by Mr. Sivananthiram Alagandram, date unknown Transformation of the Jaffna Community in Klang,1900-1950. They arrived as a minority towards the end of the 19th Century in Klang from an agrarian background and by 1950, the community had transformed itself into an affluent middle-class society and as a community to be reckoned with. The Royal Town of… Read more »
Posts Categorized: First Person
Padma Lakshmi: VP-Elect Kamala Harris Moved Me to Tears
Imagine how wide the ripples of impact can be when a woman of color is vice president. By Padma Lakshmi, The New York Times, Nov.13, 2020 Ms. Lakshmi is the host and executive producer of “Taste the Nation” and “Top Chef.” I was on a hike in Garrison, N.Y., when I heard the news of Kamala… Read more »
Tsunami and Civil War in Sri_Lanka
An Anthropologist Confronts the Real World by Dennis McGilvray, ‘India Review,’ New Delhi, , vol. 5, nos. 3–4, July/October, 2006, pp. 372–393 Tsunami_and_Civil_War_in_Sri_Lanka …Much of the anthropology of Sri Lanka in the last three decades would have to count as “public” scholarship, because it has been forced to address the contemporary realities of labor migration,… Read more »
Amazing Mum
The ‘amazing’ mum who fled two civil wars and ended up running a Flintshire petrol station by Kelly Williams, Daily Post, UK, September 19, 2020 Shanty Yoganathan’s daughter Niz shared her mum’s incredible tale as she gets set to celebrate her 50th birthday A proud daughter has shared the extraordinary tale of how her mum… Read more »
Tamil Prisoners’ Massacre 1983 Revisited by M. Nithyanandan
by Asian Tribune, Malaysia, July 26, 2004 Reliving the Welikade Prison massacres of 25 & 27 July 1983, is ‘horror revisited’ said M. Nithyanandan (54 yrs), a former Lecturer of the University of Jaffna and at present Head of the news and events divison of Deepam Television – a Tamil Language TV channel based in… Read more »
Do You Think The Tamil Ethnic Question Would Ever Be Solved?
by C.V. Wigneswaran, Colombo Telegraph, October 14, 2019 C.V. Wigneswaran Someone asked: Do you think the Tamil Ethnic question would ever be solved and all Sri Lankans could travel along a common path to peace and prosperity? My response was: Yes of course! The time is ripe now for the resolving of the so called… Read more »
July 1983: Turning Point for Eelam Tamils
by M.K. Eelaventhan, July 27, 2019 Riots against the Tamil population in Sri Lanka have been a recurring event since 1956, commencing from our protests against the Sinhala Only Act. The year 1958 was on a larger scale covering the entire island. The keynote event was the burning of the chief priest of the Panandura… Read more »
Nine Decisions that Helped Lanka Beat LTTE
by V K Shashikumar, Indian Defence Review, October 2009 Not available in 2019 on Indian Defence Review website, but copied at http://www.sify.com/news/nine-decisions-that-helped-lanka-beat-ltte-imagegallery-0-international-kexv2Lbdede.html , accessed June 19, 2019 What we don’t see Will a good number of soldiers, tanks and artillery ensure victory in a war? These are outward aspects of a war which alone are… Read more »
Losing Santhia, Part Four
Tiger power by Ben Hiller, ‘Red Flag,’ Australia, March 28, 2019 Santhia of died of kidney failure in a Jakarta hospital in October 2017. She was only 42. Years earlier, she and her infant son fled Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. They tried to reach Australia, but were stranded in… Read more »
After War’s End, a Long Struggle to Patch Invisible Wounds
by Mujib Mashal, ‘The New York Times,’ December 4, 2018 A government psychiatrist in Sri Lanka goes door to door in an area scarred by civil war, doing whatever he can to meet a staggering need for help. KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — One by one the villagers arrive, each carrying a little blue book that… Read more »
“In 1983, As Our Ship Left Colombo Port, I Saw Pettah Burning”
by Dimuthu Attanayake, ‘The Sunday Observer,’ Colombo, July 22, 2018 TNA Legislator M.A. Sumanthiran, recalls being 19 years old when communal violence rocked the capital city in July 1983. Packed off to Jaffna where the Government thought Tamil families residing in Colombo and other parts of the south would be safer, he recalls an arduous… Read more »
The United States’ Role in Sri Lanka’s Peace Process: 2002-2006
by Jeffrey Lunstead, Asia Foundation, 2007 A Supplementary Study to the Sri Lanka Strategic Conflict Assessment 2005 Lunstead US Role in SL Peace Process 2002-2006 Contents Acknowledgements About the Author Executive Summary 1. Introduction 2. U.S. Interests and Engagement in Sri Lanka 3. Enhanced U.S. Engagement 3.1 Enhanced U.S. Interest 3.2 U.S. Relations with the… Read more »
ITJP: Families of the Disappeared
by International Truth & Justice Project, South Africa, accessed June 6, 2018 English translation of interviews with families of the disappeared. http://www.itjpsl.com/reports/disappear-site
The Anti-Tamil Gal Oya Riots of 1956
by Prof. Stanley J. Tambiah, posted in Thuppahi’s Blog, February 2, 2017 My own first hand and indelible experience of ethnic riots happened in June 1956, when as a twenty-seven-year-old social scientist, recently returned from graduate studies in the United States, I took a team of thirty three students (twenty-six Sinhalese and seven Tamils) to conduct… Read more »
Tamil Refugee Still Says Nandri
Tortured by police, separated from his family for years, but Tamil refugee still says nandri – thank you Rescued after 22 hours in freezing water, Para Paheer applied for asylum in Australia. An extraordinary friendship with a Victorian woman helped ease the pain of waiting eight years to see his wife and son by Ben… Read more »
One-eyed ex-Tiger Rebel Sees a Future through Social Work
by ‘Daily Mirror,’ Colombo, August 9, 2017 Memories of the gruesome ethnic conflict would never fade away. While two ethnicities fought for their own freedom, there were those who viewed the conflict with much vengeance and some who supported it. But the stories of those who supported it are seldom heard of. This is… Read more »
How to Achieve a Ceasefire
by Daniel Spector, ‘Simon-Evertt.com,’ July 22, 2016 For nearly two years, Simon Everett has been designing and coordinating area studies courses at the Department of State for diplomats who are heading to their next assignments overseas. We’re fortunate to have an exceptional cadre of regional experts leading those courses. They have lived and traveled all… Read more »
Why Facebook Won’t Help Heal War Torn Sri Lanka’s Wounds
by Senel Wanniarachchi, ‘The Sunday Leader,’ Colombo, November 6, 2016 Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, one of the world’s most protracted and destructive conflicts of our time was brought to a bloody, military end in May of 2009. Seven years have passed since, but the communities in the country remain divided along narrow ethno-religious lines. In… Read more »
Oral History: ‘Through the Generations’
by Race on the Agenda, London, 2012 In January 2012, Race on the Agenda (ROTA) was awarded a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to collect oral histories of Sri Lankan Tamils in London. Book available for download at http://tamilgenerations.rota.org.uk/book/
Nothing Can Be Done
V. V. Ganeshananthan interviews Anuk Arudpragasam, ‘LA Review of Books,’ October 6, 2016 IN HIS DEBUT NOVEL, The Story of a Brief Marriage, Anuk Arudpragasam achieves something remarkable: he shows us a consciousness reshaped by the possibility of imminent death. How do we inhabit the body when we think we may be leaving it behind?… Read more »