Sleeping with the enemy who isn’t one
Reviewed by Salil Tripathi
According to the film director Jean-Luc Godard, a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end-but not necessarily in that order. Godard had an important point: reality is messy and making sense may require connecting the dots, as we do with this first novel.
VV Ganeshananthan’s subject is Sri Lanka, the paradise island torn apart by fratricidal conflict since 1983 (or beyond, if you want to look for older hatreds). Ganeshananthan, an American of Sri Lankan (but Tamil) origin, mixes up the sequence, tossing before the reader shards of memories which look like pieces of broken bangles. But when we look at those broken bangles through her kaleidoscope, her twisting of the lens reveals patterns that make it possible to understand aspects of the conflict, even if the horrors cannot be excused.
Nothing is simple about the Sri Lankan conflict, in which (as the writer Suketu Mehta pointed out to me) nobody accuses Muslims of fanaticism, Hindus are suicide bombers, and Buddhists can be brutal. A global terrorism study found that Muslims did not lead the league table of suicide bombers; the Tamil Tigers did.
Ganeshananthan’s story is about one such Tamil Tiger, nearing death, permitted entry into Canada on compassionate grounds. His niece, Yalini, is the protagonist; Yalini’s cousin looks down upon her because of her Westernised ways. Yalini tries to make sense of the disjointed narratives surrounding her.
Through Yalini, Ganeshananthan introduces us to her extended family with the village at its centre, and its fraying with the onset of violence. The ailing uncle is memorable: Yalini has many reasons to be angry with him, not due to the battlefield violence, but because of emotional scars left behind. Yes, his wife died when a bomb exploded. But was she the bomber or the bombed?
Yalini wants to unravel the wounded family’s history through its unions. Each marriage is different in an infinitely subtle way. But the space between the “love marriage” and “arranged marriage” is filled with categories that bleed outside these neat boundaries: “the Self-Arranged Marriage, the Outside Marriage, the Cousin Marriage, the Village Marriage, the Marriage Abroad. There is the Marriage Under Pressure. There is even Marrying the Enemy, who, it turns out, is not the Enemy at all.”
Michael Ondaatje visited Sri Lankan brutality in Anil’s Ghost, about a forensic pathologist returning home to investigate abuses. Romesh Gunesekera dealt with its pain obliquely, in Reef and The Sandglass. Ganeshananthan focuses on the journey of one family, in the process painting a broader truth.
Courtesy: independent.uk
Buy now at Independent Books Direct:
Love Marriage, by VV Ganeshananthan
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Author’s website: http://www.vasugi.com
May 15th, 2008
Full Text of National Peace Council of Sri Lanka Media Release:
The killing of Maheswari Velayutham takes away from the political community another strong personality who headed the Forum for Human Dignity and was also closely associated with the EPDP, a former Tamil militant organisation that is now with the government. She had escaped previous assassination attempts and was aware of the threats to her life, but this did not dissuade her from continuing her work for the rights of the people in Sri Lanka.The National Peace Council condemns the assassination of this activist who assisted victims of war and participated in programmes we organised and who shared her anguish about the war trap that the parties to the conflict were in. In addition, several accounts of human rights violations involving Tamils in the context of the war are being reported by the media.
A tragic example recently highlighted in the media is the rape of two teenage girls and the abduction of one of them in Kalmunai in the presence of their family on the day of the Eastern Provincial Council elections when the presence of security personnel in the area on guard duty was very high. The family alleges that armed men came in a white van who committed the crime on their children. When the mother went to the police station to make a complaint the police reportedly sent her away on the grounds that most officers were on election duty. Later that same night the men returned and took the elder girl away. She is missing since then. The report that the police refused to accept their complaint points to state culpability in the practice of impunity.
In addition, contradicting the claims that abductions and disappearances of Tamils in Colombo have come to an end is the disappearance and abduction in the heart of Colombo of Sinnathurai Varatharajan, a highly reputed tuition master from Jaffna and his cousin. They were allegedly taken away by armed men in uniform who came in a white van. Witnesses were told that they were being taken away for questioning, but they have not reappeared. The National Peace Council appeals to the government to ascertain their whereabouts and ensure their safe return to their families.
We also call on the government to re-organise the security apparatus so that human rights violations listed above do not take place with impunity. The Government should do away with the culture of impunity. It is the bounden duty of any state to protect all its citizens. The state by its failure to protect Tamil civilians may give a message to the world that it is the state of the ethnic majority and excludes the Tamils which can bolster the claim to a separate state among the International community.
Finally, we appeal to the government to immediately release senior journalist and human rights activist, J S Tissainayagam, who has now been in government custody for over-Mr Tissainayagam was detained on the allegation that he had connections with the LTTE. But so far the government has not charged him in a court of law. During the period of the Ceasefire Agreement and peace process from 2002-06, there were many, especially journalists, who made contact with the LTTE for legitimate and peaceful purposes.
As the country prepares to celebrate the holy day of Vesak, we cannot forget that Lord Buddha preached compassion and respect not only for human life but also for the lives of animals. May the spirit of compassion enter the hearts of our country’s decision makers, and may the wisdom of our religious tradition guide them to show their compassion to the victims of human rights abuses, and motivate to solve the country’s problems without harming the lives of innocent Tamil civilians.
Executive Director
On behalf of the Governing Council
National Peace Council of Sri Lanka
May 15th, 2008