![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- Fatima Syed and Wendy Gillis tell the story of Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, a Sri Lankan Tamil whose failed application for refugee status in Canada after travelling on the MV Sun Sea led directly to his death at the hands of McArthur. The Toronto Star has it.
- The developer hoping to transform the southwest corner of Bloor and Dufferin has opted to redesign the development following community criticism. CBC reports.
- The sheer scale of the planned development on the southeast corner of Bloor Street West and Dundas Street West is such that a new neighbourhood would come into being. Wow. The Toronto Star has it.
- The plan for SmartTrack would leave the residents of an Etobicoke development next to a GO rail yard subject to terrible levels of noise and air pollution. The Toronto Star reports.
- Is Bloor Street West going to become the next Yonge Street, an uninterrupted string of high-density development? Not without differences, at least. The Toronto Star looks at the issue.
- This Fatima Syed interview with Navaseelan Navaratnam, brother of suspected McArthur victim Skandaraj Navaratnam missing since 2010, is terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
- While it may be too late for Eliot's Books, I do hope that Toronto City Council can arrange some kind of functional tax arrangement for the businesses which survive on Yonge. The Toronto Star reports.
- blogTO notes how a stray tweet from Toronto Hits 93 started an Internet flamewar between fans of two different K-Pop boy bands.
- Ben Spurr notes how some transit advocates have decided to help out King Street by eating at area restaurants, over at the Toronto Star.
- Global News reports on how the Ontario Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Vadim Kazenelson on charges of criminal negligence stemming from an incident where four workers he was supervising died in a scaffolding collapse.
Tags:
Kanya D'Almeida's Inter Press Service report on the demographics of voters in the recent Sri Lankan electorate suggest that turnout among minorities, including Tamils, was key.
It seemed close at first, with the bulk of the Sinhalase masses in the southern and central districts of Hambantota and Ratnapura polling in favour of [President Mahinda] Rajapaksa and his United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA).
But when newscasters began reading out the final tally of votes from the Tamil and Muslim-majority Northern and Eastern Provinces, it became clear that this was no repeat of the 2010 presidential race.
Symbolised by a swan, the ‘rainbow coalition’ National Democratic Front (NDF) swept the 12 electoral divisions in the northern Jaffna district with 253,574 votes, roughly 74.42 percent of the largely Tamil electorate.
The Tamil-majority northern Vanni district saw a landslide win for the NDF, with majority votes in the Mannar, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya polling divisions bringing in 78.47 percent of that region’s total ballots, while the eastern Batticaloa district also voted overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition, bringing Sirisena 81.62 percent of the total.
[. . .]
“This year the Tamil people seemed to have taken an oath for change,” said Dr. Jeyasingham, a senior lecturer at the Eastern University of Sri Lanka in Batticaloa. “People in the North and East voted early – always a sign that change is in the air.
“Today, one thing is clear,” he told IPS, “and that is: minority votes decided this president. Tamils and Muslims [who account for 15 and nine percent of the population, respectively] are an important part of this democratic system and they had enough grievances to vote against the existing government.”
Tags:
The CBC has shared a Canadian Press article reporting on the troubles faced by Rathika Sitsabaiesan. The NDP MP representing the Toronto riding of Scarborough-Rouge River, herself of Tamil background and representing the Canadian electoral riding with the highest proportion of Tamils and of Tamil mother-tongue speakers, encountered some problems, with some news reports suggesting she was arrested. This, the Sri Lankan government has said, is not the case, if anything disinformation on her part.
I've written a fair bit about Tamils, mainly Sri Lankan in origin and mainly in their diasporas (and mainly the Canadian one). While it is true that much Tamil activity in Canada has been directed by terrorist organizations like the Tigers, on the patterns of other diasporas, this is not the case universally. There is certainly no reason to think Sitsabaiesan is herself an agent of the Tigers or anyone but herself and her riding. The increasing repression of Sri Lanka, meanwhile, targeted against Tamils and Sinhalese in opposition alike, has been amply documented and recognized by multiple foreign governments. (That many of these countries--the United Kingdom, for instance--also have large and vocal Tamil communities does not in itself mean that it does not happen. At most, it gives the push to recognize Sri Lankan authoritarianism added heft.)
I'm glad Sitsabaiesan is back in Canada. I don't think that her visit, personal or not, will do much other than underline to Canadians the nature of post-civil war Sri Lanka. I am curious as to its potential effect on the NDP's strength in the area: will it give the party added credibility or detract?
Earlier this month, Rathika Sitsabaiesan said in a brief statement she was warned by Sri Lankan officials during her private visit that she could be arrested and deported.
At the time, fellow New Democrat MP Paul Dewar said after speaking to Sitsabaiesan — a Sri Lankan native of Tamil heritage — that his caucus colleague had been followed and closely monitored by authorities from the moment she arrived.
[. . .]
The Sri Lanka High Commission said Wednesday that Sitsabaiesan was on a tourist visa and had been advised not to engage in political activities that would amount to flouting Sri Lanka's immigration laws and regulations.
It said Sri Lankan authorities handled the issue in a responsible manner, adding that Sitsabaiesan's allegation she was subject to "political intimidation" is erroneous and an attempt to unfairly embarrass the government.
Sitsabaiesan, 32, came to Canada with her family at the age of five and was elected to the House of Commons in 2011 in the Toronto-area riding of Scarborough-Rouge River.
She played a key role in New Democrat efforts to persuade the Conservative government to boycott a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Sri Lanka last November. Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not attend, citing the Sri Lankan government's human-rights record. However, Deepak Obhrai, a parliamentary secretary, did represent Canada at the Colombo meeting.
The New Democrats and others have called for Sri Lanka to submit to an investigation of alleged war crimes during the lengthy civil conflict between the military and Tamil insurgents seeking an independent homeland.
[. . .]
In its statement, the Sri Lanka High Commission said Sitsabaiesan's accusation against the government "could be indicative of her seeking to engage in political activity, and being unable to do so in the interest of abiding by Sri Lanka's immigration laws and regulations, seems to have been interpreted by her as political intimidation."
