Tag: Jaffna

Applying the Sri Lankan Genocide Model in Gaza 7

~ The Koboi Project

The Mullaivakkal massacre of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) took place in May 2009, on a rural beach in an era when social media had not as yet established itself as a powerhouse of alternative news. While images and news of the slaughter was ciurculating among the Tamil Diaspora, nothing of them made it past the Mainstream Media’s blockade of news of this event. The SLA was enabled in their merciless goal of elimination the Tamil Tigers and the defacto Tamil state, regardless of the cost in civillian lives. Today, by contrast, the Israeli Defence Force’s (IDF) massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is presented in mainstream media, not so much because the media has reformed, but because it is now unable to ignore the pervasiveness of social media and citizen journalism. Gazans have been able to document and present the horror of their experience of destruction, displacement, and death, to the global gaze and conscience.

In the context of this reflection on the state of mainstream journalism, I want to recount a personal experience that symbolizes the decrepit state of the media. As the Third Elam War was coming to its violent close, I joined fellow Tamils in the public gatherings that took place in Vancouver. One of these gatherings was outside the CBC Regional Broadcast Centre in Vancouver and was aimed at appealing to the CBC to address the ongoing massacre of civilians in the Jaffna peninsula. I remember the mood as relatively sedate and not boisterous or assertive in any way. I was standing towards the front of the group when the acclaimed news anchor Ian Hanomansing, came along, presumably to prepare for the day’s news broadcast. Mr Hanomansing was, at that time, the co-anchor of CBC News: Vancouver, an evening newscast. The leader of our group led a party across the road with a petition and tried to hand it over. I went forward instinctively and found myself in line of sight to observe the pleading demeanor of the leader as he asked for our appeal to be forwarded to CBC management. I will never forget the evasive countenance of this esteemed Journalist, as he shuffled past our party without any engagement. This image, couched as it is inpersonal and communal experience of rejection and erasure, is seared in my awareness as an icon for the end of mainstream journalism in Canada – the end of truth in the neo-liberal era.

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7g3tATZ9eDY/maxresdefault.jpg

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 6

~ The Koboi Project

WARNING: DO NOT PROCEED TO THE VIDEO ABOVE IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE
THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DISTURBING DOCUMENTARY WITH VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE OF DEATH, INJURY, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, TORTURE, AND MURDER. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE VIDEO ABOVE ONLY AFTER REFLECTING ON THE POSSIBLE IMPACT ON YOUR EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING.

Following the establishment of the de-facto Tamil state in the North and East of the island, the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government maintained a tenuous ceasefire from 2001 to 2006. Between 2004 and 2005, the tsunami hit eastern Sri Lanka, the LTTE Eastern wing broke away from the Northern Command, weakening the Tamil Tigers hold on their territory. In late 2006, large-scale fighting resumed, and by May the LTTE was finally defeated ending the de-facto state of Tamil Elam. The last months of this bloody three-decade-long war are the subject of a deeply disturbing documentary titled No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka.

With the resumption of hostilities in Gaza, the seemingly deliberate targeting of civilians by the Israeli Defence Forces, and the scale of the casualties recorded thus far, there is good reason to remember such precedents as the Sri Lankan Genocide evidenced in the video above and to call for an end to the Israeli action. Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, reports how the Israeli Defence Force’s extensive use of Artificial Intelligence programmes that treat high-rise buildings as “power targets” with large civilian casualties, has turned it into a “mass assassination factory.” Between October 7th and December 3rd, there have been 15,207 killed of which 6,150 are children.

