An Uprise...Renegade style!

The destination for the third day of the tour was at the University of Western Ontario. We knew the experience there would be slightly different and a bit more of a challenge as there is no student union on this campus. However we kept it positive and stuck to our objective to educate those we come across.

Initially when we talked to the students on campus many were reluctant to call the whole situation a Genocide. After hearing this we starting talking about the reason why we were touring under the Halt Genocide banner. The rally started a little after noon and it was well attended by a diverse group of student activists from different backgrounds. The group was very energetic and hyped shouting slogans like “Stop the Genocide”, “We want Justice”, “Break the Silence” and so on. I was personally surprised to hear the first slogan because the students transformed from not calling it genocide to yelling Stop the Genocide and the best thing was that it wasn’t just Tamil students voicing this. The whole campus stopped to watch the protesters make their way to the University Campus Center and the chanting did not stop till we entered the building. People working inside the offices of the Campus Center stepped out of their offices to watch the crowd as the youths clearly stated their stance on the issue. The march was followed by some powerful speeches from individuals from different organizations on campus. The crowd was thrilled!

After the event there was a good amount of students engaged in informal discussion groups talking about the genocide. One great success of the day was that the Activist network that we established in London, Ontario is being headed up by a non- Tamil young sister who was very passionate about the struggle and who wants Canada to wake up! We had over 20 volunteers, Tamils and non-Tamils, who were willing to talk about the struggle on camera.

Our next stop was the MP’s office. The MP’s representative was very receptive and promised that he would pass our message to the MP.

All in all it was a great day with a surprising and motivating response from the student body who is stepping up their game and voicing against their own oppression as students without a student union. Good luck to them! As we near the end of the first leg of this tour I hope more ears will hear and more eyes will see the truth and more hands will be raised to put an end to this brutality.

Like Che said "Until Victory always"

~ Minnal Sivan