The high commission also seized on her reference to defending principles of human rights, saying it "further demonstrates a self-appointed role to pass judgment baselessly on a sovereign state."
I've written a fair bit about Tamils, mainly Sri Lankan in origin and mainly in their diasporas (and mainly the Canadian one). While it is true that much Tamil activity in Canada has been directed by terrorist organizations like the Tigers, on the patterns of other diasporas, this is not the case universally. There is certainly no reason to think Sitsabaiesan is herself an agent of the Tigers or anyone but herself and her riding. The increasing repression of Sri Lanka, meanwhile, targeted against Tamils and Sinhalese in opposition alike, has been amply documented and recognized by multiple foreign governments. (That many of these countries--the United Kingdom, for instance--also have large and vocal Tamil communities does not in itself mean that it does not happen. At most, it gives the push to recognize Sri Lankan authoritarianism added heft.)
I'm glad Sitsabaiesan is back in Canada. I don't think that her visit, personal or not, will do much other than underline to Canadians the nature of post-civil war Sri Lanka. I am curious as to its potential effect on the NDP's strength in the area: will it give the party added credibility or detract?
The National Post's Stewart Bell wrote about the growth of Afghan street gangs in northern Toronto, and about the tactic of deportation against non-Canadian nationals used by the Canadian government to discourage the growth of these gangs. Apparently deportation has been used against Tamil gangs in Toronto, Haitian gangs in Montréal, and Honduran gangs in Vancouver.
I'm somewhat disturbed by this. Leaving aside the ethical question of whether it is just to deporting people who grew up in Canada to their country of birth--especially, I'm tempted to say, if that country of birth is Afghanistan is somewhere similarly benighted--this tactic by itself doesn't tackle issues of social integration that apparently lead to crime.
I'm somewhat disturbed by this. Leaving aside the ethical question of whether it is just to deporting people who grew up in Canada to their country of birth--especially, I'm tempted to say, if that country of birth is Afghanistan is somewhere similarly benighted--this tactic by itself doesn't tackle issues of social integration that apparently lead to crime.
Afghan For Life and its more violent-sounding offshoot, Afghan Fighting Generation, emerged partly in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, a hub of Canada’s fast-growing Afghan population. Police and immigration enforcement officers have now launched deportation proceedings against several alleged members, including [Farhad Abdul] Fatah, a 28-year-old Russian-speaking Afghan from Thorncliffe Park.
Since 2002, more than 23,000 Afghans have become permanent residents of Canada. Gang members began tagging Afghan neighbourhoods with Afghan For Life (AFL or A4L) and Afghan Fighting Generation (AFG) symbols a decade ago.
[. . .]
Jehad Aliweiwi, executive director of the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, a local social agency, said gangs were not a significant problem in the area, although he had seen AFL graffiti in the past. “When I used to walk a little bit around the park you will see ‘Afghan’ or ‘Afghan For Life.’ And young kids in our youth centre, we have a lot of Afghan kids,” he said.
But he said he was less worried about gangs than the high drop-out rate among Afghan boys. “That said, I think there is a lot of affinity with a group like the Afghan For Life for maybe social and belonging reasons, Afghan pride and all that,” he said. “I think it’s a new community that’s trying to find its place in here. It’s part of a struggle of integration.”
The robocalling scandal has managed to produce allegations of systematic fraud in the riding of Scarborough—Rouge River in northeasternmost Toronto (the former Scarborough).
Yes, the allegations may have been made by a Conservative candidate, but I find them at least superficially credible. One reason is that they echo complaints made by the local Liberal representative in the Ontario Provincial Parliament, whose provincial riding shares the same name and boundaries as the federal riding in question.
Another reason is that this sort of centrally directed political campaign is common. I've blogged extensively about the substantial Tamil Canadian community of Toronto--concentrated in areas like Scarborough. Most Tamil Canadians do not come from India's large and stable state of Tamil Nadu, but rather from the much smaller and more embattled Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, the first major waves of Tamil immigrants to Canada coming in the 1980s at the beginning of the country's civil war. The Tamil Tigers have traditionally controlled Sri Lankan Tamil communities, a 2006 report observing that Tamils in the diaspora were shaken down for money by Tiger front organizations, these front organizations exerting significant influence elsewhere, representing themselves as legitimate representatives of the diaspora community and organizing political protests. In 2009, as the Tamil Tigers were being crushed by the Sri Lankan military, significant high-profile protests appeared throughout Toronto--I photographed one myself.
Is it outside the realm of possibility that organizations associated with the Tamil Tigers might be perpetuating electoral fraud in areas with large Tamil concentrations to try to ensure the election of relatively friendly candidates? Notwithstanding the emergence of this complaint in the context of robocalling, I don't find it at all implausible given past events. The coaching/intimidation of potential voters conducted in the Tamil language--spoken by very few non-Tamils in Toronto--fits. An investigation is clearly in order.
A CBC News investigation has uncovered allegations of electoral fraud concentrated in the Tamil community in the east Toronto riding of Scarborough – Rouge River.
The allegations, which span both the federal and provincial ridings, centre largely on what appears to be a lack of oversight surrounding election-day additions to the official voters list.
Only Canadian citizens are legally allowed to vote in Canadian federal and provincial elections, and even people whose names are on the voters list must provide identification before they vote. In a federal election, a person who shows up at a polling station without ID can get a fellow constituent to vouch for them. In Ontario elections, voters without ID are asked to sign a form verifying they live in the riding.
It’s this polling-station process that lacks the most basic oversight, say candidates who spoke to CBC News. And the lack of oversight allows voters to illegally cast ballots in a practice the candidates say was common in Scarborough – Rouge River during last May’s federal election and in October’s provincial election.
Marlene Gallyot, a federal Conservative candidate who lost to the NDP’s Rathika Sitsabaiesan, has complained to Elections Canada, alleging ineligible voters “by the dozens” turned up on voting day and filed ballots illegally.