The cronology presented above has been compiled from the following three articles:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-srilanka-war-timeline-sb-idUSTRE54F16620090518/
https://www.wionews.com/photos/a-timeline-to-tamil-tigers-37-year-marathon-struggle-against-lankan-army-for-separate-state-219592
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Eelam#cite_note-sunday-42

https://nofirezone.org/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 5

~ The Koboi Project

According to Peter Adams of the BBC, an estimated 2.2 million people are now crammed into the southern two-thirds of the Gaza Strip. Conditions are dire, with many ill, injured, and traumatized by the indiscriminate Israeli bombing campaign, in the name of eviscerating Hamas. This terrible situation has been exacerbated by winter rains and flooding. Further, Adams notes that Israeli authorities have been urging these desperate Gazans to move into an even smaller “safe area” called al-Mawasi on the coast, near the Egyptian border. Al-Mawasi is estimated to be only about 2.5km wide by 4km (2.5 miles) long. In a sinister but wholly predictable development, the IDF’s Arabic social media is reported to have messaged that al-Mawasi would provide “the appropriate conditions to protect your loved ones.” In light of Israel’s promise to resume its assault on Hamas at the end of the present ceasefire, the implication that other than this tiny sliver of land, the rest of Gaza is unsafe, raises the terrifying spectre of an impending massacre. (Update : The Ceasefire ended on the 30th Nov and Isreal has indeed resumed its assault with a vengance).

I am a Jaffna Tamil and, this relentless heading and corralling of the population of Gaza into progressively smaller ‘safe areas’, brings memories of my people being forced into that narrow seaside strip in Mullivaikkal in the Mullaitivu District, towards the end of the Fourth Elam War in 2009. This area was declared a “no fire zone” to protect civilians during this final battle in the Government of Sri Lanka’s relentless war to eradicate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). However, in the aftermath of this battle the Government is accused of indiscriminately, even deliberately, shelling this “safe zone” and the LTTE, in turn, of using the desperate civilians as human shields. The UN has estimated a civilian death toll of 40,000 in the last days of this war but a UN internal inquiry has acknowledged that the number that up to 70,000 deaths were possible. However, when World Bank spreadsheets for 2010 are set against Statistical Handbook Numbers for 2007, the difference suggests that 101,748 people are unaccounted for in the Mullaitivu District.

I fear that Israel might be on the way to applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model as a solution to the conflict in Gaza. As of December 4th, (UPDATED), 15,523 have been killed, 41,316 injured and 6,800 are missing. Of the 15,000 who have been killed so far, 6,600 children and 4,300 are women. Israeli attacks are as follows. Those of us who live in nations that continue to stand with Israel regardless of the illegality and the inhumanity of its actions must impress upon our leaders that, regardless of how Israel’s negotiations develop vis-a-vis Hamas (Update : The Ceasefire ended on the 30th Nov and Isreal has indeed resumed its assault with a vengance), this genocide must not continue. What happened at the end of the Elam War should not be allowed to happen in Gaza.

Image: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67518819

Image: https://mandalaprojects.com/ice/ice-cases/lanka-climate.htm

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/frances-harrison/one-hundred-thousand-peop_b_2306136.html

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/live-updates-temporary-cease-fire-expires-israel-hamas-105297622

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 3

~ The Koboi Project

As I have said in previous posts (see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza and applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 2), I am having a sense of deja vu as I follow the recent events in Gaza. I am brought back to the state of psychic shock that I found myself in early 2009 as the short-lived Tamil nation of Elam came to its crushing end. In this post, I will outline the history of the formation of the de-facto Tamil state.

The island of Sri Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948 with the majority Sinhalese taking the reins of a unitary state which incorporated ancestral Tamil areas in the North and the East. After decades of discrimination and futile non-violent resistance, some Tamils organized to take up arms to wage a violent struggle. Indeed, in 1972 Velupillai Prabhakaran and others formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). In 1976, the TNT became the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) under the leadership of Prabhakaran. In July 1983 the LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in an action in the Jaffna peninsula, and this led to race riots in Colombo in which hundreds of Tamils were killed and thousands more were displaced. This was the start of a full-fledged guerrilla war referred to as the “First Eelam War.”

