A new chapter of healing words

Saturday, 14 March 2015 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The room is filled with people as diverse and engaging as the evocative narratives they have crafted. There are the young and fresh-faced, the slightly older and more experienced, the enthusiastic and the extroverted. Some of them are from areas directly scarred by Sri Lanka’s civil war, while others are from Colombo and areas farther from the battlefield but not impervious to the conflict’s brutality and devastation. Yet despite this eclectic representation, they all share the common trait of being uninhibited wordsmiths with a penchant for deeply emotional poetry and prose. This motley group of 24 has assembled at the BMICH for the official launch of the second anthology of ‘Write to Reconcile,’ a compendium of short stories and poems authored by Sri Lankans, members of the Sri Lankan Diaspora aged between 18 and 29, teachers and other professionals. The project is the result of a joint collaboration between the National Peace Council and acclaimed novelist Shyam Selvadurai, who also functioned as the work’s editor.

The program ran from February to December 2014 and aside from generating their published work also involved participants in a series of online creative writing forums and an eight-day workshop which was staged in Kandy and Batticaloa. “The goal of ‘Write to Reconcile,’ which is in its second year now, is to gather together talented young writers committed to peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, who, through their work, are willing to explore the hatreds that have torn apart this country,” Selvadurai reveals in the publication’s introduction. He goes on to elaborate that the effort was borne out of his firm belief in the “restorative power of literature in a society like Sri Lanka disfigured by decades of civil war”.

Joining him in this venture was another influential figure of the local literati, popular author and publisher Ameena Hussein, who acted as co-facilitator in this endeavour. It is hard to argue with Selvadurai’s assertion about the healing power of the written word, especially words as poignant and compelling as those which occupy the pages of ‘Write to Reconcile 2’. Words like those in Ranmini’s heartrending account of loss and sadness entitled ‘His Smile – A Memoir’, bred by the death of her brother, Piyadarshana Gunawardena, who served in the Air Force. Her stark realisation at the end of the war that “It could have been my brother’s plane dropping bombs” on those paralysed by a fear for both the LTTE and the Security Forces are sure to jar readers with a simplistic view on the multi-contoured landscape of conflict. “There are no victors in war, only victims,” Ranmini says at the end of her reading of selected excerpts from her story. The words hang in the air long after she leaves the lectern, weighing heavy with melancholy and meaning. Yogarajah Atchuthan conjured similarly strong sentiments when he read out two of his poems, ‘Miraculous Healing’ and ‘Please Appa’. The former deals with the impact of a visit by a Catholic priest to the IDP camp Atchuthan was housed in for three months, following the conclusion of the war, while the latter takes the form of a conversation between him and his father. Both are deeply moving and marked with enduring hope. Another element of reconciliation the project keenly promoted was mutual understanding across the writers’ varied cultures and communities. Both Wazna Wazeer and Easwarajanani Karunailingam attested to the success of this goal when they each spoke about the ways in which they had come to fully appreciate their colleagues’ cultural diversity, religious beliefs, unique creativity and turbulent past. “When Shyam started his work over three years ago, our country’s situation was very different to what it is now. We were at that time unsure whether we could even hold workshops. But during that difficult period civil society did its work and likewise Shyam did his work. Today the environment has changed and we have a Government that now appreciates the work of civil society,” said National Peace Council Executive Director Dr. Jehan Perera. “But one big challenge exists and that’s reducing the gap between our people. So the war has ended but the conflict continues. Shyam’s work addresses this by taking us to a realm of deeper truth.” Also present at the book’s launch at the BMICH on 3 March were Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Grete Løchen and US Embassy Political Section Head Michael Honigstein. Both diplomats emphasised the importance of pursuits such as the ‘Write to Reconcile’ project – which offered a discerning view of the social and psychological aspects of war – in fostering meaningful reconciliation. They also praised Selvadurai’s unstinting efforts to use his field of expertise, literature, to reforge fractured bonds of trust and friendship. His actions, the pair noted, highlighted the important role the Sri Lankan Diaspora, to which Selvadurai belongs, has to play in a post-conflict configuration. If Selvadurai cast a mighty wrecking ball at the monolith of conventional social and cultural thought with ‘Funny Boy,’ then with ‘Write to Reconcile’ he is acting as a literary conduit for an eager coterie of budding writers to bridge a chasm of ignorance, fear and anger. So if the trite saying about the pen being mightier than the sword holds true in times of aggression, then perhaps its true potency should be earnestly explored in an era of peace, meaning that publications such as ‘Write to Reconcile’ are much more than riveting examples of creative writing. See page 10 for pictures of the contributing writers being presented a copy of the book by US Embassy Political Section Head Michael Honigstein and certificates by Norwegian Ambassador Sri Lanka Grete Løchen in the presence of National Peace Council Executive Director Dr. Jehan Perera