"They came with a Future Shop bill,” she told CBC News. “They came in with a Canadian Tire bill. They were coming in without proper identification."
Gallyot alleges that despite lacking the required ID, voters were still allowed to cast their ballots.
She also said scrutineers — party volunteers who oversee voting on behalf of candidates — were approaching voters at polling stations, speaking to them in Tamil and coaching them on who to vote for. Gallyot overheard such coaching inside and outside a polling station she was allowed to visit as an "observer," she said.
Gallyot was born in India but speaks Tamil as a second language. She told CBC she tried to put a stop to the alleged vote-coaching when she saw it but could not prevent it from happening at other polling stations.
"When they got to know that I could speak and understand Tamil, they were shocked, at least to some degree I was able to control it but there were too many polling stations."
Yes, the allegations may have been made by a Conservative candidate, but I find them at least superficially credible. One reason is that they echo complaints made by the local Liberal representative in the Ontario Provincial Parliament, whose provincial riding shares the same name and boundaries as the federal riding in question.
MPP Bas Balkissoon has complained to Elections Ontario alleging widespread voting irregularities in his Scarborough-Rouge River riding, including thousands of names being “improperly’’ added to the voters list.
“People are getting on the list and I’m not sure they’re living here,’’ Balkissoon said.
In two submissions to Elections Ontario totalling 25 pages, Balkissoon, a longtime provincial incumbent, says that between the last municipal election in October 2010 and the last federal election in May 2011 about 8,000 persons were added to the voters list, but only 3,000 names were removed, “a very large net gain of 5,000 voters.’’
He also claims that in the provincial election, 20 to 30 people showed up registering to vote as additions to the list, claiming they lived at 80 Alton Towers, a highrise in the riding.
“Most (of the voters) could not offer evidence of current residence, and declined to show the place of prior residence, but they did complete the statutory declaration,’’ and voted, Balkissoon’s submission reads.
He became aware of the problems after Namu Ponnambalam, a losing candidate in the last municipal vote, approached him before the provincial election, and showed him the municipal voters list.
Balkissoon and Ponnambalam believe thousands of names added to the list are either people without citizenship or have never lived in the ward.
Another reason is that this sort of centrally directed political campaign is common. I've blogged extensively about the substantial Tamil Canadian community of Toronto--concentrated in areas like Scarborough. Most Tamil Canadians do not come from India's large and stable state of Tamil Nadu, but rather from the much smaller and more embattled Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, the first major waves of Tamil immigrants to Canada coming in the 1980s at the beginning of the country's civil war. The Tamil Tigers have traditionally controlled Sri Lankan Tamil communities, a 2006 report observing that Tamils in the diaspora were shaken down for money by Tiger front organizations, these front organizations exerting significant influence elsewhere, representing themselves as legitimate representatives of the diaspora community and organizing political protests. In 2009, as the Tamil Tigers were being crushed by the Sri Lankan military, significant high-profile protests appeared throughout Toronto--I photographed one myself.
Is it outside the realm of possibility that organizations associated with the Tamil Tigers might be perpetuating electoral fraud in areas with large Tamil concentrations to try to ensure the election of relatively friendly candidates? Notwithstanding the emergence of this complaint in the context of robocalling, I don't find it at all implausible given past events. The coaching/intimidation of potential voters conducted in the Tamil language--spoken by very few non-Tamils in Toronto--fits. An investigation is clearly in order.
[BRIEF NOTE] On the fuzziness of diasporas
Aug. 1st, 2011 11:57 amOver at the Times of India, Ashley D'Mello's article "Without Hong Kong and Taiwan, Chinese diaspora smaller than Indian" introduces the reader to the fuzziness of the concept of diasporas. The two largest Asian diasporas are China's Overseas Chinese versus India's Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin, but which is larger?
This is problematic. Including Taiwan and Hong Kong as Overseas Chinese communities is--frankly--silly inasmuch as these are territories which are, respectively, autonomous under Beijing's rule or continuing to identify with the Chinese state. But Wikipedia's quick and dirty numbers suggest that there are in fact forty million Overseas Chinese versus more than thirty million Non-resident Indians. What are the boundaries of the Indian diaspora, though?
But any number of people do take migrants of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin into stock, arguing that the recency of British India's partition and the origins of many of the largest Indian communities before the partition makes a broader South Asian diaspora including Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and other South Asians a more relevant category. Google does return 1.21 million hits for "Indian diaspora" versus 217 thousand for "South Asian diaspora"; but 217 thousand hits is not nothing.
Too, both the Indian and Chinese diasporas break down into multiple subdiasporas, India's Tamil diaspora (and the related Sri Lankan), for instance, or China's diaspora from Fujian province. Might these subdiasporas, specifically rooted in particular geographies and cultures and languages, be more relevant than broad overarching communities that are so broad as to risk losing meaning?
And then, there's the question of assimilation. The largest Overseas Chinese community is identified as living in Thailand, with more than ten million people, but--from what I know--Thailand's Overseas Chinese population is highly assimilated. Does it make sense to include these people as meaningfully Overseas Chinese?
Ah, fuzzy demographic categories: what would we do without them?
Though China boasts of a diaspora population of 35 million, and India's figure stands at 27 million, the Chinese figure also includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. Secretary for overseas Indian affairs, Alwyn Didar Singh, points out that without Hong Kong and Taiwan, the Chinese diaspora figures would be lower than that of India. In fact, NRIs said, if India were to calculate figures the way China did, it would have to include the diaspora of Pakistan and Bangladesh in its figures.
This is problematic. Including Taiwan and Hong Kong as Overseas Chinese communities is--frankly--silly inasmuch as these are territories which are, respectively, autonomous under Beijing's rule or continuing to identify with the Chinese state. But Wikipedia's quick and dirty numbers suggest that there are in fact forty million Overseas Chinese versus more than thirty million Non-resident Indians. What are the boundaries of the Indian diaspora, though?
