1  New Horizons

I knew our departure was imminent. White frothy waters churned from the spinning blades of outboard motors. We were to be on our way, away from the land and the people I loved and had lived with for seventeen years. Tamil Tiger cadres - young women and men we knew, and many we did not - and old friends too, dotted the shoreline, waving us good bye. The motors cruised smoothly as they propelled us out of the blue of the coastal lagoon waters into the grey of the deepening India Ocean as the figures on the beach faded into the disappearing landscape. The landmass became a thin black line through my water-filled eyes. I was leaving part of me behind.

The ocean rushed to meet us and was not shy in intimating we had come at a bad time and life would be difficult for the next several hours. We were unwelcome guests in that watery terrain as the choppy waves threw us about in a display of obvious annoyance. Soosai, the Sea Tiger commander, took up an authoritative position at the rear of the boat enabling him to effectively direct this leg of our journey. I wondered in admiration at the obvious ease and smoothness with which Soosai and his crew steered through the turbulent waters. Sure-footed in a boat in a drunken sea, they got on with their duties of skilfully maintaining the motors and steering a course, unperturbed by the cold waters lashing the boat, drenching them all. The young cadres, with a dexterity and confidence beyond their years, moved in harmonious motion with the sea and the boat, defying the water threats and intimidation. As we looked in the direction indicated by Soosai, through the grey haze, we could see two black marks at a distance behind, but keeping pace with us. They were boats - LTTE boats- the same as the one we travelled in but diminished by distance, rocking and rolling as they ploughed their way, doggedly, through the Mullaitivu waters. These were our escorts; boats loaded with courage, sacrifice, and commitment and explosives too. These were the Black Sea Tiger cadres deployed for our security and prepared to give their lives so that we should live; young men and women primed to smash into and demolish the Sri Lankan naval boats the moment they appeared to threaten our journey. It was not for the first time I felt unworthy of the honour bestowed on us and humble at the extent of sacrifice people were capable of just to protect our lives. But I had known Soosai for many years and had absolute confidence that he was well informed on the threats posed by the Navy before our departure and was equally as capable of dealing with perilous situations. For Bala, there was an added danger to his life and this came from within himself.

Recently Bala had miraculously survived an episode of acute renal failure and was now in the chronic renal failure stage. That was the medical opinion of the doctors who had attended to him. Twenty-five years of diabetes had taken its toll they said, but the absence of any diagnostic equipment precluded thorough investigation and explanation of the acute renal episode. It was only after surgery that we fully understood the degree of renal obstruction he was suffering on top of the chronic renal failure. Had we known his left kidney was the size of a coconut and on the verge of rupture we might not have had the courage to set out on a perilous sea journey without recourse to medical care and equipment.

Although Bala had recovered from a life-threatening episode of renal failure in Mullaitivu he remained extremely unwell and it was lady luck alone that could account for his survival, allowing him to undertake the lengthy sea journey across the Bay of Bengal. Malaria, typhoid, hepatitis, viral fevers, everyday illnesses in the Vanni, were dangerous enough for ‘healthy’ people, but were potential killers for Bala with a precarious renal ailment. So, with his illness on the one side and the dangers from the tropical environment on the other, the unanimous opinion expressed by all sections of the organisation and public who knew of Bala’s rapidly failing health, was for us to leave the Vanni as soon as possible while he was still in a condition to travel. And so, in the midst of so much emotion and concern, Mr. Pirabakaran made the arrangements for our sea journey out of Tamil Eelam. We knew that such a journey held its own risks but there was no alternative. It was either stay in Mullaitivu and face death, or take a risky journey, and perhaps, with the proper medical care abroad, he might live longer. But once out in the ocean it didn’t take too long for this inhospitable environment to plunge Bala into a crisis. As our small boat struggled on into the gigantic might of a mobilised sea and into the fading horizon light, his face became whiter and whiter. He began to feel unwell not long into our journey and the Sea Tiger cadres were already busy supporting his forehead as he heaved his stomach into their bowls. I too struggled with that horrible sinking feeling so characteristic of seasickness as my worst nightmares concerning the journey became a reality. I was well informed before our departure that I could be faced with three potential medical crises. Would his blood pressure drugs precipitate an attack of hypotension, which they not infrequently did at that time of the day? Would the vomiting from seasickness dehydrate him and provoke a renal crisis? Would intense vomiting precipitate an attack of hypoglycaemia? So when I looked up through my own nausea to see sweat beads gathering on his forehead I could not be sure which one of these conditions prevailed. A look at Bala’s sheet white face told me he was in difficulty. The look on Soosai’s face pleaded with me to do something. Bala held out his hand and pointed, indicating he felt hypoglycaemic and needed sugar and I struggled to drag some from a medical kit I had prepared. He licked this vital stuff and after a few minutes the beads from his forehead had dried up. That was all I could do. The unstable motion of the boat prevented even the simplest medical procedure. He lay back and rested against the side of the boat, but he was not at all well. When he swirled his hand in front of his forehead I knew he was feeling giddy and that his blood pressure must have dropped. A few minutes later he would be heaving his stomach out again and then flop back in exhaustion. His body was limp and resigned.

We pushed on with the journey torn between an expectation that Bala’s condition would improve and stabilise with time and making the decision that he would not be able to continue, and we should turn back. The decision was made for us when it became obvious that the distance behind us was more than the distance ahead of us. We had to proceed; there was no turning back. He knew there was nothing else that could be done. Soosai looked at me and the boys looked at each other. Soosai, desperate to do something, shouted at the driver to slow the boat for some time. “The naval gunboats have left Trincomalee”, came the reply.

