Disrupting the “Tamil diaspora-terrorism” paradigm: the political mobilisation of younger generation Tamils in the London diaspora

ABSTRACT

Following three decades of armed conflict, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. The victory was framed as a successful counterterrorism operation, yet, the GoSL’s military campaign in the Tamil-populated Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka, faces credible allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. As the armed conflict reached its apex, the Tamil diaspora mobilised politically across the globe and the participation of younger generation Tamils (YGTs), namely, those who were born outside their parents’ country of origin, or had settled outside of their ancestral homeland as children, caught the attention of scholars and analysts. Within this small pool of literature, the pervasive and problematic counterterrorism-inspired concept of “radicalisation” surfaced. This article contributes to critical debates on terrorism by analysing the cursory application of a radicalisation framework to the political mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs. Based on critical ethnographic research on YGT activism in the London diaspora, this article provides an alternative to criminalising and marginalising approaches by utilising an emotion-based conceptual framework, derived from social movement studies, to unearth and understand the complex mechanisms, contexts, and processes surrounding their political mobilisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Tamil diaspora
• younger generation tamil
• [counter]terrorism
• genocide
• radicalisation
• political mobilisation
• social movement studies
• critical ethnography

Introduction

In May 2009, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) declared a counterterrorism victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Sentas 2012, 97),¹ an internationally proscribed political and military organisation that had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the island’s North-East for over three decades (Balasingham 2004, 23). The UN (2009, 161) welcomed the victory, claiming that the GoSL liberated “tens of thousands of its citizens that were kept by the [LTTE] against their will as hostages.” However, the GoSL’s military campaign faces credible allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide (Boyle 2010; PPT 2014; UN 2011). It is estimated that over 100,000 Tamil civilians were killed during the final stages of the armed conflict and hundreds of thousands more were injured, displaced, and interned (UN 2011, 37–41; 2012, 38).

As the armed conflict reached its violent apex, Tamils from a diaspora of one million, mobilised politically in city centres across the globe, calling upon the international community to impose a ceasefire (ICG 2010, 2). The participation of younger generation Tamils (YGTs), namely, those who were born outside their parents’ country of origin or had settled outside of their ancestral homeland as children, caught the attention of scholars and analysts; Tamil diaspora politics had historically been dominated by first generation Tamils, who were born in Sri Lanka and emigrated as adults.² These YGTs were involved in political and media lobbying, spearheading protest actions and political and educational campaigns, and establishing Tamil organisations in the diaspora (Amarasingam 2015; Hess and Korf 2014; Rasaratnam 2011; Vimalarajah and Cheran 2010).

Within this small pool of literature, the counterterrorism-inspired concept of “radicalisation” surfaced (Oxford Analytica 2009; ICG 2010; Thomas and Bucerius 2019). There is no universal definition of radicalisation; in its contemporary iteration, Kundnani (2012) describes radicalisation as a psychological, social, and theological process which determines risk factors towards terrorism. Following acts of political violence in the US and Europe from the early 2000s, which were orchestrated and carried out by “home-grown” second- and third-generation Muslims and the subsequent injection of funding from Western governments, radicalisation emerged as a dominant academic and institutional framework for identifying causal factors towards terrorism (Kundnani and Hayes 2018, 5; Silva 2018). Historically, radicalisation’s cognate “radicalism”, encompassed endorsing and acting upon “progressive political positions”, yet, the term has taken a pejorative turn, reflecting its politicised and relative nature (Schmid 2013, 7).

The notion of radicalisation has since faced criticisms from academics and civil society actors, illustrated through its political agenda, conceptual pitfalls, the validity of its empirical studies, and its application across institutional and social movement settings, which infringes upon civil liberties and marginalises and criminalises particular groups (Kundnani 2012; Schmid 2013). This article contributes to these critical debates by analysing the cursory application of a radicalisation framework to the political mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs.

This article also introduces an alternative and non-criminalising conceptual framework derived from the “emotions” scholarship in the field of social movement studies (SMS) to investigate the political mobilisation of YGTs. Scholars in this field, which focuses on explaining and understanding extrainstitutional and collective action pursuing social change, write that emotional analyses can answer key questions, such as why people join movements – because emotions, as social constructs, are replete with meaning and are a pivotal part of all social action (Flam and King 2005; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001). Using “moral shock” (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001, 16) and “collective identity” (Polletta and Jasper 2001, 285) as a conceptual framework, and drawing on critical ethnographic research on YGT activism in the London diaspora, this article asks: “How can we account for the political mobilisation of YGTs during the final stages of the Sri Lankan armed conflict?”

The novel conceptual and methodological approaches employed here foreground the subjectivities and motivations of YGT activists and allow us to uncover and understand the complex mechanisms, contexts, and processes surrounding their mobilisation i.e. the impetus to practice resistance to social norms (Nolas, Varvantakis, and Aruldoss 2018).³ These approaches offer a shift in perspective and challenge the aforementioned radicalisation framework, which is trained on identifying the deterministic indicators of terrorism, by instead framing mobilisation as a mode of meaningful resistance to state crime (Stanley and McCulloch 2013). Some of the existing literature treats the mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs as an extension of LTTE ideology and a potential terrorism threat (Oxford Analytica 2009; ICG 2010; Thomas and Bucerius 2019). More broadly, this reflects the securitising and criminalising treatment of war-time and post-war Tamil diaspora politics across institutional and academic discourses and practices (Craven 2022; Nadarajah 2009, 2018; Sentas 2012). In contrast, the empirical findings in this article discuss how YGT mobilisation was shaped by perceptions of state-led genocide against the Tamil ethnic group during the final stages of the armed conflict, as well as the development of cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections that YGTs had to their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka.

The relevance of this research revolves around the growing conflict-generated migrant populations across the globe (IOM 2022) and the transnational ties that diasporas have to their respective homelands (Adamson 2012). Whilst diasporas have received steady institutional and scholarly attention as a threat to international peace and national sovereignty and security (Adamson 2006; Nadarajah 2018), lesser researched is their engagement with transitional justice processes and conflict resolution, particularly younger generations who may inherit and experience intergenerational trauma and conflict (Koinova 2018; Orjuela 2020). This case study focuses on the political mobilisation of YGTs in London in the context of Sri Lanka’s ongoing and fragile transitional justice process, which YGT activists remain involved in (Jayasundara-Smits 2022; Kandiah 2021; Orjuela 2020; Seoighe 2021). The empirical, methodological, and conceptual contributions in this article may also be of interest to those engaging in the interdisciplinary fields of diaspora, social movement, and critical terrorism studies, towards understanding how and why younger generation actors mobilise towards social change and overturning marginalising and criminalising perspectives.

