Technik Kultur Dortmund 

Contents

PDF Mapping of Srilankan Diaspora 2001

1.

The Start

2.

Head of the Board

3.

Open Letter to Tamil Community

Starting Point

To clarify how I became involved, I was guided into this project. Judging by the relentless efforts of its active members, the goal was clearly to integrate me into the diaspora and make me a part of their system. The head of the board even played loud Indian music during breaks, in an attempt to make it a habit for me. This wasn't about musical taste; I appreciate diverse music. However, I don’t believe in the power of groupthink. The majority can be wrong, and being convinced by sheer numbers contradicts scientific evidence on effective decision-making. I sometimes listen to Indian music voluntarily, but not by force. It's not a matter of free will, but of a deeper principle: we are the result of adaptation. Each human adapts to a specific environment, a fact that rigid cultural or religious norms can often ignore. The psychologist Geert Hofstede proved that diversity of opinion is the key to strength in character, culture, and, by extension, in products, inventions, visions, and the arts. He found this approach to adaptation not only to be more resilient but also more powerful in fostering invention and shaping preferences. Today's AI can already outperform the human mind, and that is just the beginning. True emergence—the optimal performance that arises after aligning all known knowledge—is the result. You might wonder how I know this. It's because that's me. I may lack a high conventional IQ, but I possess strong emergent capabilities. This kind of forced intervention lowers my output, my comprehension, and my quality. Therefore, since only a few people can understand this, I resisted without explaining. I responded in a language he would understand: by shouting in his face to stop this nonsense. He stopped. Head of Thamilar Kalasalai Dortmund He was a respected person in the whole diaspora: a former child soldier, head of the education and dancing school, which was one of over 120 similar institutions nationwide. This particular one was politically neutral—the only one left—with a reach of nearly 200 children and youths. It was founded with a former Green Party Leader to diversify thinking and resist propaganda. So, it was the right place for me. And I knew how to transfer my capabilities, whether it was teaching programming to a 10-year-old in 2004 or inventing a new USP for an input management solution in a corporate business environment. For me, it's the same fundamental process. You can compare this to the emergence of an AI based on an LLM; it's a universal skill based on recognizing minority information. However, as an Indian Bengali, born and raised in Germany with parents from West Bengal, I had close ties to Gandhi, especially on my mother's side. I was shocked to discover just how far this German Tamil community had strayed from true democratic ideals. At this point, I want to make it absolutely clear that I went into this situation without any prejudice. Why me? Originally, a partner from my theater group—a fellow amateur actress, but a second-generation Tamil born in Germany to parents who were refugees from the war in Sri Lanka—drew me into the project. At the time, I had organized two big performance shows, one for the benefit of women's rights after reading an official report about the situation of women in India, which was really devastating for me. So, I decided to create a benefit show to make a donation for a women's refuge shelter in Germany. That didn’t help any Indian women, but after reading that horrible report, I felt I had to do something. Because I had put on a show with over 20 local artists out of nothing and collected donations, my colleague from the theater group was eager to bring me in. Targeted Children in Germany She told me about the situation in the very same city I lived in at the time, Dortmund. At its heart, over 100 children and youths were suffering from repression by a dominating radical Tamil group. I agreed to help, though I knew little about Tamil society. The fact that radical Tamils had assassinated Rajiv Gandhi years earlier didn't bother me at all. I saw no issue in creating project concepts in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, as he himself was generally inclusive of all Indian groups. But how is it possible that kids can be systematically targeted in Germany in the first place?! This was beyond my imagination. Enlightening Research However, as is my habit, I researched the current situation. Instead of trying to invent something new, I simply gathered information on best practices and the current status quo. What I found left me utterly astonished. I only understood the full scope of the problem through my own research later. By the time I finally read the official report from the November 2001 BAMF-funded research project of the Berghof Institute, it was far too late, as I had already become a target of the diaspora's radicals during the project itself. To be clear, I am talking about real terrorists from the first generation, possibly former child soldiers who killed with machine guns. Nationalism Post 9/11 The report was clearly prompted by the events of 9/11 in the USA. Following this, I found myself as the sole democratic believer on the managing board of the community's association. The Berghof report explicitly mentioned the association "Thamilar Kalasalai Dortmund," but in the association registry, it was spelled with a "z"—"Kalazalai." In any case, it was cited as an exception: not radical, but politically neutral. This meant that while there were nationalist members and occasional visits from freedom fighters, any political subjects were forbidden in the children's education program. But this wasn't enough for