All the innocent souls who died for something they NEVER did

Who is to blame for this genocide?

Shall we all point our fingers to the Sri Lankan Government?

Thousands of innocent Tamils who were targeted and brutally massacred

Now from where we stand, Tamils are STILL in these camps which fail to

Provide the basic needs of life like food

The Sri Lankan government has failed to provide the 30 basic human rights

I speak for all the innocent civilians who have the right to move freely and get

the shelter and food that is needed for them to survive

Can you imagine how it would be to not have any freedom to do what you want to do?

Can you imagine all the innocent Tamils looking for food and shelter to feed their children?

Can you imagine suffering the pain of not knowing what happened to your loved ones?

If every single Tamil person in the world respectfully remembers and pays respect to the victims of the May Massacre, I’m sure we can keep the freedom flame alive…

The final stage was in Mullivaikal
Shooting, slaughters and bomb shells
Atrocity at a whole new level
You wouldn’t believe that this wasn’t hell

Since 1983
Tamils wanted to be free
From the Sri Lankan government
Who have been such an impediment

From Toronto, Paris, New York, Heathrow
We were shouting “stop killing our innocent people”
Mothers, children, babies, and elderly
They were killing Tamils federally

Why won’t the world recognize
The government has done many war crimes
We have seen it with our own eyes
No one would listen to us-we were worse than mimes

40 000 civilians killed
Sri Lankans Parliament members’ stomachs filled

They shot innocent men
Stripped them nude
Put families in concentration camps
Didn’t give them food

The war isn’t over
Tamils will come for more
In the future
You will hear us ROAR!

Love to Write? Got an Opinion? Want to Share? Then we would like to hear from you!

We’d like to hear from you! That’s right, YOU. Tamil youth are all highly talented, exceptional individuals with unique experiences, and excel in different areas.Writing about your own experiences, interesting ideas, discussions or topics that will help your peers, are great ways to share your knowledge and encourage other youth. We would like to hear about your experiences, and opinions. Have something interesting to talk about? Want to share it with other Tamil youth? Then, spill the beans.

Send us your opinion pieces, instructional pieces, poetry or artwork to be posted on the Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance Blog (www.ctya.org/blog). Only selected submissions will be posted on the CTYA Blog. Submissions should be sent to blogs@ctya.org

For questions, comments or submissions, email us at blogs@ctya.org.

The Human Rights Advocacy Council of CTYA attended the official proclamation of May 10 as “Will to Intervene” Day in Toronto. It appeals to Torontonians to help prevent mass atrocities and make “never again” a reality. The cities of Vancouver and Calgary have also joined in reinforcing their cities commitments to preventing mass atrocities.

The Will to Intervene Project (W2I) was developed by the Montreal Insitute For Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. It aims to advance public policy changes to prevent crimes of mass atrocities across the world. In fact, the U.S. has used some of the recommendations made by W2I to make foreign policy changes.

This proclamation comes of significance to Toronto, Canada’s most diverse city, where in 2009, the Tamil community mobilized in thousands in protest of severe crimes against humanity being committed to the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

For more information on the project visit:
http://migs.concordia.ca/W2I/home.htm

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Written by: Gayathiri Sivakumar

Kolams, decorative designs drawn with rice flour traditionally by women in front of their homes serve to be more than being aesthetically pleasing. Kolams have great cultural and medical significance.

Air Circulation and Cleansing – In some Tamil regions, prior to designing a Kolam, the area in front of the house is washed with water mixed with cow dung. Cow dung helps in killing insects and helps in air circulation.

Exercise – Women are typically the ones who have traditionally been the designers of Kolams. Women were also more likely than men to suffer back-pain due to household chores. Therefore, Kolam design forces a women to bend and balance, and served as a form of exercise to strengthen her backbone for the day’s work. This form is called the ‘Yogasana’, and is thought to be very strengthening to women.

Inviting the Gods - Kolams are thought to be inviting to the Gods, and drawing a particular Kolam is thought of as a welcoming to a particular God. Also, the intention and mood of the designer is important in welcoming the Gods, so it calls for a pure heart and happiness early in the morning.

Living Creature – The rice flour used in Kolam design serves as food for insects and birds. Drawing the Kolam at one’s house entrance is thought to be a symbol and action of a human’s concern for all living organisms. It was a representation of harmonious co-existence.

Meditation – Kolam was also thought of as a form of meditation and comfort for women. The “Sikkal Kolam”, a specialized Kolam was practiced as a way of providing women with assurance that they would be able to solve any problem that came in their lives. It was believed that the practicing of drawing the “Sikkal Kolam” provided women with the capability of better problem solving and clarity early in the morning by forcing them with creativity and outward thinking.

Teamwork – Kolam is an activity that was practiced by entire communities, and thus designs were shared among the women. This was thought to help provide unity, comfort and friendship for women.

Warding Away Evil – Our ancestors have thought of many ways to ward off veil, and it is believed that enclosing a Kolam is red helps ward off evil from entering the house. Some of the geometric connections in the Kolam itself are thought to ward off evil.

Kolams have now also been analyzed as a form of expressing pictures and math, to check out more, check out this recommended read!
The Kolam Tradition: A tradition of figure-drawing in southern India expresses mathematical ideas and has attracted the attention of computer science. (2002) Access here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27857597
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Read more by Gayathiri

The Art of Tamil Cooking
As I grow older, my memory fades. Things that were once crystal clear have become foggy. But my sense of taste, it has not aged a day, and so, I realize how important it is to try remember my past and connect my future, through the Art of Tamil Cooking.

