காவேரி
(காவிரி என்பதே சரி.) முதலான சில தமிழ்ப்பெயர்களாவது சூட்டியதற்கு மகிழ்ச்சி.
ஆறுகளின் பெயர்கள் எனக் கிருட்டிணா முதலான பெயர்கள் வைத்திருக்கலாம். வைகை முதலான தமிழக ஆற்றின் பெயர்களைச்
சூட்டியிருக்கலாமே. தமிழில் யானைகளுக்குரிய பெயர்கள் தமிழ்மக்கள் விலங்கறிவியலில்
- யானையறிவியலில் மிகச்சிறந்து உள்ளமையைக் காட்டும். தும்பி முதலான 45 பெயர்களைப் பிங்கல நிகண்டு (பா. 2412) கூறுகின்றது. நூல்களில் இருந்து யானையின் பெயர்களைத் தொகுத்து ‘விக்சனரி ‘ 170
பெயர்களைக் குறிப்பிடுகிறது. யானையின் உறுப்புகளின் பெயர்களும் தமிழர்க்கிருந்த யானை அறிவியல் பிறருடன்
ஒப்பிட இயலாத அளவு உயர்ந்துள்ளதைக் காட்டும். புதிய அறிவியல் தளத்தில் (http://www.newscience.in/articles/yanaiyiyal
) இவை குறித்து விரிவாகக் காணலாம். யானை வகைக்கே நூற்றுக்கு மேற்பட்ட பெயர்கள்
இருக்கும் பொழுது யானைகளுக்கும் தமிழ்ப்பெயர் சூட்டுவதுதானே அழகாகும். முதல்வர்
மக்களுக்குப் பெயர் சூட்டினாலும், விலங்குகள், பறவைகளுக்குப் பெயர் சூட்டினாலும் தமிழ்ப்பெயர்களே
சூட்ட வேண்டும் என வேண்டுகின்றேன். தமிழ்நாட்டவரும் தமிழர்களும் தமிழ்ப்பெயர்
சூட்டாவிட்டால் யார்தான், தமிழ்ப்பெயர் சூட்டுவர். ‘தமிழை மறப்பவர்களைத் தமிழர்களும் மறப்பர்’ என்னும் சூழல் உருவாகிவருவதை உணர்ந்தால், அயற்பெயர்களுக்கு
இடம் இல்லாமல் போகுமல்லவா? தமிழ்ப்பெயர் சூட்டுவதால் அவரது மதிப்பு மேலும் உயரும்
என்பதை அவர் உணர வேண்டும். அன்புடன் இலக்குவனார் திருவள்ளுவன், தலைவர், தமிழ்க்காப்புக்கழகம்
சனி, 14 ஜூன், 2014
பொலிவியா நாட்டினரே! நீங்கள் மாந்தர்தாமா? உறுப்பு நாட்டினரே! நீங்கள் அறிவும் பரிவும் உள்ளவர்தாமா?
பொலிவியா நாட்டினரே! நீங்கள் மாந்தர்தாமா?
உறுப்பு நாட்டினரே! நீங்கள் அறிவும் பரிவும் உள்ளவர்தாமா?
சூன் 15, 1964
அன்று 77 வளர்நிலை நாடுகள் கூடி அமைத்ததே 'வ - 77'
(G-77) என்னும் அமைப்பு.
இப்பொழுது இவ்வமைப்பில் 133 நாடுகள் உள்ளன. இந்தியாவும்
இவ்வமைப்பில் உள்ளது. இதன் பொன்விழா
மாநாடு தென்அமெரிக்க நாடான பொலிவியாவில் சாண்டாக்ரூசு நகரில் வரும் (சூன்) 14,
15 (2014) நாள்களில் நடக்க உள்ளது. இம்மாநாட்டில் உறுப்பு நாடுகளின்
தலைவர்களும் உயர் மட்டச் சார்பாளர்களும்
கலந்துகொள்வார்கள் என எதிர்பார்க்கப்படுகிறது. பக்சே படுகொலைகளைத் தட்டிக்
கேட்காமலும் தடுக்காமலும் மறைமுகமாக உதவிய ஐ.நா. அமைப்பின் செயலர் பான் கி மூன்
முதலானவர்களும் கலந்து கொள்கின்றனர்.
பொருளியல் வளர்ச்சிக்கான இவ்வமைப்பு அமைதிக்கான விருது வழங்குவதற்குரிய
தகுதியற்றது. ஆனால், அமைதிக்கான விருதை அமைதியைக்
குலைத்த படுகொலையாளி பக்சேவிற்கு இவ்வமைப்பு
கூடும் கூட்டத்தில் பொலிவியா நாடு வழங்குகிறது. இவ்வமைப்பின் தலைவராக இப்போது பொலிவியா அதிபர் உள்ளதால் அவர் இதனை
முன்னெடுத்துள்ளார். பொலிவியா நாட்டின் 'அமைதி -
மக்களாட்சிக்கான உயரிய விருதினை' மக்களாட்சிக்கு எதிரான பேரினப் படுகொலையாளியான, உலக மனித நேயர்களும் அறவாணர்களும் மனிதஉரிமைக்கான போராளிகளும்
தண்டிக்கக் காத்திருக்கும் வெறியன் பக்சேவிற்கு வழங்க உள்ளார்.
நாம் சொன்னால் இந்திய அரசு கேட்கப் போவதில்லை என நாம் வாளாவில்லாமல்
இவ்விழாவினைப் புறக்கணிக்குமாறு இந்திய அரசிடம் வலியுறுத்த வேண்டும்.
உலக நாடுகளில் வாழும் தமிழர்கள் தத்தம் நாட்டினை இவ்வாறு
விழாவைப் புறக்கணிக்க வலியுறுத்த வேண்டும்.
நாளை காலம் மாறும்; பக்சேவிற்கு வழங்கப்படும் பொய்யான
பட்டங்கள் பறிமுதல் செய்யப்பட்டு 'உலகக் கொடுங்கோலன்' என்று அழைக்கப்படுவான். எனினும் வெறும் நம்பிக்கையில் வாழாமல்,
நாம் இது போன்ற கொடுமையிலும் கொடுமையான
நிகழ்வுகள் நடைபெறாமல் தடுக்க ஒல்லும் வகை பணியாற்றிட வேண்டும்.
'உற்றநோய் நோன்று
உயிர்க்குறுகண் செய்யா தவர்க்கு' (குறள் 261) வழங்கப்பட வேண்டிய விருதை, பக்சேவிற்கு
வழங்கி, பொலியவியா குடியரசு நாடு தன்னைத்
தாழ்த்திக் கொள்கிறது. அவ்விழாவில் பங்கேற்று வளர்நிலை நாடுகள் தங்களை
இழிவுபடுத்திக் கொள்கின்றன.
133 என்றால் திருக்குறள் அதிகார எண்ணிக்கை நினைவிற்கு வரும்
நமக்கு இனிமேல் 133 வளர்கொலைநாடுகளே நினைவிற்கு வரும். எனவே
வளர்நிலை நாடுகளே
வானுயர் தோற்றம் எவன்செய்யும் தன்னெஞ்சம்
தான்அறி குற்றப் படின் (குறள் 272)
என உணராமல்
தன்னைத்தானே உயர்வாகக் காட்ட முயலும் படுகொலையாளி பக்சேவிற்குத் துணை நிற்கலாமா?
கயமைக்குத்துணை
நிற்பது கயமைத்தனம் இல்லையா?
வஞ்சகனைப்
பாராட்டுவதும் வஞ்சகம் அல்லவா?
கொலையாளியைப்
போற்றுவதும் கொலைச்செயல்தானே!
நீங்கள் அனைவரும் கயவர்களா?
