The perceptions of the Diaspora

Half a century ago, the Israeli secret service Mossad abducted from Argentina Adolf Eichmann, a notorious former officer of Hitler's SS. The former commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp was tried (and executed) on several counts, including war crimes and crimes against the Jewish people.

The Jewish political scientist Hannah Arendt reported on the trial for the New Yorker magazine. A supporter of the Zionist state (and refugee from Nazi Germany), she nevertheless criticised the proceedings for being a politicisation of justice.

Arendt was subsequently pilloried by the Zionist establishment because her critique - springing from her understanding that the Nazi Holocaust was systemic, and that the Jewishness of the victims was a mere detail - embodied a truth which undermines the very basis of Zionism.

Human rights violations

The core premise of Zionism is that Jews required a separate homeland (originally in Uganda) for protection from the 'universal hatred' of all other peoples. Anti-Semitism was elevated from being one of many chauvinisms to become 'The' bigotry. Even worse, anti-Zionism was equated to anti-Semitism - even Jewish critics of Zionism are labelled 'anti-Semites'.

Norman Finkelstein, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, argues that “The Holocaust' is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust': it provided justification for Zionist violations of Human Rights.

'The Holocaust' (originally a term which meant a generalised massacre, the capitalisation of the definite article making it Jewish-specific) became a crime, not by the Nazis against Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and even Germans, but exclusively by Gentiles against Jews.

Senior Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera

Minister Vasudeva Nanyakkara

Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan

It was the dispersal of the Jewish people all over the world which was originally called the 'Diaspora'. The Jewish model was adopted by the hegemonic ultra-nationalist ideology among expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils, who began calling themselves the 'Tamil Diaspora', an evocative term which has now come into general use.

However, it was not just the vocabulary that was taken over. So was that chilling belief in 'universal hatred'. The Tamils were portrayed as the victims of the Sinhalese, not as co-sufferers under an oppressive imperialist system.

The very inception of the Diaspora is seen as a reaction to 'Sinhalese oppression' - not that it was part of the flow, which began in the 1950s, of middle-class Sri Lankans of all communities to more prosperous climes.

This attitude can be seen it respect to the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom. Ultra-nationalist Diasporic Tamils see it as the work, not of fascist elements among the Sinhalese, but of the Sinhalese as a whole: it is the 'Sinhala Pogrom'. Notwithstanding the fact that many Sinhalese risked their lives to save their Tamil neighbours. The parallels to 'The Holocaust' are clear.

Collective condemnation

The Sinhalese are the villains; and not just the Sinhalese. Former BBC correspondent Sam Rajappa, writing in the Chennai-based 'Weekend Leader', demonises what he calls the 'anti-Tamil Mallu axis' - 'Mallu' meaning Malayali. 'Anthropologically', says Rajappa, 'the Sinhalese share common traits with the people of Kerala who share a congenital hatred for the Tamil race.'

And discussion with many prominent 'human rights' activists from the Diaspora about the rights of Muslims (whom separatists subsume under the 'Tamil-speaking' category) will elicit many a racist epithet and collective condemnation.

The Muslims are representative victims of the hegemonic Diasporic ideology - the 'Tamil-as-victim' thesis was used to justify the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in their 'ethnic cleansing' of the Northern Muslims.

The hegemonic ideologues within the Diaspora remain stunningly silent on this and the other crimes - often against Tamils - committed in the name of the Tamil people by the LTTE.

Yet the Diaspora as a whole is surprisingly sensitive to criticism by others.

In March Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner in Australia, told Australian Parliamentarians and officials that he was concerned that 'certain elements in the Diaspora in Australia' were continuing a separatist campaign and were trying to destroy the reconciliation process.

He was pointing out that there were concerted efforts on Australian soil to collect funds, none of which is going to go to Sri Lanka for rehabilitation. He was warning against a revival of the system whereby a small minority of separatist forces within the Diaspora, brutally, expropriated a tithe from every expatriate Tamil as 'donations'. This system ended with the LTTE defeat and the consequent collapse of its systemised extortion racket.

War crimes

The High Commissioner in no way blamed the entire expatriate Tamil community in Australia or elsewhere. Neither did Rohan Gunaratna of Nanyang Technological University, who also addressed the gathering, saying that 'there is a very small fringe group that is in Australia, that is still supporting the ideology of the Tamil Tigers.'

However, Samarasinghe was deprecated in a rumour campaign among the Sri Lankan community in Australia, for tarring the entire Diaspora with the LTTE brush. This is symptomatic of the treatment received by the government of Sri Lanka and its officials at the hands of the Diasporic hegemons.

The concerns of the Diaspora with regard to possible war crimes and human rights abuses in the last stages of the war are legitimate. That legitimacy has been confirmed not only by the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) but by the government of Sri Lanka, which has affirmed its intention to implement the LLRC recommendations.

However, the Diaspora should be wary of the racist ideology of hatred of the 'Other'. It should especially beware of efforts by the LTTE-rump to use these sentiments draw them into support of the misguided resolution against Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council.

Today we find a government ready and able to address the legitimate concerns of Tamils, whether Diasporic or domestic. Specialised ministries, headed by veteran ethnic egalitarians, D.E.W. Gunasekera and Vasudeva Nanyakkara, have been set up to deal with ethnic problems.

The Diaspora should do its part. Tamils everywhere should remember the example of Ponnambalam Ramanathan, who spoke not just for Tamils and Hindus but for all Sri Lankans - probably why Shaw based on him his 'Cingalese' gentleman, Jafna Pandranath.