Antecedents of the Sri Lankan armed conflict

To situate the political mobilisation of YGTs, it is useful to briefly explore the contours of the Sri Lankan armed conflict which beleaguered the island for over three decades (Rasaratnam 2016, 165). Sri Lanka’s inhabitants are drawn from a diverse range of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups and tensions between the two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, surfaced as colonial Ceylon (as it was known at the time) moved towards independence from Britain (Wickramasinghe 2014; Wilson Chandrakanthan 1998).⁴ Tamil politicians lobbied for the equal representation of non-majority ethnic groups in the emerging government. Despite these efforts, a majoritarian Sinhalese government was formed in 1948 (Hoole et al. 1990, 1), with a pattern of Sinhalese premiership continuing into the 21^st century (Seoighe 2017, 62).

Between 1949 and the late 1970s, successive majoritarian governments undertook actions that afflicted relations between the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic groups. This included colonisation schemes which settled Sinhalese communities in the north of the island where the majority of Tamils continue to live. Discriminatory language and educational policies were also enacted, ostensibly to redress the over-representation of Tamils in civil service structures (a product of British colonial rule) and the perceived privileges therein (Prakash 2016, 101–106; Wilson and Chandrakanthan 1998, 72–73). Buddhism, which is predominantly practiced by the Sinhalese ethnic group, was also enshrined within the country’s constitution, despite diverse religious practices across the island. Competing political parties have utilised Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism to garner mass support from the Sinhalese population, which stresses that the Sinhalese are the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka, “entrusted by Buddha to keep the island as a sacred place for his teachings” and facing potential threat as a minority ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent (Seoighe 2017, 45; Tambiah 1986, 1992).

Tamil civil society mobilised politically against these government reforms in the form of non-violent protests and faced violent backlashes from Sinhalese factions on several occasions, which no parties have been held accountable for. This included the killing and maiming of hundreds of Tamils, sexual violence perpetrated against Tamil women, and the looting and destruction of Tamil-owned property (PEARL 2022; Tambiah 1992, 46–57). The recruitment of Tamils into the state’s security forces also decreased substantially during this period, resulting in a largely mono-ethnic Sinhalese composition (Tambiah 1986).

The “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” emerged in the early 1970s in response to the marginalisation and violent suppression of Tamil interests.⁵ This political and military organisation advocated for Tamil self-determination in the form of an independent homeland in the North-East of Sri Lanka (Balasingham 2004, 25–26). By the mid-1970s, elected Tamil political parties were also advocating for a separate Tamil state (Wickramasinghe 2014, 293). The GoSL proscribed the LTTE in 1978 and as its counterinsurgency campaign grew the LTTE retaliated (Ibid, 298).

Two violent episodes tend to characterise the period which followed. In 1981, Sinhalese state security personnel set ablaze Jaffna Public Library in the Northern Province, destroying 95,000 ancient Tamil artefacts and manuscripts (Tambiah 1986, 19). The incident has been described as a form of “cultural genocide”, or the destruction of a nation (Prakash 2016, 110) and a precursor to “Black July”, which denotes the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 following the LTTE’s first fatal ambush of Sinhalese state soldiers (Ibid, 106). Black July was orchestrated by members of the incumbent government and carried out by paramilitary factions, which resulted in the massacre of approximately two to three thousand Tamils, largely in the southern capital. In addition to targeted killing, Tamil-owned businesses and homes were looted and burned en masse, approximately 100,000 Tamils became internally displaced, and Tamil women were subject to sexual violence (Krishna 1999, 45; Tambiah 1986, 22). Scholars have documented the collusion and inaction of Sinhalese parliamentary members, GoSL security forces, and the Sinhalese Buddhist clergy during sequential anti-Tamil pogroms (Krishna 1999; Hoole et al. 1990; Tambiah 1986, 1992). Voluntary enlistment into the LTTE increased significantly following Black July (Richards 2014) and at the same time, an exodus of Tamils fled Sri Lanka, with a quarter of the entire Tamil population now dispersed across the globe (ICG 2010, 2).

2009: the violent apex of the Sri Lankan armed conflict

Although there have been grave episodes of violence during Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, the events of 2009 mark a watershed moment. Following a breakdown in the internationally-brokered peace process between the GoSL and the LTTE and international proscriptions of the LTTE in 2006, the GoSL intensified its military campaign across the LTTE’s de facto territories (Rasaratnam 2016, 197). The GoSL declared a counterterrorism victory in 2009 (Ibid, 198), and it is estimated that over 100,000 Tamil civilians were killed during the final stages of the armed conflict (UN 2012, 38), with hundreds of thousands more injured and displaced (Ibid, 13). Credible allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide have been levelled at the GoSL including the targeted shelling of hospitals and civilians in the government designated “No Fire Zone” (UN 2011, 23), the rape, torture, and execution of captured combatants and civilians, the denial of humanitarian assistance such as medical treatment, food, water, shelter, and clothing, and the violent censorship of government critics (; Boyle 2010; PPT 2014; UN 2011).⁶ After the defeat of the LTTE, approximately 290,000 Tamils were held in government internment camps to screen for associations with the LTTE, where ongoing international crimes were documented (UN 2011, 37). The GoSL has faced international pressure to undertake an independent and international investigation into said allegations (OHCHR 2015). Yet, 15 years after the end of the armed conflict, this objective remains unrealised and the Government continues to deny the alleged atrocities (SLCPJ 2021).

YGT activism in the Tamil diaspora emerged against this backdrop. During the final stages of the armed conflict, there were mass mobilisations across the diaspora and most perceptible was the newfound presence of YGTs (Kandiah 2021). There have been criminalising approaches and experiences regarding the identities, political mobilisation, activism, and perspectives of YGTs since 2009; this includes how international proscriptions of the LTTE, GoSL proscriptions of Tamil diaspora advocacy organisations, and the pervasive language of terrorism have criminalised, stigmatised, and discredited the Tamil struggle against Sri Lankan state oppression (Kandiah 2021; Seoighe 2021). These criminalising approaches reflect the dominant treatment of war-time and post-war Tamil diaspora politics across institutional and academic discourses and practices, specifically, the propensity to focus on material and ideological support for the LTTE and conflict escalation (Craven 2022; Nadarajah 2009, 2018; Sentas 2012).⁷

The following section contributes to critical debates on terrorism by interrogating the application of a “radicalisation” framework to the political mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs, which is the pervasive academic and institutional framework for identifying causal factors towards “home-grown” terrorism in the West and increasingly so elsewhere (Kundnani and Hayes 2018, 5; Silva 2018).