Didar Singh said that while Pakistan and Bangladesh were once part of India and are of the same ethnic stock, they are now independent countries so their figures can't be taken into account. So while India and China are sometimes compared in the case of economic growth, experts feel the Chinese figure can be lowered by 1% as they have their own peculiar style of calculating statistics.
But any number of people do take migrants of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin into stock, arguing that the recency of British India's partition and the origins of many of the largest Indian communities before the partition makes a broader South Asian diaspora including Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and other South Asians a more relevant category. Google does return 1.21 million hits for "Indian diaspora" versus 217 thousand for "South Asian diaspora"; but 217 thousand hits is not nothing.
Too, both the Indian and Chinese diasporas break down into multiple subdiasporas, India's Tamil diaspora (and the related Sri Lankan), for instance, or China's diaspora from Fujian province. Might these subdiasporas, specifically rooted in particular geographies and cultures and languages, be more relevant than broad overarching communities that are so broad as to risk losing meaning?
And then, there's the question of assimilation. The largest Overseas Chinese community is identified as living in Thailand, with more than ten million people, but--from what I know--Thailand's Overseas Chinese population is highly assimilated. Does it make sense to include these people as meaningfully Overseas Chinese?
Ah, fuzzy demographic categories: what would we do without them?
The return of Jean-Claude Duvalier to the Haiti he had governed horribly (and horribly governed) after an exile of twenty-five years perplexes me. Why would a man demonstrably guilty of any number of crimes return to the country he had despoiled? (The Telegraph's article on the torture centre of Fort Dimanche is rather unpleasant reading.) Yes, Duvalier's life in France was straitened once the money ran out, but were things really that bad for him?
Regardless, he's back, and Haitian Canadians are reacting by sharing their sufferings.
When the Air France jet touched down in Haiti and disgorged former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, a middle-aged woman in Montreal watched the scene with such disgust she felt physically sick.
Jan Dominique, a soft-spoken novelist known as J.J., was arrested and imprisoned under the regime of “Baby Doc” Duvalier. The radio station where she worked was ransacked and her colleagues tortured. Her father, one of Haiti’s most celebrated journalists, fled into exile.
For legions of Haitian émigrés like her, Mr. Duvalier was more than a notorious figure from the history books. He was the flesh-and-blood despot whose regime left behind a trail of scarred and disrupted lives.
Now, expatriates like Ms. Dominique are stepping forward to offer first-hand accounts of the repression of the Duvalier regime in hopes of filing criminal complaints against the 59-year-old former dictator, who returned to Haiti on Sunday. In doing so, the vast Haitian diaspora spawned by the very brutality of the Duvalier years could turn into an international force in pushing to bring Mr. Duvalier to justice.
“I am alive and I want to bear witness in the name of all those who can’t,” said Ms. Dominique, who runs a small business with her husband in a shopping mall in suburban Pointe Claire. “I still have nightmares about what happened to me. But I have a duty.”
Dominique's witnessing is part of a broader effort.
Haitian-Canadians are being urged to submit their stories as authorities in Haiti prepare to prosecute the country's former dictator, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, for human-rights abuses.
Haitian lawyer Mario Joseph, who works for a human rights organization in Port-au-Prince, said lawyers need people to come forward to build a case.
"I’m calling on the [Haitian] diaspora in Canada to file complaints against Duvalier,” he told a news conference in Montreal on Friday. “I need them to mobilize.
"We need to rebuild the memory of the Haitian people. They need to listen to what happened during the Duvalier regime."
I know all this only because Haiti, as the only sovereign and officially Francophone polity in the Western Hemisphere, is of interest to Canadians because it's Francophone, and hence, because it's a society Canadian Francophones interact with relatively extensively. Something like 1% of the population of Québec is of Haitian immigrant background, of more or less recent origins, and Québec's foreign policy and the attention of its pressed is keyed--as in every society--towards countries and regions with which Québec has some interest, and towards populations represented in its community (disproportionately in French Canada's metropolis). And in the Canadian situation--particularly in a context where the Canadian government has to keep up with Québec's foreign policy initiatives--that also brings the attention of the Canadian government, and the Canadian media, to bear. I suspect that if Haiti's diaspora wasn't present in Canada, wasn't a society of interest with representatives people know on the streets and encounter via the mass media on televisions and in arts and in government, Canadians would care that much less about Haiti. But as it happens, Canadians do know about Haiti more than one might have expected, and the crimes of Duvalier are that much more highlighted.
That's Canada. The example of Canadian Tamils, mostly of Sri Lankan origin and linked to Tamil separatists in that island nation, also comes to mind, although admittedly more negatively than not thanks to the Tigers' spectacular atrocities. And in your part of the world? Are there any diaspora populations in your communities that make the issues of their homeland that much more relevant to you?
Jeremy Page's article in the Times, "Archaeology sparks new conflict between Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese", provides a sterling example of how ancient history helps inspire modern-day ethnic conflict. First, the set-up.
In any number of ethnic conflicts, one ethnicity's nationalists has tried to undermine the rights of another ethnicity to independence, or even to exist, by claiming that history vindicates their right to dominate a disputed territory. Jewish nationalists claim that the documented history of Jews in Palestine nullifies the rights of Palestinian Arabs to a homeland; Serb nationalists claim that the existence of a medieval Serbian empire in Kosovo means that Kosovar Albanians don't have a right to autonomy; some post-war German nationalists claimed that, despite the mass population displacements following the Second World War and the Cold War, Germany had a right to Silesia and Poland. So it is in Sri Lankan circa 2010.
