The destruction of the Mullivaikkal monument at the University of Jaffna on January 8 is an erasure of collective memory, writes Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan in The Diplomat.
Ananthavinayagan, a lecturer in public international law writes:
The Sri Lankan government is forcing upon the international community an erasure of memory while asserting and maintaining its own narrative of majoritarian victory. The existence of memory for the minority poses, in the view of the government, the possibility of a revival of terrorism. It is also about dominating public discourse which should cater towards the future of a majoritarian state in which Tamil are permitted to stay – if they remain within prescriptive legal and ethnic parameters. But what the government repeatedly does not understand is that their ill-calculated actions cause anger and frustration. The fact that it chooses to ignore is that a postwar society needs memory of the past to avoid repetition and endow dignity upon the lost ones.
Read the full article here.
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