Archive for August, 2011

Forbidden Fruits: Niromi de Soyza’s “Tamil Tigress”, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko?

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The literary world is now poised on the brink wondering if the Tamil Tigress (Allen & Unwin, 2011) is going to join Forbidden Love (Random House, 2003) and The Hand that signed the Paper (Allen and Unwin, 2000) in the house of literary infamy. Has the Tamil lady who uses the nom de plume Niromi de Soyza[i] woven an autobiographical tale of lies that match those coined by Norma Toliopoulos and Helen Darville who wrote their memoirs as Norma Kouri and Helen Demidenko? When Kouri’s book was challenged by the Jordanian National Commission for Women on the ground that it contained 70 exaggerations and errors, Random House Australia indicated that “they were satisfied with the veracity of the story, [though] names and places had been changed to protect the identities of those involved.”[ii] Their defense did not hold up for long as Malcolm Knox spearheaded the media questioning in Australia. Random House pulled the book from the shelf [iii] –…

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War Crimes Investigations in Sri Lanka: An Unpopular View

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“In trying to do good, we have been living beyond our moral resources and have fallen into hypocrisy and self-righteousness” — William V. Cannon, commenting on the Vietnam War, New York Times, February 6, 1966 “Conquer the angry man by love, Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness. Conquer the miser with generosity. Conquer the liar with truth.” — The Dhammapada p. 223 Despite the best efforts of the Sri Lankan government, the claim that Sri Lanka is a “Killing Field” is fast becoming a social and political rallying point for diverse interest groups. Allegations of government war crimes outlined in the Darusman Report, the now infamous Channel 4 video, and the case filed by Tamils against Genocide (TAG) with the Department of Justice in the United States, as well as electronic reports published across the world have by now overshadowed the victory over the LTTE. The government’s uncompromising resistance to investigate war crime allegations by any external body could turn…

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Modern Dictatorships through the Mirror: Time for us to be Conscious

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In legal and political literature, the term ‘dictatorship’ includes authoritarianism and is synonymous with traditional terms such as absolutism, absolute governments, despotism and tyranny. In political and constitutional legal theory, a dictatorship is a political regime under which the power of government is not limited by any law.  Perhaps the main feature in all types of dictatorships is that there is a concentration of political power in one power center and generally in one person occupying a single high government, party, religious office or it may be located in a small and cohesive elite group. The world has now seen such concentration of dictatorial power be in the hands of a single leader, a  popular majority or in its democratically elected executive or legislature. The common feature of all these systems, whether it is a rule of one person or a group of persons, is that it dominates the government while dictating to the entire society its rules without any…

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JAFFNA: BRUTAL ASSAULT OF CIVILIANS IN NAVANTHURAI

Around 100 young men from Navanthurai, a village in the Jaffna District, were detained in an operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army around 1.15am on 23rd August 2011. The villagers were severely beaten by the army and dragged to the main road near the Navanthurai Army Detachment located around 300 meters from the village. The men were loaded onto buses and handed over to the Jaffna police around 4 am and taken to the Jaffna courts by 10 am and produced before the Jaffna District Judge at around 1 pm the same day (23rd August). Despite their injuries, the men were held without treatment for over 8 hours. 20 of the most seriously injured were admitted to the Jaffna General Hospital after 10 am, on orders by the District Judge. The rest were denied treatment until around 7.30 pm when we received information that all detainees had been admitted for treatment to the Jaffna Hospital. According to media reports,…

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You Can’t Catch A Bogeyman

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Image courtesy Amber Much of the recent discussion of the ‘Grease Yaka’ in the Sinhala and English language media or ‘Mystery Man’ as it is referred to in Tamil discourse has been concerned with the origins or ‘truth’ behind the incidents, reports and rumours that have gripped the island.  I wonder if the heated debates on the matter, which spill off the pages into the conversations in our communities, are rather missing the point of this rather slippery Bogeyman – and indeed the best means of responding to it. A Moving Target Without obscuring or denying the actual violence of attacks and counter attacks, it seems that the most interesting characteristic of the figure of the ‘Grease Yaka/Mystery Man’ is its ability to embody the fears and preoccupations of diverse communities across the country.  Even though there are certain general features (ie. the targetting of women, the cuts/scratches to hands or breasts, and the elusive nature of the perpetrators) that…

