This is my last day with the Mutiny, so I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth and fire off a few posts, Abhi-style.
I promised to blog about Groundviews. On Friday, I met with Sanjana Hattotuwa, the site’s editor, who was in New York on other business. We talked about the site and the situation in Sri Lanka. I’m excited to share that conversation with you here. I’ll do it in a few parts—we talked for quite a long time.
First, a little background: Groundviews is a citizen journalism site about what’s happening in Sri Lanka. It started in the fall of 2006. It’s perhaps the best use of citizen journalism I’ve ever seen—I think it’s a brilliant way to get around media censorship in that country. As I’ve become increasingly saddened by the progression of the conflict there, I’ve also been heartened to see the spectrum of people participating in Groundviews. People in the diaspora have even begun to send items in. And Vikalpa, another citizen journalism site in Sinhalese and Tamil, has taken off as well.
The site has content you can’t get anywhere else, and also links to its own YouTube channel. Voices on the ground might just vanish if not for this site (and others like it). And Groundviews supports a range of views and voices. When the topic is Sri Lanka, people too often yell from one extreme at the other, but the site is becoming a place for real debate. This is all too important when, as Sanjana says, things in Sri Lanka are the worst they’ve been in his memory. (More on this later.)
Sanjana originally thought of citizen journalism as a way to bear witness to what is happening in Sri Lanka. He gets items directly from sources he knows, and also passed through a network of people he trusts. One recent standout: an audio testimonial from a Jaffna resident, sharing his views on what’s going on there.
A last note: I particularly like this piece Sanjana wrote about war. (Thanks to ptr_vivek for pointing it out in the first place.)
Part II coming, but I’m going to be interested to hear people’s comments about this stuff. I’m always looking for information about what’s happening on the ground in Sri Lanka. This seems to me to begin to fill that gaping void.
K, I don’t consider myself maligned, and I appreciate your lengthy response. (As you know, since my lengthier response went to your inbox.) I hope it’s obvious why I’m trying (failing?) to move on to another post. But before I do: AVIAF, retorts, ptr_vivek, rob, kageru, whoever… I hope you will debate and discuss, and I will do my best to respond without being defensive. This is of course extremely personal and not personal at all… the touchiest kind of debate.
I’m not a particular authority and am happy to hear from those with different opinions. Nor do I mean to suggest that Groundviews is above criticism: like any editorial product, of course it has its flaws. But my aims include giving them what credit I think they’re due–and steering criticisms towards things that are actually actionable, like K’s suggestion of an acknowledgment of awareness of limitations. My preference is for the pragmatic rather than the abstract, and that’s the first good suggestion I’ve seen. I find her idea actually very interesting and wonder how specifically it might be implemented. Where on the site would it go? What language might it use?
AVIAF, I wasn’t trying to attack you by asking about your identity… I merely wished to point out that anonymity doesn’t necessarily protect you from people ascribing guesses to you. It’s more of that damned if you do, damned if you don’t business. Ah, Sri Lanka… Anyway, orneriness might be your style, but it’s not mine, so thank-you-come-again… seriously.
It’s not surprising that quite a few Srilankan Tamils are going gaa gaa over Groundviews seeing as it has absolutely zero criticism of the LTTE or Tamil nationalism, but oodles of it for the Government and Sinhalese nationalism. It’s getting harder and harder these days to justify suicide bombings (including those carried out by pregnant women as they are in Sri Lanka), child soldiers, bombs on buses, extortion, and intra-ethnic Tamil-on-Tamil violence. So Groundviews comes as a welcome respite to those who wish to whitewash the Tamil Tigers and rail against the Evil Genocidal Government (incidentally the LTTE prohibited the Tamil populace under its control from voting in the last elections – no hand wringing by Groundviews on that issue surprise surprise).
Citizen journalism? Please. It’s run by a member of the Centre For Policy Alternatives; supporting a “range of views and voices” is the last thing it does. If Groundviews is representative of ordinary Sri Lankan citizens they would have already voted in an uber-liberal-colombo-elite government, granted Tamil Eelam on a platter and be toasting the LTTE by drinking arrack and dancing to loud baila music.
A N N A (#50), I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about the function of short vs long comments. After what you’ve said, I understand where you’re coming from, but take issue with the way the policy was initially conveyed. I also generally have a hard time reading and responding to long comments, but I think they can have a place, when the points behind them are intricately connected.
