Misplaced Pages

• Speedy Merge and Delete per Nom. - KNM 18:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep The 'Tamils' are linguistically and more ethnically not confined to India. The term 'Americans' are regarding the nationality. And apart, there are also a pretty decent number of articles under the category. So it's fit and unavoidable to keep a seperate category for mentioning the combination of the both. ==> _Д=|Ω|=_{Д Paul} 18:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

*Strong Keep: Hey KNM, stop deleting my vote! Jhnnyrj 19:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC) This template must be substituted.This user is now indef-blocked.

*Keep: What the heck!? My vote got deleted too. Bakasuprman be carefull who you call a sockpuppet. Just because this may be a new account, does not mean that you can delete my vote. Tamilguy07 19:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC) This template must be substituted. This user is now indef-blocked.

• Keep. Tamils are an international population with a very strong and distinct ethnic identity and, with their ongoing oppression and, in some sectors, armed struggle in India and the subcontinent, a very strong political identity as well. Lumping Tamils together with, say Hindu Indians in the U.S. makes about as much sense as shoehorning, say, White South Africans and the Zulus, or the San, all groups living in the U.S. as expatriates, into a group called "South African-Americans" and treating them as a single people. deeceevoice 21:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI< most Tamils are Hindu, and not all Indian's are Hindu. Tamil's are no more special than Azeri people, who dont have their own "-Americans" cat, no more special than Bengali's, and no more special than any other ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent.Bakaman 22:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

And no less special than any other ethnic group anywhere else in the world. If you think there shouldn't be any categorisation of Americans by ethnic origin, start a discussion about that. It makes no sense to treat an ethnic group differently just because some of its members happen to be of Indian origin. -- Ponnampalam 22:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Tamils are multi-religious, and have been seen the dawn of history. Since early times prior to the introduction of Hinduism was Animism. The Hinduism we see amongst Tamils is a mixture of Hinduism and indigenous Tamil Animism with their own Tamil deities such as Murugan, Mariamman, and Koneshwaran amongst many others. There was a time in history when Buddhism and Jainism was practiced amongst Tamils in the Chola and Chera kingdoms which produced poets like Thiruvalluvar (Jain backgound) and Ilango Adigal (Buddhist). Christianity and Judaism was first introduced in Kerala and Tamil Nadu during the 1st century C.E. During the 16th century Catholicism was introduced by the Portuguese and Islam by Moghul influence. When the British came, Protestanism and its other denominations were introduced. So what if Hinduism is the most practiced religion, and Christianity is the second most practiced. During the late 1800s and early 1900s Atheism started taking its course amongst some parts of the Tamil areas and other parts of the Indian sub-continent. It is no wonder why the southern part of the sub-continent is more tollerant of other faiths as compared in Northern India where mosques, temples, and churches are frequently burnt. Lastly, no one ethnic group can be identified by religion. Wiki Raja 22:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Apart from being in immensely bad taste (implying North Indians are intolerant), you fail to note that periyar and legacy furthered by a band of rascals have undermined all this "tolerance". If your definition of tolerance is letting terrorists like Madani run scot free out of jail, then perhaps its "tolerance". The Cham Bolomon are an exclusively Hindu ethnic group, nearly all Balinese are Hindu, all Acehnese are Muslim, etc etc.Bakaman 00:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - their own people group, should have their own designation. Useful. Merging into existing nationalities shows an ignorance of cultural heritage; we don't delete Jewish and say they should instead be German, Polish, etc. The Tamil have their own language and ethnicity. Part Deux 21:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• PS. if you think someone is a sock, please don't delete their !vote. Just tag it with {{spa}}. Part Deux 21:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The Tamil's do not constitute a nation, unlike the Jews.Bakaman 22:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That is your opinion. If you look at the article about Basque people you will see that their status as a "nation" is not different from ours, contrary to what you are claiming. Anyway, this is irrelevant. The head category is called "American people by ethnic or national origin". Are you now going to say that "Tamil" is not an ethnicity either? -- Ponnampalam 22:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There are internal and external nations. Each state in India constitutes an inernal nation. That is why in the Indian constitution states about a federal system with a central government. A nation does not only denote to countries, but can be referred to a group of people within a federated country who have been in existence for thousands of years. In the United States, the Native Americans (or "Red Indians" as some peculiar folks in India like to call them) constitute of many nations within America. For example, we have the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, Crow Nation, etc. Wiki Raja 22:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The Jews constitute a nation? I'm sorry, no they don't. They have Israel, but only since 1948 (should we not allow any people in the Jewish category that died before 1948?). And at that, being Jewish doesn't mean being Israeli. By your argument, then we should merge Category:Jewish people with Category:Israelis. Part Deux 22:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Please note that there are 22 official ethnicities with "their own" languages in India and thousands of unofficial ethnicities with "their own" languages. Tamils are no different than Kannadigas or Telugus or Bengalis in that regard. Now, it will be extremely illogical and utterly impractical to create categories for each and every ethnicity in India if we keep on doing that. Gnanapiti 22:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Tamils are different from Kannadigas and Telugus, because "Tamil" is not only an "Indian" ethnicity (unlike "Kannadiga" and "Telugu" ethnicities). There are also Sri Lankan Tamils, Malaysian Tamils, Singaporean Tamils, and others who identify with very strongly with the same Tamil ethnicity but are not "Indian." In the US, which is what we are talking about, a very significant percentage of the Tamils are not of Indian origin. This is why the ethnicity needs a category. The analogy with Jews which Part Deux gave is very appropriate. -- Ponnampalam 23:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe what Gnana is saying. Now, its post is truly not making any sense. As argued in the past, these 22 officially unrecognized ethnicities fall into three families of ethnicities namely the Dravidians, Indo-Aryans, and the Mon-khmer. What gives one person the right to deprive others of their ethnic recognition? What gives a paranoid society the right to revise history? I get it now, some people out there are afraid that if all these ethnicities get recognized by the public, our precious little India will fall apart. Is that what all this paranoia is about? Get real. Wiki Raja 23:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Deprive? I have been a strong proponent of categorization by ethnicity. Tamils are no more special than other groups like Bengalis, Punjabis, Azeris, Uygurs, all of which do not have categories. Multiethnic countries like India, Indonesia, Iran and others are much better off not having their diaspora or PIO cats split up into an infinite number of useless subcats.Bakaman 00:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Then it is up to them to come up with their own categories too. By whose laws does it say that Multiethnic countries are much better off not having their diaspora? Yours? Why would aditional categories be useless? I only have one thing to say about your baseless posts, POV. Wiki Raja 00:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

