When terror struck home of Free Speech
The savage arm of terror of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
that has with its bloody trail of assassinations and other killings,
especially of all persons who opposed its violence and silenced the
voices of dissent among the Tamil community, in Sri Lanka and abroad,
last week struck at the home of free speech - the Oxford Union, the home
of Free Speech.
Parliament at Westminster - Mother of Parliaments. Pic.
courtesy: Google |
In cancelling the address by President Rajapaksa for what it states
are security threats from unnamed, but readily identifiable sources,
those who lead the Oxford Union today have made it clear they are
incapable of living up to the laudable standards of those who went
before them in upholding their belief in the Freedom of Speech.
Opinion makers
The decision of the Oxford Union to invite the Sri Lankan President
Mahinda Rajapaksa to address its members was in keeping with its policy
of inviting a broad range of prominent politicians, heads of state,
other key opinion makers and blazers of new thinking from around the
world.
Founded in 1823 as a forum for discussion and debate, at a time when
the free exchange of ideas was a notion foreign to the restrictive
University authorities, it proceeded to become the best-known defender
of the Freedom of Speech and upholder of dissent, which are at the very
core of Democracy.
The source of the security threat to the Oxford Union, its members,
and invitees did not operate behind an impenetrable curtain of secrecy.
It is none other than the pro-LTTE Tamil expatriate lobby in the UK
and their fellow travellers among extremists, unthinking radicals, vote
hungry politicians and those bleeding hearts still carrying the burdens
of Britain’s past record of colonialism and imperialism.
There is little doubt that the remnants of the LTTE have successfully
manoeuvred these varied groups into giving them the appearance of a
powerful organization, enabled by the easy use of the Internet, modern
communications technology and sophisticated propaganda.
Violence and terror
This security threat that frightened the Oxford Union into retreat is
the result of manipulation by a hard core group of LTTE cadres still
marketing the policies of violence and terror, under the pretence of
speaking for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka and regrettably supported by
a handful of the foreign media.
There is not much difficulty in identifying the source of this threat
as being the same as those who carried a miscalculated demonstration at
Heathrow Airport, when President Rajapaksa arrived in the UK last
Monday.
All the banners that were on display and the slogans that were
shouted at the Meeting Point at the Arrival section of Heathrow made it
clear that the organizers were the rumps of the LTTE still functioning
in the UK and claiming to be a Tamil Diaspora.
They have no intent of ever returning to their homeland of Sri Lanka
and not even to the failed dreamland of a Tamil Eelam, to achieve which
Velupillai Prabhakaran shed so much blood of the Sri Lankan Tamils and
other communities in Sri Lanka, while carrying on the most profitable
trade in arms smuggling and human trafficking, among other crimes.
British Democracy
It was the same desperate group ‘determined in their desperation to
tarnish the image of British Democracy, too - that gathered for their
hooligan demonstration near the Dorchester Hotel, wrapped up in the flag
of the LTTE’ which remains banned in the UK as an international
terrorist organization.
The buckling of the Oxford Union under threats from such forces
raises serious questions for the future of democracy in the UK itself,
as well as in other Western democracies that through their refugee and
asylum laws and often misguided protection to those who falsely claim to
be under threat in their countries of origin, give an open ticket for
action to criminal and extremist elements. The LTTE with its fellow
travellers have bitten the hand that fed them and shamed the land that
gave them shelter in what they succeeded in doing at the Oxford Union.
The inability to take necessary action against the highly bloated
threats from such groups is not what is expected from a country where
modern policing began with Sir Robert Peel and his Bobbies; is the home
of Scotland Yard and boasts of Special Anti-Terrorism Laws and
institutions. The fear of violence that drove the leaders of the Oxford
Union to their shameful act of giving in to terror and especially the
targeting of Freedom of Speech, is a timely and apt demonstration of the
dangers that democracies face in giving shelter to those who are
avowedly against the very principles of democracy.
Eye opener
This is also an eye opener to the very large number of moderate
Tamils, whether in the UK or elsewhere, on the need to mobilize to
overcome the disgrace and danger that a group of extremist Tamils,
imbued with the belief in violence and terror, brings to the Tamil
people, whether in Sri Lanka or outside; a people who have a worthy
heritage of tolerance, understanding and non-violence in community
relations. Are they to give the leadership of the Tamils worldwide to
those who have the least respect for democracy and its core principle of
Freedom of Speech?
It is indeed a sad day for Democracy that this assault on Freedom of
Speech took place in the land that has the Mother of Parliaments and
which takes great pains, at times even misguided, to spread democracy to
other countries, societies and cultures. It is an even worse day for the
Oxford Union to be led by people of straw, who lack the spine to stand
up to threats of violence that target the very foundation of Free Speech
on which the Union has been built. If it follows this beginning, will
the Oxford Union be anymore able to throw up the democratic leaders of
the world as it has done since its inception?
Let Freedom of Speech thrive against terror, with the Oxford Union
regaining honour in its protection. |