SACW #1 | 5 Aug. 2003 [Nepal / Pak-India / Sri Lanka . . .]

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  #1.  |  5 August,  2003

[1.] After Nepal Killings, a Tough King Gets U.S. Backing (JOHN KIFNER)
[2.]  Pakistan - India: Support the Siachen Peace Park Initiative
[3.]  Pakistan: Trivial matters (Arifa Noor)
[4.]  Sri Lanka: Remembering the Unfallen (E. Valentine Daniel)
(Fourth Neelan Tiruchelvam memorial Lecture delivered Colombo on July 29)


--------------

[1.]

The New York Times, August 4, 2003

After Nepal Killings, a Tough King Gets U.S. Backing
By JOHN KIFNER

KATMANDU, Nepal, July 28 — This fairy tale kingdom gone awry, perched 
among the world's most spectacular mountains, is once again seething 
with intrigue and rumor, caught in dramas involving its monarchy, its 
striving for democracy and outside powers.

Two years ago Nepal was shaken to its core when the royal family was 
all but wiped out in a murky attack that was officially attributed to 
Crown Prince Dipendra, who also died. Now the country is wondering 
whether an unsteady six-month cease-fire with Maoist guerrillas can 
survive during off-and-on peace negotiations.

There is an ever-shifting struggle here among three power centers: 
the Hindu monarchy, which has sustained the country for more than 200 
years; the far weaker political parties, born in the 1990's after 
calls for more democracy; and the Maoists.

Fearful that Nepal could descend into chaos or became a haven for 
terrorists, outside powers — the United States, Britain and India — 
are pouring in aid for the government. But the United States, which 
is providing $17 million to turn the parade-ground royal army into an 
anti-insurgent force, may find itself backing a tough king whose 
democratic credentials are in doubt.

King Gyanendra, a wealthy businessman, took the throne after the 
palace killings as a constitutional monarch of limited powers. But 
now he has taken full control, dismissing Parliament, putting off new 
elections and appointing a royalist prime minister over the 
objections of the major political parties.

The parties have broadly discredited themselves with corruption, 
ineffectiveness and revolving door governments, and they fear that 
the king will make a deal with the Maoists and move them even further 
onto the margins of power.

"What is the king's role?" Girija Prasad Koirala, leader of the large 
Nepali Congress Party, asked at a recent party gathering. "I conclude 
that these are parts of the design already reached between the king 
and the Maoists."

During the cease-fire, the Maoists became very public, opening an 
office in the capital, holding rallies and giving speeches. Then, in 
mid-July, the office was closed and the Maoist leaders dropped out of 
sight. Later, the Maoists sent a message to government mediators 
demanding to deal directly with the king.

"A strange phenomenon in a very strange country," a Western diplomat said.

A Nepalese journalist, Mana Ranjan Josse, said: "Seeing is not 
believing here. Everything is not what meets the eye."

The Maoist rebellion in the countryside has its roots in complex 
religious, ethnic and tribal realities, along with deep poverty — per 
capita income is $220 a year and even less in remote areas — and the 
concentration of the meager resources in a few hands. About 85 
percent of the 24 million mostly poor people are Hindu. The top two 
castes, 29 percent of the population, hold most of the government 
jobs.

The Shah family, which founded the Nepalese kingdom in 1768, and the 
Rana family, which ruled through hereditary prime ministers from 1846 
to 1950 with the king as a figurehead, have so intermarried that they 
have formed an aristocracy that controls much of the wealth.

"The reasons for discontent are real," the Western diplomat said. But 
he was critical of the guerrillas nonetheless. "When the Maoists 
started," he said, "they got a lot of sympathy from intellectuals, 
but it has dissipated because of their brutality."

More than 7,000 people have been killed since the Maoists went into 
the jungle in 1996, and Amnesty International and other groups have 
recorded charges of widespread human rights abuses on both sides. The 
army and security forces have killed and tortured civilians, human 
rights groups say, while the rebels have executed local officials and 
teachers, blown up government aid centers and public works projects, 
and financed themselves with bank robberies and extortions.

Rebellion flared here in 1990 with the formation of the People's 
Movement, which demanded multiparty democracy. Demonstrations led to 
riots and some 300 protesters were killed. Finally, under foreign 
pressure, the royal family caved in. A new Constitution was written 
in 1990, intended to establish a symbolic monarchy somewhat along the 
lines of Britain, and an elected Parliament.

But the system has been a bitter disappointment. The new king, 
Gyanendra, was known to have argued in family circles against the 
Constitution approved by his older brother, King Birendra, who was 
among those killed in June 2001. King Gyanendra's extensive holdings 
— some of which were reported not to have paid taxes — include tea 
plantations, hotels and a cigarette factory.

