Social media is back! After a ten day state of emergency, involving curfews and a social media ban, we are online again!
What happened?
Sri Lanka is home to many religions. The main one being Buddhism. There is also a Muslim minority (about 10% of the population). In the past there have been minor tensions between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority.
This escalated at the beginning of March, when we were around. A car collision resulted in a street fight and the hospitalization of one Buddhist man, who eventually died from his injuries. The men who killed him happened to be Muslims. Apparently, this incident was enough for social media trolls and hate preachers to blame the entire Muslim community for this crime. The naive mob gathered and set several Muslim shops on fire in a village located in the Kandy district (central Sri Lanka).
To prevent this anti-Muslim social media hate campaign from spreading further, the government blocked access to Facebook and Whatsapp.
Our story when it happened
On the day of the first mob gathering we were in downtown Kandy.
We witnessed the state emergency and the curfew being imposed. At the time we had no idea what was going on. On March 5th around 5:30 p.m. we were sitting in a restaurant next to the main attraction of the town (being visited daily by hundreds of tourists) having dinner. The waiter was obviously in a hurry and finally he just urged us to leave. We had no explanation but assumed that he was just extremely rude. On the street it was beginning to get dark and literally every shop was closed. It was only 6:30 p.m. in a town which normally has a bit of nightlife. There were only few locals wandering the streets outside. Instead of being super relaxed, as most locals usually appeared to us, everyone was rushing in different directions and fleeing the streets. This unexplainable hurry was happening while other tourists, like us, were clueless.
A beggar on the street turned to us and said, “fight”, “big fight” in broken English. We replied, “what fight? gun fight?”. He replied, “Yes, yes!” Now we understand that he had no idea what we were asking. Anyways, with everyone rushing home and an obvious police presence, we decided to head home. A gigantic swarm of crows suddenly appeared on our way home. The birds were so loud that we could not even hear each other talking.
It felt like the end of the world. One bird shit on Alex’s back – did not care, wanted home. Instead of taking the local bus, as we usually do, we jumped into the next tuk tuk. While being driven home, we saw only tourist walking peacefully in the empty streets.
There was no visible violence, since the mob gathered in a village further away. The government implemented a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day.
Later we learned that the curfew was only intended for locals, as there was neither a threat to tourist nor would they become a part of the angry mob. The next morning we left Kandy, as originally planned.
The next days
It was a hot topic and we talked to many locals and asked our questions in the following days.
Both Muslim and Buddhist people were super friendly to us but some were already taking sides in the social media hate campaigns and blaming either Muslims or Buddhists for the problems at hand. We also spoke to some locals who frequently traveled abroad and had a more objective view on the world around them. They confirmed that these hate campaigns were being spread by only a few radicals who swiftly mange to influence the masses for their own agenda. Now the tensions are under control but mistrust among the communities appears to linger.
P.S.: At least during the social media ban Alex finally managed to read a book from start to finish: War of the Worlds from H.G. Wells (“at least better than that film with Tom Cruise”).
