Enemy Lines: Warfare, Childhood, and Play in BatticaloaEnemy Lines captures the extraordinary story of boys and girls coming of age during a civil war. Margaret Trawick lived and worked in Batticaloa in Eastern Sri Lanka, where thousands of youth have been recruited into the Sri Lankan armed resistance movement known as the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). This compelling account of her experiences is a powerful exploration of how children respond to the presence of war in their world and of how adults have responded to the presence of children in this conflict. What emerges from her beautifully written narrative, which includes many voices of the children and young adults who have joined the LTTE, is a picture of a region that has been profoundly affected by the horrors of war, but where war is not the only thread in the fabric of people's lives--these Sri Lankans fight and prepare for combat, but they also play, love, celebrate, and dream. Enemy Lines, the most extensive ethnographic account of the Tamil Tigers available, advances a striking argument about the nature of war itself as it brings alive a region where childhood, warfare, and play have become commingled in a world of continual uncertainty. |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 The Past | 14 |
3 March 1996 | 56 |
4 Vasanta and Rosa | 90 |
5 About Vithusa | 100 |
6 What Menan Showed Me | 129 |
7 Girls in the LTTE | 147 |
8 Boys in the LTTE | 185 |
9 Spectacles and Mysteries | 210 |
10 Look for What You Do Not See | 270 |
Notes | 281 |
| 293 | |
| 299 | |
| 305 | |
| 307 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Accan adults Alagar army attack Auntie baby Batticaloa battle bhikkus bike body bomb brother Buddhist camp checkpoint child child soldiers childhood Chola civilians Colombo combat death Duttagamani enemy EPRLF face fight friends human Inbam India IPKF island Jaffna Jayasikurui join the LTTE jungle Kandy Kannaki killed kings Kokkadichcholai Kokkadichcholai massacre Koyila Kuddi later laugh legs live looks LTTE Mahavamsa Malaimalli Manimekalai massacre Menan movement Muslims Nalini never Nirmala Paduvankarai person picture play political Prabhakaran Razeek recruits rifle road Rosa Rudrakumaran Saiva Satyan Senguttuvan shoot shot side Silappadikaram Sinhala Sinhalese sister Sita smile soldiers Sri Lanka Sri Lankan Army Sri Lankan Tamils story talk tells TELO temple things Tiger boys Tiger girls told town tractor Vasanta Vasanta says Vasanta’s house Vidya village Vithusa warfare woman women words young