{"id":1105,"date":"2015-11-10T03:58:17","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T03:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2015-11-13T13:52:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T13:52:38","slug":"south-africa-to-singapore-global-tamils-grasping-geopolitics-to-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1105","title":{"rendered":"South Africa to Singapore: global Tamils grasping geopolitics to act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1106\" src=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The powers of today have set their nodal points of global contention from the West to China. Whether it was landward, as visualised in Putin\u2019s Eurasia talk at the UN, or seaward, as the traditional option left to the West, it is called the \u2018Silk Route\u2019 in their silk-coated language. The nodal points don\u2019t care about the fundamental questions of the peoples in between, other than the question that which of the point overtakes or pre-empts the other. If the Islamic world in between is one example, Tamils without State in the sector between South Africa and Singapore is a worse example. The Eezham Tamils were particularly deceived in a similar situation before under the British, and now global Tamils have to grasp and set the bearings correct.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The move that is shuttling between South Africa and Singapore in the last couple of years on the question in the island, and showing just one of its faces in the conference at Durban in South Africa last week, clearly evidences Washington\u2019s orchestration. One could deduce it from the participants: the trained elephants and the captured ones or the lured ones.<\/p>\n<p>This is a face that is set in parallel to the orchestration of Sumanthiran, Erik Solheim, International Crisis Group and such other outfits, in order to lure the ones that escaped the latter.<\/p>\n<p>Whether there will be any guarantee of materialisation by the ultimate sponsor or not, the South African conference has come out with many demands that are dear to the heart of Tamils, such as demilitarisation, stopping Sinhala colonisation, repeal of the 6th Amendment to facilitate free negotiation etc.<\/p>\n<p>But the slip was still showing when the conference avoided the term genocide, even though citing the resolutions of the NPC and the Tamil Nadu State Assembly for consideration.<\/p>\n<div id=\"tplImgTableright\">\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tamilnet.com\/pic.html?path=\/img\/publish\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg&amp;width=640&amp;height=480&amp;caption=\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tamilnet.com\/img\/publish\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu_110704_200.jpg\" alt=\"Durban Conference\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"space\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>What was more ironical that betrayed the deception was the slogan of the conference organizers that called the country they want to salvage as \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019, boldly written in Tamil. Even the existing constitution says that the name of the country is Ilangkai in Tamil. These were the people, who were talking of constitutional changes, self-determination of Tamils etc., at South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Tamil activists should take a note how the leaders of China and Taiwan have designed to address each other and each others countries in talks.<\/p>\n<p>If the Tamils of today have any democratic and Gandhian space to show their resentment to the genocidal State in Colombo and its international patrons, the foremost of it that is symbolically and practically feasible to every Tamil heart is to reject the identity \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019 to the face of those who impose the identity.<\/p>\n<p>The task of priority lying ahead of the Tamil participants at the conference is not serving the deceptions of the conference sponsors, but to work for the realisation and solidarity of global Tamils to assert to their geopolitical rights and righteous political status in the region. They also have the task of enlightening the younger generation in this regard.<\/p>\n<div id=\"tplImgTablesingle\">\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tamilnet.com\/pic.html?path=\/img\/publish\/2015\/11\/British_maritime_map_1930s.jpg&amp;width=1024&amp;height=768&amp;caption=A British maritime map prepared in 1930s showing the pivotal point of Colombo in the Indian Ocean\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tamilnet.com\/img\/publish\/2015\/11\/British_maritime_map_1930s_110708_445.jpg\" alt=\"British maritime map\" width=\"445\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"pad4\">A British maritime map prepared in 1930s showing the pivotal point of Colombo in the Indian Ocean<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"space\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Under colonialism of the West, Ceylon was a point to bring in war prisoners of colonial conquests in large numbers, such as the Malays of East Indies and Boers of South Africa, from east and west of the particular sector of Indian Ocean. This is only a small example showing how the colonialists and imperialists of the past viewed the island.<\/p>\n<p>The then world imperialism of the British wanted the Colombo-centric State created in the island to be different from the rest of South Asia to serve as a pivotal point in their imperialist pursuits. The importance became more acutely felt when the call \u2018Asia for Asians\u2019 came from Japan.<\/p>\n<p>While the congenitally genocidal Colombo-centric State was always riding on the crest of the waves, which it is doing even now, the leadership of the Tamil nation in the island was always prodded, or was gullible, or had vested interests in \u2018cooperating\u2019 with the State and its patrons.<\/p>\n<p>The then Eezham Tamil leadership, having illusions about Colombo and the paradigms set by imperialism, even disassociated itself from the anti-colonial struggle taking place in the rest of South Asia, citing that the island under the British was a \u2018model\u2019 to the colonies.<\/p>\n<p>There was the genre of an alternative polity that emerged among Eezham Tamils to bring Mahatma Gandhi to Jaffna and to successfully boycott the election of 1931 under the Donoughmore Constitution that confirmed the unitary cum majoritarian State in the island.<\/p>\n<p>But deceptive promises and political engineering of gullible masses saw to it that this genre of polity never again came to the forefront. Citing World War II, constitutional remedy for Eezham Tamils witnessing an \u2018All Sinhala Cabinet\u2019 was postponed. After the war again the Tamils were prodded to participate in the semblance of a \u2018United National Party\u2019 State.<\/p>\n<p>When one phase of colonialism and imperialism of 500 years thus ended, there was a genocidal State in the island but Tamils who were long having sea and trade power in the region, and who even under the exploitative colonial conditions had demographic dispersal from Guyana to Fiji, were left Stateless to even question when the genocide of Eezham Tamils took place in the island.<\/p>\n<p>If the unfolding scenario has the \u2018emergency\u2019 of West\u2013East contention and securing bases again, and if the Colombo-centric State is at the old game of riding on the crest, Tamils all over the world have to grasp the geopolitics and rise up in solidarity to firmly demand the powers in the game for revision of equations.<\/p>\n<p>No more Colombo-centric approaches for models and solutions.<\/p>\n<p>New Delhi must be very well aware that strengthening southern South Asia is of utmost priority in the current scenario. But what it has to be made to realise, is that security cannot be achieved by keeping Tamils indefinitely at the receiving end. The demand of Eezham Tamils for justice against genocide and recognition of their statehood, are not aggressive against anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Tamilnet<\/p>\n<div class=\"space\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The powers of today have set their nodal points of global contention from the West&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[5,9,6,33,2],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",640,480,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",640,480,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",640,480,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",640,480,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",640,480,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",640,480,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",633,475,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Sri_Langkaavin_amaithikku_Durban_Maanaadu.jpg",420,315,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=4\" rel=\"category\">Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}