Problematising the application of a ”radicalisation” framework to the political mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs

Following the mass mobilisation and protests across the Tamil diaspora in 2009, Oxford Analytica (2009), a global analysis and advisory firm, released a report claiming that “Radicalisation is real and extensive in the Tamil diaspora, particularly its youth” and warned that the diaspora may “once again become the locus of funding and organisation for further spasms of LTTE violence.” The prediction of material and operational support for the LTTE was linked to the presence of LTTE flags during the protests, and the report lists five “radicalising” factors: (1) “colonial history”, namely, tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic groups due to Tamils occupying privileged positions in the civil service; (2) the GoSL’s discriminatory language, religious, educational, and citizenship policies, which negatively impacted minority ethnic groups following independence; (3) the “myth” of genocide, or the LTTE’s exaggerated account of the GoSL’s discriminatory practices; (4) the diaspora’s susceptibility to LTTE propaganda because of its distance from the conflict; (5) the LTTE’s autocracy and violent repression of alternative intra-community voices.

The report highlights a combination of macro- or governance-level (see 1 and 2) and meso- or community-level (see 3, 4 and 5) radicalisation factors, which are identified as lacking in the extant mainstream literature on radicalisation (Schmid 2016). However, the report does not define its use of the term “radicalisation” and there is a lack of empirical evidence to support its claims, which raises questions about its validity. This opacity can be read in relation to wider critiques surrounding mainstream radicalisation discourses, namely vague conceptualisations across academic studies and government policies and limitations in data collection and analysis, which in turn allows for the targeted marginalisation and criminalisation of particular groups (Kundnani 2022; Kundnani and Hayes 2018; Silva 2018). In the case of YGT mobilisation, the pejorative notion of radicalisation, which has become a synonym for terrorism (Kundnani and Hayes 2018), has rudimentarily been equated with the presence of LTTE flags during the Tamil diaspora protests (whilst also neglecting to distinguish between symbols of Tamil statehood and the LTTE, see TamilNet 2005), followed by the prediction of the Tamil diaspora facilitating further forms of LTTE violence. These unfounded assertions and the application of a counterterrorism concept to forms of civil protest against state-perpetrated atrocities are problematic, particularly when considering that civil society is the most important counterweight against state crime and the source of norms that define it (Green and Ward 2019).

Political bias is also evident in this report as it offers caustic and reductive assessments of the LTTE and its relationship with the “susceptible” diaspora: “the LTTE, despite its murderous brutality, has convinced the Tamil diaspora and many others that it is the victim” (Oxford Analytica 2009). Yet, the report neglects to engage critically with the GoSL’s role in the protracted conflict, including allegations of international law violations. These assessments mirror broader trends in the related literature on radicalisation, where the state’s role in conflict, as well as the “radicalisation” of its propensity to use increasing levels of violence within the context of the “Global War on Terrorism” – both of which drive “terrorism” – receive much less attention when compared to the activities of non-state actors (Kundnani 2012; Schmid 2016). As a state-engineered concept, Kundnani (2022) argues that radicalisation is apolitical, ahistorical, and evades the root causes of terrorism, such as state crime, by instead problematising communities that challenge the state’s hegemony.

A comprehensive report compiled by ICG (2010) following the mass mobilisation across the Tamil diaspora also stated that some young Tamils in the EU and Canada may be showing “worrying signs of radicalisation” (Ibid, 22), and “governments concerned with Sri Lanka need to remain vigilant against any re-emergence of the Tigers as a militant force and to other potential forms of radicalisation and violence within the diaspora” (Ibid, 24). The empirical evidence in this report is based on interviews with members of the diaspora and officials from governments, the UN, and intelligence and law enforcement agencies, though the extent of YGT participation is unclear. The “signs of radicalisation” include “radical” and “illegal” forms of protest (Ibid, 21) such as a privately funded mercy mission ship (which was stocked with humanitarian supplies and routed towards the war zone in Sri Lanka in 2009), roadblocks, hunger strikes, self-immolations, arson and vandalism involving national embassies and Buddhist temples, and incidents of violence between Tamil and Sinhalese groups. The ideology associated with this form of radicalisation is “separatism”, and the authors warn that, “Governments with sizeable Tamil populations need to be clear with their Tamil citizens that a separate state is neither feasible nor desirable. They should do their best to support moderate, non-separatist, voices within the diaspora” (Ibid, 24).

Similar to the Oxford Analytica report, no definition of radicalisation is provided making it difficult to assess the validity of the claims made. A broad set of legal and illegal activities have been identified as potential indicators towards LTTE militancy and other forms of violence in the diaspora. However, as other studies have found, despite a plethora of variables being identified as potential signs of radicalisation towards terrorism, there are no reliable indicators, nor is there a uniform profile for a terrorist (see Schmid 2013). Moreover, identifying behaviours such as forms of humanitarian aid and protest (“illegal” or otherwise), that are responding to state violence as potential indicators towards terrorism, undermines the principles of international human rights and international humanitarian laws (ICRC 2010) and legitimises the counterterrorism measures that veil state crime.

A political agenda is also evident here, as the ideology associated with radicalisation is “separatism”. As others have argued, equating the right to exercise self-determination (which includes separatism and is engrained within international law) with potentially “terrorist” factions in the Tamil diaspora criminalises, marginalises, and delegitimises political aspirations, including emancipation from state oppression (Nadarajah 2009; Sentas 2012; Vimalarajah and Cheran 2010). ICG’s statist positioning reifies the GoSL’s criminalisation of advocating for separatism, which, in violation of international law, resides within its constitution (Guruparan 2016). In Western governments’ definitions of radicalisation, embracing “extremist” ideology is viewed as a precursor towards terrorism and therefore subject to social control. However, like the concept of “radicalisation”, institutional definitions of “extremism” are “vague, selective, and inconsistent”. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that endorsing ideology, “extremist” or otherwise, is a reliable guide towards the commission of terrorist acts, as people do not necessarily act on their beliefs (Kundnani and Hayes 2018, 10).

Thomas and Bucerius’s (2019) more recent article on “transnational radicalization” in Canada, focuses on the perceived risk of YGTs radicalising towards terrorist violence “from outside” (i.e. the LTTE and its supporters diffusing terrorist ideology, recruiting, and facilitating violence) (Ibid, 579). The authors approach the topic from a “national security standpoint” (Ibid, 589), and the Tamil diaspora was selected due to the scrutiny it faces in popular and political discourses on terrorism in Canada. Fifty in-depth interviews with YGTs were utilised to garner the degree of support for the LTTE and concepts from SMS, namely, collective action frames and in-group sentiment pools were employed. Frames were referred to as the LTTE’s social construction of injustices and solutions, which seek to legitimise its actions and resonate with “potential recruits” and their sentiment pools (Ibid, 579) (though the processes of constructing and disseminating LTTE frames are not explicated in the article). Sentiment pools refer to socio-cultural contextual factors such as experiences in country of origin, social and political opportunities in the host country, and political grievances against parties involved in conflict.