வஞ்சகர்களா? கொலையாளிகளா?
அல்லது
உயிர்கள் மீது நேயம் கொண்ட, துன்பத்தில்
உழல்பவர்க்கு துணை நிற்கும், அல்லல்பட்டு ஆற்றாது
அழுவோர் கண்ணீரைத் துடைக்கும் உயர்ந்த உள்ளம் கொண்டவர்களா?
இனப்படுகொலையாளியைப் போற்றும் வஞ்சக நிகழ்வில் பங்கேற்பீர்களா?
அல்லது புறக்கணிப்பீர்களா?
என்பதைப் பொறுத்து உலகம் முடிவு
செய்யும்!
உலகம் உங்களைக் கட்டியணைக்க வேண்டுமா? காறித் துப்ப வேண்டுமா என நீங்களே
முடிவெடுத்துக் கொள்ளுங்கள்!
வஞ்ச மனத்தான் படிற்றொழுக்கம் பூதங்கள்
ஐந்தும் அகத்தே நகும். (குறள் 271)
Selective genocidal rape in arsenal of ‘international community’ imperialism
Selective genocidal rape in arsenal of ‘international community’ imperialism
[TamilNet, Friday, 13 June 2014, 01:59 GMT]
The so-called Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict is a clear demonstration on the acceptance of genocidal rape as a weapon in selective cases, where the deployment of it through agent States is needed for imperialistic engineering. Omission is more powerful than inclusion in sending messages. If the Summit has risked its credibility by the omission of the ‘very special case Sri Lanka’ that always relished in seeing Tamils naked, then the global importance of the ‘Sri Lanka paradigm’ to today’s ‘international community imperialism’ has to be understood without any doubt. While William Hague and Angelina Jolie are just managers of the main show, the imperialism behind them was ingenious in choreographing sideshows too, to diffuse any uprising.
The greatest insult to Eezham Tamils is the relegation of their issue from the main stage to Canadian High Commissioner’s residence and to the ‘side events’ of the summit.
There are also the crumbs thrown at UK Tamils that Hague would consider asylum cases of rape-torture victims.
As usual, those who have been mobilised for sideshow performances to imperialism would eulogise that even the crumbs and attention they had ‘achieved’ wouldn’t have come otherwise.
The main agenda of the Summit was kept a secret to UK Tamil public while sideshow performers were mobilised, informed circles say.
The UK Tamils could have performed the main show to the world, had they mobilised and demonstrated in strength against such a Summit of gross injustice. They have the capacity, which they had shown during the war. But, what ‘counterinsurgency’ imperialism, operated in which ways and infiltrated through what genre of polity and personalities have hijacked away the spirit and strength of mobilisation, has to be carefully perused by the UK Tamils.
Tamils have to recollect the International Crisis Group (ICG) differentiating national questions for independence: which ones will be recognized, which ones will be watched and which ones will not be recognized. The Eezham Tamil question was listed in their last category.
It is this policy outline that is reflected in the omission of ‘Sri Lanka’ from the main agenda of the Summit and in the eyewash of sideshow orchestrations.
Even after repeated and explicit acts by a bloc that masquerade in the name ‘International Community’, if the fact has not been dawn on Tamils that where precisely their struggle has to be addressed, then there must be really something wrong with them and their ‘civilisation’.
Addressing the struggle at the UK Establishment, which is the idea-setting and show-managing member of the bloc, and getting the answer from it, is more crucial than demonstrating against Rajapaksa in London.
Chronology:
The so-called Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict is a clear demonstration on the acceptance of genocidal rape as a weapon in selective cases, where the deployment of it through agent States is needed for imperialistic engineering. Omission is more powerful than inclusion in sending messages. If the Summit has risked its credibility by the omission of the ‘very special case Sri Lanka’ that always relished in seeing Tamils naked, then the global importance of the ‘Sri Lanka paradigm’ to today’s ‘international community imperialism’ has to be understood without any doubt. While William Hague and Angelina Jolie are just managers of the main show, the imperialism behind them was ingenious in choreographing sideshows too, to diffuse any uprising.
The greatest insult to Eezham Tamils is the relegation of their issue from the main stage to Canadian High Commissioner’s residence and to the ‘side events’ of the summit.
There are also the crumbs thrown at UK Tamils that Hague would consider asylum cases of rape-torture victims.
As usual, those who have been mobilised for sideshow performances to imperialism would eulogise that even the crumbs and attention they had ‘achieved’ wouldn’t have come otherwise.
The main agenda of the Summit was kept a secret to UK Tamil public while sideshow performers were mobilised, informed circles say.
The UK Tamils could have performed the main show to the world, had they mobilised and demonstrated in strength against such a Summit of gross injustice. They have the capacity, which they had shown during the war. But, what ‘counterinsurgency’ imperialism, operated in which ways and infiltrated through what genre of polity and personalities have hijacked away the spirit and strength of mobilisation, has to be carefully perused by the UK Tamils.
Tamils have to recollect the International Crisis Group (ICG) differentiating national questions for independence: which ones will be recognized, which ones will be watched and which ones will not be recognized. The Eezham Tamil question was listed in their last category.
It is this policy outline that is reflected in the omission of ‘Sri Lanka’ from the main agenda of the Summit and in the eyewash of sideshow orchestrations.
Even after repeated and explicit acts by a bloc that masquerade in the name ‘International Community’, if the fact has not been dawn on Tamils that where precisely their struggle has to be addressed, then there must be really something wrong with them and their ‘civilisation’.
Addressing the struggle at the UK Establishment, which is the idea-setting and show-managing member of the bloc, and getting the answer from it, is more crucial than demonstrating against Rajapaksa in London.
Chronology:
Related Articles:
10.05.14 Former ICG chief denies structural genocide of Eezham Tamils
09.10.12 Genocide needs investigation but separation contextually unw..
25.12.11 ‘ICG report fails to cover genocide-intended sexual violence..
வெள்ளி, 13 ஜூன், 2014
Navalar documents: Tamils should work for own revival of culture links
Navalar documents: Tamils should work for own revival of culture links
[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 June 2014, 03:22 GMT]
Tamil Nadu government should come out with an independent cultural initiative in reviving the identity and involvement of Eezham Tamils in their charities at Chithamparam. Eezham Tamils living in the island, in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora should be able to participate and be benefitted by the cultural initiative in which education, publication, heritage museum and heritage tourism should get priority. While documentation on the Mutts of Eezham Tamils at Chithamparam from the times of the Kings of Jaffna appeared earlier in TamilNet, the documents currently released on Arumuga Navalar charities at Chithamparam speak for themselves on what the Eezham Tamils should do. There is no substitute to self-initiation in the cultural pursuance of a people.
Tamil Nadu government should come out with an independent cultural initiative in reviving the identity and involvement of Eezham Tamils in their charities at Chithamparam. Eezham Tamils living in the island, in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora should be able to participate and be benefitted by the cultural initiative in which education, publication, heritage museum and heritage tourism should get priority. While documentation on the Mutts of Eezham Tamils at Chithamparam from the times of the Kings of Jaffna appeared earlier in TamilNet, the documents currently released on Arumuga Navalar charities at Chithamparam speak for themselves on what the Eezham Tamils should do. There is no substitute to self-initiation in the cultural pursuance of a people.
TamilNet Editorial Board
“It
is desirable that the residents of Jaffna should be given an
opportunity to interest themselves in the Trust particularly as it owes
its inception to a Tamil scholar of Jaffna descent,” says a 1951 Madras
High Court judgement on the administration of the charities of Arumuga
Navalar at Chithamparam.
