(3+7) (Q&A) WITH TAMIL POET R.

CHERAN ON POETRY IN THE FACE OF

OPPRESSION

FAMILIES OF MISSING TAMIL PEOPLE IN THE JAFFNA, SRI LANKA STAGED A

PROTEST IN DECEMBER 2015 TO EXPRESS THEIR DISAPPOINTMENT WITH A
PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON DISAPPEARANCES IN THE COUNTRY. IMAGE
COURTESY OF TAMIL GUARDIAN.

BY GOWRI KONESWARAN-December 22, 2015

The first of Tamil poet and professor R. Cherans escapes was in July 1979, the day the Sri
Lankan government enacted the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and immediately began
arresting members of the countrys second largest ethnic group -- including him and his
roommates. A university student in the historic Tamil city of Jaffna at the time, he addressed the
experience and some of its impacts in his poem, Two Mornings and a Late Night.

You Cannot Turn Away

By R Cheran

Enforcement of the PTA, which allows for arbitrary detention, unfair trials,
and torture, now finds many Tamil political prisoners languishing in jail,
having been detainedfor decades without charge. Despite the conclusion of
the countrys long and brutal armed conflict six years ago and the
governments explicit commitments to the U.N. Human Rights Council in
September to review and repeal the PTA, the draconian law is still in effect.
Many detainees identities remain a secret, which is of particular concern
considering evidence that successive governments engaged in massive
and systemic enforced disappearances, including the use of underground
detention camps.

The issue of disappearances in Sri Lanka is getting renewed attention

through Amnesty Internationals Silenced Shadows poetry contest, in
which Cheran is a judge. A professor in the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology at the University of Windsor, Canada, he has published fifteen
books of poetry in Tamil. In A Time of Burning, a collection of his works
which were translated into English by Lakshmi Holstrom, received the
English PEN award in 2013.
Writer and lawyer Gowri Koneswaran spoke with Cheran for THE ALIGNIST
about his poetry, the current human rights situation in Sri Lanka, and
Amnesty Internationals contest. The conversation, which has been edited
for length and clarity, is below.
1. Given the current situation in Sri Lanka, what role does something like
the Silenced Shadows poetry contest play for communities in Sri Lanka
and in the diaspora?
We must begin by asking, What is the importance of poetic imagination for
humanity -- and how is it different from political imagination, constitutional
imagination, and sociological imagination? In my view and in my
understanding, Im always convinced that the poetic imagination is far
superior [to] any other kind of imagination in terms of addressing issues of
resistance, oppression, dominance, equality. [...] Thats why poetry should
be available in most kinds of struggles.
Second, we should not deceive ourselves by believing that poetry is a
panacea for all the evils in the world. There are certain kinds of limitations
to what poetry can achieve. One crucial thing is that, in order to create
awareness, poetry can be one useful and powerful tool. It works at the
individual level too. Little by little, you cultivate and try to influence the
reader. Its a slow but extremely important process. Theres a Tamil saying
-- Even if an ant continues to work on the hardest stone possible, little by
little the stone will begin to crack. [...] Thats the kind of perspective I have
about the role of poetry in these kinds of scenarios.
In the case of Sri Lanka, literary organizations in Sri Lanka and South Asia
have been inactive. Theres been an unwritten rule to not discuss or talk
about these [human rights] issues. So, when Amnesty International
proposed this idea, we welcomed it.
Disappearances in Sri Lanka is a mind bogglingly huge issue but it hasnt
received the attention and care it deserves. More than 75,000 people [have
been] disappeared and the culprits are still [out] there. In that context, [the
poetry contest] is crucial even as a small gesture.

Today, this is how

it dawns:
the night still lingers,
the lights expanse muted,
at this time;
to wake and step out
when the koel sings
from the branch of a well-side tree;
below the earth,
deep and broad,
the well
sleeps peacefully,
like my heart.
Today, this is how
it dawns.
Do not think
it will be such dawn again
tomorrow;
halfway through the night,
at the gate,
the deep growl of the jeep,
the clatter of boots;
-- from Two Mornings and a Late Night
2. Earlier this month, your fellow judge in the Silenced Shadows
contest V.I.S. Wediwardena, was denied entry to Sri Lanka. Authorities
refused him entry right after the the launch of his book Sekku Gona, a
translation of three of his Tamil novellas into Sinhala. What do you
make of the restrictions placed on Wediwardena?
I know the Sri Lankan government has a blacklist. I do not know why the
present government is still scared of Tamil writers, artists, and poets. What I
suspect is that even though there is a change in the government, the
structural problems that Tamils have been facing -- like [discriminatory]
state machinery, [increased] militarization, [illegal] surveillance -arestill very much intact. Most of the people who have committed war
crimes and crimes against humanity are still part of the government. So the
state machinery that maintains and facilitates Sinhalese Buddhist
dominance is still very much there. As long as that is there, any kind of
change at the top level is only a change in the appearance, not in the
substance.

