Whiter justice? – The killing of Thillainayagam Theeban
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Photo credit: Video Image, Sri Lanka
Media Helping Media features a poignant submission by Nalaka Gunawardene on the murder of Thillainayagam Theeban. As noted in the article:
Theeban, 16 at the time of his death, was one of eight survivor children in four Asian countries that TVE Asia Pacific tracked for one year under the Children of Tsunami regional media project.
Theeban’s life story, as framed by Nalaka is deeply moving and bespeaks of the plight of many other children in the North and East after the tsunami, and caught up in violent conflict. It also calls to question the effectiveness of aid to the tsunami affected communities (read the Lessons We Never Learn, written for the 2nd commemoration of the tsunami, that asks some searing questions on similar lines).
Nalaka’s article is important for another reason. Questioning the oft stated goal of journalism – to be “objective”, Nalaka avers that:
Journalism with empathy was far preferable to the cold detachment that textbooks recommended.
Nalaka ends with a grim reminder of the continuing human toll of Sri Lanka’s on-going conflict.
Thillainayagam Theeban has become another statistic in a ‘low-intensity conflict’ (as some researchers call it). And while this war lasts, it will continue to consume thousands of other young lives — a grim roll call of Sri Lanka’s Lost Generation.
The article in full is available on the Media Helping Media website here. This article published on Groundviews with the author’s permission.
But obviously, it was them Martians who killed Theeban? Just like it’s them Martians who are responsible for abducting people, killing them, and all those dastardly acts those wretched NGOs accuse the Government, Karuna and the LTTE of doing incorrectly?
I hate Martians.
Give me a Venetian any day.
Great article, thanks for posting it. Their approach of journalism with empathy must be truly appreciated and is much needed.
This is yet another western-funded, western-inspired attempt to tarnish Sri Lanka’s good image. This young man could have been killed for any number of reasons, and how can his death be linked to political violence without the firm evidence of a police investigation? People like Sundanda Deshapriya are moved only when Tamils are killed. What about all our Sinhala war heroes who are sacrificing their lives for the motherland? Why can’t more films be made about these heroes? It’s a pity that the Tsunami didn’t wipe out the whole Eastern Province, leaving no trace of Tamils/LTTE…
Teeban’s story does not blame any group for his death, but the senseless violence.
For me Teeban’s death reminded the death of my “half- adopted†son Faushan Mohamed (21) some 18 months ago. He was shot dead on his way to see his fiancée who was studying at South Eastern university. He was full of life, and looking forward to start a new life. He was shot dead, while negotiating a bend some where close to Kalmunei one early morning. Memory of his death – is something that I haven’t been able to set aside and move forward. I ask always my self why? We still do not know why he was killed and by whom? All our efforts to find out why he was killed have reached a blank. That’s the impulse which made me write his story n Sinhala..
Teeban for me is not just a youth or a Tamil but a generation.
I write in my name, and defend what I say. My only hope that persons who wants whole Eastern province to be wiped out will do the same, instead of hiding behind pseudo names!
I did not write my tribute to Theeban to vilify or glorify anyone, and I’m puzzled why anyone should turn this into us vs. them kind of simplistic debate. I would urge Weera Sinha and everyone else to rise above and beyond their nationalistic sentiments and see the massive, endless national tragedy that unfolds all around us.
I was the commissioner and publisher of Children of Tsunami, an empathetic effort to track the recovery stories of eight survivor families in four countries. We chose two statistically average families each in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand and engaged locally-based camera crews to visit and film with these families from early to end 2005, on a monthly basis. The overall experience is summed up in an essay I wrote in early 2006, found at: http://www.tveap.org/feat/0605cot.html
When we started filming with them in early 2005, we had no idea how our eight chosen families will fare. This kind of unscripted, uncontrolled video documentation worried many journalists who cautioned against us not to venture into the unknown. We were foolhardy enough to do so, and have no regrets. Our process was incrementally documented and reported at a dedicated website, http://www.childrenoftsunami.info, which also streams 5-minute video reports on each child/family produced and uploaded each month as we went along. (We didn’t want to just gather footage to produce a documentary at the end; we published as we filmed, and importantly, our camera crews took the monthly video reports back to each family – theirs and others’ – and played back to the very families whose stories we were filming, with their informed consent and with no material rewards to them.
In Sri Lanka, we carefully chose two families: that of Theeban in Karaitivu in the east, and of Heshani in Suduwella, Matara, in the South. You can see their original profiles at:
http://www.childrenoftsunami.info/heshani/bio.htm
http://www.childrenoftsunami.info/theeban/bio.htm
If you have access to broadband internet, their monthly video reports are all online, for free access. Watching these will help compare and contrast how the two families recovered very differently. We are not drawing any sweeping conclusions from this, but the contrast is striking all the same. Heshani’s family had largely bounced back by end 2005; Theeban’s family has still not recovered even in March 2007, and Theeban is now gone – consumed by a violence that does not discriminate between grown-ups and children, between Sinhala and Tamil, and between the combatant and non-combatant.
And how sad that we didn’t learn the lesson of Tsunami, as some other conflict-ridden Asian couhtries did. My personal reaction to the Tsunami was a rare verse, When the Waves Came, which has appeared online from a US-based website, see:
http://www.lightmillennium.org/2005_15th/ngunawardene_the_waves.html
Throughout the verse, I keep repeating the words of William Makepeace Thackeray, which I hope Weera Sinha and his clan will appreciate: “Good or bad, guilty or innocent — they are all equal now.”
“It’s a pity that the Tsunami didn’t wipe out the whole Eastern Province, leaving no trace of Tamils/LTTE…”
That’s not something I would have usually published on Groundviews. However, I asked both Sunanda and Nalaka to respond to this comment – and while Sunanda has already, Nalaka assures me that he will do so presently.
“This is yet another western-funded, western-inspired attempt to tarnish Sri Lanka’s good image.”
Of the many ways that one can respond to this, I think the best is that this government and the incumbent President do far more to tarnish the “good name” of Sri Lanka, and with more panache to boot. They do it openly, and in calling for extra-judicial means to deal with anyone who they feel is even remotely a “threat to national security”, clearly, Groundviews is lagging far behind if our objectives were the same.
I also think it is a bit rich to accuse us of Western bias when you are resident in the US, enjoying all that it has to offer, with no responsibility towards that which you espouse – a mindless violence against the Tamil and the LTTE (tragically conflated into one lump by you) based on the assumption, callous and despicable, that only through their annihilation lies our path to peace and prosperity.
It’s very painful to note that Theeban’s life is a recapitulation of the last 60 years of Sri Lankan history.
60 devillish years recapitulated in 16 desperate years – too much to bear.