I dont know how many people know this, but, like several sad, historically violent clashes between competing ethnic groups... this story has its roots in European colonialism. Israeli, Indian and Rwandan violence come to mind off the top of my head, without even searching. Im sure I can name many more... but in the 1800's... the "powers" of Europe were still competing and attempting to expand their empires. Catholicism and Spanish originate from Europe, not South America. They were brought there... *cough* *cough* by the barrel of a gun *cough* *cough... but when you think of spanish, you think of Latin (Roman) America.
The British Empire was the biggest and arguably the most successful. Here is a map of the British Empire in the 1920's... they would directly dominate most of these nations until the end of World War 2, where the urgency of rebuilding England took precedent over controlling those colonies. To this day, some are part of the "commonwealth" but, we wont get into that.
Here is how "British India" looked... more or less... for about a century. For the 100 years before the end of World War 2... the nations that would later come to be known as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar) and Sri Lanka were all British India.
After Sri Lankan independence in 1948, (like most former colonies?) various political and ethnic groups started vying for power. The majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The Sinhalese are believe to be Northern Indians who migrated to the island 2500 years prior in the 5th century. They are mostly Buddhist (some Christian) and speak an Indu-European language. The minority Tamils are mostly Hindu, originating from and speaking the same language as Southern India.
As is sadly the reocurring case with this world, the majority began to persecute the rights of the minority group. I wont go into too many details over the various (as I see it) "crimes"... however, the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 had to be one of the most blatant. For this new country, citizenship would not be provided to people of Indian origin. There were many laws that the Tamil minority percieved as being passed at their expense and is often the case, when young (mainly) men feel they have no economic future they either go towards crime or militancy, and in this case the latter.
So, the Tamils have actually been fighting a civil war with the Sri Lankan government for about a quarter century. The war has finally been declared over by the Sri Lankan government within the last two weeks, but, at what price? What has not been reported on... the casualties. (click here) Reuters reports that the New York Times reports that (leaked) confidential UN documents showing that about 1,000 people died every day from late April until May 19th. The Tamil guerillas tried to hide themselves in densely populated Tamil civilian areas and the Sri Lankans are accused of bombing those areas indiscriminately.
Now, I am NO friend to Israeli policy, but can you imagine if 20,000 Palestinians were killed in a one month span? There would be protests all over Europe (not in America) and rightfully so. Why no outrage in Sri Lanka? The sad truth is that all human life is not equal. It should be, but
some deaths... are not news worthy. You have to go "search" for that truth.
The media will instead, choose to show the (almost) EXACT same 10-minute news feed about a missing airplane carrying 200 people off the coast of South America for several days while 20,000 people die silently in a part of the world that is of no consequence to the rest of us.
Posts
