By David Swanson
On August 14th, 2010, 492 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka arrived in British Colombian waters aboard the MV Sun Sea. They were confronted, many of them women and children, as possibly belonging to an internationally identified Tamil terrorist association. After their 3 month voyage surviving mainly on grains and rainwater, the refugees were met without compassion and without empathy. Upon arrival, they were detained for 3 months and many of those granted release are still in detention as their release has been stayed after an appeal was filed by the federal government (Ian Mcleod, ipolitics.ca, 2011).
The majority of negative public sentiment has been fueled by the Harper governments strategy to profile these refugees as terrorists. In reality, the Tamil people are the victims of colonial imperialism, a covert but founding political practice of Canada, visible in our mistreatment of Canada’s native aboriginals. After Sri Lanka was granted independence from Britain in 1948, it, like many post-imperial regions, experienced social and political uncertainty. The Sinhalese, the majority ethnicity in Sri Lanka, experienced disagreements with the Tamil community when composing its first post-independence constitution. A major point of conflict was the countries national language. The Sinhalese, making up about 70% ofthe Sri Lankan population, passed a bill making Sinhala the national language of the country. The Tamil’s, being a marginalized minority, began to form oppositional political groups, and after 30 years of dispute and conflict, their discrimination lead to Tamil militant groups and eventually a Sri Lankan civil war between the two native groups.
The Sinhalese Sri Lankan government, along with foreign governments including India, the U.S., Australia and Canada, label the Tamil militant group, known as the Tamil Tigers, as a terrorist organization. The state and the Tigers are both responsible for the murder or innocent civilians, however, the Tamil people, the majority of which do not support the Tigers, are the only group being identified as dangerous. Because the Sinhalese government is in power it is the exnominated group in Sri Lanka. Being the established power allows them to dictate the context in which both they and their opposition, the Tamils’, are viewed. The Sinhalese become neutralized as the status quo and the minority politics of the Tamils are labeled dysfunctional and dangerous (Robin Lakoff, The Neutrality of the Status-Quo, 2000).
The Canadian government used the Sinhalese representation of the Tamils for their own agenda falsely branding them as a hostile and dangerous group that demanded extreme caution. This fear mongering is being perpetuated to disguise and gain public support for racist immigration policies found in a recently tabled bill. Bill C-49 would give the Canadian government the
“power to single out for special punishment refugees who are suspected of having fled their country by means of smugglers… Asylum seekers suspected of using a smuggler will be subject to mandatory detention for the first year after arrival, with no chance of review, including for children. They also will not have the right to appeal a negative refugee decision. In addition, they will be prohibited from obtaining permanent residency for a period of five years after obtaining refugee status. This means these refugees will be held in limbo, not be allowed to leave the country nor sponsor their family members, effectively separating them from their families for a period of time well beyond those five year” ( Dawn Paley, vancouver.mediacoop.ca, 2010)
This “caution,” resulted in striping improvised war victims of their innate human right to exist and be safe in that existence. The C-49 bill, if passed, will ultimately be striping refugees the collective rights guaranteed to all humans under the Canadian Charter or Rights and Freedoms. The Tamils’ migration was the outcome of a bloody civil war. Their treatment is an obvious infringement of their human rights under the Canadian constitution. The Tamil refugees are simply being used to publicly exemplify the Harper government’s new migration policy in an attempt to deter others from seeking refuge in Canada, due the possible strain it may cause on the Canadian social welfare system. However, while it may prove to be a financial burden to the state and its taxpayers, it is important that our nation values human life over fiscal incentives. The Tamil people should be dealt with using the principles on which our country has defined the treatment of its citizens and thousands of former refugees; the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.
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