Sinhala nationalism, as the International Crisis Group noted in 2007, has grown, arguably to dominate Sri Lankan public life. This might be the culmination of what Michael Roberts wrote about in his essay, the appropriation of the language of Sri Lanka's past by Sinhalese nationalists. If, as Page suggests, the Sri Lankan state is defining the island's past as Sinhala and the Tamils as--let's hope something like this world will be used--latecomers, it'll be easy enough to define Sri Lanka as basically as a Sinhalese nation-state as opposed to a bicommunal one, with Sri Lankan Tamils treated no as partners but rather as an aggregate of individuals, people who might share a culture somewhat different from the Sri Lankan norm but basically dependent on the good will of the neutrally Sinhalese Sri Lankan state. Why, history proves that this should be the case!
Recent visitors to Kilinochchi, the former capital of the Tamil Tigers, had noticed something unusual — there was a single, new building standing among the bombed-out ruins of the abandoned city in northern Sri Lanka.
It was a whitewashed Buddhist shrine, strewn with flowers. “We thought it strange because there was no one there except soldiers — the civilians had all fled,” one of the visitors said.
Officers told them that the shrine had been damaged by the Tigers and renovated by the army — recruited largely from the Sinhalese Buddhist majority — after the rebels’ defeat a year ago next month. “It’s an ancient site,” Major-General Prasad Samarasinghe, the chief military spokesman, told The Times.
Many Tamil archaeologists, historians and politicians disagree. They say that the area had been populated for centuries by the ethnic Tamil minority, which is mostly Hindu. “There was nothing there at all,” Karthigesu Sivathamby, a retired professor of Tamil history and literature at the University of Jaffna, said.
In any number of ethnic conflicts, one ethnicity's nationalists has tried to undermine the rights of another ethnicity to independence, or even to exist, by claiming that history vindicates their right to dominate a disputed territory. Jewish nationalists claim that the documented history of Jews in Palestine nullifies the rights of Palestinian Arabs to a homeland; Serb nationalists claim that the existence of a medieval Serbian empire in Kosovo means that Kosovar Albanians don't have a right to autonomy; some post-war German nationalists claimed that, despite the mass population displacements following the Second World War and the Cold War, Germany had a right to Silesia and Poland. So it is in Sri Lankan circa 2010.
The true origins of the site may never be known without independent analysis — which is impossible while the army restricts access to the area. Many Tamil community leaders fear that the shrine is part of a plan to “rediscover” Buddhist sites and settle thousands of Sinhalese across the north to undermine the Tamils’ claim to an ethnic homeland.
When the British took control of the country in 1815, they were unsure of its ancient history but soon embraced the legend of the Mahavamsa — a text written by Buddhist monks in about AD500.
It suggests that the Sinhalese are descended from Prince Vijaya, an Aryan prince exiled from northern India in about 500BC, and that Tamils did not migrate from southern India until 200 years later.
That theory — still taught in schools — underpins the Sinhalese chauvinism that ultimately drove the Tigers to launch their armed struggle for an independent homeland in 1983.
In fact, archaeologists had discredited that after independence by excavating settlements in the north that dated from long before 500BC and showed similarities to sites in southern India — suggesting a much earlier migration.
When the conflict began, they were forced to suspend excavations and many Tamil archaeologists fled into exile overseas.
Sinhala nationalism, as the International Crisis Group noted in 2007, has grown, arguably to dominate Sri Lankan public life. This might be the culmination of what Michael Roberts wrote about in his essay, the appropriation of the language of Sri Lanka's past by Sinhalese nationalists. If, as Page suggests, the Sri Lankan state is defining the island's past as Sinhala and the Tamils as--let's hope something like this world will be used--latecomers, it'll be easy enough to define Sri Lanka as basically as a Sinhalese nation-state as opposed to a bicommunal one, with Sri Lankan Tamils treated no as partners but rather as an aggregate of individuals, people who might share a culture somewhat different from the Sri Lankan norm but basically dependent on the good will of the neutrally Sinhalese Sri Lankan state. Why, history proves that this should be the case!
[LINK] Some Friday links
Jul. 10th, 2009 09:18 am- blogTo's Rick McGinnis describes the near-complete state of ruin that Kodak's Toronto facilities have fallen into.
- The Bloor-Lansdowne blog announces that the Gladstone Library will reopen on the 23rd of this month.
- Broadsides' Antonia Zerbisias covers the Conservatives' opposition to funding Toronto's gay pride.
- Over at Demography Matters, co-blogger Aslak is pessimistic about Greenland's future as an independent state, not least because of low skill levels and a lack of anything that could serve as an economic base for a new country.
- Daniel Drezner considers the question of whether or not blogging has become professionalized, with static blogging networks. His conclusion? There are always exceptions.
- Far Outliers notes the nasty elements of Sri Lanka's defeat of the Tamil Tigers and explores Japan's puppet states in Second World War-era China.
- Douglas Muir at A Fistful of Euros covers Uganda, a country that could well become relevant to Europe in some time.
- Joe. My. God lets us know that Poland's Lech Walesa is horrified that Madonna is visiting Poland.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pauldrye at Passing Strangeness explores the first major terrorist attack on 20th century New York City, the 1920 bombing of Wall Street.- Spacing Toronto's Jake Schabas takes on the problems with Richard Florida's writing on the creative classes' role in the success of cities, like the question of whether correlation or causation is at work.
- The Undercover Economist's Tim Harford writes about the intimate relationship between complexity and economic success.
- Window on Eurasia suggests that non-Russian immigrants in Moscow aren't assimilating to the extent that they once did and are retaining their ethnic identities.
Vaiju Naravane's long article in The Hindu exploring the Tamil community in Paris and how its members are reacting to the defeat of the LTTE.
Other Tamils in Little Jaffna are happy that the LTTE was defeated, not least because it can no longer intimidate the community's members.
‘Little Jaffna’ in Paris is a cluster of streets branching off from the rue du Faubourg Saint Denis in the capital’s 10th district. It stretches all the way from the Gare du Nord railway station to the metro station Chapelle on the northern fringes of Paris, in what is generally referred to as the “immigrant neighbourhood.” The area is usually tight with people, alive with commercial activity and the hum of business. It is packed with “cash and carry” stores, sari “palaces”, sweet meat vendors, restaurants, video and music shops, butchers selling goat meat, tailors, barbers, travel agents, and fresh fish-wallas.
