| 28 November 2003 | The Dead Continue to Live in our Memory -
Prof. Chandrakanthan at the Memorial Service in Toronto, 28 November 2003 “If some of us are alive today to remember our dead, we should never forget that as Tamils we survived purely by chance” said Professor Chandrakanthan while addressing members of the faculty and students of the Scarborough, Mississauga and Metro Toronto campus of the University of Toronto at the Tamil Heroes’ Day memorial Service organized by the Toronto University Tamil Students’ Association (TUSA) and held at the University’s Hart House Auditorium on Thursday night. Hart House, a prestigious Gothic architectural monument that adorns the University is in the heart of the city of Toronto. A large number of students were present at this service which included a magnificent display of Tamil cultural and funerary art forms, light and flower offerings with music, liberation-songs, drama and Tamil classical dance. The event was organized by Mr. Ashwin, Vice-President for Cultural Affairs in TUSA.
In his address Professor Chandrakanthan said that memory is twofold, we remember the dead and we remember the killers. “Having witnessed many a scene of human carnage perpetrated by the Sri Lankan State apparatus, I also remember the killers, the Sinhala soldiers and commanders and it causes in me despair and distress. These men were educated in leading military academies, share an ancient culture, they dressed and ate like any other humans, but nothing prevented them from bombing and blasting helpless Tamil children.
When I remember the killed, the victims, the helpless Tamil women, men and children I look for a thousand reasons to hope for their sake and that of their dear nation and people for whom they have sacrificed their lives. I will never claim to speak for the dead. How can I? Can words be more powerful than their death and the manner in which they endured it? Their smashed limbs, slain bodies and charred flesh and bones have already spoken a language that is far more eloquent than our weak human words. I was in Jaffna when 120 Tamil civilians were bombed and killed by the Sri Lankan air force fighter jets in Navaly, I was there when 38 children were killed in Nagarkovil. More recently, the unpardonable brutalization of Tamil children in Bindunuwewa can never be erased from our memory. To remember the dead is the duty of the living, in our memory they continue to live” “Our hope for freedom as a people and a nation should never be de-linked from the past. Forgetfulness of the past is a social sin. Memory is a virtue. As the murdered, mutilated and maimed people of Tamil Eelam we should constantly re-trace the blood-soaked foot prints of the past. The refusal to communicate or transmit an experience that embodies the collective suffering, anguish, misery, helplessness, torture and even brutal death of a people amounts to the betrayal of the very people. We have to struggle with words against the mute silence of the international community that did nothing to prevent the death of women and children. There are many nations that crow loudly about human rights but these very nations became accomplices in the genocidal scheme of the State of Sri Lanka.”
Despite the cold weather a large number of people were present for the memorial service and the cultural program. |
