We do tend to focus on the heroism of people who come from backgrounds of privilege such as Lasantha, forgetting that many other lesser-known people have also lost their lives in standing up against various forms of oppression, while others continue to court danger to themselves and their families. Are such stories of heroism and sacrifice of less-privileged Sri Lankans available now? Could Sunila write such a piece, naming such people so they can be included in the pantheon of people who inspire us? This could be one way of getting the public to respond to human rights violations–to make such incidents and experiences part of the life story of ‘ordinary’ people, and not just some abstract foreign construct that has nothing to do with them. We talk of “human” rights violations, often in some amorphous way as lots of massacres happening here and there, without putting human faces and names to these victims. That’s quite ironic–we both highlight and continually erase the human dimension of these violations.

Perhaps SL civil society organizations need to embrace the public’s failure to respond to HR violations as THEIR own failure? Even as a perspective taken on for tactical reasons, it might help to urge the movement forward.