Disregarding the far off danger, Soosai shouted again “Slow the boat for some time”. We pushed on into the deep-sea waters and darkening night adjusting the speed of the journey according to the weather conditions and Bala’s obvious physical distress. Soosai never moved from his perch on the edge of the boat from where he scanned the sea and kept a vigil over Bala and guided the young cadres in direction and speed. Tireless and oblivious to the hostile environment which he and his cadres inhabited, and with the calmness which was characteristic of veterans of self sacrifice, Soosai and his crew worked like the organs of a body in harmony. Then, when I thought there would be no end to the nightmare, “There Auntie,” said Soosai, learning over to me, shouting above the noise of the motors and pointing to some flickering lights on the horizon, “We’ve arrived,” he said, indicating the presence of a ship in the darkness. A short time later our cadres were struggling to moor our swaying boat by the side of a ship. The night was light again and the chatter of excited familiar voices broke the monotony of the breaking waves and a labouring motor. “Come Auntie, come,” voices shouted at me as hands reached out for me to take hold of. Bala was already on board. Informed by walkie-talkie of his condition, a team of cadres descended onto our boat and hoisted Bala on board and whisked him off into a warm cabin where he was cleaned up and could lie down on a bed. The strength of youth hauled me on board where I found myself being shuffled into a small cabin. I felt as if I was entering a warm house after a cold night out in the rain. But I was feeling so ill with seasickness I could not lie down. I sat on a step with my head between my knees. Amidst my preoccupation with my own ghastly nausea and wandering what had happened to Bala, a voice found my ears. “Auntie”, I could hear, “I’m going,” I looked up to this voice and could see Soosai standing, leaning on one hand, and looking down at me. “Okay ‘thamby’ (young brother),” was all I could utter at that moment of saying farewell to a young man who had not only been a close and generous friend over the years, but, for the third time, had been instrumental in saving our lives. His face told me it was not necessary to say anymore and he turned and walked away, rallying his cadres to prepare for departure. One by one the boys we knew so well and who had cared for us and shared this stretch of the journey, came to bid us farewell as they hurried to prepare for their long and dangerous journey in the black night and rough seas to return to Mullaitivu before being intercepted by the Sri Lankan gun boats.

Soon after Soosai and his crew had safely distanced themselves from our ship on their return journey, I could feel a gentle motion. The ship was moving. We could barely hear the motor, and if it had not been for the gentle swaying like a baby in a cradle, I would not have known the ship had set off. The engines could obviously manage the sea, and was just as capable of handling the weight of this big boat. The crew was getting on with the task of transporting us on the second leg of our journey. Sudaroli, a senior Sea Tiger cadre, was given the responsibility of our care during the sea journey. When I enquired from Sudaroli the whereabouts of Bala and what was happening, “He’s all right. Don’t worry,” came the voice of competency, “He’s sleeping Auntie”. Those words were reassuring enough for me and I gave into the warmth of the bigger ship and escaped from the emotion of goodbyes and the anxiety of the journey I had just experienced, into sleep.

I don’t know how long I had been in the refuge of sleep when, “Adele, can you get me a cup of tea?” came a plaintive voice, wakening me. I was both annoyed and relieved at this disturbance; annoyed that my temporary respite from seasickness and my worries about Bala had been disturbed, but happy to see that he had revived sufficiently to be able to get up and seek out food and fluids. Anyway, he drank down a hot cup of tea and was in good spirits, obviously responding to the warmth and the greater stability of the big ship. My tea swished around in my stomach before spasms of dry retching regurgitated it out onto the floor, warning me off food and fluids for the next few hours. And this horrid seasickness dogged me throughout this early stage of the journey. Now I was the sick one, barely able to move. On the bigger ship Bala quickly adjusted to the sea and we returned to maintaining his normal observations and care.

As the sun peeped over the horizon on the Bay of Bengal lighting up the sky with its golden rays of life and deepening the blue of the sea, we sailed to rendezvous with another ship, anchored for over a month in the deep, deep Indian Ocean, awaiting our arrival. Bad weather and even rougher seas had precluded our departure from Mullaitivu and the link up with the ship. Now, as we approached, the crew was waiting anxiously for us. I felt sorrow and admiration for our cadres manning this ship, for they had weathered the high seas of the Bay of Bengal for over a month and the stores and water supply were down to absolute minimum for the next and their final stage of this rescue mission. Any further delay in our departure would have created a supply crisis for the crew on board. So when we did finally rendezvous with them it was not without some relief on their part. Floating and drifting in the middle of one of the world’s oceans, notorious for its potential for stormy weather, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, could not have been any fun. Nevertheless, in typical resilient fashion, the cadres on board seemed hale and hearty as they waved to us in greeting as we approached their huge ship. But as I looked around me across these vast stretches of water, I was overcome by a strange feeling that we are insignificant tiny entities in this boundless immensity.

As our ship attempted to snuggle up to the cargo vessel to enable us to transfer from one to the other, we were confronted by an unexpected problem. The sea was choppy and would not keep still. Fenders of the two swaying ships clashed against one another, the impact forcing a separation and a huge canyon like wedge between them, making it virtually impossible for a safe transfer from one to another. We all stood on the edge of the ship wondering and gazing at the danger and power of the waters some fifty feet below us, caught between these mighty pieces of iron made vessels as they clashed and vied with each other. It was impossible to attach a walk plank from one ship to the other; the instability of the ships would have pulled it down. Certainly we could not swing by rope from one ship to the other as the cadres did with ease. All sorts of scenarios filled my mind, as I wondered how Bala would summon up the energy and endure the strain of a leap. I could see him falling into the angry waters between the two ships or injuring himself in such away that other problems would arise. As the fenders of the two ships clashed and separated and they swayed and rolled like two stags in a fight to the death, we pondered how to overcome this problem. We would have to jump, but when? All we could do was wait; wait for the moment of stillness and steadiness between the two ships, which would allow us to jump. “Throw Bala Anna, we’ll catch him,” said the concerned cadres on the cargo ship with outstretched arms. “Jump,” they shouted, “we’ll catch you”. But a look at the turbulent waters between the two ships was enough to tell us that any mistake would lead to certain death and we had come too far to be hasty now. And so we waited to seize a moment of harmony between the sea and the ships and when it came, Bala, with the support of many strong muscles propelling him from behind, made that crucial leap and landed in the arms of the relieved cadres. The crews on both sides visibly relaxed once Bala had safely crossed the ‘border’, so to speak. All that remained now was for me and our escorts to cross over. The ships clashed and banged and moved up and down totally at the mercy of the enormous volume of water beneath them. “Come on Auntie, jump,” they urged in voices which indicated a confidence that it wouldn’t be a problem for me to manage. And it wasn’t either. When the right moment came I hurled myself into the air, landing in the reliable clutches of the waiting Sea Tiger cadres.