Last October, the new king dismissed the government in a proclamation 
assailing its "incompetence" and appointed his own prime minister. He 
cited Article 127 of the Constitution, which outlines the monarch's 
"power to remove difficulties."

But Devendra Raj Panday, a former minister who helped write the 
Constitution, says Article 127 does not empower the king in that way. 
"The king has trampled all over the Constitution," he said. "We are 
in for more difficult times."

Ganesh Raj Sharma, a leading constitutional lawyer, took a similar 
view. "Actually, in fact, it's against the Constitution," he said. 
"But if you ask the common people in the street, they think the king 
is a kind of god, and that belief is the strength of the king."

Fearing instability in this volatile corner of the world, the United 
States, Britain and India appear to be banking on the king.

The United States, American officials said, is increasing development 
grants to Nepal — to $38 million a year from $24 million — with the 
money financing projects that the officials termed "insurgency 
relevant."

Defense aid, the officials said, is jumping from "a couple of hundred 
thousand a year" to $17 million in order to transform an army that is 
short of everything from boots to helicopters. The army is to be 
expanded — to 70,000 troops from 50,000 — and is said to have bought 
5,000 M-16 rifles from the United States and 5,500 machine guns from 
Belgium.

"This king is tougher than his brother," the Western diplomat said. 
"He knows if he's not successful, it will be the end of his line."

That view was echoed by Mr. Josse, the journalist, who is said to be 
close to the royal family. "Birendra was like the classical Hamlet, 
in all fairness: too kind-hearted, not decisive," he said. "This guy 
is the smarter one and more decisive. And he has a strong sense of 
history as well."

The American role, in particular, has drawn criticism from the 
rebels, who in their latest statement charged that aid from the 
United States was converting the Royal Nepalese Army into the Royal 
American Army.

The Maoist leaders are from the highest Brahmin class, and the 
guerrillas, many of them teenagers, are recruited from the same hill 
tribes as the army. Lately, they have dropped their initial demand 
that the monarchy be abolished. Their current position calls for an 
interim government, round-table discussions over Nepal's future and 
an eventual constitutional convention.

"The scenario is really bleak," said Bishnu Raj Upreti, a conflict 
management expert. "The real problem is discrimination, injustice, 
poverty, bad governance. The role of the international community 
should be to put positive pressure to the king, to the Maoists, to 
the government, but that is not happening."

He added: "I do not sincerely believe the king is committed to 
multiparty democracy. The role of America is, in that sense, very 
unfortunate."


_____

[2.]

Sanctuary Asia [ Bombay, India]
http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/features/detailfeatures.php?id=391

Support the Siachen Peace Park Initiative
Honour the past. Secure the future.

"As a part of the normalisation process/confidence building measures, 
the governments of India and Pakistan are urged to establish a 
Siachen Peace Park to protect and restore the spectacular landscapes 
which are home to so many endangered species including the snow 
leopard."
This is the statement adopted by participants to the IUCN/WCPA South 
Asian Regional workshop held in Dhaka on June 19-21, 2003, in 
preparation for the Vth World Parks Congress scheduled to be held in 
September 2003 at Durban, South Africa.

The next step is to win widespread support for the idea from citizens 
of India, Pakistan and around the world, so that the Indian and 
Pakistani governments can move forward without loss of face, or 
strategic liability.

To lend your strength to the effort to restore peace, ecological 
harmony and dignity to both India and Pakistan, please send an email 
in support of the "Siachen Peace Park Initiative 2003" providing your 
name, city, country and the organisation you belong to or represent 
(if any) to info at sanctuaryasia.com

Background
The area is surprisingly rich in wildlife... snow leopards, brown 
bears, herbivores and the plants they depend on. Years of war and 
border tensions in the Siachen glacier region has pushed this 
critical ecological habitat to the brink. As of now, Pakistan is in 
possession of the southern slopes of the Saltoro Ridge and India 
controls the northern slopes (5,480 to 6,700 metres). The Line of 
Control (LOC) between India and Pakistan is 790 km. long and the 
Siachen region was defined rather fuzzily ("... and thence north to 
the glaciers [beyond the point known as NJ 9842]"). Essentially, 
Siachen and Saltoro were "no man's land" and since 1984, both nations 
have been consistently losing lives fighting over this territory.

The problem
Quite apart from the tragic loss of human lives, the Siachen glacier 
is being terribly polluted by human wastes (which do not easily 
decompose at those altitudes) and also by chemical contamination from 
weapons and the heavy equipment required for survival at high 
altitudes by both armies. These pollutants end up in the Nubra river, 
which in turn flows into the Shyok river and then into the Indus "on 
whose waters millions of people depend," writes Aamir Ali, a member 
of the WCPA Informal Group Working to promote the idea of the Siachen 
Peace Park.