And I recognize that. Leaving a couple of comments aside, if SL threads continue in this vein, I’ll have to retract my previous statement. 🙂
That would’ve been my last word in this thread, to let V.V. move on with the business of her follow-up post… but it seems almost criminal to let the following be the final word in a relatively nuanced thread:
And now an obvious rationale for AVIAF’s reluctance to provide identifying information becomes abundantly clear.
Lankapura, first of all, nobody is going “gaa gaa.” There are criticisms throughout this thread and elsewhere. Secondly, you’ve obviously missed the point of Sanjana’s comment (#34)– after linking to a few critical analyses of Tamil nationalism published on Groundviews, he goes on to explain why the site focuses on the government– it is clear to anyone who can read between the lines that it is a denunciation of LTTE tactics, and the use of those very same tactics by the government (hello, paramilitary proxies). But of course, you aren’t reading what is being said. You haven’t bothered to step out of your box to think why Tamils who write under their own names scrutinize every word they put out there, and why so many express their positions under pseudonyms. Instead, you’re ascribing political positions to the commenters solely on the basis of your assumptions about their identities. So Tamil = Tiger or Tiger supporter.
Ironically, the LTTE’s political leadership and its most ardent supporters prescribe exactly the same view.
Funny that.
How about not a duplicate site, but more of a simple site, like, e.g., “GroundviewsWatch,” where you could provide textual commentary on what you feel are Groundviews’s omissions/what have you?
Really Kettikili? Perhaps it’s different for you, but for me it sure seems as if V.V. is going gaa gaa over Groundviews in her original post. It’s pretty much a promo piece for Groundviews — without mentioning all the other rather unsavoury bits that people have brought up about the site and its editor in the proceeding comments. What exactly are the “few critical analysis” of Tamil nationalism you’re talking about? Wait, are you talking about that solitary “ethnos or demos question” article? The one that is bashed in reply? And exactly how many replies to all the other articles on Groundviews have been published? Heck, even the comments are heavily censored to suit the editorial line. The site certainly does not denounce the LTTE or terrorism half as much as it denounces everything else. Where are the interviews with the Sinhalese civilian whose whole family was blown to bits on a bus bomb? The Muslim civilian who was ethnically cleansed from Jaffna? The Tamil civilian whose father was shot dead because he was considered a “traitor” to the Tamil cause? Or how about life under the LTTE? Not groundviews stuff I suppose? No comment about the fact the only mono-ethnic areas in Sri Lanka are those under the LTTE? I guess according to Groundviews the LTTE is a small, itsy bitsy participant in the conflict that has ravaged the island for the past 20+ years. Funny that. Apparently its the last thing on the minds of Sri Lankans. And sorry to burst your bubble, but I have been following the blog since its onset when it went on an advertising blitzkrieg and Sanjana Hatottuwa was using his column in the Daily Mirror to promote the website. Did I make assumptions about the commentators on Groundviews? Or is it you who has jumped to that assumption? Whatever the case, like I mentioned earlier, supporting a “range of views and voices” is the last thing that Groundviews does.
55 · Lankapura said
What do you like to read?
Amar Chitra Kathas.
It is not true about groundviews not entertaining criticism on the LTTE. Personally, I have commented many times on the atrocities of the LTTE in response to published articles and have also pointed out the whole issue of the diaspora phenomenon. I must say I am also a bit worried about the whole censorship allegations I have been reading about groundviews. it is really sad if this is all true and it undermines the effect of groundviews. I have also had people telling me about submitted content not being included. This is a bit sad, because groundviews sometimes publishes articles of very poor quality i.e. CHA. Despite the fact that it does attempt to carry real stories highlighting the ground situ, the quality of these articles are really not up to the mark. So the question arises whether ‘groundviews’ is really ‘citizen journalism’ or a platform for ‘popular personalities/ organisations’ using this as a propaganda tool. Nevertheless, I must say that ‘groundviews’ is truly a superb initiative and must strive to uphold their attempts at ‘citizen journalism’.
People who are interested in reading more about Sri Lanka especially in terms of the whole Diaspora issue should have a look at this blog site, http://sahasamvada-forum.blogspot.com/