Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

21 July  2019

Easter Bombings – Insiders and Outsiders

Today, two articles about the Easter Bombings came to my attention. One was by the Australian under the heading [Sri Lankan bomb impact ‘felt like electric shock’]. The other was by Ceylon Today under the heading ‘We Shall Not Forget’.

The Australian article is at surface level and how individual victims were affected by what happened. The Ceylon Today article is about Policy failures. Australian support would help the Australian victims heal faster than their Sri Lankan counterparts due to weaker commitment to  Policy by the Sri Lankan Government, relative to the Australian Government.

Reading the Australian article brought back my experience as an individual when my daughter and husband were seriously injured while crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing. At community level, my mind was filled by my direct experience with victims of the bombings of the ethnic war in 2009. Most of those with whom I shared were Tamil civilians.  Some were children to whom I listened with my heart – as if they were a part of me – a part that had no voice of its own.

In its article - Ceylon Today states [Three months later, we are still grieving. The pain hasn’t lessened. It never will. But it has now been replaced by another emotion:  anger.

During the last three months dozens of suspects were rounded up, several groups identified as harbouring extremist views have been banned. The President appointed a committee to probe the incident , and the committee appointed by parliament is still conducting investigations. Former IGP Pujith Jayasundara and Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Hemasiri Fernando were arrested by the CID and later released on bail.]

Yes, my pain in the family experience is as intense as it was 30 years ago if I recall just the accident details. But it is far less anxiety prone when I recall with those details – my own contribution towards prevention – after knowing what can go wrong even on a pedestrian crossing, where the pedestrian has the right of way. It is our personal contribution to prevention and protection that protects us from anxiety that we felt when we had lesser credit with prevention and protection systems.

Jermayne, who responded to theAustralian article also identifies with this in her/his own way:

[The developed world must not forget about the developing world ( third world).
Lets start with airports. On a recent visit to Singapore from Melbourne I noticed some high tech scanners in operation in both airports. The check points and procedures were similar. However, if one visits a country like Sri Lanka none of these extremely high tech scanners and procedures are present. How does this protect our citizens who visit or any citizen for that matter? Sadly, it doesn’t.
Similarly, local laws in each country, domestic training in terms of intelligence etc to protect people from this menace vary across the globe. Analogous to global warming matters, there needs to be a united  and uniform effort to ameliorate the impact of terrorism on humans. ]

Recently a Sri Lankan argued with me that using  Pythogorean  theorem and a manual measure could not be directly related. I said that by purpose they were common. Likewise measuring pain at emotional level and at common level.

When I learn about similar accidents to Australian individuals – I do feel pain but not the anxiety that it might happen to me again. My ‘projected vision’ is now based on my true experience not only of the direct damage but also my contribution to its prevention. I now know also that I was able to draw on the Australian system’s true contribution to healing and recovery as if I made that contribution.

Non-Tamils known to me did not express feelings for Tamil victims of war  - the way they are expressing in the case of Easter bombings  pain as if it was theirs. Hence one is entitled to conclude that they are ‘outsiders’ to the victims of the Sri Lankan ethnic war. Likewise Tamils who overwhelmingly identified with the victims of the 2009 battle – demonstrated weaker identity with Easter Bombings’ non-Tamil Sri Lankan victims.

This means that if they think they are Sri Lankans – they are part of the problem. When driven by benefits – we tend to divide and separate.

Ceylon Today highlights this as follows:

‘The Executive President of this who is the Head of State, Head of Government – Head of Cabinet of Ministers and Commander- in- Chief of the Armed Forces who is also the Minister of  Defence as well as Minister of Law and Order – did not even once apologize to the nation for the failure to safeguard them.’

The duty of the Governor in President’s position – is to facilitate the nation to see itself through its truth. If therefore the President did not feel responsible – it was his duty to show that and he did.  Ceylon Today continues as follows:

[The Prime Minister, however, apologized to the nation for the failure to prevent the attacks. But mere apologies  are not enough.  Own up to your mistakes. ]

As an individual – the PM’s apology were to victims as individuals. The truth within that is that he failed to develop systems that would prevent and protect. If Mr Wickremesinghe owns up to his mistakes – then he paves the way for Mr Rajapaksa to become Prime Minister. Then we would have thousands of deaths instead of hundreds.

A big part of the problem is the duality of the government. In a reliable structure – seniors have authority to develop structures and juniors have the duty to follow Due Process until they know / learn through experience that the seniors’ structure is not reliable. From then on they are entitled to be driven by their own truth but not replace the structure including by simple majority acceptance. Hence the two thirds majority rule in relation to fundamental structural changes.  

Fundamentals are of exponential value because they are based on truth realized by the owners. Any place where truth is realized by a person/group – is her/his/their homeland. If this is not visible – then it is a nation.

Where juniors such as JVP or LTTE did not win enough votes to form government – they who opposed the government become their opposition in Democracy.  Had the Sri Lankan government developed Democratic structures that facilitated such opposers to be Equal Opposition – the Easter attacks would have been prevented as Muslims would have become opposers of Buddhists in the provinces where they are more independent than the Buddhists.  In provinces where Muslims are majority they would have hope of becoming government one day. That is the way of Democratic policy.

This government called the leadership common but it was really Divided – because it was born out of a divided country for which the then government took credit. The parallel of that in a natural environment is for Muslims who defeated the government – to take credit for their killings as ‘victory’. Emotions without belief change form according to one’s desires and fears. Truth changes form according to the needs of the time and place. Both are beyond calculations and therefore could only be identified with by a self-governing person.

Insiders don’t need structures. Those insiders who own the problem from the victims’ side – already have the basis for the solution. The path of outsiders is slow and requires repetitive learning. Even self-governing person who feels at home in Sri Lanka – contributes to the solution at its roots.