Tag: Tamil

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 4

~ The Koboi Project

A significant aspect of the Sri Lanka Genocide model (for an explanation of this term, see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 2) is the suppression of news and expression in the media. I will go into the similarities of censorship in the wars in Sri Lanka and in Gaza later but, in the present post, I would like to address a suppression I have just experienced on Facebook. My previous WordPress post, titled Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 3, was originally headed by the image of a Tamil Elam flag. This is very similar to the LTTE flag but it is not the same; the difference being in inscriptions in Tamil and English. This difference is explained clearly on Tamilnation.org as follows, “The Tiger symbol of Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) created in 1977, was designated as the National Flag of Tamileelam in 1990 differentiating it from the LTTE’s emblem by leaving out the letters inscribing the movement’s name. The Restructure site explains further, “Yes, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam created and use the Tamil Eelam flag. It makes sense since they support the Tamil Eelam. However, not everyone who supports the Tamil Eelam supports the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Liberation Tigers of Eelam supporters are a proper subset of Tamil Eelam supporters.”

When I re-posted my WordPress post on on Facebook, I received a warning about posting offensive material, and my post was blocked. I have also had many Facebook privileges removed for a period of one month as some kind of penalty. In this context, it is important to note that, while the LTTE is a proscribed organization and that it would be reasonable for their flag to be prohibited on Facebook, the Tamil Elam flag is different from the LTTE flag, and its display is permitted in many nations around the world that have prohibited the LTTE. Canada, where I reside, is a case in point, as here it is not only legal but also promoted by representatives of different levels of Canadian government.

The scene pictured above is of the Tamil Eelam National Flag Day being celebrated in Brampton Ontario in Nov 2023. Brampton Mayor Patrick Broey, who officiated at the ceremony at the town hall where the Tamil Eelam flags were flown, said, “Today and every day, we celebrate the resilience of the Tamil community and the contributions that Canadian Tamils have made in enriching our communities in Brampton and across the country. We will never forget the atrocities and human rights abuses of the Tamil genocide. We celebrate the resilience of the Tamil community.” Other government representatives who made statements of support on this Tamil Eelam National Flag Day include,  Shaun Collier, Mayor of Ajax;  Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP); Ruby Sahota, Member of Parliament for Brampton North; David West, Mayor of the City of Richmond Hill; Iqra Khalid, Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Erin Mills; Shaun Chen, Member of Parliament for Scarborough North; Shafqat Ali, Member of Parliament Brampton Centre: Logan Kanapathi, Member of Provincial Parliament for Markham-Thornhill; and Elizabeth Roy, Mayor of the City of Whitby.

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

Image: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fzjmyfgv6buu51.png

Image: https://i1.wp.com/www.errimalai.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ltte-flag-1.jpg

https://tamilnation.org/tamileelam/defacto/flag.htm

https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/tamil-eelam-flag-versus-tamil-tiger-flag/

|https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tamil-flags-flown-at-protest-legal-toronto

https://www.tgte-homeland.org/2023/11/18/tamil-eelam-national-flag-day-to-be-observed-around-the-world-on-november-21st-tgte/

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 Appearance of a Fact ataupun Batu Kasih Piyadasa, circa 2007

~ The Koboi Project

This work is what I call a ‘deep readymade’, by which I mean there is a gesture or configuration by another actor being interpreted or articulated in the work. A deep readymade is thus differentiated from a simple readymade, in that there is a juxtaposition of components done by someone other than the artist. The primary component of this work is a carved wooden Ganesha which was once in my late mother’s possession. When my mother was alive, this Ganesha used to sit on the wall, above her prayer altar and would receive flowers in the course of her daily worship. It is an item she and my father brought back from one of their trips to India and Sri Lanka. While my father was born in Seremban, Malaysia, my mother, myself, and my sister Shyamala were born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. We are Jaffna Tamils and Sri Lanka is in some sense our homeland.

