யோர்க் பல்கலைக்கழக அதிபருக்கு, ஒரு சிங்களவனால் அனுப்பப்பட்ட கடிதம். உங்கள் எதிர்ப்பினைத் தெரிவியுங்கள்.

KEETHA SELLATHURAI to me

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Tamil students burning Sri Lanka’s National Flag on Campus

Dr. Mamdouch Shoukri

President & Vice Chancellor

York University

Toronto, Ontario

Canada

Dear Dr. Shoukri:

Re: Tamil students burning Sri Lanka’s National Flag on Campus

I was absolutely appalled, angered, stunned and disgusted to see on the YouTube your University students from the Tamil Students’ Association boisterously marching around your campus to the cacophony of terrorist slogans, waving the Tamil Tiger Eelam Flag, the flag of the terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE aka Tamil Tigers) that was banned in Canada on April 2006, and then burning the Sri Lanka’s National Flag.

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT8VzErIRMU.

This is what Canada’s Bill C-347 which was adopted as law during the 2nd Session of the 36th Parliament in 1999 says:

“1. The Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after section 56: 56.1

(1) Every one who, without lawful excuse, willfully burns, defaces, defiles, mutilates, tramples upon or otherwise desecrates the national flag of Canada is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

(2) No person contravenes subsection (1) where the person disposes of the national flag of Canada because the flag has become worn, soiled or damaged.”

That is how Canada makes her National Flag a symbol of reverence, and so should other country national flags have an equal respect and reverence by all Canadians however puny that sovereign country is.

Your Tamil students by burning Sri Lanka’s National Flag on the soils of your campus desecrated not only another country’s national flag, but also desecrated the nobility of a renowned and a prestigious Institution of Higher Education of immense repute. This act should not go unnoticed by the President & Vice Chancellor of York University.

I have little qualms on University radicalism, as I myself is a product of the late 60s British University radicalism, but we never, ever had to burn an American flag nor a South African flag to convey our political conscience that was eating us for being against the Vietnam War and Apartheid. One could argue that the 1968 University radicalism was one catalyst which pushed to the political foreground the civil rights movement, black power, the sexual revolution, and feminism. But

this radicalism had a social civility in which the Tamils in your campus lacked.

However, as you may agree, every university ought to have a university policy, that shapes limits of campus activism which will not bring disrepute to the institution, and I feel certain that such a policy is in place at York University.

As such, my advice to you Sir, is to summon the leaders of the York University Tamil Students’ Association who organized and participated in this offensive act of burning the National Flag of Sri Lanka and read them the riot act and demand a letter of apology addressed to the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Consular General of Sri Lanka in Toronto, Mr. Bandula Jayasekera I am sure will be able to facilitate for you to hand this letter of apology to the President of Sri Lanka on behalf of York University.

Along the way you will be able to massage some civility into these Eelamist Tamils in your campus, which will only help them to integrate well into the culture of responsible, civilized citizenry in the great country of ours, Canada.

There is one thing that baffled me in what I saw on the YouTube. If these young and healthy Tamil men and women were so concerned to help their Tamil Tiger terrorist leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, who has been cornered and shivering in fright like a scared fox in a hole in a dell hunted by hounds, why haven’t they taken a leaf from the Spanish Civil War when many sympathizers went to battle for them, and get on a plane to Sri Lanka and replace the under 14-year old kids and over 60s grandmothers and grandfathers in the battle fields who are fighting for their cause, a separate State for the Tamils. It is too easy to live in the lap of luxury in Canada, and then march in York University’s campus waving the Tamil Tiger Flag, shouting warrior slogans and burning Sri Lanka’s National Flag, which spelled little honesty and a lack of courage. That is where the rub is. That is where the humbug is. That is where the bullish arrogance is knowing well that they are well sheltered by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms where they can scream, shout and march flaying their arms against a foreign sovereign country 10,000 miles away, within the bounds of a University campus.

Very sincerely

Asoka Weerasinghe

Thursday, 26 February 2009

கொடூரன் ராஜபக்ஸவிடம் மாணவர்கள் மன்னிப்புக் கேட்டவேண்டுமாம்.....

இந்த செலிட்டு நாயின் கோரிக்கைக்குப் பயந்து யோர்க் மாணவர்கள் அடிபணியக்கூடாது. யோர்க் பல்கலைகழக நிர்வாகம் இம் மாணவர்கள் மீது ஏதேனும் அழுத்தத்தைப் பிரயோகிக்க முயன்றால் ஒட்டுமொத்த கனடா வாழ் தமிழினமும் மாணவர்களின் பின்னால் நிற்கவேண்டும்.