The perpetual conflict: Part 1

The perpetual conflict: Part 1

Photo via blackjuly.info

Groundviews

Harendra Alwis-24 Jul, 2013

The gathering clouds of history

When I look back, I do not see the black smoke rising, or the cries of hapless countrymen, women and innocent children – victims turning into victimisers turning into victims – in a cycle of violence that has persisted beyond living memory. What I do see of that time and moment of our flawed history – I see through the eyes of others. The picture blurs with their tears and sharpened by the raw emotions that still engulf them and grip them in the deepest and rarely visited corners of their souls. But I do feel the heat from the embers of those fires that were lit long ago when I was barely two years old. No longer a toddler but not yet a child, I had been born into the violence that erupted then and accompanied me well into my adulthood like a dark shadow that still tug me at my feet wherever I go. I do not know how the events of that July should be remembered. Must we reassemble those columns of thick black smoke and smell of burning rubber and burning flesh from the collective memory of a forgetful nation?

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The perpetual conflict: Part 2

Posted by Harendra Alwis

Groundviews

Photo via blackjuly.info

Fault-lines

Perhaps it is a tragic coincidence of our time; or maybe it was inevitable given the passage of generations, that we are marking the thirty year anniversary of Black July at the same time as we are approaching a centenary since the communal riots of 1915. With the escalation of religious intolerance and communal tension in recent months almost resembling the events of exactly century ago, we are faced with a peculiar question: what shall we commemorate? As much as the commemoration of our history is about preserving those memories for future generations to learn from and for its darker chapters never to be repeated, it must also compel us to be vigilant and pay attention to the history that is in making today. Are we an inherently violent people who are incapable of peace?

Of course we are not an inherently violent – but despite the significant influence of Buddhism on our civilisation, there is no evidence that we are inherently peaceful either. That is to say that ours is not unique among the ancient civilisations of the world and that we too adapt to our times and react to our environment like any other. Before European colonisation, our society was organised hierarchically along social classes and castes. It was inevitable that the ancient civilisations of the East and the enterprising West of the renaissance years were eventually going to come into direct contact with each other. When that did happen on our shores, it was inevitable that our ancient social order which organised society in a stable – but broadly oppressive – caste based social structure would face direct competition from an alternative model for social organisation based on the egalitarian aspirations that the reformation has unleashed in Europe.

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