\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDavid McKinnon, Canada’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka has\nstated, on Canada’s National Day that Canada would continue to\nsupport conflict prevention efforts in Sri Lanka, where it has been seen\nhow hate speech and media can entrench communal divisions\u201d. Meanwhile back\nin Canada, successive Canadian governments have failed to understand how this\nvery hate speech\u201d is being entrenched in Canadian municipal discourse and even\nin parliamentary proceedings by militant diaspora groups. They wish to replay\nthe old ethnic animosities of their homeland in Canada too. by Chandre Dharmawardana. David McKinnon, Canada’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka has stated, on Canada’s National Day that Canada would continue to support conflict prevention efforts in Sri Lanka, where it has been seen how hate speech and media can entrench communal divisions\u201d. Meanwhile back in Canada, successive Canadian governments have failed to understand how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis has been possible because of electorates where minority groups determine\nthe swing vote\u201d. Canadian politicians usually know little about Sri\nLanka, and prefer to parrot what gets them the votes even when they\nfind out the facts. Many candidates running for office in Canada believe or\nassume that all Sri Lankan immigrants in Canada are Tamil ethnics. They\nreadily accept that a genocide\u201d of Tamils had occurred, and that\nmost Sri Lankan immigrants are refugees from that genocide\u201d. This\nis surely very convenient for would be refugees.
\nThe now defunct Northern Provincial Council (NPC) of Sri Lanka led by Mr.\nWigneswaran had declared in 2015 that all Sri Lankan governments since\nindependence in 1948 had practiced genocide\u201d against Sri Lankan Tamils (see:\nIsland, Feb 2015, http:\/\/www.island.lk\/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=119757<\/a>). \nSri Lankan political historians and jurists have largely ignored this, \nconveniently treating it as mere political rhetoric of extremists who\neven discourage inter-ethnic marriage and strive to create\nmono-ethnic communities subservient to them. But the Canadian Tamil Diaspora\nhas taken up the drum beat of a Tamil genocide\u201d back in Canada.
\nCanada’s federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls\nreleased its final report with a verdict of genocide\u201d, indicting\nCanada’s policies since the times of Sir John A MacDonald. Prime Minister\nJustin Trudeau accepted the findings of the report, while informally endorsing\nthe claim of genocide\u201d. The leader of the opposition, Andre Sheer\ncontends that Genocide\u201d isn\u2019t the right word to describe what was done\nto the Indigenous people. But was it right for what happened in Sri Lanka?
\nCanada is a signatory to the 1948 UN Convention on the Crime of\nGenocide. Following the federal inquiry report, the Secretary\nGeneral of the Organization of American States wants an international panel to\ninvestigate the claim and activate justice indicting Canada.
\nAccording to the University of Wisconsin scholar William Denevan and\ncollaborators, the population of native people in the early 16th century in\nNorth America may have been as high as 110 million. Of this, an estimated\nnative population in Canada during Jacques Cartier’s times could have\nbeen as high as 10 million. It dwindled to record lows in the late\n19th century, and recovered partially. It now stands at \nnearly a million, or about 1.5 million on including M\u00e9tiis\nand Inuits as well. That is, the native population has dropped by a\nfactor of at least 10 in five centuries, while European\nnumbers have increased exponentially. The record lows in the\nNative population of the late 19th and early 20th century resulted from\ndeliberate Colonial policies. Sir John A. MacDonald’s policy of starving\nFirst Nations to death to make room for European settlers, willful\ndenial of health needs, residential schools, negation of treaties\netc., took their toll. It was a time when a Good Injun was a dead\nInjun\u201d. More recently, during WWII, refugee Jewish ships were turned way with\nno qualms.
\nHowever, Canada turned a page with the quiet revolution in Quebec, and with\nleaders like Tommy Douglas and Lester Pearson making a difference, and Canada\nbecame a country with a conscience.
\nAnd yet, in spite of all these well-known facts, Canadian legislators have been\nvery cautious since a proclamation of a Genocide\u201d when Canada is at the\nreceiving end is not in the plan. Casting stones at others is much easier,\nespecially if there is political capital to be made.
\nThree Canadian municipalities, namely Toronto, Pickering and Brampton \nhave rushed to cast stones and declare May 18 as the Sri Lankan\nTamil Genocide commemoration day\u201d. Furthermore, Mr. Vijay Thanigasalam (a\nprovincial legislator) has tabled the Bill 104: Tamil Genocide\nEducation Week in Ontario\u201d. Clearly, inter-ethnic battles of their\nhomeland are being imported to Canada by militant diaspora\ngroups who work hand in hand with Canadian legislators who know very\nlittle about Sri Lanka.
\nDemographics indicate a robust growth, rather than a\ngenocide of Sri Lankan Tamils, a 12% minority. The Tamil population of\n734,000 in 1946 (i.e., just before independence) increased to\n2.3 million at the 2011 census, after the fall of the Tamil\nTigers\u201d in May 2009. In addition, some 0.9\nmillion Tamils have emigrated, with most coming to Canada. So the Tamil\npopulation has increased by a factor of 4.4., strongly exceeding the 3.5\nfactor of growth of the Sinhalese (the 72% majority) during the same\nperiod.
