![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe first hint that I had of the cars and buses outside of the Tamil protests last Sunday that ended in the very unpopular blocking of the Gardiner expressway and condemnation of the waving of what is either the Tamil Eelam or Tamil Tiger flag, which was present for in the early afternoon in the area of Toronto's main downtown Chinatown, located at the intersections of Spadina and Dundas, were the parked police cars and vans on Dundas Street by 52 Division, the Toronto police station in the area.
I didn't realize what was going on, and continued west to the Dragon City mall--nice pet store in the basement, incidentally--on the way to the Kensington Market when I looked back and saw a gathering crowd. I went back, curiously, camera in hand, and took a look.
This was the sort of flag that featured prominently. Whether it was the flag of Tamil Eelam or the flag of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan strikes me as irrelevant in the context of signs proclaiming the Tigers as the Tamils' only legitimate representatives.
Looking east across the Spadina/Dundas intersection you could see a lot of protesters, including children, seated on the ground.
The protesters claimed that a hundred thousand people attended the rally. In actual fact, the police estimate of two thousand or so people concentrated in a block and a half of the admittedly wide Spadina Avenue is much more likely.
My personal feeling, actually, is that the Sri Lankan Tamils have much to be unhappy about, that Sri Lankan Tamil independence might not be a bad idea, and--maybe--that some sort of armed resistance could be justified. This Library of Congress Sri Lanka study goes into extensive detail about the numerous discriminatory measures adopted by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government towards Tamils, including the denial of citizenship to Tamils of Indian origin, discriminatory language and education legislation, attempts to colonize Tamil-populated land with Sinhalese settlers, and, eventually, police terror. The culmination of this before the civil war was the Black July pogrom of 1983, where Sinhalese mobs--with the help of voter lists and the disinclination of the police to get involved--massacred at least four hundred Tamils across Colombo and Sinhalese-populated areas more generally, possibly up to three thousand. I think it's telling that this ethnic violence happened not on Sri Lanka's periphery, away from the sight of the masses, but rather occurred in the middle of the main Sinhalese population centres and in the national capital. It might not be incorrect to suggest that the Sinhalese weren't, and aren't, unmoved by Tamil civilian dead. As Jonathan Kay observed, Tamil moderates supported the Tigers out of an understandable desire for vengeance. In my personal opinion, the strength of bigoted Sinhalese nationalism is such that the Sri Lankan government is not going to establish a viable, fair system of governance that will include Tamils as non-subordinates, and sooner or later the whole cycle will start up again. Yay.
That said, I think it's a good thing that the Tigers will be defeated, on the grounds that they're loons. The Tigers expressed--express?--their commitment to gender equality by organizing men's and women's suicide bomber brigades. While that does speak to a certain equality, it more importantly speaks to the utter ruthlessness of a terrifying movement that reminds me somewhat of the Khmer Rouge in its annihilatory zeal. This is not the sort of movement that should run a country, this is not the sort of movement that should be allowed to exist. It won't, shortly, thanks to the Tigers' surrender today, at least not as a pseudo-state governnment. The movement's survival as a conventional terrorist organization isn't unlikely. Unfortunately for Sri Lankan Tamils, the Tigers have already eliminated the non-Tiger leadership such that they really don't have any pleasant alternatives. But then, one can argue that they never did.
I didn't realize what was going on, and continued west to the Dragon City mall--nice pet store in the basement, incidentally--on the way to the Kensington Market when I looked back and saw a gathering crowd. I went back, curiously, camera in hand, and took a look.
This was the sort of flag that featured prominently. Whether it was the flag of Tamil Eelam or the flag of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan strikes me as irrelevant in the context of signs proclaiming the Tigers as the Tamils' only legitimate representatives.
Looking east across the Spadina/Dundas intersection you could see a lot of protesters, including children, seated on the ground.
The protesters claimed that a hundred thousand people attended the rally. In actual fact, the police estimate of two thousand or so people concentrated in a block and a half of the admittedly wide Spadina Avenue is much more likely.
My personal feeling, actually, is that the Sri Lankan Tamils have much to be unhappy about, that Sri Lankan Tamil independence might not be a bad idea, and--maybe--that some sort of armed resistance could be justified. This Library of Congress Sri Lanka study goes into extensive detail about the numerous discriminatory measures adopted by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government towards Tamils, including the denial of citizenship to Tamils of Indian origin, discriminatory language and education legislation, attempts to colonize Tamil-populated land with Sinhalese settlers, and, eventually, police terror. The culmination of this before the civil war was the Black July pogrom of 1983, where Sinhalese mobs--with the help of voter lists and the disinclination of the police to get involved--massacred at least four hundred Tamils across Colombo and Sinhalese-populated areas more generally, possibly up to three thousand. I think it's telling that this ethnic violence happened not on Sri Lanka's periphery, away from the sight of the masses, but rather occurred in the middle of the main Sinhalese population centres and in the national capital. It might not be incorrect to suggest that the Sinhalese weren't, and aren't, unmoved by Tamil civilian dead. As Jonathan Kay observed, Tamil moderates supported the Tigers out of an understandable desire for vengeance. In my personal opinion, the strength of bigoted Sinhalese nationalism is such that the Sri Lankan government is not going to establish a viable, fair system of governance that will include Tamils as non-subordinates, and sooner or later the whole cycle will start up again. Yay.
That said, I think it's a good thing that the Tigers will be defeated, on the grounds that they're loons. The Tigers expressed--express?--their commitment to gender equality by organizing men's and women's suicide bomber brigades. While that does speak to a certain equality, it more importantly speaks to the utter ruthlessness of a terrifying movement that reminds me somewhat of the Khmer Rouge in its annihilatory zeal. This is not the sort of movement that should run a country, this is not the sort of movement that should be allowed to exist. It won't, shortly, thanks to the Tigers' surrender today, at least not as a pseudo-state governnment. The movement's survival as a conventional terrorist organization isn't unlikely. Unfortunately for Sri Lankan Tamils, the Tigers have already eliminated the non-Tiger leadership such that they really don't have any pleasant alternatives. But then, one can argue that they never did.
