CONTENTS OF THIS SECTION Last updated 14/11/07
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| "I desire that I write for myself alone. It is when that which is buried in me finds expression in words, that I myself come to truly know what was buried in me. It may well be that the reason that I write is because I feel that I may discover more and more and come to know what else may be inside me. As I continue to write, and as more and more experiences unfold from within me, and as I become subject to these experiences, it seems to me that I may, in a way, make it possible for me to know who I am. There are those who find that the words that I write to understand about myself, also help them to understand themselves. They are my readers. When they hear that the key that I fashioned for my lock, may also open their locks, they come in search of my house. When they come, it appears to me that it is entirely appropriate that I should share my understanding... So that a writer may protect this nature, this way of life, I value freedom of expression as the most important freedom. I cannot say that at the present time I have sufficient courage or awareness of truth to practice that which I have so easily described. These are qualities that I will need to develop. I believe that it will be possible for me to do so..." Sundara Ramasamy (translation by Nadesan Satyendra from the Tamil original)
"Only connect!...Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die." E.M.Forster - Howards End
"...The desire to share knowing with another human being is a fundamental one. It is at heart a desire to make your thoughts known to the other and to learn whether they are understood, even shared - always with the chance that I will mean more than I meant before, because of the way the other has understood what I have said. The process is one that truly works from both the inside out and the outside in, as we each become different persons through our interaction with one another..." - Deanne Kuhn, Professor of Psychology and Education, Columbia University in *Piaget Vygotsky & Beyond: Future Issues for Developmental Psychology and Education, 1997
"The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth... Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this... As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well being, so I do this not because I want anything from anyone... Jiddu Krishnamurthy 1929
"...I may be asked whether I am a prince or a legislator that I should be writing about politics. I answer no: and indeed that that is my reason for doing so. If I were a prince or a legislator I should not waste my time saying what ought to be done; I should do it or keep silent...the very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affairs, however little influence my voice may have in them... Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they..." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract,1762
"...the moment I feel that my freedom is indissolubly linked with that of all other men, it cannot be demanded of me that I use it to approve the enslavement of a part of these men. Thus, whether he is an essayist, a pamphleteer, a satirist, or a novelist, whether he speaks only of individual passions or whether he attacks the social order, the writer, a free man addressing free men, has only one subject - freedom... ...One does not write for slaves. The art of prose is bound up with the only regime in which prose has meaning, democracy. When one is threatened, the other is too. And it is not enough to defend them with the pen. A day comes when the pen is forced to stop, and the writer must then take up arms. Thus, however you might have come to it, whatever the opinions you might have professed, literature throws you into battle. Writing is a certain way of wanting freedom; once you have begun, you are committed, willy-nilly." Jean-Paul Sartre, in What is Literature, 1948
"...A writer writes to a great extent to be read - as for those who say they don’t, let us admire them but not believe them.." Albert Camus |
| Selected Speeches & Writings
Nadesan Satyendra - நடேசன் சத்தியேந்திரா "...At the time of writing I never think of what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth; I have saved my memory an undue strain; and what is more, whenever I have been obliged to compare my writing even of fifty years ago with the latest, I have discovered no inconsistency between the two. But friends who observe inconsistency will do well to take the meaning that my latest writing may yield unless, of course, they prefer the old. But before making the choice they should try to see if there is not an underlying and abiding consistency between the two seeming inconsistencies..." - Mahatma Gandhi "... There are in every part of the world men who search. I am not a prisoner of history. I should not seek there for the meaning of my destiny. I should constantly remind myself that the real leap consists in the introduction of invention into existence. In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself..." Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks, 1952 "
truth and knowledge are an idle gleam, if they do not bring power to change the world