me. I needed more distance from the nationalistic tendencies of the members while somehow remaining connected, I did it as an organizational subsidiary. This was because any other course of action could lead to harming a person with a different opinion, even children. But the diaspora was so radical that opposing them with neutrality was reason enough to be threatened and denied participation in other institutions. I heard secondhand that some parents were physically attacked for participating. It was believable to me. Even after weeks and months, I couldn't comprehend how I had become what felt like the last defender of Germany's democratic ideals within this nationwide group. I tried to speak to as many people as possible who had gone underground. The truth is, there are Tamils who secretly oppose the radicals. For instance, the Berghof report can be found on many Tamil websites, but mostly without any further comment. This indicates the true state of freedom of speech in the German diaspora. Like me, most Germans, unless they specialize in this matter, don't have a clue how far removed from democracy it is. Within the Head I was elected as one of the two heads of the board in the original association. My goal was to remain connected to the association while also establishing independence. Therefore, I also founded a subsidiary association for any new projects. My main agenda was to minimize the influence of the radicals by bringing more “neutral” people into the project and to create a separation through the subsidiary. To that end, I tried to reach out to Sinhalese people from Sri Lanka to prove that this was an inclusive project. In that spirit, I chose only native Germans as teachers, whom I recruited mostly from master's students at the local university. To acquire additional funding from the BAMF (Federal Office for Migration and Refugees), I created an inclusive website for all people from Sri Lanka, as this was the only democratic spirit I could imagine. I tried talking to church organizations, as the very design of the Articles of Association (Satzung nach dem Paritätischen Wohlfahrtsverband) was a prerequisite for that kind of funding. I even attended a workshop with a federal government consultant on how to get government funding. But when talking to the local church organization for their mandatory approval and financial contribution ("Eigenanteil"), all I received was suspicion that I myself could be a radical. At that time, I didn’t know that with the help of my own web designer, the website content had been altered behind my back to feature "Tamils only." I tried to speak with the author of the Berghof report, Walter Keller, a native German, but he was afraid. I later found out that he had been beaten so badly by these radicals that he was hospitalized. I tried to talk to the founder of the association itself, also a native German and former Green Party leader, but he was deep in depression and told me he couldn’t trust anyone anymore. I could only talk to him via phone; I got the impression from his former Green Party colleagues that he had chosen solitude, and they were happy to give me his contact details. Then, the former project department manager, another native German, showed up unannounced after having disappeared for years. Some of his former Tamil students whom he had personally taught were now active board members. When I asked him for advice about my private problems that were strongly influencing my work, he had an immediate trigger reaction. The circumstances affecting me were the very same ones that had forced him to leave the project years earlier. He realized I was in the same situation of being forced out and fell into an immediate depression during a phone call. The situation was so surreal. The entire system. In fact, the original Berghof report is often referenced in the appendixes of other reports, but I never found a report that contradicted it; not even an attempt. On the other hand, these other reports, mostly from more recent years, didn't acknowledge the magnitude of the past failure on the German side. The German reports give the impression that radicalization is inherent to the nature of Tamils, so they simply documented the radical "development" of the diaspora. They failed to mention that the Tamil diaspora had also been pluralistic before. I personally got to know a witness from that time. And the Tamils have a history of mistrusting the “system.” The Indian system, for instance, treated most of the refugees very badly because many of them were traditionally from lower castes. Furthermore, they felt betrayed by democracy when they lost their nationality. The Berghof report mentions the original conflict of a betrayal by the higher Tamil caste against the working lower caste, which led to the loss of nationality. It was a class fight within a democracy. With this background, of course the system can't be trusted. Another irregularity is that most reports I've read in recent years mention that the radical organization was eventually banned in Germany, but only after the war in Sri Lanka was officially “lost.” In contrast, other countries had put them on their terror lists much earlier. The German Verfassungsschutzbericht (Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution) mentioned the radicals every year. But at that time, I just hadn't realized the full extent of it yet. I was confronting forces that had established a growing, nationwide omnipresence and had apparently overtaken all the formerly democratically-oriented Tamil organizations. Of course, the Tamils, like any other foreigners, came to Germany not only for refuge but also for opportunities. I truly witnessed how hard they worked. The first-generation refugees had very basic educations, so they took the basic jobs many Germans (and other foreigners