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Why Eelam Tamil people feel insulted about the language politics of #DeepaMehta’s new film #funnyboy @ava @Telefilm_Canada @CBCArts
Casting an entirely non-Tamil speaking cast for a movie on a Tamil family is racist. And this is especially true if it happens in relation to a place as Sri Lanka. A historic recap:
In 1956 the Sinhala Only Act was passed in then Ceylon, rendering Sinhala the only official language of the country and pushing Tamil language out of institutions, out of power. Tens of thousands of Tamils became unemployed and started leaving the island.
When in 1972 Ceylon was renamed into the Sinhalese name Sri Lanka, Tamils opposed. Sinhalese attacked Tamils, burning the Sinhala letter Sri on Tamil women’s breasts.
When in 1974 the World Tamil Research Conference was held in Jaffna, a conference on Tamil language studies, it was attacked by the Sri Lankan state. 9 Tamils were killed.
In 1981 the Sri Lankan Police and Sinhala politicians burnt down the Jaffna Library, the centre for Tamil literature and history on the island, in an attempt to erase Tamil identity., causing immense pain, trauma and an irreversible loss for all Tamil-speaking people.
During the Black July 1983, the anti-Tamil pogroms that Mehta’s new @netflix film is situated in, language was used to identify Tamils from Sinhalese. People were asked to pronounce the word bucket in Sinhala. If they had a Tamil accent, they were killed.
If they didn’t speak Sinhala, they were killed. If they spoke Tamil, they were killed.
Throughout the war-genocide, speaking Tamil in public made you subject to state violence. Tamils were often forced to stop speaking Tamil outside their homes out of fear.
Following the war, language parity was used as a way of showcasing to the outside that Tamils are treated equally in the country. Non-Tamil speakers are left to be charmed by visuals only. But the reality is far different in regards to the language parity post-war.
All courts, all police stations, all military bases, which are disproportionately overrepresented & powerful in Tamil regions of the island, proceed in Sinhala only. Effectively, Tamils are rendered illiterate on their own land.
Tamil is deliberately undermined in school books, in government print, boards, public transport, on road signs, maps and elsewhere. And no, this isn’t an oversight. It’s a strategy.
Language is identity, especially for Tamils, especially for people whose language has been attacked as a way of attacking the people who speak it.
For a Canadian, a country that is militant about language parity between two settler-colonial language, English and French, Deepa Mehta should have known better. And you too, as Canadian funding bodies subject to policies of language parity. @CBCArts @Telefilm_Canada
