{"id":74056,"date":"2018-01-26T00:08:54","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T07:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=74056"},"modified":"2018-01-26T00:08:54","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T07:08:54","slug":"it-is-ok-if-you-forgot-what-happened-on-january-25th-as-i-often-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/01\/26\/it-is-ok-if-you-forgot-what-happened-on-january-25th-as-i-often-did\/","title":{"rendered":"It is ok if you forgot what happened on January 25th (as I often did)*"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another January 25th<\/sup>\u00a0is upon us.\u00a0 No big deal.\u00a0 Not the first, not the last.\u00a0 Follows a January 24th<\/sup>\u00a0and will be followed by a January 26th<\/sup>.\u00a0 In a sense dates are meaningless things, relevant only in part and irrelevant in the larger order of things.\u00a0 We are, however, frail creatures who do not always move on and beyond moment, event and encounter.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There have been 13 January 25th<\/sup>s since 1998 and none of those days are significant to me personally.\u00a0 On each of those January 25th<\/sup>s I forgot that on a particular January 25th<\/sup>, 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Daily News (that\u2019s January 25, 2011).\u00a0 No other English newspaper found the day significant, one observes.\u00a0 Perhaps we\u2019ve all been immunized by the terrible violence we\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it is pertinent to reflect on what would have happened if say a group dedicated to some self-understood \u2018Islamic\u2019 cause ran a vehicle full of explosives into the\u00a0Vatican\u00a0on January 25, 1998.\u00a0 I am pretty sure that 1\/25 would have ensured that 9\/11 died a quick death in the collective memory of the world.\u00a0 That\u2019s beside the point as far as this article is concerned, however.<\/p>\n

The point, as far as I am concerned, is about forgetting. \u00a0Why is it that we forget such monumental acts of terrorism?\u00a0 Do we suffer from selective amnesia as a nation or do we have short memories as some claim?\u00a0 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\u2019s article would be a rude awakening in this regard)?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s 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. \u00a0It 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\u00a0ata lo dahama<\/em>\u00a0of profit-loss, joy-sorrow, praise-blame etc., and treating these with equanimity.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Putting aside the requirement of remembering in terms of learning lessons, watching out for patterns and re-enactment with view to prevent, such \u2018forgetting\u2019 does have an important and healthy social function which moreover could very well be one of the defining characteristics of our culture.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It cuts across all identities.\u00a0 We cheer our cricketing heroes when they do well but when they fail we don\u2019t burn their houses to use an example that is relatively current given the World Cup is around the corner.<\/p>\n

The attack on the Maligawa in fact affirmed the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, in particular that of impermanence.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 When they ask recent \u2018converts\u2019 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.\u00a0 Those who react by attaching such individuals or their so-called churches are not being \u2018Buddhists\u2019 in terms of the\u00a0dhamma<\/em>\u00a0but ironically operate in much the same way as their detractors (so imagined).\u00a0 The better response is to delve deeper into the\u00a0dhamma<\/em>, to meditate on impermanence and move on.<\/p>\n

The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues, similarly, affirmed the principle of impermanence.\u00a0 There was horror, yes.\u00a0 Buddhists in this country did not turn that horror into anger and hatred. It didn\u2019t spill over into Buddhist-Islamic conflict as such incidents do in the case of certain Hindu groups in\u00a0India.<\/p>\n

I did not remember the significance of January 25th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Maybe I should have.\u00a0 Maybe we all should have.\u00a0 If only to remind ourselves that it could happen again and that therefore we need to be vigilant.\u00a0 On the other hand, perhaps that forgetting speaks of a certain civilizational maturity.\u00a0 Or a civilizational identifier.\u00a0 A positive that rises above the negative overtones of the word \u2018forgetting\u2019.\u00a0 It\u2019s all good, I think.<\/p>\n

*First published in the ‘Daily News’ (January 26, 2011). \u00a0Interestingly, since I am the Editor of \u00a0Sunday Newspaper and this Sunday is the 25th, I could have carried something on this attack. I forgot.<\/p>\n

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Another January 25th\u00a0is upon us.\u00a0 No big deal.\u00a0 Not the first, not the last.\u00a0 Follows a January 24th\u00a0and will be followed by a January 26th.\u00a0 In a sense dates are meaningless things, relevant only in part and irrelevant in the larger order of things.\u00a0 We are, however, frail creatures who do not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74056","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=74056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}