like Indians) refused to do. It was mandatory in these associations that when famous musicians from Asia were invited, they had to clean the toilets. I knew this amazing guy whose daily job was manual waste disposal, driving the disposal trucks. And amazing guys like him, after all that work, put their energy into raising really good kids. They changed clothes in the association and supported the education in the project. I got to know a 10-year-old, and it was easy to teach him PC programming in 2004. And, despite all the domestic repression by the radicals, they remained in this project—more than 100 kids. For this dream of democracy. I couldn’t turn my back. I understood the weight of this dream. It was my dream, too. And then something extraordinary happened: the Tsunami on December 26th, 2004. Everyone was still in a Christmas mood. I had never experienced anything like it, not even with my later experience as a first responder emergency chaplain. Everyone in this project was connected to many deaths in their homeland, as most of the first-generation refugees lived near the coast where the tsunami's impact was greatest. According to Western media, over 35,000 people died. Suddenly, literally everybody was mourning. It didn't matter if they were radical or secretly democratic—everybody wanted to help. As one of the heads of the board, I helped in any small way I could. Because I couldn't understand Tamil, I wasn't able to collect donations, but my English was good enough to help build a communication line, translating real-time information about what was happening with the donations and how the distribution of aid was proceeding. Because while so many people had died, many more were now injured, homeless, and starving. Everybody was mourning, and the pictures on German TV and reports on the radio were devastating. This tsunami caused immense suffering. The effect was that the association in Dortmund suddenly became neutral ground, common ground. I was happy to support it because Gandhi would have loved the idea of “enemies” working together. While I was translating into German during the transmission, I doubted what I was hearing. No doubt there were trucks, but over 100 in such a short amount of time seemed impossible to me. The other board members explained it was probably fewer, just the usual exaggeration common in Indian communication. The tone and intensity reminded me of a live report for a football game, and I didn't like it. It reminded me of the loud Indian reports on the AI 171 incident or the rape and murder of the female doctor at her workplace. So, I didn’t do anything about it, because I trusted the judgment of my fellow Tamil colleagues. And it's likely this moment was used by German or even international authorities to target me, too, because I was translating propaganda by talking to radicals. But nearly every one of the first-generation refugees in this project had a history; some were former child soldiers. But as a Christian, I believe in second chances, just as the USA did with Germany after the Nazi era. To be clear, I had always refused propaganda in the project; that was the condition I set with the board! That was the reason the 100+ kids were there in the first place. This was real. As a result, for over two decades now, I have been subjected to harassment, and not only from members of this diaspora. It’s not deadly, but it is obvious. I can't really explain how devastating it is when something as great as democracy is broken, contradicting every known value. In such a scenario, the actual perpetrators are not the radicals, but those who enable them—just like in the old days, when the German regime had the dirty work done by their own kind. And that is the true radical nature here. The sophisticated nature of this targeting suggested a close collaboration with big data systems—something I had previously thought impossible. Board members later confirmed active observation through the local police, which was especially shocking to me. I personally had no contact with the police regarding this project; this information came from other members. In my later professional life as a Key Account Manager, I frequently consulted with police departments in the context of OWI-21 and always had positive experiences, which is why this reported behavior was so difficult to comprehend. The board members also revealed a systematic effort to recruit people from within the diaspora for informal roles of different ranks. The story I heard more than once from other members was that the police even gave advice not to print any weapons on the first page of propaganda flyers, but the content could remain. I am not sure if this is legal, but I was the only one bothered by it; for the rest of the community, it was business as usual. Observing this pattern over twenty years of coordinated harassment—which happens even when I'm just buying food at a local supermarket—it is clear that the use of my location data points to this very connection. These attacks are anything but random; they are highly sophisticated, especially from the perspective of modern technology. This was a realization I could deeply comprehend as an IT Key Account Manager for Input Management, working with large companies and German state and federal governments. However, this career path turned out to be another honeypot, a suspicion that was later confirmed by a friend, a CEO in the military sector. He also confirmed this was systematic for the sector. Later, when it became obvious I could not escape this targeting, I changed my direction to psychology to understand the very nature of these attack patterns. Now, after more than 20 years of observing and studying, I am afraid I finally do understand. And so, I am now processing this as an artist.

Open Letter to Tamil Community and ALL