\nThe majority of Tamil speakers live in the Sinhalese areas. According\nto CIA fact sheets, at most 5% of the population were under \nthe Tigers. The RCMP and the news media in Canada (e.g., Stewart Bell,\nNational Post, http:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/2011\/01\/21\/documents-courts-seize-assets-from-the-world-tamil-movement\/<\/a>“), \nas well as in Sri Lanka (e.g., see Shamindra Ferdinando’s \nseries entitled War on Terror\u201d, Island) have reported how Canadian Tamil\norganizations funded the Tigers who are proscribed as Terrorists in\nmost countries even today. The columns of the veteran Tamil Journalist J. B. S.\nJayaraj claim that the Tigers killed more Tamils than attributable\nto state terror. This view seems to be echoed by the late Sebastian\nRasalingam (e.g., see , http:\/\/federalidea.com\/focus\/archives\/201<\/a>)\na writer who is believed be a rare voice of the depressed\u201d\ncastes.. Even Mr. Chandrahasan, the son of the iconic Tamil leader\nS. J. V. Chelvanayagam seems to have echoed similar views.
\n S. J. V. Chelvanayagam founded the Ilanaki Tamil Arasu Kadchi\n(ITAK) in 1949 claiming a part of Ceylon as the exclusive homeland of the\nTamils.\u201d. The idea of ethnic communities living apart \u2013 apartheid – was a\nrespectable political philosophy in 1949. However, the majority community\nhas never accepted the concept of an exclusive Tamil homeland. The Moors living\nin the Eastern province have strongly opposed the amalgamation of the East and\nthe North to form an Eelam”. Consequently the ITAK was never\ntrusted by the majority community or by the Moors. The ITAK in its turn did\nlittle to win such trust, printing Eelam stamps even in the 1950s, while its\nchief ideologue of the times, Mr. Navaratnam, wrote a text emphasizing the\nirreconcilability of the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The Sinhalese were\nthemselves concerned with preserving their Identity derived from a\nSinhala-Buddhist heritage, with “politcal monks” behaving with scant\nregard to the very teachings of the Buddha. The ITAK gradually morphed\ninto a full-blown separatist party that pledged military action in 1976\nat Vaddukkoddai. As an irony of history, this was an ancient\ngarrison-fortification town known as “Batakotte”, designated to\nprotect the country against South Indian invasions. The ITAK, having\nroused the militancy of its boys\u201d, and having failed in its\nattempts to reach a negotiated settlement with the state, actually found\nitself at the mercy of its own extremists. The northern peninsula,\ncleansed of Sinhalese and Mulsims by the Tigers, and with Northern Tamils a\nmere 5% of the population, was now pitted against the military might of the\nstate backed by the Sinhalese and the Moors. This launched a set of \narmed conflicts supported by by unprecedented types of terrorist action, use of\nsuicide cadre and child soldiers, now known as the Eelam wars. They\nlasted for three decades, mainly because the tigers were supplied with weapons\nand funds from the Diaspora living in the West. The Western politicians \npushed for peace negotiations but took no action to control the flow of\nsuch funding of terrorism from within their shores.
\nDeaths during the Eelam wars struck all Lankan ethnic groups equally\nhard. The claim of genocide\u201d focusing only on Tamil deaths of a claimed\n40,000 during the last days of the Eelam wars is currently under review\nby the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). The Organization of American\nStates probably wants a similar review against Canada in regard to its\ntreatment of native people. It should be noted that Canada is a main\nsponsor of the indictment against Sri Lanka, now that the USA has left the\nUNHRC.
\n The indictment before the UNHRC is contested by knowledgeable\nauthorities including Lord Neseby’s British House of Lords\ninvestigation. Their estimates of casualties come to some 7000, of\nwhich 5000 are Tamil-Tiger fighters. Scholarly studies of\nwiki-leaks of diplomatic dispatches, studies by the American Physical Society\nof satellite images of shelling, the report of the Paranagama commission\netc., indicate similar lower figures of casualties.
\nHowever, the municipalities of Toronto, Brampton and Pickering \nrushed to judgment to please ethnic pressure groups. The Canadian Parliament\nitself sponsored a sham hearing hosted by Mr. Garry Anandasangaree where\nthe event was announced with short notice. Admissions were\ncontrolled and cut to a short time window to just voice the genocide story.\n
\nIf a genocide of 40,000 occurred in the last weeks of Eelam IV, \nmass graves of 40,000 killed have to be somewhere. But even\nthe NPC under Mr. Wigneswaran who claimed a Tamil genocide has NOT \nsucceeded in demonstrating any mass graves. The Mannar mass grave, which was\nexcavated with great expectations of providing some support to the NCP genocide\nclaim fell completely flat. Radio-carbon data indicated that the\nskeletons were from a massacre during Portuguese times by a Hindu-Tamil\nchieftain who exterminated fellow Tamil converts to Catholicism. \nFurthermore, if 40,000 were killed by shell fire and bombings, some 160,000\ninjured are expected as collateral\u201d, but very few injured were\nfound among the 300,000 held in the war zone when freed in May 2009.
\n A grave injustice is being committed by the Canadian municipalities\nin their rush to judgment about a Tamil genocide\u201d. This contrasts strongly\nwith the cautious approach of the House of Commons\nregarding the alleged genocide of aboriginal peoples. The good\nintentions contained in the Canadian High Commissioner’s statement is\nunfortunately not being played out in Canada itself.
\n[The author is a Canadian and Sri -Lankan academic living in Canada and\nattached to the Universit\u00e9 de Montreal, and may be contacted at chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca<\/a>]
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