Once on board this huge iron vessel we were quickly introduced to our accommodation. I was amazed at how small the crew’s quarters were, in comparison with the size of the ship. But while it would not be too difficult to live in these claustrophobic conditions for a relatively short journey, I sympathised with the crew who had spent month after month in these pigeonholes without having touched land. It was amazing that they still retained their morale. Even a simple procedure such as cooking has to be in unison with the movement of the ship. Indeed, in very rough seas - as the crew explained to me- when the ship is brought to an almost vertical position to climb a huge wave only to slam down into its trough, cooking becomes impossible and it can be days before they taste a hot, cooked meal again. The very thought of travelling in such seas, with mountainous waves breaking over the bow of the ship, absolutely horrified me and I hoped we would not have to experience such conditions. Hours of contemplation on the deck, watching the timeless movement of the endless sea left me in awe at the phenomenal power and character of the ocean waters. Flying fish briskly skimming waves and plunging into the water and friendly dolphins escorting our ship, drove home the point that the sea was another fascinating life system on this planet where human beings are at best sojourners and at worst hostile interlopers.

The days rolled on and the ship rolled on too. While I spent much of my time engaged and entertained watching the sea, Bala, no longer troubled by sea sickness, quickly endeared himself to the crew and became a useful cards partner in the captain’s cabin. Although Bala looked unwell during this stage of the journey, no major medical problems arose to cause any real concern. Since I was cut off from any medical advice throughout the journey, I breathed deeply when I started to see pieces of foam boxes, plastic bags and bottles floating on the water. The rubbish indicated that my anxiety and responsibility was drawing to an end, as our journey was more behind us than ahead.

The increasing amount of rubbish bobbing up and down on the sea and disturbing its pristine beauty made me aware that we were closing in on human society again. After many years of living in the war-torn North-east of Sri Lanka, in a society full of want and with very few consumer items, I had lost touch with the environmental problems associated with over consumption and economic ‘development’. Furthermore, the traditional elements in the household economy in the North were far more orientated towards thrifty and versatile use of natural products leaving limited scope for waste. For example, hunger and lack of finance were widespread, so there was no over consumption or waste of food. The few food scraps that were left over went to the natural scavengers: the crows. The electricity supply to the North had been cut off since the outbreak of war in 1990 so there was no necessity for people to keep buying new electrical gadgets and thereby the area was not confronted with the difficulty of disposing of mountains of plastic waste. But now, after years in the Jaffna Peninsula and the Northern jungles of Sri Lanka, cut off from the rest of the world, we were entering the territorial waters of one of the developing Tiger economies and the constantly increasing amounts of rubbish littering the seas indicated that the phenomenal material wealth and its concomitant hedonistic consumerism was obviously at the expense of any serious regard for the natural world.

Our ship was parked in international waters while we waited for the closing stage of this sea saga to get underway. The waters were now utterly still, shining like mirrors. We all were relaxed and happy that our mission had, so far, been successful. But it was not yet over. Arguably, the most dangerous stage of the journey was still ahead of us. A few days later a small fishing trawler sailed into our proximity and pulled up close to the ship in preparation to take us to the coast. We boarded the trawler and departed for our final destination still several hours ahead of us. Special sleeping arrangements were set up for Bala but he preferred to sit at the controls with the crew and watch the journey. We were all alert, watching for coast guard and navy patrols, for we had now moved - illegally - into the territorial waters of a foreign country and we aimed to avoid interception. After several hours of travelling towards land we were transferred to a speedboat which sped us to a small jetty. But it was ebb tide when we arrived in the middle of the night and we were unable to get close to land. We were aghast at this unexpected development when we were so close to reaching our destination. Although the waters were calm, the situation was not. We were floating hundreds of yards from the coast without permission to be there and without any valid legal documents should the coast guard or navy intercept and investigate us. Suddenly one of our cadres slide over the edge of the boat and into the water and disappeared, leaving our small boat drifting in the water. A short time later he re-appeared, rowing a dinghy towards us. With a lot of wobbling and balancing we transferred to the dinghy and proceeded towards land, looking for a place to berth. As we stood on that unknown land shortly after midnight, a four-wheel pick-up drove up beside us and whisked us away to safety. We had made it.

