Today’s demonstration in London organised by the British Tamils Forum & Tamil Youth Organisation (UK) was distressing, infuriating and powerful in roughly equal measure. My guess is that there
were about 3-4000 people in Hyde Park for the end of march rally. Maybe just over a couple of dozen of these were non-Tamil. It was overwhelmingly an event of the British Tamil community. This was a great strength but also a major weakness.
The context is that the Tamil national movement has suffered an utterly catastrophic defeat. It’s leadership, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள் offered much to criticise. It combined a bourgeois nationalist programme with a disastrous military strategy of trying to hold onto territory while terrorising its own people. For all practical purposes this organisation has been obliterated. Its political and military cadre fell in battle or were summarily executed on capture by the Sri Lankan army. The civilian population and the LTTE rank and file are being held in camps under conditions which guarantee large numbers of fatalities. It needed a heart of stone not to feel deeply saddened watching the relatives of the detainees march though London’s streets.
As if to emphasise their impotence lots of them were carrying the flag of the United Nations forlornly hoping that the most powerless institution on the planet would offer them some comfort. Many others were carrying Union Jacks, in the sort of numbers that gives me twitchy flashbacks to a north Belfast childhood. The plea here was obvious. As people living in Britain they wanted the British government to act. Some of the slogans were calling on Gordon Brown to do something. It should be clear by now that the United Nations, Britain and the other imperialist powers are giving Ratnasiri Wickremanayake carte blanche to strangle the Tamil national movement.
The virtually complete absence of the organised left was scandalous. The largest single group was from Green Left. If you judge the matter in percentage terms the pitiful turnout from Socialist Resistance put everyone else to shame while a couple of other organisations were doing their traditional “would you like to sign this petition / buy a paper / join us routine”. It was enough to make any reasonable person incandescent.
I have never seen a community so utterly politically isolated. There were no peace groups, churches, trade unions, or any of the political and civil society spectrum that will be at next week’s STWC demo or took to the streets for Gaza. Due to the late start I was only able to stay for a couple of the speeches. Ed Davey the Lib Dem MP for Kingston and Surbiton said he was disappointed by something or other and got a round of applause for telling the audience that Simon Hughes would be asking questions in the House of Commons next week. It’s good that Hughes is doing this but a community that feels this is worth applauding is aware of its own weakness. Davey then suggested that the British government take a tougher line with the Sri Lankan regime and mentioned sanctions. This sounded promising but he only meant travel bans to the EU for members of the government and that sort of Mickey Mouse stuff. Next up was a Tory at which point it was time to go.
The Tamil community has repeatedly shown that it has tremendous organising capacity. This event was very efficiently stewarded, well resourced and had some imaginative touches. It was able to draw on some limited support from the non-Tamil political figues. However if the diaspora is to have a real impact on events back home it has to start reassessing some of the things that it’s doing – or not doing. There were some leaflets calling for a boycott of garments from Sri Lanka. This is good and could be extended to include tourism and tea, two high profile Sri Lankan commodities. Those dozens of young stewards could begin organising little pickets and stalls outside supermarkets and travel agencies. Most importantly a campaign which learns from the likes of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign how to put down real roots in unions, communities and progressive organisations is essential to prevent this year’s defeat becoming the Tamil Nakba.
An article on the Right of self – determination of Ilankai Tamils by Vickramabahu Karunarathne can be found here.
Liam redux 
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