{"id":80151,"date":"2013-04-02T10:26:44","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T10:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=80151"},"modified":"2013-04-13T00:11:15","modified_gmt":"2013-04-13T00:11:15","slug":"our-moment-of-destiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/our-moment-of-destiny\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Moment Of Destiny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=David+Blacker&amp;x=10&amp;y=9\">David Blacker<\/a><\/span>\u00a0&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_43088\" style=\"width: 144px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/parama-weera-vibushanaya\/david-blacker\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43088\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43088\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-43088\" title=\"David Blacker\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/David-Blacker-134x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"134\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-43088\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Blacker<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I think every generation faces its own particular challenges; but the greatest and most defining ones are those of morality and courage. That moment, if missed, condemns that generation \u2014 and often many that follow \u2014 to a world far more unpleasant and evil than we would wish it to be. For many in the free world of the late 1930s, that moment came with the invasion of Poland and the bombing of Pearl Harbour. It was a moment when my grandfather\u2019s generation had to decide if they would simply stand on the sidelines or go out and fight someone else\u2019s cause. Fortunately for them, the choice was easy; their respective governments took the right fork, and millions of young men \u2014 my grandfather included \u2014 went out into the deserts, the jungles, and across the seas to ensure that tyranny and racism would not shape our world. For 1960s America, the moment of destiny was in fact a place \u2014 Vietnam \u2014 and a moral choice. America made its decision, albeit a little late for millions of Vietnamese.<\/p>\n<p>But when that hour of destiny arrived thirty years ago in Sri Lanka, our parents\u2019 generation failed us. For decades, they had watched as extremist rhetoric leveled at the Tamil community gave way to physical violence. They stood by as our constitution was changed to remove any protection the minorities had a right to under law. They were silent when the nation\u2019s leadership was silent on the racism and hatred that was all around them. They did nothing when their elected politicians in fact helped instigate the violence that climaxed in the orgy of assault, murder, rape, and destruction now known as <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Black+July&amp;x=7&amp;y=0\">Black July<\/a><\/span>. For thirty years we have wondered how our parents could have been so docile, so shortsighted, so\u00a0<em>wrong<\/em>\u00a0in their choices. We have watched our country torn apart by suicide bombers and child soldiers, by tanks and artillery. We have watched a hundred thousand die, because our parents didn\u2019t say \u201cstop!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thirty years later, the clock is back at five minutes to midnight; racists are calling for violence, for this country to be only for Sinhalese Buddhists. They are calling for a tiny minority to change their lifestyles or leave; they are calling for their right to worship to be curbed. And they are threatening violence if their demands are not met. Our government is at best silent; at worst in collusion. Our police force is standing by while Muslims are attacked. There are no arrests. There is no condemnation. There is no justice.<\/p>\n<p>The last time this happened, I was eleven years old; an uncomprehending child. I grew up to wonder why\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blacklightarrow.wordpress.com\/2008\/07\/22\/black-thoughts\/\">my father who could ride a motorcycle through a wall of fire<\/a>\u00a0to get me home that July, hadn\u2019t been able to stop what was done to the Tamils and to my country. Was he scared? Didn\u2019t he care? I ask the same questions from myself today. Why am I doing nothing as my country heads towards the flames again. I ask it of my friends \u2014 especially the Buddhists \u2014 my colleagues, my girlfriend. None of you are racists, I think. None of you believe that Muslims must be persecuted and harassed. Why are you not speaking out? Why are you not protesting? What will it take? Or is there nothing that will drive us out of our homes and on to the streets to brave the thugs and the tear gas, the water cannon and the bullets? Have we no fucking shame?<\/p>\n<p>I feel ashamed right now; ashamed of my government; ashamed of my friends; ashamed of my country. More than anything, I am ashamed of myself. I have never felt this way about my country, and I never thought I would, but I feel it now. And I hate feeling this way. In the worst of the war, I told myself that it wasn\u2019t my fault; that I hadn\u2019t chosen this war to fight. But this is now. This is me. This is us. This is our country and our moment of destiny is here. Why are we doing nothing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":82020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,2938],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial","category-popular"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Our Moment Of Destiny - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/our-moment-of-destiny\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our Moment Of Destiny - 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