I Will Return to Sri Lanka

Survivor’s guilt and processing tragedy from afar.

On a recent episode of the Daily Show, Trevor Noah commented on the self-centered way in which Americans process international news. While discussing a story of an American woman and her guide who were kidnapped in Uganda, he made light of our narcissistic inclination to relate tragedies back to ourselves. “I’m American, that could be me!”

I was confused by my initial reaction upon hearing news of the April 2019 terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, which left over 350 dead and another 500 wounded.