Brown Peril
Aug. 14th, 2010 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frandroidIf you aren't in Canada or haven't been paying much attention to the news, most news organizations have been obsessed with the Tamil refugee ship, the MV Sun See, that's arrived in BC. On board are 490 Tamils seeking refugee status in Canada.
This is very much a story about media fear-mongering about brown people coming to Canada.
Now, I don't know if news organizations have paid attention, but the LTTE have been pretty much been annihilated. By that I obviously don't mean to say that there are no Tamil Tigers left, but organizationally, they've pretty much hit the bucket. What are they going to be doing in Canada? Raising funds? What for? The war is over.
We were warned last time that there were Tamil Tiger "terrorists" on board, but no one has either been arrested or sent back to Sri Lanka, as far as I know. Granted, this time the Sri Lankan government is saying that the ship's crew and some passengers belong to the Tamil Tigers, but considering how racist this government is, what's that worth? I mean if they are Tamil Tigers, I'm guessing that they have even more of a case in claiming refugee status in Canada, since they can be severely mistreated in Sri Lanka, if not killed in the case of the most serious commanders. I don't know.
The whole media circus around this stinks to high heaven. I hope no one on board is seriously sick; there have been reports of TB. The Victoria hospital has opened a ward for them, at least. Great thanks for public health care.
This is very much a story about media fear-mongering about brown people coming to Canada.
Now, I don't know if news organizations have paid attention, but the LTTE have been pretty much been annihilated. By that I obviously don't mean to say that there are no Tamil Tigers left, but organizationally, they've pretty much hit the bucket. What are they going to be doing in Canada? Raising funds? What for? The war is over.
We were warned last time that there were Tamil Tiger "terrorists" on board, but no one has either been arrested or sent back to Sri Lanka, as far as I know. Granted, this time the Sri Lankan government is saying that the ship's crew and some passengers belong to the Tamil Tigers, but considering how racist this government is, what's that worth? I mean if they are Tamil Tigers, I'm guessing that they have even more of a case in claiming refugee status in Canada, since they can be severely mistreated in Sri Lanka, if not killed in the case of the most serious commanders. I don't know.
The whole media circus around this stinks to high heaven. I hope no one on board is seriously sick; there have been reports of TB. The Victoria hospital has opened a ward for them, at least. Great thanks for public health care.