The solution
Over 169 Transboundary International Peace Parks have been declared 
around the world, many in areas affected by war. This is what is 
proposed for Siachen now. This involves a demilitarization exercise 
that would be in the interests of both nations. It would also include 
a clean up of glaciers that would be the most fitting tribute to the 
eternal memory of the brave sons of both countries that have lost 
their lives.

More information
There have been several proposals to have Siachen declared a peace park.

Click here for Aamir Ali's detailed article on the history and the 
current status of Siachen. This article includes realistic 
suggestions for demilitarization by General V. R. Raghavan, 
ex-Commanding General in Siachen and part of the Indian delegation in 
four of the seven rounds of talks between India and Pakistan.
(Please note: Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view this article 
in pdf format)

Aamir Ali has served the International Labour Organisation for 40 
years and is currently based in Geneva. He has requested young 
Indians and Pakistanis to join hands to restore life to Siachen. 
Sanctuary Asia supports this initiative.

To lend your strength to the effort to restore peace, ecological 
harmony and dignity to both India and Pakistan, please send an email 
in support of the "Siachen Peace Park Initiative 2003" providing your 
name, city, country and the organisation you belong to or represent 
(if any) to info at sanctuaryasia.com

SIGNATORIES
Aamir Ali, Geneva, Switzerland
Bittu Sahgal, Editor, Sanctuary Magazine, Mumbai, India
Admiral Ramu Ramdas, Alibag, Maharashtra, India
Vineeta Bal, MIND (Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament), New Delhi, India
Haroon Hussain, Shirkat Gah, Pakistan NGO Forum, Lahore, Pakistan
M. Arif Shaheen, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan
Lawrence S. Hamilton, Partner Islands and Highlands Environmental 
Consultancy, USA
George Archibald, Co-founder of the International Crane Foundation 
and Director, IUCN's Crane Specialist Group, USA
K. S. Gopi Sundar, International Crane Foundation, USA
Jennifer Scarlott, New York City, USA
Jennifer Biringer, World Wildlife Fund, Washington D.C., USA
Agostino Da Polenza, K2-2004 '50 Years Later' expedition, Bergamo, Italy
Beth Schommer, Ev-K2-CNR Committee, Bergamo, Italy
Nora Kreher, The Bateleurs - Flying for the Environment in Africa, 
Johannesburg, South Africa
Phil Carter, Environmental Writer, Osaka, Japan

PAKISTAN
Ismail Khan, Skardu, Pakistan
Naeem Ahmed Bajwa, Pakistan
A.H. Nayyar, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Nadeem Tahir, Muslim Hands International, Islamabad, Pakistan
Sadia Bajwa, Lahore University of Management and Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
Bilal Ahmad, Pakistan Health Environment and Rural Development, 
Islamabad, Pakistan
M. Nawaz Arain, Karachi, Pakistan