For the last week, however, this hub of commerce has come to an eerie standstill. Peeling posters bearing the face of LTTE leader Velupillai Prahakaran’s are spattered across the walls. Not a stray cat seems to walk the byways and black drapes and flags cover closed shop fronts. The Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Paris, estimated to number between 60,000 and 75,000, is in mourning. There was shock and disbelief when news arrived that the LTTE supremo had been killed.
“No one believes he is dead,” Shalini, a 20-year-old medical student who came to Paris at the age of 10, told The Hindu the day Sri Lankan television announced Prabakaran’s death. “I am certain he has already left the country and will soon give us a message on how the struggle should go on. He is the only true leader of the Tamil people. We revere him, we worship him, and I am sure later today he will give us a sign that he is still alive.” Now that the LTTE has formally acknowledged his death she seems rudderless, adrift.
Other Tamils in Little Jaffna are happy that the LTTE was defeated, not least because it can no longer intimidate the community's members.
[N]ot everyone has kind words for the LTTE. “I feel terrible when I see those innocent civilians killed. What have they done to deserve this, herded into camps like cattle? Prabakaran did not know when to negotiate. He became too fond of the gun and made his people here into Mafiosi,” says Shanthamma, a Pondicherry Tamil whose parents once owned a shop in Little Jaffna. She said agents of the Tigers forced them out of their original premises in what has now become Little Jaffna. “First they came with a ridiculous offer to buy our shop. Then there were threats on the phone and through the post. Finally, we found our windows were being broken, our merchandise tampered with. We preferred to quit. How else do you think did they manage to lay their hands on this entire street [Faubourg Saint Denis] and all the streets around it? It was done with threats and coercion. We do not care for the Tigers. They did terrible things in the name of self-determination. What had the members of the Pondicherry Tamil Community done to them? Yet they forced us out in order to put up their own shops so that they could collect their so called Freedom Tax.”
Angélina Etiemble, a sociologist and researcher who has carried out extensive studies on the Sri Lankan Tamil population in Paris, told The Hindu: “The LTTE was so well organised that every individual Sri Lankan Tamil was more or less forced to pay between 536 and 839 euros per year — the rate was 2.32 euros per day, deemed to be a ‘decent’ living wage for those engaged in the cause or deprived of their livelihood by the war. Shop owners had to pay up more, between 1,678 and 2,287 euros per establishment.” Ms. Etiemble says she is not surprised by the level of loyalty to the LTTE or the almost total indoctrination of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. “They used their media network to the full — newspapers like the Poobalam Weekly, controlled directly by the all-powerful Tamil Coordination Committee.
Former Ontario NDP premier and current prominent Liberal federal parliamentarian Bob Rae was expelled from Sri Lanka on arrival at Colombo airport, this act surprisingly triggering an all-party protest, even an official one by the government.
“It is absurd to suggest that Mr. Rae represents a threat to Sri Lankan national security, or is a supporter of the [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam],” Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Emma Welford said in an e-mail. “We have registered to the Sri Lankan government our dismay and displeasure concerning this unacceptable treatment of a Canadian parliamentarian.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon gave Canada’s high commissioner in Colombo, Angela Bogdan, instructions to demand answers about why Mr. Rae and [Tory MP Deepak Obhrai] were refused entry, an aide said.
Mr. Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to Mr. Cannon, said Sri Lanka last week refused to grant him a visa to visit camps that house about 280,000 displaced people. The Sri Lankan government has resisted efforts by foreign governments and journalists to monitor the treatment of the Tamil minority during and after a government offensive that recently ended a decades-long civil war. Mr. Rae did have a visa issued by Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Ottawa, but when he arrived at the Colombo airport on Tuesday night, he was briefly detained on grounds he was a security threat – and shipped out yesterday on a plane to London.
“We got information from the intelligence services that his visit to the country was not suitable,” Sri Lankan Immigration Commissioner P.B. Abeykoon said.
Mr. Rae was clearly unimpressed. “It’s ridiculous. Come on. It’s a ridiculous statement for them to make,” he said yesterday from London. “It also shows that there’s clearly a disagreement in the government between the people who understand the importance of engagement and those who take a different view.
“Everybody’s been saying the same thing. All called for a humanitarian ceasefire. We all called for a way to get the civilians out. It does not make you unfriendly to the people of Sri Lanka or to the security of Sri Lanka to take those positions [in a push for peace]. I’m no more a risk to the security of Sri Lanka than [UN Secretary-General] Ban Ki-moon. … If they’re afraid of people like me visiting the country, then I worry a lot about the future of human rights and freedom inside Sri Lanka.”
Mr. Rae has criticized Sri Lanka’s military offensive, and called on the Canadian government to be more active in pushing the country to engage in reconciliation efforts with the Tamils. But he has also criticized the Tigers for suicide bombings and recruiting child soldiers.
The Liberal MP, who was involved in 2002-03 peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, said earlier that he spent 12 hours in the airport seeking an explanation for his expulsion. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Office indicated they had no objection to his visit, but the army and Defence Secretary labelled him a supporter of the Tigers and a “security risk.”
Mr. Rae said he was given a paper to sign agreeing that he made statements about the Sri Lankan situation without full knowledge of the facts, but wasn’t told which statements it referred to. “I refused to sign such an Orwellian document,” he said.
Over at the Deccan Herald, M K Bhadrakumar argues that any lilkelihood of an intervention of whatever kind in support of Sri Lanka's Tamils is doomed to fail owing to the island nation's incredibly strategic location in the Indian Ocean.