A large clutter isnt going to help anyone. And what would you call pushing fringe lunatic theories of a Lemurian space-age Tamil race and trying to pull together various unrelated ethnicities into some sort of Dravidistan? Its obvious that you dislike me because I'm an Iyer.Bakaman 00:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Is this lunatic theory is any more lunatic than 'nuclear' weapons, flying saucers etc mentioned in Mahabharatha and Ramayana?

I am not talking about multiethnic countries, but only about multi-country ethnicities. I think they deserve special treatment, whatever be the principles we apply to multiethnic countries (I am not commenting about that because it isn't relevant to this discussion). -- Ponnampalam 01:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete and Merge with Category:Indian Americans. -- Naveen 21:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

What about Tamil Americans who have no ancestral connection with India? A very significant percentage of Tamil Americans are not of "Indian" origin. -- Ponnampalam 22:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Please read the nomination .Category:Indian Americans is one such category. This category needs to be up merged to the relevant categories such as Category:Indian Americansand Category:Sri Lankan Americans. -- Naveen 22:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I did not make my question clear, sorry for that. My question is why the Tamil ethnicity should be "split" across different categories when the fact is that most Tamil Americans identify strongly with the Tamil ethnicity. Basque Americans are in a very similar position, and they are categorised in a separate category, not as Spanish Americans and French Americans. Why should it be different for Tamils? -- Ponnampalam 23:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I would consider Tamils born in the U.S. Tamil Americans. Also, depending on whether their parents are from, "Indian" and "Sri Lankan" would be considered as their origins. Therefore apart from Tamil being a language, we have the following categories:

• Ethnicity = Tamil
• Nationality = American, Canadian, etc.
• Origins = India, Sri Lanka

