World Policy Journal
Volume XX, No 4, Winter 2003/04

Tigers in the Alps
Ramachandra Guha ^*

 

On the outskirts of the ancient Swiss town of Bern lies an open space traditionally used as an allmend, or collective pasture; acres and acres of grass set against a dramatic backdrop of rocky hills. Every year, in August, this Swiss field is colonized for a weekend by a crowd of Tamils. Some are resident in Bern, others come from Zurich and Lucerne, still others from the Netherlands, Germany, and England. But they all came, originally, from the northern districts of Sri Lanka, and many still hope one day to return there. That, the civil war in their island does not yet permit; hence this annual get-together in Bern, where four or five thousand Tamils gather to underline and affirm their spirit of community.

When I went to the Bern allmend two summers ago, the weather was wet, but the celebrations were unaffected. The food, the music, the exuberant colors that the people wore and which also adorned the shops: to collectively describe these the English word "festival" seems somewhat antiseptic. Indeed, so completely Tamil was the atmosphere that a Swiss friend who accompanied me to the allmend quietly left after half an hour. It was here that I began my encounter with a remarkable and little-known exile community. In the cities and cantons of Switzerland, I met and interviewed people of great charm yet possessed of a resolute, even chilling, commitment to their violent struggle for liberation. It is far from clear how, or whether, Sri Lanka's civil ordeal will end, but talking with these Tigers in the Alps provides a cautionary sense of the abyss that has to be bridged.

There are 45,000 Tamils in Switzerland, a number more significant than it might at first appear. For there are less than 3.5 million Tamils in Sri Lanka. And there are only about 6 million Swiss. Thus, one in every 80 Sri Lankan Tamils lives in Switzerland. Some live in isolated villages, but most in the cities of the north. In parts of Zurich and Bern one in every 20 residents is Tamil.

How did so many Tamils get so far? They came, in the first instance, fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka. This is a conflict as bloody and brutal, and as apparently incapable of resolution, as the troubles in Palestine and in the Kashmir valley. In 20 years of war, an estimated 70,000 people have lost their lives. Perhaps five times that number have fled, seeking refuge in India, Australia, Canada, and the countries of Western Europe.

*Ramachandra Guha is a historian and columnist living in Bangalore. His books include Environmentalism: A Global History and The Picador Book of Cricket.