In 1987 India brokered the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and deployed peacekeeping troops in Northern Sri Lanka to enforce it. When the LTTE refused to disarm, a full-scale war between the LTTE and India. After incurring heavy losses, the Indian troops withdrew in 1990 and the Tigers took control of large sections of northern Sri Lanka, and the fighting resumed between them and Sri Lankan troops. This was the beginning of the “Second Eelam War” which ended in a truce in 1995, with the LTTE controlling one-third of all Sri Lankan territory and two-thirds of the island’s coastline.

The “Third Elam War” began with the breakdown of the short-lived truce in April 1995 and a brutal 6 year war ensued across the North and East of the island. It was during this war, that the United States declared that the LTTE was a terrorist organisation. This US declaration was made in 1997. It was followed a British declaration in 2001 and other nations then followed suit. This “third Elam war” ended in 2001 when a ceasefire was instituted through a Memorandum of Understanding which was formalized in the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, made under the auspices of Norwegian mediation.

From 1984 onwards the LTTE set up a functioning government in the territory under their control. They ran a sophisticated administration comprising a judicial system, a civil police force, Human Rights organizations, health and education systems, a Bank, as well as radio and Television stations Periods of Sri Lankan military occupation not withstanding, this de-facto Tamil state was fully functional and was recognized by many global institutions; notably, the World Bank’s Sri Lanka representative made the following statement in 2005, ‘Given the fact that there is an officially recognized LTTE-controlled area, a kind of unofficial state, and since it is a party to the ceasefire agreement with the Government, the LTTE has the status of a legitimate stakeholder’. 

Note: This WordPress post was originally headed by the image of a Tamil Elam flag. I re-posted it on Facebook and was warned about posting offensive material and my re-post was blocked. In this context, it is important to understand that, the Tamil Elam flag (above) is different from the LTTE flag (the LTTE is a proscribed organization). For a detailed explanation please see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 4.

Images: https://naimnikmat.blogspot.com/2019/10/siapa-ltte-dan-mengapa-ltte-ni-tiba.html
https://koboiproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/78545-save_20191011_122638.jpg

The cronology presented above has been compiled from the following three articles:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-srilanka-war-timeline-sb-idUSTRE54F16620090518/
https://www.wionews.com/photos/a-timeline-to-tamil-tigers-37-year-marathon-struggle-against-lankan-army-for-separate-state-219592
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Eelam#cite_note-sunday-42

https://academic.oup.com/isq/article/61/2/337/3078982?login=false

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590600850434

https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/tamil-eelam-flags-fly-high-canada-and-uk

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza

~ The Koboi Project

I am a Malaysian who was born in Jaffna and although I identify unequivocally as a Malaysian, I recognize the Tamil struggle for justice and self-determination in their ancestral lands in the north and the east of the Island of Sri Lanka. After decades of non-violent struggle for justice was met with intransigence by the Sinhalese hegemons of the Sri Lankan state, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) emerged to wage an armed struggle for an independent Tamil state. Through a brutal conflict that ensued, the LTTE succeeded in setting up a defacto Tamil state. I have observed this violent Elam struggle which has involved terror and counterterror, from afar. I have felt its pain vicariously, through my mother’s responses to the experiences of her family. The LTTE reign ended in 2009 when their organization was completely destroyed by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA). In the crushing final battle of this War, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 100,000 Tamil civilians were massacred with impunity by the Sri Lankan Army. As I have followed the ongoing Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, I have been reminded of the genocide of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan state.

See also the series of posts begining with On Being a Malaysian Tamil 1

Image https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/post-war-sri-lanka-fractured-and-unjust-for-tamils/

https://www.ptsrilanka.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ppt_final_report_web_en.pdf

The Boss is Back 15

~ The Koboi Project

While the sound mix overwhelmed the screenplay in Annaatthe, the music was in itself superb. Particularly satisfying was the instrumental version of D. Imman’s Yennuyirey featuring the rising nadaswaram star from my birthplace Jaffna K.P Kumaran. I make a point of identifying Jaffna as my birthplace as one of my strong memories of my late father is of his love for this instrument which he imbibed in his Vaddukoddai youth in the 1930’s.

