Another January 25th is upon us. No big deal.
Not the first, not the last.
Follows a January 24th and will be followed by a January 26th. In a sense dates are meaningless things,
relevant only in part and irrelevant in the larger order of things. We are, however, frail creatures who do not
always move on and beyond moment, event and encounter. As such we assign values to dates, mark
calendars, celebrate, commemorate and mourn, depending on the strength of our
attachment to these things or even our revulsion.
There have been 13 January 25ths since 1998 and
none of those days are significant to me personally. On each of those January 25ths I
forgot that on a particular January 25th, that of 1998, the LTTE
carried out a cowardly and devastating attack on the place of religious
significance held most sacred by the Buddhists, the Dalada Maligawa.
I would not have remembered that incident today had I not
received an email containing a fairly comprehensive account of the attack and
its implications, written by Daya Hewapathirana, reproduced in today’s Daily
News (that’s January 25, 2011). No other
English newspaper found the day significant, one observes. Perhaps we’ve all been immunized by the
terrible violence we’ve suffered as a people, as individuals and as a nation
for us to remember day, event and damage caused, even though the Dalada
Maligawa is not some piece of pavement that got damaged when some drunk driver
crashed into a lamppost.
Indeed, it is pertinent to reflect on what would have
happened if say a group dedicated to some self-understood ‘Islamic’ cause ran a
vehicle full of explosives into the Vatican on January 25, 1998. I am pretty sure that 1/25 would have ensured that 9/11 died a quick death in the collective memory of the world. That’s beside the point as far as this
article is concerned, however.
The point, as far as I am concerned, is about forgetting. Why is it that we forget such monumental acts
of terrorism? Do we suffer from
selective amnesia as a nation or do we have short memories as some claim? Is it because of the common perception that
that which was destroyed was later restored to previous glory with no sign of
blemish (Daya Hewapathirana’s article would be a rude awakening in this
regard)?
There’s something in our society that makes us better able
(than most other societies) to take the blows and move on without being
over-fascinated with blow-moment. It is
about coming to terms with realities, not just those of the moment such as
deed-done and cannot-turn-back-clock, but the eternal verities, the ata lo
dahama of profit-loss, joy-sorrow, praise-blame etc., and treating these
with equanimity. This is how we
recovered from the bloody insurrections of 1971 and 1988-89 and the tsunami of
2004 with a speed few nations suffering similar tragedies have emulated.
Putting aside the requirement of remembering in terms of
learning lessons, watching out for patterns and re-enactment with view to
prevent, such ‘forgetting’ does have an important and healthy social function
which moreover could very well be one of the defining characteristics of our
culture. It can be sourced to the
overwhelming significance and contribution of Buddhism to who we are today, but
the quality is not over-represented among Buddhists. It cuts across all identities. We cheer our cricketing heroes when they do
well but when they fail we don’t burn their houses to use an example that is
relatively current given the World Cup is around the corner.
The attack on the Maligawa in fact affirmed the fundamental
teachings of the Buddha, in particular that of impermanence. We live in a country where misguided
individuals desecrate the temple of Jesus Christ and operate in accordance with
a de-contextualized reading of the Book of Deuteronomy or on account of having
internalized the unholy Papal Bulls that sanctioned and justified the massacre
of Buddhists in their thousands. When they
ask recent ‘converts’ or those to whom they want to prove a point to smash
images of the Buddha, they do not seem to understand that they are in fact
affirming this same principle. Those who
react by attaching such individuals or their so-called churches are not being
‘Buddhists’ in terms of the dhamma but ironically operate in much the
same way as their detractors (so imagined).
The better response is to delve deeper into the dhamma, to
meditate on impermanence and move on.
The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues, similarly,
affirmed the principle of impermanence.
There was horror, yes. Buddhists
in this country did not turn that horror into anger and hatred. It didn’t spill
over into Buddhist-Islamic conflict as such incidents do in the case of certain
Hindu groups in India .
I did not remember the significance of January 25th. Maybe I should have. Maybe we all should have. If only to remind ourselves that it could
happen again and that therefore we need to be vigilant. On the other hand, perhaps that forgetting
speaks of a certain civilizational maturity.
Or a civilizational identifier. A
positive that rises above the negative overtones of the word ‘forgetting’. It’s all good, I think.
Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached
at msenevira@gmail.com
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