Michael Roberts, courtesy of groundviews, where it wasposted on 20 May 2011,

Some sections of the Tamil intelligentsia remain bitter and defiant today after the demise of their plans for national self-determination. “We are a defeated people,” said one articulate professional in the Jaffna Peninsula in June 2010 in an unsolicited remark that conveyed his defiance.  The heavy presence of security forces and the proportion of land occupied by the various arms of state power in the northern reaches were among the grievances throbbing in the hearts of those hostile to the new dispensation (a body whose proportions I am in no position to assess). Thus, the HSZ spaces and the many buildings that had been commandeered by the three armed services since 1995 and 2009 remained a bone of contention when I was in the Lanka in 2010.

 The government is not blind to these sentiments. It has periodically reduced goblets of its territorial tentacles and proclaimed these steps far and wide. One of the army’s ‘acquisitions’ was the old Subash Hotel in Jaffnatown which had been turned into the local Army HQ. So, it was with some implicit breast-beating that the government recently told the world that the “new headquarters of the 51st Brigade of the Army [had been] opened on the Koppai Cemeteryground” on the 4^th March and that they were in the process of vacating Subash Hotel.[1]

  Homage ot a maaveerar kinsperson at Koppay, 2004 -Pic source unknown

Koppai was one of many tuyilam illams, or “sleeping houses,” built by the LTTE to commemorate their māvīrar or “great heroes” (also translated loosely as “martyrs”). In terms of the Tamil cultural classifications the translation of this term as “cemeteries” may be a misnomer, but one should not be too pedantic on this point. Likewise, it is possible that many epitaphs did not contain any remains.

 Kopay natukal -Pic by Roberts, 24 Nov. 2004

My criticism[2] of the government’s obliteration of the LTTE”s tuyilam illam was directed along two paths: (A) that it was an act of desecration and “not done”’ and (B) that it was unintelligent politics in the sense that the epitaphs could highlight the LTTE”s folly rather than serving as an inspiration for rejuvenation, while their obliteration could also activate sentiments of vengeance. The second line of reasoning spelt out above is a form of instrumental pragmatic reasoning.

 Sarvananthan has questioned my argument in amiable style by emphasizing that the tuyilam illam were monuments of commemoration not “real” cemeteries with the remains of the dead. There are no remains, so there is no desecration. Continue reading →