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The Marking of Tamil Youth as Terrorists and the Making of Canada as a White Settler Society

By G. G. Philipupillai, published in 2013 as a Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto.


This thesis examines the production of Tamil youth in the state of Canada as threats, extremists, radicals, terrorists, and as subjects to be engaged in de-politicized humanitarian discourses of reconciliation and peace. By drawing attention to the exclusion of Tamils from rights in legal proceedings, the positioning of youth protesters as harbingers of a multicultural ‘crisis,’ and the role of education in securing Canada’s response to the MV Sun Sea as a ‘humanitarian’ project, it is argued that targeting Tamils is not only integral to Sri Lanka’s ongoing genocide, but is also crucial to the Canadian state’s project of white settler colonialism. In examining the law, media and education as sites of racial management in the ‘War on Terror’ and its globalized counter-terrorism regime, the targeting of Tamil diaspora youth is identified as a necessary racial logic for the legitimacy of the Canadian state in an era of official multiculturalism.

The Marking of Tamil Youth as Terrorists and the Making of Canada as a White Settler Society

By G. G. Philipupillai, published in 2013 as a Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto.

This thesis examines the production of Tamil youth in the state of Canada as threats, extremists, radicals, terrorists, and as subjects to be engaged in de-politicized humanitarian discourses of reconciliation and peace. By drawing attention to the exclusion of Tamils from rights in legal proceedings, the positioning of youth protesters as harbingers of a multicultural ‘crisis,’ and the role of education in securing Canada’s response to the MV Sun Sea as a ‘humanitarian’ project, it is argued that targeting Tamils is not only integral to Sri Lanka’s ongoing genocide, but is also crucial to the Canadian state’s project of white settler colonialism. In examining the law, media and education as sites of racial management in the ‘War on Terror’ and its globalized counter-terrorism regime, the targeting of Tamil diaspora youth is identified as a necessary racial logic for the legitimacy of the Canadian state in an era of official multiculturalism.

The Marking of Tamil Youth as Terrorists and the Making of Canada as a White Settler Society

August 5, 2025 • YouthREX

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