Tamils - a Trans State Nation..

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
-
Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C

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"Whatever may be said, whosoever may say it - to determine the truth of it, is wisdom" - Thirukural
Whats New Archive
- May 2008 -

Week Ending: Saturday 31 May 2008

Tamil Diaspora: a Trans State Nation - to include

Miss Elizabeth Mann1.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

Sri Lanka colonisation of East Tamil Eelam

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

Dr.K. Kalyanasundaram receives Sundara Ramasamy Award for Tamil Information Technology Dr. Kalyanasundaram is one of the co founders of Project Madurai which was established more than ten years ago.The Sundara Ramasamy award citation mentioned Dr. Kalyanasundaram's contributions in the area of Tamil fonts, development of font encoding standards such as TSCII, Project Madurai and INFITT... more

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

Sachi Sri Kantha writes from Japan The Indo-LTTE War (1987-90) - An Anthology: Part 9: Rajiv losing a Battle against the Defiant Press and JR Opts to �Retire Hurt�

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

Yalpana Vaipava Malai or the History of Kingdom of Jaffna Matakal Mayilvakanap Pulavar - Translated from the Tamil, with an Appendix and a Glossary, by C. Brito, Colombo, 1879.

Week Ending: Saturday 17 May 2008

Conflict Resolution in an Asymmetric Multi Lateral World to include

Centre for Just Peace & Democracy (CJPD)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

Martin Luther King�... 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 LankaInternational 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
Nadesan SatyendraThe 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 Diaspora - a Trans State Nation
1.Tamil Children in many Lands sit for Worldwide Exams in Tamil Language


Learning Tamil in Germany - "
கற்க கசடற கற்பவை கற்றபின்
நிற்க அதற்குத்தக"
Thirukural

2. Australia காத்தான் பாணி நாடகக் கூத்து: பரதம் விரவிய புதிய வடிவம் - பராசக்தி சுந்தரலிங்கம்

3. Italy அன்பன் அருகன் இத்தாலியில் இருந்து - சிறப்ப்பிகள்: மகளீர் மங்கலங்கள்

Tamil Nation Library: Nations & Nationalism to include

Cultural Foundations of Nationalism - Anthony D Smith1. 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

Nationalism - Anthony D Smith2. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History (Key Concepts)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

National Identity - Anthony D Smith3. 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

Sri Lanka President PremadasaSri Lanka Minister Lalith Athulathmudali

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

Tamils in Netherlands to demonstrate on May Day, 2008 "Recognise independent Tamil Eelam"

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

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