INDIA
Lalita Ramdas, Alibag, Maharashtra, India
Dr. Sagari Ramdas, Anthra, Hyderabad, India
Ananda Banerjee, India Today Group, Delhi, India
Miel Sahgal, Ashish Fernandes and Lakshmy Raman, Sanctuary Magazine, 
Mumbai, India
Sudha Chauhan, New Delhi, India
G. R. Vora, Flank Road Citizen's Forum, Mumbai, India
Roopak Goswami, The Telegraph, Guwahati, India
Mandar Bapaye, India
Mohan Guruswamy, Author, Hyderabad, India
Koustubh Sharma, Researcher, Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India
K.S. Naveen, Bangalore, India
Chiranjeeb Deb, Chinsurah, West Bengal, India
Pervin Jehangir, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Mumbai, India
Doreen D'Sa, Consultant, Centre for Environmental Research and 
Education, Mumbai, India
Debi Goenka, Bombay Environmental Action Group, Mumbai, India
Errol C. Fernandes, Mumbai, India
Tejal V.M., Mumbai, India
Bhushan Kavthekar, Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India
Shivani Shah, Nandini Vakil and Pavani A. Kaul, Kids for Tigers, Mumbai, India
Sunetro Ghosal, Mumbai, India
Meghna Patel, Mumbai, India
Vipul Patel, Mumbai, India
Mukund Patel, Mumbai, India
Roshni Patel, Mumbai, India
Gautham, MindTree, Bangalore, India
K. Nagarajan, Bangalore, India
N.K. Arun, Adarsh Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India
Naveein O. C., Reshma Naveein, S. Srinivasan, Mangala Srinivasan, Dr. 
B.K. Chakrapani, Dr. Shoba Chakrapani, T.S. Swamy, Rekha Swamy, A.S. 
Ravindra and Shaila Ravindra, Foundation for Nature Exploration and 
Environmental Conservation, Bangalore, India
Usha Ramaiah and Harsha J., Kids For Tigers, Bangalore, India
Kiran R, Bangalore, India
Pradeep Mohapatra, Udyama, Orissa, India
Parag Joshi, Nature Conservation Society, Amravati, Maharashtra, India
Madhu Menon, Environment Educator, Anala, India
Rohan Kulkarni, R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India
Rakesh J.R., Bangalore, India
Prakash C. Rajagoli, Tata Technologies Ltd., Pune, India
N. Chandrashekara, Bangalore, India
Ravindra Kumar Metta, Pune, India
Manesh Karani, Mumbai, India
Arun Bhat, Mumbai, India
Romola Butalia, Editor, India Travelogue, Mumbai, India
Vivek Sinha, Bangalore, India
Vongur Usha, Sannihita, Hyderabad, India
Prerna Bindra, The Pioneer, New Delhi, India
Navneet Maheshwari, Jabalpur Nature Society, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India
Salam Rajesh, Manipur, India
Ravindra Naik, Tata Consultancy Services, Pune
Gloria D'Sa, Mumbai, India
Priya Jhaveri, Mumbai, India
Gopakumar, The Nityata Foundation, Bangalore, India
Shaheen Sikandar, Mumbai, India
Gurveen Kaur, Secunderabad, India
Binit Kaur, Secunderabad, India
Sanjeev Kesar, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Uttar Pradesh, India
Sanjay Jaiswal, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, India
Suketu Kothari, Mumbai, India
Ashok Sreenivas, Pune, India
Monisha Bharadwaj, Mumbai, India
Sapna Solanki, Mumbai, India
Rohena Gera, Mumbai, India
Tsewang Namgail, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India
Anuradha Kumar Gupta, Prithvi Innovations, Lucknow, India
Barathan R., Wildlife Aware Nature Club, Tumkur, Karnataka, India
Arun Agnihotri, Vadodara, India
Lakshmi Ramamurthy, Quadrant Communications, Pune, India
Kanika Gulzar, Mumbai, India
Prasad Ghatigar, Intel, Bangalore, India
Vijayakumar N., Mumbai, India
Mona Sharma, Mumbai, India
Satya P. Mehra, Natural Environment Education and Development, 
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
G. Muniraj, Bishop Cotton Women's Christian College, Bangalore, India
Leena Taneja Rao, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Rohit Joshi, Thane, Maharashtra, India
Jayasubramani, Chennai, India
D. S. Variava, Mumbai, India
Aarthi Sridhar, Bangalore, India
K. C. Avinash, Sandur, Bellary District, Karnataka, India
Bharati Chaturvedi, Chintan Environmetnal Reserach and Action Group, 
New Delhi, India
B.V. Prakash, Bangalore, India
Premavati Thallapaka, India
Rivka Jacobs, Hyderabad, India
Poulomi Dasgupta, Mumbai, India
Archana Kashmira Rao, Mumbai, India
Dinkar Jaitly, Varanasi, India
Dr. Gopinathan Maheswaran, Scientist, Bombay Natural History Society, 
Mumbai, India
Uttara Gangopadhyay, Kolkata, India
Basanti Didwania, Mumbai, India
Sukla Sen, EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai

AROUND THE WORLD
Rafi Ali, Geneva, Switzerland (Indian)
Donna Bettinger, Georgetown, Delaware, USA
Neha Menon, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, USA
Dhananjaya Katju, Division of Fisheries and Wildlife DC, Washington DC, USA
Peter J. Hill, Environmental Specialist, Department of Health DC, 
Washington DC, USA
Shuba Gopal, Rochester, New York, USA
Patricia Knudsen, New Jersey, USA
I.K. Shukla, Coalition for an Egalitarian and Pluralistic India, Los 
Angeles, USA
Rita Dutt, Esquire Electronics Incorporated, New York, USA
Purvi Ghedia, Sugar Land, USA
Adrien Chase, Rocville, MD, USA
Elizabeth Allison, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, USA
Tim Northrop, State Director, The Trust for Public Land, New Haven, 
Connecticut, USA
David and Rose Burnhill, Washington D.C., USA
Ahmad Khan, University of Wisconsin at Madison/International Crane 
Foundation, USA
Chelsea S. Bauer-Greene, Chicago, IL USA
Elizabeth Rodgers Hill, Frankfort, Michigan, USA
Greg Kohn, Missoula, Montana, USA
David W. Booth, Ohio, USA
Nathan Seward, Colorado, USA
Ameen Ahmed, Toronto, Canada
Farah Damji, Indobrit Magazine, London, UK
Maz Cook, London, UK
Shirley Carter, London, England, UK
Iain M. Cooke, The Tiger Telegraph, UK
Heather Bruce, Inverness, UK
Dr. Arati Iyengar, Biodiversity and Ecology Division, University of 
Southampton, UK
Carly Brooks, Biomedical Sciences Division, University of Southampton, UK
Sofia Morandi, Milano, Italy
Annelisa Johnson, Pennant Hills, NSW, Australia
Kathleen Bourne, Macedon, Australia
Parag Mathur, Doha, Qatar
Matthew Steyn, South Africa

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[3.]