The second component of this deep readymade, is the white stone, a large, well-worn pebble that was picked up on a Sri Lankan beach by the renowned Malaysian artist Reza Piyadasa on his first trip (date uncertain but a book that I believe was presented at the same time is autographed and dated 1995) to Sri Lanka (his own ancestral homeland) and brought back for my mother. The late Reza Piyadasa was a Sinhalese Malaysian and the stone was a deeply meaningful exchange of a piece of Sri Lankan earth (bumi) between two Malaysians, one Sinhalese, the other a Tamil – two people whose communities were at war in their homeland. As Malaysians, however, these two people were at peace with each other, falling together in the shared category of ‘Malaysian Indian’. My mother placed this stone, which was so lovingly brought for her by Piyadasa, at the feet of Lord Ganesha and it has remained there ever since. Beyond this complex image of the interplay of race and nationality in human relations, there is, embodied in this readymade, the personal relationship between Piyadasa and my mother. Piya had lost his own parents relatively early in life and, somehow, he formed a close attachment to my parents. They were his guests when he received the prestigious Prince Claus Award in 1998, and later, in 2007, he called them to his hospital bedside when he was close to the moment of his passing.

In titling this piece ‘The Appearance of a Fact ataupun Batu Kasih Piyadasa’, I pay a tribute to the striking conceptualism of Pia’s early output, while offering a way through its solipsistic reflexivity. In a piece titled ‘A Fact Has No Appearance’, 1977, Pia created an ouroboros-like liaison between form and concept. The piece consisted of a box, part painted, part bare wood, a painted ovoid form, probably made of plaster, and the stenciled text A FACT HAS NO APPEARANCE. It is indeed true that a fact is immaterial and, as such, has no appearance; even while an appearance, which is material, is, indubitably, a fact! In my readymade, we have a material configuration that presents, in its appearance, a simple fact – the fact of love.

The Appearence of a Fact ataupun Batu Kasih Piyadasa, circa 2007 is on display in the Pokok Pauh Janggi exhibition which runs from 5th Aug – 30th Sept 2023 at the Kapallorek Artspace in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak

The Boss is Back 16

~ The Koboi Project

After 12 days, Rajinikanth’s Annaatthe has grossed 2,250,000,000 Rupees (30,204,000.00 USD) 5 at the box-office. This despite the film receiving almost universally dreadful reviews. I myself, despite being an eager Superstar fan, found the film dreadfully loud, sentimental, violent and unconvincing. In spite of excellent parts, not least of which is Thalaivar’s reunion with Kushbu and Meena, it just does not pull together as a whole. The Times of India review gives the film 2/5 stars and is titled, “Even Rajinikanth cannot save badly written Annaaatthe.” Well it looks like they were completely wrong. The Superstar, it seems, has saved the film single-handedly!

What is it about Rajinikanth that enables him to draw the faithful even as a 70 year-old playing his signature super cool and superhumanly heroic character? Does the answer lie in his indubitably unique persona and ability to connect with the masses? Or does it lie in the Tamilian culture of adulation, veneration and deification of exemplars, and the ease with which Tamils nominate living culture heroes !

See also

Rajinikanth’s Political Entry
Thani Vazhi (தனி வழி)
Who is Kaala dada?
Who is Rajinikanth Dada?
Abhimanyu Sir
Thalaivaa!!
Yar Nee Ayah?
Kaala Karikaalan
A Post-Traditional Polity?
Rajinikanth Glows Saffron
Gaikwad cries Jai Bhim

Image: https://www.rfi.fr/en/business-and-tech/20211105-covid-hit-india-cinemas-bet-on-delayed-blockbusters-to-revive-crowds

https://www.msn.com/en-in/entertainment/southcinema/annaatthe-box-office-collection-day-12-rajinikanth-starrer-earns-rs-225-crore/ar-AAQKKXo

The Boss is Back 10

~ The Koboi Project

With Annaatthe about to be released, a Malaysian politician claims a likeness to the SUPERSTAR! According to Baling MP Abdul Azeez bin Abdul Rahim his Indian constituents call him Padayappa, after Rajnikanth’s character who champions the cause of the poor and downtrodden in the film of the same name. He also took great pride in saying “I speak in fluent Tamil, which shows I not only accept the language but also keep it in high regard.” Sorry lah but I always thought the honorable member of parliament was a Tamil … you know what I mean … in ancestry, like he learnt it at home from Ammamma or more likely Appappa (judging from his proud colour, maybe even from his Appa?)! Anyhow, the point is that this analogy was thrown up in his self-defense after being angrily accused, perhaps unfairly, of insulting the Tamil language by the even more colorful Jelutong MP Sanisvara Nethaji Rayer s/o Rajaji Rayer … and it was all over an elephant! Here is the video!

What can I say … nampaknya –

Baling sama Jelutong berlawan

gajah pulak di tengah-tengah!

