I found this instillation at an art museum in Colombo—several hundred drawings by young Sri Lankans from around the country, depicting (I think, from what one guy there told me) what they hoped the island nation would look like for the new year.
Almost all of them featured some combination of trees and rivers and people holding hands under the sun—cute and uninteresting.
But... there were also just a dozen or so that provided glimpses of life in war, and these I loved. You read a lot about hospitals and rehab centers using art therapy as ways to reach kids, and find out what they're truly experiencing. And in the middle of a war-fueled propaganda battle, these little bits of truth are gold.
A bunch showed life in UN tents—the hope for 2009 is a tent for every refugee?
Some depicted actual fighting—stuff they'd seen? Or just 10 year old boys making similar drawings to ones I did in third grade?
the tamil tigers are an attacking chicken?
A bunch showed life with an enemy:
A Tamil Tiger about to pounce? Maybe.. but that deer looks evil.
And some, I thought, were just intense and beautiful:
"Farther away were the wars of terror, the gunmen in love with the sound of their shells, where the main purpose of war had become war."– Michael Ondaajte, again.
The Sri Lankan government has been fighting the Tamil Tigers for 26 years. I'm 26, and showed up in Colombo last week. The war ended Sunday. I'm just saying...
But no really—what a wonderful and terrible time to be there.
In reality, wars don't truly end until power incentives dictate that peace deals are signed, and this government military victory has done nothing to ease ethnic tensions. The Tigers who escaped the war zone will still probably carry out a protracted terrorism and guerrilla warfare campaign (see the angry reaction from Tamils all over the world—also check out M.I.A.'s happy twitter stream).
And this victory cost of thousands and thousands of innocent lives, and highlighted the dangers of an administration unwilling to work with NGOs and the press (notice the non-Sri Lanka datelines on all NY Times stories, and the non-byline at the bottom of this one). Most of the aid workers I talked to think the island has bigger problems still ahead, and war crimes investigations might re-inflame tensions as atrocities are exposed.
But the end of fighting is good for everyone for now, and more than 60,000 innocents can finally stagger out of the war zone. I think that's worth celebrating.
On Saturday, the president declared victory on Saturday, but things in Colombo still just seemed more tense than anything. I think a lot of people were probably expecting reprisal suicide attacks.
But, on Sunday, when the Tigers announced that they were "laying down our guns," the city erupted into street celebrations. And by Monday and Tuesday, when the rumor that Tigers leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran had been killed had fully spread, things really got fun. Flags on every bus and tuk tuk. Fireworks stopping traffic right and left. Choppers and fighter jets buzzing my 16th floor hotel room.
This sort of tiered unfolding of relief makes sense. A huge part of every war is a protracted propaganda fight, and the Tigers admitting even limited defeat (without threatening immediate retaliation) prolly had a much bigger impact than anything the president declared.
But more so, while war affects everyone in a nation, conventional fighting never took place in the capital. So the main fear was terrorism and assassination, with which the Tigers had given Colombo a lion's share (get the pun?!!). So winning a conventional war in a more distant place itself was probably less important than crippling the terror capabilities of the Tigers and knocking off their messiah-like leader.
Today was declared a national holiday. I wish I could've stayed one more day to see it, even if celebrating a war won with atrocity and a victory that will do little to win peace seems uneasy at best—even if the purpose of celebrating war is to ignore it.
"I want you to understand the archaeological surround of a fact. Or you'll be like one of those journalists who files reports about flies and scabs while staying at the Galle Face Hotel. That false empathy and blame." – from this fantastic novel.
I read this while on a veranda overlooking a roaring stretch of Indian Ocean at the Galle Face Hotel.
This is sort of an odd trip. I'm in a place that's dominating the global headlines with a massive unfolding catastrophe, but have no capacity to really understand what's going on or to contribute to any sort of solution. I'm here, essentially then, to sight see–but due to security and scheduling conflicts, I can't really travel to anywhere worth seeing.
So.. I'm just here at a terrible and historic moment, reading novels on the perfect Galle Face veranda, talking to tuk tuk drivers about their families, and having long, late-night conversations with a handful of USAID workers here doing the dirty work. In other words... feigning empathy and blame.
Observations:
– Inside the Colombo airport, there are no less than 35 shops selling washing machines and refrigerators. This says something severe about the culture.. but I'm not sure yet what.
– It's so much of what I loved about India. Technicolored temples. Awkward young men in pants and button-downs cuddling in public places and oppressive heat with young loves. Soldiers holding hands. Head wobbles and sing-song. Color and more color and life. Wonderful food. KFCs on every corner.
– The weather reminds me most of Monrovia. Just a flattening, heavy, salty humidity.
– Huge, huge military presence. Soldiers on every bridge. Checkpoints after checkpoints. Bunkers and anti-aircraft guns all over. It's nothing more than a minor inconvenience for me (I think everything is interesting), but I imagine it's less fun for the 200,000 ethnic Tamils here in the city. – I've sensed feelings of tension, fear of terrorism, optimism/relief from the ethnic Sinhala, anger/marginalization from the Tamils, embarrassment from all that the country's reputation is getting skewered by the international press. Every westerner I've met describes it differently... and I wonder how much is just what I want to be sensing.
– I've decided, in indulgent over-generalization, that Thais are more polite and less friendly than South Asians. Waiters/shopkeepers/etc here sort of sneer when I walk in, before asking 20 minutes of questions about my love marriage and hair products. I've gotten into almost as many random conversations with strangers in three days here as in seven months in Thailand. I've missed this.
New satellite images appear to show evidence of recent heavy shelling in a government-designated civilian safe zone in Sri Lanka, a rights group says.
The images show crater marks and considerable population displacement between 6 and 10 May.
Human Rights Watch says the images and witness testimony they have gathered contradict troops' claims that they are not using heavy weaponry.
From a newspaper I found here:
Security Forces on the verge of completing the humanitarian operation in the Vanni have confined the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) to one square kilometre in the battlefield.
The fight against terrorism is going on successfully.
Some depicted actual fighting—stuff they'd seen? Or just 10 year old boys making similar drawings to ones I did in third grade?
A Tamil Tiger about to pounce? Maybe.. but that deer looks evil.
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