The A9 highway, connecting Jaffna with the rest of Sri
Lanka, runs parallel to the new railway track. The shrub jungles on
either side are dotted with the strong presence of the Sri Lankan army. A
man without legs crawls down the street. A blind woman with a paralysed
child in her arms asks for help from anyone who looks like a tourist.
New blocks of houses are coming up quickly like mushrooms after a
shower. These are grim reminders of the past, like the series of
check-posts at places like Omanthai and Elephant Pass.
I
was in Sri Lanka for the 41st Ilakiya Santhippu (July 20-21). Earlier
editions of the literary meet had been organised in European cities and
Canada by writers and artists who faced the strong arm of both the State
and the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Writers, artistes and
activists who expressed views different from the dominant one paid a
heavy toll for exercising their freedom of expression. Those who lost
their lives include Rajini Thiranagama (author of Broken Palmyrah) and
Sabalingam Sabarathinam. In fact the edition of the meet held after
Sabarathinam’s death was dedicated to “Writers who were killed and also
who are likely to be killed.”
This edition also gave
rise to arguments about what the Ilakiya Santhippu would bring to the
poor, the displaced, and the victims of Sri Lanka’s war. But should art
take a backseat after a defeat? What is the role of writers and artists
in the time of crisis and social upheavals? When people’s identities
have been destroyed individually and culturally, who will voice the
conflict? Can literary production heal the trauma? I believe that these
questions have to be kept alive even if we do not have immediate
answers.
In one of the poetry sessions, young poet
Vijayaletchumi read “Photographs/hang in all houses amidst/joss sticks
smoke/and floral offerings/ of village youths/ eclipsing the portraits
of gods” (‘Paled East’). These lines reflect the loss of family members
in almost all Tamil households. In such a situation — in the middle of
suffering — what do words like ‘reconciliation’, ‘progress’,
‘development’ and more importantly, ‘nation’ mean?
The
aspirations of a war-ravaged community to build a civil space for a
plural and open discourse were evident in the sessions on caste, gender
and sexual minorities, the nationalist literature of North and East
Tamils, the writings of Malayaga (hill country) Tamils and Muslim Tamil
nationalists, secular Sinhala literature, diaspora writing, and
traditional art and folklore, with speakers from the respective regions
and ethnicities. But the literary community also struggles to locate an
inclusive Sri Lanka as the majoritarian Sinhala Polity triumphantly
declares that minorities no longer exist post-war Sri Lanka...
Novelist
Liyanage Amarakeerthi, while discussing Tamil characters in Sinhala
literature, pointed out the fragile sense of guilt within the Sinhala
writer community with examples from Jayathilaka Kammellaweera’s short
stories “Poy SollaVendam (Need not lie)” and “Are you alright?” He
remarked how Sinhala writers are generous enough to share love with
Tamils but not the State. Writer and translator So. Padmanathan, who
chaired the session, shared his dilemma in translating poet Nufman’s
resistance poem about the burning of the Jaffna Library. With his
deepest respect and love of Buddha, he could not translate “Butharin
Padukolai” as “Buddha’s Assassination.” He titled it “Murder”.
Poet
Sumathy Sivamohan discussed how to generate meanings outside of a
poem’s immediate site of writing, especially in the context of
Sivaramani, who killed herself after burning her poetry. She stated
that the violence in Sivaramani’s poem “Kuzhanthaigal (Children)” — “When
a gun is pointed/at the umbilical cord/of this society/the dream of a
butterfly/that can balance itself/on a thin flower bud/is only an
incident/that I cannot relate to/ I, in my effort to live as
human/prefer to leave the flowers to the tree” — is not symbolic but is about a real gun and that the gun belongs to the LTTE.
Writer
Lenin Mathivanam proclaimed that “Malayaga” Tamils, who were brought by
the British to work in tea estates, were the first to write Diaspora
literature and that poet Meenatchi was the pioneering voice against the
repressive Sinhala Buddhist regime. Presenting his research on Tamil
literary history, Nawaz Soubi proved that Asabe Sarithiram did not get its due as the first Tamil novel, as it was written by a Muslim.
In
a session on Dalit literature, veteran writer Theniyaan briefly
described the repertoire of Daniel and spoke about how the LTTE silenced
Dalit issues. Writer-activist Chithralekha described how Tamil women
were free to carry a gun but could not write on sexuality, religion and
critical politics. Poems like ‘Koneeswarigal’ by Kala and ‘Krishanthy’
by Vinodhini give us ‘her’ stories.
Transgender
writer-activist Living Smile Vidya, from India, presented a historical
session on transgender life and literature to a community in which
sexual minorities are still afraid to come out. Writer Stalin from
France traced the history of diaspora literature since the 1980s when
the refugee phenomenon started. War had displaced hundreds and thousands
of Tamils internally and externally and that has had a direct impact on
literary production in Tamil.
Is freedom possible at
the cost of humanity? This question was asked repeatedly by writers,
journalists, poets and artists from the Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese
communities across the island and from India, Canada, Germany, France,
United Kingdom and United States of America who gathered in Jaffna.
Everyone contributed in trying to come to terms with the despair of
defeat.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/k94ty63
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