In the rhythm of their sarees we heal generations of trauma, we remember a community dispossessed, we honour mothers still resisting and we celebrate the fire of our Tamil identity.

As a Tamil Canadian feminist I am disappointed with the disconnect diaspora feminists have to women in Eelam. Working for equal pay, ending the double standards with the sexualisation of women and fighting shadeism is important, however they are as urgent as the issues that Tamil women in Eelam face - the daily threat of being raped by the Sri Lankan military, girls being harassed or kidnapped when they walk to school and the community’s stigmatization of war widows and rape victims. This idea that if you are talking about Tamil women issues back home you are a terrorist, is insulting.

In September 2009, my <em>appa</em> returned to Australia. He had survived the last five months of the civil war in northern Sri Lanka. More than 70,000 others had not. The war ended in May 2009, yet it had taken him five long and tense months to make it back to us.