People may tell many stories, some collected in the streets, or collected from novels and TV broadcasts, silence isn’t deafening. It is, in fact, painfully empty, ears searching children cry or barking dogs, even the slightest creak of sound to register. In its empty sadness comes the roar of tiger, when one looks up to see a fruit bat shoots off from a nearby branch.
There was no choice… The legs needed a walk, and body clock pays little heed to military imposed hours or barricaded days. And so we talked; or, crept, to find something to eat. It, needless to say, is sticking to the shadows of horrible ISIS deeds and thinking whether the end of history has come as I did the scanning for shadowed history. Regular days – irregular, actually, as there was nothing regular or normal about the debacle that we faced.
Suicide bombers
The weeks that followed those Easter Sunday suicide bombs that decimated hundreds of innocents in the space of 30 minutes – went sadly slowly. Every trip out of the house, for anyone was a ride fraught with the fear of the end of history: fear of being in a place selected by the ideology of ISIS. Cannot be supermarkets where scores shopped for rations, it should be places of worship or learning places that discusses the end of history. We can drop the fear of being caught on the road behind a van or motorcycle or car packed with explosives, fear of loved ones not returning home from a simple errand.
While darkness was scary, daytime was uncomfortable. Then came attacks on Muslims. Streets were deserted, shops were shuttered, and checkpoints were everywhere. It was the nationality war all over again, with the perverse comfort of knowing the enemy. It was a senseless act, to the rational empirical mind - ‘an act which rationale no one could grasp’. An event so unexpected by the public; that safety and security dissolved into the smoke-filled ether, carrying with it the hope of peace.
It is irrational to attack Muslims as a punishment to ISIS ideologists. Rationality prevailed with state forces when they searched for ISIS activists. America also faced suicide attacks from Arab religious activists 18 years ago, “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center”. All Americans felt was sheer and utter fear. It changed, tumbling and expanding, growing from dust into something solid, something sad, and something unbelievable and cracking all hearts. It changed. It morphed. It grew until it had no further room to expand and then exploded like those buildings and the freedom Americans hold so dear.
Mistrust and wariness
And we, as Sri Lankans, shall remain, grow, become stronger and better and more; because after many barbarisms for the first time in our long history, an illusion attacked our own soil. Because our refuge, our lives, our homes, and our hearts must by necessity now be contained within a fortress of mistrust and wariness and complete and utter devastation. No not Muslims, not our neighbour, because for the first time, we do not know who is attacking us and why? The freedom and safety and security of our land were shaken to its very core. Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans remember this horrific, unprovoked, unnecessary carnage started on April 21.
We Lankans remember the horrible destruction of Catholic churches and then hideous mob attacks on Muslims in the short term since. We shall struggle to forget those misguided youth, those who failed our people, those who attacked them with no reason or rationale. They, too, are cowards who were compelled to choose the basest means to strike fear into our minds. We must not and we shall not hold them accountable because they did not know what was compelling them. We must learn from the lessons of 9/11 and the terror attack in Paris and elsewhere.
In America, Americans eventually chose to pick themselves and fellow Americans up from the ground, brushed the ash from so many eyes, and rebuilt their world. Lanka must do the same. Sri Lanka must bring its communities together, no matter what race or creed. Of course, these attacks were not against Christians or tourists. These mobs were not against Muslims. They were against the heritage of our nationalities, each and every one of us, and their damage to our mindsets and our morals and our sense of belonging is real – for Sinhala, and Tamil, and Muslim, Burgher, and every other ethnic and religious group. We must unite and face the threat.
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