{"id":2666,"date":"2011-12-15T11:55:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T11:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colombotelegraph.com\/?p=2666"},"modified":"2016-03-29T13:11:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T07:41:06","slug":"shrine-of-the-innocents-disre-appearence-of-a-memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/shrine-of-the-innocents-disre-appearence-of-a-memorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Shrine of the Innocents: [DIS\\RE] APPEARENCE of a memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theerthaartists.wordpress.com\/\">Dr. Jagath\u00a0Weerasinghe<\/a><\/span> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Shrine of the Innocents (The Shrine)<\/strong>, a memorial made for those lives lost in 1988-1991 massacre in the south of Sri Lanka, is being erased. I as the designer and maker of this monument thought I should record my thoughts on this [DIS] APPEARANCE of the Shrine, which in a way, I mean in a conceptual way is actually a [RE] APPEARENCE of a monument which is much more relevant,\u00a0\u00a0and symptomatic of the civil and political society of Colombo|Sri Lanka or of Sri Lanka \u00a0in general.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2667\" style=\"width: 122px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/prof-jagath-weerasinghe-colombotelegraph.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2667\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2667\" title=\"Prof.-Jagath-Weerasinghe colombotelegraph\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/prof-jagath-weerasinghe-colombotelegraph.jpg?w=112\" alt=\"\" width=\"112\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/prof-jagath-weerasinghe-colombotelegraph.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/prof-jagath-weerasinghe-colombotelegraph-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 112px) 100vw, 112px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2667\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I as the designer and maker of this monument thought I should record my thoughts on this disappearance of the Shrine,<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I have said, at the beginning of the para above, \u00a0that the Shrine is being erased, \u2014 but I have not said who is doing this erasing. Normally I have the habit of<\/p>\n<p>disclosing the \u2018doer of an action\u2019 when I write in the passive voice, but here, the reason why I haven\u2019t mentioned the \u2018doer of the action\u2019 of erasing the Shrine, is simply because I don\u2019t know who is actually \u2018doing\u2019 it. Of course I know that it\u2019s physically done with the approval of a government authority. I am not stupid and blind not to know\u00a0that, BUT yet I don\u2019t know who is \u2018actually\u2019 doing it. I have the (mis)fortune of passing by the Shrine almost everyday, morning and evening, seeing it being erased, seeing it being deprived of its earlier meanings; seeing it being transformed to something else; seeing it\u00a0being pushed along its [DIS\\RE] APPEARANCE.<\/p>\n<p><strong>History of the shrine in brief<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Shrine has a history \u2013 a sad one, a distressing one. It\u2019s a history that questions the probity of the social conscience of the southern society of Sri Lanka. I was in Washington DC when the bloody history was unfolding at home. I escaped the \u2018bloody-melting pot\u2019 by a month or two. I left for USA in April 1988. Stories\/news of disappearances of people were just beginning to get our attention. Studying for my MFA degree in painting at American University in Washington DC,\u00a0 I transferred\/ transformed news on death and violence from home into my art.<\/p>\n<p>The need for a memorial of this nature came up at the time when madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunge was running for office in the mid 1990s. She became the President of Sri Lankan in 1994. When she was campaigning for office, the Mother\u2019s Front, that comprised of mothers of lost\/ murdered children in the south of Sri Lanka supported her in the campaign. While it is believed that more than 40000 young men and women were murdered in the south of Sri Lanka during 1988-1991, one bloody incident took more attention than the other smiler ones: the abduction and murder of 33 school children at Ambilitiya, a village in the south of Sri Lanka. The parents of Ambilipitiya incident, who were part of the Mothers Front wanted a memorial for their disappeared\/lost\/murdered children. Which the presidential candidate, Madam Chandrika Bandaranike promised and she wanted to do a memorial, as promised once she became the President.<\/p>\n<p>The need for a memorial of this nature came up at the time when madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunge was running for office in the mid 1990s.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/shrine-of-the-innocents-disre-appearence-of-a-memorial\/untitled-colombotelegraph\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2673\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-2673\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/untitled-colombotelegraph-1024x695.jpg\" alt=\"untitled-colombotelegraph\" width=\"1024\" height=\"695\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/untitled-colombotelegraph-1024x695.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/untitled-colombotelegraph-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/untitled-colombotelegraph-800x543.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Shrine today; see the pictures below.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/shrine-of-the-innocents-disre-appearence-of-a-memorial\/img_20291-colombotelegraph\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2675\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-2675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20291-colombotelegraph-1024x450.jpg\" alt=\"img_20291 colombotelegraph\" width=\"1024\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20291-colombotelegraph-1024x450.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20291-colombotelegraph-300x131.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20291-colombotelegraph-800x351.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/shrine-of-the-innocents-disre-appearence-of-a-memorial\/img_20381-colombotelegrph\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2677\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-2677\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20381-colombotelegrph-1024x439.jpg\" alt=\"img_20381 colombotelegrph\" width=\"1024\" height=\"439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20381-colombotelegrph-1024x439.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20381-colombotelegrph-300x128.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/img_20381-colombotelegrph-800x342.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":2667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1611,1612,1613,1614,1134],"class_list":["post-2666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial","tag-1988-1991-massacre-in-sri-lanka","tag-abduction-and-murder-of-33-school-children-at-ambilitiya","tag-dr-jagath-weerasinghe","tag-history","tag-human-rights"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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