{"id":53466,"date":"2012-09-09T11:31:43","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T11:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=53466"},"modified":"2012-09-17T07:26:21","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T07:26:21","slug":"the-long-arc-of-nandikadal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-long-arc-of-nandikadal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long Arc Of Nandikadal"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sanjana Hattotuwa<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sanjana Hattotuwa<\/p><\/div>\n

Recent events in Tamil Nadu demonstrate the risk inherent in what most suggest is the Rajapaksa regime<\/a><\/span>\u2019s LLRC<\/a><\/span> gambit \u2013 to drag on a process of enfeebled accountability and reductive reconciliation until the sections of the international community interested in independent, international investigations into allegations of war crimes lose interest, shift focus or both. A little time coupled with support from the Beijing consensus, they believe, would clear them of their deeds.<\/p>\n

Activists Beyond Borders<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink was published 14 years ago, long before the telegenics of recent social and political upheaval in the MENA countries. It is referenced in a new publication by the United States Institute of Peace on how new media (Internet communications, web based social media and mobile content), though it may not immediately change the dynamics on the ground\u00a0within<\/em>\u00a0a country, may actually shore up longer term support for political reform and indeed, regime change, from outside. As\u00a0New Media and Conflict after the Arab Spring<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by USIP flags, Keck and Sikkink argue that \u201cboomerang effects,\u201d in which activists in one country can create political momentum in another country to put pressure on their own home government, may make it more costly for the leadership of the country under duress to violently suppress protests<\/p>\n

For example, it\u2019s very unlikely that though the Rajapaksa regime shot and killed an FTZ worker <\/a>during the suppression of violent protests last year \u2013 and adroitly navigated the resulting public outcry \u2013 it will use live ammunition against a protest march by FUTA<\/a><\/span>. The movement has, quite remarkably, quickly embraced web based social media.\u00a0FUTA\u2019s Facebook Group Page<\/a>\u00a0has, at the time of writing, nearly 11,000 members. Any physical harm against FUTA\u00a0will<\/em>\u00a0be documented, discussed and disseminated, in addition to and independent of mainstream media, opening a world of grief within the country and from beyond that the government will not be able to control, contain or easily censor.<\/p>\n

Conscious of the shrinking space to kill, abduct, maim, threaten and censor \u2013 as it did with wanton excess and completely impunity during war time \u2013 the regime will embrace more overtly conciliatory tactics, buying and biding time with domestic and international critics. The greater negotiation here will not be between the regime and activists, but between key individuals within the regime, who need each other to survive, but will oppose each other\u2019s responses to post-war Sri Lanka\u2019s growing public discourse. This regime on regime contest will be interesting. From memes to cartoons, tweets to blogs, video to websites, op-eds to documentaries, Facebook groups to new books, there are new damned spots that can\u2019t be easily washed away, much as the regime would like to. Thus far, the government\u2019s responses are liberal servings from the Authoritarianism 1.0 recipe book. Censor, block and rekindle ancient laws to stifle free expression. Abduct and torture a few, surveil many more.<\/p>\n

Yet this is not stopping the dissent.<\/p>\n

This presents an opportunity, but not for facile regime change in the near term. There are growing opportunities for the strategic weakening of the regime\u2019s stranglehold of the public imagination. These must be seized. USIP\u2019s report suggests very clearly that new media is absolutely no guarantee of any immediate or sustained political and systemic change. This puts paid to what for example the UNP loudly proclaimed, in 2011, would be the inevitable trickle down of social activism from Tahrir Square to Lipton Circus. What is does imply is that not unlike the reported travel of our Foreign Minister to London over the FCO\u2019s new travel warnings on Sri Lanka<\/a><\/span>, the more the regime tries to suppress inconvenient narratives, the more the international community will be reminded of its deeds \u2013 the inescapable paradox of a regime seeking to erase inconvenient domestic narratives, yet only succeeding in bringing into sharp focus what it has erased, internationally. There\u2019s no winning this war through the Nandikadal rulebook. This is a new information domain, what Julian Assange has called an age of radical transparency, where you cannot hide what you\u2019ve done to erase and censor, even if the targets of censorship were successfully shut down or forcibly shut up.<\/p>\n

The corrosive impact and illogic of Tamil Nadu\u2019s imprudent politicians warrants no repetition. Yet it\u2019s a humbling reminder to our government that it simply can\u2019t control how the world sees and remembers Sri Lanka, no matter how much Conde Nast features our more cosmopolitan side.<\/p>\n

There is no forgetting the inconvenient, and Nandikadal\u2019s boomerang, thrown early 2009, will return.<\/p>\n

Sajanana\u2019s blog ;\u00a0http:\/\/sanjanah.wordpress.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":38511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[4522,4520,4521],"class_list":["post-53466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial","tag-killed-an-ftz-worker","tag-london-over-the-fcos-new-travel-warnings-on-sri-lanka","tag-rajapaksa-regimes-llrc-gambit"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Long Arc Of Nandikadal - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-long-arc-of-nandikadal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Long Arc Of Nandikadal - 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