One year after the Easter Attacks in Sri Lanka

Photo Source: Daily News
   NIAS Course on Global Politics
National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS)
Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bangalore
For any further information or to subscribe to GP alerts send an email to subachandran@nias.res.in

CWA # 268, 21 April 2020
One year after the Easter Attacks in Sri Lanka
The Cardinal sermons for peace, with a message to forgive

  Chrishari de Alwis Gunasekare

During his sermon, Cardinal Ranjith preached of forgiveness to the attackers in the reflection of Christian faith and thereby claimed that the community is teaching a lesson on forgiveness through example.

The Christian community, being one of the minority groups of the multi-religious population demographic of Sri Lanka, is quite possibly the least involved in any political and religion-ethnic issues of the country. Hence, it came as a great shock and a betrayal to the Christians when they were directly targeted in a terror attack. 

The bombings were carried out during the Easter worship, a day where the number of church-goers was guaranteed to be at the highest. In fact, among the venues attacked was the Shrine of St. Anthony’s Church in Colombo, which served as a gathering point not just for Catholics but for Sri Lankans of different faiths during such celebrations. Similarly, St. Sebastian's Church is located in Negombo, a suburb well-known for being densely populated with a Christian-majority. 

The situation was further aggravated once it was revealed that the radicalized Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama'ath claimed responsibility for the attack. The Christian community that had previously held a neutral stance regarding the communal friction that existed between the Sinhala-Buddhists and the Muslims were now forced to confront the issue as the violence against their own community forced them to draw lines either for or against the Muslims.

However, the reaction of the Christian community to the Easter bombings was promptly handled by Sri Lanka’s leading Roman Catholic Prelate Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo. He issued a statement condemning the attack but urged the citizens to “not to take the law into their own hands and to maintain peace and harmony in this country.” This statement prevented what could have been a violent response against the Muslims, as the Christians that displayed fear and paranoia towards the Muslims were exploited by certain Sinhala-Buddhist extremist sects that used the opportunity for hate-mongering and to propagate Islamophobic propaganda. 

However, with the appeal made by Cardinal Ranjith, the Christian community remained calm which ensured that the Sinhala-Buddhist extremists could not misuse the situation to their own advantage and re-kindle ethnic violence and bias against the Muslims. Despite being wary of the Muslim community after the attack, the Christians were not hesitant to defend their Muslim acquaintances and condemned only the actions of the responsible Islamist fundamentalists rather than blame Muslims in general. Similarly, when the investigations revealed that the government had received prior warnings of the attack but did not take action, the Christian community displayed a dignified response without resorting to casting blame but expressed their disappointment and lack of faith towards the authorities and the political leaders of the country. While arrests were made and investigations were held in the aftermath of the attack, the Christian community was dissatisfied with the lukewarm response of the government that failed to assure security or assuage the fears of the minority, which inevitably had an impact on the results of the Presidential election held on the same year.

 A year after the Easter attack, as the world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic, Christians in Sri Lanka celebrated Easter at home under lockdown. Closed-door Easter services were conducted at the Shrine of St. Anthony's Church and St. Sebastian's Church, without congregational participation. This perhaps is another setback for the Christians as they were unable to gather in the church as a single community in commemoration of the lives lost and thereby were unable to reconcile or to gain closure even a year after the tragic attack. However, the television stations broadcasted the Easter Eucharistic worship in all three official languages of Sri Lanka and Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith heading the service, remembered the lives lost, the injured, and those who are grieving after the Easter bombings. 

During his sermon, Cardinal Ranjith preached of forgiveness to the attackers in the reflection of Christian faith and thereby claimed that the community is teaching a lesson on forgiveness through example. Nevertheless, the sentiment among Christians is that in terms of politics, the Easter bombings is an issue that was clearly swept under the rug and short-lived in the memory of the leaders of the country who failed to acknowledge the grief and the loss that the community had to undergo a year ago. It displayed the inadequacy of political leaders of Sri Lanka to handle violence directed towards a minority group as lack of sympathy, insensitivity, and finger-pointing became the basis of their response which frustrated those who were affected by the terror attack.

