A new Tamil Eelam - why and why not.

Do Tamils have a legitimate right to a separate Tamil eelam?

This is the question being asked on www.judgeandjury.com which is
where tamil.co.uk will take you.

Apparently, a lot of Tamil people are still protesting in Westminster
in the UK, and a few other places, no doubt. What exactly can the UK
government do about the Sri Lankan government and its actions? And
what exactly does the UK governmeent have to do about securing a
separate "Tamil eelam", whatever that means to someone who isn't
directly in the line of fire?

First of all, who are Tamils? Most of them are Tamil speaking
migrants from the Indian land mass, many of them having left several
generations ago to many different countries. Today Tamilnadu is the
state in India that has the most number of Tamil people, but they are
Indians first, and have absolutely no political cause to subscribe to
any notion of a separate country for Tamil people, in Sri Lanka or
anywhere.

If there are any, it is our business to ask them if they are Indians
first or Tamils? If they are Indian, then they are already well
represented by Indian leadership in asking for a proper settlement
plan for all the displaced Tamil people in Sri Lanka, and should take
heart in the Rs. 500 crores that India has given the Sri Lankan
government to deal with the crisis on their hands.

It isn't as if Sri Lanka created this crisis. If the LTTE had worked
towards bringing prosperity to Tamil people instead of holding them in
impoverished and helpless conditions for so long, we wouldn't have
refugees today. We'd have people with assets simply going back home
to their sweet, secure lives.

The biggest Tamil population in the world, in India, the original home
of the language and the people speaking it, have no grouse big enough
to ask for a separate country. They are enjoying the prosperity of a
big, unified, diverse, vibrantly democratic India, and are playing
their industrious part in making India even more economically
competitive. They are highly unlikely to be swayed towards anything
revolutionary.

Tamil people living in far off countries like the UK, British Guyana,
Cyprus, the USA, and so on have, unless they're preparing to move to
Sri Lanka to live in a separate Tamil Eelam, no reason to demand
anything from anyone, leave alone their country of legal residence.
If all migrants in all countries started demanding their own country,
we can imagine the chaos. That is simply not on.

Are these protesting Tamil people ready to move en masse to this new
country they suppose they will be gifted by the government of Sri
Lanka? Very unlikely. There are Tamil people all over the world, but
the notable generations of settlers range from Malaysia to South
Africa and some former British colonies. Do they all want to move to
this new Tamil Eelam, or do they all want little Tamil Eelams in their
own countries? There is no evidence of either scenario evolving.

So, who the heck are these fools trying to raise a hue and a cry for
"Tamils", as if they're a whole different species? Logically, whoever
is kicking up this new mayhem in the media is a remnant supporter of
the LTTE. It is rather strange of them to not mention "Sri Lanka" in
their demand for a Tamil Eelam. For it isn't as if India is willing
to carve up a piece of its territory to create this new country, if
indeed, that is what they are asking for. By not mentioning Sri
Lanka, they are hoping to somehow sneak into public consciousness that
all Tamil people all over the world want a separate country. Very
cunning, but it isn't going to work.

The Sri Lankan Tamils have a predicament. For a long time, they have
either supported the LTTE or lived under its threat. If they have
supported the LTTE, they have no bloody right to demand anything,
because the LTTE is a terrorist organization. If they had lived under
threat of the LTTE, then that clearly shows the LTTE was not a
pro-Tamil welfare organization, and now that the Sri Lankans have
rescued the Tamil population from the LTTE, deserve to have their
chance of rehabilitating the victims. After all, it is their country,
and they routed the LTTE, not Tamil people fighting for their own
freedom from the oppression of the LTTE and its fat, overrated dead
leader and his dictatorial ambitions.

People of the world, beware. Let Sri Lankan Tamils not lead you into
believing that the whole Tamil speaking population of the world is
interested in a separate Tamil Eelam, whatever that means. We are
not. But if you insist on our opinion, we think the Sri Lankan
Tamils, in their lousy ability to pick a leader, and in their
economically weak condition, are in no state to run their own country.
They should get some fair rehabilitation in Sri Lanka, and be
properly assimilated into the population as Sri Lankans, not Tamils or
Sinhalese or Buddhists or Christians or Muslims. If they want an
example of how this works, all they have to do is look at India.