" - Sri Aurobindo in Savitri |
| From Matter to Life to Mind... | Violence & Integrity, 2001 | On the Gayatri Mantra, 2000 | Gandhi & Salman Rushdie, 1998 | One World & the Tamil Nation, 1998 | Ha Ha, Aha & AAh...!, 1998 | Subramaniya Bharathy, 1998 | Mahatma Gandhi, 1998 | Spirituality & the Tamil Nation, 1998 | Meeting Jiddu Krishnamurthy, 1998 | What is a nation?, 1997 | Relevance of Sri Aurobindo, 1985 | On the Bhavad Gita, 1981 | Man, the Ultimate Answer, 1980 | Conflict Resolution | Comment on Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist Ideology: Implications for Politics and Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka | Sri Lanka - Tamil Eelam: Getting to Yes, 2006 | Sri Lanka Reneges, 2005 | On Getting Along, 2001 | Kadirgamar's Baby Talk, 2001 | The Singer Error, 2001 | Sri Lanka - Tamil Eelam: Getting to Yes, 2000 | A Question of Peace, 1999 | Why Division?, 1998 | The Tactics of Jeff and Mutt , 1994 | Towards a Just Peace?, 1994 | Nobel Laureates Peace Plan, 1993 | Power and Principle, 1994 | To Talk or not to talk?, 1990 | Peter Mares Interview, 1990 | Sri Lanka Constitution: 13th Amendment - Devolution or Comic Opera?, 1988 | Thimpu Declaration - the Path of Reason, 1987 | Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | LTTE & Terrorism, 1998 | Tamil Informers, 1998 | Gandhi & Pirabaharan, 1998 | Gandhi & Tamil Eelam, 1998 | LTTE & Fanaticism, 1997 | LTTE & Fascism, 1997 | When Pirabaharan Triumphs, 1998 | Thiyagam & the Tamil Expatriate, 1993 | International Frame of the Struggle for Tamil Eelam | Thank you, Ambassador Robert Blake..., 2007 | International Dimensions of the Conflict in Sri Lanka, 2007 | On Nicholas Burns, Mangala Samaraweera & US Foreign Policy , 2007 | Black Pebbles & White Pebbles [also in PDF], 2006 | Ambassador E. Ashley Wills, 2001,2004 | Mr. Collacott is Appalled..., 2000 | A National Lottery?, 1999 | NATO, Kosovo & Tamil Eelam, 1999 | The Buddha Smiled, 1998 | Understanding Kosovo, 1998 | Kadirgamar's "Internal Matter", 1997 | Cynicism of real politick, 1994 | Irritants to Calibration, 1993 | India & US - the Calibrated Approach, 1992 | Japan's Cheque Book Diplomacy, 1992 | Tamils - a Nation without a State speech at Eelam Tamil Association, Sydney 1989 (40 minutes) | Two Voices but One Policy, 1984 | India & the Struggle for Tamil Eelam | Tamil Nation & the Unity of India, 2001 | Rajiv Gandhi - the Verdict, 1999 | Good Bye, Non Alignment!, 1993 | Politics of the Cuckoos Nest, 1992 | Rajiv Gandhi - the Secret Trial, 1992 | India & Tamil Eelam, 1992 | Brahminism & Mr.Taraki, 1992 | Indian Ban & Sri Lanka Offensive, 1992 | Ram! O Ram!, 1992 | The Indo Sri Lanka Agreement, 1988 | Thirteenth Amendment: Devolution or Comic Opera, 1988 | Tamil Eelam, Kurds & Bhutan, 1985 | Self Determination | The Moral Legitimacy of the Tamil Eelam Struggle for Freedom, 2007 | The Charge is Genocide, the Struggle is for Freedom,1998, Revised 2006, 2007 | A Simple Question, 1998 | Package & Referendum, 1997 | The Sinhala Left, 1997 | Boundaries of Tamil Eelam, 1993 | Select Committee Farce, 1993 | Thanmaanam, 1988 | We, too, are a people, 1985 | Time is Running Out, 1979 | Tamils & the Struggle | Remembering Mamanithar Thillainadarajah Jeyakumar, 2007 | Tomorrow is Maaveerar Naal, 2006 | Sivanayagam and "Sri Lanka:Witness to History" 2005 | Tribute to Professor Eliezer, 2001 | Raj Swarnan 2000 | M.K.Eelaventhan, 2000 | Sri Sabaratnam - Revisited, 1999 | Neelan Thiruchelvam, 1999 | What is the point of all this?, 1999 | Appapillai Amirthalingam, 1999 | Maha Veerar Naal, 1998 | Hypocrisy & Expatriate Tamils, 1997 | Release Sivanayagam, 1991 | Role of Tamil Intellectuals, 1991 | Kanthasamy: The Karma Yogi, 1989 | Sri Sabaratnam Memorial Lecture, 1987 | Dr.K.Arumugam, 1986 | Human Rights & Democracy, Sri Lanka Style | Amnesty, Cricket and the War in Sri Lanka, 2007 | On Terrorism & Liberation, 2006 | Child Soldiers and the Law 2004 | Democracy Continues, Sri Lanka Style, 1999 | Response to Asbjorn Eide, 1998 | Truth and Propaganda, 1998 | Torture - Sri Lanka's 20 Year Record,1998 | The Forced Muslim Evacuation, 1996 | Whither Amnesty? , 1994 | Why did UNP lose South?, 1994 | Premadasa's Dilemma, 1992 | Burning of the Jaffna Library, 1992 | Premadasa Impeachment, 1991 | Colonisation of the East, 1990 | The Fuel Blockade, 1987 | Democracy, Sri Lanka Style, 1985 | Ten Questions & Mr.Cox, 1984 | Human Rights & Information, 1984 | Massacre in Chunnakam, 1984 | Address at Trial of Thangathurai & Kuttimuni, 1982 | On National Unity, 1979 | Language in 1978 Constitution, 1978 | Sinhala Buddhist Ethno - Nationalism | Sinhala chauvinism bears its fangs, 1994 | President Wijetunga's Tamil bashing, 1994 | Peace with Justice, 1992 | Ethnic Problem? What Ethnic Problem!, 1993 | D.B.(What ethnic problem?) Wijetunga, 1993 | The Talkative Brigade, 1993 | Multi Ethnic Plural Society (2), 1993 | Multi Ethnic Plural Society (1), 1992 | Armed Struggle for Tamil Eelam | Sri Lanka's Unwinnable War, 1993 | DVRO Debacle and Foreign Aid, 1993 | Operation Yal Express Derailed, 1993 | No white flag in Tamil Eelam, 1991 | Deputy Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne, 1990 | War on the People?, 1990 | |
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