Earlier,
a 1937 Madras High Court judgement of the British times, appointed the
trustee of the Arumuga Navalar School in Jaffna, to look after the
school and charities in Chithamparam too. The School in Jaffna
deteriorated under Colombo government take-over. The Madras High Court
in 1951 identified Jaffna Saiva Paripaalana Sabha and Hindu Board of
Education to represent the people of Jaffna in running the Chithamparam
charities.
Navalar
had declared that the education and other cultural charities
established by him at Jaffna and Chithamparam in Tamil Nadu should
continue through the academic lineage of his students.
After
the demise of Navalar in 1879, the lineage of his students, K.
Sathasivappillai, S. Ponnampalapillai and S. Visvanathapillai continued
the management. Later, as there was a succession issue, The Madras High
Court in 1937, appointed the trustee of Navalar School in Jaffna (T.
Kailasapillai) to look after the Chithamparam charities too, according
to a clause in the will of Sathasivappillai.
What the Colombo government did with the Navalar School in Jaffna, handed over to it, is well known. The pioneer native educational institution started in the 1840s to challenge colonial education, became a middle school, while Buddhist institutions started after it became universities in the south.
What the Colombo government did with the Navalar School in Jaffna, handed over to it, is well known. The pioneer native educational institution started in the 1840s to challenge colonial education, became a middle school, while Buddhist institutions started after it became universities in the south.
One
of the Jaffna organisations, The Hindu Board of Education, identified
by the Madras High Court in 1951 to represent the people of Jaffna for
the Chithamparam charity, has also become almost defunct, when the
organisation handed over more than 250 schools to the Colombo government
in 1960.
* * *
The will documents from the time of Arumuga Navalar to Visvanathapillai and the Madras High Court judgements of 1937 and 1951 appear in this column.
Those who could read Tamil should carefully go through the Will Documents to get the feeling and the spirit with which the charities were made and administered.
The court judgements understood the spirit and that’s why they were insisting on the participation of the people of Jaffna.
The feeling and the spirit are what that needed today among the Tamils in Eezham, Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora.
[Maravan Pulavu K. Sachithananthan, who was earlier a member of the Trust Board, representing Jaffna Saiva Paripalana Sabha, kindly provided the copies of the documents in the 1980s. Some information was obtained in 1973, from the late Advocate T. Somasundaram, who was then president of Jaffna Saiva Paripalana Sabha.]
Chronology:
* * *
The will documents from the time of Arumuga Navalar to Visvanathapillai and the Madras High Court judgements of 1937 and 1951 appear in this column.
Those who could read Tamil should carefully go through the Will Documents to get the feeling and the spirit with which the charities were made and administered.
The court judgements understood the spirit and that’s why they were insisting on the participation of the people of Jaffna.
The feeling and the spirit are what that needed today among the Tamils in Eezham, Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora.
[Maravan Pulavu K. Sachithananthan, who was earlier a member of the Trust Board, representing Jaffna Saiva Paripalana Sabha, kindly provided the copies of the documents in the 1980s. Some information was obtained in 1973, from the late Advocate T. Somasundaram, who was then president of Jaffna Saiva Paripalana Sabha.]
Chronology:
23.02.09 'Koayil' controversy
Related Articles:
UK shields Sri Lanka’s genocidal rape committed on Tamils
UK shields Sri Lanka’s genocidal rape committed on Tamils
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 June 2014, 22:49 GMT]
Britain, which was actively in complicity with the genocidal war conducted without witnesses against Eezham Tamils, now in a global summit convened in London this week, shields the systematic genocidal rape committed on Tamil women too. The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, organized by British Foreign Secretary William Hague and the high profile Special Envoy of UNHCR, Angelina Jolie, with delegations from 140 countries and ministers from 100 countries including the US Secretary of State, was highlighting the cases of all but the Tamils. “Regrettably, Foreign Secretary Hague has forgotten about the courageous survivors of sexual violence in Sri Lanka,” said Bianca Jagger.
“Sexual violence in Sri Lanka is not on the conference agenda. More than this, the Stabilization Unit Team of Experts, created by Mr Hague, has not been assigned to the country to investigate. The team is working on both ongoing (DR Congo, Syria) and historic (Libya, Bosnia, Rwanda) cases of sexual violence in conflict -- and has recently expanded its remit to cover more countries including Burma... Yet Sri Lanka, where rape has been used as a weapon of war for many years of brutal civil conflict, is not being examined,” Bianca said in a feature appeared in Huff Post Impact on Wednesday.
“I am afraid that at the moment, the Sri Lankan survivors are still treated as "outcasts." They are being relegated to the edges of society. Their plight is being ignored by the support systems of the state -- by the Agenda for the Summit and, I am afraid to say, by the UK government. As Mr Hague said in his opening statement to the Summit: 'What would it say about Britain if we chose not to act -- now that we know the facts, how can we turn aside? I would like Mr Hague to answer his own question,” Bianca said.
Meanwhile The Guardian on Tuesday highlighted Britain’s hypocrisy of convening the summit but sending back Tamil rape and torture victims to ‘Sri Lanka’.
“This week's global summit to end sexual violence in conflict has its origins in a 2012 film Angelina Jolie made about the Bosnian war, called Land of Blood and Honey. William Hague was so shocked by the unflinching portrayal of the rape camps run by Serb forces that he suggested a partnership with Jolie to raise awareness about the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war,” The Guardian said.
“The object was to do something to curb it, by pursuing prosecutions and stepping up training, particularly of national contingents in peacekeeping forces, so that civilians would be protected against predatory soldiers. The Foreign Office has set up a team of experts, made up of more than 70 forensic, legal and investigate specialists, who have gone to six conflict or post-conflict zones across the world, including the Syrian borders, Libya, Bosnia and Mali,” The Guardian further said.
Britain, which was actively in complicity with the genocidal war conducted without witnesses against Eezham Tamils, now in a global summit convened in London this week, shields the systematic genocidal rape committed on Tamil women too. The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, organized by British Foreign Secretary William Hague and the high profile Special Envoy of UNHCR, Angelina Jolie, with delegations from 140 countries and ministers from 100 countries including the US Secretary of State, was highlighting the cases of all but the Tamils. “Regrettably, Foreign Secretary Hague has forgotten about the courageous survivors of sexual violence in Sri Lanka,” said Bianca Jagger.
“Sexual violence in Sri Lanka is not on the conference agenda. More than this, the Stabilization Unit Team of Experts, created by Mr Hague, has not been assigned to the country to investigate. The team is working on both ongoing (DR Congo, Syria) and historic (Libya, Bosnia, Rwanda) cases of sexual violence in conflict -- and has recently expanded its remit to cover more countries including Burma... Yet Sri Lanka, where rape has been used as a weapon of war for many years of brutal civil conflict, is not being examined,” Bianca said in a feature appeared in Huff Post Impact on Wednesday.
“I am afraid that at the moment, the Sri Lankan survivors are still treated as "outcasts." They are being relegated to the edges of society. Their plight is being ignored by the support systems of the state -- by the Agenda for the Summit and, I am afraid to say, by the UK government. As Mr Hague said in his opening statement to the Summit: 'What would it say about Britain if we chose not to act -- now that we know the facts, how can we turn aside? I would like Mr Hague to answer his own question,” Bianca said.
Meanwhile The Guardian on Tuesday highlighted Britain’s hypocrisy of convening the summit but sending back Tamil rape and torture victims to ‘Sri Lanka’.
“This week's global summit to end sexual violence in conflict has its origins in a 2012 film Angelina Jolie made about the Bosnian war, called Land of Blood and Honey. William Hague was so shocked by the unflinching portrayal of the rape camps run by Serb forces that he suggested a partnership with Jolie to raise awareness about the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war,” The Guardian said.