• If they are tamils of Canadian nationality, you can use "Cat:Canadian Americans" and "Cat:Tamil people" for the article. For tamils of Fijian nationality, use "Cat:Fiji-Americans" and "Cat:Tamil people" in tandem... and so on and so forth. Thanks. Sarvagnya 01:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• I see no rationale behind this except to reduce the number of categories that recognize Tamil ethnicity. Do you have a NPOV reasoning instead? — coelacan — 02:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• What? So if a Tamil is of Canadian nationality that would make him or her Canadian Americans? And if a Tamils is of Fijian nationality that would make him or her Fiji-Americans? Is that possible? So, basically what you are saying is that half of a Tamils body would have been born in Fiji, while the other half of the body would be born in America? How is that possible? Aren't those two countries kind of far from each other? I can understand if a baby was probably born right on the line of the Mexican and American border. Your statement, as with others, is not making any sense. It is like trying to tell somebody that 2 + 3 = 9. Come on. Wiki Raja 01:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Please see Category:Tamils by country to understand the broader context of this category and the reasons why it exists. It is not a one-off creation. Instead, it is part of an attempt to classify notable members of the Tamil diaspora by the country in which they are located. Also see Category:Tamil diaspora. (I have already voted above, I am adding this separately as a comment) -- Ponnampalam 00:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Azeris come from either Azerbaijan or Iran, they have migrated to many countries, so have Bengalis (India, and Bangladesh) so have Balochis (Iran, and Pakistan) so have Punjabis (India and Pakistan), so have Pashtun (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India), etc,etc. India, Pakistan, Iran, and Indonesia are somewhat quirky and special regions of the world. None of these countries have defined ethnic majority groups (Persians are barely a majority in Iran, but Azeris, Baloch, Arabs and Kurds are huge segments of the population). None of these groups has their own "-Americans" cat, and the Bengali one was deleted anyways.Bakaman 00:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the articles in Category:Baloch people and there is not a single Balochi American written about on Misplaced Pages, so obviously there isn't any category. For Bengalis, I couldn't find any common main category of which Bengalis in different countries were subcategories. Category:Bangladeshi people is not a subcategory of Category:Bengali people and the two are not linked in any way. This and your answer to my question about Bengali cultural institutions seem to say that West Bengalis and Bangladeshis in the diaspora aren't the same community. However, Indian Tamils, Sri Lankan Tamils, Malaysian Tamils and all other Tamils in the diaspora are the same community. So your analogy is completely wrong. The same also applies to the analogy with Azeris. There is no category here including Azeris from different countries. Maybe that is fine for how the Azeris see their identity, but that is not how most Tamils see our identity. -- Ponnampalam 00:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I will try to explain this more clearly. Let us go back to the analogy with Jews. Now assume that the early Jewish immigrants in the United States did not see themselves as one common Jewish community, but as Germans or Russians or Austrians or whatever. In that case, it would have been correct to categorise them under the respective country categories. But because they were in actual fact a Jewish community, categorising them as Jewish Americans is the correct approach. The same applies to Tamils. Because the Tamils in the US from different countries are a definite US Tamil community, categorising them as Tamil Americans is appropriate. If this common community did not exist, that is, if the Tamils were divided on national lines, then on the other hand categorising them only as Indian Americans or Sri Lankan Americans would have been appropriate. -- Ponnampalam 01:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Comparing anything to the Jews is virtually impossible. They are a religious, ethnic, and national group all at once, and belong to all three subcats. Tamil-ism is not a religion, so Tamils are not a religious group, they are not a nation either, and they are loosely an "ethnic" group along the lines of the other 900 or so in South Asia.Bakaman 00:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It is surprising that 3 tamil users try to define how 70 million supposedly see our identity. Bengali cultural institutions are the same among both West Bengal and Bangladeshis. They both revere Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Ishwar Chandra Gupta, etc. They both speak Bengali. The bengali Hindus regardless of national origin congregate together, the Muslims go to a different place. The Category:Bangladeshi politicians is a subcat of Category:Bengali politicians. Tamil Muslims and Christians dont worship at a local "Tamil Abrahamic Religion center", neither do Tamil Hindus and Muslims ,etc worship at the same "Thamizh Dharma Sangha". There are two communitied of tamils in Sri Lanka, those who were there for hundreds of years, and the British Tea Planters. There are also many communities of tamils in Malaysia. Indian Chettiar immigrants, Chitty, and Tamil immigrants and refugees from Sri Lanka. The way we see our identity is irrelevant. Btw, the Jewish people are both an ethnic, national, and a religious group, so analogies to Jewish groups are irrelevant, as Wiki Raja has gleefully pointed out not all Tamils are Hindu.Bakaman 01:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

How do you know there are only 3 tamils trying to defend 70 million. The same argument can be applied to you too (1 tamilians and MANY kannadigas trying to speak for 70 million tamils.

