Thanksgiving message to the Canadian Tamil Community: The Orwellian Chapter
First, a much-needed disclaimer: At the outset, let me begin by saying that I am not above being seduced by my own opinions and I am not always right. Not even close. Maybe I am always wrong. Maybe I am even controversial.
Lately, I have commented on some contentious issues publicly, openly and candidly, which caused indigestion and anger amongst a few in the Tamil community in Toronto. Which I fully expected. Some even accused me of being a paid Sri Lankan agent and/or a Tamil traitor. These accusations are typical, default and boringly predictable pedestrian pronouncements by individuals who resist change; and I am far too familiar with them. Their pettiness, at least, hasn’t changed.
A few have engaged me in a civilized way, even though they didn’t agree. This is always welcome. I also received strong support from many for speaking out, especially from young professionals in our community. This latter group of individuals were in complete alignment with my sentiments but did not wish to risk anything by angering the ‘mean mob.’
I acknowledge that some of what I offered was a visceral expression and one might even say it was vitriolic hyperbole. But I submit to you that it was not my intention, nor was it my bailiwick. Admittedly, as someone who is not part of any organization and as an identified strong supporter of Tamils’ right to self-determination for a longtime, I have much less to prove. A simple Google search for my name will validate this claim.
Asking fair questions and expressing opposing views shouldn’t be socially verboten. But such staunch resistance leaves the distinct impression that some individuals have permanently boxed themselves within a rigid regime of silly ideas and secrecy, where every criticism is muted and weighed on a finely calibrated scale for fear of upsetting the status quo—or even worse, an entrepreneurial activity paid to feign a contemptuous interest in Tamils’ welfare.
It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of Draconian control through propaganda, disinformation, aggression, and manipulation of the past. I am awestruck by the extent of immaturity displayed by some individuals. That the nasty behaviours we corrected in our children one or two generations ago now passes for acceptable behaviour in adults is mind-boggling. Bullying, name-calling, shunning, gossiping, destroying reputations, and practicing personality before principles are now accepted, applauded by some, and even celebrated. It is a disgusting mess that we will find it hard to walk back from.
The silent, moderate, majority must also take some blame for this tragedy. We are seeing an increase in vitriolic voices, and when extremists of all stripes shout out, silence can no longer be afforded.
What troubles me is that attractive euphemisms—traitor, sold out to Sri Lanka, enemy of Tamils—are nothing more than weaponized words used to shut down others. I am not too naive to think that all we need to do is love each other. But we do have to respect each other. The moment we are sure we are right because of membership in this or that group, we are wrong. By definition.
We simply can’t attack unpopular thoughts, indiscriminately. Repudiation of this behaviour is a must before such a totalitarian mindset completely takes over our society by infringing on our liberties and freedoms at will. I can already see the pernicious effects of this on our society, where people are afraid to speak out. Instead of deepening our past divisions, we need to strengthen our present bonds. After all, I am human and so are you.
I mourn the death of pragmatism in our community. When did it become necessary to sell Tamil patriotism? The Tamil freedom struggle has become more about carefully crafted euphemisms than about human life recently. George Orwell, a wonderful British writer, once said, “whenever you hear a euphemism, it means somebody is lying or cowardly.”
This extreme narrative that currently permeates in Tamil Canadian politics is not a legitimate expression of passionately held beliefs. Rather, it is the unrefined and phobic reaction of adults who lack the skillful means to manage within a pluralistic, democratic society. Autonomy, liberty, and justice are the founding principles of democracy, and I wholeheartedly subscribe to them. But I am dismayed by all the recurring antics and ongoing high jinks within the Tamil Diaspora circle.
At this juncture of the Orwellian chapter of the Tamil community, the words “Tamil freedom struggle” are starting to sound hollower and more mocking with each passing moment. There is a persistent strand of self-delusion among some as it pertains to our role and responsibility to those we left behind, which is often punctured by a strand of neurotic self-doubt. This irony cloaks angst.
