News that a shipload of Tamil refugees is steaming towards Canada’s Pacific coast has generated a big debate in Ottawa over what to do with these would-be asylum seekers. Participants are making comparisons to past incidents of this nature. Olivia Chow, an NDP MP, invoked the memory of the Komagata Maru:
“Ms. Chow pointed out that when Canadian officials have turned away a ship with passengers seeking asylum in the past, the results have been tragic. After the Komagata Maru was turned away from Canada in 1914, British soldiers shot 26 of the vessel’s passengers upon its return to India.”
Whether this argument involves the use of history or the abuse of history is a matter of opinion. I’m pleased to see that the Komagata Maru incident is now famous enough for an MP from Toronto to refer to it when speaking to a journalist. That’s very encouraging to me, since the Komagata Maru incident is an important chapter in Canadian history. This news item caught my eye, since I’m currently putting the finishing touchs on a book that, among other things, looks at early Sikh immigration into Canada, with a particular focus on war veterans. The voyage of the Komagata Maru was, in all likelihood, funded by German intelligence agents as a way of weakening the British Empire.
The Past Speaks 