The humanitarian dilemma

It’s relatively easy to win a war but difficult to conquer a people. The Sri Lankan government might have forced the Tamil Rebel fighters to lay down their arms but the destruction which the intensive military action has wreaked in no way spells peace in the region for a long, long time. In fact the morality of the action is fervently being questioned by Tamil communities settled in North America and other western regions.

When the crisis in Sri Lanka escalated, so did the dilemma faced by the Canadian government thousands of miles from the actual fray. For weeks past as the action between the Sri Lankan military continued to rage, supporters of the Tamil Eelam Tigers thronged the streets in Canada’s main cities protesting against the ‘genocide’ being carried by the Sri Lankan military against the civilians in Tamil.

Picketing ferociously at main public avenues; marching on busy downtown streets and even blocking a busy section of the highway; the supporters of the Tamil Eelam Tigers forced not only the government but ordinary Canadians to take notice of their issue.

Who are the Tamils? Why do they call themselves Tigers? Why do the have knives embellishing their flag? Why are their innocent family members being killed by their government? These and many other questions were soon raised and the local media scrambled to educate itself on the Sri Lankan/Tamil conflict of centuries past.

And that began their dilemma. The LTTE they realized was not only an internationally banned outfit but its early members were the ones to conceptualize and perfect the ‘art’ of suicide bombing!

But being painfully correct in their ‘humanitarian’ outlook, the Canadian government – despite acknowledging the LTTE as a terrorist organization – could not bring itself to either ignore the call for humanitarian assistance against the bloodshed being wreaked by the military in Tamil occupied territories in Sri Lanka nor could they condemn the LTTE supporters in Canada for critically disrupting their life on almost a daily basis.
Traffic hold-ups are not taken tolerantly here as time is truly money and the wage being cut by the minute is not acceptable to any worker. When the Canadian Tamils decided to protest by picketing on the main streets, especially in the densely populated city of Toronto, the workforce was held up by many hours in the city centre for consecutive days. And then when the police first began to intervene with force, they were immediately condemned for hindering a legal Canadian’s ‘freedom of expression.’ And it soon became a catch 22.

Editorials and columns started flooding on the rights of these ‘free’ Canadians to protest peacefully against an issue if they so feel and the intolerance and apathy of the average Canadian – enjoying a first world ‘free’ existence – to the problems of lesser mortals outside this safe haven. Discriminatory sentiments were called into question and Canada’s actual commitment to diversity was deemed superficial.

The police eventually found a middle ground and in the name of protecting the protestors the police force continued to ‘surround’ the Tamil Canadians every time they came out. Mounted police was employed, guardsmen monitored traffic flow and the Tamil Canadians were allowed their space despite frowns from many inconvenienced civilians who wouldn’t care two hoots for the freedom of expression if it was impeding their daily existence. The result was that the Toronto police has now forwarded a bill of CAD$ 900,000 to the federal government as cost for manning the Tamil protests, sorry, the ‘Canadian Tamil’ protests.

While no one is really laughing their way to the bank here in the death-filled aftermath of the military action, being a Pakistani one can’t help but draw a parallel to the situation in Swat. What if immigrant ‘supporters’ of the Taliban decide to start picketing in Ottawa against the innocent civilian deaths in Swat, Lower Dir and Mingora? What if they too start shouting slogans of ‘stop military action in Swat’ and hold Tamil Canadian-style peaceful protests in downtown Toronto? Will this too be looked on as ‘freedom of expression’ by this very western media with the protestors given police protection? Or will they be clapped up behind bars and sent to an unknown prison as ‘supporters of Taliban and Al Qaida’ and hence stand culpable? The dimension such a situation would give to the war on terror in Pakistan and on Pakistanis is terrorizing in itself.

Freedom of expression has many expressions of its own. And diversity and inclusiveness cannot escape a hidden undertone of discrimination altogether either and it is tricky being politically correct at all times. It would be most uncomfortable to see the ‘polite Canadians’ facing the humanitarian dilemma if protestors come out on the streets to stop an alleged ‘genocide’ in Swat.

Many international calls for ‘restraint’ were issued to the Sri Lankan military but the action raged on and has now ended in victory declared by the Sri Lankan government. But much depends on what the Sri Lankan authorities choose to do next and how they ‘win’ the Tamils’ trust. Because currently the Tamils are garnering much sympathy and the military action could have given birth to a new generation of Tamil supporters, both within and in settlements across the globe. The crowds of protestors are proof of this as the majority amongst them were students ranging from 10 to 21.

Same fears come to mind regarding the military action in Swat. Like the Lal Masjid debacle where Pakistanis settled in foreign countries could only see the belligerent military action on ‘helpless women and children in the masjid’, so too the humanitarian crisis arising out of the Swat action might find a new generation of supporters being created for the Taliban whose barbarism might be overshadowed by the civilian casualties and human tragedies.

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