Whats New Archive
-
May 2008 -
Week Ending:
Saturday 31 May 2008
Tamil
Diaspora: a Trans State Nation -
to include
 1.United
Kingdom -
Eelam Tamil elected Mayor
of London Borough of
Southwark "Eelam Tamil Ms Elizabeth Packiyadevi
Mann has been elected as Mayor of the
London Borough of Southwark. The Mayor is
elected to serve for twelve months by a
special assembly of all 63 elected
councillors sitting on the council. Ms Mann
has served as head of the Tamil Eelam
Economic Development Organisation
(TEEDOR)..." more
|
| 2. Canada - Eelam Tamil Student
accused by US of 'terrorism' wins
leadership award at Canadian University
"Dean of the
School of Business and Economics (SBE) and
Chair of the SBE Award Committee Ginny
Dybenko said that Suresh Sriskandarajah was
selected (for the 'CIBC Leaders in
Entrepreneurship Award') because he met the
strict criteria and was weighed fairly
against the other candidates..
�He�s
just been an exemplary role model on all
levels�".... more |
Revisited
The Strength of an
Idea
| "...Movements for
justice throughout the world and throughout
history always begin with and are sustained
by a moral statement, a value
idea...Movements are sustained when
there are enough people whose imagination
is captivated by a vision that lifts them
beyond wherever they may be and which
encourages them to have a better idea of
themselves and their history into what they
might or could become... Values are the
essential principles of life without which
life would be without meaning
� things would fall apart,
and the centre cannot hold. They are agents
of social cohesion... in (Martin Luther
King's) words 'people cannot devote themselves to a
great cause without finding someone who
becomes the personification of the
cause'... " N Barney Pityana in Liberation, Civil
Rights & Democracy,
The Martin Luther King, Jr
Memorial Lecture, 2004 |
Tamil Nation
Library: Eelam Section to include
 Reflections of the
Leader: Quotes by Veluppillai
Pirapakaran Translation of Tamil Original by Peter
Schalk and Alvappillai Velupillai.
Published by Uppasala University, Sweden.
From the Summary by Peter Schalk -
"'Reflections of the Leader' is an
important source for the research of Tamil
patriotism in connection with the attempt
among militant Ilattamils, i.e. Tamil
speakers of the armed resistance on the
island Ilam (= Sri Lanka), to achieve
violently a state formation as protection
and last refuge from the Lankan
Government�s attacks.".
more |
Reflections
|
1."..In Sri Lanka, the
government appears to have concluded..
that law enforcement and compulsion can
end a terror campaign. However... the
LTTE is unlikely to go away simply
through government-applied force...
One of the most effective strategies
at governments' disposal may be to split
off pragmatists from radical
rejectionists. Such efforts can
diminish public support for the
terrorists and deny them a strong base
from which to operate...So called 'get
tough' measures against terrorist groups
can have unintended consequences.
Trying to 'decapitate' a movement may
radicalise the whole movement ...
Assassinations and military force can
provoke a desire for revenge, create
mythologies of martyrdom, or feed
paranoia and secretiveness (which
makes the movements even harder to
penetrate for reasons of either
understanding motivations or foiling
actions).."
How Terrorism Ends - United States
Institute for Peace Study, May
1999
2. "..The
insurgency strategy of the US is based on
using a wide range of tools to combat
terrorism and it is just not the military
strategy..." US Ambassador Blake, 25 May
2008
|
Democracy
Continues, Sri Lanka Style
to include
|
 Dr.Vickramabahu
Karunaratne writes from Sri
Lanka "While
Pillayan agrees with the agenda of
Mahinda dictated by the Indian leaders
and the global capital, Prabha does not.
Of course Prabha has said that he will
follow the open economy and many confused
green card holders support him, but he is
not trusted by the Hanumans of Delhi or
the Yankees of Washington. Merged or de
merged, power over the Tamil homeland
will not be given to Prabha by these
world powers. In fact the proposed
Northern Interim Council is to be
appointed as a challenge to Prabha. As it
is he can only appeal to the Dravidian masses and the
Left movement the world over..." more
|
International Frame & the
Tamil Eelam Struggle for
Freedom
| 1. Politics not my cup of tea says
US Ambassador Blake - Really? "The
East is a fine laboratory to show that
powers within the 13th Amendment be
devolved within the Eastern Provincial
Council..." together with comments
by
tamilnation.org -
revised 26 May
2008 |
|
2.