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Women and Media Collective Press Conference on Violence Against Women

The Women and Media Collective held a press conference last week to address the incidence of violence against women with regard to the ‘grease devil’ phenomenon. The Collective also stressed that it wanted a ‘clear dialogue’ on the matter in order to militate against sensational reportage as well as further trivialisation of the issue. The main points expressed by the Collective were the following: – The State has an obligation to ensure the protection of women, to set about establishing impartial investigations and strengthen law enforcement, particularly with respect to the ability of the police to maintain law and order. – “If women are insecure, it is also an indictment on the community and our society at large. We want law enforcement to work closely with communities and strengthen mechanisms that would ensure safety of communities”. – It is necessary to avoid the “policing of women in the guise of dealing with this issue”, particularly to prevent restriction or confinement….

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How can society protect vulnerable women from post war atrocities?

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I just viewed a documentary produced recently by Al Jazeera titled ‘Civil war leaves Sri Lankan women vulnerable’. The film has left me deeply disturbed, shocked and ashamed particularly because as a woman, I am not doing my duty in protesting vociferously against such atrocities. Some sections of the documentary appear to have been deliberately blocked for apparent reasons. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye against the neglect of vulnerable women who are struggling to rehabilitate themselves and their families, post war. Why is there a lack of concern by the state as well as society towards these war victims? Many households in the north and east are headed by women as most males have died, been incapacitated or gone missing after the war. Several families have been located in areas that do not yet have the basic amenities and continue to live in flimsy shelters as they do not have the resources, income or capability to build…

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De-greasing social speculation over “grease devils” in Sri Lanka: Part II

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Read Part I here. ### Basically the whole plethora and all variations in media, from print to electronic to the web, from Sinhala to Tamil and English including the “updates” via SMS in some instance, broke the news of PC 61006, Navaratne Bandara of the Puttlam police station being assaulted to death by mobs in the town itself. First reports said he was at the time of the attack, returning after duties. Said to have been on “traffic duty”. A few kilo metres away, in the adjoining “Maanangunduwa” islet, 05 people were injured from police shooting, in an incident that was about, a supposed “grease devil”. In both reports, either the media had fumbled or the police sources have. Or both have, leaving a mess of reporting. PC Bandara “was on his way back to the station after traffic duty when he was severely assaulted by the angry mob in front of the Sathosa retail outlet”. (DM – Unrest continues:…

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Caste and Politics

Image from The Secret Museum of Mankind | http://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/index.html

Over the years, the claims of the Tamil people for justice, equalty and dignity have been rejected with a variety of specious arguments. It is not necessary to go into these exercises here again. However, the latest attempt in this direction is to raise the issue of caste in Jaffna society. Former civil servants, who spent three or four years being de facto kings of the North, have sought to comment on this issue in many recent hero-stories that they have published in the newspapers. In these hero-stories they report not only how they defeated one departmental head or another or humiliated a hapless village headman, but how they vanquished the evil designs of the Tamils as well. Indeed everything seems to become grist to the mill of Tamil-bashing. Even a casual remark made in a cricket match is used by a famous historian to claim that the Tamils of Jaffna are cravenly caste-conscious. Off-the-cuff social commentators as well as…

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De-greasing social speculation over “grease devils” in Sri Lanka

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Image courtesy Amber Whispering campaigns in Sri Lanka are the most speedy and penetrating campaigns that product promoting advertisers have not been able to make use of. Often in Sri Lanka these whispering campaigns have been political. They have also been on “negative impact” mode, socially. The latest is on the very sensational “Grease Devil” that is said to be after young women. Opening for a “grease devil” This has many stories making rounds and each round making it more bizarre than the previous round and the previous day’s. Worst is when media outlets use such stories for political interpretations of their own. The controversial “LankaeNews” (LeN) a not so professional web site carrying Sri Lankan news, reported on 12 August, 2011 a long story that gave life to gossip, captioned “Deadly flame of ‘Grease devils’ spreads: curfew in Samanthurai –King Dutugemunu’s sword vs people’s word”. The report said, the so named elusive stalkers are on the prowl to abduct…

