Article 15: (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Click here to Watch Video on Article 15, Right to a Nationality
I am from the occupied state of Tamileelam. Who is occupying it? The Sri-Lankan Government.
The genocide of the Tamils is over land; if all the Tamils can be uprooted from their homelands, either by resettling them into ghettos and camps, settling Sinhalese people in Tamil areas or by wiping out current and future Tamil populations, the Sri-Lankan Government can occupy Tamil land.
Resettling Tamil land with Sinhalese people, and revamping these areas to seem more Sinhalese is a way to wipe out the Tamil history and linkage to the land. Tamils are the indigenous people of Tamileelam, (presently the North and Eastern Areas of Sri-Lanka).
According to Scholar Adam Jones, “Indigenous communities, people and nations are those which have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies, that developed on territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the society now prevailing in these territories or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.”
Three ideological tenants have been utilized to occupy and control indigenous lands, although these were originally justifications used by the Europeans during colonialization, similar ideologies have been used by the Sri-Lankan government when occupying traditional Tamil lands.
1) Legal Utilitarian Justification: This ideology believed that indigenous people had no right to the territories in which they inhabited because of their failure to ‘exploit’ the lands. These however, does not recognize that land is not there to be exploited, it is there to provide for the people to whom has taken care of it, cultivated it, and to those people who have a linkage to the land.
2) Vacuum Domicilium Justification: This justified invasion of land as a way of ‘saving souls from the fire of hell.’ This has also been known as a civilization mission, where Europeans constructed the inhabitants of the land they invaded as savages, thereby needing Europeans to educate, and civilize them. This ideology has been used by Sinhalese scholars who have constructed the Tamils to be viewed as inferior, thereby needing Sinhalese domination. This however, fails to recognize the rich Tamil culture that existed when the Sinhalese first arrived, and continues to exist today.
3) Racial-Eliminationist Ideology: This ideology was that modern scientific thinking was superior, and primitive people would be replaced by ‘civilized’ ones; this replacement would be done through killings, and military confrontations between indigenous populations and militarily equipped Europeans. This would result in a ‘dying-off’ of the indigenous people – “genocide was viewed as an inevitable byproduct of progress.” What this justification fails to recognize is that, genocide is not a ‘civilized’ action; killing thousands brutally, without guilt, is inhumane behavior. Animals do not even do that to one another, people who commit genocide, are ill-fit to be called ‘civilized humans.’
Sinhalese and Tamils are separate from one another, both geographically and culturally. Tamils are of the Dravidian race, inhabitants of the north and east of Sri-Lanka (Eelam), secular in nature, predominately Hindu-worshiping and Tamil-speaking; Sinhalese are of the Aryan (North-Indian) race, inhabitants to the south, west and center of Sri-Lanka, predominately Buddhist-worshiping and Sinhalese speaking (Little, 1994). Because of these geographical and cultural differences, their characteristics and ideologies differed. The Tamil people were administered by the Tamil Kingdom, and the Sinhalese people were administered by the Sinhalese Kingdoms. The areas in which they each occupied were their respective traditional and exclusive homelands (Ponambalam, 1983). Living separately and being governed independently by their separate ways, allowed each group the freedom to cultivate their separate language, culture, and religion without discrimination.
The history of the Tamils date back to pre-historical times. Although there has not been a general consensus as to who the first inhabitants of Sri-Lanka were; the Sinhalese historical doctrines, the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa, point out that Dravidian Kingdoms (Tamil speaking) were in existence when the first Sinhalese Prince, Vijaya settled the land (Balasingham, 2004). Prince Vijaya, King of the Sinhalese Kingdom entered the island via sea, hailing originally from north India (Balasingham, 2004). In these historical chronicles written by the first Sinhalese settlers, they point out that the land was inhabited with people before their contact. The Tamils in northern Sri-Lanka (Eelam) never entered the island in conquest, they were always present, the indigenous people of Tamileelam. Geographical studies have pointed out that it is most likely that the Tamils were the first inhabitants of the island because of their geographical proximity to the Dravidian Tamils in India (Little, 1994). The state of Tamil Nadu in India is only 22 miles away from the Tamil homeland in Sri-Lanka; they are separated by a strait of water. Due to this proximity, it is most probable these two areas, both compromised of Tamil-speaking people were once connected, and later separated as the Earth shifted (Balasingham, 2004).
The Sinhalese however, began to make invalidated claims that they were the original inhabitants of the island; however, recent historical data show that the ancestors of the present day Tamils were the original settlers of the island. The Tamil historical literature, the Sangam dates historical events as far back as 1st -4th centuries A.D. Skeletal remains have been found in Trincomalee, (Tamil inhabited area) that date back to the proto-historic period, illustrating that the Tamils of Eelam were the original inhabitants of the Tamil lands. These remains have been examined by archeologists and anthropologists: their findings state that the cultural and physical characteristics of Tamil people mentioned in the Sangam are in accordance with the cultural and physical traits that the skeletal remains once held (Ponambalam, 1983). For these reasons, it is most probable that the Tamils were the original inhabitants of the island, and were the indigenous people of northern and eastern Sri-Lanka.
Tamils lived as a stable national formation in their own homeland of Eelam, where their own kings and ways of life ruled them, the lands in which Tamils lived, were run by a separate nation-like structure (Zolberg, 1989). This land has history with the Tamil people. Renaming Tamil areas to Sinhalese names dismisses the cultural linkage Tamils have to their land, Tamileelam.
We are not asking to take over what is not ours, we are only asking for what is rightfully ours. Tamileelam belongs to the Tamils; it is sacred and is bound to us Tamils. By occupying our land, by forcing the Sri-Lankan legal system upon us, by not recognizing our culture, language and land as belonging to the Tamils, the Sri-Lankan Government is taking away our Right to a Nationality.
Credits:
Balasingham, Anton. (2004). War and Peace: Armed Struggle and Peace Efforts of Liberation Tigers. London. Fairmax Publishing.
Bose, Sumatra (2006). Contested Lands. United States: Harvard University Press.
Little, David. (1994). Sri-Lanka: The Invention of Enmity. Washington: United States of PeacePress.
Ponnambalam, Satchi. (1983) Sri-Lanka: National Conflict and the Tamil Liberation Struggle. New Jersey: Zed Books
Zolberg, Aristide R., Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo. (1989). Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. US, Oxford University Press
Zolberg, Aristide R., Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo. (1989). Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. US, Oxford University Press
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