| 28 November 2003 |
The Dead Continue to Live in our Memory -
Prof. Chandrakanthan at the Memorial Service in Toronto,
28 November 2003
“If some of us are alive today to remember our dead, we should
never forget that as Tamils we survived purely by chance” said Professor
Chandrakanthan while addressing members of the faculty and students of the
Scarborough, Mississauga and Metro Toronto campus of the University of Toronto
at the Tamil Heroes’ Day memorial Service organized by the Toronto University
Tamil Students’ Association (TUSA) and held at the University’s Hart House
Auditorium on Thursday night. Hart House, a prestigious Gothic architectural
monument that adorns the University is in the heart of the city of Toronto. A
large number of students were present at this service which included a
magnificent display of Tamil cultural and funerary art forms, light and flower
offerings with music, liberation-songs, drama and Tamil classical dance. The
event was organized by Mr. Ashwin, Vice-President for Cultural Affairs in TUSA.
In his address Professor Chandrakanthan said that memory is twofold, we remember
the dead and we remember the killers.
“Having witnessed many a scene of human
carnage perpetrated by the Sri Lankan State apparatus, I also remember the
killers, the Sinhala soldiers and commanders and it causes in me despair and
distress. These men were educated in leading military academies, share an
ancient culture, they dressed and ate like any other humans, but nothing
prevented them from bombing and blasting helpless Tamil children.
When I remember the killed, the victims, the helpless Tamil women, men and
children I look for a thousand reasons to hope for their sake and that of their
dear nation and people for whom they have sacrificed their lives. I will never
claim to speak for the dead. How can I? Can words be more powerful than their
death and the manner in which they endured it? Their smashed limbs, slain bodies
and charred flesh and bones have already spoken a language that is far more
eloquent than our weak human words. I was in Jaffna when
120 Tamil civilians
were bombed and killed by the Sri Lankan air force fighter jets in Navaly, I was
there when 38 children were killed in Nagarkovil. More recently, the
unpardonable brutalization of Tamil children in Bindunuwewa
can never be erased
from our memory. To remember the dead is the duty of the living, in our memory
they continue to live”
“Our hope for freedom as a people and a nation should never be de-linked from
the past. Forgetfulness of the past is a social sin. Memory is a virtue. As the
murdered, mutilated and maimed people of Tamil Eelam we should constantly
re-trace the blood-soaked foot prints of the past. The refusal to communicate or
transmit an experience that embodies the collective suffering, anguish, misery,
helplessness, torture and even brutal death of a people amounts to the betrayal
of the very people. We have to struggle with words against the mute silence of
the international community that did nothing to prevent the death of women and
children. There are many nations that crow loudly about human rights but these
very nations became accomplices in the genocidal scheme of the State of Sri
Lanka.”
Despite the cold weather a large number of people were present for the
memorial service and the cultural program.
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