
They understand them all as important resources, which seem to be the main reason for wanting a Sri
Lankan Tamil Hindu man, a man that shares the same relations to the mentioned elements of
belonging. Or as expressed by a second-generation Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu woman, 26 years of age:
I would like to get married to a Tamil Hindu, who lives and is raised here in Denmark. The
reason to this wish is, that we would understand each other – for example in relation to lifestyle
(relationship between man and woman, independence, work) and interests (concerts, go out for
a dance, drink a cold beer, travel)”. At the same time we would share a common idea of
belonging as both being Tamil and Hindu. I think that will help us when raising our children.
I will in the following give and example of how this schism of being a modern Danish woman on the
one hand and a Tamil Hindu woman on the other has started a discussion on how to find the right
husband that can live up to their ideals as a independent and aspirational woman and balance it with
their need for keeping up tradition, that link them to their families, to Sri Lanka and to the Tamils and
to Hinduism.
How to find the right spouse?
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“Tamil girls beat every record when it comes to educational level and integration in Denmark. But then
follows the question: do we find enough well educated Tamil men to all these Tamil girls, when they
are about to find a husband?”
This was the main statement and question put on a poster, inviting young Tamils and other
interested for a debate event the 18. April 2009 (The International Women’s Day) in Aarhus, Denmark,
arranged by the individuals behind the Internet chat forums Nizhal.dk and Tamilgirls.dk and the Tamil
Magazine called The Bridge-builder (in Danish: Brobyggeren).
The headline on the poster was: Challenges Tamil women meets, when choosing a
partner, and was after the above introductory question further elaborated by the following questions:
1) What kind of possibilities do the Tamil girls find on the marriage market? 2) Do freedom and
independence have an impact on the Tamil women when choosing a partner? 3) In which way do
parents, society and unwritten rules have an impact on Tamil women’s lives? 4) Does the fact, that
women are better educated than the men have an impact on the gender patterns? 5) Which expectations
and demands do the modern, independent and well-educated Tamil women have to their coming
husband?
The event was unfortunately cancelled the same morning because of problems in Sri
Lanka, with a flow of refugees from Jaffna to different refugee camps causing new political tensions on
the island, but the invitation was published on the Internet and further elaborated with even more
questions as: “Have Tamil women found a new social status to replace their parents’ patriarchal
values? Why is it more common for a Tamil woman to marry a Danish man than for a Tamil man to
marry a Danish woman? Do we see a pattern, in which young Tamil women are increasingly breaking
with their parents’ values and with socioeconomic relations, and marrying for love? Has the concept of
love changed? These questions were concluded with an ending call for participation: “We know it is a
complicated and sensitive subject. We hope that many of you will participate and contribute with your
opinions and different angles – this is important for a good debate and dialogue.”(Tamilgirl.dk,
Nizhal.dk, 18.4. 2009). This did start a long and on going debate both on the Internet in the two above
mentioned chat groups and in the magazine the Bridge builder, and it also started a wider reflection on
being a Tamil Hindu woman with a Danish twist.
I have followed the discussion on the Internet since that day and also interviewed around
50 second-generation young Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in relation to how they balance between being
part of a shared Tamil cultural heritage or cultural memory and at the same time being part of Danish
society. And it seems like the situation in Denmark differs from other Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu groups
living in diaspora, as the following comment from an anonymous woman writing on Tamilgirl.dk,
triggered by the above call, indicates. And which can be the reason for, why this above debate seemed
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important for the second generation of intellectual Tamil Hindu women in Denmark to take:
Dear all. I write this comment as a person who has followed the development of the
arrangements from the sideline.
I have noticed two different groups of critics [...] One
group argues that the problem does not exist, and criticizes the arrangers for making up
a problem. The other group argues that the arrangers are making the problem too vague.
They want an even more critical announcement.
I think that things are changing quicker
in Denmark in comparison with, for example, England and Canada. It is not because the
Tamils in Denmark are more “humane”, but because we are a small community. It is
more difficult for a small community to reproduce and keep up values in their original
form. In England and in Canada Tamils do mostly marry within the same caste and they
mostly interrelate with Tamils within the same caste. At the same time they also marry
within their own educational level. Both are possible in big communities.
