The fine line between a protest and a mob

Torontonians rightly celebrate the multicultural nature of their city. But such sentiments were tested this week, as an ongoing cycle of Tamil protests besieged tens of thousands of workers in the city's downtown core, adding idle time to core-bound commutes, and subjecting the country's most expensive labour to the constant angry thrum of folk drumming. There is a fine line between accommodating spontaneous political action on behalf of a legitimately concerned ethnic group seeking to express solidarity with brethren overseas -- and letting one's city be taken over by a mob.

The protesters are demanding that Canada take action against Sri Lanka's government, which is now in the final stages of a military campaign against the Tamil Tigers, a once-successful military insurgency that often has resorted to terrorist tactics in its bid to create an independent Tamil

homeland. As noted in previous editorials, we are not unsympathetic with the protesters' professed humanitarian concerns: Tens of thousands of ethnic Tamils remain trapped -- alongside several hundred apparently suicidal Tamil Tiger fighters -- in a small sliver of northeast Sri Lanka. But there is a reason that most informed Canadians regard the protesters more as a slightly sinister annoyance than as noisy humanitarians: They are caring flags designed by, and glorifying, a banned terrorist organization.

Moreover, many Tamil spokesmen here in Canada seem to live in a dreamworld -- ignoring the plain fact that (as the United Nations and several blue-chip NGOs have pointed out) a primary threat to Tamils in Sri Lanka is posed by the Tigers themselves, who are holding trapped civilians as human shields. Given that the protesters seem curiously unperturbed by the Tigers' own brutality toward Tamils, one is left to wonder what their real goal is: saving Tamils, or saving the remaining leadership of the Tigers.

Moreover, whatever the manner in which Tamils are treated in Sri Lanka, they are not persecuted here in Canada. Just the opposite: They have done notably well by our refugee system, and until recently carried heavy weight in Liberal ethno-politics. Where they have failed is in establishing a dedicated political outlet that is free from links to terror -- a fact that casts a dark shadow over this week's events: While staging non-violent protest marches is well within the Canadian political tradition, convening a mob to praise an illegal terrorist organization is not.

Indeed, this month's protests raise questions about whether Tiger-friendly Tamil-Canadian ringleaders are committed Canadians who are sincerely concerned with the fate of their hyper-extended Tamil family -- or exiles who have been biding their time on Canadian soil, waiting for the Tigers to win the war and build Tamiltopia; and who are now punishing their neighbours for the imminent collapse of their dreams.

For all our impatience at being held up on the streetcar, we know the question is complicated, and we hope it is being asked in Tamil circles. In Peter Kuitenbrouwer's report on the protests for yesterday's Post, he quoted a youth Tamil organizer as saying: "They ask us 'Why are you blocking the street?' And we tell them, 'Because we are out of choices.' " In a way, that's good news: Before Stephen Harper banned the Tigers in 2006, the "choices" for Canadian Tamils have included raising money for political assassinations and suicide bombings. But in a way, it's also bad news, because supporting peaceful change in Sri Lanka does not appear to be one of the "choices" on this perceived menu.

Tamils in Canada could have spent recent decades building alternatives to the Tigers, yet they showed little interest when force seemed to have some chance of succeeding. Now that the tables have turned, and the Sri Lankan army has the Tigers trapped, their Canadian cheerleaders suddenly are left with nothing to do but pound out a dirge on Canadian streets, as uninterested Canadians file past on their way to work. Perhaps these protesters should have preached against violence when that message would have meant something.

(National Post  Wednesday, April 29, 2009)