Easter Sunday bombings point to Colombo’s failure in bridging communal faultlines | The Indian Express

Easter Sunday bombings point to Colombo’s failure in bridging communal faultlines | The Indian Express

Written by Cheran Rudhramoorthy |Updated: April 26, 2019 8:34:06 am

Cheran is a Tamil poet and associate professor at University of Windsor, Canada. He was one of the founding members of the Free Media Movement in Sri Lanka

Easter Sunday bombings point to Colombo’s failure in bridging communal faultlines

Muslims and their business establishments have been increasingly under attack in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war. This has fuelled and strengthened the radical and fundamental Islamic groups that emerged in 2012 with financial support from West Asia.

Security personnel stands guard outside the St. Anthony’s church in Colombo, one of the two Catholic churches devastated in bomb blasts on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. (Express Photo: Arun Janardharan)

In the evening of April 20, Asylum Theatre Group, a theatre group I am part of, performed a verse-play, Photographs of Children, Women and Men, in Toronto, Canada. The play is about the plight and impact of war on children. Among others, four children acted in the play. The play ended with a hopeful note for all the children in the world.