In 2005, around 16% of all the Tamil marriages were mixed marriages between a Tamil
(mostly women) and an ethnic Dane (source: the Ministry for Integration).6 I have been
told by some of the Tamil women that it was because they never met any Tamil boy while
studying [...] (www.Tamilgirl.dk, April 2009)
In her comparison with the situation in England and Canada compared to Denmark she emphasizes that
the right match in relation to caste and educational level is possibly there, but not in Denmark. At the
same time, by using the word “humane”, she insinuates a critique by the way things are done in Canada
and England, but without mentioning that the Danish model is the accomplished ideal. This is also
expressed by the ending paragraph referring to that the Danish ethnic husband was chosen by the Tamil
women not because it was the ideal match, but because they never met a Tamil boy equalizing them
educational wise while studying.
In relation to mixed marriages most of the second generation of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu
women I have interviewed are split. One the one side, they are attracted to the idea, on the other they
don’t think it will turn out well in the long run. This is especially questioned in relation to the children,
who they don’t want to “get rootless” as the quotation on page 3-4 indicates, and in relation to the
tradition they share with their parents, and that: “has formed me to become the person I am today” (Sri
Lankan Tamil Hindu woman, 24 years of age). This underlines the fact, that a link to the tradition
matters, but when it comes to de-linking it becomes obvious, that most of the second generation of
Tamils would like to get rid of caste as a parameter for whom to marry. This is also what the implicit
critique on Canada and England is hinting. Instead the second generation of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu
women would like that a new hierarchical system is taken into account, namely the education level.
And what is of interest in relation to tradition or the collective memory the young Sri Lankan Tamil
Hindus seem to finds arguments within the tradition that makes the educational level aligned with
caste. They refer to – or at least indirectly- to purusha-artha – the four goals in life, which are part of
the Hindu ethic and underline the need for engaging in life. The four goals are dharma (ethics,
morality), artha (wealth, political power), kama (erotic and aesthetic enjoyment) and moksha
6
The young woman refers to the following research by Statistics Denmark, Table 2: Education among 16–29-year-old
women and men from Sri Lanka in 2007.
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(liberation from reincarnation). All of them are related to each other and to the four life stages
(ashramas). Especially artha is used to legitimize engagement in a Modern society because it is
interpreted as stressing education leading to a prestigious work in the end as its fulfillment. So in that
way their negotiating is not a question of dismantle tradition but a question of making it to fit their lives
in Denmark.
Conclusion
That the young Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in Denmark, who are either born in Denmark or came to
Denmark when they were small children, have a different relationship with the tradition compared to
their parents is not a new observation, but what I with the above example will stress is that it is still
shaped in the context of certain patterns or a certain system of symbols, which young Tamil Hindus
women are socialized to relate to in their upbringing – even when in disagreement.
This common source of reference is what Jan Assmann (2006) or Danièle Hervieu-Léger
(2000:124-125) calls cultural or collective memory. Both of them emphasize that memory has a
cultural basis or is culturally transmitted and cannot only be found within the individual but is stored in
institutions or texts and is shared or is becoming into being among a collective of beings. From this
point of view, which I do share, the young Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu women use collective memory as
one central point of departure in not only finding their identity in a new setting and under new
circumstances, but also as an argument for the choices they do in life.
Jan Assmann (2006), who is inspired by Maurice Halbwachs’ (1952) work with social
memory, wants to come to an understanding of how information is transmitted. And he wants, with the
following description, to emphasize the interaction he believes is in play between the psyche,
consciousness, society and culture. Even if the neural foundation of memory is individual, he
emphasizes that the content of it is founded in the interaction between the individual and his/ her social
relations. In other words, he stresses that memory is basically a social phenomenon. And with reference
to Aleida Assmann (1999), he defines tradition as a special case of communication in which
information is not exchanged reciprocally and horizontally, but is transmitted vertically through the
generations” (ibid., 8).
In contrast to communicative memory, cultural or collective memory remembers back in
history, and can be stored either in institutions or in text. From Assmann’s point of view cultural or
religious texts are a special class of oral or written texts, which seem to have great impact on a given
worldview, because the texts come with attached normative and formative importance (ibid., 38). The
text as cultural or collective memory can be recalled regardless of place and space. Assmann’s point of
departure is an elaboration of culture and evolution, but I think his statements work very well, when it
comes to dealing with religion in diaspora and how elements from the collective memory are not
moved diachronically in time, but synchronically in space, in spite of the twist that it is still the
diachronic or historical linking to a shared heritage that seems to be the reason for the need to retain
shared identity markers, but in a new setting and under new circumstances.7
When it comes to the second-generation of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu women in Denmark,
they are on the one hand very critical towards their parents relation to the collective memory, which
they find to narrow, to local, wrongly interpreted or non-reflected. They want to sweep all these
“wrong doings” away, as the following statements marks:
7
I have used this perspective as well in the article: Young Tamil Hindus in Denmark and Their Relationship to Tradition
and Collective Memory, from 2010.