“The object was to do something to curb it, by pursuing prosecutions and stepping up training, particularly of national contingents in peacekeeping forces, so that civilians would be protected against predatory soldiers. The Foreign Office has set up a team of experts, made up of more than 70 forensic, legal and investigate specialists, who have gone to six conflict or post-conflict zones across the world, including the Syrian borders, Libya, Bosnia and Mali,” The Guardian further said.
Angelina Jolie and William Hague said in their joint article in the Sunday Times on the June 8, "It is in our power to remove rape as a weapon of war from the world's arsenal of cruelty. And it is in our hands to treat victims not as social outcasts, but as courageous survivors."
However, in the case of Eezham Tamils, all the partners of genocidal Sri Lanka have decided to treat the Sinhala State as a ‘very special case’ and to encourage it to do whatever it likes in the imperialistic engineering in the island, political observers commented.
The current MI 6 chief and the then British representative at the UN Security Council, Sir Robert John Sawers said during the genocidal war that the LTTE was long blighting the Sri Lanka government.
Media exposure has now made Hague to announce that he would investigate the asylum seekers’ claims in the UK.
This is reluctant eyewash. Justice comes only when the Eezham case is investigated on a par with other global cases recognized for investigation.
The blame is not entirely on William Hague and Angelina Jolie. What the British Tamil diaspora articulators, known for their gullibility about the ‘virtues’ of the British Establishment, were doing, is the question.
Chronology:
Related Articles:
24.03.14 UK long blighted cause of Eezham Tamils, contributed to geno..
08.02.09 Russia, UK protect Colombo's international impunity
External Links:
| The Guardian: | William Hague to investigate claims of Tamil rape victims being deported | |
| The Blog: | #TimeToAct on Sri Lanka |
India to build ‘cultural centre’ at Jaffna
India to build ‘cultural centre’ at Jaffna
[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 June 2014, 23:12 GMT]
The Government of India, after taking permission from the Sri Lankan state, is planning to construct a cultural centre at Jaffna. A Memorandum of Understanding for implementation of the project was signed by the High Commissioner of India Mr. Y.K. Sinha and the Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Development, Dr. Nihal Jayathilaka in the presence of Basil Rajapaksa, the website of the Indian High Commission for Sri Lanka reported on Monday. The aim of the project was “to rejuvenate and nurture the ancient cultural heritage of Jaffna”, the report further said. Jaffna civil society activists however are sceptical and wonder whether this project is a “cultural imperialist” collaboration between New Delhi and Colombo to distort, fetishize and commercialize the culture of the Eezham Tamils.
“The Cultural Centre is to be built in the next 36 months, on a plot of land adjacent to the Jaffna Public Library, made available by the Jaffna Municipal Council. The Centre and the adjoining water body - the Pullukulam will be transformed into an integrated cultural space that can also accommodate open-air performances with the help of a floating stage,” the report said.
Further, “The purpose of the Jaffna Cultural Centre, which is being built at an estimated cost of SLR 1.2 billion, is to provide suitable social infrastructure for the people of the Northern Province, especially for the people of Jaffna, to help them to reconnect with their cultural roots as well as to the rest of the country and to rejuvenate and nurture the ancient cultural heritage of Jaffna.”
“The Centre will enable the people of Jaffna to enjoy various local and international cultural products. It would also serve as a delivery centre for training, instruction and education in a variety of cultural disciplines. The Centre is being developed as an iconic building that will emerge as a cultural forum that embodies coexistence and cooperation amongst the various communities on the island.”
In the way the report has been framed and in the manner in which the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ has been signed, it appears that the interest seems to be more in promoting the ‘reconciliation’ agenda of the genocidal Sinhala State rather than an attempt to help the Eezham Tamils “to reconnect with their cultural roots”, the civil society activists from Jaffna commented.
Meanwhile, the supposedly Hindu-centric government in India has been completely silent about Buddhicisation process in the Tamil homeland and the systematic destruction and desecration of Saiva temples, both of which are a component of structural genocide.
After allowing the Sinhala state to destroy the very roots of Eezham Tamils’ culture, to alter demography, and to ethnically re-engineer the Tamil homeland, what culture do the Indians seek to promote, the Tamil activists question.
External Links:
The Government of India, after taking permission from the Sri Lankan state, is planning to construct a cultural centre at Jaffna. A Memorandum of Understanding for implementation of the project was signed by the High Commissioner of India Mr. Y.K. Sinha and the Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Development, Dr. Nihal Jayathilaka in the presence of Basil Rajapaksa, the website of the Indian High Commission for Sri Lanka reported on Monday. The aim of the project was “to rejuvenate and nurture the ancient cultural heritage of Jaffna”, the report further said. Jaffna civil society activists however are sceptical and wonder whether this project is a “cultural imperialist” collaboration between New Delhi and Colombo to distort, fetishize and commercialize the culture of the Eezham Tamils.
“The Cultural Centre is to be built in the next 36 months, on a plot of land adjacent to the Jaffna Public Library, made available by the Jaffna Municipal Council. The Centre and the adjoining water body - the Pullukulam will be transformed into an integrated cultural space that can also accommodate open-air performances with the help of a floating stage,” the report said.
Further, “The purpose of the Jaffna Cultural Centre, which is being built at an estimated cost of SLR 1.2 billion, is to provide suitable social infrastructure for the people of the Northern Province, especially for the people of Jaffna, to help them to reconnect with their cultural roots as well as to the rest of the country and to rejuvenate and nurture the ancient cultural heritage of Jaffna.”
“The Centre will enable the people of Jaffna to enjoy various local and international cultural products. It would also serve as a delivery centre for training, instruction and education in a variety of cultural disciplines. The Centre is being developed as an iconic building that will emerge as a cultural forum that embodies coexistence and cooperation amongst the various communities on the island.”
In the way the report has been framed and in the manner in which the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ has been signed, it appears that the interest seems to be more in promoting the ‘reconciliation’ agenda of the genocidal Sinhala State rather than an attempt to help the Eezham Tamils “to reconnect with their cultural roots”, the civil society activists from Jaffna commented.
Meanwhile, the supposedly Hindu-centric government in India has been completely silent about Buddhicisation process in the Tamil homeland and the systematic destruction and desecration of Saiva temples, both of which are a component of structural genocide.
After allowing the Sinhala state to destroy the very roots of Eezham Tamils’ culture, to alter demography, and to ethnically re-engineer the Tamil homeland, what culture do the Indians seek to promote, the Tamil activists question.
External Links:
| High Commission of India: | India to construct a Cultural Centre at Jaffna |
Art, literature, should enlighten masses on larger forces at work
Art, literature, should enlighten masses on larger forces at work
[TamilNet, Monday, 09 June 2014, 23:29 GMT]
When the last king of Kandy in the island of Ceylon, who belonged to the Telugu-speaking Nayaka dynasty of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, was conquered and captured by British imperialism in 1815, history, literature and plays written on him by both Sinhalese and Tamils in the island were focussing only on a historically still unproven point that he killed the children of the Sinhala chieftain Ehelapola who joined the British and made the chieftain’s wife to pound the heads of the children in a mortar. That was the highlight of all the plays on the king, performed to this date. None of the writers or playwrights saw the ultimate culprits or the larger dimensions of the onset of colonialism. That was the success of British colonialism.
We find the re-enactment of the same paradigm today, in the writings, theatre and films on Eezham Tamils that focus on ‘self-criticism, self-defeat or self-pitying’ but never project the phenomenon in its due larger perspectives or identify the ultimate forces that are operating to their interests. This is the current conquest of ‘counterinsurgency’ oriented neo-imperialism, commented academic circles in Jaffna.
Tamil Nadu was historically much better as it didn’t fall a prey to the British campaign of projecting Kaddappomman as a bandit.