I am not trying to "define" anybody's identity. I am talking about verifiable facts, namely, that Tamils in the United States have formed many common associations, which include Tamils from all countries. This is different from a feeling of revering the same authors or worshipping the same gods. Those are abstract things. This, however, is a concrete fact showing that they are one diaspora community and should be categorised accordingly. -- Ponnampalam 01:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Again what makes them any different from Bengalis, Azeris, Persians, Punjabis, Kashmiris, Balinese, Javanese, or a myriad of other ethnic groups which are part of multiethnic nations that are also "one community"? Bengalis have formed many associations, and the Tamils that are part of Sangams, etc. are almost exclusively Hindu.Bakaman 03:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

That is factually incorrect. Tamil Sangams include Christian Tamils and even some Muslim Tamils from Tamil Nadu. The analogy to Jews is very relevant because as other users have pointed out they are not a national group. Nor, as I pointed out, are the Basques recognised as being a nation any more than Tamils are. Indians are neither an ethnic group nor a religious group - they are only national. If meeting one out of three is sufficient for Indians, Basques and Jews, why not for Tamils?

I don't see any problem with there being a category of Kashmiri Americans. If we can have Basque Americans and Sorbian Americans, we can also have Kashmiri Americans. And you are ignoring my point that I am not talking about multi-ethnic nations, but about multi-national ethnicities. -- Ponnampalam 10:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not ignoring anything, and if you took a second to read my argument you would see

I brought mant maultinational ethnicities to the table. Bengalis, Punjabis, Persians, Azeri are multinational ethnicities as well, but come from countries where there are no defined majority. practically 100% of Tamils are of Indian or Sri Lankan origin, all Bengalis are from India or Bangladesh, all Azeris from Iran or Azerbaijan, etc. The argument has dragged on 1) because of wikiraja's sockpuppetry and trolling, and 2) because you have obviously not read a word of what I typed and pretend like I didnt answer your questions when I have done so countless times.Bakaman 00:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You are very good at insulting people ("playing the ball not the man" as my football-loving great-grandson says). Anyway (1) a lot of other outside users have said the category is kept but maybe all of us are Wikiraja's sockpupptes (2) I will leave it to other users who read this page to judge the extent to which you answer my points and the extent to which you keep repeating the same thing without answering my counterpoints. -- Ponnampalam 13:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Just because I may out-debate some people, they tend to go for the low blows. Three other users who voted to keep this category were crossed out, just because they may be new users or what not. Sockpuppets or not, I have been falsely accused of being those users just for the fact I have spoken up against a lot of misconstrued issues. Users such as Sarvagnya and Gnanapiti have taken the liberty to post blatant warninings on my talk page threatening me to get me blocked. When I have pointed out a confirmed sockpuppet issue from the past about Gnanapiti and Sarvagnya, Aksi great, an administrator, threatens to block me if I ever bring it up again, and thus removed some of my posts. Furthermore, this administrator Aksi great has went to the extent to accuse me of sockpuppetry here, here, and here without doing a usercheck on me. It's amazing how truth hurts. I see no rule against that.

Wiki Raja 21:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Another user, dab, has said above pretty much everything I would say. This is a well defined ethnic group, who do not necessarily identify as Indian (because not all of them are) or Hindu (because not all of them are) or anything else except Tamil. There's a lot of very strong debate that goes on around the Tamil and especially Sri Lankan Tamil topics on Misplaced Pages. No disrespect to Bakaman, but I don't see getting rid of this category as being any kind of measure to help matters. And simply as a matter of encyclopedic accuracy, we need to make the differentiation. — coelacan — 02:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

There are many other well defined ethnic groups that for good reason lack a category. The PErsian ethnic group in Iran lacks an "-American" cat, and there are persian associations, Bengali associations, etc in the US. Multiethnic nations (especially those with no majority) do not need every ethnic group in their dominion getting their own cat. If onew looks at WP:OCAT you can see that the Tamil cat overlaps totally with either Indian Americans or Sri Lankan Americans. Bengali overlaps with Indian and Bangladeshi, Punjabi with Pakistani and Indian, Azeri with Azerbaijani and Iranian.Bakaman 03:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Coelacan - "...do not necessarily identify as Indian... or Hindu ... or anything else except Tamil." - if they arent Indians, then dont worry about the Cat:Indian American cat. If they arent Indian, they must be something. May be Malaysian, Canadian, Chinese, Pakistani or Srilankan. In such cases, simply feel free to use an appropriate category from what already exists for those countries in tandem with Cat:Tamil people. Simple. Sarvagnya 03:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, but by the same reasoning, we should not have Category:Cherokee people, and they should all be upmerged to the US people's category. In fact, this argument would result in the complete deletion of Category:Tamil people; since they have no nation, they should be upmerged to Sri Lankan people or Indian people? But no, this would be intolerably POV. If we recognize that Category:Tamil people should exist, and it must, then there's no excuse for watering it down over at Tamil Americans. We don't categorize simply by geography, we take ethnicity into account as well. Your proposal would eliminate recognition of an ethnic group. Moreover, it is politically POV as well. What about Tamil Americans from the LTTE-controlled areas of Sri Lanka, who don't recognize Sri Lanka as one political entity? It would be POV to force them into a "Sri Lankan Americans" category against their own self-description. I'm sorry, this proposal is unworkable and unacceptable. — coelacan — 02:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

