தமிழ்த் தேசியம்

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
- Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C 

Home

 Whats New

Trans State NationTamil EelamBeyond Tamil NationComments

Home  > Truth is a Pathless Land > Selected Writings - Nadesan Satyendra >  Reflections  


CONTENTS
OF THIS SECTION

Last updated
14/11/07

"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, 2000Gandhi & Salman Rushdie, 1998
One World & the Tamil Nation, 1998Ha Ha, Aha & AAh...!, 1998
Subramaniya Bharathy, 1998Mahatma Gandhi, 1998
Spirituality & the Tamil Nation, 1998Meeting Jiddu Krishnamurthy, 1998

What is a nation?, 1997

Relevance of Sri Aurobindo, 1985
On the  Bhavad Gita, 1981Man, 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, 2005On Getting Along, 2001
Kadirgamar's Baby Talk, 2001The Singer Error, 2001
Sri Lanka - Tamil Eelam: Getting to Yes, 2000
A Question of Peace, 1999Why Division?, 1998
The Tactics of Jeff and Mutt , 1994Towards a Just Peace?, 1994
Nobel Laureates Peace Plan, 1993Power and Principle, 1994
To Talk or not to talk?, 1990Peter 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, 1998Tamil Informers, 1998
Gandhi & Pirabaharan, 1998Gandhi & Tamil Eelam, 1998
LTTE & Fanaticism, 1997LTTE & 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?, 1999NATO, Kosovo & Tamil Eelam, 1999
The Buddha Smiled, 1998Understanding Kosovo, 1998
Kadirgamar's "Internal Matter", 1997Cynicism 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, 1999Good Bye, Non Alignment!, 1993
Politics of the Cuckoos Nest, 1992Rajiv Gandhi - the Secret Trial, 1992
India & Tamil Eelam, 1992Brahminism & Mr.Taraki, 1992
Indian Ban & Sri Lanka Offensive, 1992
Ram! O Ram!, 1992The 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, 1998Package & Referendum, 1997
The Sinhala Left, 1997Boundaries of Tamil Eelam, 1993
Select Committee Farce, 1993Thanmaanam, 1988
We, too, are a people, 1985Time 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, 2001Raj Swarnan 2000
M.K.Eelaventhan, 2000Sri Sabaratnam - Revisited, 1999
Neelan Thiruchelvam, 1999What is the point of all this?, 1999
Appapillai Amirthalingam, 1999Maha Veerar Naal, 1998
Hypocrisy & Expatriate Tamils, 1997Release Sivanayagam, 1991
Role of Tamil Intellectuals, 1991Kanthasamy: The Karma Yogi, 1989
Sri Sabaratnam Memorial Lecture, 1987Dr.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, 1998Truth and Propaganda, 1998
Torture - Sri Lanka's 20 Year Record,1998The Forced  Muslim Evacuation, 1996
Whither Amnesty? , 1994Why did UNP lose South?, 1994
Premadasa's Dilemma, 1992Burning of the Jaffna Library, 1992
Premadasa Impeachment, 1991Colonisation of the East, 1990
The Fuel Blockade, 1987Democracy, Sri Lanka Style, 1985
Ten Questions & Mr.Cox, 1984Human Rights & Information, 1984
Massacre in Chunnakam, 1984
Address at Trial of Thangathurai & Kuttimuni, 1982
On National Unity, 1979Language in 1978 Constitution, 1978
Sinhala Buddhist Ethno - Nationalism
Sinhala chauvinism bears its fangs, 1994
President Wijetunga's Tamil bashing, 1994Peace 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), 1993Multi Ethnic Plural Society (1), 1992
Armed Struggle for Tamil Eelam
Sri Lanka's Unwinnable War, 1993DVRO Debacle and Foreign Aid, 1993
Operation Yal Express Derailed, 1993No white flag in Tamil Eelam, 1991
Deputy Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne, 1990
 War on the People?, 1990
 


ramasamy.gif (32973 bytes)

Mail UsCopyright. All Rights ReservedHome