Tamil mania

When Toronto's Tamil community shut down Toronto's University Avenue to protest at the American consulate, I thought, oh please, you silly people. Not only were the Americans unlikely to do anything but waving the flag of the Tamil Tigers, considered to be terrorists by the Americans, seemed to be an invitation for them to view their pleases in a negative light. Then they marched on the Gardiner Expressway and I thought, now the commuters will hold them in contempt, too.

I forgot the cardinal rule: Any publicity is good publicity. Through their peaceful yet annoying protests, the Tamils have everybody in Toronto talking about them. Some of it's negative, sure, but that doesn't affect the long game: getting people who didn't even know where Sri Lanka was to have a sense of the violence that's going on there. It may not translate into immediate political action--I'm not really sure what Canada or the U.S. could do anyway--but it has planted seeds that may bloom at a time when we might want to be more involved in the country. Smart!