What nonsense, ethnic+immigrant cats are entirely different than ethniccats. This woul;d not result in any sort of deletion of Category:Tamil people, and it is rabid paranoia and a loss of intelligence to assume anything like that would happen.Bakaman 01:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Merge or Delete - Merge with existing Cat:Indian American or delete it. There is no shortage of ethnicities in India and the world in general. We dont want thousands of ethnic "cats" running around.Dineshkannambadi 02:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you please explain what is meant by "We dont want thousands of ethnic "cats" running around"? Who exactly is we supposed to be? Also, are these ethnic "cats" supposed to be in a cage then? Wiki Raja 02:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

No we send them to Lemuria.Bakaman 03:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

See Straw man. What is the connection between the Kumari Kandam myth and the existence of a Tamil community? -- Ponnampalam 10:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"...are these ethnic "cats" supposed to be in a cage then?..." - Yes the Dravidian kittens in Srilanka atleast need to be put in cages and put to sleep. Sarvagnya 03:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

That comment was somewhat in bad taste. Tamils in Sri Lanka have suffered, in fact I know people who fled from Black July.Bakaman 03:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The comment was specifically about LTTE, not innocent Tamils(who surely exist and suffer). These kittens are terrorists(nothing more, nothing less) and deserve to be culled like the rest(of the terrorists). LTTE has caused as much suffering to Tamils as Islamic terrorists have caused innocent Muslims. They are an embarassment for Indian tamils except the Lemurian kind. Not to mention, their alleged extortions from Tamils in UK and Canada. Comment is certainly not in bad taste. Sarvagnya 03:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

What does that political, racially motivated statement have to do with this discussion? Please explain. Just because the Indian army lost 1000 of its soldiers in Sri Lanka after raping Tamil women and shooting up a hospital in Jaffna during the late 1980s, doesn't give anyone the right to hate Tamils and speak of murdering them. Wiki Raja 04:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? 1k Tamils died, and after the Indian government put pressure on the Sinhalese, the fighting magically stopped. Your allegations of Indian army members raping Tamil women and blowing up hospitals is totally unfounded and smack of Indophobia.Bakaman 04:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

So all this "magically" stopped? For the time being, until the IPKF ended up fighting the war. Your statement is very uncalled for. FYI, Amnesty International has reported the rape of Tamil women by the IPKF in its annual report in 1988. In 1989, Amnesty International came out with another report of hundreds of disappeareance committed by the IPKF as well as the Sri Lankan forces for their annual report of 1989. Several reprisal attacks on Tamil civilians by the IPKF including the the Velvaturai hospital massacre at the hands of the IPKF were also reported in the Amnesty International annual report for 1990. So, please do not tell me that all the fighting "Magically" stopped when the IPKF went in to save the Tamils. That is a slap in the face to many. Wiki Raja 05:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, another thing, please do not give me this indophobia story. We all know in the U.S. that during the Vietnam War there was the Mai Lai massacre committed by some of the American troops. But, that does not make us Americaphobic if we talk about it. That is a part of our U.S. history. I do not know how things are run in India, but out here in the U.S. we do not alter or hide our history. Wiki Raja 05:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I came up with this category not as a political statement about Tamils as an seperate ethnic group outside of an Indian identity but as a clerical category to be able to group diverse Tamil diaspora people of different Tamil ethnic origins to be categorized by different countries. I hope we can avoid the perenial arguments and unfound fears about the alleged Tamil seperateness from the general Indian identity away from these discussions as it is simply a clerical category. Even Tamils from Sri Lanka are originally from India. That cannot be denied but they have their own identity now so do Tamils from Malaysia. For example if Miss.XYZ is an Indian Tamil writer from the USA. Why cant we have her categorized as Tamil American, Indian American, Tamil writer etc ? what's wrong with that ? ThanksRaveenS 03:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"Indian American" shows that she's from India and that she is in America. "Tamil writer" and/or "Tamil people" is more than sufficient to establish her 'Tamil'ness. Then, what on earth is "Tamil American" for? Sarvagnya 03:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