The seasoned poker player has tabled a counter resolution titled “Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and Protection of Human Rights” commending Colombo for its victory over terrorism and soliciting funds for reconstruction. The 12 co-sponsors of the resolution include China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. India finds itself in the strange company but is justified in estimating that the HRC move against Sri Lanka is a non-starter. China and Russia will anyhow ensure that the ‘international community’ doesn’t torment Colombo. They have invited Sri Lanka to come close to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In essence, Sri Lanka is the theatre where Russia and China are frontally challenging the US’s incremental global strategy to establish NATO presence in the Indian Ocean region. The US has succeeded in bringing the NATO upto the Persian Gulf region. The NATO is swiftly expanding its relationship with Pakistan. But it is Sri Lanka that will be the jewel in the NATO’s Indian Ocean crown. Russia and China (and Iran) are determined to frustrate the US geo-strategy. The hard reality, therefore, is that geopolitics is sidetracking Sri Lanka’s Tamil problem. Sri Lanka snubbed Washington by rejecting the US offer to dispatch a naval force to evacuate or provide humanitarian assistance to the Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. China, Russia and Iran encouraged Colombo to reject the US ‘humanitarian intervention’ in yet another strategically vital region.
There is moral muddiness all around. Simply put, a ‘containment strategy’ on the part of the US towards Sri Lanka becomes unworkable. By helping Sri Lanka to withstand the US pressure, China has secured the status of a ‘steadfast ally.’ Apart from arms supplies totalling $100 million, China has overtaken Japan as Sri Lanka’s number one foreign donor. China gave $ 1 billion assistance last year as compared to $ 7.4 million and 1.25 million pounds by the US and UK respectively.
India views with unease the Chinese inroads into Sri Lanka as part of a broad move into the Indian Ocean. But India faces acute dilemma. Its capacity to cajole the diehard Sinhalese nationalists to compromise with the Tamils for an enduring settlement suffers so long as China extends such no-holds-barred political backing to the Colombo establishment.
But Delhi cannot roll back its substantial political, military and economic support to Sri Lanka, either. The interlocking interests of the two neighbouring countries are self-evident. The lure of Sri Lanka cannot be overestimated. The US would like us to believe that India-China rivalry is the sum total of the geopolitics of Sri Lanka. But this is a dissimulation of the actual great game.
The announced Tamil protest scheduled for this evening on the front lawn of Queen's Park did happen, with crowds filling almost all of the front lawn. In fact, I took video of it.
The protest seemed to live up to its promise
And there weren't any traffic disruptions. There was, however, at least one person waving a banner of late Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and there was definitely a heavy police presence.
After I left the scene of the protest, a man and his daughter, both apparently Tamils, accosted me.
"Where is the protest?" he asked me.
I told him to go east and then south. "You can't miss it."
The protest seemed to live up to its promise
The GTA's Tamil community returned to Queen's Park on Friday, but unlike previous gatherings, this one had a distinctly different tone. Gone were the flags, the banners and the chanting that had marked previous protests against the carnage taking place in their Sri Lankan homeland.
It was replaced by a quiet desperation, a feeling of hopeless grief that will culminate in a candlelight vigil after sundown.
For most of the black-clad mourners gathered at the scene, it's about remembering what was lost. The United Nations estimates more than 100,000 people died in the 25-year long war.
Many were relatives of those gathered at the Legislature.
"This one is about the fallen soldiers and civilians that came to fight for our freedom ... and people back home," explains Hamzny Krish. "It's not a good idea to be celebrating. And so, that's why we're here. No one's going to be in a good mood today because ... our own flesh and blood has passed way ... Half your body is taken away."
Several hundred people showed up as the gathering began at 4pm, and so many arrived after that, many were forced to watch the proceedings from across the street.
The sombre mood likely means there won't be the kind of marches and traffic disruptions that have marked the demonstrations in the past.
And there weren't any traffic disruptions. There was, however, at least one person waving a banner of late Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and there was definitely a heavy police presence.
After I left the scene of the protest, a man and his daughter, both apparently Tamils, accosted me.
"Where is the protest?" he asked me.
I told him to go east and then south. "You can't miss it."
With the Tamil Tiger leaders dead, Sri Lanka now has a chance to break with its disastrous past. Will it? Ameen Izzadeen's Asia Times article "Sri Lanka's Tamils watch in silence" seems to indicate that pessimism is in order on account of the forced silence and/or extermination of the non-Tiger Tamil leadership.
Why aren't they protesting? Why can't the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which is the main Tamil party in parliament, mobilize the country's Tamils and take to the streets?
The answer to these questions is simple, says TNA frontliner Suresh Premachandran, a parliamentarian representing the people of the Jaffna district in Sri Lanka's north. For him, the silence of the Tamils in Sri Lanka comes as no surprise.
It is simply state-sponsored terror, he says. "During the peace process, the LTTE was allowed to carry out political activities in government-controlled Tamil areas. But when hostilities broke out, hundreds of Tamil youths who engaged in pro-LTTE political activities were singled out and killed by paramilitary forces. Some disappeared without a trace. Even my party supporters were killed. Three of our MPs were shot dead. So everyone is scared to speak out," said Premachandran, whose party is seen as the mouthpiece of the Tigers.
[. . .]
[S]ome point out that those who complain about the lack of democracy in Sri Lanka see only one side. They say the LTTE does not tolerate dissent either. It killed several top Tamil politicians. One-time opposition leader Appapillai Amirthalingam was gunned down, despite his pro-Eelam credentials. Rival militant leaders such as Uma Maheshwaran and K Padmanaba, who were men with vision, were hunted down though they also fought for a separate state called Eelam.
It was not only rival militant group members that the LTTE eliminated. It also killed well-known Tamil intellectuals who held a view different from the LTTE. Among them was Dr Rajini Thiranagama, a prominent academician and co-author of The Broken Palmyra, which traces the history of Tamil's struggle for self-determination and militancy and documents human rights violations committed by the state, the LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka.
If the Tigers had tolerated dissent and not silenced its critics, people like Thiranagama and D Neelan Thiuchelvam, another Tamil intellectual it killed, would have been there with it to whip up international support for the Tamil cause, observers say.
The 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.
( Three more photos are below the fold. )
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.
( Three more photos are below the fold. )
Grand news from the Toronto Star today: the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict may be coming to Toronto.
