Tamil solidarity held two meetings on the 13th and 16th of January in Klang and Brickfields, Malaysia. Bharathi and Yuva report on the meeting and our future work in Malaysia.
Both public meetings were valuable in further building and continuing our work in Malaysia. In particular, the discussion titled ‘Rights of Tamils and other oppressed people of Sri Lanka’ was a great opportunity for us to understand on the ground understanding of the situation in sri Lanka, in particular the Tamil struggle.
The discussion composed of the conditions of Tamil speaking and other oppressed people in Sri Lanka, the political developments in Sri Lanka and UK and the failures of the Tamil organisations amongst the diaspora community and in Sri Lanka, that has led to a layer of youth that are angry but not able to be politicised but are at large looking for an alternative. The conditions of the Tamils in Malaysia were also discussed. Both meetings were widely attended by people from various communities of Malaysia who were interested to learn what it like in Sri Lanka.
The meeting in Klang was in organised alongside Malaysian Veera Tamizhar. The general mood amongst those who attended was that the local media have given them a false illusion that’s ‘everything was okay’ in the island now that the war is over and that there is no real struggle for the Tamil speaking people in the north and east of Sri Lanka. But we well know that this is far from the truth. Although there are some lobby organisations, they are not doing a good job with raising consciousness amongst the Tamil populations or other working people in Malaysia; instead they appear to be busy lobbying or attempting to Lobby and misguiding the masses. They also act as parasites and suck up all the donations which are meant to go towards the aid of suffering Tamils in Sri Lanka. That is one of the reasons why it is important to build a genuine struggle in the form of Tamil solidarity.
These meetings highlighted that there is the urgent need for reports of developments in Sri Lanka, in particular the North and East of Island, where there is a predominantly Tamil speaking population. They have also paved a way for us to build on our previous work in Malaysia. From the good support that we got we can increase links with the local communities and working people. Taking part in local struggles and taking the Tamil struggle to the working people in Malaysia is how we intend to work in the future. Producing material in Tamil would be an ideal way for us to educate the masses with struggles in Sri Lanka and the conditions in which the Tamil speaking and other oppressed people are living in.