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World: The Appapillai Amirthalingam eightieth birthday shenanigans

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Friday, 07 September 2007
A large gathering of 42 or so persons met at the Indian YMCA Building in Central London on 26 August, in name of the eightieth birthday of the late A. Amirthalingam, the disgraced leader of the TULF during the 80s, to drink and party throughout the night.

It was organized by Baheerathan Amirthalingam, his younger son, doing much of the behind the scenes work. Lavish eats and eastern European ladies were served for guests courtesy of Ruby Catering (Ellakia Savories) of Northolt, Harrow.

A major event that evening was the release of a book on Mr. Amirthalingam containing some of his important speeches of historic value.

Dr. Nicholas Pillai, known as the famous 'Sillalai Sex Guru' presided.

The aging couple Mr. V. Anandasangari, and Mrs. Mangayatkarasi Amirthalingam spoke.

Ratnajeevan Hoole, introduced by Dr. Neethirajah, delivered the Eightieth Birth-anniversary Memorial Lecture.

The vote of thanks was delivered Mr. Kandeepan Amirthalingam, Mr. Amirthalingam's eldest son.

Kandeepan fled his long time residency of Scarborough in Canada after failing to pay back debts he had incurred with the local Tamil community there, according to posters issued in Toronto.

Hoole's 90-minute talk was titled "A Time for Tamil Introspection and Reassessment in the midst of Myth and Propaganda". His speech was richly accompanied by slides illustrating his points.

The theme of his talk was that Tamils suffer from several myths. He specifically pointed to five myths:

  1. Tamils believing their own propaganda such as the so called 1983 Black July riots without verification and acting on it;
  2. Tamils declaring anyone who disagrees with them to be a traitor;
  3. Overseas Tamils such as TBC Ramaraj and Dr Rajasingham Jayadevan presuming to be Tamil Representatives --he had amusing examples of the antics of overseas Tamils, particularly from the so called Tamil Democratic Congess;
  4. Tamils believing Tamil histories to be right and Sinhalese histories to be propaganda - he argued that Mahavamsa was the only reliable written history of the island of Sri Lanka;
  5. Tamils presuming Tamils to be a Monolithic Community.

He argued that as a result of playing cards they do not have, Tamils together as a people have slipped in numbers behind the Muslims to second minority and therefore there is a crisis upon the community calling for an urgent change of course.

Hoole adduced that the course of cooperation has been tried and failed in that those Tamils who deal with the state come back empty handed and as a result lose standing among the people.

He took a cheap shot at Arumugam Thondaman saying the upcountry leader is sidelined into silence with caste insults, completely taken for granted.

Using examples from engineering, he put forward his thesis that the practicable second best behind Sinhalese is effectively better than the impossible best of being equal with the Sinhalese.

Stating that he had no influence with the LTTE, he urged overseas Tamils who work with the LTTE to persuade them that it is in the Tamil self-interest to make this correction in course.

TipThe writer of the news was not present at the party. This article is a recollection of accounts given by a number of those who claim to have attended.

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