Meeting Balasingham

It all began when I married a Tamil man, Anton Balasingham, from the island of Sri Lanka, in 1978. In that union, I married the collective consciousness and history of a people: a man who embodied the Tamil psyche with all its strengths and weaknesses, greatness and failings. That history took me to live in the society and culture of one of the world’s oldest Eastern civilisations; in the land of the ancient historical origins of his people, Tamil Nadu, the Southern Dravidian state of India. For many years too I lived in his birthplace, Jaffna, the cultural capital of the Tamil people in the Northeastern part of Sri Lanka, otherwise known as Tamil Eelam. I became immersed in the trials and tribulations, joys and celebrations of a people in the throes of a struggle to survive against a sophisticated manifestation of genocide. Subsequently, for the past twenty-three years of my life I have been exposed to extraordinary and unique experiences. In the first place, I am the only foreign person who has lived with, shared and witnessed the people’s horrendous experience of state oppression and attempted genocide, and the complex domains of their heroic, sustained and astoundingly ingenious resistance against what would appear to be insurmountable, will breaking odds. More than two decades of my life with the Tamil people has been an honour also, for two reasons. Firstly, to be witness to the growth and development of the organisation spearheading the struggle for the freedom of a people- the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - and to share in and witness the phenomenal historical struggle and the incredible sacrifices made by the organisation’s cadres. Secondly, and more importantly, this liberation movement, and the people as a whole trusted me, respected me and revealed to an ‘outsider’ their inner soul. That my experience with the Tamil people has been profound was probably best conveyed by a Tamil lady friend, who, in conversation under the coolness of the graceful limbs of a mango tree on her farm in Visvamadu, Vanni, suddenly referred to me as ‘the white Tamil’.

When I met Balasingham and fell in love with him more than two decades ago, I could not even begin to imagine my life would unfold the way it did. Undeniably the very act of marrying a man from a socio-cultural environment, which is in virtual contradiction to my own, prescribed at least a different ‘ordinary’ marriage. So how did it come about that two people from two different cultures could meet on a common ground of marriage? It could not have been simply physical attraction: if that were so the relationship would not have been so intense and intimate. So what was it that united us and took me down such an extraordinary path with him?

Although Balasingham remains, in essence, the man I married all those years ago, time and circumstances have worked on him to make him the thinker and personality he is today. A quarter of a century ago, the man I married was what I would call a ‘religious man’; a ‘religious’ man not in the sense of adhering to institutionalised religions and observing what he viewed as their primitive rituals and practices, but rather a man concerned with righteousness, goodness and humanism.

Bala, thirty six years of age when we first met, had read widely on Eastern philosophical thought, in particular Indian Vedanta philosophy, and he had taken a special interest in the teachings of the Buddha. Indeed, Buddhist philosophy fascinated him so much in his younger days that he visited Buddhist scholars in Sri Lanka for exploratory philosophical elucidations. He has also given talks on Buddhism in public forums. As a serious student of Buddhist philosophy, he became deeply disillusioned with the Sri Lankan brand of Buddhism, which, according to him, has been polluted and perverted by racist and chauvinist ideology. But it was his experience of personal tragedy which evoked tremendous reflection, and brought him into confrontation with himself and the philosophies he had so passionately pursued. His concern for righteousness and goodness was literally put to the test when his first wife became extremely ill with chronic renal failure, ending with her requiring life sustaining haemodialysis. The emotional and mental strain of observing and caring for his beautiful young wife teetering on the brink of death by chronic disease invoked in Bala profound philosophical introspection about the self and the human world. The disintegration and transformation of the human form as a consequence of serious physical illness, and, most importantly, the constant confrontation with death made him reflect deeply on the meaning behind human existence. Unique experiences, and reflections on those experiences, made him a wise man and rooted him in the real world as a rationalist.

Furthermore, this was a morally challenging period in Bala’s life and a test of his strength of character as he struggled to cope with severe economic hardship and meet the emotional and health needs of his terminally ill partner. The many socio-economic problems he faced and overcame throughout this chapter of his life stretched all dimensions of his being to capacity, and he ultimately came to view goodness and righteousness not as words culled from the pages of books or something indoctrinated into us, but rather, as a harmonised faculty of mind and action emanating from our essential being. Sadly, his wife succumbed to her illness after five years of haemodialysis; much of it carried out at home. It was during this highly demanding period his own mortality stared him in the face- diabetes was diagnosed. Subsequently, out of this exploration and reflection of the dynamics of the personal self came this rather unique personality which I could only describe as ‘religious’. And it was this ‘religious’ type of personality I knew I had been hoping to find in a partner. But I prefer to use a different term and describe the man I met and who became my husband as what I called a ‘real’ human being. Bala was, when I met him, most things I hoped the man I married would be; mature, wise, mentally strong and most importantly, caring. By wise I did not mean an intellectual and by mentally strong I did not mean ‘macho’, overbearing or aggressive. I was hoping to meet that exceptional human being who is humble but not weak; who is simple but yet deep; who is assertive but not egoic; who is confident but not arrogant; who was generous; who is proud but not vain; a person who is not selfish and thoughtless. That was the man I met all those years ago, and I knew Balasingham was for me within a few weeks of our first meeting. A dimension of his ‘religious’ bent was a lack of concern for conventional lifestyles, saving, and all those other things that ordinary folks are supposed to do. This lack of concern for material security did, of course, put us into financial bankruptcy, but somehow or other Bala always managed what little money we had so that we lived to love and enjoy another day.

In his search for answers about life and truth, Bala also consumed volumes of works in the Western philosophical tradition. But one of the major influences which counter balanced his ‘religious’ leanings was Marxism and neo-Marxist thought, which he was well versed in, and about which he formulated his own many reservations and criticisms. That philosophy should ‘change the world’ was one of the aspects of Marxism which did appeal to him as opposed to philosophy as the stuff of ivory tower intellects or as thought systems incomprehensible or unrealisable within the ‘normal’ human potential.

Bala, I would say, was walking the fine line between these two apparently contradictory philosophical conceptions concerning the way forward to an elevated humanity. On the one hand Eastern philosophy prioritised individual subjective transformation as an essential condition for the redemption of human beings, which he knew to be idealistic, and on the other hand, socialist thought, with its emphasis on political praxis through collective action, appeared to offer greater potential for real transformation in the human condition. In the interlude prior to his total immersion into revolutionary politics he attempted to marry this apparent division between subjective and objective approaches to human development by embarking on a difficult doctorate of philosophy thesis that involved a theoretical marriage between Marx and Freud. But the demands of the revolutionary politics of the national liberation struggle of his people constantly intervened in his research and teaching. A time came when he was compelled to choose between an academic life and revolutionary politics. He chose the latter for he viewed the cause of his people as just and to serve that cause was meaningful.

