BETA

I have no intention of offending anyone.
Suvethiga must be in a very emotional state when she wrote this piece of blog. Because it lacks substance and rationality, instead of that; it contains full of emotional outbursts. There are few issues we need to identify when we talk about emancipation of Tamil woman.

 Inherent socio cultural orthodoxy in the Tamil community.

 New challenges for an expatriate community in their second home irrespective of gender identity.

 Socio economic background of those “women behind the pushchair” and their husbands.

Traditionally Tamil community is very conservative and treats the women slightly lower level in the social and family hierarchy. On the other hand Tamil community never treated the women similar level of oppression seen in some other ethnic /religious groups. They went to schools and universities without much problem and families are always supportive to them. That does not mean they enjoyed equal status with men in decision making process either in the family or in the community. But everything changed with the advent of Tamil national liberation struggle nearly three decades ago. The war dramatically changed the social and cultural landscape of the Tamil population, where women’s role and status increased within the family and the society at large. This partly due to the progressive changes enforced/ disseminated by the militant groups and partly due to depleting male population due to war and migration forced the women to come out of houses to look after their family.

Current situation is far more favourable for women to progress in their chosen career both in home land and in the expatriate countries.

Any expatriate family will have to go through tremendous hardships in order to have a decent home, job, education and a social recognition in their adapted country irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, religion and education. So there are problems for men as well; to get an appropriate job to match their skills and expertise.

The following issue is some what least discussed in public forums and largely a taboo subject in our Tamil expatriate community that is socio economic stratification and the class divisions within the community. Before going into detail, we should have some idea about the social system and the social hierarchy in the adapted countries. Unlike the Indian subcontinent here in the western countries they don’t have any cast systems instead there is a class division amongst the population based on their education, income, family background (aristocracy) and type of job they do. There was a recent study showed that nearly ten years difference in the life expectancy between Chelsea, the most affluent part of the country and Glasgow one of the impoverished part of Scotland. This is due to the prevailing class division and inequality in sharing the wealth. I don’t want to go into finer details of British sociology; but I would like to impress up on the readers that there is an entirely different social hierarchical system in the adapted countries and its totally strange system for us.

In this background we have to see the Tamil expatriate community and its sociology. Since the ‘independence’ of Ceylon/Sri Lanka Tamils migrated to western countries especially to the UK, most of them if not all of them were highly qualified professionals and settled in the UK without much trouble. Even though they have to face the institutionalised racism of this country they progressed well in their career fields because of the hospitality and the overwhelming liberal attitude of this country.

The 1983 was a watershed line in Tamil expatriate life, the 83 July state sponsored massacre and looting in southern part of the Sri Lankan island and the escalation of civil war led to the mass migration of Tamil population and they sought political asylum in western countries. The skilled professionals also left the island because of the war. The Tamils who migrated after 1983 were from various socioeconomic backgrounds; and most of them were unskilled or semi skilled workers. So simply they fit into the working class of the adapted countries; they lived in council estates and did all sort of jobs. For them having a television, refrigerator and a car is itself is an extremely affluent status; because they applied the ‘Jaffna rule’ to assess their achievement in the UK. Also they are ignorant about the social hierarchy of this country. On the other hand they are far more hardworking and intelligent than other immigrant ethnic minority groups and we can see the different very well.

We will analyse the life of a typical Tamil woman coming to live in the UK. Most probably she will visit Colombo city first time in her life to get her visa and to travel to western country where her husband lives. Her maximum education would be O level and rarely advanced level. Her husband profile is also very important in this respect; usually he will be working in a super market / petrol station / KFC / McDonalds / shop/ industrial level laundrette. A Tamil woman with a university education will not marry a man with this type of profile; because of the Tamil mentality, a woman can marry a man with an education of similar to her or above her level. So invariably large numbers of Tamil men with less skill or no skill, who live in western countries are ended up in marrying poorly educated women. Once she arrived in this country she has to face a lot of challenges; English language (her husband himself is already struggling), financial strain and above every thing she does not know where to start an what to do. For that couple it is extremely difficult period and having a baby is the major source of relief, joy and gives them some rationale for their struggle. She would not have made any drastic difference, had she been delayed her pregnancy. Because she does not have the necessary skills or expertise to embark on an ambition of working in a professional field. If she wants to progress in the way expressed by Suvethiga that poor Tamil woman has to start her education at least from O level, some times they may have to start from further lower level of education. Is this feasible? That poor husband worked hard in the cold weather for many years often for his family and relatives; just married and eagerly waiting to start a new life will be totally frustrated if anyone preaches him about the importance of educating the women (himself not educated). That’s how the future of a Tamil woman going behind the pushchair.

The woman who said getting married is one of her life goals was right!
Because she does not have proper education therefore does not have a proper job; then marriage is the only hope in Tamil community for that woman. That poor woman does not have enough family support to study or work; on the other hand she is very well aware of the social stigma of an unmarried woman so she made an appropriate decision.

Entire topic itself is very complex and needs some fundamental knowledge to understand.
You cannot achieve great things just because you are dreaming and ambitious about it, you should have necessary resources and help to achieve that. Because we all live in highly competitive world and meritocracy it self is not going to bring the success.