The Dharma Deepa is the best place to be in this moment of spiritual agony. The outburst of sweeping security measures, the multiple civil society and religious responses of social healing and charitable support are the nation’s immediate, reflexive, responses to last Sunday’s horror and tragedy.
But, even as we respond to the needs of the survivors and of the security of society, economy and polity, as a national community we are still stunned by what happened on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019. The nation remains stupefied by the suddenness of the violence, its sheer bloodiness and, its vicious laceration of a faith community’s moment of human bonding in celebratory joy.
The Catholic community led by the Cardinal and the clergy, have set an exemplary precedent by their measured reactions to the heinous acts of terror that desecrated their most holy places last Sunday. The message has been consistently one of peace rather than vengeance, love rather than hate and forgiveness even for those who brought horror and sorrow to the community. Some Christians even went to the Kollupitiya mosque last Friday, keeping watch outside to ensure devotees could engage in a shortened prayer time peacefully. Their response has been the best answer to the Easter Sunday terrorists who sought to divide and anger people through their brutality. By handling the violence in the way that they have, even through their grief and sorrow, the Catholics of Sri Lanka are living Christ’s doctrine. They are shining lights in a country blackened and tortured again by senseless violence.
After a week’s emergency responses, our first reflections on what happened last Sunday will be the start of our own mental and spiritual recovery after that moment of severe disorientation. Now is the moment we begin to consider, at first, tentatively, the deeper societal implications of this traumatic incident.
The swift response of the police and the security forces, the rescue and medical services, and, the people in general, resulted in order and public calm being restored relatively quickly. Despite some minor inefficiencies, overall the public services must be complimented for their disaster mitigation operations.
At the same time, the launch by the security forces of countrywide security measures resulted in the prevention of even more bomb attacks. The investigative capacities of the police and specialised agencies were demonstrated by the speed with which detections of weaponry and explosives caches were uncovered and hideouts of the attackers and their modus operandi identified. It was noteworthy that within hours of the bombings additional attacks were thwarted and the suspects arrested.
Within hours, the whole world knew of the identities of the bombers, their organisational attributes and the scale of their operations.
It is also noteworthy that the Muslim community, from top to bottom, has been swift in co-operating with the authorities and investigators in providing information and intelligence. While this country has experienced many such urban terror bombings as well as political repression in the past, the quick investigative success in relation to the Easter bombings was rarely seen before.
However, the drastic security-intelligence failure in detecting and preventing the attacks requires thorough investigation too. This country simply cannot afford such gross security failures. It is to be hoped that both the special inquiry now launched, as well as the internal institutional assessments undertaken will reveal the fault lines and address the systemic weaknesses and human resource lapses.
The toxicity of this kind of violent human mobilisation is so great that all Sri Lankans must unite in the effort to dig out the poison from our social and political fabric. The security forces and police need the public’s fullest co-operation in this endeavour. At the same time, the political authorities must restrain any penchant to manipulate the counter-insurgency operations for partisan political gain. It is when the security forces come under political pressure and manipulation that indiscipline and corruption sets in and human rights are abused.
Such maladministration will slow down or even undermine the counter-insurgency effort.
The twisted religious rationalisations that fuel such bestial ethno-religious militancy need rigourous study and countering. All ethnic and religious communities must reflect on their inner social being to root out pulses of ethno-centrism, supremacism and triumphalism that could possibly manifest themselves in such pathological behaviour. Now must be a time of introspection, spiritual renewal and revived social discipline.
It is up to the country’s political managers and political leadership in general to steer the nation in this direction.
Those who seek to exploit this moment of national tragedy for political ends, they too shall be judged most harshly. This is a moment for reflection and healing, coupled with long-term vision to root out the menace of terrorism that threatens our island again. This is not the time for jingoism and triumphant ‘I told you so’s’. Politicians on all sides have tried to rise above during the crisis. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, for the most part, has tried to be a responsible Opposition Leader and most of his troops have fallen in line. But there are others, who seek to use this moment, when the people are fearful and grieving, to get a political foothold or rekindle presidential dreams. They are quite simply, not fit to lead.