Blunted Tool - Tamil
Guardian Editorial "The main
point for Tamils to bear in mind is this:
the world�s powerful
states have no more commitment to
sovereignty than to human rights. Sri
Lanka�s territorial
integrity is no more important to them
than Tamils� freedom.
It�s just more useful at
this point. And as the British Prime
Minister Lord Palmerston put,
�we have no permanent
friends and we have no permanent enemies.
We have permanent
interests�. It is no
different for any other state in
today�s world..."
more
|
Tamil Digital
Renaissance
Week Ending:
Saturday 24 May 2008
Beyond
Nations & Nationalism: One
World
 Revisited:
Nadesan Satyendra on
One
World & the Tamil Nation,
1998... ten
years ago "...A true
trans nationalism will not come by the
suppression of one nation by another. A
true trans nationalism will come from
nationalisms that have flowered and matured
- and to work for the flowering of the
Tamil nation is to bring forward the
emergence of a true trans nationalism... In
the meantime, Tamils have no cause, to be
apologetic about their togetherness as a
people. As a people, they too have much to
contribute to the rich fabric of the many
nations of the world - and to world
civilisation..." more |
Reflections
|
"...I do not agree that
the dog in a manger has the final right
to the manger even though he may have
lain there for a very long time. I do not
admit that right. I do not admit for
instance, that a great wrong has been
done to the Red Indians of America or the
black people of Australia. I do not admit
that a wrong has been done to these
people by the fact that a stronger race,
a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise
race to put it that way, has come in and
taken their place..." -
Winston
Churchill,1937, quoted by Arundhati Roy in
2002 Comment
by tamilnation.org
Sir Winston Churchill was named the
greatest Briton of all
time in a BBC nationwide poll
attracting more than a million votes in
November 2002.
�...The most
ultimately righteous of all wars is a war
with savages, though it is apt to be also
the most terrible and inhuman. The rude,
fierce settler who drives the savage from
the land lays all civilized mankind under
a debt to him. American and Indian, Boer
and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New
Zealander and Maori, - in each case the
victor, horrible though
many of his deeds are, has laid
deep the foundations for the future
greatness of a mighty
people....� The
Winning of the West Vol. 4 The Indian
Wars Page 56 - President Theodore (Teddy)
Roosevelt more
|
Tamil
National Forum
Indictment
Against Sri Lanka
|
Nobel Prize Winners
tell UN: Vote Sri Lanka off Human Rights
Council
 "Over the past two years,
the government has opted to use a dirty
war against the LTTE using torture on
prisoners suspected of having links with
the LTTE and the perpetration of hundreds
of enforced disappearances and
extrajudicial executions, including
humanitarian workers. Instead of
promoting human rights throughout the
world, Sri Lanka has used its position
within the Human Rights Council to avoid
scrutiny as a violator of human rights.."
Nobel Peace
PrizeWinner, Adolfo Perez
Esquivel together with
Comment by
tamilnation.org "The recognition by
3 Nobel Prize Winners of Sri Lanka's
horrendous human rights record is
welcome. Said that, Sri Lanka's gross and
systematic violations of human rights did
not begin with
the assumption of power by a China/Iran
leaning Sri Lanka President Rajapakse two
years ago.." more
|
Tamil
National Forum
| Chandiravarman
Sinnathurai on Tactical Tremors in the
Indian Ocean together with
Comment by tamilnation.org "We ourselves take the view that the
tactical tremors (re
SARPSCO �
the newly launched, the South Asia Regional
Port Security
Cooperative) have more to do with China and
its String of Pearls Strategy in the Indian
Ocean than with the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (or for that matter with the
war against 'terrorism' as such).."
