Failed Eelam to trans-state Nation

A Potential Clash between Nation and States?

By Shelton A. Gunaratne

(May 28, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) Tamil immigrant communities and the diaspora, spurred by the Tiger activists who have established a complex network of associations as fronts for “tax” collection and promotion of Tamil nationalism, appears to be now focusing their attention on setting up a trans-state nation, something akin to a worldwide Tamil Nadu, a far bigger Eelam project encompassing some 73 million Tamils (including 62.4 million in Tamil Nadu). The first test of this putative trans-state nation appears to have been the series of large-scale demonstrations staged worldwide to protest the “genocide” of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The idea of the trans-state nation is a concomitant of advanced communication technology, which obviated the problems of geographical distance to give the illusion of audio and visual proximity to members of ethnic groups living in disparate parts of the world. It was thus that the Tiger supreme commander living in a bunker in Kilinochchi was able to establish his hegemony over his main enclaves in more than a dozen Western countries. In the first quarter of 2009, when the ground realities convinced the Tiger leadership that an Eelam in Sri Lanka was not achievable, they entrusted the coordination of this international network to Selvarajah Pathmanathan, who could then presumably deploy the voice, wealth, and energies of the network toward the promotion of the trans-state Tamil nation.

The undercurrents for the secession of Tamil Nadu from India during the 2009 general election (voiced by Vaiko Gopalaswamy, who lost the Virudhunagar constituency, and other Tiger supporters) cannot be separated from the promotion of a trans-state Tamil nation by the backers of TamilNation.org (as explained in its edition dated May 8, 1998). The failed project of an Eelam carved out of Sri Lanka now appears to be a small part of this larger project.

In retrospect, the strategic location of the Tamil enclaves reveals the hallmarks of a grand design of using ethnic discrimination as a subterfuge to infiltrate the wealthy cities of Europe and North America to support a terrorist war while influencing the politics of the West through the arrogation of the right to vote. The Tiger activists spanning the world could use these enclaves to undermine the political and economic stability of not only Sri Lanka but also of the re-elected UPA government in India, which they now accuse of failing to rescue the Sri Lankan Tamils (meaning the LTTE).

More than 1.15 million Sri Lankan Tamils inhabit these enclaves concentrated in 17 countries but spread over more than 60 in various regions of the world. In the absence of precise official data, some have estimated the post-1983 Tamil refugee population—encompassing the fourth and fifth waves of emigration—to be more than 800,000 (D. Skandarajah in Ember et al., 2004).

The Ilankai Tamil Sangam (USA) provides more recent population figures for the countries where the Tamil refugees have settled down excluding those countries like Papua New Guinea, Fiji, South Africa, Zambia, and Nigeria where Tamils had arrived before the middle of the 20th century as traders or indentured workers:

Country Sri Lankan Tamils
Canada 320,000 (400,000)
United Kingdom 300,000
India 150,000
France 100,000
Germany 60,000 (70,000)
Australia 53,000
Switzerland 40,000
United States 35,000 (40,000)
Italy 24,000
Malaysia 20,000
Norway 13,000
Netherlands 7,000 (20,000)
Sweden 6,000
New Zealand 4,000
Finland 600
Denmark (14,200)
Portugal (8,000)

Source: Ilankai Tamil Sangam (USA)

The locations of the pre-ban LTTE public offices also enable us to know where exactly the concentrations of the Tamil diaspora are: Zurich, Switzerland; Herning in Jutland; Denmark;

Palermo, Italy; Gummerabach, Germany; Oslo, Norway; Stockholm (Spanga), Sweden; The Hague, the Netherlands; Paris (La Chapelle), France; London (East Ham), United Kingdom; Toronto (Scarborough), Canada; Melbourne, Australia; and New York, United States (R. Gunaratna in Ballentine & Sherman, 2003). This is a strategic network that the LTTE in exile could use to plan its worldwide Eelam dream to carve out a trans-state nation, which could eventually develop into the nightmare of the demand for a global Tamil nation-state.

If this month’s “referendum” of the Tamils in Norway is any indication, almost 99 percent of the Tamil diaspora still dream of setting up an Eelam in Sri Lanka even though they are most unlikely to leave their new enclaves in the West. The Tamil Guardian editorial on May 13, 2009, intoned: “Tamil militancy will remain central to Sri Lanka’s future.” Quoting the LTTE, which has transformed itself – yet again – for a new kind of war under Pathmanathan, the editorial warned that as long as the Tamils are oppressed, “Sri Lanka [India or anywhere else] will never be able to live in peace.”

That prognostication bodes ill for India or the West as well. Having failed to effect the Eelam project in Sri Lanka, would not the Tiger activists expend their energies on laying the groundwork for a trans-state Tamil nation that would eventually evolve into a sovereign Eelam?

Nadesan Satyendra, who elaborates on the concept of the trans-state nation of Tamils, asserts that it represents “a growing togetherness of more than 80 million [sic] people living in many lands and across distant seas” (Tamilnation.org, May 8, 1998).

He adds, “It is a togetherness rooted in an ancient heritage, a rich language and literature, and a vibrant culture. But it is a togetherness which is not simply a function of the past. It is a growing togetherness consolidated by struggle and suffering and, given purpose and direction by the aspirations of a people for the future—a future where they and their children and their children's children may live in equality and in freedom in an emerging one world.”

If Tamil Nadu were to become the hub of this trans-state nation, India would have to prepare itself to face the demands of Tamil nationalism, including that of secession. Countries in the West, where Tamil enclaves are located might contemplate the future when the dispersed Tamil communities comprising the trans-state nation of Tamils would want to declare independence from Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Norway and other host countries so as to “live in equality and in freedom in an emerging one world.” The clear inference of this phrase is that Tamils feel that the international community, not just India and Sri Lanka, have denied them freedom and equality by failing to recognize their rich language, literature and vibrant culture.

The contours of the grand plan are unraveling: Use public diplomacy or propaganda (through media outlets like TamilNet.org and Tamil Guardian) to alienate Tamil Nadu from the nation-state of India and merge the wealthy and resourceful network of Tamil enclaves with this hub of Tamil civilization, first as a notional concept of a trans-state nation, and subsequently as an independent nation-state, the formation of which might require wars of liberation from Canada, the EU, India, and other oppressors.

The network of Tamil enclaves, the trans-state nation of larger Eelam, is unlikely to be content with “the reasonable use of Tamil” in the European Union and North America. Moreover, its interests as a notional nation are bound to clash with those of the nation-states of which each enclave is a territorial part. Students of SunZi, Kautilya, and Machiavelli might use their creative imagination to comprehend how this drama would play out from fiction to fact

(The writer is professor of mass communication emeritus, Minnesota State University Moorhead.)

-Sri Lanka Guardian