While my father Arumugam Deva Rajah was born in Seremban, British Malaya, I was born in Jaffna and, while he went back to live in his ancestral village in 1929 when he was seven years old, I moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when I was two in 1963. I remember blasting the Namagiri Petai Krishnan record he bought along with our very first Hi-fi system. Appa used to be highly stressed from his work and sensitive to noise. I would instinctively turn down any record I was playing when he arrived home from work, but not this one, or any of the other nadaswaram records we acquired later. My affinity with the blaring tone of this ancient Tamil instrument is a mark of my identification with my father and with my culture.

Returning to the impetus for this post, I must say that Jaffna K.P Kumaran is a fabulous instrumentalist. His playing on the film music of Yennuyirey is great and he is absolutely amazing in the traditional temple form as well.

Chennai, a place in between

~ The Koboi Project

I am happy to note that Jane Frankish has had her essay, Chennai, a place in between, published in the Liberal Studies Journal ,Simon Fraser University hosted within the Ormsby Review. This short piece tells the story of our family’s migration from Malaysia to Canada through the lens of a visit to Tamil Nadu we made on route.

https://ormsbyreview.com/2021/09/03/1218-frankish-chennai/

https://ormsbyreview.com/category/sfu-graduate-liberal-studies/

https://ormsbyreview.com/

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Keling Pariah 2

~ The Koboi Project

Indians should be proud to be called Pariah! The fact that the term is offensive to Indians, both in India and in the diaspora, is really a symptom of our own horrendous internal racism or catseism. Pariah is the name of one of the oppressed Dalit communities in Tamil Nadu and, according to devendrakulam.org, the English language the use of the word ‘pariah’, meaning ‘social outcast’ was first recorded in 1613. Devendrakulam.org also notes that Paraiyan is mentioned in the Classical Tamil Sangam literature in the Puram text – “Without the following four – Thudian, Panan, Parayan, Kadamban the citizens’ Categorization is not complete” . These are all categories of music workers – Thudian is a player of the Thudi drum, Panan is a singer Singer, Parayan is a player of the Parai drum, and Kadamban is a player of the instrument named Kadambu which I think might be a katam (கடம்), the clay water pot vessel that is used as a drum (I stand to be corrected).

Devendrakulam.org offers a speculative narrative of the descent of the community as Bhramanism rose in South India through the centuries. Among the intriguing possibilities offered here are the idea that the Paraiyar were Buddhists who held out against the ascendant Bhramanism and that some of the Shudra casts of the contemporary South like my own Jaffna Vellala caste emerged from the Paraiyar in a process of assimilation. The Paraiyar community has, despite millennia of oppression within the entrenched Brahmanical order, produced significant figures in Indian social, political and cultural life including, M. C. Rajah, R. Srinivasan, Thol. Thirumavalavan, Illayaraja and Pa. Ranjith. I repeat, Indians (I include Jaffna Tamils) should be proud to be called Pariah!

Image: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Castes_and_Tribes_of_Southern_India/Paraiyan

http://devendrakulam.org/uploads/Who%20are%20the%20Paraiyars.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraiyar

6 Heroes

~ The Koboi Project ~ Leave a comment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2rB2-W5wLk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=KoboiBalikKampung

Keling Maya: Post-traditional Media, Malaysian Cyberspace and Me, presented at the Aliran Semasa Symposium, 2013, at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.

0 Performance
1 Keling Maya
2 Cyberspace
3 Model
4 Heterotopia
5 Rajinikanth
7 Telinga Keling
8 Keling Babi
9 Duchamp
10 MGG Pillai
11 Pantun
12 Praxis
13 Dochakuka
14 Post-tradition
15 Philosophia Perennis