Paul Walter

Sending thoughts of sympathy and support to all those affected by the Sri Lankan horrors

By | Tue 23rd April 2019 - 9:40 am


The photo above shows the view from the Sri Lankan Independence Memorial Hall in Colombo. The flag flying is the Buddhist flag. I took the photo last November. The Memorial Hall is very much a centre of national events in Sri Lanka. Annual Independence celebrations are held there. It is a very peaceful place. When I visited, children played in the hall while families sat admiring the sunset.

That peacefulness is very much a keynote of Sri Lanka. The majority Buddhist religion is pervasive in its emphasis on meditation and spiritual development. The people of Sri Lanka are generally very peaceful, easy-going and welcoming to strangers. While I was there, there was a full blown constitutional crisis ongoing, with the President and Prime Minister involved in a stand-off which was eventually settled (in the Prime Minister’s favour) by the Supreme Court. If you weren’t reading the news, you wouldn’t have known that anything was awry – life went on peacefully and cheerfully as usual across the country.

It is cruel blow that such a generally peaceful people, albeit recovering from a bloody civil war, should suffer the unspeakable horrors of the last few days, and that such horrors should be shared with visitors.

Our hearts go out to the nation of Sri Lanka and particularly to all those affected by the Easter atrocities.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

Read more by or more about .
This entry was posted in Op-eds.
Advert

One Comment

  • Connor Michaelson 24th Apr '19 - 6:51pm

    I’m very disappointed that, in a statement about an attack deliberately targeted at Christians for their religion, Paul somehow managed to avoid mentioning the ‘Ch’ word.

    The mention of Buddhists is even odder; imagine if in the horrendous attack targeted at Muslims in New Zealand Lib Dem Voice had released a statement failing to mention the Muslims targeted at all, but talking about the majority Christian population of the country. They would have been rightly criticized

    Bizarre.

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Tristan Ward
    @David Raw If your accusation is that I am a good liberal - which includes economic liberalism - I plead guilty - as would the Lib Dem element of the coaliti...
  • Tristan Ward
    @ Judy Abel (cont) Painful as they are for the consumer, right now I think high oil and gas prices are a good thing. They incentivise the transition to chea...
  • Tristan Ward
    @Judy Abel I have looked at your links. I see no reason to rule profit out of any sector as a matter of principle with a few exceptions. For children's...
  • Tim Rogers
    Another example of an increasingly multi polar world. Obviously Iran will be uppermost in people's minds but India Israel Cyprus and Greece have all had recent ...
  • Jana
    Do you think these developments may cause India to move closer to Russia and China? If it does, an alliance of the country with the largest nuclear stockpile, ...