debate in the media surrounding Sri Lankan Civil War is so one-sided

tl;dr left-wing media reporting on politics of a community is very one-sided

I am born-and-bred in Harrow with both my parents coming as Sri Lankan Tamils to the UK in midst of the Civil War. I am taking what I'm about to say from what I know of my parents viewpoints, my extended family's and their friends viewpoints and the viewpoints of the Sri Lankan Tamils that I know in day-to-day life - apart from my parents the majority of these people are second generation and locally born.

I don't view what most of the left-wing harps on about Sri Lankan Tamils as being mostly correct. There were human rights abuses on both sides of the conflict and the lingustic issues in Sri Lanka should be viewed in the wider context of ethnolingustic nationalism in South India - at the time, there were large scale ethnolingustic movements sweeping South India and the Tamils were by-far the strongest ethnolingustic defenders, hence I presume that Sri Lankan Tamils may have been unusually extreme with their demands.

Furthermore, I barely know anyone who is politically active with the issues surrounding the Civil War. I honestly doubt that most Sri Lankan Tamils have attended those protests (fake news) because I don't even know a Sri Lankan Tamil who cares about the political issues let alone about going to one of those protests and campaigning for their rights - I've personally been to several events catering for the Sri Lankan Tamil community and the Civil War politics has never come up!

I think right-wing media has mostly overlooked the issue. I personally think that this is more correct when discussing British Sri Lankan politics because it's almost a non-issue for us.

Reply 1

999tigger

Original post by iagreetotheTs&Cs

Is this Sri Lankan media, world media or the UK?

I didnt realise there was a debate going on. Hardly ever hear anything since the end of the war. Is that part of the conspiracy?

Reply 2

Andrew97

Entertainment Forum Helper, Debate & Current Affairs Helper

The UK media cares very little about a civil war thousands of miles away that ended ten years ago.

Reply 3

hailye2

The problem is that the left-wing is forwarding a viewpoint that most Sri Lankan Tamils disagree with, whilst pretending that it's supporting Sri Lankan Tamils, where actually it's glossing over actual racisms that Sri Lankan Tamils face. It's a sort of cherry picking (as someone over on mumsnet called it, though I'm too young for that place) that means that racism against us is ignored whilst Muslims get all the sympathy! I just hate how the Guardian advertises itself as being anti-racism when in fact it is advancing racism against Sri Lankan Tamils except in the minds of a tiny minority of activist extremists.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 4

Napp

Original post by hailye2

I have yet to see you make a single post that doesnt in some way whine about Muslims or try to demonize them in some way. Don't you have anything better to do than prattle on about how allegedly evil you think they are?

Reply 5

hailye2

Original post by Napp

Maybe it's partially because it's one of the main political issues for anyone from South Asia?

Reply 6

Napp

Original post by hailye2

Maybe it's partially because it's one of the main political issues for anyone from South Asia?

Debatable. Nevertheless this site is not here for you to make actionable claims that all Muslims are racists, bigots or whatever else you might believe them to be.

Reply 7

RickHendricks

Original post by hailye2

Maybe it's partially because it's one of the main political issues for anyone from South Asia?

And you're complaining because we don't discuss it in the UK? See how stupid that argument is?

Reply 8

hailye2

Original post by RickHendricks

And you're complaining because we don't discuss it in the UK? See how stupid that argument is?

The majority of the population in Europe and the Commonwealth Realms are Islamophobic.

Reply 9

999tigger

Original post by hailye2

The majority of the population in Europe and the Commonwealth Realms are Islamophobic.

How would you know? have you been to all these places and talked to them?
I thought you were claiming to be Sri Lankan?

Reply 10

RickHendricks

Original post by hailye2

The majority of the population in Europe and the Commonwealth Realms are Islamophobic.

Seriously? any form of statistics to back that up?

Reply 11

username358506

Original post by RickHendricks

Seriously? any form of statistics to back that up?

I imagine that his reasoning is based on the fact that India contains half of the Commonwealth's population, and is, for obvious reasons, largely Islamophobic. When coupled with countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Cameroon, each of which have recently experienced Islamic terrorism at the hands of Boko Haram and/or al-Shabaab, as well as the percentage of people in Australia, Canada, NZ and the UK that view Islam negatively and it's fairly straight-forward to see how he arrived at his conclusion.

As far as Europe is concerned, when one considers Brexit, Le Pen's 34%, Merkel's 33%, Italy's new government, Austria's new government, the Visegard group's refusal to accept economic migrants and refugees, the Swedish Democrats leading the polls, etc., the mass migration is certainly changing voting attitudes across the continent, and Europe is undeniably becoming more Islamophobic.

Whether "the majority of the population in Europe and the Commonwealth Realms are Islamophobic" is debatable because he didn't provide data to support his claim, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if his claim was correct.