Tensions between Sinhalese- and Tamil-Canadian communities has been a long-standing theme in Canada, although Sinhalese-Canadians are a less organized and more dispersed community than their nominal co-nationals. It isn't a surprise that a Sinhalese Buddhist temple might have been targeted owing to the importance of religion in the Sri Lankan conflict, as Sinhalese nationalists' conception of the island as a Buddhist nation has serious ramifications; Buddhist monks, in fact, are famed supporters of Sinhalese ultranationalism.
A Buddhist monk believes a suspected arson at a temple in Scarborough is related to the ongoing conflict in Sri Lanka.
The fire sent three monks running for safety from the building on Kingston Rd. just south of Military Trail Rd., at about 4:30 a.m. after its east emergency entrance was found burning. Police and the Ontario Fire Marshal's Office are investigating.
Nalaka, a resident monk, said he believes the incident is connected to the war in Sri Lanka. He also said the monks have been threatened in the last week.
The incident has caused upset across Toronto's Sinhalese community.
"Every single Sinhalese person is Toronto is calling each other right now," said a man who attends the temple but did not want to be named. "It's very alarming."
Fire investigator James Gillespie estimates damage at $20-30,000. Police are looking at two bottles found near the door which may have been filled with accelerant, he said
Tensions between Sinhalese- and Tamil-Canadian communities has been a long-standing theme in Canada, although Sinhalese-Canadians are a less organized and more dispersed community than their nominal co-nationals. It isn't a surprise that a Sinhalese Buddhist temple might have been targeted owing to the importance of religion in the Sri Lankan conflict, as Sinhalese nationalists' conception of the island as a Buddhist nation has serious ramifications; Buddhist monks, in fact, are famed supporters of Sinhalese ultranationalism.
Walking home from the AMC Yonge & Dundas movie theatre last night, I saw the last bit of the most recent Tamil protest at Queen's Park. There were perhaps a bit more than a hundred people in total, some holding signs to face the northcoming traffic on University Avenue, others clustered around CP24 news reporter who was standing in front of some young Tamil women, concluding her piece by Omar.
The chanting protesters were just outside the provincial legislature, and no, I don't know if anyone of import was at home. The chants followed a standard call-and-response slogans led by the guys with the megaphones.
"Stop the
genocide"
or
"We want a
permanent ceasefire
When do we want it?
Right now"
(My post about Sunday's protest will be up tomorrow; I just need to find something to replace my camera's UPS cable.)
The chanting protesters were just outside the provincial legislature, and no, I don't know if anyone of import was at home. The chants followed a standard call-and-response slogans led by the guys with the megaphones.
"Stop the
genocide"
or
"We want a
permanent ceasefire
When do we want it?
Right now"
(My post about Sunday's protest will be up tomorrow; I just need to find something to replace my camera's UPS cable.)
It's worth noting that in the wake of Sunday's protests by Tamil-Canadians, protests which included the blocking of the Gardiner Expressway by a crowd that included small children, Torontonians are starting to become unimpressed.
I caught up with the protest at Spadina and Dundas, in the heart of Toronto's largest Chinatown, on that day. I'll do a blog post, with photos, as soon as I can download the photos from my camera.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has urged protesters not to carry the Tamil Tiger flag at their protests, as plans emerged for another mass protest to centre on Queen's Park tomorrow.
“I don't think that helps their case,” Mr. McGuinty said of the red flag featuring a tiger and crossed rifles.
There is a right way and a wrong way for the Tamil community to express their concerns about what is happening in Sri Lanka, the premier said.
“You can't block highways,” he said. “You endanger others and you endanger yourselves. You are welcome to the front lawn of Queen's Park at any time.”
[. . .]
The protesters prominently wave flags of the secessionist movement Tamil Eelam. The flag was the emblem of the Tigers until 1990, and still evokes that organization.
The Canadian government declared the Tigers a terrorist group in 2006.
But the Toronto protesters stand by the Tigers, calling them ‘freedom fighters' and insisting the Tigers are the only hope of Tamils caught in the northern Sri Lanka battle zone. Amid the repeated chants calling for a ceasefire and government action, protesters declare Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as “our national leader, our glorious leader.”
I caught up with the protest at Spadina and Dundas, in the heart of Toronto's largest Chinatown, on that day. I'll do a blog post, with photos, as soon as I can download the photos from my camera.
The Tamil-Canadian protest that began Sunday night outside of the American Consulate in Toronto at Dundas and University has seen arrests and minor injuries.
Torontoist's Jerad Gallinger reports that the protesters, aimed at pressuring the United States into intervening in Sri Lanka, were starting some sort of internal dispute when the police intervened. The complications of this protest for traffic in the downtown core can only be imagined, while the links of the protest with the LTTE--reportedly some protesters were waving Tamil Tiger flags--likely has done even less to endear them to Torontonians in general.
[The protesters] have been there for three long days, amid complaints from drivers. But now Toronto Police have finally moved in on Tamil demonstrators who have been occupying the busy intersection of University and Dundas.
At least nine people have been taken into custody and there were reportedly some violent scuffles as the authorities tried to get them out of the street. One woman was said to have been injured in the melee when she was trampled by a police horse.
For days, cops have refused to take any action against the protestors, who are trying to get U.S. and Canadian governments to intervene in the genocide in their native Sri Lanka, because the standoff was peaceful and no laws were being broken.
But when some of the hundreds assembled learned that China had used its veto power at the United Nations to stop the world from intervening in the country, tempers flared. And when the multitude tried to move onto Dundas St., cops ordered them back.
Torontoist's Jerad Gallinger reports that the protesters, aimed at pressuring the United States into intervening in Sri Lanka, were starting some sort of internal dispute when the police intervened. The complications of this protest for traffic in the downtown core can only be imagined, while the links of the protest with the LTTE--reportedly some protesters were waving Tamil Tiger flags--likely has done even less to endear them to Torontonians in general.
