The Resurgent Spirit Of Black July

by Tisaranee Gunasekara-Thursday, July 25, 2013

“….anyone who dresses or speaks differently is not simply a different person, but a different animal from a different sty with whom there can be no accommodation, and who must be hated and hounded out”. - Victor Klemperer (The Language of the Third Reich)

( July 25, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)The spirit of Black July is not dead. It is alive; triumphantly, confidently and self-righteously alive.

The politico-economic and socio-psychological premises which enabled the shameful carnage of Black July did not emerge from a vacuum, instantly. The actual killing and the pillaging may have been the work of a criminally-inclined minority; but these miscreants could not have indulged in their fanatical desires with such brutal and deadly abandon, without the consent of state-entities and the approbation of a societal-majority. Had the state made a serious attempt to impose order, had society not discarded basic humanity and ordinary decency, no minority, however fanatical, however intoxicated by hate, could have continued that orgy of Tamil-hunting, day after day, for almost two weeks.

The Resurgent Spirit of Black July by nelvely