The Daily Times  [Aug.4, 2003]
Op-ed:

Trivial matters

Arifa Noor

It would seem illogical to even a mean intelligence that the 
performance, good or bad, of women MPAs should in a cause-and-effect 
sequence necessitate a sexist comment; that there might be, or indeed 
there is, a logical connection between the two
A male member of the Punjab Assembly remarked a few days ago that 
female MPAs had made no meaningful contribution to the House. They 
were members courtesy General Pervez Musharraf's Legal Framework 
Order. To spike his argument, he referred to them as 'sweet dishes'. 
The epithet created a minor ruckus in the House. The next day 
newspapers reporters gave vent to their own sexism by splashing the 
bit about 'sweet dishes' and commenting on the figures of women in 
the House. What should one make of this?
There are two issues here: the very presence of women MPAs, their 
role in legislation and their ability to contribute meaningfully to 
the process of lawmaking and the sexist remark passed by a male MPA.
It would seem illogical to even a mean intelligence that the 
performance, good or bad, of women MPAs should in a cause-and-effect 
sequence necessitate a sexist comment; that there might be, or indeed 
there is, a logical connection between the two. Surely, there are 
other ways of discussing performance, and in a country where women 
have never before had a chance to make a relatively sizeable 
appearance as legislators, one would expect their more experienced 
male colleagues to show them the ropes. Even if the gentleman who 
made the remark thought 'sweet dishes' was an apt metaphor to 
describe the peripheral role played by women MPAs, and they were in 
the same relation to male legislators as dessert is to the main 
course, the sexist nature of the comment cannot be allowed to go 
unchallenged. Interestingly, even his criticism of the 
non-performance of women MPAs has sexist undertones, betray as it 
does the thinking that women should not be where they are; in fact, 
would not be in the House were it not for the LFO.
There is thus a nexus between the two even if the issue be 
politically motivated. But significant as the debate on the presence 
and performance of women MPAs is, and one can point out, if really 
pressed, that male legislators have not delivered themselves 
honourably either as the history of the august House can easily 
prove, I'll confine myself to the gentleman's unsavoury comment. Some 
people might object to this as hair-splitting, which indeed is sexism 
itself, deny as it does a debate on such issues by branding them as 
trivial. It should, however, be clear to the more discerning that the 
quality of the debate, or indeed even its absence, is no benchmark to 
determine the importance or otherwise of a subject: in which case, 
why should discussing women's rights or highlighting the prevalent 
male attitude towards women be considered irrelevant?
Perish the thought, however, that those guilty of dismissing the 
issue are just the bearded card-carrying members of the MMA. The 
'liberals' are equally the culprit when it comes to such subtleties.
Let me illustrate this with an example. At a paper I previously 
worked for, we did a cover story on a proposed sexual harassment law 
for the workplace. The assignment split the editorial-staff along 
gender lines. The men thought the law was open to abuse; it indicated 
that our society was about to become as inflexible on this issue as 
western societies are about gender relations and where women are 
prone to over-reacting to and branding even innocent behaviour as 
sexual harassment. For them the issue was simple: a man hits on a 
woman and if his overtures are not welcomed they should be rejected. 
Period. There is no need to impose legalities on what should be a 
'personal' matter between two individuals.
Of course, all those men were educated, 'liberal' men. None of the 
women in that office had ever been harassed; they were respected as 
equals. Hence it was implied, though not stated, that for us to talk 
of sexual harassment at the workplace was 'irrelevant'.
More than the opinion, it is the attitude that is problematic. In the 
case of liberal men it can be summed up thus: You are an educated 
working woman; you work with men as equals; you are not harassed or 
discriminated against; why constantly harp about women's rights?
But the issue is not how many rights women do, or do not, enjoy, 
though that is important per se. It is the attitude that trivialises 
the issue which rankles and needs to be questioned. In reality, how 
are liberal men refusing to discuss the issue of sexist comments 
seriously different from those who would not discuss honour killing 
on the Senate floor? Both imply through their conduct that women's 
rights are irrelevant if they involve pushing the envelope more than 
they deem appropriate.
Granted, women rights in Pakistan are in their infancy and there are 
more pressing issues like domestic violence, honour killings, etc. It 
is but a small and fortunate minority that does not face such 
traumas. But should this be reason enough for not debating issues 
that are not so heinous and therefore not so pressing. Since the 
murder rate is so high in a place, there is no cause to worry about 
petty theft; or, in the case of genocide, armed robbery and a few odd 
murders can be allowed to pass being less pressing given the mass 
scale of killings. So the woman must not question unless she is 
locked up, beaten or killed. What's a sexist comment or some indecent 
overture in a society where the majority has to put up with much 
more? The more fortunate among us are even expected to offer a silent 
prayer of thanks.
But it is not just men who support such attitudes. Women can be 
equally inflexible. Take the recent staging of Vagina Monologues in 
Lahore. Understandably the reaction was far from welcoming. Those who 
did not consider them appropriate were divided into two groups: one 
found the Monologues vile and pornographic, the other felt the 
readings had a point to make about female sexuality but it was 
irrelevant because we are dealing here with far more 'serious' issues 
like honour killings, domestic violence etc.
The first attitude is understandable; the second is not. The viewers 
in the second category know that women in this country are 
conditioned to suppress their sexuality but find that pointing that 
out and trying to correct that situation is not important at the 
moment. It's like saying no one should earn more because x percentage 
of this country's population is poor. All of us must get rich 
together. That is not possible and no one ever makes such an 
argument. Yet, that's exactly we say while shutting out some of the 
issues from the domain of discussion: issues cannot be discussed or 
acknowledged out of turn.
This is akin to the state policy towards India; until the core issue 
is resolved, other issues, deemed less important, will not be 
touched. That's hardly conducive to dialogue. Moreover, must we 
follow faithfully the path of women's lib movement in the West and 
discuss issues in the same chronological order; because western 
societies are now addressing female sexuality, it is premature for us 
to do so? Clearly, we need a rethink on this.


