Some déjà vu - messages from Sri Lanka. Like 15 years ago after the tsunami, every day there are new death tolls. And if at first it is shocking, then after the lapse of days, the reaction is dulled. What a difference, 100 people or 300. Even if there were 10 - this is already an outstanding event for a small peaceful country, staying in a relaxed tranquility after the history of the Tigers of the Liberation of Tamil Elam, which ended several years ago.
This conflict is often called the "civil war." This is about the same thing as calling the “civil war” what happened in Chechnya. Well, that is, in Chechnya, it was certainly a war. But in the rest of Russia there was no war. Yes, terrorist attacks occurred (as they did in Sri Lanka), but there was no feeling of war. It was the same in Sri Lanka: the conflict with the Tamils took place somewhere in the north of the island, and in the south and in the center, in the most tourist areas, if something reminded of this war, then it is possible that the constantly meeting roadblocks and armed soldiers.
Of course, there was a terrible terrorist attack of 1985 in Anuradhapura (146 dead) and the assassination of the president in 1993. The Tigers even killed Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But I myself was in Sri Lanka in 1997. The feeling that you are in a country where there is a civil war did not arise for a second. Although traveled almost everything except the north.
By that time, this conflict had lasted for 25 years. And the authorities did not take any radical measures. Despite the fact that the "Tigers" were completely frostbitten and gloomy terrorist organization, the government even concluded a truce with them. So far in 2004 there was no tsunami. In the south, chaos and destruction, the north is arming ships and airplanes (!). The relaxed and pacified Sinhalese finally mobilize - and after five years there is nothing left of the "Tigers". For a country that survived a catastrophe, this victory marked the overcoming of not only the protracted internal conflict, but also the consequences of the catastrophe itself. And you could relax again.
Of course, in fact, the chronology of the Sinhala-Tamil conflict and its nature is much more complicated than the speculative sensations that I described here. But it is important to understand that Sri Lanka is a country - a branch of paradise on Earth. It's so good there that you don't want to think about any interfaith friction. Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims live together and are completely tolerant to each other. I saw joint cemeteries with my own eyes: on the one hand, Christian graves, on the other - an empty place for funeral pyres. The Tigers of Tamil-Elam liberation were not guided by religious motives. It was a classic nationalist separatism, which arose against the backdrop of discrimination from the Sinhalese minority.
Actually, this explains the inaction of the Sri Lankan special services, who were warned about a possible attack more than once or twice. Islamists? We have? Yes, from where! We have two Muslims and three Catholics in the ten Sinhala police station.
I don’t know if specially sophisticated people sent the terrorists to Sri Lanka (the “answer for Christchurch” version seems rather far-fetched: there was one moron, and here a large-scale, well-prepared operation), but the calculation was very accurate. There are not so many countries on Earth where interfaith peace is an everyday reality. And if Sri Lankan Muslims now began to walk cautiously and under the slanting glances of everyone else, then this world could collapse. And there the Tamils will remember that they have not solved all their problems. The insult on the Sinhalese is very strong.
And now, in fact, to the main idea of this text. Benedict Erofeev in his immortal poem "Moscow - Petushki" wrote that our homosexuality was completely defeated, but not definitively. Similarly, with terrorism. It can be defeated completely. But you can not win completely. A journalist was murdered in Northern Ireland the other day. Killed during a clash with an organization calling itself the “New IRA”. Just because the problem of Northern Ireland is not solved. And then Brexit and related unrest. And children who do not know under what conditions and why their parents laid down their arms feel an inner need to complete what the fathers did not complete.
Great Britain and Sri Lanka thought in the same way that they had defeated domestic terrorism. And now they are reaping the fruits of their self-confidence.
And the main danger of the Lankan terrorist attack is that it may well become a model. Because there are plenty of countries that think they have defeated their domestic terrorism. Something like a stopped internal conflict, a change of generation and some kind of irritant are the sources and components of potential destabilization capable of demolishing statehood. And the time is now when you need to try to minimize the stimuli. Do not rebut dictators. Do not take repressive laws. Do not hold idiotic referendums. Do not build ratings on the war.
And the main thing is to give the special services a task and the opportunity to do their own intelligence work. If anyone is able to defeat terrorism, albeit not completely, then at least completely, then only they.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.