TamilNet : Time to wage next stage of struggle

 [TamilNet, Friday, 22 March 2013,

The Eezham Tamil grassroot may have to bring in new leadership that has faith in people’s power; that has the ability to mobilise people’s power; that gets its power from the people and that invites the ‘diplomats’ to come to it rather than going to them.

Never forget that non-cooperation is an effective way of democratic struggle, especially in struggles facing imperialism. With confidence coming from the Tamil Nadu upsurge to embark on a new genre of struggle, Eezham Tamils should know converting the solidarity into a joint people’s power rather than detracting it or hijacking it. The Tamil Nadu upsurge cannot be silenced like the defeatists silencing the diaspora uprising. New Delhi and Washington may brush aside the upsurge by adamantly passing an empty resolution. But the effects of the upsurge are already showing and it depends on how the struggle is going to be led further.

TamilNet Editorial Board

The ritual at Geneva was over for this year, with the USA and India as main players enacting another crime in the series–this time an open assault on the international justice Eezham Tamils deserve and grant of further international confirmation to the structural genocide carried out in the island in the name of LLRC implementation.

The OHCHR could now once again count the trees and there will be another display of ‘Tamil wounds’ before the next round, just for the designers of the genocidal war to extract some more of what they want in the island.

Genocidal integration inside the island is now almost openly accepted in exchange for imperialists’ integration of the island. Whether the Sinhalese have understood it or not the on-going upsurge in Tamil Nadu shows that the new generation there has understood it with clarity.

Tomorrow if China says that it would openly help Sri Lanka in the genocide, India should immediately come forward competing to do it better for Sri Lanka – this is the line of thinking a leading ‘national’ newspaper of India was implying on Thursday on the issue of India building satellites for Colombo in competition with China.

Both the USA and India that have no qualms in citing ‘national’ interests in doing every thing, deny nationalism for genocide-affected Eezham Tamils, saying it is out dated. Perhaps the CPI-M may able to explain it ideologically.

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Just before the worst carnage at Mu’l’livaaykkaal, the then Indian Foreign Minister and the current President of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, came out with a misleading statement on the number of people inside the war zone and the then Home Minister and the present Finance Minister Mr P. Chidambaram came out with a deceptive statement to quell public upsurge that the war was over, implying that the people were safe.

Chidambaram came out with a similar statement on Thursday about India strengthening the US resolution at Geneva, while it was doing the opposite. But Indian media entered into a campaign especially outside of Tamil Nadu, giving an image saving the Establishment. Now, there are other elements that harp on a verbal statement made by the Indian representative at Geneva to prove the ‘strong’ stand of India.

The aim is to create confusion and diffuse the uprising in Tamil Nadu.

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But what is worse is that some of those who were put at ‘articulating’ positions in the diaspora polity hastily jumping at pre-empting any public uprising in the diaspora and sending signals to Tamil Nadu by defending the US resolution that there is ‘something’ achieved by it now and it is a defeat for Rajapaksa. They shield the fact that the ‘something’ is the crucial foundation to complete the structural genocide.

The way such articulators ‘thank’ the student movement in Tamil Nadu sounds like ‘now stop it as we have achieved something.’

There is another section of diaspora articulators who believe that the student upsurge in Tamil Nadu, like the diaspora taking to streets during the war, has not achieved anything and the ‘something’ was achieved only by their ‘diplomatic’ manoeuvres at Geneva.

This section draws a line between those who have the ‘privilege’ of acquaintance with diplomats and those who don’t have, and frowns at the latter for spoiling the game by addressing the struggle against the US-tabled resolution.

These sections don’t accept that their polity with the powers, compromising with crucial fundamentals, miserably failed. They are not even prepared to take up and disseminate the spirit of the student upsurge in Tamil Nadu. They prevent the empty resolution getting rejected outright by Eezham Tamils and leading to a new stage of people’s struggle.

Unless such a polity in the diaspora is addressed to its edification by the grassroot in the diaspora, the next stage of the struggle is not possible. The grassroot may have to find ways of bringing in new leadership that has faith in people’s power; that has the ability to mobilise people’s power; that gets its power from the people and that invites the ‘diplomats’ to come to it rather than it going to them.

The same is applicable to the Tamil polity in the island. Always beware of getting ‘invitations’ to Washington and New Delhi or playing the liaison, before doing work at the ground, gaining people’s confidence and consolidating the people’s power.

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Nothing will be lost but there are chances of only gaining, if the Eezham Tamil politicians and civil outfits in the island and the activists, articulators and intellectuals in the diaspora in unison completely boycott dealing with the diplomats and agencies of the powers concerned, in protest of what they are doing to Eezham Tamils.

Even when the polity ‘collaborates’ this is what they do Eezham Tamils, and they will do only what they have pre-decided, then they cannot do anything worse when there is a boycott of them either. But chances of forcing them to listen are much higher.

Eezham Tamil public in the island and in the diaspora may first start with boycotting the politicians, activists and articulators, propped up by the powers and in turn prop up the powers.

Never forget that non-cooperation is an effective way of democratic struggle especially in struggles facing imperialism.

This doesn’t mean that Eezham Tamils should not represent themselves in telling their position in the international forums. But the present culture and outlook of the lobbyists and their lobbyism that are apologetic in asserting to fundamentals and in addressing the real adversaries should be completely replaced by a new generation.

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For those who worry about the number of Eezham Tamils in effectively deploying the power of non-cooperation, the awakening and solidarity that now come from the youth of Tamil Nadu should provide confidence. But Eezham Tamils, especially those who are in the diaspora, should know how to build up that solidarity into a joint people’s power rather than detracting it or hijacking it.

On the part of the youth uprising in Tamil Nadu, it cannot be silenced like the defeatists in the diaspora silencing the massive diaspora uprising following the genocidal end of the war.

New Delhi and Washington may brush aside the upsurge by adamantly passing an empty resolution. But the effects of the upsurge are already showing and it depends on how the struggle is going to be led further.

Whether perceived as a drama or not, Mr. Karunanidhi coming out of the New Delhi Establishment and his ‘confessions’ are a significant development. The DMK has to now prove what it has said if the resolution was not going to be justifiable.

The Tamil Nadu government of Ms Jayalalithaa cannot continue any further in speaking the language of the International Crisis Group when coming to solutions.