The authors identified ideological support for the LTTE, predicated upon its role of representing the Tamil people and fighting for an independent homeland, thereby asserting a “discursive alignment” between LTTE frames and the sentiment pools of YGTs (Thomas and Bucerius 2019, 579). Support for the LTTE was influenced by positive narratives and sentiments that were shared by first generation family members and then bolstered by the Canadian Government’s proscription of the LTTE, as well as its failure to intervene during the final stages of the armed conflict. Yet, like the critiques already explored, namely, elusive conceptualisations regarding radicalisation and the conflation of ideological endorsement with terrorism, the article does not define what “radicalization to violence” is (Ibid, 578), or how YGT ideological support for the LTTE relates to this. Following the cessation of the LTTE’s military operations since 2009 and the Tamil diaspora’s involvement in Sri Lanka’s transitional justice process (Orjuela 2018, 1362; 2020), the article also prompts questions about the utility of this counterterrorism language and framework of analysis.

Echoing critical radicalisation discourses, this article contends that a radicalisation framework, which ostensibly looks to determine and prevent terrorism amongst YGTs is problematic based on: (1) the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the notion of “radicalisation” and its application to the mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs, (2) the validity of the conclusions drawn based on this conceptual ambiguity and in some cases, limited empirical data, and (3) a political agenda which seeks to constrain, criminalise, and delegitimise Tamil diaspora politics pertaining to state crime and self-determination.

The following section introduces an alternative conceptual framework derived from SMS, which is used to unearth and understand how and why YGTs mobilised towards social change. I propose that this alternative approach is more useful than the state-centric radicalisation frameworks which obscure state crime and depoliticise and criminalise resistance to it.

Conceptual framework

Concepts relating to the “emotions” scholarship in SMS are used here to address the research question: “How can we account for the political mobilisation of YGTs during the final stages of the Sri Lankan armed conflict?” YGT mobilisation and activism is considered as part of a wider social movement in the Tamil diaspora (Amarasingam 2015; Kandiah 2021) and the conceptual tools available in this disciplinary field, which seeks to explain and understand extrainstitutional and collective action towards social change, were found to be useful (Snow, Soule, and Kriesi 2004).

Social movement scholars have conceptualised emotions so that “thicker descriptions” of the “microfoundations” in social movements can emerge. This in turn can point towards meso- and macro-levels of social reality, such as the complex cultural, political, and social contexts that surround mobilisation (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2004, 425). Jasper (2014, 7) describes emotions as social constructs and cultural phenomena, which are “shared thoughts, feelings, and morals, along with the physical embodiments we create to express or shape them”; “thoughts” or cognitions can include beliefs, knowledge and mental frameworks, “feelings” are meaningful sensations that are personal and biographical, and “morals” consist of shared normative assessments, namely, principles and intuitions – the former consists of explicit statements about how social actors should act and the latter is a feeling, a reaction to what is right or unacceptable . It is important to differentiate between “emotion”, “feeling”, and “affect”, since the terms are used interchangeably in natural and academic discourse. Shouse (2005) states that emotions are social displays of “feelings” (see above), and “affect” is related to the intensity of bodily sensations that determines our feelings.

An emotional context for understanding the mobilisation of YGTs has been highlighted by some authors (Amarasingam 2016; Hess and Korf 2014), though no emotion-led conceptual frameworks have yet been applied to interrogate this phenomenon. Subsequently, the concepts of “moral shock” and “collective identity” are used here to address the research question. (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001, 16) define “moral shock” as:

… the first step towards recruitment into social movements … when an unexpected event or piece of information raises such a sense of outrage in a person that she becomes inclined toward political action, whether or not she has acquaintances in the movement …Whether the underlying image is a state of shock or an electric shock, it implies a visceral, bodily feeling, on par with vertigo or nausea. The prospect of unexpected and sudden changes in one’s surroundings can arouse feelings of dread and anger. The former can paralyse, but the latter can become the basis for mobilization.

This concept is used to examine the onset or re-activation of activism (Jasper 2014) amongst YGT activists. According to this definition, an event – such as the final stages of the Sri Lankan armed conflict – can induce affect, feelings, and emotions of “outrage”, “shock” and “anger”, which can compel people to mobilise. Social movement scholars are also keen to emphasise that, “[m]oral shocks are most often part of a flow of action towards political activism, not a single great leap … They do not change people’s underlying values; they only clarify or activate them” (Gamson 1992; Jasper 2011, 293). Moral shock, then, can work as a mechanism for activating existing values and driving mobilisation.

The emotions linked to moral shock are conceptualised as “moral” and “reflex” emotions. “Moral emotions” such as “outrage” reflect normative understandings or evaluations about ourselves and others and can lead individuals to seek out protest movements (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2004, 422). “Reflex emotions” such as “shock”, “anger”, and “disgust” are described as short-lived emotions which can be triggered by moral emotions to spur mobilisation (Ibid, 416). In this article, the concept of moral shock is used to illuminate the wider political and cultural contexts that drove YGT mobilisation during the final stages of the Sri Lankan armed conflict.

However, taken alone, moral shock cannot explain the motivation to engage in activism, since not all atrocities are perceived or responded to in a similar way. Therefore, the concept of “collective identity” is also used here to account for the emergence of YGT activism. Polletta and Jasper (2001, 285) define “collective identity” as:

… an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category or practice, or institution. It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity … . Collective identity does not imply the rational calculus for evaluating choices that “interest” does. And unlike ideology, collective identity carries with it positive feelings for other members of the group.

In this definition, an individual’s “connection with a broader community” includes a “shared status or relation” or sense of “solidarity”, defined as “an identification with a collectivity such that an individual feels as if a common cause and fate are shared” (Hund and Bedford 2004, 439). The “positive feelings” in this definition can be conceptualised as types of “affective bonds” or emotions such as “love”, “trust”, and “loyalty”, which can persist over time (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2004, 418–419). The concept of collective identity can be utilised to explain how and why people mobilise and engage in activism, including cases where group bonds and the material rewards relating to such actions are unclear (Polletta and Jasper 2001).

With reference to the mobilisation of YGTs, their connections to the broader Tamil community and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka, including the social contexts surrounding these connections, is under-researched and requires further analytical attention. The concept of collective identity is used here to unearth and trace the cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections that YGTs had to their Tamil identities, the broader Tamil community, and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka prior to and during the events of 2009.⁸ This article proposes that the “moral shock” of 2009 triggered the crystallisation of a collective Tamil identity amongst YGTs and galvanised political mobilisation.

Methodology

A critical ethnographic methodology informed this study. Ethnography is attuned to unearthing the meanings surrounding social action in everyday contexts, over a prolonged period of time, through the participation of the researcher. By “becoming” a part of the group under study, I was able to gain a subjective, empathetic, and in-depth understanding of activists’ actions and motivations (Gobo 2008). Madison (2012, 5) adds that, “[t]he critical [italics added] ethnographer also takes us beneath surface experiences, disrupts the status quo, and unsettles both neutrality and taken-for-granted assumptions by bringing to light underlying and obscure operations of power and control”. As previously underscored, this article seeks to challenge dominant, state-centric, and criminalising approaches to Tamil diaspora politics. By utilising an alternative conceptual framework and critical methodological approach in the study of YGT activism, I contend that “[w]e now begin to probe other possibilities that will challenge institutions, regimes of knowledge, and social practices that limit choices, constrain meaning, and denigrate identities and communities” (Ibid, 6).

