அவுஸ்திரேலியாவின் லா ட்ரொப் பல்கலைக்கழக பொருளியல் துறை பேராசிரியர் சிசிர ஜயசூரிய ஏ.பி.சி தொலைக்காட்சிக்கு வழங்கிய பேட்டி!

தமிழ் புத்தி ஜீவிகளே இந்த தைரியம் உங்களுக்கும் வருமா

?

இவ்வாறான கொடுமையான படுகொலைகள் நடந்துகொண்டிருக்கும் போது எங்கள் புத்திஜீவிகளும் கருத்துக் கூறிக்கொண்டுதான் உள்ளனர்.

The numbers

While accurate numbers are hard to come by, experts say 200,000 to 250,000 Sri Lankan Tamils live in and around Toronto, making them the largest such group in an urban setting anywhere in the world, including Sri Lanka.

"I mean, Scarborough is like going to Jaffna," said Ravi Vaitheespara, a Tamil and an associate professor of history at the University of Manitoba.

Still, numbers alone do not explain the Toronto Tamils' ardent support for the Tamil Tigers, Dr. Vaitheespara said. Class and personal experience - most Tamils have lost loved ones in the civil war - also play a role.

While Tamils who immigrated to Canada before the 1980s were mainly professionals from the upper classes, those who came after the war began in 1983 - the vast majority of Toronto's Tamils - were mainly from the lower-middle classes. Those who came as refugees, many of whom had their education disrupted by the war, have had to work harder than their more-qualified predecessors to gain a financial foothold, sometimes working two or three jobs, Dr. Vaitheespara said.

Less fluent in English, many post-1983 arrivals sidestepped the language barrier by starting businesses to cater to the burgeoning Tamil community, he added.

Support for the Tigers in Toronto is strongest within this less-Anglicized, lower-middle-class group, from whose ranks the Tigers draw their fighters back home, while members of the more educated classes tend to be more critical, the professor said.

"Now with this crisis, those murmuring classes are going to murmur a bit more loudly" in opposition to the Tigers, as if to say "I told you so" to their supporters, he said.

Brutal tactics aside, the Tigers are seen as "a necessary evil" among many diaspora Tamils, given what they see as the "majoritarian chauvinism" of the Sri Lankan state and its forces, Dr. Vaitheespara said. "That's the dilemma the Tamils are facing."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...pageRequested=3

Edited February 10, 200916 yr by sukan