In 1857, writing from London, there were Karl Marx and Engels to set the perspectives right, by coming out with the lead “First War of Indian Independence” when the British tried to paint the wide-spread war of that year in India as mere “Sepoy Mutiny.”
Unfortunately, the so-called Marxists today have compromised with imperialists.
Ananda Coomaraswamy, born to an Eezham Tamil father and English mother, refused to join the British Army during the First World War, protesting Britain’s denial of independence to India. As a punishment, his property in Britain was confiscated and more than that, he was not permitted to enter into any part of the then British Empire, including India and his fatherland Ceylon. He lived in the USA for three decades and was never able to see India or Ceylon in his subsequent lifetime. But the British could not stop the scholar from making a global impact in culturally facing colonialism.
If the Tamil creative writers, researchers, playwrights, artists and film-makers care more for how the posterity is going to judge their work and their times, then they should not care for publishers of the Establishments, funding agencies, interviews to corporate media, acceptance by ‘refereed journals’ and the so-called international awards, but should consciously orientate their work for directing the struggle to face its due target and for giving confidence and optimism to the masses, the academic circles commented further.
Related Articles:
07.06.14 ‘Proliferation of micronarratives assists the logic of count..
When the last king of Kandy in the island of Ceylon, who belonged to the Telugu-speaking Nayaka dynasty of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, was conquered and captured by British imperialism in 1815, history, literature and plays written on him by both Sinhalese and Tamils in the island were focussing only on a historically still unproven point that he killed the children of the Sinhala chieftain Ehelapola who joined the British and made the chieftain’s wife to pound the heads of the children in a mortar. That was the highlight of all the plays on the king, performed to this date. None of the writers or playwrights saw the ultimate culprits or the larger dimensions of the onset of colonialism. That was the success of British colonialism.
We find the re-enactment of the same paradigm today, in the writings, theatre and films on Eezham Tamils that focus on ‘self-criticism, self-defeat or self-pitying’ but never project the phenomenon in its due larger perspectives or identify the ultimate forces that are operating to their interests. This is the current conquest of ‘counterinsurgency’ oriented neo-imperialism, commented academic circles in Jaffna.
Tamil Nadu was historically much better as it didn’t fall a prey to the British campaign of projecting Kaddappomman as a bandit.
In 1857, writing from London, there were Karl Marx and Engels to set the perspectives right, by coming out with the lead “First War of Indian Independence” when the British tried to paint the wide-spread war of that year in India as mere “Sepoy Mutiny.”
Unfortunately, the so-called Marxists today have compromised with imperialists.
Ananda Coomaraswamy, born to an Eezham Tamil father and English mother, refused to join the British Army during the First World War, protesting Britain’s denial of independence to India. As a punishment, his property in Britain was confiscated and more than that, he was not permitted to enter into any part of the then British Empire, including India and his fatherland Ceylon. He lived in the USA for three decades and was never able to see India or Ceylon in his subsequent lifetime. But the British could not stop the scholar from making a global impact in culturally facing colonialism.
If the Tamil creative writers, researchers, playwrights, artists and film-makers care more for how the posterity is going to judge their work and their times, then they should not care for publishers of the Establishments, funding agencies, interviews to corporate media, acceptance by ‘refereed journals’ and the so-called international awards, but should consciously orientate their work for directing the struggle to face its due target and for giving confidence and optimism to the masses, the academic circles commented further.
Related Articles:
07.06.14 ‘Proliferation of micronarratives assists the logic of count..
Ensure safety of TN fishermen, find permanent solution: Jayalalithaa to Modi
Ensure safety of TN fishermen, find permanent solution: Jayalalithaa to Modi
[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 June 2014, 23:07 GMT]
Condemning the Saturday arrest of 82 Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa impressed upon Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the safety of Tamil Nadu fishermen. In a release dated Sunday, she urged the PM “to put an end to the unabated, brutal, unprovoked attacks on and abduction of our fishermen by the marauding Sri Lankan Navy” and to arrive at a permanent solution to this problem along with “a strong and robust diplomatic response”. Referring to consistent attacks on the Tamil Nadu fishermen in the past three years, she also lamented that despite a change of regime in the centre, these brutal assaults by the Sri Lanka Navy continued unabated. As an immediate measure, she called on India to register “the strongest disapproval of the belligerent actions of the Sri Lankan Navy.”
“The repetition of such aggressive acts by the Sri Lankan side, immediately after the change in Government at the Centre and the consequent reset in our relations with Sri Lanka does not seem to augur well for the peaceful pursuit of fishing in the Palk Bay by fishermen from Tamil Nadu,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said.
Condemning the Saturday arrest of 82 Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa impressed upon Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the safety of Tamil Nadu fishermen. In a release dated Sunday, she urged the PM “to put an end to the unabated, brutal, unprovoked attacks on and abduction of our fishermen by the marauding Sri Lankan Navy” and to arrive at a permanent solution to this problem along with “a strong and robust diplomatic response”. Referring to consistent attacks on the Tamil Nadu fishermen in the past three years, she also lamented that despite a change of regime in the centre, these brutal assaults by the Sri Lanka Navy continued unabated. As an immediate measure, she called on India to register “the strongest disapproval of the belligerent actions of the Sri Lankan Navy.”
“The repetition of such aggressive acts by the Sri Lankan side, immediately after the change in Government at the Centre and the consequent reset in our relations with Sri Lanka does not seem to augur well for the peaceful pursuit of fishing in the Palk Bay by fishermen from Tamil Nadu,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said.
“It
is important that the repeated infringements and effective abrogation
of the very basic human right to livelihood of our fishermen to fish in
their traditional waters of the Palk Bay, to which they have a historic
claim, are strongly and decisively dealt with by the Government of India
at the highest diplomatic level with the Government of Sri Lanka,” the
release added.
Referring to her earlier appeals, and of exploring talks between fishermen from both sides “provided they are held in a conducive atmosphere and in an accommodative spirit of mutual understanding and reciprocity”, she also said that “obdurate and obstructive attitudes” of the Sri Lankan government led to failure of talks in Colombo in May 2014.
“In order to put an end to the unabated, brutal, unprovoked attacks on and abduction of our fishermen by the marauding Sri Lankan Navy, the time has now come to lay down a time bound action plan to achieve a long-term, permanent solution to the problem and also to put in place a strong and robust diplomatic response. I am confident that with the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu acting in concert, it would be possible to achieve a permanent solution to this vexatious issue,” she further said.
Chronology:
Referring to her earlier appeals, and of exploring talks between fishermen from both sides “provided they are held in a conducive atmosphere and in an accommodative spirit of mutual understanding and reciprocity”, she also said that “obdurate and obstructive attitudes” of the Sri Lankan government led to failure of talks in Colombo in May 2014.
“In order to put an end to the unabated, brutal, unprovoked attacks on and abduction of our fishermen by the marauding Sri Lankan Navy, the time has now come to lay down a time bound action plan to achieve a long-term, permanent solution to the problem and also to put in place a strong and robust diplomatic response. I am confident that with the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu acting in concert, it would be possible to achieve a permanent solution to this vexatious issue,” she further said.
Chronology:
‘Proliferation of micronarratives assists the logic of counterinsurgency’
‘Proliferation of micronarratives assists the logic of counterinsurgency’
[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 June 2014, 23:48 GMT]
In the context of the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle, when a “micronarrative” discourse about gender, caste, region or other “special interest groups” claims autonomous status, “when it divorces itself from the primary contradiction between the Tamil nationalist metanarrative and the Sri Lankan state, it only ends up fracturing a resistance movement against genocide” argues Karthick RM. In an article published on Indian journal Sanhati, providing examples of how such differences were used to fracture the Eezham Tamils liberation struggle in the past and the present, he shows that such “dissidence” only assists the logic of counterinsurgency (COIN). Drawing from classical and contemporary COIN experts and from the writings of psychologists, Mr. Karthick also observes how such micronarratives and a defeatist mentality complement each other.