Sampling

Twenty-five YGT activists between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, took part in fieldwork investigations. Activists were located through liaising with Tamil diaspora political organisations and attending Tamil cultural and political events in London. A combination of purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used, and the selection of activists was based on four criteria: (1) ethnicity (Tamil), (2) generational classification (1.5 or second-generation),⁹ (3) current resident location (London), and (4) participation in social movement activism.¹⁰ To capture the diversity of the Tamil community, efforts were made to locate individuals from different genders, ages, and socio-economic backgrounds (though there are also other important social categories such as sexuality, religion, and caste). Approximately two-thirds of activists identified as male and the remaining third identified as women, with the majority undertaking full-time study and all others employed on a full- or part-time basis. Two-thirds of activists were born and settled in the Global North (mainly the UK) and a third were born in Sri Lanka or other South Asian countries and immigrated to the Global North as children.

Data collection methods

Field notes, photographs, artefacts, and audiovisual material derived from participant observation (“observer as participant”, Wellington and Szczerbiñnski 2007, 80) followed by semi-structured interviews, were utilised to collect data over a 13-month period between 2013 and 2015.¹¹ Fieldwork sites included cafes, organisation and university premises, street-based protests, and private residences, and most investigations were conducted in London, though I occasionally travelled further afield.¹² Additionally, I engaged in daily interactions with activists via telephone, text messaging, email, and social media platforms. “[T]hick description” (Geertz 1973, 312) field notes were written during, or soon after participant observation and preliminary analysis of these and the aforementioned materials informed semi-structured interview schedules. Data requiring transcription were prepared electronically for analysis.

Analysis of data

The data were uploaded to Atlas.Ti, and thematic analysis derived from grounded theory (Corbin and Strauss 2008) and Ryan and Bernard’s (2003) techniques were used to generate and organise themes. An inductive approach was utilised since there are few studies in this research area, and I was keen to let activists’ actions and motivations direct the inquiry, rather than allowing predetermined questions and theoretical frameworks to stifle the data. This approach encouraged an iterative process between data analysis and the development of the research aim and questions, conceptual framework, and methodology (Corbin and Strauss 2008).

There are varied and ever-developing approaches to gathering and interpreting emotion data in SMS (Flam and King 2005; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001); I interpreted the emotional utterances and expressions of activists (verbal and non-verbal), with the aid of the social movement concepts outlined in the previous section, namely, “moral shock” and “collective identity”. Although data were collected following the end of the Sri Lankan armed conflict, Reisberg and Hertel (2004) write that intense emotional events can be recalled with great accuracy and vividness; throughout fieldwork investigations, the participants in this study were still involved in activism and recalled and exhibited emotions in relation to their mobilisation during the final stages of the armed conflict.

Positionality

In critical ethnography, Madison (2012, 8) writes that, “Positionality is vital because it forces us to acknowledge our own power, privilege, and biases just as we are denouncing the power structures that surround our subjects.” There is limited space here to reflexively discuss the full spectrum of my fluxing identity (Maxey 2005) (e.g. “Tamil”, “2nd generation”, “female”, “researcher”) and positionality in relation to this research. To critically underscore my role in the construction of knowledge, I focus on ethnic and generational classifications here.

I am a YGT born and based in London, and I share a language, cultural understandings, and aspects of a socio-political history with the activists in this study. Similar to many of my counterparts, I have been exposed to war-related trauma through members of my family and the wider Tamil community. The shaping of this research is therefore indicative of the Sri Lankan state’s systemic discrimination and violent oppression against the Tamil people following independence and has “activist-scholar” orientations, since it is trained towards justice and emancipation from harmful social norms (Lennox and Yildiz 2020, 1).

To some extent, this positionality constitutes “insider” status, which may have aided in building rapport and trust and generating rich data with activists (Plows 2008, 1524). Yet, the Tamil/Sri Lankan state dichotomy was not straightforward. My abrupt appearance on the Tamil activist scene, developing political understandings, and limited Tamil language skills made me feel like an “outsider” many times during the research process, which eclipsed presumptive notions of us and them. However, these feelings also provided valuable insight into the activism and motivations of the participants (Lavis 2010), who also described this oscillation between being an “insider” and “outsider” and the constant negotiation of their shifting identities depending on situational contexts. Moreover, since I was new to the activist scene, much of what I observed and experienced during fieldwork investigations was novel, meaning that I collected data which may not have been gathered by a researcher who was already immersed.

The following sections discuss the empirical findings of this research. Firstly, the concept of “moral shock” is used to uncover and examine the emotions and contiguous political and cultural contexts, which coloured YGT mobilisation towards the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. The attendant crystallisation of a collective Tamil identity, which spurred YGT mobilisation, is subsequently discussed.

“The whole world was watching and no one was doing anything”: the ”moral shock” of 2009

The watershed events of 2009 represented a pivotal time for all of the activists in this study, as activist F (male, late-20s) articulated: “You just speak of 2009 … as enough of a reference, right? Like a year for all of us.” This period saw the genesis or significant enhancement of YGT activism, including lobbying UK and EU members of parliament, giving interviews to mainstream news media, establishing Tamil student societies in universities to campaign on Tamil humanitarian and national rights, writing speeches for rallies, and attending and coordinating protests.

“Moral” and “reflex” emotions such as “outrage”, “shock”, “anger”, and “disgust” animated the onset of YGT activism and according to the concept of “moral shock”, these emotions are indicative of broader cultural and political contexts and can ignite mobilisation (Jasper 2011, 287). In the case of YGTs, these emotions were tied to the scale and nature of violence that was levelled upon Tamil citizens by the GoSL, which was understood to be a form of genocide and recognisable as an international crime in public and institutional discourses. In view of these normative cultural and political understandings about genocide, the lack of action from governments that have an international responsibility to protect, and the dearth of scrutiny from the mainstream news media and academic figures engendered feelings of moral shock.¹³

For instance, when activists reflected on the final stages of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, they often used words like “surreal” and “unbelievable” to encapsulate the feelings of shock that they continued to experience. This was linked to the scale and nature of violence perpetrated against the Tamil people. Activist E (female, late 20s), recollected her feelings at the time and made comparisons with her medical occupation, in an attempt to comprehend the mass death and bereavement:

I think it was just shock, kind of like, what the fuck, you know?… I don’t think anyone could really come to terms with like the amount of loss, like, you talk about numbers, every time you see a patient, or a family grieving or whatever now, I always think that’s one person and that’s how it must be for all those families, all those seventy thousand people … I can’t fathom it.¹⁴

Activists struggled to grasp the enormity and intensity of the events that they were witnessing, as information was reaching them through relatives and friends in Sri Lanka (via family members in the diaspora). Tamil media sources were also reporting huge human losses and substantiating these claims with a constant stream of audiovisual and photographic material.