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Ancestry and Ethnic Identity in the Australian Census… and thus to Sri Lanka

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The 9th of August was census night in Australia. The census form has three boxes relating to “Country of Birth,” one’s “language other than English at home” and “Ancestry”— all interesting formulations that bear on one’s ethnic subjectivity and one’s explicit identity. Ethnicity is a complex phenomenon that is nourished over the years by the influence of many factors. Ethnic self-perception is always inter-relational and thus inter-subjective.[i] It can rest lightly on some and weigh heavily on others. Ethnic terminologies deployed in official domains and brought into everyday speech are among the factors that mould these self-perceptions. As the subaltern historians of India have revealed, census making and bureaucratic categorization in the everyday world had a considerable bearing on the shaping of ethnic identities from the colonial period onwards. Placed within this introductory note let me refer to the decision taken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to seek information not only on the “Country of Birth” in Question 12,…

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Do we need a street address?

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Editors note: Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene (1924 – 2010) was an extraordinary Sri Lankan. Educated at two of the most prestigious universities in the world (Cambridgeand Harvard), he excelled in many different areas of human endeavour: agriculture, aviation, engineering design, inventions, renewable energy technologies and water sports. For more information, please visit www.raywijewardene.net) Just as the Global Positioning System (GPS) kicked off, an aviator I knew had a very bright idea. After all he was waiting for the day when navigation would become child’s play. With GPS it had just become so. From then onwards, the heavens would guide our position on earth. Gone were the days of ever changing road names, airport names and country names. Our location could now be given in numbers beyond the tampering of fickle idiotic and transient mortals, intolerant of the past and eager to mark their presence.  To celebrate his welcome transformation, he re-printed his name card. But this time, instead of a street address, it…

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What Sri Lankans really think

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“Seek truth from facts” (Deng Xiaoping) It is ironic, is it not, that those Western voices and Lankan liberals who believe that there is a democracy wave sweeping the world, that democracy is dying if not dead in Sri Lanka and is in dire need of regime change, do not, for the most part, pause to review or objectively ascertain public opinion in the country? They may not believe that ‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei’ –‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’ — but surely, any adherent or advocate of democracy must know and display some respect for public opinion in what remains a multiparty democracy? There is an extensive survey of public opinion, the results of which will up-end all conventional assumptions about what the Sri Lankan people think and therefore how they are likely to act or react. This is the Survey on Democracy in Post-War Sri Lanka, Topline Report July 2011, conducted and published by…

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Fr. Jim Brown and Mr. Vimalathas: Five years after disappearance, where are they and what has happened to the investigation?

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  Fr. Jim Brown, a Catholic Priest from diocese of Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka and his associate, Mr. Vimalathas, a father of five people, seem to be just two names and statistics in the long list of disappeared in Sri Lanka, particularly after the escalation of violence and war in the North since 2006. I didn’t know either before they disappeared, but had got to know about them and the families after they disappeared. I remember the empty and distraught looks on the children of Vimalathas in their small house, who had not realized they will not see and hear from their father again for so long. I remember the hope the parents of Fr. Jim Brown always shares whenever I meet them that their beloved son will return. Background to the disappearance: Fr Jim Brown and Vimalathas went missing on 20 August 2006 amid escalated warfare between the security forces and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)….

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“I want to continue to highlight the activities against the humanity” | Gnanasundaram Kuganathan

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“It’s a miracle that I survived. I was beaten almost to death. Many attempts have been made to kill me, so that my writing will come to an end!. I did not think that, I will survive. The God has saved me to serve the people through journalism. I am slowly recovering. Today, I am blessed to be alive. I have highlighted many issues in my writing. I want to continue to highlight the activities against the humanity, but I am not sure whether I will be able to hold the pen again, because my right hand fingers are frozen” emotionally shares Gnanasundaram Kuganathan (59) while tears filled his eyes. The News Editor of Uthayan ~  Tamil language daily newspaper Gnanasundaram Kuganathan (59) was brutally assaulted by unknown men on 29th of July 2011 at night at 7.30pm on Kasthuriyaar road in Jaffna, as he was walking back home for dinner from work. I met him in Jaffna recently, as…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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