Tamil 'organizations' and 'leaders' are continuing their apparently uninterruptible creation of lies and rumours among the Diaspora, all designed to forestall or pre-empt the availability of a geographic space in which even an imaginary vestigial Tamil state could not be created. Inflammatory rhetoric and ego masquerading as defenders of Tamils aside, if there is a joke in this somewhere, it eludes me. The hypocrisy highway is so glutted with such actions.
It saddens and disappoints me that there is so little published discussion of this problem that we have little appetite for anything. We have the right and responsibility, indeed an obligation—to dissent where it is needed, as it is clearly necessary at the current stage of our community. You either support high standards of behaviour or you don't. In our case, most Tamil leaders, along with their organizations, do not. It's a disgrace.
Our identity is an amalgam of whom or what we think we are and what other people take us for. I may be convinced that I am a fine singer, but, if no one else thinks I am, then I’m not. My hunch is that, overall, the recent fiascos in Toronto are neither as high in the estimation of others as we assert in public, nor as low as few fear in private.
Voltaire is the great thinker responsible for the observation, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Let's not vote against our own interests by believing in unsubstantiated charges, claims and magical ideas. For progress to happen, certain things must not become an issue anymore. We can't move forward unless we address our wrongdoings. Maintaining dignity, decorum and decency among us cannot be just an empty formality.
If we lack the courage and desire to properly carry on with our venerable struggle that took so many decades to develop while sacrificing so many lives, we deserve our fate as disenfranchised nobodies in what is sure to follow. Recognizing and acknowledging this is a mark of wisdom.
The intention of this message, at least I hope—at best, will be a tidal wave of positive change to come or spark a healthy debate. Sadly, both are currently missing in our community. Many acknowledge this internally, but no one is willing to say it publicly. Speaking an unpopular truth is a difficult, yet important, task. To that end, Tamil leaders, have long been on the endangered species list, much to our detriment.
My view is that the only way you force people to change the system is by saying something publicly. My gripe is the direction we are taking our future Tamil generation right here in Canada and the devastating results it will inevitably produce. What legacy are we going to leave for the next generation?
A community is a living and evolving organism, and we don’t have to embrace all the changes that occur around us, but we better at least pay attention. How can we possibly strive to better ourselves as a community and do great things with petty fights and glowing character flaws? My view is that if we don’t expose our community’s humanness, flaws, warts and all, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to accomplish greatness. Devoid of that, it is akin to a collective ‘self-sabotage.’
It is incredibly important that we avoid descending into another period of intensive internal navel-gazing. Whether it is Tamil Fest in Toronto or the recent presidential election in Sri Lanka, it seems no one can escape the wrath of some organization or group hell-bent on vilifying another. This is another example of Tamils' remarkable ability to injure ourselves.
These pharisees cast stones and are so very far from being blameless. Their allegations of others represent more than yet another peek behind a false curtain of fraudulent righteousness. It is really a shame when nonsense can substitute for fact, with impunity. I find many of those comments as condescending from a soapbox to evangelize others, which reveals—at least to me, the tracings of simple-minded conjecture cloaked in civilized-like veneer, thin to the point of transparency.
These organizations and individuals waste their energy on such meaningless drivel while tiring Tamils out under the guise of “fake patriotism” whilst using our great heroes as pawns in their silly chess game of dividing loyalty—disrespecting their sacrifices while pretending to ‘respect’ them. As a result, individuals rush to both sides of the aisle depending on their loyalty. But in both cases, Sri Lanka wins, and the Tamils lose.
We currently live within a community of amateur Tamil historians and professional skeptics. The whole thing has reached giddy heights. In our panic, we lost sight of something very important. If only someone could step up and cut through all this political posturing, grandstanding and fearmongering and remind us of what the Tamil freedom struggle is all about.
This is a case of mass delusion and stubbornness in a way that is shocking. Tamils need to put a period at the end of this long-run-on-sentence of internal conflict. No community ever gains anything by loathing over imperfections of its lot in life or concluding based on events that didn’t happen. It is not a hill worth dying on. Putting our money where our hearts are hasn’t been a good strategy for Tamils so far.
Such a cult of orchestrated paranoia must evaporate for us to move forward. The tragic reality is that, otherwise, our society will be doomed, in perpetuity, to frequent episodes of such senseless internal fights. And our response will forever be the now familiar mix of agony and hopelessness.
