Word: diasporas
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...more than 800,000 members of the Tamil diaspora spread out from Toronto to Sydney, the news was met with mixed reactions. Some are fervent supporters of the LTTE and others downright oppose the separatist movement, but are reluctant to publicly criticize the Tigers out of fear of a network globally regarded as terrorists. What more Tamils living abroad can agree on is better rights for the minority still in the country. Many Tamils, who are primarily Hindu, have long claimed job discrimination and unequal political power in a nation and government dominated by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority...
...Lanka during the cease-fire to volunteer at orphanages and hospitals, regularly meets with fellow activists to plan events and rallies. After seeing what she describes as the "discrimination and racism of the government" firsthand, Pari says she understands why the LTTE resorted to arms throughout the conflict. "The diaspora is very concerned that the one body that protected the Tamils against oppression by the Sri Lankan government is now very much weakened." (Watch a video about civilians displaced...
...fisted state, and many of its supporters sought and received political asylum in Europe. As Austria's legal South Asian community has become more established, thousands of illegal Sikh migrants from all over Europe have gravitated there. "The gurdwara was lush with offerings from a nostalgic and large-hearted diaspora," says Ramesh Vinayak, who heads the Punjab edition of the national daily Hindustan Times, and who visited the Vienna gurdwara in 2005. (See photos of India's Nehru dynasty...
...Around the same time, the Ravidasias, a lower-caste community who are not considered Sikhs though the groups share some similarities, including worship in gurdwaras, swelled in numbers among Austria's Indian diaspora. Disgruntled lower-caste youths from an increasingly prosperous Punjab - where the landed castes have been reaping the benefits of the Green Revolution since the 1950s and 1960s - were making their way to Europe in droves. "What we see now is a result of rising Dalit assertion," says Vinayak. "The lower castes set up their own gurdwara, splitting the congregation and the [revenue from the] offerings...
...conflict in Sri Lanka has long provided lessons for militant groups around the world. The Tamil Tigers taught terrorists everywhere the finer (or more savage) points of suicide bombing, the recruitment of child soldiers, arms trafficking, propaganda and the use of a global diaspora to collect resources. The Tigers "were the pioneers in many of the terrorist tactics we see worldwide today," says Jason Campbell, an Iraq and Afghanistan analyst at the Brookings Institution. (Read a story about the life and death of Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran...