The meaning of July 1983

"When acts of violence become so common and there is nothing much to talk about, it simply means life itself has reduced to something that there is nothing much to talk about. That is how I saw July 1983 events. Things in Sri Lanka is reduced to a point where there was nothing much to talk about."
......................................

by Basil Fernando

(July 26, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) I wrote two poems on the July 1983 both of which have been reproduced over and over again in anthologies and other publications. I thought reflecting on one of these two poems as a way of trying to talk about the meaning of the events of July 1983. Title of this poem is yet another incident in 1983. Yet words yet another incident was selected deliberately. The words yet another evokes the commonness of similar kind of events which happened during the time. The story itself is terrible from whatever historical circumstance it may be placed into. Father caught up in a situation of mob violence takes his young children from the rescuer’s hands and goes back to the car which is burning and sits there with his wife. Such an incident can be thought as some kind of extraordinary violence. My idea of putting the word in yet another incident was to show that the commonness of violence that spread during this time. Making a distinction of which incidents are more cruel than the others itself becomes a meaningless exercise under such circumstances. What one family suffers is just like what another family suffers and when thousands of such events put together, there is a situation in which violence itself becomes something there is nothing much to talk about.

When acts of violence become so common and there is nothing much to talk about, it simply means life itself has reduced to something that there is nothing much to talk about. That is how I saw July 1983 events. Things in Sri Lanka is reduced to a point where there was nothing much to talk about.

People talk about things in order to make some sense out of it and if possible to remove the nonsense that is involved in some events and to bring back society into some sense. To bring the lost senses back to what may be called a normal human sense and then to make some _change, something creative, something meaningful out of suffering.

What 1983 indicated was that Sri Lanka has come to a point when it was not possible for somebody to say here is a way out of it; to say here is something, some way by which we can get out of this kind of senselessness, this kind of nonsense that we have placed ourselves in.

At that point, when I was writing that poem, in my mind I could not think of bringing some sense to the reader out of this event. I could record the event but I could not tell myself or the reader this is the way that we have to get out of this kind of situation.

I have heard over the years many people talking this and that as the way out of the situation. Some talked abut negotiations, some talked about the war, and some talked even about all kinds of supernatural ways by which we could get out of that situation. I was all aware of that kind of talk. I was aware of that kind of talk which has happened before the event and I’m also aware of that kind of talk which took place many years after that event. Somehow internally I could not participate in that discussion. Neither the negotiation nor the war made any sense to me. I believethat it would have not made any sense to the father who sat there inside his burning vehicle with two of his precious children inside that situation.

It was not an act of helplessness. It was a moment of realization of senselessness. Is there a way to deal with things when they reach that kind of senselessness?

For many, the way is not to admit that we have reached that point of senselessness. When they talk about having hope, they mean things have not gone that bad. In order to have what they call hope, they want to close their eyes to the events which are happening outside and they say lets forget about it.

The problem in Sri Lanka is that despite of all the talk, none of us know how we got to that point or how we can get out of that point.

Perhaps we have some idea of how we got to that point. However, even that knowledge does not help us to find a way out of our situation.

Many would feel that they themselves are having a part as the problem creators. Some supported the holocaust of young children, young boys and girls when it happen in 1971 saying that well that is the way we got out of a revolution, that is the way we got out of communism. Ofcourse nobody really believed that there was a real threat of communism or there is a real threat of some great catastrophe. But we need to believe we got out of one, to jusify to ourselves that loss of those ten thousand or more lives were their own making.

Then soon came the green flag revolution, the open market economy as our way to paradise, to milk and honey. All the intelligencia supported it, middle class and the rich thought that their day has arrived. It was the same man who was hero of the hour who inflamed the nation in July 1983. It was too much to digest. We blamed it on the rascals in the North and East. We saw paradice dreams creating the a hell all around.

Then we got devided. The South Vs the North and East. Many of yet another incidents happened every day.

The a victory was celebrated. Was the victory not yet another incident? Many wanted to believe it was not. As days goes by it not possible convince ourself, that such victories also are yet another incident only.

Like that father we also sit and allow ourselves to be burned away.

I did not see July 1983 as an ethnic event. I saw it as a senseless situation. I saw it as a problem of the whole nation I have not seen an end of that situation but only a continuation.

Related link: Yet Another Incident in July 1983