{"id":109060,"date":"2020-11-26T16:17:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T23:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109060"},"modified":"2020-11-26T16:17:31","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T23:17:31","slug":"journalists-must-not-use-maveer-or-mahaviru-and-other-glorifying-names-for-suicide-terrorists-who-are-maha-viyaru-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/26\/journalists-must-not-use-maveer-or-mahaviru-and-other-glorifying-names-for-suicide-terrorists-who-are-maha-viyaru-individuals\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalists must NOT use \u201cMaveer\u201d, or \u201cMahaviru\u201d and other glorifying names for suicide terrorists who are \u201cMaha-viyaru\u201d individuals."},"content":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Many English newspapers, and even some Sinhalese language newspapers have carried news items with headlines like Mullaitivu and Jaffna courts prohibit Mahaviru commemorations<\/em>\u201d,\u00a0 Court orders to prohibit Mahaveer Commemorations<\/em>\u201d. To\u00a0 unthinkingly\u00a0 take over the narrative and vocabulary of the pro-Tiger activists and use them in news items and headlines is a corruption of the language.

If journalists need an alternative word, then can refer to these suicide terrorists as Mahaviyaru<\/em>\u201d in Sinhala, and\u00a0 Maaveriyan<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 \u0bae\u0bbe\u0bb5\u0bc6\u0bb1\u0bbf\u0baf\u0ba9\u0bcd\u00a0 in Tamil. This\u00a0 alludes to the fact that these suicidees were not acting rationally, and had\u00a0 become viyaru<\/em>\u201d, i.e., mentally deranged.

The claim made by pro-LTTE writers that they wish to commemorate those who have fallen and sacrificed their lives in their struggle for Tamil rights and aspirations is nonsensical.

If so, why are they not commemorating Mr. Amirthalingam <\/strong>and other leaders of the TULF who were assassinated?

What about the leaders of TELO, EROS, and EPRLF who also rose to liberate\u201d the Tamils, only to be massacred by the LTTE? If there is genuine commemoration, why are they not included. What about people like Mr. Neelan Thiruchlevan<\/strong>?

It seems that these planned commemorations of the Maaveriyan, i.e., the\u00a0 Maaveriyar Naal\u201d exclude those individuals that the LTTE labeled as traitors\u201d, or Thurogi\u201d purely because they followed other, more peaceful approaches to achieving Tamil aspirations. It is clearly evident that the so-called Maaveer\u201d who are commemorated are\u00a0 restricted to those individuals who were mentally so deranged as to blow themselves up to cause maximum violence to civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
LTTE attack on a funeral party in
Akressa, Sri Lanka. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A pro-LTTE writer’s view,\u00a0 published in the Colombo Telegraph (26-11-20) says that The terrorism label given to the LTTE group of Tamil freedom fighters who fought for the peace and freedom of all Tamils in Sri Lanka, is a clear depiction of the Sri Lankan government\u2019s effort to diminish the Tamil struggle and deny the rights of the Tamil population, forcing them to the status of a permanent minority in their own land<\/em>\u201d.

These pro-LTTE spokesmen forget that the LTTE has been identified as a ruthless terrorist group by most countries of the world, and not just by the Sri Lankan government.\u00a0 These individuals forget that their own social analysts and political activists like Mr. Chandrahasan, son of S. J. V. Chelvanayagam, journalists like D. B. S. Jeyraj, or\u00a0 Sebastian Rasalingam have pointed out that the Tigers have killed more Tamils than all the state terror of the Government of Sri Lanka.

Mr. V. Anandasangaree, General Secretary of the Tamil United Liberation Front stated at the 2008 December General Meeting of the party that the LTTE eliminated its own injured cadre and injured civilians as they were considered a liability in their retreat to Nandikadol. Are those individuals being commemorated as well? They are the disappeared and the forgotten buried in the horrors of the LTTE.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0

In Germany, at the end of the war against\u00a0 Hitler, a strong de-Nazification program was undertaken, and there are no commemorations of Nazi warriors\u201d or Nazi Maaveer\u201d allowed, for good reasons. Let us hope that the court rulings against commemorations of Mahaviyaru\u201d individuals auger a new era where the horror of violence against innocent civilians becomes a part of Sri Lanka’s public opinion, irrespective of ethnicity. Violence against civilians cannot be sugarcoated with claims of liberation struggles\u201d.

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada Many English newspapers, and even some Sinhalese language newspapers have carried news items with headlines like Mullaitivu and Jaffna courts prohibit Mahaviru commemorations\u201d,\u00a0 Court orders to prohibit Mahaveer Commemorations\u201d. To\u00a0 unthinkingly\u00a0 take over the narrative and vocabulary of the pro-Tiger activists and use them in news items and headlines is a corruption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}