The Silenced Shadows contest is open to "Sri Lankans living in the

country or who have emigrated," according to its English-language rules.
Some Tamils dont identify as "Sri Lankan" due to the political connotations
it has afterdecades of state violence against Tamils. How would you respond
to Tamils born in Sri Lanka who are uncomfortable participating in the
contest because they dont identify as Sri Lankan?
3.

I have never identified myself as a Sri Lankan because my political activism

started in 1972 when the state promulgated the new constitution and
renamed Ceylon as Sri Lanka and we were all forced to become Sri
Lankans. The state sponsored, nurtured, and facilitated "Sri Lankan"
identity is exclusive. In the current understanding, Sri Lankan means a
Sinhalese and to a great extent a Buddhist person who lives in Sri Lanka. It
never included Tamils in terms of political representation, cultural
representation, and even symbolic representation. Whenever you locate a
Sri Lankan association, it will largely be Sinhalese. That is why, in most
cases, you see Tamil organizations. That is one point Id like to make
strongly.

AT A JULY DEMONSTRATION IN
JAFFNA, A TAMIL MOTHER HOLDS PHOTOGRAPHS OF MISSING DAUGHTER ALONGSIDE A SIGN READS, "WHERE IS MY MISSING
DAUGHTER WHO IS IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH NEXT TO THE CURRENT PRESIDENT." IMAGE BY TAMILWIN, COURTESY OF TAMIL
GUARDIAN.

Second, in the context of the Amnesty International contest, in Tamil, Sri

Lanka has always been referred to as Ilankai and Ilankai Tamil means
Tamil from Sri Lanka. That is correct. But Sri Lankan is a problem. In my
understanding, most Tamils will not accept being called Sri Lankans. But
in this context, Amnesty International has used Ilankai in the Tamil
language rules.

The term Ilankai Tamil is acceptable. There are also a large number of
Tamil speaking Muslims and Tamils who live outside the North and East
provinces of Sri Lanka who identify themselves as Muslims and Tamils from
Ilankai.
4.
As a result of freedom of speech issues under the PTA, does the panel
of judges anticipate any concerns on the part of participants in Sri Lanka
regarding their freedom to openly criticize the government in their poetry?
I think thats a reasonable concern. Ive been in touch with a lot of writers
from Tamil, Sinhalese, and Muslim communities in Sri Lanka for the past
months for a different project. One question Ive been consistently and
continuously asking them is, How free are you to talk about, write about,
discuss some of these crucial issues? The answers I get from these
communities are interestingly different. If I speak to a writer in Colombo,
they feel much more free after the change in the government. In the case
of Jaffna, although the situation has greatly improved, theyre still
concerned about surveillance and the Sri Lankan government and military
intelligence following them.
So even though theres some kind of opening up, the underlying
fundamental issue of complete freedom of expression is not there. On the
other hand, the Tamil writers are kind of used to this kind of scenario [and
have been] for a very long time. I have used several pen names in the past
years in order to hide my own identity. So we need to wait and see how
many responses we receive from Tamil and Muslim writers in the North and
East.
with a shudder
the doors of our house
spread open;
then
eyes half closed and tired
having studied
for the test next day,
in that night
we hear their call;
the howling wind
in our ears.
Where he is? they ask,
their broken Tamil
pierces the heart.
Speechless
stunned,

as we shake our heads

flung into the jeep
the running engine
still growling.
-- from Two Mornings and a Late Night

A TAMIL WOMAN TEARFULLY HOLDS UP PHOTOGRAPHS OF HER DISAPPEARED LOVED ONES AT A DEMONSTRATION IN JAFFNA IN
DECEMBER 2011. IMAGE COURTESY OF TAMIL GUARDIAN.