______


[4.]

The Daily News [Sri Lanka] August 5, 2003
Whose face is that I see? : 

Remembering the Unfallen

by E. Valentine Daniel, Professor of Anthropology and Philosophy, 
Columbia University

(Fourth Neelan Tiruchelvam memorial Lecture delivered at the SLFI, 
Colombo on July 29, under the auspices of the ICES, Colombo).

July 29th, 1983. We are here to remember that grim Friday and the 
twenty-years that have unravelled from it. For many Sri Lankans, that 
was the day when our world went spinning from God's hand; either in 
its pre-ordained arc or completely out of control. For some of us, 
that day of abandonment would return in another form on another day 
and year,in the loss of a friend, a father, a brother, a sister, a 
mother, a son or of a husband to the violence unleashed by July 29th. 
I lost a friend, not on July 29th but because of July 29th, and of 
whom there is so much to say, but for which I don't have the heart 
today.
Prof. Valentine Daniel

I speak of the death of Neelan. For those among us who had the good 
fortune to come near this gracious man, our loss is such that we are 
unable to find public words for what happened to him and to us on 
that day. In more ways than one, he left us speechless. His absence 
will remain for me, I am certain, forever unthinkable; his face, 
unforgettable.

For these and other reasons, which I am sure you can well understand, 
I can speak of the last twenty years in words that an only betray the 
indecency of language, its gross inadequacy and its failed eloquence 
in the face of the sensory intensity of the events of history. Even 
if our words betray this insufficiency of language, we cannot accept 
this lack as a sufficient response to the fallen.

We must keep trying to grasp what happened. I must confess that at 
best I can only roughly grasp the subject of these past twenty years. 
By roughly, I mean both untenderly and approximately; and for that I 
ask your pardon.
Neelan Tiruchelvam

Grateful as I am for the honour, the privilege and the trust you have 
bestowed on me, I cannot but wish that the circumstances were 
different: that this day, twenty years ago, had marked the beginning 
of inter-ethnic civility rather than an ignominious civil war, that 
the first President of our republic had been wiser than he was wily; 
that the second president had not ushered in a period of murder so 
abominable that the tongue could not utter what the eye allowed into 
consciousness; that some of our rivers of exquisite beauty had not, 
even if only for a shudderingly brief time, become clogged with 
bodies and foam with blood - "Sinhala blood"; that both these 
Presidents had not exploited legend, in the pursuit of power; that a 
third had not been so overtaken with face-saving so that the 
face-to-face had to be endlessly deferred; that our Tamil 
politicians' only instruments had not been the harp and fiddle on 
which they played mostly one tune and its thematic variations. It was 
called the language-issue.