more |
Tamil
Nation Library: Eelam to include
Week Ending:
Saturday 17 May 2008
Conflict
Resolution in an Asymmetric Multi Lateral
World to
include
 1. Workshop on Bridging the
Gap between Self-Determination and
Sovereignty - Centre for Just Peace
and Democracy (CJPD) in collaboration with
Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies,
Lucerne, Switzerland 17-18 May 2008 -
Tigers will bring clarity to Sri
Lanka's conflict - K.V.Balakumaran, Senior
Member, LTTE 1 January 2008
"...Consider the countries Somaliland,
Kosovo, and
Montenegro. The west will intervene
when their interests are impacted. But they
are reluctant to enter forcefully in Sri
Lanka. Sri Lanka has state power.... During
the war to open A-9, up to 6000 Sri Lankan
soldiers perished, and nearly 3000 Tigers
sacrificed their lives. The international
community accepted the results of
that war, and recognized the LTTE's
strength. The question is why they are not,
responding the same way now. In order to
change the international community's view,
we are called to suffer more sacrifices of
life. We expect 2008 will be the year where
we can overcome the diplomatic hurdles that
confront us. In 2003, we proposed ISGA (Interim Self
Governing Authority) as a framework
with which will satisfy us, our minimal
requirements for power-sharing. So based on
this, the international community cannot
call us obstinate, or terrorists. Hillary Clinton also identified
us when she articulated a more nuanced
definition of terrorism."
more
|
 2.
'International Dimensions
of the Conflict in Sri
Lanka� Book Launch in
Sydney hosted by NSW State Parliamentarian
Virginia Judge on 6 May 2008. "The launch
took place at the NSW Parliament and the
meeting was chaired by John Gormley.
 Justice John Dowd, a
former Chairman of the International
Commission of Jurists and a former NSW
Attorney General spoke of the increasing
influence of China and called upon the
international community to recognise that
Sri Lanka needs to be transformed into two
states and structures developed for
these states to coexist and cooperate..."
more |
Reflections
 "�.While for Karl Marx truth was a weapon to induce
social change, for Freud it was the weapon to
induce individual change; awareness was the
main agent in Freud's therapy. If, so Freud
found, the patient can gain insight into
the fictitious character of his conscious
ideas, if he can grasp the reality behind these
ideas, if he can make the unconscious
conscious, he will attain the strength
to rid himself of his irrationalities and
to transform himself...Marx's statement,
'The demand (for society) to give up the
illusions about its condition is the demand
to give up a condition which needs
illusions,' also could have been made by
Freud. Both wanted to free man from the
chains of his illusions in order to enable
him to wake up and to act as a free man..."
Erich Fromm in "Beyond
Chains of Illusion - My Encounter with Marx
& Freud" |
Tamil
National Forum
|
Velupillai Thangavelu
from Canada writes to Windsor Sun,
Ontario On Sri Lankan Envoy's
Antics in Windsor "We are not
amused at the antics of Bandula
Jayasekera, the newly posted Sri Lanka's
Consul General to Toronto to pose as a
lily white angel of peace in
Canada.
He makes the
ridiculous claim "We have a terrorism
problem right now. Some families who came
from Sri Lanka are living in fear of the
terrorist group. Even families who are no
longer in Sri Lanka and are here in
Canada live in fear." His statement that
some (Sri Lankan) families are living in
fear is a supreme insult to the law
enforcement agencies of Canada. What he
is trying to do is to fool the Canadians
by resorting to Goebbelsian style
propaganda! Jayasekera's interest about
"some families" is akin to that of the
wolf shedding crocodile tears on seeing
the sheep getting wet in the rain!"
more
|
Reflection
 �... There are those,
and they are often sincere people, who say
to Negroes and their allies in the white
community, that we should slow up and just
be nice and patient... because only time
can solve the problem... I think there is
an answer to that myth. And it is that time
is neutral. It can be used either
constructively or destructively. And I'm
absolutely convinced that the forces of
ill-will in our nation have often used time
much more effectively than the forces of
good will... Somewhere we must come to see
that social progress never rolls in on the
wheels of inevitability. It comes
through the tireless efforts and the
persistent work of dedicated
individuals. ... And so we must help
time, and we must realise that the time is
always right to do right.."