Activist Y (male, late 20s) also expressed feelings of shock, anger, and outrage in relation to the scale and nature of violence being perpetrated against Tamils with a sharp metaphor:

The pain that those people went through, are still going through, I can’t ever imagine it … it’s a form of insanity. I think psychological studies can be made of that, just how studies were made about the Holocaust. Put people in a human blender, and let people be forced to stick in that human blender for five months, write a study about that … I can’t think of a situation in recent history, where there’s been this kind of contained slaughter, for so long, in that way. I can’t think of something like that. Denied healthcare, denied everything…

The GoSL instructed Tamil civilians to convene in No Fire Zones, though these areas came under heavy shelling from the state’s armed forces. Evidence also indicates that the GoSL was responsible for shelling hospitals and withholding medical, food, and water supplies from the conflict zone by grossly underestimating population numbers (UN 2011). At the time of this interview in late 2014, activist Y could not compare the events in Sri Lanka with other conflicts in the twenty-first century. He did however draw upon the Holocaust as a comparison, which relates to public and institutional discourses on international law, specifically the crime of genocide and the international responsibility to protect. As Short (2016, 2) has written, discourses on genocide often centre on the large-scale killing of specific ethnic groups, with the Holocaust being “hugely influential, if not paradigmatic, to both scholarly and popular understandings of the term.”

Activists also exhibited emotions of outrage and disgust towards the GoSL, as activist M (male, mid-20s) conveyed:

After seeing what happened, you know … the level of brutality and the level of pure evil of the Sri Lankan Government … that’s the time where I am disgusted at the word Sri Lankan, disgusted at the whole idea of Sri Lanka being a united country.

This activist’s outrage towards the GoSL during the final stages of the armed conflict reflects a dissonance in his normative understandings about state conduct towards its citizens. He also expressed revulsion in relation to the word “Sri Lankan”, or the Sri Lankan nationality and the idea of a multi-ethnic unitary state because of the majoritarian Sinhalese Government’s “brutality” towards the Tamil ethnic group.

The lack of action and scrutiny from the international community, mainstream news media, and academic figures also provoked emotions such as outrage, shock, and anger amongst activists. As activist D (female, early 30s) articulated: “For me it was unbelievable, the whole world was watching and no one was doing anything.” Similarly, activist M, described how the meetings that were conducted between Tamil diaspora activists and UK and EU MPs in 2009 were a “whitewash”, with politicians only giving the impression that they would intervene in the atrocities. Activists also identified an underreporting on events in Sri Lanka and favourable bias towards the GoSL in mainstream news media, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation and the US-based Cable News Network. Comparatively, TamilNet, a Tamil news website, produced daily death tolls and was described as a crucial source of information. The outrage, shock, and anger towards academics who had access to public and policy-making forums, was based on their palpable silence whilst mass atrocities were taking place in Sri Lanka. As activist Y articulated:

And then with the politics unfolding and my sort of … my politics became very, very severe and scathing of established, established criteria and the cowardliness of most academics, intellectuals, and people who should know better … I saw a confrontation between what people did, said and knew, the status they acquired in the press or society.

Similarly, activist F, described the response of his university’s Social Sciences department, after he designed and displayed a poster which compared the use of internment camps in Sri Lanka to the concentration camps used during the Holocaust: “I once put up a poster … the next day it was taken down, then they asked: ‘Who put it up? …This can’t be said like that.’ I’m just like fuck you.” The GoSL detained 290,000 Tamils after the defeat of the LTTE, purportedly to screen for LTTE members, where ongoing international crimes were documented (UN 2011, 37) and again, an internationally recognised archetype of genocide was used as a comparable event.

The emotional states discussed here were activated in response to the events of 2009 which saw mass atrocities perpetrated by the GoSL against Tamil citizens. These emotional reactions emerged because of a discord between activists’ normative political and cultural understandings and expectations and social reality. In this case, international law was being contravened by the GoSL, the international community had flouted its responsibility to prevent the commission of these crimes, and mainstream news media and academics had failed to acknowledge and scrutinise these events.

Yet, moral shock alone is not enough to account for the emergence of YGT activism, as other atrocities had not engendered similar responses (the majority of activists in this study indicated that they had not taken part in any activism before 2009). This article argues that the moral shock experienced by activists in 2009 was indicative of their pre-existing cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections in relation to their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka.¹⁵ The following section uncovers and traces these understandings and connections and argues that the moral shock of 2009, crystallised a collective Tamil identity amongst YGTs and spurred mobilisation.

“A wake-up call”: the crystallisation of a collective Tamil identity

During fieldwork investigations, activists recollected cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections in relation to their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka, which existed prior to the final stages of the armed conflict. These understandings and connections resided within the personal biographies and identities of activists, defined as “attributes and meanings attributed to oneself” (Snow 2001) and were informed through familial upbringing and narratives, as well as experiences living in, fleeing, and visiting Sri Lanka as some research on YGT diaspora identity has shown (Amarasingam 2015; Orjuela 2020). Here, these understandings and connections are conceptualised as the seedbed of a “collective identity”, or an individual’s positive and:

… cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category or practice, or institution … It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity … (Polletta and Jasper 2001, 285).

For example, activists described how the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka was an inadvertent part of their family up-bringing. As activist C (male, mid-20s) explained:

The diaspora’s always linked to the North-East, the second-generation would have been getting direct info’ from families, people there or whatever … and that’s always gonna filter down to your kids, even if you’ve never been involved in it, you know that bad shit is happening in the North-East … you see your parents reading up, looking up, or talking about it.

This activist’s indirect exposure during his childhood, contributed to his cognitive understandings of the ethnopolitical conflict but also moral (“bad shit”) understandings of what it meant to be a Tamil in Sri Lanka. More explicitly, through the sharing of family narratives, activists were cognisant that discriminatory GoSL policies had impacted their kin, such as excluding the use of Tamil language in educational and civil service institutions and limiting the entry of Tamils into these institutions. In protest against these policies, activists indicated that family members had taken part in Satyagraha protest campaigns, a form of non-violent resistance. Activists also described how family members aided, or were formally part of the Tamil movement, as civilian and military members of the LTTE or other Tamil groups. As activist Q (female, mid-20s) stated: “Like all families, I think they were all under a lot of pressure from the Government and the army, it was … a period when everyone had to be active.”