Neelan tiruchelvam, who had a much broader vision, was conspicuous 
exception in this regard. Of course, in art these instruments do 
function to instruct and delight. But when I say of some politicians 
that they fiddle and harp, I mean that they pulled strings to get on, 
to better themselves. This applies, not only to some politicians, but 
it also applies to newspaper editors, intellectuals, as well as 
academics on both sides of the ethnic divide. Here again Neelan was 
an exception.

I wish: that our civic leaders could walk the streets with only a 
handful of unarmed acolytes without fear of being ambushed or 
assassinated; that over these twenty years the whimsical largess of 
politicians distributed to private armies of thugs had not become one 
of the innumerable perquisites of power that their children had not 
come to assume that power, aimless power, was their patrimony, and 
violence, gratuitous violence, their birthright; that our people had 
not turned its ear to the hasty 'prejudicate opinion' of capricious 
politicians whose judgements have been - to borrow a phrase from 
Dryden - "a mere lottery", that there had been fewer leaders like the 
late Cyril Matthew who cheated our citizens into passion and many 
more like Neelan Tiruchelvam who tried to reason them into truth; 
that 65,000 plus lives had not been lost in and out battle; that 
Sinhala soldiers had not dishonoured their own mothers and sisters by 
raping Tamil women, and worse, then subduing their bodies under 
rubble, sand and water, in unmarked graves; that so many young Tamil 
women had not been duped into enslavement and prostitution en route 
to places of asylum; that Tamil had not become alliteratively yoked 
to terrorism in the minds of so many here and abroad.

Nerverthless, even though the past is forever at the elbow of the 
present, being in the present obliges one to look to the future as 
well. I see a few rays of hope at the end of the tunnel. In fact I 
have noticed that many a bigot of twenty years ago has washed his 
mind off the grubby prejudices that had stunted this nation's 
material and spiritual growth over these two decades and longer.

This is heartening. I hope - and I am sure that you will join me in 
hoping - that in the year, 2023, a new generation will be celebrating 
twenty years of peace rather than reminiscing two score years of 
strife. I gather that the LTTE has finally seen, among other things, 
its folly in having evacuated the Muslims from the North. That is a 
good start. The LTTE and the Sri Lankan government have begun talking 
to each other. This is a another good start. I see the day when our 
public's opinion will no longer be constituted by the prejudiced 
voice and a prejudging ear of politician, priest, private citizen or 
press.

I see some monks in saffron robes opting for the Dhamma of the Buddha 
and not the Dhamma of war. This is encouraging. I have taken note of 
the fact that Tamils and Sinhala exiles in Europe, North America and 
Australia have found common ground in so many aspects of their lives 
that has undermined their differences. That some times this common 
ground lies in the realisation of the fact that Europeans cannot tell 
the difference between Aryan and Dravidian, Tamils and Sinhalese, and 
to some of whom, all the denizens who hail from this isle of 
splendour are but "niggers". This is sad, on the one hand, but 
sobering on the other. Many Tamil young men and women - and Sinhalese 
too - have opted to combat such racism in the manner they know best, 
by excelling in whatever they undertake.

This is exhilarating. It is small comfort, but comfort no less, to 
see that in Sri Lanka, unlike in many other parts of the world, 
civility is challenged but far from dead. I long for that day when, 
in the North and the East, no young man or woman will have to ever 
look upon a landscape ignited by bombs and artillery but cast their 
eyes on a horizon where sky and harvest meet; and in the south, gaze, 
as I did as a child in Kandy, upon rivers and lakes flecked with 
powdery sunlight, and upon ripples enkindled by the noses of fish 
gently surfacing to feed at dawn.

As you will notice, even though I have tried to recover myself from 
looking at the grim past of the last twenty years and espy a 
hope-filled future, I have found myself, once again, reorienting my 
gaze toward the past. To the critical among you, and to my own 
critical self, my reminiscence of a past that I want reproduced in 
the future is as much nostalgia as it is memory. Nostalgia is an 
attraction to a real or an imagined past.

Memory, by contrast, need not hold any such attraction to the past. 
What possible attraction could the holocaust hold for a survivor of 
Auschwitz; or for a Tamil shipowner on Sea Street who saw his 
belongings go up inflames in 1983; or for a so-called untouchable in 
Jaffna, who could not enter the Nallur temple in years gone by; or 
for a Sinhala mother from Kelaniya whose son was murdered during 
President Premadasa's rule by personnel of the armed forces? there 
can be no nostalgia where there is no attraction.

