Per, annual ritual once again I’m sitting in a sparse room: a void which has seen many a stray sock, paper explosions galore and the messes which accumulate in thickets. I never claimed to be tidy. The space is unusually sterile, almost sad considering that it was more a personal space, than the drab dorm rooms had ever been. It’s reassuring though, that I’m going to return to the same slanted skylight and a view of rooftops, with a blue and white Scottish flag fluttering in the breeze over the town hall.
Home is another question, all the footage I’ve seen of the celebrations leaves me nervous. I don’t really know what to expect any more, what this “victory” means on home soil besides what I’ve been seeing from the mechanical eyes of others. Pixellated evidence of rejoicing and suffering juxtaposed side by side. Children hanging on barbed wire fences, while others light crackers and make merry. The e-mail circulations are sending around threats to those who screamed genocide asking for true patriots to forward them the photographs of those who apparently should be “eliminated” and never allowed to set foot in Sri Lanka again. Is this a vigilante proxy-war stirred by the new presidential proclamation of the divide of patriotism (or in Sri Lanka’s case, should it be Jingoism?) and those who do not love their country? I agree that arm chair fanaticism has risen steeply, among the LTTE supporters abroad who insult the deep scars of the real victims by toting fake bloodied bandages, as if to prove an elusive point. The attack on the Buddhist temples and the students in Sydney was especially horrific, as terror seems to be breeding into new mutated forms of street and cyber wars. But is counter-armchair fanaticism the answer? I do appreciate these are empty threats (because what the hell are they going to do? have someone ready with a rifle at the immigration desks?), but it’s appalling these thought processes spin sticky webs of extremism, at a moment in history where we should celebrate with reconciliation and reconstruction as opposed to trying to kill off those who do not support a political party line or light fire crackers (evidently, I have some very big issues with the fire crackers).
I’m headed home to the purgatory of what next, to the hazy folds of summer, the warm blanket of home which drives other anxieties away, albeit temporary. 24 hours in this place, I’m sustained by the thoughts of an island summer, soon.
this time we MUST have that drink!