What constitutes terrorism is highly subjective. If you think struggles based on identity, freedom and not wanting to comply with a hegemonic notion of nation are equal to terrorism, then your understanding of terrorism is vastly different from mine. Violence is used when other spaces and avenues for negotiation and understanding are blocked. There are enough Lankans and Tamilians who contribute to the LTTE on various grounds and not all of them can be bracketed as violence-loving people. It is a matter of political consciousness and choice to support particular values that these individuals believe in. That said, this instance is not an appropriate one to use in our conversations. It has a different history, connotations and political economy to it and it does not compare with the kind of discrimination in housing markets that occurs in Indian cities. On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Kiran K Karthikeyan < kiran.karthike...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > LTTE is a very different form of struggle and organization and it cannot > be > > compared blanket with terrorism, and other kinds of violence. I have > very > > close Sri Lankan friends, and "educated", whose family members have been > > killed in LTTE blasts and violence, and who still support the LTTE. The > > instance you > > cited of the person giving money to LTTE is a very very different kind of > a > > phenomenon and it has a different kind of political economy attached to > it. > > > I realize it is different. And I wanted to understand further and so we > talked. At the end, it turned out his reasons (if you can call it that) was > something similar to "identifying with the struggle". > > So on the face of it, it looks like a well educated guy who got influenced > through whatever means and decided to support terrorism (whatever the > reasons, it still means the killing of innocent people, intentionally or > otherwise). I intend to probe further, and hopefully I'm proved wrong. > > Kiran > -- Zainab Bawa Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher Between Places ... http://zainab.freecrow.org