In the article titled “The Incredulity Towards Metanarratives and the Logic of Counterinsurgency” the writer also explains how along with micronarratives, the phenomenon of “suffering pornography”, that is, depictions of pain and suffering of the oppressed without consideration of larger political questions, creates a defeatist mentality.
“The brutal events of May 2009, a slaughter hitherto unheard of Tamil history, were undoubtedly a shock that hurt the core of a Tamil’s psyche. An amount of despair was inevitable, even among those with indomitable will. However, while those with the stronger will, greater political consciousness and commitment, were able to recover, the weaker and vacillating elements engaged in behaviour that was self-destructive. Narratives of pain and suffering that do not inspire hope further encourage such behaviour. This, again, is a success of the oppressive system.”
“Suffering pornography ends up giving a larger-than-life, omnipotent image to the oppressor and induces fatalism among the weak elements among the oppressed. Convinced by heart that they have no possibility of defeating the oppressor, they set out to finding real or imagined flaws among the oppressed and their best representatives.”
“Since he has reduced himself to the level of individual experience, he believes that the Tamil fighters are so too, and judges them on the basis of caste or region. Since she finds the patriarchy of the Sinhala state to be an unchallengeable power, she directs her ire towards Tamil patriarchy. His story of flight from the island subtracts from it the desire for retrieval of his occupied homeland because he has internalized defeat. Such men and women cannot see the big picture anymore and become useless, if not harmful, to the struggle.”
Full text of RM Karthick’s article published at Sanhati follows:
The Incredulity Towards Metanarratives and the Logic of Counterinsurgency
In the context of the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle, when a “micronarrative” discourse about gender, caste, region or other “special interest groups” claims autonomous status, “when it divorces itself from the primary contradiction between the Tamil nationalist metanarrative and the Sri Lankan state, it only ends up fracturing a resistance movement against genocide” argues Karthick RM. In an article published on Indian journal Sanhati, providing examples of how such differences were used to fracture the Eezham Tamils liberation struggle in the past and the present, he shows that such “dissidence” only assists the logic of counterinsurgency (COIN). Drawing from classical and contemporary COIN experts and from the writings of psychologists, Mr. Karthick also observes how such micronarratives and a defeatist mentality complement each other.
In the article titled “The Incredulity Towards Metanarratives and the Logic of Counterinsurgency” the writer also explains how along with micronarratives, the phenomenon of “suffering pornography”, that is, depictions of pain and suffering of the oppressed without consideration of larger political questions, creates a defeatist mentality.
“The brutal events of May 2009, a slaughter hitherto unheard of Tamil history, were undoubtedly a shock that hurt the core of a Tamil’s psyche. An amount of despair was inevitable, even among those with indomitable will. However, while those with the stronger will, greater political consciousness and commitment, were able to recover, the weaker and vacillating elements engaged in behaviour that was self-destructive. Narratives of pain and suffering that do not inspire hope further encourage such behaviour. This, again, is a success of the oppressive system.”
“Suffering pornography ends up giving a larger-than-life, omnipotent image to the oppressor and induces fatalism among the weak elements among the oppressed. Convinced by heart that they have no possibility of defeating the oppressor, they set out to finding real or imagined flaws among the oppressed and their best representatives.”
“Since he has reduced himself to the level of individual experience, he believes that the Tamil fighters are so too, and judges them on the basis of caste or region. Since she finds the patriarchy of the Sinhala state to be an unchallengeable power, she directs her ire towards Tamil patriarchy. His story of flight from the island subtracts from it the desire for retrieval of his occupied homeland because he has internalized defeat. Such men and women cannot see the big picture anymore and become useless, if not harmful, to the struggle.”
Full text of RM Karthick’s article published at Sanhati follows:
The Incredulity Towards Metanarratives and the Logic of Counterinsurgency
“In a besieged fortress, all dissidence is treason.”
-St. Ignatius of Loyola
-St. Ignatius of Loyola
Ever since Lyotard famously described the postmodern condition as
“incredulity towards metanarratives”, it has become fashion in the
academia to obsess over micronarratives and particularities. The endless
discussions over race, gender, sexuality are considered “subversive”
while debates on universality, questions of the proletariat, or
nationalism, or state power for oppressed nations are considered
“undemocratic” or “totalitarian”.
Observers among the Indian radical left would be familiar with how
sections of the Indian intelligentsia are fine with approving indigenous
rights and lamenting about the suffering of poor tribals, but are not
fine with these very people organizing under a Party’s discipline, who
are all for cultural tolerance towards Kashmiris, but won’t support Azadi,
who would denounce racism against the Nagas or Manipuris in North
India, and would also denounce the right of these nations to
self-determination. Hard questions always scare liberal hearts, just as
grand thoughts unnerve Lilliputian minds. The following essay, taking
the case of Eelam Tamils’ struggle for national liberation, seeks to
show how the proliferation of micronarratives assists the logic of the
counterinsurgent state.
The counterinsurgent and micronarratives
It is nice to say “This is not the only view” or “All societies are
pluralistic” or “No struggle is a monolith” and so on. Any sophomore can
say this. But those who view, as did Lenin, insurrection as an art,
would know that an insurgency is fundamentally a Manichean struggle
where either the narrative of the insurgent wins or that of the
counterinsurgent wins. One needs to deduce from Lenin’s dictum “the
question of power is the fundamental question of revolution” [1] that
establishing a dominant narrative is fundamental to the ascendancy of a
revolutionary insurrection.
Why is this important? The initial advantage lies with the
counterinsurgent who has the repressive and the ideological state
apparatus at his disposal, and, even if he allows space for
micronarratives (women’s rights, children rights etc), it is his
political metanarrative of state that pre-exists and posits a challenge
to the insurgent who wants a radical breakthrough with the existing
apparatus.
Insurgency requires creation of an active minority and command over
passive majority. For this, the insurgent needs a metanarrative that
binds the insurgent minority and civilian majority into a singular
collective. In the Eelam Tamils’ case, though there were several
insurgent groups in the 80s, it was only the LTTE slogan that captured
the popular imagination. “Tigers thirst for Tamil Eelam homeland” was
popularly identified as “Tamils thirst for Tamil Eelam homeland”. The
crucial thing about the insurgent narrative is that it should provide
the civilian majority a sense of who we are, who we are not, and who we
are up against. ‘We’ are Eelam Tamils, ‘We’ are not Sri Lankans, ‘We’
are against the unitary Sri Lankan state.
On the other hand, counterinsurgency (COIN) requires annihilation or
total paralysis of the active insurgent minority and subjugation of the
passive civilian majority. A law of an effective COIN, says expert David
Galula, is to find “the favourable minority, to organize it in order to
mobilize the population against the insurgent minority.”[2] Sowing
dissension in enemy ranks is an age old law of war. The Arthashastra
calls it bheda and calls on a king to instigate rebellion against enemies while suppressing those against him. When perfected, it can become maya too, or leaving the enemies in a state of illusion.
In military action, the Sri Lankan (SL) state found its ‘favourable
minority’ in paramilitary groups, and in the ‘post-conflict’ scenario it
is also trying to recruit Tamils as low-level entrants into the army.
[3] However, while the repressive apparatus of the SL state found its
‘favourable minority’ in these foot soldiers, the ideological apparatus
of the SL state found its ‘favourable minority’ in those who claimed
that the LTTE’s Tamil nationalist narrative did not represent all
Tamils. These include thinkers from the Colombo elite, academics,
journalists, artists, novelists and ‘dissident’ Tamil intellectuals. It
should be no surprise that several of these elements also found and
continue to find generous monetary and other support from the Indian and
Western establishments.
