Right idea, wrong place. Also wrong flags. Protestors blocking roads in Toronto. Photo by ???
90% of resistance is showing up. Some diasporals are angry with the Sri Lankan government. They’re applying pressure through the UN, the US Congress and Britain’s Channel 4. It makes a big noise, but not a big difference. Why? Because they’re calling for radical change without making a radical sacrifice. If they want a separate homeland or a new government, it’s really quite simple. They just need to show up.
There are almost a million people in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. If they all come back and vote they can swing the Presidential election and win the Provincial Elections in the North and East (and Colombo if they want). Then they can either remake Sri Lanka or claim significant autonomy.
If the government or military pushes back, they will have the numbers to make a Tahrir type scene, and they would win. It’s very easy for the diaspora to remake their homeland. They just need to come home.
Is anyone really going to move back and vote or march? Are they going to sell their properties and businesses to invest in the struggle? No. It’s madness. I think most people in the diaspora realize this and they engage productively, or not at all. For the angry few, however, I humbly suggest a look at the possible realities.
Calling for the overthrow of an elected government from afar is not going to work. You can hurt a country from abroad, but boycotts and sanctions and media reports are too crude to effectively change a government.
What ultimately changes governments is not outside pressure, it’s pressure from within their own power base. Even in the most despotic countries, that is ultimately the people. If the people really, really want to, they can just walk up to the government and not move until they get what they want.
The brave people of Tahrir and Hama simply stepped out of their houses and visibly took back their land. They stood and died and in Hama are being massacred still. But they made that sacrifice. They showed up.
That’s something you can’t outsource. Yes, you can now outsource servants in Sri Lanka. You still can’t outsource resistance.
What ever political party that espouses the diaspora agenda will loose support from millions of sinhalese. vast majority of the sinhalese, green, blue & everything in between, simply despises the diaspora
I don’t think the present regime can be removed through elections alone. Nothing short of a bullet through MR”s skull will get the job done. And yes, I would happily pull the trigger.
Yes, the Syrian dictator wants to do Rajapaksa on his own people.
Well, Rajapaksa crashed, killed, maimed and got away with it.
MR, GR, BR are entrenched like cockroaches into Sri Lanka. They will drag the whole island into further despair and poverty. BTW the last Rajapaksa’s presidential election was deeply flawed. In my opinion, he stole it
Heshan,
You thoughts are justified. And, yes you are right , Sri Lankans will never be able to remove Rajapaksa democratically. He will find the way to fool Sri Lankans again. He master manipulator
Wouldn’t you have to have testicles for that?
Are you guys mad? Calling for the assassination of the President. I completely disavow this bullshit. Vote him out or march him out.
I’m now moderating Heshan
Heshan isn’t brave enough to post under his own name, so he’s hardly likely to do the deed himself. Given that he lives in the US, if he’d made such a comment about taking out Obama, the US secret service will be breaking into his house before he’s had time to stuff some linguini into his shorts.
Heshan’s just another hypocritical blow-hard.
I wonder how enthusiastic these morons would be for international inquiries if in the scope we also included people who funded the LTTE to commit terrorist acts in Sri Lanka. All those who donated, etc to be held responsible even if they did not know where their money went (on the basis that ignorance does not beget accountability). We should just counter with that and they will all shut up.
aiyo, you’re depriving the world of heshan’s daily dose of racist gobbledygook.
yeah, well, get a blog
Mango
And you are writing under your own name, “brave” heart ?
The way of the dodo,
Let’s not get your knickesrs in a twist here. I’m sure, Heshan was joking
maybe sankaran can start a blog for heshan
Of course I’m not. But then, I’m not making death threats against anyone or wishing that DBS Jeyraj should have his other leg broken, as our brave hero Heshan does.
Mango,
Blah, blah, blah.. What are you talking about ? It was said in the heat ot the moment. Heshan is too intelligetnt to be mixed up in this sort of stuff
Then why is he commenting as Sankaran? That’s what got him thrown off DBSJ’s blog.
wait, what?
A large part of the problem is that Tamil parents have imparted a lot of their own hatred and prejudice onto their children growing up in the west. I have moved with Tamil diasporals (is that a real word?) and politics in the Tamil diaspora community is omnipresent and almost everyone is expected to play some role in ‘the cause.’
Expatriate Sinhalese/Muslim parents tend to shield their children from all the political crap whilst maintaining ties to Sri Lanka, but this does not appear to be the case among the Tamil community. Young children are brought up in a cult like fashion and taught to revere the LTTE and its erstwhile leader Prabhakaran. This while they have never even stepped foot in Sri Lanka, and have trouble stringing together a basic sentence in the Tamil language.
