Tigers In The Midst
WTF is wrong with you people? There’s a shot of Rajiv Gandhi in this video. Prabhakaran killed him
Read an interesting piece in Canada’s National Post. Money quote: “Why are Canadian Tamils permitted to express support for terrorism in a manner that would be considered outrageous if the demonstrators were Arab or Muslim?” Indeed. I’m all for Tamil participation, even from abroad, but supporting the LTTE is just wrong. Carrying pictures of Prabhakaran is just sick. You can’t walk around Toronto supporting Al Qaeda or Hezbollah without people’s rightful scorn. The LTTE recently sent a suicide bomber to a mosque (video, explosion at about 0:43) and has been attacking fleeing civilians and relief convoys. The people of Canada should be outraged at the Tigers in their midst.
Yet there was little outrage. To our knowledge, no politicians at any level of government have come forward to denounce this open demonstration of support for a banned terrorist group.
Imagine for a moment, if the protestors had instead been Arab or Muslim. Would Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Dalton McGuinty and David Miller be silent if 120,000 supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah paralyzed downtown Toronto as they chanted slogans and waved flags praising groups that slaughter Jews?
The reason for this double standard is obvious: There are more than 200,000 Canadians of Sri Lankan Tamil descent in Canada, enough to comprise a swing vote in suburban Toronto-area ridings… It was only when the Conservatives took power that the Tigers were added to the list of banned terrorist groups.
That move was a welcome one: Tamil bagmen can now no longer operate with impunity, extorting “contributions” from Tamil-owned businesses to fund the war back in Sri Lanka. And the police have since busted up a number of fundraising fronts tied to the Tigers. But public figures must also speak out when supporters of the Tigers make a spectacle of themselves, as they did in Toronto.
The message must be: Terrorism is a criminal affront to Canadian values, wherever it is practiced. Just because Canadians don’t pay as much attention to Sri Lanka as they do to Israel doesn’t change that fact. (National Post)
The Tamil people have been quite honestly screwed over in the 50 years, but terrorism is simply not an acceptable response. I’m sorry. I know there’s ‘state terrorism’ too, but our government can actually be reformed and criticized whereas the LTTE will simply kill you or your family. How cheap it is to fly their flag in Toronto when you don’t have to deal with the body counts and ruined lives here. There is hard work to be done for us to live together in peace, but flying flags in Toronto to support terrorism here doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help Tamils, Muslims, Sinhalese, anyone. We’re all in this together and the Tamil diaspora needs to stop seeing this through the lens of whenever they left. I was born in 1982 and I don’t get how exploding bombs in my city or conscripting kids much younger than me accomplishes anything.
I know that 1983 was a national tragedy, the burning of the Jaffna Library was a national tragedy. I’m sincerely sorry. I know that the grievances regarding language, education, employment and colonization persist. The LTTE, however, has done nothing to address these real grievances. It has just promised a temporary slaughter to procure an Eelam where these things would eventually be addressed. After the traitors are killed, and the Muslims are expelled, and the Sinhalese villagers hacked with machetes, etc. Well, it’s been 26 years, a shitload of dead people, an generations of Tamil youth conscripted and destroyed, and no actual progress. Why don’t we put the terrorism on the shelf and get back to the point. There are legitimate Tamil grievances. Let’s work on them. Together.
I just got back from Geneva, one of the two places where the UN meets to deliberate things like human rights. Possibly because the HR committee was in session, there was a massive demonstration of Sri Lanka Tamil expatriates that went past my hotel room on the 16th of March afternoon.
Two comments of relevance to the post above:
1. It was a big demo. I thought it would peter out, but they just kept coming, young people, old people, children in strollers. Either there is a massive support for the LTTE in Switzerland or they have the machinery to haul people in from all parts of Europe. Very few to no people who are not expatriate Tamils, quite unlike the other “liberation” struggles.
2. They are screamingly ineffective in communication terms. Without question the greatest problem for the government of Sri Lanka would be some kind of authoritative statement saying that there is a form of genocide going on here, or even a clear finding of attacks on civilians. Does the parading of Prabhakaran’s picture in guerrilla fatigues contribute to this? Does the horrible red and black symbol of the LTTE, the blood thirsty tiger framed by to guns help? Does the map of the imagined land of Thamileelam that includes Chilaw on one side and Ampara on the other, serve the cause?