Other cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections about being Tamil and the ethnopolitical conflict, related to activists and/or their families living in Sri Lanka and being forced from their homeland. For instance, when asked what “being Tamil” meant to him, activist U (male, mid-20s) expressed that it involved a “sense of being wronged” due to the historical injustices perpetrated by successive Sri Lankan Governments. This activist also communicated that his Tamil identity was “stolen” from him because he was forced to leave Sri Lanka as a small child, thus divulging moral and cognitive understandings. Activist X (female, early 20s), who was also born in Sri Lanka and lived there until the age of five, revealed emotional connections. She recounted her and her family’s “fear” of the GoSL army, whereas the LTTE were trusted “friends”, highlighting positive feelings towards a “broader community” or “institution”, which is a core part of collective identity (Polletta and Jasper 2001, 285). Activists who fled Sri Lanka leaving family members behind also recalled experiences of confusion, sadness, and physical illness as they undertook difficult journeys to Europe, revealing cognitive and emotional connections in relation to their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict.

A number of activists were also cognisant that the aforementioned discriminatory state policies forced family members to seek education and employment in other countries, whilst others were aware that their parents fled Sri Lanka following the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 known as “Black July” (see earlier). Activists described how their parents’ or grandparents’ businesses in Sri Lanka’s capital were set ablaze by Sinhalese factions and how their families went into hiding during the pogrom. Activists also articulated that their fathers fled Sri Lanka during the intensification of the ethnopolitical conflict in the early 1980s, due to the threat of violence from the GoSL security forces, paramilitary factions, and rival Tamil factions. Their fathers subsequently organised the migratory trajectories of family members, namely, spouses and dependents, including some of the activists themselves. Activist K (male, late 20s) described these family narratives as “trauma”, which is “passed through generations”, invoking emotional connections and understandings in relation to activists’ Tamil identities, as Orjuela’s (2020) on postmemory, intergenerational trauma, and YGT diaspora identity also revealed.

Visits to Sri Lanka before 2009 also impacted activists’ understandings and connections in relation to their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict. For instance, during a trip to the North of Sri Lanka in 2003, activist C recollected cognitive awareness of a distinct Tamil identity: “you see the difference, you do see that it’s two different ethnicities, two different nations, two different systems.” This activist was referring to the two largest ethnic groups on the island, the Tamils and the Sinhalese and contrasts in language, territory, culture, and governance. During his visit, the LTTE administered parts of the North-East of the island, whilst the remainder of the island was governed by the GoSL. He went on to explain how understandings of his national and ethnic identity shifted during his youth and visit to Sri Lanka:

Coz’ when you grow up, you’re like, er, “I’m from Sri Lanka”, or whatever, and then you realise, okay, there’s two completely different things on this island and I’m definitely not Sri Lankan.

Although some activists indicated that they had answered “Sri Lankan” when asked about their ancestral roots in their youth, there was a mounting realisation that being Tamil was existentially different to being Sri Lankan, a nationality synonymous with the Sinhalese ethnic group and the majoritarian government.

Other activists recalled emotional experiences, whilst travelling to the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, as illustrated by activist E:

We took a plane up to Palali, we got off the plane and the army basically just like lined everyone up and we had to sit, just sit in the sun for like, for like three hours. I’ve never seen my dad look more terrified. Coz’ he was like, “I’ve got two young girls with me here” and if the army was to be like, “We want to question one of them”, what could you do? Coz’ that’s how people get raped, abducted.

Although this activist recounted her naivety at the time, her father’s fearful response towards the state’s security forces left a deep impression on her. Similarly, during a visit to Sri Lanka, activist A (male, early 20s) expressed anger as he recalled “being treated like dirt” at Sri Lankan army checkpoints, which reified his moral and cognitive understandings about the state’s treatment of Tamils. As discussed earlier, due to systemic state-led violence against the Tamil ethnic group, the recruitment of Tamils into the state’s security forces declined, leaving a mono-ethnic Sinhalese presence.

As activists were confronted with the events of 2009, there was an interplay between these events and their pre-existing understandings and connections. The moral shock of 2009 was indicative of public and institutional discourses on genocide, as well as activists’ pre-existing understandings and connections, giving enhanced meaning to their Tamil identities. According to Snow (2001), through “identity amplification”, which involves affecting change in an “individual’s identity salience hierarchy”, collective identity can become a highly salient part of personal identity and mobilise action.

For example, activists described how the ethnopolitical conflict previously felt “external” to them but these understandings and connections shifted, as the situation unfolded in 2009. As activist C articulated:

I knew there was something going on in Sri Lanka but … it’s got its own mechanisms in place, like, they have their own politicians and there’s an armed struggle, like, it’s just gonna whatever, it will sort itself out and then probably, it will be a separate state, or the country, the Government will learn to respect the Tamils and there will be peace … 2009 you’re seeing the armed struggle is about to fail and the imminent massacre of thousands of people.

This activist identified that Tamil political parties and the LTTE had been working to resolve the conflict and he envisioned a resolution in the form of a separate state, or political reforms. However, in 2009 he witnessed enormous changes in the protracted armed conflict, namely, the destruction of the LTTE and the “massacre” of thousands of Tamil people. These unexpected events simultaneously shattered and augmented his existing cognitive, emotional, and moral understandings in relation to the Sri Lankan armed conflict and drove his mobilisation:

I can no longer ignore it and say, I can just help out when I’m older. It’s something that, if I really care about it, I need to bring it into a part of my life and try and do something about it.

The enhanced feelings of “care” expressed here reflect the emotional dimensions of collective identity, namely, “positive feelings” (Polletta and Jasper 2001, 285) or emotions such as “love” and “loyalty” (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2004, 418) towards a broader Tamil community in the face of state-led atrocities. Echoing similar sentiments, activist D described the events of 2009 as “a wake-up call for the entire community.”

Witnessing the final stages of the armed conflict also affirmed activists’ existing understandings and connections. Through family upbringing and narratives, as well as experiences living in, fleeing, and visiting Sri Lanka, activists had pre-existing cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections in relation to their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka. Yet, as activist M stated, “2009 made things a bit more black and white, before it was grey”, thereby affirming and enhancing patchy understandings and connections and serving as a catalyst for action. To further augment their understandings about the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka, activists also attempted to fill gaps in knowledge by reading and probing family members during the final stages of the armed conflict.¹⁶ As activist H (male, early 20s) described, after university lectures he would participate in the marches around London and the demonstrations in Parliament Square, read articles, and ask his Amma and Periamma questions about the armed conflict.¹⁷ These findings resonate with what SMS scholars have written about the fluid and processual quality of collective identity, which can precede, be developed through, and follow collective action (Polletta and Jasper 2001; Snow 2001).

Activists also expressed heightened emotional connections to their families and the wider Tamil community during the final stages of the armed conflict, which was described as an “emotionally difficult” period. To illustrate this, activist X, described the ubiquitous state of interactions within her family, the extra-curricular Tamil school she attended, and the extended Tamil community between late-2008 and early-2009:

It was just this period of like six months, where that was all anyone talked about … I mean if you think about in terms of, like, I dunno, a barber shop film or something, that is the topic of the day, the hour, the month.