But we know how to resurrect hope. We are living it right here in Canada. After all, not too long ago we were a whole generation of men, women and helpless children, written up in Sri Lanka’s racial book of redundancy. Our search for a better life started in earnest after tragic circumstances. Tamils of many generations, crossed many nations and oceans and made our way to Canada, leaving behind the country of our birth, soaked with the blood of siblings, parents and large extended families. The only collateral we had was a strong back and the hope of a better life. Since arriving, collectively, our lives have been rewired in Canada.
When we arrived, English was not our first language, but our hopes and dreams were recognizably Canadian. After escaping misery, after our arrival, after the acceptance by Canada and the struggle before us, there was the question; will we make it in such an unfamiliar milieu? We exhausted adjectives to describe our fear and anxiety. With barely a glimpse of what lay ahead, we trusted the Canadian system of life—as the residual scars on our psyche still lingered. We felt sullen. Our country of origin left us abashed.
Those days were trying times even for an optimist. But we had to mentally get ready, adopt and overcome our tortured past to build a new life here far away from the horror we endured, so the next generation could escape its morbid grasp. Holding back the overwhelming emotion while holding on to each other, we gained the gift of freedom and safety in Canada. This gift symbolized our healing and acted as a prosthetic for our amputated souls.
The environment of freedom and safety, coupled with the force of human will, produced a life of prosperity and advancement, resulting in enormous success in many facets of Tamil entrepreneurship, various business disciplines, multiple fields of academic study and more importantly in economic success, making us one of the successful immigrant groups in Canada. We have gone from misery to prosperity, from victims to victors.
It is a success of an epic proportion. We should be proud of what we have achieved and not be ashamed of what we have not. When the music stopped in May 2009, we found out the chair was gone. However, we can inspire and give hope to Tamils of future generations. But how? When we highlight individual and collective Tamil achievement, it can and will inspire young Tamils and be proud to identify themselves as Tamils.
A community’s strength is built on four pillars: Education, Finance, Politics and Media. The stronger these pillars are, the more influence the community will have on shaping a country. It is our responsibility to inspire young Tamils to achieve great heights, to build those pillars stronger so that Tamils can continue to carry-on with our venerable cause to liberate those who are subjected to brutality in Sri Lanka. We can only do that if we unite and put ourselves on the right path. Our current path of “divided strategy” isn’t the way to get there.
The threat comes from our own actions which will ultimately destroy the Tamil people. I truly believe that a divided strategy by Tamil organizations and the misdirection of young Tamils represents the most serious threat to Tamils' survival.
Our wish should become our collective words. Our words should become our action. Our collective action should become the Tamil community’s goal, and that goal will become our destiny, which will help to reach our dream. But of course, the first part of making a dream into reality is to wake up.
Can we be united and more inclusive? Can we be true to our principles without being disrespectful to those who don’t agree with 100% of them? Is 50% friend, a 50% enemy?
Sometimes what divides us is revealed, all in a moment, to be small and petty. Our faith in each other, our love of freedom, our love for Eelam, our common creed should cut across whatever superficial differences there may be. Despite our backgrounds and beliefs, there is a basic universal truth: we always have more in common than different across all races, religions, and political ideologies.
In this spirit, it would be beneficial to establish an open forum that allows community members to freely express their concerns and suggestions without fear of retribution. Additionally, Tamil organizations should consider the implementation of mentorship programs, wherein experienced leaders engage with younger generations to foster mutual understanding and growth to bridge the gap between dissenting voices with the goal of ultimately shaping the collective mindset of a cohesive future Tamil community. Such a legacy would be worthwhile for today's leaders to leave behind.
Let’s not fall into the trap of accepting an explanation for something just because it seems like the most rational solution. There could be a less rational solution that fits the facts much better. The question is, are we ready for it? Motives are notoriously hard to prove. So, let’s focus on outcomes, not on motives.
Despite all our struggles and strife, we should be thankful and incredibly fortunate to have been born as Tamils.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Roy Ratnavel
Retired Investment Industry Executive
Bestselling Author of Prisoner #1056