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Hinduism is full of superstition. Just look at our parents. As an example, I can tell you that
my mother was very engaged in astrology, especially how the planets were placed in
relation to each other. Sometimes she said: “now we are facing a bad period.” And we had
to fast or we had to go to the temple to make offerings. It was driving me crazy. Today, I
have to admit, I look a bit on it myself - but in contrast to my mother, I consult books
about the subject’ (Sri Lankan Hindu Tamil woman, 27 years old).
There is a lot in the Tamil culture in Denmark I dislike. For example shame and
honour in relation to marriage, sexuality, nearly anything, but also in relation to
gossip. There is a lot of gossip going on among the Tamils here in Denmark: especially, if
you don’t follow the unwritten rules, but as a young woman behave like young Danish
women. When I was teenager, I was not allowed to go to parties, drink alcohol, having
boyfriends. I should stay at home and do my homework, while my brothers were out
partying. Today I am pleased, because I did well in school in contrary to my brothers. But
they try to catch up now.
(Sri Lankan Hindu Tamil woman, 27 years old)
This statement is an example of how second-generation immigrants relate themselves to the same
tradition as that of their parents, though not without hesitation. They either need proof or a textual
authority to support the belief before they let it become part of their religious meaning system or
approve it as part of the collective memory they share with their parents. And they want to weed out the
elements they understand as “wrongdoers” in relation to the collective memory. These elements are
mostly anchored to the local Tamil Hindu tradition, which don’t seem to fit to the second generation of
Tamil Hindus world- and life-view, that are constructed, so it fits to their new setting and place in life
in Denmark. It is obvious that they don’t want to become mono-cultural but cultural hybrid, taking
elements from the Tamil, Hindu as well as the Danish culture in a patchwork-culture that fits to their
place – both geographically but also in life. This doesn’t mean they will skip the collective memory,
that link them to their parents, but they will qualify it, so it fits to their new setting in a way it can last
also in the future.
Through my interviews with second-generation Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in Denmark
(Fibiger 2011), it has become obvious how the language, the texts and the temple institution play an
important role for storing tradition and as something they not only relate to in their self-identity as
being either Tamil and/or Hindu, but also as something they want to transmit to their children. When it
comes to the language, they find it important mostly for two reasons. Firstly, they can communicate
with their older relatives both in Denmark and in Sri Lanka, and thereby get linked to their shared
background. Secondly, they can understand what is said in the temple, and they can read the holy
stories and texts themselves. Especially the last point has to do with religious identity and the religious
institution, which seems to be the focal point for both generations. The way they relate to the religious
institution seems to differ, but they agree that the temple is a cultural keeper and broker, an important
symbol of the tradition being a visible part of the Danish environment and a place to consult when
needed. This fits to an old Tamil saying stating that you should not live in a village where there is no
temple.
And in relation to cultural hybridity, the second generation of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu
women in Denmark don’t seem to have any problems in linking to at least four forms of identitygivers: as a Tamil, as a Tamil-Hindu, as a Hindu that link them to the global Hindu tradition, and as a
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Dane. Most of them understand this as a privilege, as long they can choose themselves how to link to
these different identities and to pass this patchwork on to their children, That is why they want to marry
a Tamil Hindu man having equally identities and strives for life.
Conclusion
I agree with Judith Butler, when she argues, that gender is a construction produced by the norms; but I
also agree with her when she at the same time questions this fact, pointing “to what extent ‘identity’ is
a normative ideal rather than a descriptive feature of experience” (Butler, 1990, 23). In other words this
presumed normativity is under negotiation or said in other words: it is nothing in itself but what people
put into this category through their own experiences. And in relation to the theme of this paper it is
interesting to decipher how this is negotiated or performed among second-generation of young
intellectual Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus women in Denmark in a way, so they can cope with their strive of
being a modern and independent woman but without loosing their relation to the Tamil Hindu tradition,
which they still find as an important norm-giver, but also as an important contribution to the feeling of
belonging in a fluctuating life-situation; a feeling of belonging that they want in some degree to pass on
to their children.
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