What is it for? Perhaps for recognizing that people do not give up their ethnicity when they pack up their bags and get on a plane. — coelacan — 02:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Which is why we categorize the person by ethnicity and profession, if that escaped you.Bakaman 03:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Merge and Delete. Sarvagnya 03:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

comment My comment on ethnic "cats" was not meant to be derogatory. There is enough turbulence in the world already, most of it caused by "political exclusivity" and subregionalism. The lesser we have it the better. The cat:Tamil American makes Tamils exclusive with a linguistic identity in an otherwise English speaking country. I dont think this is right.Dineshkannambadi 04:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Once again, Tamil is not only a language, but an ethnicity as well. The United States is home to hundreds of ethnicities from all over the world. Just because there is turbulence all over the world doesn't mean that we must try to stop ethnic groups from being known. That is how wars get started in the first place. I hope I am making sense. Wiki Raja 04:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually it does not. Tamil is a language, not an etnicity. It is construed to be an ethnicity based on language.Dineshkannambadi 04:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me, but I am beginning to sense Anti-Tamil hatred in this discussion. First, we have Sarvangya's message making a joke about killing Sri Lankan Tamils. And next, you are saying that we are not an ethnic group. So, if Tamils are not an ethnic group, I suppose that Kannadigas are an ethnic group as stated on this page? Wiki Raja 04:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing anti-Tamil about what I wrote. I cant change how you feel. There is no shortage of fabulous topics and articles to write about, pertaining to Tamil people, their rich culture and history. User:Venu (Parthi) has been an inspiration to me and I think you should take that path too, instead of wasting your energy on such futile tags, cats etc. I wish you the best and want to log of this topic and focus on more important articles. Again, I hold no malice against you.Dineshkannambadi 14:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Directly or indirectly? Wiki Raja 22:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

To Bakasuprman: Since you didn't give me a chance to finish, but instead reported me for a personal attack, I will finish what I was going to further say. I do not appreciate being accused of disliking anyone because of their social or so called caste status. If that was the case, I would not have contributed a Tamil Brahmin external site to this page. However, it was removed by Sarvagnya here. Also, what is wrong with this picture? We have categories for Bengali Brahmins, Telugu Brahmins, and Malayalee Brahmins. What happened to the category or page for Tamil Brahmins? I do not see you raising any issues about this. In regards to the Kannadiga group, I have personally created some Kannadiga ethnicity templates here. I have done the same for other groups out of repsect and to promote their ethnicities. But, sadly, we have a few bad apples. Wiki Raja 04:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Very nice discussion. Very enlightening, too. But, really, should we really start categories for every tiny fragment of ethnic identity - Candian Christian Tamils from Shrilanka or UK Bengalis from the Sylhet District in Bangladesh - unless there is a valid reason, and thus clutter up Misplaced Pages? I know, we can't fit everyone fit perfectly into larger ethnic categories, and a lot of relevant identity statement may go missing from the category, but that's what the articles are for. And, can we, please, keep the Indian Army out of this discussion? Aditya Kabir 06:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's consider the merits of this particular category instead of inventing straw men. Misplaced Pages has a Neutral Point of View policy. We also have a Category:Sri Lankan Americans. But there are some Tamil people who are supporters of the Tamil Eelam, and to describe these people as being identified by the political entity of Sri Lanka is blatantly POV. Category:Tamil Americans solves that problem in an NPOV way. They're Tamil, they're Americans, all's well. — coelacan — 06:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

But there are some Tamil people who are supporters of the Tamil Eelam, and to describe these people as being identified by the political entity of Sri Lanka is blatantly POV.

No. Infact, it is your argument that is POV. Tamil Eelam is not any legal entity. It is run by a ragtag bunch of outlawed bandits posing as a government. No responsible government anywhere in the world accords their so called 'government' any legitimacy. And there is no reason Misplaced Pages should be an exception. For example, there may be some Afghans who are sympathetic to the Taliban and the Taliban may continue to hold on to petty little fiefdoms in Afghanistan even as of today. That doesnt mean Misplaced Pages take a sympathetic stance towards Taliban. To solve your problem of terrorist sympathisers among Tamil Americans, we can make use of the Cat:LTTE or Cat:Tamil Eelam or Cat:Srilankan terrorists that already exist(infact, those cats need some cleaning up too). Also your logic is strange. If srilankan tamils in US who are sympathetic towards LTTE are to be brought under Cat:Tamil Americans, what about Tamil Americans who dont want to have anything to do with them? You'd be tarring them with the same brush. Sarvagnya 21:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to pull a couple of skeletons out of the closet. However, it was Sarvagnya who first sarcastically mentioned about the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka which has nothing to do with what we are talking about. His rash statement only shows the negative violent nature of the message directed towards Tamils. Wiki Raja 07:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep. My original points in Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_March_5#Category:Keralite_americans stand. But I am voicing stronger support for both these categories on the basis of categories like Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans and such. Each state in India has a very distinct culture, ethnicity and language. --vi5in 21:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep - Why should not Tamil Americans have a category, just like Irish-Americans or German-Americans? This is about their Tamil heritage, not which nation-state their parents were citizens of or what politics they adhere to. --Orange Mike 23:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• From the Category:Irish-American

This category includes articles on people who (or whose ancestors) emigrated from the U.S to Ireland.

