Ulster Death Toll Reaches 5,000; British Army Blocks Aid To 100,000 Starving Irish

April 23, 2009 - A desperate humanitarian crisis is facing Northern Ireland, where over 100,000 civilians remain trapped in the crossfire between government forces and the Irish Republican Army. Since fighting intensified in mid-January 2009, available reports suggest 5,000 civilians, including at least 500 children, have died, and more than 10,000 have been injured. Despite reports that tens of thousands have managed to escape over the past few days, information from the ground suggests that more than 100,000 civilians are still trapped in the region.

That's what happens when you take this International Crisis Group assessment and replace 'Sri Lanka's northeastern region' with 'Northern Ireland' and 'Tamil Tigers' with 'Irish Republican Army.' I've done this as a kind of thought experiment, to tentatively speculate what Ottawa would look like right now if it were 30,000 Irishmen descending upon Ottawa after months of peaceful mass protests in several Canadian cities for the purpose of urging a more full-throated Canadian response to the crisis.

Coming from an Irish Catholic immigrant family, I feel sufficiently confident to imagine that, by now, unlike the Tamil protesters, my crowd would not be taking pains to put away our offensive banners or limiting our sauciness to the wearing of green jackets, after the fashion of the protesting Tamils. I am more inclined to think that, by now, Parliament Hill would be more likely a smouldering heap of ash and cinders, and there would not be a lamp post from the Byward Market to McKellar Heights without a Canadian politician hanging from it.

I point this out as a way of noticing Canada's good fortune to count among its citizens the largest population of the Tamil disaspora on earth, and also to notice that Canada would have a lot more to bitch about than longer than usual lineups at Tim Horton's lavatories if Paddy's laments were met with the same degree of indifference that has greeted the agony of Canada's Tamils.

That is all. Well not quite all. . .

My chum Jonathon Narvey conducts a similar sort of thought experiment. What if Canadian pollsters started asking the right questions about Afghanistan? And while we're on the subject of the people and what they think, what happens when pollsters ask the right questions of our Palestinian and Israeli comrades? This is what happens: Overwhelming majorities among Palestinians and Israelis say they want a peaceful, negotiated solution, and overwhelming majorities of both Palestinians and Israelis say they want a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, living in peace.

UPDATE: This is now in the National Post, where Kelly McParland gave it the headline: If The Tamils Were Irish, Would We Be Slow To Help? To all the commenters who got the point, thankyou. To the few commenters who are morally incapable of getting the point, and who just don't get what Canada has always been about, let me be clear. These are our people, and these are my people: