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From the streets of Paris
A cry
of hope
Trishani Selvasinga
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The Tamil
Diaspora has taken to the streets in world capitals forcing the
international community and the United Nations to sit up and
take notice. This is leading to more aggressive measures in
Sri
Lanka
against the Tamil people.
This cry of hope resonates in the ears of the Sikhs in the same
way that Sikhs used to do in the fag end of the last century.
This note has been written in response to the Open letter to
Charles Anthony and describes the anguish of the Tamil Diaspora
for whom every day begins with stories of pain and suffering in
their homeland.
The fear is that struggling peoples are losing faith and hope in
UN bodies and peace mechanisms. Will someone listen?
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I've read your
open letter with a lot of grief, pain, but also warmth and hope. As
a fellow Tamil I do like to thank you from deep down my heart for
your empathy, sympathy and solidarity with us. Your letter has shown
me in these dark times that we are not left to our own and do not
remain un-understood, a feeling which makes us even more desperate.
We as a people do live through the worst times of our struggle, with
our entire existence being on the edge. Day by day we cry our hearts
out faced with the suffering of our brethren, which are being
transferred thousands of miles to the far exiles we are forced to
live in. No night passes without the cries surpassing our dreams and
ears, pulling us back to the reality we fled from. No day has passed
for us without this suffering and all its psychological and physical
effects it has on us.
Still, we do have nothing else to hope for than the freedom we ask
for. Each day I am on the streets in
Paris,
raising my voice for our brothers and sisters at home. Each day I
pray to God to save us, but no day passes with any cease being ahead
of us. On the streets we try to make our plight aware to others,
literally we beg for a small piece of attention and interest,
sympathy and their empathy towards us. Even if this sometimes
succeeds and even if we remain sleepless and restless on the streets
of Europe, North America, India and Australia, no government seems
to be engaged enough to accept that we as a people are tired of
being part of this very country, which conducts genocide against us
for 61 years now.
I've many friends from war torn countries, friends whose people have
suffered similar fates, of whom the majority supports us, but this
support is always just restricted to individuals. We keep on asking
various organisations of ethnic or religious background to support
us, but the least want to put their official stamp down under. Still
I do hope that the solidarity of a people for another can bring
changes, even if we waited for long and nothing changed.
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I'm 23
year old female student, born in
Jaffna
and made to flee when I was 4 months old with my mother. All my
life I have felt displaced, left alone and not understood
wherever I was, whether it was in
Russia,
Denmark, Germany or now France. My parents always held back to
expose the pain of this war to us, but nights after nights I
heard my mothers cries for her home and family. |
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We do not have
any other choice than being patient and ambitious and idealistic
enough to believe in our dream of our independent homeland.
I'm 23 year old female student, born in Jaffna and made to flee when
I was 4 months old with my mother. All my life I have felt
displaced, left alone and not understood wherever I was, whether it
was in Russia, Denmark, Germany or now France. My parents always
held back to expose the pain of this war to us, but nights after
nights I heard my mothers cries for her home and family. When I grew
up I opened my eyes towards our history and the tragic history of my
family and started to do my bits and pieces for bringing our cause
forward and fight for justice for Tamils.
I dreamed of bringing my parents home one day to a land where they
can be free, where they can be proud of who they are and where we
come from, what we stand for. It was what drove me, what made me
study Politics and work for human rights organisations. Now they are
both dead. The dream lives on though, for all of us.
When I went back and got the chance to work with our resistance many
times, for the first time in life I understood what it means to have
a home, to belong somewhere, to derive from somewhere and to be
among your own people. I will never forget this feeling, the tears I
shed in the joy of having arrived home and no more being displaced.
Now we remain displaced again, in many corners of the world and in
our own country.
 As
I have dedicated my life to our cause, I will fight on with all my
means and will continue our struggle with many others. Facing
military defeat is a deep humiliation to us, but never will we bow
down again to our oppressors and murderers.
Our brother Parmeswaran is on his 18th day of fasting in
London. He
symbolizes and lives our dedication, will and dream. His breath is
ours. No one can suffocate it, however harsh the resistance is.
I thank you again for this beautiful letter, which still makes me
cry when reading it. In this way I also want to thank your people,
all of whom who feel for us, who support us and will never forget
us. I read a lot about your struggle too, the painful experience of
the 1984 pogroms and even I feel deep sympathy for your people.
As a human
being, Tamil, woman and a Hindu, one day, we I will be free.
Thamilaran Thakkam Thamileelathil Thayagam - Tamils yearning is for
Tamil Eelam.
(To read the
earlier open letter by Jagmohan Singh, please visit
www.worldsikhnews.com)
6
May 2009
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