Stay Strong Sri Lanka

The man lost all of his family.
Photo Credit [HERE]

Look, it's difficult to write anything about what happened in Sri Lanka. Even if Nepal is stretched far up north, the events in the island nation hits closer to home. Not just because I spent most of my time with the Lankans for the past one and half year. Not just because my family has friends there. No. 

It's because such acts could, in fact, occur in Nepal too. 

PRI reports that 7% of Sri Lankans are Christians with a majority of 70% Buddhists. A country that had had a history of ethnic tensions and years and years of civil war, has now to deal with religious tension that had been brewing under the radar; under the radar of just about everyone. Reports that their anti-terrorist agency had placed a warning before but nobody exactly knows whom to blame says a lot how such tensions weren't taken into priority. What's utterly heartbreaking is the loss of children. Innocent Sri Lankan kids who were caught in the middle. 

A quick google search shows 1.3% of Nepalese are Christians. As the fastest growing religion in this tiny Himalayan nation, and with the way it's been aggressively adopted, the percentage will increase over time. If we are to learn from what's happening anywhere in the world -and not just in Sri Lanka- fundamental religious differences being pushed by people with even fundamental, adamant views could create unseen problems in the future. I am not saying this will happen in Nepal, I am merely stating that we need to keep an eye on earlier, smaller tensions that could be taking place right now. I strongly believe that the seeds of such vicious acts are sowed at a time when everybody believes everything is OK. 

I don't know what else to write besides this to be honest. I feel for the families who lost their loved once needlessly. I feel for those parents who lost their kids. I feel for the husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles from Lanka who are mourning the death of their loved once. Stripping away from all our identities, from all our ethnic and religious affiliations, and from what we believe and what we don't, purely through the lens of being a human, it's difficult to fathom the pain that comes from the needless loss of 300+ lives. 

The only thing I can do is to send my prayers down south, to believe that common sense will prevail and that people can just live and let live. 

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