Why on earth do they engage in these counterproductive communications? The only explanation I could come up with is that they are talking to themselves, not to the decision makers and even the general publics of the various Western countries. The objective seems to be to keep morale up, not to actually get a declaration of genocide out. Good job for the government.
It seems they are talking to themselves, and I suppose trying to keep morale and funds going. I don’t think it’s about preserving Tamil life, it’s really about preserving the LTTE. The statements and images make have very little to do with actual Tamil grievances. Instead it’s pictures of land and Prabhakaran. Screamingly ineffective for actually improving life here, or anywhere.
You make some obvious points. However, it also shows a lack of knowledge of what is happening in the world out there. We are moving towards a post-Iraq, post-bush world, where people, including the Americans, are becoming far more sceptical not just about simplistic slogans but also sophisticated “spin” about defeating “terrorist” groups. If you watched demonstrations against the invasion of Gaza, there were the usual Hamas supporters as well as some blatantly anti-semetic slogans. Further more there was some violence in a demonstration in London against the situation in Gaza and a contrasting “orderly” demonstration by the Tamils. Yet I remember that even Jewish protesters on their own accord stood shoulder to shoulder with these people and did not get detracted from the main issue at hand. ie a crime against humanity is being committed in the name of “defeating terrorists”.
Actually, again, people in the west are becoming more sophisticated and are less likely to be “outraged” by pro-hizbollah demonstrations. There is also a clearer understanding among the informed of the difference between the Hizbollah and the Al-Qaeda and it is less common for them to be lumped together as one, unless you are the PR person for the Israeli government ala Kohana/Wijesinghe/Samaraweera.
So, these forms of thinking are probably something that maybe people in Sri Lanka, including the educated middle classes, lack exposure to.
correction *Samaraweera should read Samarasinghe.
Stealing a line from a “pro-LTTE” publication: It seems the world including the UN is following the instructions of that genius Lakshman Kadirgamar and concentrating on the the irradication of malaria and mosquitos rather than the minor matter of the irradication of Tamils who just happen to be “caught up” in this “war on terrorism” in Sri Lanka. So yes, you may be right about the fact that a bit of screaming and shouting and self-immolation from those “Tiger loving” diaspora may in fact not do much to stop this. So you diaspora people, cut out the hysterics and hire a PR person from Colombo.
I guess crimes against humanity in the name of a ‘freedom struggle’ (or rather one man’s quest for his own kingdom) is ok? Too bad the Tamil Diaspora is missing out on all that sophistication.
@comment
lack of knowledge?
In all fairness, I don’t know who you are or how you have any particular insight into the collective mind of the West. There is no evidence of increasing support for Hezbollah or terrorism in America. How did that demonstration against Gaza go? Did it stop the war? Chas Freeman was, I think, lightly critical of the ‘war on terror’. How did his confirmation go?
I admit that the Bush ‘war on terror’ is somewhat retarded, as are most wars on nouns. However, terrorism is still, fundamentally, innocent people being shredded by bombs and shrapnel and is pretty widely recognized as a bad thing. And rightly so.
Revolution might have been romantic in the 70s and 80s now but there is no ideology left. It’s just money. The LTTE are international drug and weapons smugglers and they are wanted in pretty much every nation on the globe.
Aside from your personal implication that I am somehow uninformed or unaware I don’t see any actual evidence for your claim. You think Westerners have developed some tolerance for terrorism. I don’t see anything in the news to support your claim.
I agree with you on this indi. I have pondered on this for long as to why the diaspora keeps deifying Prabhakaran when he has done nothing but rob them off of their very lives and proper education, employment let alone their country! It hurts to see how these diaspora in their designer boots clutching designer handbags raise placards carrying Prabhakaran’s photo with the wording “Our Leader” etc…and hailing him! Why not instead actually think about the people in the midst of this war and in IDP camps? It is easy for them to shout “genocide” what they fail to understand is the more they support this sort of a leader to thrive the more of their fellow citizens will die in Sri Lanka. So I too question why can’t these diaspora actually work together to end terrorism and look to a way we can all get together and rebuild this country where we can together address their grievances in a media that does not involve guns and suicide kits? I believe there is hope but it takes a lot of effort from all of us.
i sometimes wonder, would the tamil diaspora in the first world return to a third world Eelam, if it was to exist?