{"id":161823,"date":"2016-05-06T02:48:48","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T21:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=161823"},"modified":"2016-05-12T12:07:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T06:37:48","slug":"ben-bavincks-testimony-within-the-crucible-of-war-1994-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ben-bavincks-testimony-within-the-crucible-of-war-1994-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Bavinck\u2019s Testimony Within The Crucible Of War, 1994-2004"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Roberts<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Michael Roberts<\/p><\/div>\n

As a young teenager in the Netherlands Benjamin Bavinck (1924-2011) lived through the occupation of his country by the Nazi Germans. As he traversed the various war zones in Sri Lanka between 1988 and 2004, therefore, and recorded his experiences (in Dutch) in his diaries, he brought an experiential background that few other foreigners would have possessed. This pillar of experience was girded by two other sturdy characteristics: (1) what one can present as \u201cDutch phlegm\u201d and (2) a commitment to the service of mankind that is a trait of those devoted to the helping professions.<\/p>\n

Bavinck had committed himself to teaching at Jaffna College in 1954 and learnt Tamil during the course of his eighteen-year stint career in the island.[1]<\/a> He returned in 1988 to serve the Protestant Churches in different parts of Sri Lanka. He was working in various capacities in the helping profession within the Jaffna Peninsula in the period encompassed by Volume Two of his diaries, initially in the space of Thamililam<\/em> under the LTTE and then, after the SL Army captured the greater part of the Peninsula in mid\/late-1995, under the Government of Sri Lanka and its military arm.<\/p>\n

E. Valentine Daniel, a Malaiyaha Tamil and one of my friends from the hills who has risen to high academic status<\/a><\/span> as an anthropologist<\/a><\/span> in USA, was a student at Jaffna College from 1962 and knew Bavinck as teacher, while subsequently sustaining an adult friendship with the good man. The introduction<\/a><\/span> which he has provided to all readers of this documentary source within Volume One is invaluable and becomes mandatory reading for all serious investigators.<\/p>\n

Take note of one of his evaluations of Bavinck: \u201c[n]ot only has Ben been a self-reliant man, he taught every student that came his way the art of being self-reliant, and along with this, his students took in lessons of self-control, industriousness, thrift, privacy, modesty and plainness which resonated with their own beliefs and practices in the making. Apart from not being a teacher in the conventional sense, he always was and still is a student; but not a student who studies us, but one who studies with us and among us \u2014 a participant-observer-student-teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Val\u2019s assessment of Bavinck as \u201ca fiercely independent person\u201d is reinforced at every turn as one digests his diary entries. As he states,, Bavinck\u2019s commentary provides one with \u201ca balanced account\u201d \u2013 one that is \u201creflective\u2026fair \u2026. deliberative\u201d (Daniel). In brief one cannot ask for a better historical source \u2013a resource that is<\/a><\/span>. So one can anoint Daniel\u2019s emphasis: \u201c[Bavinck\u2019s] diary is a gift, not only to the historian and research scholar, but to every Tamil and Sinhalese citizen, whatever be the state with which he or she chooses to identify himself\/herself with.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early 1989 Bavinck\u2019s diary records a discussion<\/a><\/span> with Dr. Rajani Thiranagama nee Rajasingam (also spelt Rajasingham) and in subsequent months his interactions with Rajani\u2019s father (a Christian Tamil and retired mathematics teacher) and Rajan Hoole, K. Sritharan and Daya Somasunderam deepened.[2]<\/a> This was the core group behind voices of protest within the domains commanded by the LTTE. These were quintessentially Tamil and humanist voices, directed against LTTE excesses in the Peninsula and elsewhere (while also pinpointing governmental atrocities). In consequence Rajani was murdered by the Tigers<\/a><\/span> on the 21st<\/sup> September 1989.<\/p>\n

This did not deter the sturdy personnel of the UTHR circle. Hoole and Sritharan were constantly in hiding and on the move thereafter. From that point on The Broken Palmyrah<\/em> and the series of web publications<\/a><\/span> under the rubric \u201cUniversity Teachers for Human Rights\u201d have presented their sombre findings on killings and misdemeanours from all sides engaged in the conflict in Sri Lanka.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

It is in the same spirit that Bavinck pens his diary entries, pursuing a middle path and advocating a modus vivendi<\/em> between the Sinhalese government dispensation and a Tamil dispensation that was now dominated by the LTTE. Indeed, those reading his diaries will find several entries detailing conversations and sojourns with old Mr. Rajasingam as well as the younger activists of the UTHR circle.<\/p>\n

In his public ruminations once[4]<\/a> Val Daniel made a passing suggestion that he considered Ben Bavinck to be a Tamil<\/a><\/span>. Maybe. But Bavinck\u2019s diaries demonstrate that he was also sturdy Dutch in his resoluteness, courage and engaged commentary as a moderate voice crunched in-between extreme forces. A nuanced study will probably discern moments when his \u201cforeign-ness\u201d enabled him to opt for hard choices between the devil (LTTE) and the deep blue see (GSL) in ways which went beyond his UTHR comrades. That is a puzzle I leave for serious students of his material.<\/p>\n

Bavinck did not pen an entry every day. Sometimes an entry covered the short period which intervened between entries. Nor was he resident in Sri Lanka throughout the period embraced by Volume Two. There were occasions when he was on leave-either on furlough in Holland or on business in USA as a member of the Congregational Council overseeing Jaffna College and the American Mission\u2019s activities in Sri Lanka. Thus in utilizing Volume two of his published diaries, one must note his absence from Sri Lanka in the following periods:<\/p>\n

I will be presenting extracts from his diary entries arranged on thematic lines. In doing so readers and researchers should attend to two cautionary notes that I attached in my presentation<\/a><\/span> of Volume One. (A) \u201cHis information \u2026 is a voice of his times and conveys invaluable information. It should not be dismissed as \u2018gossip,\u2019 though of course some of the reportage has to be treated cautiously as second-hand or third-hand reportage of events that Bavinck did not witness himself. These tales, clearly, must be sifted and evaluated in the light of other contemporaneous information.\u201d (B) \u201cThis is down-to-earth testimony\u2026the data brings out the immediacy of the moment as well as the complexities of the ground situation amidst daily life. This is truly riveting material. Absorb it carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Volume Two I am planning to extract the following \u201cMotifs\u201d or \u201cTracks,\u201d but it is possible that adjustments will be made to these intentions.<\/p>\n