Martin Luther King - Speech at
Stanford University in Palo Alto,
California, 1968 |
Week Ending:
Saturday 10 May 2008
On the 10th
Anniversary of the launch of
tamilnation.org on 10 May 1998:
| 1. Tamil Nation
Library: Conflict Resolution
to include |
 International Dimensions
of the Conflict in Sri Lanka, Centre for
Just Peace & Democracy,
2008 "..The primary purpose of the seminar
was to understand the international
framework in order to discern the motives
of the international actors. Whereas
statements made by international actors in
the course of public diplomacy implied
altruism to be the main factor driving the
actions of the international actors, there
has emerged strong evidence that the
intervention is driven by strategic and
economic interests of the international
actors..." more |
| |
2. The Relevance of Aurobindo: Early
Political Life &
Teachings to
include Sri Aurobindo on Unity
and British Rule, 1907
"It is a common cry in
this country that we should effect the
unity of its people before we try to be
free. There is no cry which is more
plausible, none which is more hollow...
The first question we have to answer is -
can this practical unity be accomplished by
acquiescence in foreign rule? ... a state
created by the encampment of a foreign race
among a conquered population and supported
in the last resort not by any section of
the people but by external force, is an
inorganic state... the tendency of the
intruding body is to break down all the
existing organs of national life and to
engross all power in itself... if the
middle class (of the ruled) could be either
tamed, bribed or limited in its expansion,
the disorganisation would be
complete... The organs of middle
class political life can only be dangerous
(to the ruler) so long as they are
independent. By taking away their
independence they become fresh sources
of strength for the Government...The
dissolution of the subject organisation
into a disorganised crowd is the inevitable
working of an alien despotism..." together
with Comment
by tamilnation.org "We felt that it may be appropriate
that we should publish these reflections of
Sri Aurobindo on this, the 10th Anniversary
of the launch of tamilnation.org on 10 May 1998.
Many Eelam Tamils will ofcourse have
feelings of deja vu on reading that which
Sri Aurobindo wrote more than a hundred
years ago..." more
|
| 3. Tamil Nation
Library: Eelam to include |
 The
Charge is Genocide: the Struggle is for
Freedom - Nadesan
Satyendra,
2007 Published by the International
Federation of Tamils, Geneva,
Switzerland. "...The central theme of the book is
that the conflict in the island of Sri
Lanka is not simply about the systematic
violations of human rights of the Tamil
people, or about violations of the
humanitarian law of armed conflict or the
violations of the ceasefire agreement - or
for that matter genocide. The conflict
in the island is about the refusal of the
people of Tamil Eelam to submit to alien
Sinhala rule. The author contends that
in the ultimate analysis, the struggle of
the people of Tamil Eelam for freedom is
about democracy and that if democracy means
the rule of the people, by the people, for
the people then it must follow, as night
follows day, that no one people may rule
another... He calls upon the
international community to seek liberation
from the political rhetoric of terrorism
and to support the liberation of
peoples..." more |
Tamil
Diaspora: a Trans State Nation
Tamil
Nation Library: Nations &
Nationalism to
include
 1.
Cultural Foundations of
Nations: Hierarchy, Covenant and
Republic Anthony D Smith, 2008
"...At first
sight, the modern secular
civic-republican nation appears to mark a
rupture with any earlier historical form
of the nation, just as its nationalism
seems so different in tone and style from
earlier covenantal nationalism... But in
fact the modern republican forms and
ideologies of the nation build on the
examples, and use many of the symbols,
values, and traditions, of earlier
covenantal nations and nationalisms. In
this sense, modern nationalisms, starting
with the French Revolution, are best
viewed as forms of a secular religion
of the people, alongside or in
opposition to traditional religions..."
more
 2.