David Kilcullen, a contemporary COIN expert whose “Twenty-Eight
Articles” are an appendix to the US “Tactics in Counterinsurgency” Field
Manual 3-24.2, writes about the importance of alternative narratives:
“Exploit a “single narrative.” Since counterinsurgency is a competition to mobilize popular support, it pays to know how people are mobilized. In most societies there are opinion makers—local leaders, pillars of the community, religious figures, media personalities, and others who set trends and influence public perceptions. This influence, including the pernicious influence of the insurgents, often takes the form of a “single narrative”: a simple, unifying, easily expressed story or explanation that organizes people’s experience and provides a framework for understanding events. Nationalist and ethnic historical myths, or sectarian creeds, provide such a narrative…To undercut their influence you must exploit an alternative narrative, or better yet, tap into an existing narrative that excludes the insurgents.” [4]
The reason why Islamist insurgencies tend to have a high survival
rate, especially when the counterinsurgent is a non-Muslim, is because
of the binding ‘fanatical’ narrative that the religion provides in
differentiating the insurgent’s population from the forces of the
counterinsurgent. Some aspects of this are covered in Frantz Fanon’s
brilliant essay “Algeria Unveiled”. Though the aid such Islamist
movements get from neighbouring powers plays a huge role in their
success, often to the detriment of the more progressive movements (for
instance, the Iran-backed Hamas marginalizing the PFLP), the Islamist
narrative of these insurgencies has deep significance in shaping
internal dynamics. And it is this potency of Islamist insurgency that
has compelled Western military minds to invest extensive research into
finding an Achilles Heel.
On the other hand, secular movements like the Tamil nationalist
movement, or the PKK, NPA, FARC for that matter, are more prone to
dissent being sown owing to the very nature of their secular structure.
One should also note that these insurgencies, apart from their secular
nature, have had an acute sense of the class question and/or have been
insurgencies that have been paradigm-setting in military history,
consequently provoking the attention and ire of global establishments.
It is, as Nietzsche says, one is punished best for one’s best virtues.
Conscious and unconscious assistance to COIN tactic
COIN works well when it has agents to assist in consciously. But its
real success is when it has agents who assist it unconsciously. The
conscious agent is often identifiable. He explicitly disputes the
universal status of insurgent narrative and pushes for the consideration
of alternative particularistic narratives which undermines that of the
insurgent.
There were Tamils who claimed that the LTTE was North-centric and did
not represent the East. The Karuna and Pillayan renegade factions were a
result of this narrative. For instance, when Karuna broke from the LTTE
in March 2004, his chief allegation was that the LTTE did not represent
the interests of the East. In a similar fashion was the Tamil-Muslim
divide created, by narratives tapping on the particularist communal
identity of the latter, leading to a series of unfortunate events which
includes expulsion of Muslims from Jaffna and likewise Muslim
paramilitary groups like the ‘Muslim Homeguards’ collaborating with a
genocidal Sri Lanka Army in committing numerous atrocities on Tamils in
the East.[5]
There were and unfortunately still are those who put forth the
narratives of ‘Tamil minority rights’ and a ‘pluralistic’ Tamil identity
politics – the discourse that Tamils were a minority in Sri Lanka who
deserved constitutional safeguards, maybe even pushed to the extent of
internal self-determination within a united Sri Lanka, as opposed to the
Eelam Tamil nationalist narrative that the Eelam Tamils were a
sovereign nation who were entitled to external self-determination and
the creation of the state of Tamil Eelam. These produced collaborators
Neelan Tiruchelvan, the liberal intellectual who was bargaining with the
Sri Lankan ruling class for federal rule, and Lakshman Kadirgamar, who
was firm in his denunciation of the potential of Eelam Tamil nationalism
and who also played a key role in the banning of the LTTE in the West.
Some Tamil intellectuals played the caste card against the LTTE,
denying the latter’s spectacular achievements towards the annihilation
of caste. [6] Though this was negligible in the Eelam Tamil context
considering that the Tigers had the popular support of all castes,
certain influential sections of Tamil Nadu’s intelligentsia, especially
those affiliated with the revisionist CPI(M) or ‘independent’
postmodernists, tried and continue to try to falsely project the Tamil
Eelam liberation struggle as a movement of dominant castes. This is
largely in compliance with the Indian state’s agenda to diffuse popular
support for the Tamil Eelam struggle in its political rear base, Tamil
Nadu. Likewise, there is a coordinated disinformation campaign in the
diaspora to try to create caste fissures and character assassinations of
Tamil nationalists, in collusion with the Sri Lankan intelligence and
other external intelligence agencies. The military repercussions of the
caste question within Eelam Tamil nationalism are clear, with the
occupying Sri Lankan Army engineering caste clashes in Tamil areas in
the post-2009 scenario. [7] It is also worrying that certain Tamil
writers and academics in the island, Tamil Nadu and abroad, who may or
may not have the best intentions, have fallen for this COIN game hook,
line and sinker and are obsessing over caste divisions instead of
finding ways to bring about unity. [8] This, again, is a subversion of
the liberation struggle’s metanarrative.
And there was the criticism of the movement’s narrative from some
feminist quarters. To those like Rajini Thiranagama the LTTE’s
“patriarchal authority” did not represent all Tamil women, whereas to
Radhika Coomaarasamy, the women in the LTTE were mere “cogs in the
wheel”, with both emphasising the need to return to an essential
peaceful quality of the Tamil woman. The ramifications of such
perspectives in the context of COIN have been perspicuously articulated
by Gautam Navlakha in a recent article on Sanhati, which must be cited
at large here:
“Actually the number of studies and research focusing on women as an extension of counter insurgency pacification policy is quite impressive. Such efforts single out woman and essentialise their experience; in reality, the entire society is affected – some more, others less – but no one remains unscathed. So intellectuals come in handy to provide additional inputs to military suppression by advocating a nuanced policy shift which pits women’s experiences and concerns as more or less diametrically opposite to that of men or places them at a distance from the struggle/conflict, which can then be exploited for purposes of pacification. In the process, there is downplaying (if not glossing over) of how counter-insurgency operations target women, uses their vulnerability for sexual gratification and blackmail, and their humiliation as a deliberate policy of war. This dynamic is rarely captured because those who work in the service of the State lack the capacity to fully grasp the social reality which is formed by war.
Conversely in revolutionary warfare, this issue acquires acuity. Here, men as well as women participate, each motivating the other. Therefore, tricks meant to create divisions/fissures among rebels, by trying to single out women and/or the scholarship that places women as intrinsically attuned to peace etc, stands exposed as being a lot of hot air. What is the point? Simply that revolutionary warfare, in varying degree no doubt, have specificity and enormous capability to overcome and/or break divides which class-caste-community divided society considers “natural”.” [9]
The unconscious agent of COIN does more or less the same thing which
the conscious agent does. While the latter deliberately undermines the
insurgent narrative to defend the existing or a better version of the
state structure, the former does it thinking that he represents best
what he believes is his constituency. Now, with this type of a
discourse, it is implied that Tamil nationalism is not all-encompassing
and that special interest groups, like say, women, some particular
region, sexual orientation, religion or caste, needs to form an
autonomous narrative of its own. Now when the claim for adequate
representation is linked to the metanarrative, that Tamil nationalism
needs to accommodate the interests of such groups for it to be more
egalitarian and dynamic, then and only then does it have a salutary
practical effect. When it seeks to be autonomous, when it divorces
itself from the primary contradiction between the Tamil nationalist
metanarrative and the Sri Lankan state, it only ends up fracturing a
resistance movement against genocide, even if the proponents of these
narratives might not have intended to do so.
