Shifting the blame: A minority is framed again to cover Sri Lanka’s fault lines, in wake of the Easter attacks

Much has been and continues to be said and done, since the Easter Attacks in Sri Lanka on 21 April, that killed over 250 individuals. The consequences have been far reaching for the country, which has been struggling to recover from three decades of civil war. After a brief hiatus – since 2009, when the military conflict ended and the more obvious signs of securitisation were gradually removed, especially in Colombo – Emergency Rule is back as a norm and checkpoints are once again visible across the country. Search operations are underway, and people are being arrested under the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act, notorious for leading to the detention of 'suspects' for unduly long periods and the use of torture to obtain statements. Sadly, the most visible response to the attack has been the strengthening of anti-Muslim sentiment in the country – translating to very real effects for the Muslim community in their everyday lives. Ten years after the war ended, Sri Lanka seems once again on the brink of another cycle of conflict and violence.

As we search for ways to explain and understand events of that day, we risk establishing a narrative that masks the systemic and recurring patterns in Sri Lanka's polity that have produced these cycles of violence. It is vital that public commentators and opinion-makers do not, wittingly or unwittingly, contribute to the establishment of such a narrative. Two months on, there is much we do not know about what happened on that day and how a group of seemingly isolated individuals and groups came together, allegedly under the leadership of one person – Zahran Hashim – to carry out such a coordinated and planned attack. The details that are emerging, for example about how the operation was funded, or how this group of people moved around and managed to elude the state security forces, leave more questions unanswered than answered. The trope of Muslim radicalisation is far too sweeping and imprecise to offer an explanation of what happened. It also focusses attention on this particular event as the starting point of the investigation rather than it being the culmination of a bigger story. It is important that we have a better grasp of the circumstances and conditions that led to the attack, if we are at all interested in learning from what happened, and with the intention of preventing similar incidents. It is especially important that the Easter Sunday attacks are not viewed as an isolated incident, but as part of a pattern of violence in Sri Lanka.