• From Category:German-American

German-Americans are American persons of German birth or ancestry.

• Now, can you please show me where on earth you have a country called "Tamil-Land"?? Germany is a country. Ireland is a country. German-Americans and Irish-Americans are Americans who(or their ancestors) emigrated to America from one of those two countries. Tamil Americans on the other hand are of Tamil ancestry only insofar as their mother tongue is Tamil. As for the place/country of origin, it is in an overwhelming number of cases one of either India or Srilanka. And we already have Cat:Indian-Americans and Cat:Srilankan-Americans. Sarvagnya 01:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

This is just proving my point. Category:Irish-Americans includes people not only from the territory of the Republic of Ireland, but also ethnic Irish people from Northern Ireland which is in the UK. See John Hughes (archbishop) as an example. There are dozens of others. So contrary to what you said, Category:Irish-Americans is not a category of people who emigrated to the US from the country Ireland. Instead, it is a perfect example of a category which is not linked to a modern country, but to an ethnic group which lives in more than one country!

And what about Category:Basque Americans? There is no country called "Basqueland", just an autonomous region in Spain and a few districts in France - exactly the same situation as Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka with the Northern and Eastern Provinces! -- Ponnampalam 11:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Most Irish-Americans and most German-Americans are descended from people whose ancestors emigrated to the U.S. when there was no country called Ireland, or Germany! What is now "Ireland" was part of the United Kingdom; what is now "Germany" was a morass of kingdoms, principalities, bishoprics, duchies, etc.; and the boundaries of neither ethnic group match the boundaries of the nation-states marked by those names. You picked the worst possible examples! Tamils are an ethnic group, not a set of citizenship papers. Your POV is showing, Sarvagnya. --Orange Mike 01:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

But were not talking about history, were talking about now. Tamils are one of many multinational ethnic groups in South and Southeast Asia, and are part of countries with no ethnic majority. Germany was united by Bismarck over a hundred years ago. Since you obviously cant argue with a present day ethnic group/naitonal group/religious group your argument holds no water. And if you're wondering I am Tamil, so allegations of ethnocentrism or "Racial bias" hold no water either.Bakaman 03:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm Tamil too, and I disagree with you, Bakasuprman. Someone saying whether they are Tamil or not, to get their POV across does not hold water either, so what is your point? Wiki Raja 05:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Saying you are Tamil too does not mean all Tamils are agreeing with you. All I see here is you (Tamilian?) and a bunch of Kannadians (who have ongoing dispute with Tamilians in areas such as Cauvery water sharing etc. see these 1 2) oppose MANY Tamilians (and a handful of other people). Praveen 14:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

And I'm of European ancestry and I live in the USA. What does any of this matter? Who cares where Bakaman or Wiki Raja is from? Must we go down this tangent? — coelacan — 01:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

And what say you of Category:Palestinian-Americans? They don't have a country so they can't have a category? It is a politicial viewpoint that says that all Tamil people are either Sri Lankan or Indian. "Sri Lankan" as in "of the island of Sri Lanka", perhaps, but "Sri Lanka" is also a political entity, a government, that some Tamils in the Tamil Eelam areas do not recognize. Parts of that area are de facto controlled by the LTTE. To say that those who come from those areas and do not recognize the rule of the political entity should nevertheless be labelled by the name of an entity they do not recognize is to silence their voices. That viewpoint is not exactly uncontroversial, and I haven't seen anyone address this problem yet. In fact I wonder what's the point of deleting this category in light of this fact? It's odd to find such determined insistance against the visibility of an ethnic group. I would think it particularly odd if someone were insisting that Category:Palestinian-Americans should be merged into Category:Israeli-Americans. This would seem to have the same kind of effect. I'm sure that wasn't your intention, Bakaman. But I'm afraid it would be the unintended consequence. — coelacan — 04:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

but "Sri Lanka" is also a political entity, a government, that some Tamils in the Tamil Eelam areas do not recognize. - whether terrorists and their sympathisers choose to recognise a democratically elected govt., or not is besides the point. Scores of countries recognise SriLanka. The United Nations does. The SAARC does. Sorry. Misplaced Pages cannot be expected to conjure up a nation state for them out of thin air. And in any case, like I've already pointed out, we have categories for LTTE, Srilankan terrorists, Eelam etc.,. Just because a certain population is deluded is no reason to create superfluous categories. Sarvagnya 04:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

