LEARNING WITH OUR ELDERS /// Relearning Solidarity in Tamil Eelam

Transcribed and translated from Tamil by Anushani Alagarajah.

For this second opus of our “Learning With Our Elders” series, we are happy to present this account of a Eelam Tamil activist, Arivuchelvi (anonymized), who has been fighting the Sri Lankan state for the past 16 years to obtain truth and justice for her husband who has been forcefully disappeared during the last year of the 53-year long genocide of the Tamil people. Following our prompt to describe a teachable moment following a (collective or individual) mistake or failure, she describes how she learned that political organizing must be grounded in community-centered, accountable, and boundary-conscious solidarity to avoid the exploitation or cooptation of the movement.We are grateful to our contributor, Anushani Alagarajah, for collecting her words and translating them into English.

Anushani Alagarajah: Sri Lanka has one of the world’s highest numbers of enforced disappearances. The Tamil women in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka have been fighting for over three decades demanding answers and justice for enforced disappearances. One of the longest protests Sri Lanka has witnessed is on disappearances organized by and sustained by Tamil women across the Tamil homeland with the support of many different groups. These women broke many barriers by engaging in activities not typically assigned to them, being loud, demanding answers, holding the state accountable, and keeping the collective sense of justice alive. However, a movement has its own struggles especially in a society that is politicized, securitized, and misogynist. Arivuchelvi in this text ponders out loud her journey in the movement and where she and her peers are at their journey of learning.

Arivuchelvi: I have been searching for my husband who was forcefully disappeared for the last 16 years. I have been a part of all kinds of protests and community activities regarding justice for enforced disappearances. I spent most of my hours of each day thinking about “the cause,” speaking about “the cause,” speaking to other families of the disappeared about what we can do for “the cause…” In 2017, the families of the disappeared started a sit-in protest demanding answers for the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared family members. I’ve been a part of this protest since the beginning. I’ve organized and mobilized so many protests and gatherings, and I have led a large group of families of the disappeared in my district as we built this movement. The protest that we started eight years ago is the longest-running protest in Sri Lanka. It started as a continuous sit-in protest but, since COVID, it has become a symbolic monthly protest across the Tamil homeland.