Neither is tradition coterminous with memory. Those who follow a 
tradition, for instance, are confident in its own validity and are 
not likely to appeal to memory to defend that tradition. Instead, the 
appeal is to custom, established institutions, literary works, 
cultural artifacts, collective consciousness, and so on. In the 
normal course of human events, one does not turn inward to defend 
tradition. Tradition is "out there", so to speak, greater than any 
one individual, greater even than the sum total of all individuals in 
a society.

It is assumed that the defence of tradition, and even that of 
nostalgia, lies outside the self, in phenomena that are believed to 
be objective. For the purposes at hand, if we limit memory to all 
that is "remembered" minus nostalgia and tradition, then we have in 
memory, something very fragile, vulnerable, insecure, and forever on 
trial. The anthropologist Johannes Fabian went so far as to claim 
that, strictly speaking, we do not remember the past; rather, we 
remember the present. That is, we remember that which from the past 
continued to live within our situation in the world. Memory is not 
memory if it is dead; it may be tradition or nostalgia or even 
history, but it is no longer memory. Whatever the expression "living 
memory" might mean, it cannot be the opposite of "dead memory". If 
that were the contrast, then dead memory would be an oxymoron that 
would make living memory, a mere redundancy. Memory can be nothing 
else but alive.

In so far as memory belongs to the here and the now, it is one with 
the present. But what is the present? Of the three, the past, the 
present and the future, it is the present that has vexed the 
philosopher the most. And memory, not unlike the present, is 
evanescent and inscrutable. Memory is not a fait accomplish that 
belongs to the past, nor is it a possibility that points to the 
future.

The past and the future are characterised by their continuity in 
time. There is never a doubt that the past and the future are part of 
time. Not so with the present. The present is discontinuity 
actualised, and if you looked closely, you will find that it is not a 
part of time but is apart from time. You can infer the past.

You can infer the future. But you cannot inner the present. Inference 
is a logical operation in time. History is a narrative, and hence, a 
logical operation, a logical argument that unfolds inferentially. It 
should come as no surprise, therefore, that it is easier to justify 
the claim that history, by virtue of being a narrative of the past, 
belongs to the past, than it is to establish that memory concerns the 
past. If we can remember only the present qua present, then there is 
nothing to infer about the present qua present.

It simply is. Memory, living memory, is not something that was there 
and then; rather it is something here and now. History is made real, 
or realised, by the consensus of a group or community about the 
claims put forth by that history. In other words, history is 
independent of what you or I or any particular individual thinks 
about it, even though it is not independent of thought in general. 
History does not rest on a single person's experience or fancy. Its 
claims are some times supported by facts and sometimes unsupported by 
them.

Never mind! history is primarily a discourse that is based on truth 
claims arrived at by consensus. Memory, by contrast, is based on 
experiences that are unique; it emerges in individuals, and is not 
beholden to the community's opinion regarding its truth-value. To the 
extent that memory is unrealised by the group, it is not real; it 
isactual.

Nothing more brings this fact home more vividly than the memory of 
trauma and pain. The memory of trauma is itself traumatic; the memory 
of pain itself is painful. In pain there is neither before nor after; 
all you have is nothing but the infinity of now. In fact, it would be 
impossible to distinguish memory from pain and vise versa. They are 
mutually immanent. Perhaps we should call it "memoro-pain", or 
latinate it entirely and call it, "memoriumdoloro".

It is not surprising to find so many of us seeking relief from 
painful memories. To some, relief comes in the form of psycho-somatic 
or somato-psychic disorders.

Psychoanalysts call this displacement. Others find relief in work, 
mere work. Some find relief in the creative arts and sciences. This 
kind of displacement is called sublimation in psychoanalysis. There 
are myriad of ways in which memory can be suppressed or repressed. It 
can also be rendered into narrative, and thereby, made available for 
consensus and for the realisation by the community. What is said by 
the subject trying to express his or her Memorium doloro, however, 
can never satisfy the subject. The subject bearing the memorium 
doloro will in variably find it far too sublime to be sublimated into 
mere narrative. The urgency and magnitude of the telling will be 
deflated by the told.

Memory can also be banished into nostalgia, tradition or even 
oblivion. This is too is most often done by langauge. Of all the 
forces of language that do banish memory into nostalgia, tradition or 
oblivion, the cliche is the most powerful one. This, however, I shall 
argue, is also the most pernicious way of overcoming memoriam doloro.

Words, phrases as well as entire narratives are vulnerable to 
becoming cliches. Among words, "terror" and "terrorism" are worlds 
that have, by their over-generalisation and overuse, become cliches. 
But what exactly is a cliche? What does it do? Have you ever tried to 
define a cliche? The OED defines it as a stereotypic expression or a 
hackneyed word or phrase; Webster defines it as an expression or an 
idea that has become trite.

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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace 
and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & 
non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia 
Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex).
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