So it was this progressive and mature personality I loved. It was able to cope with and was instrumental in ‘filling out’ my somewhat immature and unrealised personality. Retrospectively, one of the most crucial contributions Bala made to the growth of my personality was to help me to learn to put my subtle feelings and emotions into precise words. Bala’s wider intelligence and personal experience, including his psychoanalytic knowledge, teased out my inarticulated ‘feelings’ stifled by inhibitions and brought them into cognition. Subsequently, for the first time in my life I was able to reveal the deeper, ‘secret’ side of myself and relate on an intensely intimate, uninhibited level. This improved ability to manage language inevitably widened my potential and scope for relationships, writing and conversation.

And so my relationship with Bala deepened and generated happiness and contentment in me. Just being with him seemed to be all that was necessary and the restless, discontented person, immersed in a mundane world characterised by consumerism and materialism faded away to the priority of an enduring, intimate relationship with another human being. Our wedding on 1st September 1978 was a simple, uncomplicated, formal affair with the five-minute ceremony officiated by a bureaucrat at the registry office in Brixton, South London. This social obligation had been delayed by one week. We decided to marry and hoped to complete the formalities the following day but we didn’t have the required amount of money for a 24 hours notice service; we did have enough for the next best thing: a one week booking. Apart from informing a few close friends and relatives, we didn’t mention our forthcoming wedding to anyone. As far as I was concerned, the wedding was a private commitment between us. Nevertheless, in a community where nothing remains secret for very long, the story leaked and in the evening a crowd gathered, cooked a wedding dinner of hot goat meat curry with plenty of whisky to wash it down and kicked up their heels at a fairly rowdy party. My ‘bridal’ outfit constituted a brown corduroy skirt and printed blouse, which I rushed to purchase just two hours before the ceremony. In this marriage I was lucky enough to enter into a partnership with for want of a better cliché my ‘soulmate’. I suppose it was this fundamental profound relationship which smoothed over the inevitable bumpy times in our relationship.

But marrying Balasingham is one thing; getting involved in a revolutionary struggle is another. I could have, had I been inclined after marriage, taken a different path and attempted to sway Bala in another direction. But I didn’t. So why did I opt for the political path and involvement in the Tamil people’s struggle? While it is true that in our early relationship Bala helped to ‘stabilise’ or ground me in a more serious world, I will never countenance any suggestion that I was simply a tabula rasa upon which ideas were neatly and indelibly scribed. Nor did I simply jump from London into India or Sri Lanka into circumstances beyond my comprehension, moved like a naive nymph who danced to the sweet chords plucked from the strings of her lover’s serenading harp; nor did I plunge from one mindset to another. My involvement in politics and the liberation struggle of the Tamil people involved a process of mental and emotional development and a transformation of ideas and thinking or, to be more precise, a process of personal growth. The burgeoning of my personality was certainly facilitated when I left the sheltered life behind me on the shores of Australia and entered into the ‘big’ world of England and Europe. Or, as far as I am concerned, when my mind started to break down its parochial resistance. Exposure to global humanity which one finds in England challenged my socialised self, fed me with new perceptions, lifestyles and thoughts and ultimately radicalised my views and my perception of the world. My husband contributed to this process, anchored me in unconventionality and provided me with an unfettered emotional security in a way that enriched my life more than I could possibly have imagined or expected.

My Roots in Australia

When my mother cradled and looked down lovingly on her first baby daughter on the night of 30th January 1950, in the local Warragul hospital in Australia, her greatest hopes would have been that my life would be happy and healthy, leading a good, normal life. I’m absolutely certain she could not have dreamt that this ‘little flower’ as she thought I reminded her of would ever have embraced such a life full of extraordinary experiences. My father would also not have anticipated that his daughter might adopt such a radically different path in life.

Warragul, a small town surrounded by exceptionally beautiful hilly scenery, sits snuggly at the gateway of the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland, Victoria. My parents moved to this town from Bendigo, the gold mining area of Victoria, soon after their marriage over fifty years ago and my father started his working life on the railways. They produced three other children apart from me: Brent, my older brother, and my younger brother and sister, David and Lynley.

In the early years of their marriage, my parents, Betty Florence Stewart and Albert Bruce Wilby, struggled in the post second world war economy on Dad’s income to raise their four children and balance the family expenditure. Meeting the demands and needs of four growing children couldn’t have been easy on my father’s fortnightly wage, yet I have no memories of ever going without or being in want. Both my parents shared a common set of pre-welfare state values, which upheld parental duty to provide for their children and hard work to realise such a responsibility. Economic independence was viewed as virtuous in family life and an accomplishment to be proud of. To achieve these objectives my father worked every day of his life till his retirement at the age of sixty. But while Dad worked and brought in a regular income to provide for his family, it was my mother who managed the bills and balanced the money to ensure that they were never in debt and we had sufficient food to eat. Only later, once the children were at school, did my mother move out into society and take up employment as a shop assistant in the town to augment the family income.

But apart from the shared values they brought to marriage and imparted to their children, my parents are two distinct personalities with their own perceptions and traits. But I think it would be fair to say that my father, a railway worker and strong trade unionist, was more politically orientated than my mother was. My father is remarkable for his sympathy with the oppressed and his Labour Party politics was representative of his strong advocacy of the rights of the working people. But while Dad has been more on the political side of life, my mother tended towards social and philosophical aspects of human existence. She has a passion for life, a passion to know and understand the human world and the meaning of life. While Dad sought to address the interests of the working masses and their political future, my Mum has been interested in the values and virtues of the development of the individual and the fullness of life. Perhaps it was the coming together of these two particular personalities that impacted on my mind, propelling me into circumstances, which ended up the way they did. But it is difficult to account for the life path of one child so disparate from the other siblings and family history. Perhaps it was the interaction of the complex tendencies of my parents that laid the foundation for the evolution and formation of my personality. Nevertheless, while my adult life marks a fundamental divergence from the path of my other family members and has some controversy surrounding it, my parents have never wavered in their support for my life choices and have demonstrated an admirable willingness to understand and sympathize with my involvement in the Tamil people’s struggle for freedom.

