YES WE CAN!

 




My wife and I flew out of Sri Lanka in early November 2021 to spend a few days with our family. We are returning in a few days and the news I have gathered during this time makes me realize that we are returning to a country that is drastically different from what it was two and a half months ago. A prorogued Parliament, Gas explosions, power cuts, fuel crisis, unresolved fertilizer crisis, price escalations of essential items and scarceness of milk powder are waiting to welcome us!


While we started packing our bags, on the 10th January I received the following from a close friend of mine.


"I weep for my country when seeing how people seem to have descended into the abyss of cruelty and callousness....yesterday a heart patient of the Ragama hospital went to a nearby supermarket and for reasons not yet known...had lifted a cake of baby soap and a cologne bottle. He was apprehended by a person on the road who got stabbed by the accused. An armed group of people hammered mercilessly and the man then slashed his throat and bled to death....for 45 minutes the people stood and watched him die and no one bothered to take him to the Ragama Hospital which was close by. What kind of people are evolving in Sri Lanka? Life has less value than a piece of soap and a bottle of cologne. A great malaise has settled on the land. Sad, so very sad." (This incident has happened on Saturday 8th January and it has been flashed in the TV 1 news with visuals on the 9th instant.)


Heart patient turned thief?

According to all religious tenets, stealing is prohibited and in the eyes of law shoplifting is a criminal offence. What the patient shoplifted were a Soap Cake and a cologne bottle. Did anybody bother to find out why the person shoplifted two simple items? Did he have a newborn baby but did not have the means to pay for the items? My hunch is it could be Less than Rs. 400/- for both. To the affluent, the cost of these two items is a paltry sum but it is not the same for nonaffluent. This incident is a clear indication of the predicament of Sri Lankan society due to the country's economic crisis. It's the negative impact on the people which makes them resort to violence for their survival. When those in authority have allowed a free ride for the economy to go into peril the citizens are pushed to hold an attitude of survival even with violence. The man who had a sense of social responsibility tried to apprehend this wrongdoer. However, he ended up getting stabbed. How come no one raised an alarm to call the Police into the scene? Have the citizens of this country lost their confidence and have determined never to call upon the law-enforcing authorities to intervene? We seem to be treading through dangerous days of anarchism.


In recent times the killing or death of a criminal seems to be acceptable in some part of the Sri Lankan society. Those who had been in custody are taken to lead the law-enforcing authorities to someplace to find drugs or arms etc. But on the way "unknown killers" do the needful to bump them off. Our society seems to be getting comfortable with these kinds of deaths and believe such criminals deserve it. According to the information regarding the incident at Ragama, the man who stabbed another and slashed his own throat was made to lie there for 45 minutes bleeding to death. No one has heard the voice of God saying "Listen; your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground'" (Gen. 4:10). It's a clear manifestation that our society is inundated with "Priests and Levites" but "Good Samaritans" are scarce as hens' teeth.





Has Sri Lanka become an Abyss?

"….how people seem to have descended into the abyss of cruelty and callousness.". These words written by my friend makes me realize to what low levels of cruelty and callousness our people have fallen to. He compares it to ABYSS. Why Abyss? Could he not use some other word like dangerous levels etc.?
The reference to the Abyss in the Holy Scriptures, particularly in the Greek language brings out the following shades of meaning: a bottomless pit, which is deep; a place to which you descent; a place of grievous afflictions and calamities; the abode of demons but do not wish to be sent to because it is their place of punishment.

Looking at Sri Lanka through the scriptural understanding of the abyss the following is very clear – It is a place of punishment, grievous affliction and calamities; It is a place which even demons do not like to live. As we keep falling people wonder whether the country is in a place of no return because it looks like a bottomless pit. Many say that the fall into the bottomless pit has continuously happened because of those who ruled our country ever since independence. The younger generation has once again begun to cast their eyes on greener pastures around the world. Those who valued all these years, the power of universal franchise say "we have no alternatives to bring into power to govern the country". Isn't it like a bottomless pit – a land of no return?


Yes we can - overcome the abyss

While glancing through the scriptures on the abyss it dawned on me that Christ is the one who descended to the abyss and claimed victory over death and destruction through his resurrection. When the world had to helplessly kneel before the power of the abyss it is Christ who descended to the abyss and gained power and authority over the same. To a nation like Sri Lanka which is in a state of an abyss, what does it mean?. In my Christian faith experience, I believe that we are called to witness to the power of the Risen Christ in overpowering the abyss. It can never happen until we accept the ground realities and accept collective responsibility for what we face today. This is not the time to play the blame game because it drags the nation to a further feeling of a bottomless pit. As a nation, we cannot afford to build castles in the sky by receiving false promises from the politicians who want to win elections. When everything around us in Sri Lanka carries the features of an abyss, can we rise to rebuild Sri Lanka?


I am convinced that we could say "Yes we can!".



Rev. Asiri P. Perera

January 14th 2022



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