In an overview of the perspective of the Christians in Sri Lanka a year after the Easter attacks, one of the key factors that should be commended is that the guidance of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith which prevented the country from plunging into a volatile state. Due to the restrained response of Cardinal Ranjith, the Christian community as a whole did not get involved in communal tensions that existed prior to the attack. Therefore, it could be said that Christians while being the most affected community from the Easter attack, were also the ones who responded the least with either violence or recrimination.

Print Bookmark

PREVIOUS COMMENTS

NIAS Global Politics Database
March 2024 | CWA # 1251

NIAS Africa Team

Africa This Week
NIAS Global Politics Database
February 2024 | CWA # 1226

NIAS Africa Team

Africa This Week
The World This Year
December 2023 | CWA # 1189

Hoimi Mukherjee | Hoimi Mukherjee is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science in Bankura Zilla Saradamani Mahila Mahavidyapith.

Chile in 2023: Crises of Constitutionality
The World This Year
December 2023 | CWA # 1187

Aprajita Kashyap | Aprajita Kashyap is a faculty of Latin American Studies, School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi.

Haiti in 2023: The Humanitarian Crisis
The World This Year
December 2023 | CWA # 1185

Binod Khanal | Binod Khanal is a Doctoral candidate at the Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi.

The Baltic: Energy, Russia, NATO and China
The World This Year
December 2023 | CWA # 1183

Padmashree Anandhan | Padmashree Anandhan is a Research Associate at the School of Conflict and Security Studies, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangaluru.

Germany in 2023: Defence, Economy and Energy Triangle
The World This Year
December 2023 | CWA # 1178

​​​​​​​Ashok Alex Luke | Ashok Alex Luke is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at CMS College, Kottayam.

China and South Asia in 2023: Advantage Beijing?
The World This Year
December 2023 | CWA # 1177

Annem Naga Bindhu Madhuri | Annem Naga Bindhu Madhuri is a postgraduate student at the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at the University of Madras, Chennai.

China and East Asia
The War in Ukraine
October 2023 | CWA # 1091

Annem Naga Bindhu Madhuri

Issues for Europe
IPRI Quarterly Forecasts I Triggers, Trends, and Trajectories
July 2023 | CWA # 1012

Bibhu Prasad Routray

Myanmar continues to burn
2022: The World This Year
December 2022 | CWA # 879

Padmashree Anandhan

The Ukraine War
Europe: Heatwaves, Wildfires, Droughts, and Ice Melt in Alps
November 2022 | CWA # 838

Rishma Banerjee

Tracing Europe's droughts
NIAS Africa Weekly
March 2022 | CWA # 705

NIAS Africa Team

In Focus: Libya
The World This Week: 150th Issue
December 2021 | CWA # 630

GP Team

Europe in 2021
Pakistan Reader
October 2021 | CWA # 588

Abigail Miriam Fernandez

TLP is back again
NIAS Fortnightly on Science, Technology & International Relations
August 2021 | CWA # 528

STIR Team

Space Tourism
Science, Technology and International Relations
September 2019 | CWA # 162

Lakshman Chakravarthy N

5G: A Primer
South Asia Monthly Brief (Nov 2018)
December 2018 | CWA # 71

Mahesh Bhatta | Centre for South Asian Studies, Kathmandu

Nepal
South Asia Monthly Brief (Nov 2018)
December 2018 | CWA # 70

Nasima Khatoon | Research Associate, ISSSP, NIAS

The Maldives
South Asia Monthly Brief (Nov 2018)
December 2018 | CWA # 69

Harini Madhusudan | Research Associate, ISSSP, NIAS

India
South Asia Monthly Brief (Nov 2018)
December 2018 | CWA # 68

Sourina Bej | Research Associate, ISSSP, NIAS

Bangladesh
South Asia Monthly Brief (Nov 2018)
December 2018 | CWA # 67

Seetha Lakshmi Dinesh Iyer | Research Associate, ISSSP, NIAS

Afghanistan