Image: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/10/27/they-call-me-padayappa-in-baling-says-azeez/

Know Thyself

~ The Koboi Project

Directed by M. A. Thirumugam and starring M. G. Ramachandran and Savitri, the Tamil film Vettaikaaran (The Hunter) was released in 1964. The song Unnai Arinthaal is from this hit movie’s soundtrack. The music is by K. V. Mahadevan, lyrics by Kannadasan and the unsurpassable singer is T. M. Soundararajan.

உன்னை அறிந்தால்
நீ உன்னை அறிந்தால்
உலகத்தில் போராடலாம்

Unnai Arinthaal
Nee Unnai Arinthaal
Ulagathil Poraadalaam

Know thyself
If you know yourself
You can take the whole world on

“If you want to know what you are you cannot imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy, envious, violent, merely having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value. But to know that one is greedy or violent, to know and understand it, requires an extraordinary perception, does it not? It demands honesty, clarity of thought, whereas to pursue an ideal away from what ‘is‘ is an escape; it prevents you from discovering and acting directly upon what you are.”

J. Krishnamurti

https://ratical.org/many_worlds/K/K4.html

Keling Pariah 3

~ The Koboi Project
Paraiyans.

Although the Paraiyan community serves various important functions in Tamil village society, their name is associated with the lowest of the low in village life – the stray dog. I have personally heard the phrase ‘para naieh’ or ‘lowly stray dog’ used in my childhood. Edgar Thurston lists some Tamil proverbs that refer to Paraiyans —

(1) If a Paraiyan boils rice, will it not reach God? meaning God will notice all piety, even that of a lowly Paraiyan.

(2) When a Paraiya woman eats betel, her ten fingers will be daubed with lime, meaning the Paraiya woman is a slut.

(3) Though a Paraiya woman’s child be put to school, it will still say Ayyē, where Ayyē is vulgar for Aiyar or Sir.

(4) The palmyra palm has no shadow: the Paraiyan has no regard for seemliness, meaning the Paraiya has ne decorum.

(5) The gourd flower and the Paraiyan’s song have no savour, sadly the Paraiyans use this saying themsleves.

(6) Though seventy years of age, a Paraiyan will only do what he is compelled, perhaps infantilizing the Paraiyan.

(7) You may believe a Paraiyan, even in ten ways; you cannot believe a Brāhman, using the Parayian as the low mark.

(8) Is the sepoy who massacred a thousand horse now living in disgrace with the dogs of the parachēri? the Paraiyan settlement as a place of shame.

(9) Paraiyan’s talk is half-talk., perhaps a reference to Paraiya uncouthness.

(10) Like Paraiya and Brāhman, meaning a vast chasm of difference.

(11) Not even a Paraiyan will plough on a full moon day, perhaps a reference to the unclean or unholy aspect of the Paraiyan.

(12) Parachēri manure gives a better yield than any other manure, referring to the lowliness and the exploitation of the Paraiyan.

(13) The drum is beaten at weddings, and also at funerals, meaning a double-dealing unreliable character.

(14) The harvest of the Paraiya never comes home, meaning wastefulness or perhaps irresponsibility?

Before the Malaysian Indian community reacts to the pejorative connotations of the word Keling in Malay language and idiomatic expressions, we should look at our own prejudices and racism towards our own Tamil brothers and sisters.

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

It’s Time to be Clear 8

~ The Koboi Project ~ Leave a comment

The King is Dead, Long Live the King (also lets not forget the Queen). As Paul Street puts it, “It’s hard to get overly excited about Joe Biden on the Left.” as his ascendency to the Presidency of the highest power on the world stage, is premised on an “extremely low bar : he’s not a malignant fascist sociopath.” Street goes on to explain what he describes as Biden’s “corporate, imperial, white-supremacist, and patriarchal record.”

Biden’s second in command, Kamala Harris is, like me, Tamil. She is also African American. Indeed, she represents the present inclusive phase of the ever cycling identitarianism of American exceptionalism. However as Fawzia Afzal-Khan suggests, the identity politics of her election as the first female vice-president of the United States of America has, thus far, been only skin-deep. It is not, she insists, something we should “tout as a badge of honor or pride.” She furthers asserts that what we need instead, is an affiliative identity politics, rather than one that is merely skin-deep. While I sincerely wish America and Americans well in this dawning presidential cycle, I am not very optimistic.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/22/why-biden-may-be-less-evil-than-obama-and-clinton-and-why-this-may-not-matter-all-that-much-in-the-end/

https://counter-currents.com/2017/06/what-is-identitarianism/

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/21/will-kamala-do-the-right-thing/