One year after Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka

Last year, we were on Easter holidays in a peaceful Scotish countryside cottage when we heard the horrible news of a series of bomb blasts in Colombo mainly targeting churches and hotels. Bewildered, we were wondering who could scoop down to the level of killing innocent devotees of any religion on a sacred day. First, we looked around to see if our Christian friends were safe and were relieved that all of them were in different places at that time. Then we came to know that it was a series of suicide attacks by an extremist group linked to Daesh. In Sri Lanka, about 70% of the population are Buddhists with about 12% Hindus, 10% Muslims, and 6% Roman Catholics. But, if you visit Sri Lanka during Christmas time, you would not think that only 6% are Roman Catholics. The entire country takes a festive mood. Though there have been isolated conflicts and agitations between various extremist religious groups, there has never been a threat of this nature against any religion in peace time.

As a Buddhist who practices regular meditation, this was a testing time for me. I was watching how despair, frustration, and anger were raging inside me. I wanted to find out why youth who were involved in this coordinated attack were from middle and upper middle-class Muslim families. What could have transformed them to be such extremists in a relatively peaceful country that came out of a violent civil war just 10 years ago? My anger crossed the red line at some point that prompted me to write a Tweet that proposed to build local heavens of soft robotic women that can provide unlimited sexual service to those who want it right here on earth, so that nobody has to kill anybody to get it in heaven or to justify sexual desire with religious purity. I felt very sorry about it later and deleted it. Sex can be a major driver to radicalize a young man, but there can be other compelling causes such as generalized hatred based on traumatic experiences or fixed political views that can radicalize a youth as we can see in other similar groups with different religious backgrounds. It took me few days to come to my senses, but such was my anger.

Looking back after one year, anger in front of adversity is very natural. What is dangerous is our tendency to generalize due to collective trauma. It took me a lot of time to re-shape my anger to an empathy towards the affected Christians and to a realization that firm gripping on to fixed views can take a human mind to the level those suicide bombers fell down to. The realization that it can also happen to me if I hold on to fixed views that generalizes anger towards innocent masses of people helped to re-settle to a peaceful mind. However, it took many meditation sessions and effort. How can somebody else cope with the situation?

I think collective grief with compassion to the affected community while allowing the course of justice to deal with perpetrators is a powerful method. For this to happen, the law enforcement mechanism should stand robust and fearless to bring the culprits to justice. In Sri Lanka, there was a lot of ball passing among the leadership after this event that drove people to take the law to their own hands. A lot of innocent Muslim families were attacked by mobs with impunity reminding the 1983 pogrom that killed many Tamils in Colombo while the Government was looking away. Luckily, for Sri Lanka, civil society movements came to the rescue to promote reconciliation. This reminded us the value of collective wisdom and civil movements who can address the masses when the government is defunct in front of ethno-centric Nationalism.

I was also happy to see a lot of reflection and dialog happening within the Sri Lankan Muslim community to be more organized to detect extremism growing in local communities. This dialog should ideally happen among all religious groups because even Buddhists are not free from extremist groups.

We all can learn from how Rwanda recovered after the Genocide. They introduced regular village level meetings that addressed tensions among communities before they grew out of control. In fact, this is something even Buddha recommended to Lichchavi communities in ancient India.

Finally, as a Buddhist, let me point out what Buddha recommended to communities to maintain peace through recurrent reconciliation. In Anguttara Nikaya 2.21, Bala-pandita Sutta, Buddha recommends a process of reconciliation called “patisaraniya kamma”. The objective of this process is to re-establish trust that goes beyond just forgiveness. For instance, two parties to conflict can weigh their wrong doings against each other and decide to forgive. It doesn’t mean that they will trust each other not to repeat it again. Buddha said that trust can only be established if all parties honestly look inside themselves to notice their contribution to the conflict. “I did this because that person did that” is not enough. Confess that “I did this” and openly say that to the other. This simple act of honesty has the power to bring in a sense of ease that uproots the causes of anger and ill-will in others. Then, turn around and pardon the other who confesses. When local communities practice patisaraniya kamma on a regular basis, what they have to discuss become very mild. Things do not get a chance to grow out of control.

UN commomoration:

BBC documentary:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000h3hh/terror-in-paradise