Where are you? I can’t see you standing up for the people! Why?

As most people know that there is a Genocide that is happing in Sri Lanka right now! It’s all of our duty to stand up against Genocide! Specially as a Tamil living in New Zealand, it’s my duty to ensure the fellow New Zealanders know about this Genocide, so that they can take a moral decision to stand against the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka, by the Sri Lankan Government.

Unfortunately I come across friends and family who are able to carry on their own lives as nothing has happened. I am amazed, that they are not worried about their kith and kin back home. Yes, we are lucky ones, as we have managed to escape the war, does that mean that we forgot the people who are being massacred back home.

This is my e-mail to my Tamil friends and family, who is carrying on in their lives as nothing is happening back in Sri Lanka:

My dear Tamil brothers, sisters, family and friends,

Although this is not an e-mail addressed to you personally please consider it personal. There are two reasons that I am sending this e-mail to you as a group e-mail:

1. I don’t want to single you out and point fingers;


2. I would have to duplicate the same e-mail to many times to cover you all.

Just to make my point clear: This e-mail is coming from myself and is not a forward!

I choose to e-mail you, because I value your relationship as a family member or as a friend and most importantly as a fellow Tamil.

I am sure you all are aware of the situation back in our homeland. A situation where our kith and kin are being brutally massacred by the Sinhala Government! You know the Sri Lankan Government has banned independent media and NGO’s to go to the affected areas. Illegal weapons of war such as cluster bombs and chemical bombs have killed more than 6,000 civilians since January this year (2009). Mass graves have been dug up by the army and the Sri Lankan Government has continuously refused to stop the war despite international pressure.

I know that it’s hard for us to do anything from here in New Zealand to stop this bloody war! But I believe that we can at least try by participating in protests, talking to local MPs and raise awareness to take our message to the New Zealand public and New Zealand Government, so that they can at least try to put pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to stop the Genocide of Tamils immediately. It is solidarity alone that can save our people.

There has been a mass movement all over the world to show the Tamil people's emotions and stance on this illegal war. However, some of you are refusing to participate in anything and are going on with your everyday lives which I am to be honest shocked and disappointed to see. It is really beyond my comprehension.

All of you are either born in our motherland, have family in our motherland and most importantly the whole reason you are not living in our homeland is the discrimination and/or the war that was experienced by you personally or by your family. Even if not any of the above (which is unlikely), it is still Tamil blood that is running in your veins.

Everyone needs roots and identity. You may have not had any opportunity to bond or had the need to identify with your identity yet, but I am sure each of us will have a time when you will search and want that identity, it may not be today or tomorrow, but it will happen. Exactly that identity is being wiped out as you read this email.

I know we all are busy: busy with work; our own commitments to the family; etc etc etc. But like the famous words on TV goes “While you walk, play, eat, a child waits, in the hope that someone like you will be able to make a difference!” This is the same situation back in our homeland!

Even if it is not the Tamil identity that links you to the current situation back home, not even the humanitarian tragedy that has unfolded seem to have softened your heart. My kiwi friends and friends from other countries seem to care more than you care. As they still have the heart to care for the people who are needy and also they are brave enough to voice their disapproval of the people who violate and kill innocent people! I salute them!

I read this verse other day, and believe in every single word Dr. Martin Luther King has said:

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right;
You died when you refused to stand up for truth;
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.

Thank you for reading this e-mail! My intention is not to offend you but this has been on my mind for a long time. I tried to ignore it but it was time to speak out so that I can remain honest. If you choose to come along and support us and contribute, I would very much appreciate it. If you can’t do that, I suppose we have no common link in that we are “Tamils”.

Kind regards,
Dhaya