My primary school years were spent uneventfully at the local state school, after which I moved on to the town’s secondary school where I studied to ‘O’ level standard. The opportunity of tertiary education was not an option open to me. In Australia in the 60s there was no space for ‘plodders’ at university; one had to be either wealthy enough to pay for university education or brilliant enough to win a scholarship. I fitted into neither of these criteria. Instead, I went on to fulfil a passion that had pre-occupied me ever since I was a small child and which I considered to be my potential and ‘station’ in life. I entered the nursing profession. With hindsight, and the benefit of years of getting to understand myself better, I now realise that the nursing profession represented two themes in my personality which has followed me through life: one, a profound sympathy and empathy for any form of suffering, and secondly, a desire to continually grow as a human being. Entering the nursing profession not only satisfied my aspiration to work in a caring profession, but more importantly, it took me out of my small town life into a new world in the city. Nursing studies regardless of how limited - built on the knowledge bank I had when I finished secondary school. Nevertheless, as is the case with many people I suppose, had I the opportunity to do so again, nursing would not be the way in which I would combine those two aspirations. I probably would have chosen a less subservient profession: perhaps law or one of the natural sciences concerned with earth and life on it.

So after three years of gruelling training as a nurse I had a qualification under my belt and I was very pleased and proud of my achievement. A year of midwifery training gave me my second nursing qualification: one more step up the ladder both professionally and personally. But with those two qualifications behind me at the age of twenty one, and no likelihood of marriage in the near future, I seemed to run out of things to do in Australia and I opted for the popular - and what would seem the inevitable option to travel abroad. So after some discussion with a friend, we made plans to move out of Australia. I made my plans with no idea that this young Aussie back-packer’s trip to Europe would be a non- return ticket. And I can still remember the day I made that fateful leap into the world. So powerful were the emotions I experienced on the day of my departure from Australia I can feel them as intensely today as they were then. It was a hot, steamy day in late January and I was nearly to be twenty-two years old. I was nervous and could not eat. The good-bye was such an emotional farewell, one would think this first time traveller from Australia was heading to another planet rather than another country albeit on the other side of the planet. On board the plane I took up my allocated seat in the rear of the cabin. This meant that I would, to my dismay, be the last to be served food and drink, for since boarding the plane I felt an enormous emotional weight lift off my shoulders and a ravenous appetite overtook my brief anorexia before departure.

My decision to travel abroad turned out to be a watershed in my life and I never looked back and I have only visited Australia once since I left her shores nearly thirty years ago. Departing Australia closed the chapter on one stage of my life and paved the way for at fundamental transformation in my thinking and priorities. Plunged into the matrix of life and exposed to personalities from all over the world, I really had no choice but to face the challenges to my ideas, thinking and behaviour if I was to benefit from this wonderful and fabulous diversity of experience that was about to engulf me.

I travelled to London and around Europe with a couple of girl friends from Australia. I was fortunate enough not to meet or mix with many Australians during the entire period of my journeys throughout the continent and during my stay in England. I say fortunate, because this meant that I did not simply transpose my Australian culture and relationships from one setting to another, but rather I lived and worked amongst the local people of the countries I visited. For example, we had a flat in a high rise tower block and we nursed in a private paediatric cardiology unit in Rome. I later took up the post of nanny to four small Italian children - for a very brief period indeed! By living and working in European countries I was able to observe and participate in the cultural and linguistic life of people, as opposed to brief visits to purely tourist designations. When we were bankrupt we returned to England, saved a tidy sum of money from the more than satisfactory wages we received as agency nurses, and again zipped off for a Northern and central European tour. I lived this life for a couple of years until both my friends returned to Australia, leaving me to re-evaluate my future alone in London.

The few years of a gypsy’s life was great experience for me and I would never have missed it for the world, but a time came where I felt I should move on; perhaps even study again. However, having not yet mastered my chronic lack of self-confidence and aware of my absence of formal ‘A’ levels, opting for degree, I thought, was a little too ambitious. Subsequently a year of primary health care studies was a possible option and this became the next small step on the ladder of my life. In reality, I was ideally suited for this community orientated health care programme. Nursing provided me with the basic medical knowledge and midwifery was a must, but my European travel had divested me of any estrangement I might feel towards people of other cultures and races and made me an ideal candidate for community work in a multi-cultural society. These qualifications and experience compensated for my absence of formal ‘A’ levels as qualifications for entry to academic studies and so I was accepted into South Bank University for study in primary health care. One year of study for a Diploma in Health Visiting equipped me with the training and skills to work outside hospital institutions in the community as a primary health care worker.

Allocated to a large geographical area that was home to a cross section of social classes and cultures, I was exposed to a multitude of complex and often intractable social problems. The institutional organisation of primary health care and the social issues I was compelled to deal with were interesting and challenging, but they also raised new questions in my mind. For example, I began to question the policies and priorities of government funding. I was critical of the efficiency of public services. I was not happy with the process and implications of writing reports on people and ‘labelling’ etc. In other words I began to question the whole ‘system’. It would be in my interest, I believed, to clarify the questions I was asking and the issues I was thinking about if I had a deeper knowledge of the social structure. I felt I was not sufficiently knowledgeable about the dynamics of society. And so I plucked up the courage and decided to apply for a social science degree course. But my aspiration to gain more structured, sophisticated and in-depth knowledge of the social matrix were still constrained by my doubts about my ability to cope with the intellectual demands of a degree course. So when I was accepted on the Social Science Degree course at South Bank University I was thrilled that I was considered capable of undertaking the challenge of undergraduate academia. The prospect of entering a totally different social environment where knowledge was abundant and where I would have to apply myself intellectually-particularly at the age of twenty-seven - was a challenge I eagerly awaited.

