Important lessons to be learned from Sri Lanka blasts

THE DEATH TOLL IN THE EIGHT blasts that hit Sri Lanka on Sunday continued rising on Monday. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

The eight blasts on Sunday cast the shadow of terror over the whole of Sri Lanka. At least one Chinese citizen is confirmed dead in the blasts. And the Chinese people share the feelings of Sri Lankan people and their condemnation of terrorism.

The question now is what to learn from the eight blasts that Sri Lanka suffered so as to prevent them from happening again in any corner of the world. So far no organization has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Ruwan Wijewardene, minister of defense of Sri Lanka, has already confirmed one of the suspects was a religious fundamentalist.

Actually, as Zhu Sumei, a professor at the International Politics Department of the University of International Relations, observed even before that information was released, the shadow of religious extremism could be seen behind the attacks because at least three of the eight blasts happened in churches, and the day of the attacks was Easter Sunday, an important Christian festival.

Needless to say, the eight blasts in Sri Lanka send a warning to the whole world to stay more united in the fight against religious extremism. In past practices, certain Western countries have tended to impose a double standard on terrorism and only view those religious extremists that threaten their own security as terrorists. However, the religious extremists have formed networks across national boundaries. It is time for different countries to join hands more tightly to tear apart these terror networks and fight religious extremism more efficiently.

Besides, the control of guns and explosives must be strengthened to prevent terrorist attacks on such a large scale, said Gong Honglie, an associate professor on anti-terrorism studies at Nanjing University. In order to launch eight blasts in one single day, the terrorists must have prepared large quantities of explosives, which is a very difficult mission in any country with strict control of guns and explosives.

Some might argue that this time it was suicide attacks and explosives, not gun attacks, but loose gun controls means loose control of explosives, too.

It is to be hoped the world will learn from the blasts in Sri Lanka to prevent such an atrocity happening elsewhere.