Banning Historical Memory: Questions Of Politics, Quality & Academic Freedom In Jaffna

By The Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association (JUSTA)-May 10, 2015 

The University’s War against Memory

A community that has seen decades of intense violence carries a myriad wounds and trauma that need to be healed in order that life could become human. While the community can more easily absorb the violence inflicted from without, the internal violence, its divisiveness, fractured families and guilt are much harder to heal. Healing requires that the truth be told and the victims given the voice to speak it. The local university must be the first place that resists ideological twisting of history to blame exclusively the state and to shut out all voices that challenge the monolithic narrow-nationalist version of blame.

On 24th April 2015, the Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association (JUSTA) arranged a discussion of the book Palmyra Fallen: From Rajani to War’s End, written by its member Rajan Hoole, in the Library Auditorium. The Vice Chancellor (VC) with the backing of some senior academics banned the discussion. JUSTA was left with no honourable alternative but to defy this blatant attack on academic freedom.

The Palmyra Fallen discussion was fixed for the day the Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) delegation was due in Jaffna to discuss problems of university teachers in the North and East in the morning to be followed by the book discussion in the afternoon. The speakers were Dr. Harini Amarasuriya from the Open University with Prof. Arjuna Parakrama from Peradeniya and Dr. N. Sivapalan and Prof. Daya Somasundaram from Jaffna. The FUTA delegation arrived in Jaffna on the 23rd and independently the organisers of the discussion placed the VC’s notice on Colombo Telegraph and made it known that the book discussion would go on in the University as planned regardless of the ban.

Later in the afternoon of 24th April while the book discussion proceeded, the Vice Chancellor was questioned by BBC Tamil Service. She said the ban was requested by the University Teachers Association (UTA) and the University Students Union and was not taken by her, but by the deans’ committee. It was taken, she said, to ensure the smooth functioning of the University and she had no choice when nearly 7500 students and over 400 academics were against it. Asked by the BBC why the book would affect the smooth functioning of the University, the VC said repeatedly that the book was controversial. Asked why it was controversial, she admitted not having read the book, seen a copy or knowing what it was about.  Read More