5.
Another project that encourages creative writing as a way to discuss
post-war society in Sri Lanka is Write-To-Reconcile. During her November
visit to Sri Lanka, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said of the
program: And the lesson of the project is a crucial one: When we make
efforts to know and listen to one another... [w]e will know that those other

people are not different from us, or at least not that different. We will treat
them, as we ourselves would hope to be treated, with dignity. Does the
Silenced Shadows contest have a similar role to play?
6.
Im not familiar with the [Write-To-Reconcile] program; however, any
program or project on reconciliation should start from acknowledgment. So
first its the responsibility of the perpetrators and majority community to
acknowledge what happened to the Tamil people in the last stages of the
war. Without that acknowledgement, nothing can move forward. I would be
asking, How are these programs facilitating acknowledgment? That is the
question I would be asking everyone.
Im also asking if the government of Sri Lanka or any [of the countrys]
southern civil society organizations are willing to show the No Fire
Zone documentary. There is [now] a Sinhala version available. That would
be an ethical, critical step in the direction of solidarity and
acknowledgment. Its not only a good documentary but also recorded our
anguish. It would begin the project of acknowledgement. They could show
this documentary to the Sinhalese public. So far, no one has initiated doing
that.
The other thing is that the Sinhalese journalists and writers
that acknowledged that what happened to Tamils at the end of the war was
genocide are all in exile -- [from the members of] Journalists for Democracy
in Sri Lanka, [plus individuals including] Bashana Abeywardane, Manjula
Jayawardena, and several others. They cant even go back to Sri Lanka.
They wrote in Sinhala and have contributed enormously to revealing what
happened during the final stages of the war. There is only a small group of
Sinhalese activists, writers, and artists that have really acknowledged what
happened to the Tamil people. Gordon Weiss book and Frances
Harrisons book have been translated into Sinhala. Recently a collection of
Sinhala poetry, The Dead Island, was published in Sri Lanka. Every single
poem is in solidarity with the Tamils. This is what I call acknowledgment -very small progress in Sinhalese voices in solidarity with the Tamil struggle
-- small but very important.
6. This month, on Human Rights Day, Sri Lankas Foreign Minister Mangala
Samaraweera announced that Sri Lanka would sign the International
Convention on Enforced Disappearances. What are your thoughts?
I think this is a very important and necessary thing. Im happy theyre doing
that. There are all kinds of other U.N. treaties [that Sri Lankan officials]
need to sign and ratify. They also need to overhaul the criminal justice
system in Sri Lanka to address a lot of other issues. However, the one
crucial difficulty is that, in the past thirty years, the Sri Lankan state has

become so powerfully militarized. Whatever the politicians and government

want to implement, they will not be able to do it if the military objects to it.
In a sense, were looking at some kind of parallel to Pakistan, where the
military is not accountable to the parliament.
Slowly, the power of the military has become so strong and the prime
minister, president, any of them -- they are in a sense helpless in
antagonizing the military. For example, there are decisions to release all the
lands in Jaffna confiscated by the military to their rightful owners -- but if
the military says no, that is a no. Evidence of secret detention centers in
Trincomalee was given to the prime minister. He asked the military
commanders and they [essentially] said, No we dont have such things.
The prime minister then said to Tamil politicians, I checked with the
military and they said they dont have [any detention centers]. This is
going to be the case again and again when it comes to demilitarization and
implementation of all kinds of things.
What then?
It is life
as usual.
The morning sun
on bare earth
above me
grass.
Sometimes coming home
wanting to announce
before opening the door,
turning aside
to hawk and spit,
from inside
the sound of ammas cough.
I waited
to open the door.
The world outside
as before
lay calm.
-- from Two Mornings and a Late Night from You Cannot Turn Away,
translated by Chelva Kanaganayakam

7. Regarding your poem Two Mornings and a Late Night from the
book You Cannot Turn Away, to what extent do you consider this
poem and others you wrote during the war to be documentary
works?

This poem narrates a true story of what happened to me as a university student. It was the first
day when the government first enacted the Prevention of Terrorism Act in July 1979 and
unleashed the military. They sent a commander from Colombo who was given a three month
mandate to wipe out terrorism in Jaffna. He came and arrested [...] people and killed them that
night. We were university students at the time staying in a house near the university. We were
all arrested but luckily none of us were killed. The PTA was declared in the morning; this
happened that night.

Gowri Koneswaran is a Tamil American writer, performing artist, and lawyer whose family
immigrated to the U.S. from Sri Lanka. Her poetry and peer-reviewed articles have appeared
in arts and science journals. She is co-editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly and senior poetry
editor at Jaggery.
Posted by Thavam