Comments on: Out of the Scar: Memory, Diaspora and the Cultural Politics of Reconciliation https://groundviews.org/2013/08/21/out-of-the-scar-memory-diaspora-and-the-cultural-politics-of-reconciliation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=out-of-the-scar-memory-diaspora-and-the-cultural-politics-of-reconciliation Journalism for Citizens Fri, 23 Aug 2013 03:14:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.1 By: puniselva https://groundviews.org/2013/08/21/out-of-the-scar-memory-diaspora-and-the-cultural-politics-of-reconciliation/#comment-55435 Fri, 23 Aug 2013 03:14:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=12890#comment-55435 Recently Australian govt distributed leaflets in the East asking people not to be tricked by traffickers: http://www.dailymirror.lk/news/34108-illegal-immigration-australian-campaign-in-the-east.html

Some time ago there was a report to say Australian secret agents had learnt that sources close to the President are involved in traffickig people by boats to Australia.

We have been getting stories from visitors to Sri Lanka that Namal Rajapakse and some army officers are buying land from people in the Eastern coast with promises to send them by boats to Australia. Will the following help some Australians research likely clue here:

‘’ That is, till early February 2012, when Namal Rajapaksa paid a pop-visit to the returned villagers of Kokulai. The belief that he was coming to assist them with their most urgent needs increased the excitement in the air. Peter and his friends perked up with hope. A new dawn indeed, it seemed. As they expected, Namal spoke to the people with a sense of great gravity, pity, and commiseration. He toured the lands of Kokulai, as they believed, to better understand their sorrows. He left that day with promises, raising much expectation in Peter and the poor returnees…. the next day the local AGA received a call from his office informing him that 20 acres of land, belonging to around 30 families, would be given to an East Asian company for the extraction of ilmenite. Before the families themselves knew of the transaction, strangers arrived and started setting up walls and fences around their property! Peter told me of the surprise that filled the villagers when strangers took over their land. Concerned, they approached the AGA with their deeds in hand. Now these are not government permits which can be revoked by the government; what they possess are deeds proving their ownership to this property for generations, yet the AGA claimed his hands were tied. How was he to stand up to the forces arrayed against these families? After the experience of the chief justice, would there be any judge who could be trusted to hear pleas on this dispute in a fearless manner?”
– Returning IDPs in Kokulai, Mullaitivu, being robbed of land, Ratnajeevan Hoole, 24 November 2012,
http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2012/11/returning-idps-in-kokulai-mullaitivu.html

In the North many house owners find that the army is refusing to leave their houses after years and decades of occupation. Some Tamils are selling their houses to Sinhalese at very high prices. Many Sinhalse are just getting public land with the help of the army. Some land in coastal areas are forcefully taken over and sold to tourism businesses. Is Sri Lanka becoming a ”Hillsborough” for Tamils? (Hillsborough is a football stadium where excessive crowdwas let in a for a match and the crush resulted in more than 100 dead several years ago

]]> By: janet galbraith https://groundviews.org/2013/08/21/out-of-the-scar-memory-diaspora-and-the-cultural-politics-of-reconciliation/#comment-55409 Wed, 21 Aug 2013 09:10:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=12890#comment-55409 Thank you Suvendrini. In your writing you enter the flesh of what is and I feel so many layers or threads that connect with what I have been thinking in relation to this troubling concept of reconciliation in Australia as well as my thinkings about anglo-white-Australian anxieties around invasion, the lie of sovereignty and the refusal to see peoples fleeing persecution as people. Denial remains primary it seems. I agree that we all need to think about what forms of courage are needed at this time. And yes these may be risky but we risk much more in remaining obedient. Obedience demands silence, and at the moment the silencing of many peoples, many voices, stories – (most often those who’s lands have been stolen, and those fleeing war and persecution) – that make evident the lies of those who are the persecutors in this country, is an active strategy implemented by government, much media and those of the privileged public. Those stories that are being told are often mediated and re-presented in ways that may be especially palatable to the ‘white-ened middleclasses’. This ensures the voices of others who may speak of the violence and horror that is present are quietened or presented as questionable. We cannot separate what is currently happening in Australia from this ‘nation’s’ participation in and support of other countries wars and genocidal activities, nor can we separate this from the past horrors of invasion and the ongoing genocide in this country that saturates the bodies and present lives of many.

]]>