Nationalism: Theory,
Ideology, History (Key Concepts)![](/%3E%20Anthony%20D%20Smith,%202001%3C/a%3E%20"%3C/b%3E%3C/font%3E%3Cspan%20LANG=) Nationalism
is an ideology that places the nation at
the centre of its concerns and seeks to
promote its well-being. But this is
rather vague. We need to go further and
isolate the main goals under whose
headings nationalism seeks to promote the
nation's well-being. These generic
goal: are three: national autonomy,
national unity and national identity,
and, for nationalists, a nation cannot
survive without a sufficient degree of
all three. This suggests the
following working definition of
nationalism: 'An ideological movement for
attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity
and identity for a population which some
of its member deem to constitute an
actual or potential "nation"."
more
 3.
National Identity (Ethnonationalism
in Comparative Perspective)
Anthony D Smith,
1991 "...Through the rediscovery of
an ethnic past and the promise of
collective restoration of the former
golden age, national identity and
nationalism have succeeded in arousing
and inspiring ethnic communities and
populations of all classes, regions,
genders and religions, to claim their
rights as 'nations', territorial
communities of culturally and historically cognate
citizens, in a world of free and equal
nations. Here is an identity and a
force with which even the strongest of
states has had to come to terms, and it
is one that has shaped, and is likely to
shape, our world in the foreseeable
future..." more
 4. ASEN: Association for the Study
of Ethnicity and Nationalism 18th Annual
Conference, April 2008 on
Nationalism, East and
West: Civic and Ethnic Conceptions of
Nationhood: Abstracts of Conference
Papers "...It has long been standard
in the field of nationalism studies to
classify nations according to which principle
serves to unify the nation. The
distinction between the Western,
political type of nationalism and the
Eastern, genealogical variety of
nationalism as systematised by Hans Kohn in 1944
has been used, extended, and adjusted by
scholars to conceptualise a framework of
�inclusive�
nationalism based on citizenship and
territory and
�exclusive�
nationalism based on common ethnic ties
and descent. This conference sought to
assess the continuing relevance of this
dichotomy in its various forms: its
contribution to theoretical work on
nationalism, its usefulness for
historical interpretation, and its value
for contemporary policy-making..."
more
|
Reflections
 "...How do things grow in nature?
Do we drive them to grow? Do we say,
�You must grow five inches
a quarter or you're out of
here!�. No. Gardeners
attend to the host of conditions that could
prevent growth from occurring. They ensure
that the seeds have adequate nutrients in
the soil, ample water, a suitable
temperature, and, once the plant starts to
poke over the surface, sunlight and space
to spread its leaves. We all know how to
support growth, and yet we typically
operate in exactly the opposite ways in our
organizations. We try to force growth
instead of creating the conditions for
genuine growth and change" - Peter Senge, Author of "The
Fifth Discipline : The Art and Practice of
the Learning Organization
 "..Oratory is empty if it has not been
field-tested on the battlefield of
experience. And I have little use for those
who write beautifully and live sordidly; or
those who withdraw from the world and issue
instructions for how to live in it; or
priesthoods that deny the realities of the
flesh but wish to control the appetites and
activities of those who live as whole human
beings. If you don�t play
the game, you can�t know
enough to make the rules. If you are not
engaged in the sweaty work of the world,
you should not be in charge of the
deodorant concession. And if you cannot
find a way to aid progress in human
affairs, then know that the smirking
cynicism of the sideline critic is a form
of plaque � and to be one
of those is to be a carrier of death
instead of a preserver of life. Strong
words? Yes, and deeply felt..." -
Robert Fulghum author of
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in
Kindergarten |
Week Ending:
Saturday 3 May 2008
Tamil Nation
Library:Nationalism to
include
 Banal Nationalism by Michael
Billig "...