But for now, all you protestors, especially in wealthy countries,
please shut up and go home. It isn't as if you'd risk your butt for
anything Tamil. If you really cared, you'd sell everything you have,
leave right now, and start living in Sri Lanka, not hide in another
country.

Good riddance LTTE!

Velupillai Prabhakaran is supposedly dead - according to the Sri Lankan government. There is a website being maintained in faraway Europe that claims he is alive and well and indeed in good health. In any case, he is no longer the LTTE supremo, because there is no longer an LTTE.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. The LTTE was never put together to achieve an ultimately noble goal. It was fostered to build a dictatorship and there would be only one dictator. Organizations like the TULF and the TELO, which all had the claim of fighting for a separate Tamil Eelam were crushed by Prabhakaran's power, their leaders killed and their infrastructure eliminated.

That is how power hungry zealots operate. That is how the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world operate. For a country like India, being Sri Lanka's neighbour, it would seem strange, but that is not how the LTTE has been projected, especially to the people of Tamilnadu, many of who feel a pang of sadness for Prabhakaran being eliminated.

It really wasn't our business as Indians, but we did send in a peacekeeping force, to help out the Sri Lankan Army against the LTTE. We also, as Indian Tamils, offered support to the LTTE, and it is no secret that ex-Indian army personnel helped train some cadre of the LTTE. The Tamil cause has been around for a while, and with all its noble intentions of maintaining a Tamil brotherhood around the world, ended up helping the LTTE.

To repay that gratitude, Prabhakaran decided to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. Big mistake. Successful operation, but that one single act of terrorism on Indian soil completely eroded the sympathy the organization had amongst many Indians, and made it very easy for India to toe the EU, UN, and US line in branding the LTTE a "terrorist" organization.

To my mind, there were never any doubts that the LTTE was a terrorist organization. A fine fighting force, they perhaps were, but at the end of the day, they were a terrorist outfit. If I have a political grouse against the way the Indian government is treating me, I am hardly the person to accept a bunch of gun toting idiots as heroes if they had the same grouse. Go militant, and you're already accepting you don't know how to win an argument through peaceful means.

Besides, if Sri Lanka was treating ethnic Tamil people differently from the rest of their countrymen, that was something internal in Sri Lanka's affairs. So, why would we as Indians have any viewpoint that even remotely supports the LTTE?

Expressing solidarity with Sri Lankan Tamils is hardly reason to consider the Sri Lankan government an enemy of sorts. Today, in Tamilnadu, a lot of people harbour ill feelings about the current Sri Lankan administration, based purely on heresay that Tamils are being treated badly in that country. If the LTTE had been treating Tamils very well, there is no evidence of any of that. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence of Tamils being dictated to, forced into combat situations, and accept the hegemony of the LTTE and its supremo.

The question Tamil people in India need to ask themselves is - Am I an Indian or a Tamil first and foremost? The choices are simple if we are Indian first. The LTTE is a terrorist organization that did something on our soil we cannot forgive them for, and are automatically our enemy. So, the Sri Lankan government did something very right. If we are Tamil first, then if we are also sympathizers of the LTTE, we have a problem.

Of course it is ridiculous that the government of Tamilnadu is keeping a strict vigil on Tamil emotions that may erupt out of sympathy for the LTTE, and a resentment of their military capability being decimated. Nobody in Tamilnadu cares enough about Sri Lankan Tamils that much that we are about to let our normal lives be disrupted by our outpouring of support for people that are part of a humanitarian tragedy right now, one that is well beyond our sight, and well beyond our immediate concern.

What the Rajapaksa government has achieved is clarity. Every other government before his did not tackle the problem with the single minded devotion that his collective has been able to put together. Here is a lesson for India. Going after terrorists is a military objective first and foremost. You cannot negotiate with terrorists. If you know where they are, go after them. Forget about everything else. I hope this example is followed in Kashmir, and I hope the US does this to the Taliban and the Al Qaeda and all the other idiots around the world.

At the end of the day, the LTTE is no longer in existence. They had a bloody long run, and a few of their remnants from around the world will plan some crazy attacks. No doubt about that. The Tamils and their militant ideologies are not to be underestimated. But the LTTE is no longer there to accept and nurture their militant sympathies.

I don't care how much they cared for a Tamil Eelam. Their methods were off kelter by a large margin and if they thought they could kill for their reasons, they should be ready to die for them. Good riddance, fools.