Who is to Judge?
I have this problem, you see, when I need to make a decision, I just look at the facts and decide something, without giving much thought to what’s not said or included. While I was growing up, my inability to factor in the facts are not included, or the other factors I don’t examine has always caused me problems and led to ineffective decision making. My Ammamma use to always say to me, “velluthathu ellam paal illai,” which roughly means everything you see that is white is not milk.

A Great Man in Tamil History
Bala Anna was the internationally recognized face of the Tamil Nation, he was seen as the voice of the nation.

This conference aims to understand the means by which people come to know, feel, and reflect upon their past. Questions of history, memory, and heritage are all guided by the ethical concerns of the present and by desires regarding the future. The production of alternatives to the dominant narrative might also entail their own forms of exclusion. Contestation arises precisely when the past becomes a resource to remake the contemporary world. But how do we narrate pasts? What counts as “evidence” in such narrations? Whose stories prevail? Which pasts are silenced?

Traces of the past need not refer to archives alone. We also invite papers that would interpret how memory is inscribed on the human body, the landscape, in practices of commemoration, cinema, through nostalgia, and images of utopia or revolution. We encourage scholars to examine how collectives and subjectivities are formed, reformed, and contested through recuperation and retrospection, and how conceptions of past selves engage critically with the world-scale economic projects of colonialism, neocolonialism, and nationalism.

This unique International interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars, students, artists, writers and activists to engage with the conference theme more directly.

Direct any media inquiries to: media@tamilstudiesconference.ca

All general inquiries should be directed to: info@tamilstudiesconference.ca

Venue
This year the conference will be held at University of Toronto: New College
45 Willcocks Street Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M5S 1C7
Tel: 416-978-2059
Fax: 416-946-7169

Registration:
Online Registration is now closed. You can still register on the day of the conference (ONLY CASH)

Students (Must present valid student ID) /Seniors
$20 – 1 Day
$35 – Both Days

Adults
$45 – 1 Day
$60 – Both Days

For more information, visit: http://www.tamilstudiesconference.ca/

Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7SEy3SodUk&list=UU6WlQSVF4d_b4010-Fi4jOw&index=1&feature=plcp

May 2012 will mark the third year remembrance of the Tamil genocide. As part of remembering May Massacre, we as a community take the time to remember the victims massacred and heal together as a community. By continuing to voice our stories, opinions, and facts, we are moving on a path that will enable us to get justice for the lost lives.

“A Walk Across the Sun” is an unforgettable story of success, failure, fear and immense courage. A book that takes us into lives of strangers and the dangerous world they live in.

It is the day after Christmas, the Ghai family, made up of a father, mother, grandmother, housekeeper and two teenage girls, Ahalya and Sita spend a family evening by the waterfront home by one of Tamil Nadu’s coastal villages. Collecting seashells, the family is cocooned in their happy little world, unknowing that from this day on, their world would never be the same. A Tsunami, sweeps away the family, leaving only two survivors, Ahalya and Sita. Ahalya, quickly decides that they must find safety, and plans to make the trip to Chennai, to a hostel run by nuns. With the help of their father’s friend, they fetch a ride and make the journey, only to find them in a life they could never have imagined: in the chilling dangerous underworld of the international sex-trade and human trafficking.

On the other side of the world in Washington, Thomas Clarke, a young successful lawyer finds himself in a loss of his own. After his wife Priya leaves following the death of their daughter Mohini, Thomas is left alone and confused. Soon after, being wrongfully blamed for a mishap at his prestigious law form, he is offered a choice and finds himself at a crossroads, where he must decide whether to take time off work, or to work pro-bono for a non-profit for a year. While he desires to be a judge one day and wants to continue at his firm, his witnessing of a kidnapping of a 10-year old girl at the Park leaves him wondering if a trip across the world with a non-profit is what he needs to find himself…

Into the killing fields the Tamils go,
Between the landmines their toes tippy toe,
They mark the places where land mines are;
and Mahinda smiles as they go
The Jungle Fowl cries as the Tamils go,
And soon they all die as the guns are fired below.

The Sinhalese soldiers laugh and go, however,
the Tamil souls are still wandering below.
They cry and tell the Sinhalese to go; but now they lye in the fields of war.

If only the Sinhalese had stopped a while ago,
the Tamils and Sinhalese would’ve held hands in rows,
in the Olympics they could’ve held the flag up high,
but now only the Karthikai flowers grow.
The Tamils now lye helplessly in the fields of war.

May 2012 will mark the third year remembrance of the Tamil genocide. As part of remembering May Massacre, we as a community take the time to remember the victims massacred and heal together as a community. By continuing to voice our stories, opinions, and facts, we are moving on a path that will enable us to get justice for the lost lives.

Deadline: June 5th 2012

Please keep in mind any form of photography or videography at Thaalam 2012 is not permitted without prior permission from the Arts and Culture Council. There are only a limited number of photographers allowed, and as a result only those chosen will be able to capture the event. The photographers selected will need to register at the information booth, and will be given a media pass. Those photographers capturing photographs without prior permission will be asked to leave the event by the venue security.
For questions about media at Thaalam 2012, please email: info@ctya.org