Never again!

Thirty years is a long time in the life of a generation.  It is short in the life of a nation or a community.  We live, however, not in that long time-span but the short, where memory matters and matters of memory, in marriage with prejudice and skewed by selectivity that prompts exaggeration and dismissal, weigh upon us, our actions, our politics, hopes and despair, and realities uncomfortably lived through. 

Thirty years ago, almost to the day, Sri Lanka was engulfed in darkness.  There was black smoke. There was black intent, black hearts, black invective and red blood.  Whereas the black was tied to Sinhala, although that particular tag is only part story, the red was Tamil. No two words about it.  It was not the bloodiest day in the history of the country, nor indeed the post-Independence period, and indeed the blackness was inflated in the telling, but it was blackness that prompted inflation, no two words about it. 

What prompted and what followed have made the large part of political conversation since and perhaps will continue to feed debate and discussion.  Sebastian Rasalingam writing about ‘Black July’ and police inaction says ‘what actually happened is less important than the emotional truth of the pain’.  He calls for investigation, even if it reveals little.  The purpose, he says, ‘is to put history right and not to punish anyone’.  He observes, ‘The country has been punished enough for many decades of horror since 1983. It is time to forget, forgive and move forward, rather than continue to use July 1983, or May 2009 as `beggar's wounds' to attack and criminalize Sri Lanka’.

It is easy to say, of course.  Reading of event and history is political.  There is very little that an individual can do to change such things.  There is a lot that an individual can do to make sure that new texts amenable to such reading do not get written.  There is a lot that governments can do. 

In July 1983 the state failed.  The people, by and large, did what was possible but when states fail, things collapse, things get black and the black gets blackened further. Red results. 

We can talk redressing grievances and giving ear to aspirations. We can about modalities of delivery on the same.  There can be argument and debate; the playing out of political equations over time given the impact of tangibles and intangibles.  There are the can-be-done and the will-not-be-done. 

Regardless of all this, the basics must be set in place. Law and order.  For this, the independence of the judiciary and a corruption-free police insulated from political interference are non-negotiable.  This constitution does not provide for this and worse, rebels against such containing mechanisms.  The only thing certain is that the people cannot depend on the government. 

In 1983 some 300 plus Tamils were killed.  Houses and businesses were torched. Tamils fled to the North. Many left the country.  The one redeeming factor was that good people stood up and defended their neighbors.  Protected them.  Against massive odds. And this is the only option that can be counted on to prevent repetition. 

Thirty years passed.  July 1983 was not repeated.  And yet, no Tamil feels completely safe.  Thirty years is a short time in the life of a nation.  Much has to happen for ‘safe’ to return to all our lives.  In the end it will not be ‘every man for himself’ that will stop repetition, but everyone for neighbor.  It is the ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ that will count.  It will be sabbe satta bhavantu sukhitatta (May all beings be happy) and the prerogatives thereto that will count. 

We proved we are not incapacitated.  We have to prove that we will not permit incapacitation.  We can capitulate. We can overcome.  This nation is ours to lose, ours to win; so too our humanity – ours to lose, ours to win.