Friday, February 20, 2009 - 6:30PM // Kane 120
Keynote for States of Violence Conference

GENDERING CONFLICT — DISARMING NATIONALISMS: Streaming Video

Nirmala Rajasingam’s courageous life story spans university education in the United States, radicalization in Sri Lanka, incarceration for her connections with the militant organization the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), subsequent disillusionment with and separation from the organization over their disregard for democracy and human rights, and relocation to London. Ms. Rajasingam continues her life of activism through work as a legal defender for refugees in Britain as well as acting as a leading member of several London-based human rights and democracy organizations including the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum and the South Asia Solidarity Group.

The seminar will be the anchor for the States of Violence: Representations of Conflict in Film, Fiction, and Media of South Asia conference featuring Nirmala Rajasingam, a former associate of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Ms. Rajasingam will narrate her personal experience with violent social change, touching on why she chose to leave the movement, and how she envisions future ethnic and cultural cohabitation in Sri Lanka given the past 25 years of war. The Veterans of Intercommunal Violence Seminar Series is designed to encourage dialogue on the relationships between combatants, conflict, peace and dialogue. Using the Sri Lanka conflict as a case study, the lecture will traverse the myriad issues that arise when war, gender, terrorism, national and ethnic identities all come crashing together.

Sponsors:
The Comparative History of Ideas program at UW; The Center for Global Studies at the University of Washington; The Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington; The UW South Asia Center, UW Department of Law, Society and Justice; UW Department of Sociology; UW Department of English; UW Department of Women Studies; and the South Asian Bar Association of Washington.

Since 2006, the Clowes Center has organized public lectures by individuals who have been involved in violent political struggles and subsequently adopted different tactics for achieving social and political changes.

Speaker Archive:

Max Hunter (2010)
Gangster Epistemology: Urban Crime & the American Dream

Marco Antonio Garavito (2007)
The Dream of Peace in Guatemala

Yazir Henri (2006)
Guerilla Peacemakers