Tamils for LTTE

Much in keeping with my colleague's previous post, I must expand on the syndrome he talks about to include Tamils for LTTE in the discussion, for it is much the same scenario here, as the one he describes in Pakistan.

The Sri Lankan army's advances are now well documented, and by all accounts the LTTE has taken a massive beating, if not suffered total annihilation. In Tamil Nadu people are up in arms. Yesterday a self proclaimed great advocate of the Tamil cause decided his own life was worth taking in response to the decimation of the LTTE and ended up in self immolation. Today great numbers of law students are picketing the Sri Lankan consulate in Chennai. While the scale of protests might not be in the same league as those in Pakistan, what is being protested is even more disproportionate. Regardless, my point here is to consider why people are so quick to espouse causes that appear to be quite removed from their immediate surroundings.

Why do people find it far easier to protest actions occurring in far off lands and not protest any similar injustices in their own? And it is not simply the government here, but the public as well. The DMK and these protesters do not seem to be very perturbed by the plight of Tamils in front of their eyes on the streets, but deem it a matter of life and death that some Tamils in another country are in trouble.

It is almost as if it is far easier to protest these injustices in a far off land, knowing that no action is required of oneself, while if one were to consider the plight of people in our own surroundings one would need to take responsibility and act. Protesting comes easy. Action does not.

People are quick to jump to the defense of people of their own religion, ethnicity, race and kin, but if some action was called for on their part all this attachment they feel would quickly turn to indifference.

It is a rather surprising syndrome to say the least. The two examples we've mentioned do not by any means exhaust similar occurrences the world over, but they serve as two clear examples of how groups of men and women behave when it comes to social causes.