Post Easter Sunday Attacks; Diminishing Trust Or Distrust?
Suji Hettiarachchi
What Is Happening To Sri Lanka That Was Once The “Pearl Of The Indian Ocean”? Post Easter Sunday Attacks; Diminishing Trust Or Distrust?
I left Sri Lanka on the 4th of March 1982 on a Monash University Postgraduate scholarship to do my Masters Degree and having met my husband to be at the University, I decided to make Australia my second home. It has been over 37 years since then. Sri Lanka, the country I was born, studied, worked and spent my younger years still remains the only country on earth that I could call home. Australia of course, will remain equal to my first home; the home of my choice. Though I departed my academic career at the University of Colombo in 1990 unwillingly, I have been interested in research and have wanted to engage in academic writings. It was through Sri Lankan news that I was able to maintain my bond with my motherland.
Since the 21st of April this year, when the Easter Sunday bomb attack put Sri Lanka under the spotlight in the world media, Sri Lankans around the world were shocked to their core. I too was disturbed. For 2 weeks, the headline was Sri Lankan Easter attacks. I focused on reading all the articles published on Daily Mirror, Daily News and Colombo Telegraph and my analysis below is a result of my understanding of the situation in Sri Lanka.
At the outset, most media writings point to the fact that the “nations interest” is the need of time? Almost everyone currently believes that what the country needs is a fresh start, fresh ideas, a new beginning, new perceptions, politics free from racial hatred and sectarianism.
Some believe that attitudinal changes are necessary at wholesale starting from the grass roots to the top and vice versa. Who will save our country and bring about the attitudinal changes necessary to see some light at the end of the tunnel?
My reading of what has been written about Sri Lanka by intellectuals, its people, institutions, education, health, religion etc. since the Easter attack, can be summarized this way. There are 3 concepts that I am focusing in this article. Trust, diminishing trust and distrust. What we see in the world today is diminishing trust leading to distrust among people. This is an analysis of what people have written about our country, people and the institutions in the frame of trust.
Trust is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as “To believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable” or “to hope and respect that something is true”. It means something committed or entrusted to one to be used or cared for in the interest of another. This definition insinuates that trust depends on confidence. The trust these days is in dwindling supply and diminishing trust – less appearance of trust, challenges almost everywhere and everything. The distrust at the other end of the trust means “the feeling of not trusting someone or something or relied upon”.