Psychologist Hussein Bulhan argues that when conditioned to prolonged
and systemic oppression, the oppressed become agents of their own
oppression, engaging in destructive behaviour against their self and
their own people. He further explains “The search for security in
conditions of oppression, the quest for personal harmony in
circumstances of social violence, or the wish for private success at the
cost of betraying collective aspirations require little originality and
risks because such efforts accept the status quo of oppression as
immutable. Freedom requires new courage, new vision, and new
commitments.” [10]
Those intellectuals advocating reconciliation with the Sinhalese are
promoted by powerful establishments. The academic researching minority
studies, or caste among the Eelam Tamils, or Tamil patriarchy, finds
generous funding in the West. The feminist working for women’s rights
and the humanitarian working for children’s rights in isolation gets
access to the resources of well networked international NGOs. The
novelist and poet who write about the plurality of identities and
interests are given special place at literary festivals. All of these
men and women, though they may have no formal association, are united by
their disbelief in the possibility of success of Eelam Tamil
nationalism and hence they seek to survive using whatever alternative
narrative that would help their lives. These are the children of
despair. None of these men and women has the courage, vision, or
commitment of those men and women who stood up to the artillery,
chemical weapons, and cluster bombs for well over 30 years, defying a
genocidal state and its international abettors. Those were the truly
free. These are the condemned, who are in perpetual paranoia of their
fellow Tamil, because they know that they have betrayed her.
Their intentions are irrelevant. Intentions do not matter in a liberation struggle – only effects do.
Psychological fascination with micronarratives and the proliferation of ‘suffering pornography’
The belief in a micronarrative, whether it is cultivated or
unconscious, stems from a disbelief in the emancipatory potential of the
metanarrative. Of course, there are monetary and other benefits for
subverting an insurgency. But the real reason is the human quality
called despair, the promotion of which is the cornerstone of every
psychological war waged by the oppressor. Among Eelam Tamils, this is an
inevitable result of exposure to over 60 years of protracted genocide.
Another disturbing phenomenon, which is intimately connected to the
above, is the proliferation of, what I would call, ‘suffering
pornography’ – literature, poetry, personal histories, movies,
documentaries and so on that highlight the pain of the oppressed after
subtracting the political context. Humans have for long had a perverse
fascination with suffering, which is why some of the greatest works in
history have been tragedies. The portrayal of pain as an aesthetic
object attracts as much as that of pleasure. With market capitalism,
suffering, with faces, sights, sounds, blood and gore, is yet another
product that finds good many takers. In the post-2009 period, Tamils saw
a series of documentaries, books, reports, personal narratives etc.
that focused solely on torture, sexual violence, migration, separation,
and so on. The narratives of crying Tamils, dying Tamils, starving
Tamils, fleeing Tamils, abused Tamils sold well. But the metanarrative
of heroism of the fighting Tamils, of Eelam Tamil nationalism, was
something that the market could not accommodate.
Now while some might argue, not without some merit, that these tales
of suffering brought greater publicity to what was happening in the
island of Sri Lanka to the world, often the effect that these sort of
portrayals have on the psychology of the oppressed is more negative than
positive. In a time of brutal genocide, a narrative that fails to
provide hope in the Tamil nationalist project of emancipation only
nurtures despair about the future. The abundance of stories of pain and
suffering induces masochistic tendencies among the oppressed, wherein
they are content to lament and cry, and worse, to seek pleasure in pain.
This is in line with Freud’s brilliant observation that masochism is
the destructive instinct directed inwards, which also has a strong touch
of eroticism to it. [11] These do not lead to collective catharsis.
They only cause psychological self-mutilation.
The brutal events of May 2009, a slaughter hitherto unheard of Tamil
history, were undoubtedly a shock that hurt the core of a Tamil’s
psyche. An amount of despair was inevitable, even among those with
indomitable will. However, while those with the stronger will, greater
political consciousness and commitment, were able to recover, the weaker
and vacillating elements engaged in behaviour that was
self-destructive. Narratives of pain and suffering that do not inspire
hope further encourage such behaviour. This, again, is a success of the
oppressive system.
Suffering pornography ends up giving a larger-than-life, omnipotent
image to the oppressor and induces fatalism among the weak elements
among the oppressed. Convinced by heart that they have no possibility of
defeating the oppressor, they set out to finding real or imagined flaws
among the oppressed and their best representatives. Since he has
reduced himself to the level of individual experience, he believes that
the Tamil fighters are so too, and judges them on the basis of caste or
region. Since she finds the patriarchy of the Sinhala state to be an
unchallengeable power, she directs her ire towards Tamil patriarchy. His
story of flight from the island subtracts from it the desire for
retrieval of his occupied homeland because he has internalized defeat.
Such men and women cannot see the big picture anymore and become
useless, if not harmful, to the struggle.
In a normal circumstance, such persons should be pitied. It is only
because of the harm they cause others and the movement at large that
they need to be ideologically opposed. It needs to be understood that a
traitor to a movement is not someone who was born bad. It is often
someone who capitulates to despair, swims in a defeatist mentality,
fails to see the larger question, and presumes that he has a better
chance of surviving working for the oppressors than for the oppressed.
By the effects of his actions, he is always one who denies or subverts
the metanarrative.
It can be acceptable for dissidents and lovers of unrestricted
freedom of criticism to empathize with Antigone who broke the secular
laws of her nation owing to her emotional sense of duty towards her
traitorous brother. Insurgents, however, must stand with Creon who
sacrificed all so that his besieged nation might prevail.
REFERENCES
[1] VI Lenin, “Left-Wing Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality” in Lenin: Selected Works, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977, p. 446
[2] David Galula, Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966, p. 77
[3] A detailed analysis of how US Army War College award winner Maj.
Gen. Udaya Perera has used military rule in the Tamil homeland to
engineer social divisions can be seen in this article : “Sinhala military operates US-trained ‘counterinsurgency’ in Jaffna”
[4] David Kilcullen, “Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency”, in Tactics in Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24.2, Washington, April 2009, p. C6-7
[5] While there is an opinion that the collaboration of Muslim
paramilitaries with the Sri Lankan Army happened after the expulsion of
Muslims from Jaffna in 1990, in fact, the Sri Lankan Military, with
assistance from the Mossad, used Muslim paramilitaries early in the 80s
itself. For more on how the particularist Muslim identity was exploited
by the Sri Lankan state, see analyst Nadesan Satyendra’s “Tamil National Struggle and the Muslim Factor”. Likewise, for a more contemporary perspective on the Tamil-Muslim relations, see academic ARM Imtiyaz’s interview.
[6] Dr. N. Malathy, who worked with the Peace Secretariat of the Tamil Eelam de facto
state and who was a key member of the North-East Secretariat on Human
Rights, has documented the extent to which caste consciousness broke
down under the LTTE rule in her work, A Fleeting Moment in My Country: The Last Years of the LTTE de facto State. (New Delhi: Aakar, 2013). Also read Eelam Tamil diaspora academic Athithan Jayapalan’s article “LTTE and the Annihilation of Caste”
[8] The interested reader might also want to have a look at military analyst and late TamilNet editor Sivaram’s set of essays on ‘Tamil Militarism’
where he explores how the colonial powers used the help of native
elites and foot soldiers to crush uprisings of Tamil martial castes and
also on the use of colonial ethnography to criminalize them.
[9] Gautam Navlakha, “Ambush amplifies a struggle”
[10] Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan, Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression, New York: Plenum Press, 1985, p. 127
[11] Sigmund Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, New York: Penguin Books, 1985, p. 311
External Links:
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