Activists described how they were unable to focus on college and university examinations and felt compelled to cut overseas work placements short and cancel pre-arranged summer vacations, so that they could be with their kin during this traumatic period. During the London protests, some activists slept in Parliament Square and others attended throughout the entire 72-day duration, with activist Q stating: “Obviously you’re involved, it’s like your people out there.” The emotional states highlighted here echo notions of “solidarity” or “an identification with a collectivity such that an individual feels as if a common cause and fate are shared” (Hund and Bedford 2004, 439), which is an integral part of collective identity and can inform mobilisation (Polletta and Jasper 2001). Activists often commented “It could have been us” as they reflected on the massacre of Tamils in the North and East of Sri Lanka. This was based on the notion that had their parents not had the resources to flee Sri Lanka decades earlier, they may also have succumbed to the same fate, as activist C acknowledged:

The only reason I’m here, is because my parents were able to, my parents were fortunate enough to have the resources and connections to get out of the North-East, to make a better life for themselves.

Conclusion

The aim of this article was twofold. It sought (1) to challenge criminalising and marginalising approaches to the mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs, specifically, the application of the counterterrorism concept of radicalisation; and (2) to present an alternative non-criminalising framework, informed by SMS to explain and understand YGT mobilisation. Like extant critiques levelled at mainstream radicalisation studies and interrelated institutional policies, this article found little conceptual clarity around the use of the term “radicalisation” when applied to the mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs, issues with validity based on this conceptual ambiguity as well as empirical limitations, and a political agenda, illustrated through criminalising and marginalising aspirations of Tamil self-determination. Instead of viewing the mobilisation and perspectives of YGTs through a narrow criminalising lens, this article offered a shift in perspective by using emotion-based concepts from the field of SMS, to present a rich and complex account of the mechanisms, contexts, and processes surrounding activists’ impetus to mobilise politically.

This article demonstrated how YGT activists experienced a “moral shock” as they were confronted with the unexpected events of 2009 – specifically perceptions of a state-led genocide against the Tamil people and a lack of action and scrutiny from international governments, mainstream news media, and academic figures. The moral shock of 2009 was also indicative of activists’ pre-existing cognitive, moral, and emotional understandings and connections towards their Tamil identities and the ethnopolitical conflict in Sri Lanka, which was informed by family upbringing and narratives and activists’ personal experiences of living in, fleeing, and visiting Sri Lanka. These understandings and connections can be understood as the seedbed of a collective identity, which has the potential to mobilise. The GoSL’s massacre of Tamil civilians and annihilation of the LTTE’s armed resistance against the state had simultaneously shattered, affirmed, and augmented activists’ underlying understandings and connections, thereby crystallising their connection to the broader Tamil community and galvanising action.

The criminalising narrative which characterises academic and institutional discourses and practices relating to Tamil diaspora politics detracts from the political conditions and grievances, which spurred and continues to drive ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. It also constrains and delegitimises the work that Tamil activists continue to do – such as establishing Tamil diaspora advocacy organisations, participating in UN Human Rights Council Sessions, conducting memorialisation initiatives and undertaking litigations against Sri Lankan state officials (Jayasundara-Smits 2022; Orjuela 2018, 2020) – as they strive for justice and conflict resolution in the wake of what has been described as a Tamil genocide. The findings presented here take us beyond dominant articulations of the Tamil diaspora-terrorism nexus by providing a platform for YGT activists, recognising their commitment to human rights principles, and presenting avenues for further engagement and research in this area.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Stuart Whigham for his encouragement and giving valuable commentary on an early draft of this article, to the anonymous reviewers for their generous and insightful feedback, and to the activists who took part in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meena Kandiah

Meena Kandiah, is a Lecturer in Social Sciences with research interests in diaspora politics, [counter]terrorism, state crime, and social movements.

Notes

1. “Eelam” is the ancient Tamil name for the island of Sri Lanka, and “Tamil Eelam” refers to an independent Tamil homeland (Sivathamby 2006).

2. In this article, diasporas are considered to be transnational, political, and “discursively constructed” community networks bounded through collective identities (Adamson 2012, 29).

3. Amarasingam’s monograph (Amarasingam 2015) on Canadian Tamil diaspora activism uses participant observation (the “observer” end of the spectrum) and concepts from SMS to study YGT activism, though an emotion-based framework is not utilised and as the author states, questions relating to mobilisation are not fully addressed.

4. The “Tamil” ethnic group is distinguishable from other Tamil-speaking ethnic groups in Sri Lanka such as “Muslim” and “Up-Country” Tamils based on religious, cultural, and socio-political differences (Wickramasinghe 2014).

5. Approximately 40 Tamil militant groups emerged following Sri Lanka’s independence, which were either eliminated or subsumed by the LTTE (Richards 2014, 13).

6. Concomitantly, the LTTE stands accused of crimes against humanity, specifically, using military equipment in a civilian area, using civilians as a human buffer, killing civilians attempting to flee LTTE-controlled territory, killing civilians through suicide bombings, and the forced labour and conscription of children (PPT 2014; UN 2011).

7. Jayasundara-Smits (2022) has noted some positive shifts in the framing of Tamil diaspora politics in the post-war period.

8. In her study on political identity and the British Tamil diaspora, Rasaratnam (2011) discusses the confluence of individual and social identities and the consolidation of a Tamil collective identity as strategically important in political mobilisation, though the mechanisms and processes through which this confluence occurs are not broached.

9. In this study, “1.5 generation” (Brun and Van Hear 2012, 70) refers to YGT activists who left their country of origin as children (before the age of 12) and settled elsewhere (at least 10 years were spent living outside the country of origin). “Second-generation” refers to activists who were born outside of their parents’ country of origin (Ramakrishnan 2004, 281).

10. London was selected as the fieldwork site due to the political engagement of its Tamil diaspora population (Nadarajah 2018) and limited research regarding YGTs.

11. This research project was approved by the affiliate institution’s Ethics Committee (reference SSC 13/010), and all participants provided informed consent.

12. For example, I travelled to Switzerland for the UN Human Rights Council sessions where YGTs were advocating on behalf of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

13. Canadian and Swiss studies on the political mobilisation of YGTs also highlight media bias and government inaction as motivating factors (Amarasingam 2015; Hess and Korf 2014).

14. The figure of 70,000 appears as an estimate in a UN report (UN 2012, 14).

15. Contrastingly, Amarasingam’s (2015) research on Canadian YGT activism in 2009, argues that many had little knowledge about Sri Lankan history and politics.

16. Amarasingam (2015) has written that the Tamil protests of 2009 in Canada created “sites of socialization” (4), as YGTs were learning about the history of the ethnopolitical conflict from those around them and by conducting personal research.

17. “Amma” is the Tamil word for “mother”, and “periamma” translates as mother’s older sister.