BETA

A collection of thoughts by Uma Kumaran

I am in a state of despair and utter helplessness as I write this article. Merely a week ago I raved about the success of the TYO march in Hyde Park. It seemed to be a turning point for Tamils around the world; we felt a heightened sense of unity and truly believed that the decades of suffering that our race has endured will finally be resolved peacefully and politically. Alas the violence of the last week in Sri Lanka illustrates the nature of the world today, unstable, tempestuous and hasty. I for one feel like Britain as a whole are treading on egg shells, with the closure of Heathrow and a terrorist attack set to be ‘immanent’ in the UK our country of residence, what hope is there for sri lanka? A land thousands of miles away, out of sight and out of reach. What a poor little island, what seems like seconds after recovering from the tsunami it appears that it is on the brink of war once again.

There is much that the layman does not understand about the world of politics. Politics is a world unto itself and is at best understood as an amoral world. It is a world in which regular morals are abandoned in favour of profits and GDP and a world in which the words ‘collateral’ and damage’ replace the words ‘human’ and ‘casualties’. And in the case of Sri Lanka the description, which I have given above, is only the beginning of its political climate. You see, Sri Lanka was long ago referred to as Serendib and many travellers, even the historically renowned Sinbad were drawn to its Idyllic shores and crystal seas.  The Arabs, the Chinese and who can forget the English came to Sri Lanka in search of sapphires and rubies, Alexander the great came to Sri Lanka to look for the elixir of life, and the Portuguese colonised it and sailed away with seven kinds of cinnamon and left behind a lasting footprint. What I am trying to illustrate here is that the LTTE and Sri Lankan government are not the first people to try and conquer the jewel shaped island of Sri Lanka. Ironically the island that has long been seen as a jewel of the sea now seems like the teardrop of the world, the island is and has always been fought over and the consequences have always been that of carnage and destruction.

There is one thing in particular in the on going debate of the war in Sri Lanka that disturbs me. The fact the Tamils are branded terrorists, not only by the Sri Lankan government but now also by the US and EU. Why are Tamils not recognised for their fight to gain independence? How is it that the blacks in South Africa were seen as being oppressed by the whites and their rebellions and fighting were legitimate and used as a last resolution, but when Tamils have been doing the same for over twenty years it is not due to oppression but is seen as a rebellion against a government?

Over the centuries institutions have long mistaken the basic desires of man and as a result some of the most memorable and outstanding humans in history have been punished of wrongdoing. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned by his country for supporting his people to fight the apartheid and he too was branded a terrorist even though he was initially committed to a non-violent struggle. But later he became a worldwide icon of peace and an enduring symbol of human will for people around the world. Over the last four decades he has received over a hundred awards and has given countless speeches for which people from all over the world flock to. And how can I forget Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, a ‘terrorist’ who took up arms in Latin America and formed an ally with Fidel Castro simply to take his people out of a life of poverty. Che is now attributed with the most famous photograph in the world, has a film about and dedicated to him ‘the motorcycle diaries’ and is a symbol of the 20th century. He too is an icon and features on anything from t-shirts to posters. So finally I come to the leader who is representing Tamils around the world, Velupillai Prabhakaran.  
 
  ‘He has a reputation as a fearless and ruthless guerrilla leader, and under his leadership, the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, have become a highly disciplined and highly motivated guerrilla force. To his followers, he is a freedom fighter struggling for Tamil emancipation from Sinhala oppression. To his adversaries he is a megalomaniac with a brutal disregard for human life.’ quote from the BBC. However I must ask, what makes him so different from Mandela or Che, Must he be imprisoned for over 20 years or must he die to be recognised as a freedom fighter? Did he not come from humble roots and start life as these other icons did? With a simple dream, a dream to lift his people out of oppression? Just what is it that makes his so different, for he certainly is not Osama so why should he be categorised in the same way?

Finally I would like to say, that war is part of the world we live in today, we do not live in a utopian society and though we would all like to live in a world of peace where everyone is equal and the colour of skin, race and religion are all secondary factors. But sadly this is not the case the world is going blind by taking an eye for an eye. There is too much ‘tit for tat’ in the world we live in today, one side argues that a school bus had been bombed, the other that an orphanage has been bombed, it is becoming a question for both sides of who died where and how many died there. We are not realising that the saddest loss of all is our loss of sight of the fact that we are all human, and that the loss of one life no matter what age or creed is equal to the loss of mankind itself.