(the) accepted use of the word
�nationalism�...
always seems to locate nationalism on the
periphery. Separatists are often to be
found in the outer regions of states...The
guerrilla figures, seeking to establish
their new homelands, operate in conditions
where existing structures of state have
collapsed, typically at a distance from the
established centres of the West...This is
where the accepted view becomes misleading:
it overlooks the nationalism of the
West�s nation-states...
the term banal nationalism is
introduced to cover the ideological habits
which enable the established nations of the
West to be reproduced... All societies that
maintain armies maintain the belief that
some things are more valuable than life
itself..." more |
Tamil
National Forum
|
 
|
| 15th Anniversary of
President Premadasa's Assassination - The
Puzzle Revisited "The assassination of Sri
Lanka�s second executive
President Ranasinghe Premadasa (born 1924)
on May 1, 1993 serves as a tell tale
example (of the Challenge in
Suicide Bomber Studies)
... '
...when
Lalith Athulathmudali was killed by a
suspect LTTE gunman in a public part in
Bambalapitiya on the 23rd of
April, one week before
Premadasa�s own killing, a
wave of hatred against Premadasa had begun
in which slogans were scrolled on the
city�s walls that it was
Premadasa or his friends who had murdered
Lalith Athulathmudali. The question, that
some people were asking at the time, had to
do with the connection, if any, between
Lalith�s
assassination and that of
Premadasa�s? In the
absence of a public
commission�Premadasa�s
killing will continue to be regarded as
another of the unsolved murders of this
particularly murky period of our modern
history...' Bradman Weerakoon:
Rendering Unto Caesar. Vijitha Yapa
Publications, Colombo, 2004, pp.
300-304." more |
Tamil
Diaspora - a Trans State Nation
to include
Reflections
| "... Hope, like
anything of value, must be earned. Hope
comes not from believing but from
doing. If we want to feel a sense of
hope, we should study the world and come to
our own conclusions about the systems and
structures of power in which we live.
We should decide whether those systems and
structures are compatible with justice and
sustainability. If they are not, then we
should work to build alternatives on the
ground where we live..." Robert Jensen, University
of Texas at Austin in 'The sorrows of race and
gender in the 2008 presidential
election' |
Comments to include
|
Thedum Manithan, Tamil
Eelam, 25 April 2008
On Peace and 'Getting
to Yes' "...The
process of peace, Prof Noam Chomsky seems
to think, is designed to be duplicitous,
and its objective is to serve the grand plan of the
international players. Kosovo got its
independence. You, among others, quite
rightly, were cautious in your comments. It
was indeed a SUPERVISED
independence. Many were of the mind
that that could create a domino effect and
eventually it would act as a catalyst and
Eelam would be 'given' its independence.
The problem is we are yet to overcome our
slavery mentality. We still believe that
some one else is going to 'give' us what we
need. Bull shit!.." more
together with response
by tamilnation.org |
Reflections
|
"..if intellectuals do
not hold the flag of analysis high, it is
not likely that others will. And if an
analytic understanding of the real
historical choices are not at the
forefront of our reasoning, our moral
choices will be defective, and above all
our political strength will be
undermined..."
N Barney Pityana in Liberation, Civil
Rights & Democracy
"...It is not enough
for journalists to see themselves as mere
messengers without understanding the
hidden agendas of the message and myths
that surround it..." - John Pilger
"...At the outset, we
may need to be mindful that to label a
conflict resolution process as a 'peace
process' may cloud our thinking. A 'peace
process' suggests that somehow everything
will be solved when 'peace' is secured.
We all love peace. But peace comes in
many different forms. We have the peace
of the graveyard as well. If it was
simply peace that the Tamil people wanted
they may have been well advised to
willingly submit to alien Sinhala rule -
many years ago... In truth, a conflict
resolution process is about resolving the
conflict which led to the war. The
conflict was anterior to the war. The
conflict that is sought to be resolved is
not the war. In fact, the war itself
was an attempt to resolve a conflict
which had not been amenable to resolution
by peaceful means. In this sense, war is
a part of the conflict resolution process
- a war persuades parties to reconsider
their earlier positions and hopefully,
move them to settle their
differences...We need, therefore, to
strip ourselves of the 'peace' rhetoric
adopted by the 'international community',
facilitators and international non
government organisations. If it is said
that the path to peace is peace, it may
be said with equal validity that the path
to peace is also war..." Nadesan Satyendra in Sri Lanka
- Tamil Eelam: Getting to
Yes
|
|
|
