>>“Kanduttu onume aaga poradhu illai.. ”
Let’s stop blogging then..

Granted I am numb. Ellam sethadhuku aprom blog panni SL armya nirutha mudiyuma…they are not civilized enough… i am reading about white vans without
number plate…

How may people who are writing now wrote anything about during all these years? 2002? 2006?

I don’t have much expectations from the Sri Lanka government. Avanga correct a irundhirndha indha prachnai ivlo dhooram vandhirukaadhu… I remember the 1983 times, i guess i was in class 2,3 or so then… So it does not shock me… We’ve read what far more liberal, progressive governments and their armies do to their civilians…

>>But i don’t share the notion of a section that its many times more “important” to feel a sense of loss and extend solidarity (of course we do nothing other than rant or write, thats a diff issue) for the Eelam cause than for, say, the Palestine issue

That’s essentially my point.

Hiroshima and Jews were of a completely different proportion…though it kinda feel too cold blooded to ‘measure’ and ‘compare’ man inflicted catastrophes like this…

Indha prachnai had been there for long..the conflict is my age now… and in my view they had ample opportunities to solve it keeping the civilians in mind…

Say, there is eelam.. what is the probability that they can have a peaceful, democratic rule considering the animosity with the sinhalese majority in their backward in the south?

I don’t nor have read anything to prove that LTTE had any democratic, progressive ideas in mind at any given point…If they had, they would’nt have killed so many tamil leaders…if thats the case why should we support LTTE.. just bcos the names sound very tamilish?

>“bcos some guy was just insane…”
Yaaru solreenga?

I mean Prabhakaran.

If someone leads some struggle for as long as 25-30 years and leads to situations like this.. its a matter of leadership failure too… Leadership is not about guns, bombs, suicide squads, arms for 30 years…in my view.

Mistakes after mistakes after mistakes in all these years and in the end, they claim they are silencing their guns, doling out unilateral ceasefires…considering the innocent’s lives…

vidunga… enakku ‘ina unarvu’ kammi dhaan…

“why do we even expect ‘fair and true’ treatment and ‘human rights’ from military outfits in the first place…
If you truly care for your people you don’t drive to that situation in the first place…”
Vasthavam adhukkaaga? I mean please don’t get me wrong, i also tend to be pessimistic, cynical and fatalistic but was just surprised and curious at your tone.

“bcos some guy was just insane…”
Yaaru solreenga?

“Nobody talks abt hiroshima, jews, Cambodia, E Timor now…do we?
This world is an ugly and brutal place…”
Yes, nobody talks about E.Timor alright but Hiroshima and Jews???? Come on, not in the least to make light of the plight of the victims concerned but ulaga alavula almost unanimous a public discourse, sorrow, remembrance, regret irukkunga.

All this said, however, i think i share your sentiment on one thing - the thoppul kodi argument. Yes, they are our “neighbours” (in physical/geographical terms) and our ‘kin’ but i don’t share the notion of a section that its many times more “important” to feel a sense of loss and extend solidarity (of course we do nothing other than rant or write, thats a diff issue) for the Eelam cause than for, say, the Palestine issue, though in my mind, the suffering of the Palestine people is in a way unprecedented and unique in many ways and the magnitude and nature on a different scale.
Also, one can understand the criticism of LTTE (if unconditional support for them is what irs you about the thamizh unarvu bloggers) but definitely, what does one think and say about a govt that cluster bombs *its own people* (as claimed by it)???

>>PK, My concern is that the party in power at the moment in TN has bribed the people so much with patronage, freebies and what not, it is going to be very hard to break their hold on power, unless there is a miracle.

Money for votes has been there for a long time. In my view, any ‘aalungatchi’ resorts to this at some point. Besides this, there are other forms of manipulations as well. For e.g voters who are believed to be ‘X’ party’s vote bank do not get their voter slips, the election officer would not let you vote without it so its one vote less for your opponent.

My 2 cents what worked phenomenally to the ruling party was the spoiler effect by vijaykanth.

then we found out that MK went on to announce that the LTTE supremo and him were like brothers. That would be really weird because by association everyone in TN would be branded as supporting a terrorist organization if the party in power supported that organization. also it would mean MK who had alignment with Congress, would be a thorn for supporting the very same people who took out Rajiv. The thing was like a puzzle that had no answer, a mobius strip of sorts…

after the phone call the wise ones on this end asked me how any of this mattered and I said “twenty years from now, if the US goes to war because the next wave of taliban is a Kazhagam version of Tamizhban” our kids need to know…

to take a quote from Seinfeld… “there is no such thing as an innocent bystander!”

is there?

Another interesting thing to note in my parents’ constituency - Chidambaram - usually for any key LTTE related event, we don’t run our buses or cut our schedule for fear of thugs attacking our crew or damaging the buses. Same goes for the government buses and other private buses. But because the instigator got elected, there was no trouble whatsoever even with the LTTE leader being killed.

From a distance (US), it was interesting to see the spin in Tamil news by the likes of Seeman, Bharathiraja etc.

Love the post, BTW.

Enaku therila enna solradhu nu….

Kanduttu onume aaga poradhu illai.. why do we even expect ‘fair and true’ treatment and ‘human rights’ from military outfits in the first place…
If you truly care for your people you don’t drive to that situation in the first place…
I feel angry..abt this collosal waste of human lives in the last 20 odd years and it all ended the way it did…bcos some guy was just insane…

Neraya matter kavidhai eludharadhuku nalla irukkum..

Nobody talks abt hiroshima, jews, Cambodia, E Timor now…do we?
This world is an ugly and brutal place…

thanks…yeah basically pazhaya status ku thirumba porom! (edited this comment)

P.S: For the record, obviously it looks like for many people in TN, it didn’t matter actually, especially as far as the election was concerned. Thats a diff issue…