And btw, your example of Palestinian-Americans is not a very good analogy. The more commonsense counter for that would be Eelam-Americans. If you so wish, go ahead and create that cat., and pray that you can actually find articles to categorise under that. Sarvagnya 04:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no Tamil Government Coelacan unlike Hamas and the PLO.Bakaman 04:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Really? Then who controls Kilinochchi? The Kotte government, or the LTTE? — coelacan — 01:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

That's quite a tangential argument, noting the fact LTTE is called a terrorist group in America, and not recognized by any country as a legitimate government. Moqtada al Sadr controls part of Baghdad, doesnt make him a government. The Palestine Government has Gaza and the West Bank to "govern" and at least the PLO is regarded as a legitimate entity.Bakaman 01:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment Just because LTTE is using terror tactics doesn't mean that there is/was no oppression by 'democratically' elected government in Srilanka/Eelam. It also doesn't mean other innocent Tamils do not want a Freeland. The point here is that there are many Americans who would fit Tamil-Americans rather than other categories. And, moreover this category will definitely be a valuable navigation tool (which is the main intention of having a category). BTW: you have started a category called Mauritian-Hindus (See here). By your logic above, is there a 'Hindu' Government? Praveen 14:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment People are claiming that there is no "Tamil" or "Kerala" government, and that we should club it all under "Indian". What about Sicilian-Americans? Sicily is an autonomous region of Italy, but not a country in its own right. Using the logic of the people against having a separate category for Tamils and Malayalees, we should Merge Sicilian-Americans into Italian-Americans. In India people identify themselves as Indian, but also have a very strong identity of being Malayalee, or Tamilian, or Marathi, or Punjabi, and so on. Simply clubbing everyone into "Indian Americans" would ignore this. --vi5in 16:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Some of these topics being discussed are irrelevant, they only provide diversion from the issue. Category:Tamil Americans should be allowed as precedent has already been set, with categories for Basque-Americans, Sicilian-Americans, and especially Scots-Irish Americans. Tamil has as a long or longer history of independent identity and sojourns in other countries. If the other categories are allowed, then so should Category:Tamil Americans (as well as other ethnic identities, i.e. Keralite/Malayalee Americans being discussed at ) Kathanar

Keralite Americans was merged. Scots-Irish are a religious majority in Northern Ireland, named so because they are ethnically Irish, but proclaim the religion of the Scots. I think Sicilian Americans should be deleted as well, and if any of you wishes to CFD it, that would be your prerogative. The existence of some bad cats does not excuse the creation of others. On Praveen's note, we are not discussing religion at all, and religion is absolutely irrelevant to the arguments noted here and are tangential to the issue. And are you suggesting umpteen "navigational tools" for the infinite number of ethnic groups in South, SE, and SW Asia? The Tamils are not alone in being an ethnic group in South Asia without a cat. Infact none do, not Sinhalese or Persian (majority groups), not Punjabi, not Baloch, not Pakhtun (multinational groups). The Sri Lankan cat only means people with ancestry from the island of Lanka, it does not automatically mean Sinhala, as Lakshman Kadirgamar and Yogaswami and others cwould note.Bakaman 00:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Its not a category with one or two members to warrant your 'umpteen/infinite' rationale. There are enough members in that category to argue that the category is useful navigation tool. And your creation of a category with religious connotation all the while opposing a valid category just proves POV pushing. Praveen 02:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Merge This debate cannot be resolved. Both sides have valid arguments. My viewpoint on this is that as long as a person is in India, he can be classified according to his ethnicity. But if he is outside India, he should only be classified as being of Indian heritage. Or we will start having categories like Tamil-Singaporeans, British-Gujuratis. NRI's who speak a particular language can be categorized as being Tamils or Malayalis. On the debate regarding Sicilian-Americans, I think it should be deleted on these lines.--Agεθ020 (ΔT • ФC) 00:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep A valid supra-natural ethnic group as Basques, Huguenots, Arabs, Jews etc. the supracategory page is named ETHNIC and national groups for cases as these. Mayumashu 02:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)