The social science degree course at the South Bank was wide in scope and, in particular, the social theory was intellectually heavy stuff. We studied the microscopic and the macroscopic dimensions of society; we travelled back from the pre-industrial world to the ‘post-capitalist’ era; we surveyed the history of continents and countries from Africa to Asia and the Americas and we dealt in thoughts systems dwelling on the social construction of the individual psyche to the mass hysteria of Nazi Germany. The lecturers. represented all shades across the political spectrum but with the ‘left-wingers’ in predominance. In other words, the degree course gave me a substantial political and theoretical education and contributed enormously to greater understanding of the ways of the world. It was at the South Bank University I met Bala. He was working on his doctorate dissertation and engaged in part-time tutoring. I was in the second year of the social science degree course. Our acquaintance at the University soon developed into an intimate love, culminating in marriage. Bala helped to sharpen my intellect and to comprehend the complex social theories. The college was also a hive of political activism with students from all over the world propagating or supporting one struggle or another, thereby exposing me to the different mechanisms of social and national oppression going on in the world. It was also the age of revolutions: Britain was wracked by the extreme left wing politics of trade union power and militancy; many Third World countries in Africa, central and South America waged national liberation struggles for freedom from the archaic institutions of colonialism and the economic rape of imperialism. Because of our inherent sympathy for the oppressed we actively participated in the rallies and meetings of the African National Congress (ANC), Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO), East Timorese, the Eritreans, Sandinistas, Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the El Salvadorians, Chileans etc. We worked with the Communist Party of Great Britain, marched for the freedom of Nelson Mandela, supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and were repulsed by the rise of racism in Britain. We invited people home for group discussions with the representatives from some of these liberation organisations. Feminism also ‘set out’ a lot of my own feelings of oppression and provided the words for me to articulate just how I felt and experienced my place as a woman in relationships and the world. It was this environment where my loosely defined tendencies gelled into a more coherent set of ideas; ideas which ultimately led to participation in an armed struggle of a third world country’s national liberation movement.

Although we were both politically conscious and active throughout our academic years, our politics were essentially focused on international liberation struggles rather than domestic political issues. We never joined the British Labour Party nor did we have anything to with its militant tendency. Working with the British Communist Party proved to be the least revolutionary option in British politics and fortunately our relationship was not deep and limited to a brief period of time only. The Soviet Union’s support for the Sri Lanka Communist Party’s opposition to the struggle for self-determination and political independence of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, and the British Communist Party’s allegiance and subservience to their Moscow masters were, in our view, reactionary, frustrating and politically incorrect. In British politics, the central issue that worried me was the rising tide of racism and fascism in England. I found it repulsive to watch the growth of a political movement that propagated an ideology of hatred towards other people and asserted a misplaced conception of being in someway superior to people different to themselves. Indeed this xenophobic environment impinged directly on my life and I had no appetite for it. I had to watch and tolerate as racism was perpetrated against Bala and many of his people in England. For example, a young Tamil man on his way to visit us was surrounded and beaten up by a group of young white thugs. He arrived at our door with blood spilling down his face and trembling in fear. He was so afraid to leave our flat and would only do so if we accompanied him to the tube station. I also had direct experience of racist threats. One evening we were sitting quietly at home talking to a friend in our high rise flat. A group of white racists attempted to break down the door and enter. Bala, our friend and myself repulsed the attack by pushing against the door to keep them out and shouting at one another to call the police.

This confrontation with racism touched my sensitivity to injustice, violations of people’s rights and the disrespect to people of different cultures. But while the experience of racism in Britain made me furious, Bala was not surprised by it and took it in his stride and compared it with the racism in his own country. But whereas the colour of skin was the basis upon which racist ideology emerged in Britain, illusions of ethnic supremacy formed the basis of racism perpetrated against Bala’s people in Sri Lanka. Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinist ideology, embedded in the mythology of a superior Aryan race and a pristine religion, was the foundation of racist practices in Sri Lanka. The Sinhala state has been the main perpetrator of racist crimes against the Tamil people. This racism has become genocidal in character with gross human rights violations in which more than 70,000 Tamils have now perished. As we have seen throughout history, the myth of superior race manifesting in the ideologies of fascism and chauvinism are dangerous, destructive and negative forces to be, in my view, fiercely resisted. Indeed I abhor chauvinist ideologies that stifle and oppress not only individuals, but nations of people also. I developed a deeper understanding and respect for people of all cultures from my travels in Europe and from my working experience with people in England from different races. Inevitably, I could not tolerate verbal or physical abuse of people on the basis of racism. As we look across the breadth of humanity, racism has played a crucial role in human history and has been a central divisive force and a source of inhumanity between people. It manifests in negative ideological perceptions of one people towards another based on dubious premises such as skin colour and spurious notions of superiority and inferiority, cultural differences, religion, history etc. As my experience in life has deepened, I have come to view the planet as the home of common humanity: the natural habitation of a single race -the human race- and other forms of life who have as much right to existence on this planet as you or me. Diversity of cultures enriches the human race since cultures express the spiritual development of humanity. In my view, all cultures on this planet should be respected and allowed to develop if peace, harmony and enrichment of life are to prevail.

