Normalising The Abnormalcy – Reflections On Self-Determination, Justice & Peace In Post-War Sri Lanka
By Kumaravadivel Guruparan –June 22, 2016
Guruparan Kumaravadivel
I am deeply honoured by this invitation to deliver the Maamanithar Prof Christopher Jeyaratnam Eliezer’s memorial lecture for the year 2016. It will be pretentious for me in these preliminary remarks to claim an understanding Prof. Eliezer’s achievements in the field of mathematical physics. Despite coming from a family of physicists, physics or any of the natural sciences never rubbed off on me.
Thankfully for me the reason why we are remembering Prof. Eliezer today is not necessarily for his splendid achievements in physics but for his contribution to public life and particularly to the Tamil public sphere in Australia. One of his towering achievements in public life was the establishment of the organisation that organises this memorial lecture and the Tamil schools that it runs in Melbourne. Prof. Eliezer was also a vocal advocate of the cause of Tamil self-determination and lent his credibility to various initiatives that sought to highlight the plight of the Tamil people and their legitimate right to self-determination.
Prof C.J. Eliezer
It occurs to me that one of the biggest takeaways for young activists from Prof. Eliezer’s life was his willingness, given his stature and social status, to ‘dirty’ his hands so to speak and dabble in political advocacy. The conventional wisdom for academics that you stick to your academic terrain, do not venture out of your field of expertise, and even if you are an expert in the field, keep clear of politics because it is too dirty to be involved, is deeply rooted. The fear of the stain, the desire to be on the right side of history and a non-existent notion of neutrality which is better described as aloofness, has engulfed the academia. Very rarely do academics take positions on controversial issues. I do not want to over emphasisie or self-gloat the importance of the academia, it is important that we know our limitations, our class privileges and that we particularly don’t technicalise what should be open and public discourse. But academics precisely because they are a privileged class should take the front line of advocacy, I believe, during difficult times.
On the other hand we also live in an extremely toxic political culture. Political debate and discourse has been deciphered by labels and camps and not really content. Rather than engaging in debates about what is the right thing to do we are permanently looking for hidden motives and intentions. Our political discourse has become one of spins and counter spins of conspiracy theories. Vicious personal attacks have become the norm of political discourse and it is no surprise that academics are discouraged by this. But I do think it is precisely because of this environment that academics must step up to the public intellectual role. Prof Eliezer did make this choice. A celebrated mathematics physicist of international standing he did not seek the comfort of a quiet life in the academic. This I think is what makes him a Maamanithar. (The Tamil community has benefited from the work of many public intellectuals some of whom have even lost their lives in such a pursuit – for example Taraki Sivaram and Rajani Thiranagama. My lamentation about the academia is from a perception of the present context.)
