I don’t think it has to be, and I don’t think it always can be, and it has pitfalls. However, when one of the central problems in the conflcit is that the polarisation has taken on such an extreme form that middle ground is nearly impossible, it becomes relevant to demonstrate that the narrative is not self-evident or accurate by actually working across such lines – even after 60 years of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Folks, if you’re interested, please do bookmark the website. We just got up and running, and there are a number of projects which we’ll be unveiling over the next few months, including resources, a primer on the conflict in Sri Lanka, and a moderated discussion forum. Hopefully we can take advantage of the anonymity the internet provides by having the open and frank discussions which sometimes aren’t possible in public, rather than the poop-flinging sessions which have made such spaces infamous.

We don’t yet have RSS feeds up and running, but hope to by week’s end.

We do, however, have a daily news digest, and if you’d like to sign up for it, you can do so here.

“ABOUT HEARTS FOR HARMONY

We are a group of young people of Sri Lankan descent, residing within the Greater Toronto Area, who are concerned with the situation the Internally Displaced Persons are currently faced with in Sri Lanka. We believe that our youth have a pivotal role to play in paving the way forward, while simultaneously promoting change through unity.

Our mission is to support charitable and non-political endeavours on the ground in Sri Lanka, working to aid the IDPs. We hope to demonstrate to our communities that the Sri Lankan diaspora – regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or social class – can work together to create long-lasting results conducive to Sri Lanka’s rehabilitation.”

November 20th.

Is your friend Aziz Ansari?

ACT Lanka (http://www.actlanka.org/) and the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust (http://neelan.org)

/vvg

Also, we chose to support charities with access/interests to the camps, because from our understanding, this is a widely acknowledged and urgent need. That said, those charities also have multiethnic interests and do work with different populations. You can check them out by following the links in the event announcement…

More later!

This is a crucial step in a chain of logic that leads to all kinds of stereotyping and discrimination that underming social stability. Organisation A engages in something in the name of Group A. Therefore, according to your logic, all members of Group A are assumed to be responsible for the actions of Organisation A, regardless of what they think, believe, feel, or otherwise do as human beings – even if they opopse the actions of Group A to the core of their being, or halfway do, or feel complicated about it – or otherwise respond – as human beings.

In the meantime, their complications as human beings get erased, they are forced into a position of feeling trapped between a rock and a hard place, and they are left withou the ability to speak, because all we end up looking at is – are you a member of group A, B, or C? And that’s, well, saddening.

There are always social factors involved in violence – not just organisations or states or whatnot- but they have to be traced specifically to avoid falling into the kind of communal logic that has dominated Sri Lankan society on many sides. This is why I respect so deeply what Sandhi Institute and Lanka Solidarity and people I know who are human beings in addition to being members of A,B,or C are trying to do.

Maybe this would be a naive approach to take if were writing a thesis on the subject, but from the vantage point of how to alleviate the situation so that all people in Sri Lanka are eventually able to live in peace and seek fulfillment, I don’t see any way out other than to gradually reduce the level of tenesion across a broad base so that people can at least speak. Otherwise, what do you have left? Just generation after generation of violence, whether physical, political, or metaphorical.

Feeling like a jerk about distancing yourself from your Tamil roots is a good thing. It means that you feel something is wrong.

The answer is actually simple –just be proud of the hertitage and leave it like that – do not offer a explanation for the LTTE unless asked. The Irish do not usually apologise for the IRA or bring it up, so why should you. All you are doing by bringing up the LTTE is binding your identity to it.

At the end of the day the tamil civilization is one of the older ones and it has made a lot of contributions to the world, from math to science. Even cash is a Tamil word. The LTTE is at the end of the day, rather insignificant in the overall history. In any case there are several sides to the Lankan story and most people are really just not that interested.