Militant Politics

The history of the brutal and unjust oppression of the Tamil people by the Sinhala state since the independence of the island is well documented by international humanitarian organisations. The systematic oppression of the state over the years, does, in my observation, amount to attempted genocide though international Governments might refuse to accept this indictment. (I discuss the issue of genocide later) The oppression attacks the basic foundations of Tamil national identity i.e. its language, culture, economic life, and place of historical habitation. Added to this is the mass scale extermination of Tamil people during race riots and as a result of war. The dismemberment of the cohesion of the Tamil population by persistent and repetitive episodes of displacement is another genocidal factor. The sustained and brutal state oppression, from the outset, has inevitably evoked resistance. In the initial stages the Tamil people articulated their resistance to oppression through nonviolent political struggles based on the pacifist philosophy of ‘Ahimsa’ as advocated by the guru of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi. The moral strength of non-violent resistance proved to be an ineffective, impotent force when confronting the coercive might of the Sinhala state which callously disregarded the spiritual and moral dimensions of non-violence. All peaceful protests by the Tamil populace were brutally crushed.

The abrogation of political pacts and agreements made between the leaders of the Tamil and Sinhala nations to resolve the escalating ethnic conflict deepened the climate of hostility and distrust between the two peoples. Indiscriminate arrests, systematic torture, disappearances and extra-judicial killings became part of the practices of the state’s military forces. Furthermore, apart from the military occupation and domination of the Tamil areas, savage racist pogroms over the years, orchestrated by the state and executed by mobs of Sinhala thugs, resulted in the extermination of thousands and thousands of Tamil people. This mounting state oppression coupled with a growing frustration and lack of confidence amongst the Tamil people in the chauvinist Sinhala leadership presented the Tamil politicians with little option than to secede and create an independent Tamil state. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the Parliamentary political party of the Tamils in the general elections of 1977, sought a mandate from the Tamils to struggle for an independent state based on the right of self determination of the Tamil people. The TULF swept to victory in the Northeast, winning the majority of seats and gaining a popular mandate for a struggle towards political independence and statehood. But although the TULF had the people’s mandate it lacked a coherent policy or strategy for the realisation of this popular political objective. Lacking in strategy and commitment to this mandated objective, the Party became inactive and impotent and ultimately sought the path of collaboration with the Sinhala ruling elites. This collaborationist approach severely and irrevocably disillusioned the rebellious young Tamils who demanded a radical strategy that would lead to the creation of an independent state. The Tamil youth, who bore the brunt of state violence and oppression, grew increasingly restless and cynical towards parliamentary politics and the impotency of non-violent political struggle. Both the objective and subjective conditions for the emergence of armed struggle in the Tamil cause for national freedom had now matured. A multitude of youth organisations committed to armed struggle for national liberation surfaced in the Northeast of Sri Lanka. The violence of the oppressor was now to be met with the violence of the oppressed.

Many of the liberation organisations in the Northeast had their supporters and campaigners in London. The support came essentially from the young generation of Tamils who had fled brutal persecution and racial discrimination in Sri Lanka. They retained bitter and painful memories of the experiences to which they had been subjected, a powerful identification with their oppressed people and an enduring emotional attachment to their homeland.

Our Tamil friends in London were all politically conscious people around this time of the late 70s. Most had come to London to escape discrimination and persecution, in one form or another, by the Sri Lankan state. The Tamil United Liberation Front’s political mandate excited their aspirations and the anti-Tamil riots of 1977 following the general election kept Tamil politics alive in London. At the college, young Tamil students approached Bala on the basis of national identity. They were all fiery and enthusiastic. One young man, Ganasekaran, encouraged Bala to use his journalistic and writing skills and his theoretical knowledge to write a political document. This Bala did and its wide circulation reached the LTTE circles in London. Mr. Krishnan, the LTTE representative in London in the mid 70s and Mr. R Ramachandran (alias Anton Raja) the official spokesman, visited our residence and introduced themselves. Mr. Ramachandran (we call him Ramasar) provided us with a detailed and authentic picture about the Liberation Tigers and their leadership. We were convinced of the courage, determination and commitment of the Tiger cadres. Our saga with the LTTE was underway. Ramasar has since become our life long friend and has been spokesman of the organisation in London. But, although we supported the LTTE our circle was wide, and supporters of all Tamil groups committed to armed struggle regularly visited our house. Bala held political classes for many young Tamil students from all the different organisations. We invited representatives from liberation organisations in other countries to come and address these classes also. They bought with them documentary films on the activities of their organisations, propaganda documents and posters. The Eritreans came with the history of their struggle; the East Timorese representatives narrated the genocidal oppression and atrocities committed by the Indonesian military regime; the African National Congress was twenty years away from victory and their representatives gave a talk on the struggle against apartheid; the Chilean underground representatives visited us and talked on the struggle against the military dictatorship of Pinochet, and so on. We collected funds for many of these organisations also.

But as much as the Tamils were politically active, so too was the Sinhala ‘left’. The demand for a separate Tamil state opened up a controversial debate and the Sinhalese ‘leftists’ were confronted with the dilemma of wanting to remain ‘radical’ by supporting the socialist principle of a people’s right to self-determination, yet at the same time opposing the right of the oppressed Tamils to secede. Bala was annoyed by this apparent theoretical confusion amongst ‘leftist’ Sinhala politicians and ‘revolutionaries’. We decided to produce a document in response to this theoretical muddle. Bala painstakingly applied himself to this project and soon produced a cogent theoretical document, drawing on Marxist/Leninist framework to legitimise the Tamil people’s right to self-determination. As he wrote, I typed, and we spent our education grant money on the printing of this document. It was released and distributed to the public with the title ‘On the Tamil National Question’. He followed this up with his second work in Tamil - ’Towards Socialist Tamil Eelam and it found its way to Mr. Vellupillai Pirabakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Mr. Pirabakaran read the book and was impressed by the content and subsequently wanted to meet Bala. He invited us to Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India, where we met the leadership of the organisation for the first time.