Major Inconveniences

It is so very inconvenient when pedestrian lives are upset through being forced to attention by the actions of a group affected by the dire consequences of political, religious, ideological schisms occurring in far reaches of the globe. People who have suffered the grave indignities of oppression, and the even graver consequences of being targets for early death because of their ethnicity, religion, social standing and general minority status in an overwhelmingly majority population simply have no consideration for the quotidian rhythms of the lives of other people.

They insist on fostering in their new places of residence far from the geography of their old homes a public awareness of the misery, fear and danger awaiting their relatives, friends and far-flung members of their community. It wasn't that long ago that communication from one part of the world to another was a slow affair, word leaking out through a covert attempt at imparting to a disinterested world the calamity befalling a community, an ethnic group, a religious minority.

We inhabit a different world now, of instant communication.

Despite which, knowing the harrowing distemper of our times visiting one mass-impacting horror after another on communities within distant countries, the developed world, conscience intact, feels powerless to intervene. There is a recognition of the inviolability of borders, of the right of states to rule as their executive bodies deem fit. Even the latterly-envisioned 'responsibility to protect' adopted by the United Nations has been powerless to affect events.

We have the examples of Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan to remind us of the pledge of decent, aware, compassionate and engaged people and countries the world over, after the dread, unimaginable catastrophe of the Holocaust to never again allow such a horror to occur. The United Nations would become the conscience of the world; that world body representation would find ways to forestall dread human rights abuses, genocidal intent; protect the vulnerable.

The United Nations proposes, vicious tyrants dispose. Unmoved by the tide of international public opinion, they do as they will, insisting on the legitimacy of their rule as independent, sovereign states. The situation in Sri Lanka is coming to a head, with the Sinhalese-majority government finally putting to rest the aspirations of Sri Lankan Tamils for a homeland of their own.

The Tamil Tigers, equal to the Sri Lankan government in ruthless, bloody conflict to attain their end, is in its death throes. While still holding Tamil civilians as human shields.

While the government militias, knowing the eyes of the world are upon them - although not sufficiently moved by the situation to attempt more than moral persuasion - have established an ostensible safe zone. Whose safety potential sounds encouraging, but whose breaches have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Tamil civilians. Little wonder expatriate Tamils, living comfortably in free democratic countries have taken to the streets.

They have carried their mission to plead with the world for more effective involvement everywhere they can gather in respectable numbers. Men, women and children protesters, marching through civil, free streets to demand that the world take notice, have compassion and venture beyond the political convention of diplomacy, to exert powerful pressure on the government of Sri Lanka. They stop the flow of traffic, merging on major arterials in major cities.

Thoughless and irritating to a degree, earning them more censure than support.

One can only wonder what it might have availed had diaspora Jews living in free societies in the West taken such desperate measures, refusing to be persuaded to set aside their concerns for European Jewry headed in unbelievable numbers for the death chambers of Nazi Germany.