Written By: Kayalvizhi J.
Today, marks the 27th anniversary of Maveerar Naal. The first cadre, Lieutenant Shankar passed away on November 27,1982. In remembrance of his day of passing and the countless sacrifices of our courageous heroes, November 27th was declared as Maveerar Naal (Heroes Day) in 1988.
In the fight for freedom our country has given a huge price. Our Maveerarkal. Maveerar Naal is not a day of mourning, it is a day of rising. It is a time to remember in honour and withpride the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters. They gave themselves protecting us – our land, our identity, our culture. In a time and age when even family may not always protect each other, our Maveerarkal sacrificed themselves for our liberation and freedom.
The Kaarthikai Poo was declared as Tamileelam’s National Flower in 2003 for it contained the colours of the Tamileelam National Flag, red and yellow. Today, we must wear our Kaarthikai Poo with pride today. When someone asks, “why are you wearing that?” we must speak of the sacrifices of our Maveerarkal. The sacrifices of our Maveerarkal must not be forgotten. It must not just be recorded in books and museums. The sacrifice of our Maveerarkal must be honoured, and the way to honour them is to move their dreams for a free Tamileelam forward.
Our kin, our people, still suffer enormously in the hands of an oppressive regime. Even now, years after Mulliyvaikal, we hear stories of the suffering of our people – our people face rape, disappearance, coercive population control, and disenfranchisement. It was to fight this oppression that our Maveerarkal gave themselves. We too, the children of Tamileelam have a duty to protect our Mother, Our Nation.
As Thalaivar has said, “the patterns of battle may change, but our battle ideal will never change.” The pattern of battle have changed, but our freedom is still dear to us, and we have a responsibility to liberate our nation from oppression and genocide. Our Maveerarkal have protected us, our lands – now it is our responsibility to move their dreams forward and work towards protecting our people and land. We, the Tamil youth in Canada have education – and this education can turn our nation around. What can we do legally to bring justice to our people? What can we do socially and culturally for our people? How can we use our young engineers and IT professionals to build something for our people? We need to believe that we can change the fate of our nation through our education, and actually work towards it. If we do not, we will just have another generation of Tamils who will be oppressed, raped and killed by the Sri-Lankan Government. How many of us are willing to idly watch?
