By Ananthi Sasitharan as told to and with additional reporting by Melissa Petro | Comic by Danielle Chenette, ‘Narratively,’ August 12, 2016 As Sri Lanka’s bitter civil war ground to a bloody end, many rebel leaders disappeared, never to be seen again. Seven years later, one wife wants answers. In October 2015, the United Nations… Read more »
Posts Categorized: First Person
Ex-LTTE ‘Doctor’ Reveals Horrifying Last Two Days in Mulliwaikkal
By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan, ‘Ceylon Today,’ May 8, 2016 The 30-year war and the gory events of it ended on 18 May 2009 but they are unforgettable and unforgivable. The Tamils who fled the island, the like-minded civil societies and the human rights activists started documenting each event in phases and tabled them at the… Read more »
My First Night in the USA
by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, 1969. First published in November 2000 in www.tamilnation.org, now at http://tamilnation.co/forum/ethir/index.htm It was past midnight. The plane circled over Los Angeles on a clear summer night. The lighted city sprawled endlessly. It was the first time I had seen Los Angeles. From the air Los Angeles looked like a fairyland. All I knew… Read more »
An Ode to My Village
by N. Ethirveerasingam, August 15, 2000…originally posted in TamilNation at http://tamilnation.co/forum/ethir/ode.htm Originally written in 1969 for a class at Cornell University. From the mango tree I can see the people going to the St Anthony’s church. In an hour or two I have to be ready with enough mangos to sell for that day. We have… Read more »
The Tiger Lawyer
by Sarah Stodder, ‘Souciant,’ April 12, 2016 When I step out of the rain and into the restaurant, Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran is already waiting for me. Though I’m seven minutes early, I arrive to find the exiled Sri Lankan lawyer, known to his compatriots as Rudra, sitting at a corner table and peacefully watching the deluge outside…. Read more »
Sri Lanka: Why There’s Always a Next Time
Before I know it we’re wheels up at Dulles International Airport and I’m looking forward to visiting the Middle East (airport style) yet again. One day, I will actually travel to Doha or Abu Dhabi or Dubai or Amman and see something besides an airport. Maybe I’ll do that on my 100th visit to a… Read more »
Handmade: Stories of Strength Shared thru Recipes
http://handmade.palmera.org/ Food is their life and a language they are at ease with. So what better way to tell their story than through food? So much more than just a cookbook, HANDMADE tells the stories of 34 women of Sri Lanka, in the time of war, before and after, through food. With beautifully transcribed stories… Read more »
“The Identity of Sri Lanka Must be Redefined”
We need a reconciliation process in the relationship between Tamils and Sinhalese Interview with Professor SJ. Emmanuel, President of the Global Tamil Forum Interviewed by Thomas Kaiser of Zeit-Fragen/Current Concerns ( www.zeit-fragen.ch) newspaper from Switzerland ( October 26, 2015, Zurich, Sri Lanka Guardian) When in 1948, in the context of decolonisation, the British left the… Read more »
Addressing “Blocked Grief” in Jaffna
Six years after the end of the war the population in the North of Sri Lanka remains passive, ensnared in wartime mentality because they haven’t been able to express and deal with their sorrow and trauma. Professors from Jaffna University talk of a young generation incapable of envisioning a better future. While they demonstrated courage… Read more »
JDS Journalist on Rights & Accountability
Abeyawardene is speaking to Callum Mcrae on what motivates him to oppose the GoSL on oppression of others. https://vimeo.com/121718885
Identity & The Island’s Political Order
What Tamils would call ‘The National Question.’ — Ed/
The only debate is which nation that is: Sri Lankan or Sinhalese. I’d say both.
The claim of Tamil nationhood is the flip side, the other way, of the expressing the refusal to accept that on this island the Tamils are a national minority… The Tamil delusion is that on this island they are entitled to the same political status, weight, space and share of power as the Sinhalese who are a vast majority. The Tamils cannot have the same weight and space in the island’s political order…
It is too small and vulnerable to experiment with loose centrifugal forms of state. Sri Lanka needs a strong single state which covers the natural borders of this island.
Postwar Sri Lanka’s Awkward Peace
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — Two men were riding the train known as the Queen of Jaffna as it rattled through the haunted battlegrounds of Sri Lanka’s civil war. One of them, Nisal Kavinda, a 20-year-old man from the Sinhalese ethnic group, was jubilant. He had wanted to ride this train since 2009, when President Mahinda Rajapaksadeclared… Read more »
Video of Young Reporter at Uthayan
Tamil Nadu Government Decides to Release 7 in Rajiv Assassination Case
The Tamil Nadu Government, in a suo motu statement to the State Assembly on Wednesday said it has decided to release the 7 prisoners, now imprisoned to lifetime in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The decision comes as the Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to commute the death sentence on Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan to… Read more »
Ethirveerasingam on his Hopes for Reconciliation
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/sep/21/sri-lanka-reconciliation-video Sri Lankan Olympian Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam on his hopes for reconciliation — video Diaspora communities can inspire peace in their country of origin, according to US resident Dr Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, a former Olympian of Tamil heritage who coaches young athletes in Sri Lanka. Though he is sceptical of the government’s reconciliation programme, he says sport… Read more »
Elephants Stroll Past Temples on Once-Forbidden Sri Lankan Coast
With the civil war now ended, the island nation’s east and north have opened up for the first time in a quarter century. St. Martin’s Seminary in Jaffna is shown here. Although Sinhalese Buddhists make up 74 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, Catholics are a significant minority. Photograph: Simon Norfolk/Bloomberg Pursuits “You’re going to… Read more »
Dharmaratnam Sivaram
Sivaram had succeeded in bringing the Tamil struggle into the light in a world dominated by big media. This was a sensational achievement in a world dominated by media spin, where the voice of the oppressed had no chance of being heard.
Whither Sri Lankan Tamils?
Whither Sri Lankan Tamils 26 04 2013 Retired SC Judge C V Wigneswaran Courtesy TamilNet.com
The War May Be Over But The Idea Lives On
Former Tamil MP Ponnambalam puts it simply: “I think it’s dangerous for us to think about what is possible. If we start thinking about that, it only means assimilation. We must stop talking Tamil, we must give up our religion. We must be Sinhalese and Buddhist.”
OVER AND above the geopolitics and domestic Tamil politics that directly affects India, the Sri Lankan Tamils’ story raises a disturbing question. Can the desperate and continuing plight of a people be explained away by terrorism alone? For now, more than 22 lakh Tamils within Sri Lanka and an estimated 10 lakh in the diaspora, are asking this universally perplexing question. As their story also serves as a warning to other displaced people without a nation — while the world and the UN plays a double game, your idea of nationhood could be the next to disappear.
But even in the aftermath of the terror and genocide, the Tamil idea of nationhood has not disappeared. If India does not want another cycle of violence at its doorstep, it cannot afford to be indifferent to the voices of the Lankan Tamils.
Vidyananda’s Contribution to Vanni’s Education
I can clearly see a bright future for Vidyananda. The College Anthem refers to Vidyananda as: “Vanni Ninruyar Tharagai” which translates as: The Ascending Star in the Firmament of Vanni. We who take pride in our Adangapattu Heritage, in order to revive our ancient glory that is Vanni, must strengthen and enhance the status of Vidyananda College as the foremost Educational Institution in Vanni.