Ru Freeman: "On Sal Mal Lane"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-06-03/ru-freeman-sal-mal-lane
Sri Lankan women walk along the sea walls of the Galle Fort in Galle, Sri Lanka in In 2009, the year Tamil Tigers admitted defeat in their 25-year war with the Sri Lankan government that left more than 70,000 people dead. (AP File Photo/Gurinder Osan)
A journalist uses her experiences growing up during Sri Lanka's civil war to inform her latest novel. Ru Freeman describes how growing religious and ethnic tensions affected children from diverse backgrounds living on an ordinary lane in Colombo in the years preceding the war.
Guests
Ru Freeman
activist, journalist and author of "A Disobedient Girl."
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Read An Excerpt
From "On Sal Mal Lane" by Ru Freeman. Copyright © 2013 by Ru Freeman. Excerpted with permission of Graywolf Press. All rights reserved.
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In the north there are still disappearances and there is still confiscation of lands for Sinhalese and government use, there is still discrimination that the government does not want the world to know about! This needs to be part of the picture being presented.
The book sounds good! The discussion is incomplete.
See Frances Harrison of the BBC's book, "Still Counting the Dead."
Ru Freeman's view is that of a Sinhalese living in Colombo. Tamils were regularly abused and killed in the north before the pogrom in 1983.
The war ended when the Sri Lankan army, entirely made up of Sinhalese, killed over 70 thousand Tamil civilians in the last few weeks alone.
Sinhala army, larger now than during war, continues the occupation of Tamil north and east. Considerable abuses and wide spread denial of rights continue to this day. They are busy putting up Buddhist statues and catering to the Sinhala war tourists from the South. What Ru presents is a very limited view of the victor who only knows the south.
Diane Rehm interviewed a Sri Lankan southerner, un-familiar with the Sri Lankan government oppression of Tamils in the Northeast before 2009 (and even now), and who now, follows essentially the government's line. I was on hold to speak but did not get a chance.
I was in Sri Lanka's North in 1990's and saw first hand the government's indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilian areas - much like the what Assad's government is doing in Syria. The government forces were confined to their camps and shelling from the camps and dropping fire-bombs from air crafts, while the government enforced a food/medicine blockade to the North.
We were terrorized by the attacks by government forces and were starved -all this while the government was airing propaganda on radio that they are helping and feeding Tamils in the North.
The government's oppression of basic rights and freedom of Tamils in the Northeast have not changed even after the war ended, and its propaganda continues.
Now, the same number of soldiers who fought the war in the north are still occupying and controlling every-day lives of the people in the former war-zones. People are afraid to speak their mind, their lands are occupied by the military and more are confiscated. The author is unable or unwilling to see all these. Real peace and freedom cannot come about under a complete military rule. Is that hard to understand?
I have not read the book, but will soon, since it will bring memories of my past. Her point of view was from the part of the land where Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslims and Burghers lived and mingled freely and communicated via a common language, English. With that background, I am sure the story will make sense. If one moves away from that society and go to any other part of the country, the potential for mixing of different ethnicities is minimal. As such in these regions the majority in that region, be it Sinhalese or Tamils have no opportunity to mix and learn how others live, feel, etc. Only knowledge they have is what the politicians have preached them about the other ethnicity, to their own advantage to gain and maintain power. The ordinary folks have no chance to experience the differences in a meaningful way. There is no chance for intermarriage. The Tamils in the North and East hate the Sinhalese with whom they have no personal interaction; The Sinhalese hate the Tamils, since they are all believed to be terrorists. Until a statesman, a visionary like Dalai Lama is born who sincerely believe that the country would be better off getting all ethnicities living in harmony the country’s future is bleak. But then again, the politicians from all ethnicities will be there to influence the masses negatively to stay in power. Best wishes Ru.