While Sinhalese/Burgher/Muslim cultural shows seem to have absolutely no political bits in them, the Tamil cultural shows are filled with Tamil Tiger flags, little kinds dancing to songs hailing some LTTE maamaa (uncle) and plays about SL soldiers killing innocent Tamils. Then there are the “hero’s day ceremonies”, ceremonies celebrating the black tiger suicide bombers” etc in which the kids are supposed to participate. It is quite oppressive and horrid to be honest, and probably qualifies as some sort of child abuse.
When you bring kids up in that sort of environment, is it any wonder that they make complete fools out of themselves by blocking highways, protesting against cricket matches and going on about how great the LTTE is/was?
The diasporal teens dont really give a shit. They are all a bunch of hipsters protesting. Almost all of their family members including the achchis are in Canada or UK or Norway…why would they move back? to get some 13A+ for indian tamils living in SL?
Indi you are just trying to use the diasporals to get rid of MR. If the UNP has even a remote chance of getting rid of MR then they better get rid of Ranil first.
@Sankaran
Rajapaksa’s so called “master manipulations” only fool a majority of the Sinhala Buddhist majority. The minorities (Sinhala Christians, Tamil Christians, Tamil Hindus, Malays, Moors and Burghers) are not fooled by his chest banging or kissing of the airport tarmac…and neither is the international community fooled by his antics.
ps. If the president is assassinated one day, that will be “dittha dhamma vadaneeya karma”…if you are a Buddhist you will know what this means.
Butt Kisser
Yes, Rajapaksa Repressive Regime only fools the Sinhala Buddhist majority.
Look his latest hoax – “Leadership Training” ?? Ha, ha, ha
This is like brainwashed zombies academy to me or a ” Dear Leader” obedience training course from North Korea
BK
There is an interesting article on the subject in Daily Mirror!
-Leadership training killed her-
University Student died after two days after completing the leadership training session at the Diyatalawa Army Camp, she had been admitted to the Welimada Hospital due to serious health problems.
“This untimely death is the most pitiful result of the government’s forcible military training. This training is only a disaster created by the government to keep their political stability at the cost of the lives of innocent students” said the IUSF convener.
He said that, according to the doctors, a respiratory ailment could become critical due to severe physical exertion, inclement weather conditions and severe infection.
“It’s clear that Nishanthi’s respiratory problem grew worse due to the hardship she had to endure during the military training, however hard the government officials try to ignore this problem.” he said.
He charged that that government had tried to prevent the media from publicising this tragedy.
http://print.dailymirror.lk/news/front-page-news/52190.html
And on ” The militarization of the Sri Lanka children ”
http://www.topix.com/forum/world/sri-lanka/TO1HDH1K6HAEC673B
I go on http://www.topix.com/forum/world/sri-lanka to relax. It is easy to post there. No censorship. No registration
Just because you get the monkey off your back, it doesn’t mean the circus has left town, Indi ;)
DB
The little snitch . Shame on you!
lol! i know plenty of kids who went to these supposed torture camp who had a grand time of it.
I have to add that you know something is wrong when a 6 year old says stuff like “The Tamil Tigers are freedom fighters” and “I am from Tamil Eelam”
Don’t worry. I see the chimp’s been re-incarnated.
Ironic that Heshan’s had to resort to Buddhism to get re-incarnated :)
@ Indi,
This may not be possible…but what would you think the response would be, if a polygraph machine (lie detector machine) was attached to all the Tamils and other minorities like Christians, Muslims and Burghers and the following question was asked:
“Would you be happy if Rajapaksa was assassinated and democracy as we knew it in the 40s, 50s and 60s was restored?
…likewise it would be interesting if another question could be posed to butt kissers and sycophants of the Rajapaksa regime and other closet racists who keep shouting at the top of their voices 24×7 that we are ALL Sri Lankans and that this country is NOT a Sinhala Buddhist country, but a a country inhabited by a MAJORITY of Sinhala Buddhists?
…and the question is…
“Do you believe unarmed Tamils were deliberately targeted in the “No Fire Zone,” and do you believe the story about “Zero Casualties?”
GoSL have been warned.
Eelam Youth have deployed their Vedhupagam (Cupcake) Brigade:
http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/tyo-cupcake.jpg
.. and their elite Hipster-Gangsta Squad:
http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/tyo-cool.jpg
Man…you’re quoting IUSF stuff…..they are as bad as the Tigers!
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