�The Hostage has taken the place of the warrior .He has
become the principle actor, the simulacral protagonist, or
rather in his pure inaction, the protagonizer of non war� Jean
Badurillard
Dharmeratnam Sivaram was physically laid to rest yesterday, but
as a man who pioneered the internet to build an online community
linking a transnational Diaspora; his assassins should realize that
Sivaram�s death never took place. In a society where media
technologies have destroyed the living other of all humans, where
simulation have become the engine of life, Siva lives in his own
world beyond the physical contours in the virtual galaxy.
What the killers have only silenced are the physical movements of a
being who lived in two worlds. Physical home, family, secret
meetings, political gatherings, restaurants and pubs was his first
world. Siva lived in a broader world rather a universe where he
surfed the waves of the information galaxy transforming it into a
powerful symbolic existence of a virtual life.
This is the power of the virtual Siva he was the icon for Tamils
globally of a cyborg diaspora, thus a bullet is a harmless
projectile in this fluid world that the net has built. When one
enters the realm of studying the configuration and architecture of
the world beyond ours we enter the rewired parallel universe of our
own existence.
What Siva built online was not his tomb but his life through
eternity; these made him fearless and live a courageous life among
all hostilities never taking refuge in physical bunkers as he had
discovered the power of the force which he had harnessed. As a
researcher on cyber culture, communities and strategic cyber
engagement this is my initial impression of reports of his physical
transcendence to the virtual life or the so called death of Taraki.
I only new Siva (Dharmeratnam Sivaram) for less than two years and
may have met him less than five times. Does this gives me the right
to comment about a man who is no more and with multitudes of
articles written by people whom he knew, associated and led his
political life for years. This is an alternative view of a man who
revolutionized the web based media solutions sector in Sri Lanka
from serious researcher on the cyber frontier and its impact on the
Sri Lankan polity.
I first met Siva at a local pub, my meeting with him was mediated by
a fellow journalist and a good friend of Siva but whose ideology was
total opposite to what Siva wrote and stood for but who always
accepted the democratic space for journalism can not be colonized by
one single entity. This was the time when I was freelancing for a
leading national weekly. As a student completing his research thesis
in cyber conflicts and cyber communities for my undergraduate
research thesis I sought Siva�s help. In this first meeting I
perceived it as primary data collection excursion, what was build on
from that meeting was a humble respect to a man whose intellectual
capacity and the sublime temperament exceeded that of the so called
academics of this state. This engagement led to the build up of a
discussion with Siva which spanned to the date of this tragic
murder. The core contents of it were the intensive discussions
debates on the life on net and the amazing dynamics cyber space
created within the Sri Lankan context of ethnic conflict, peace
process and reconstruction of the nation.
Siva understood trends of cyber culture remarkably he used to
discuss in length the growth of this phenomenon and what potential
we can harness from it. His operationability on the net displayed
the strategic use of web based news services. His expertise was
sought in many states both by the civil society and state on success
of
www.Tamilnet.com . Siva more than anybody else understood
the emergence of a
transnational Tamil Diaspora and the vacuum that was created
with lack of a solid network. The
LTTE already
had a huge network going from the eighties but I would identify
Tamilnet as an alternative network which gave voice to the voiceless
while always standing up for the Tamil cause.
All the Tigers may have had access to the Tamilnet but all tamilnet
surfers are not Tigers, thus in this context Siva exploited the
ICT revolution
to the maximum. This made him a very valuable asset to the Tamil
interests and this took him closer to the LTTE. While Sinhala
extremists perceived him to be a tiger claw in the Lions den, Tigers
wanted his strategic insight and mastery of web-editing to benefit
their own agenda. This man I felt sometimes may have been under huge
stress because of this matter but later on the dysfunctional
politics of the nation took a greater toll on him - his eastern
origin, breaking away with Karuna, soft spot to the Wanni,
vociferous and hurting attacks on the Sinhala chauvinists.
The writer�s whole argument is that Siva may have transcended
physical life and will definitely live through in the virtual
frontier. As mentioned earlier he always existed in two worlds, the
assassins only took away his existence in one but may have ensured
his deification in the other. The bullet may have silenced citizen
Siva but may have woken up a Charismatic cyber Siva. As in virtual
reality it becomes difficult to define where the boundary of the
body is. We all have witnessed a simulation of a murder, the spirit,
voice and passion of Siva lives safely on the NET.
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