{"id":113699,"date":"2021-04-20T16:17:54","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T23:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=113699"},"modified":"2021-04-20T16:17:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T23:17:54","slug":"day-of-infamy-and-pearl-harbour-moment-in-sri-lankas-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/04\/20\/day-of-infamy-and-pearl-harbour-moment-in-sri-lankas-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Day of infamy and ‘ Pearl Harbour’ moment in Sri Lanka’s history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

April 21, 2019 is destined to be marked as a date which will\nlive in infamy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paraphrasing President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he\ndelivered the famous infamy speech on December 08, 1941 soon after the attack\non Pearl Harbour by Japan,, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

posterity may well designate  April 21, 2019 as the\nBlackest day and the ‘ Pearl Harbour’ moment in the contemporary history of Sri\nLanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 267 people were killed, including at least 45\nforeign nationals,three police officers, and eight bombers, and at least 500\nwere injured.  Three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo were\ntargeted in a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist bombings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the Second Death Anniversary of the biggest mass murder\non a single day in Sri Lankan History. It should be a day of reflection for\neveryone living in this country and everyone of Sri Lankan origin living\noverseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did we go wrong? How did this happen? are searching\nquestions many will ask. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a watershed moment. Those who had lived on a diet\nof Multi- culteralism and Reconciliation, especially the security\nforces were deluded to drop their guard and encouraged to do so by the\ncountry’s top political leaders eternally greedy for the votes of the country’s\nethnic and religious minorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Reconciliation to succeed there must be sincerity between\nthe contending groups. It will never succeed if one party is driven by the\nscriptures and their belief system to look down on disbelievers and use\nviolence on them, if need be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaharan and his co – suicide bombers were acting perfectly in\ntune with their convictions of what their belief system and the holy scriptures\nhad wanted them to do as a matter of duty against the disbelievers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their twisted belief system there was no space for the\nnon – Muslim. Either you convert or you die.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must be said that the vast majority of Muslims in Sri Lanka\nare peace loving and have lived in harmony side by side with non –\nMuslims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing should happen to them and they should be fully protected\nby the State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry conducted a thorough\nprobe, interviewed a large number of witnesses, including Cabinet\nMinisters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the evidence gathering a Senior Police Officer has said\nthat about 15,000 people mostly from the Eastern Province had fore knowledge of\nthe impending attack. Almost all the Muslim Ministers probably knew of it and\nseveral of them are believed to be ardent supporters of Zaharan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conflict between believers and disbelievers which is spelled\nout in the Islamic scriptures and highly pronounced in the traditional Muslim\ncountries, has now entered Sri Lanka in a dramatic fashion.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The violence directed against disbelievers, their places of\nworship e.g. attack on the Buddha Statue in Mawanella on December 25, 2018 are\nall interconnected and can no longer be ignored except at the risk to one’s\nlife and the lives of dear ones of the disbelievers.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim of some radical groups in Abrahamic faiths is to achieve\nin the current Theravada Buddhist countries the same result achieved in the\npast thousand years in several former Buddhist countries of displacing Buddhism\nand replacing it with either Islam (or Christianity) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maldives, East Pakistan now Bangladesh, Indonesia, Afghanistan,\nMalaya, Bactria, Taxila, were once Buddhist States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddhism has lost much ground to Abrahamic religions in Buddhist\nAsia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The existentialist fears therefore among Buddhists in Asia are\nquite legitimate and valid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The security forces of the country must now become pro – active\ninstead of being reactive as in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country cannot afford another Easter Sunday Massacre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innocent disbelievers must be protected from violence at the\nhands of radical believers of Islam who carry out even extreme commands set out\nin their scriptures without a critical reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka Weeraratna<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna April 21, 2019 is destined to be marked as a date which will live in infamy. Paraphrasing President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he delivered the famous infamy speech on December 08, 1941 soon after the attack on Pearl Harbour by Japan,,  posterity may well designate  April 21, 2019 as the Blackest day and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senaka-weeraratna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}