Archive for the ‘Peace and Conflict’

Impeachment of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice and its impact: Poll results

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Photo courtesy Euronews From 6 – 21 March 2013, Groundviews ran an online poll to ascertain opinions on the lasting impact of the unprecedented impeachment of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice. The online poll was hosted on Typeform.com. 177 responses were generated. The questionnaire can be downloaded as a PDF here. The full poll results, for statistical analysis and verification, can be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet here. Excerpts to the answers given to Question 1 and 7 are reproduced below, which some language edits. Unedited responses to these questions can be downloaded as plain text files (Question 1 and Question 7). Select quotes from the responses generated by Question 9 are also embedded in the infographic below. Unedited responses to this question are included in the Excel spreadsheet above. Clicking on the heading of any chart will take you to infogr.am and allow you to share and embed the specific infographic across a range of leading social media sites and…

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Colonizing Childhood and Zionist Pedagogy: Interview With Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan

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Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, peace educator and activist and co-laureate along with late Prof. Izzat Gazzawi of the 2001 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Speech awarded by the European parliament. Peled-Elhanan has translated Albert Memmi‘s Le Racisme (1982) and Marguerite Duras‘ Écrire (1993) into Hebrew. In 1997, her daughter Smadar, aged 13, was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem. “Terrorist attacks like this are the direct consequence of the oppression, slavery, humiliation and state of siege imposed on the Palestinians”, she told reporters in the aftermath of Smadar’s death. She and her family work with the Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace. Professor Peled has critically dissected the ideological content of Israeli schoolbooks for the past five years. She considers children as victims of Israel’s militaristic, settler-colonial culture. Her radical views have exacted a professional cost. “University professors have stopped inviting me…

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Taking old friends too seriously: Sri Lanka, Burma and Buddhist extremism

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People collect pieces of metal from the rubble of a neighbourhood in Pauktaw township that was burned in recent violence October 27, 2012. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun (Caption and content from Reuters) Sri Lanka’s long relationship with Burma is something that anyone who has even a nodding acquaintance with Sri Lankan history is aware of. In both nations, Theravada Buddhism has been a vital political idea that has cemented the legitimacy of monarchs. Both Burma and Sri Lanka saw a Buddhist revival as a response to colonial occupation, a revival which has allowed Buddhism to fuse with nationalism as both countries achieved their independence. With such a similar and connected past, it should come as no surprise that the Bodu Bala Sena’s manifesto echoes that of the 969; an extremist Buddhist organization in Myanmar that seeks to ethnically cleanse Myanmar of Muslims, who make up 4% of the country’s population.  The 969 take their title from Buddhist numerology and have styled themselves…

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Helping the Police arrest brutish “monks” in Sri Lanka

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Apparently the infamous Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) has condemned the attack on Fashion Bug warehouse a few days ago and asked the Police to arrest those involved in it, even if they are monks. A Daily Mirror news report suggests BBS thinks the individuals captured on film destroyed private property were actually impostors. Prima facie, this then begs the question as to why dozens of Police failed to arrest any of these “impostors” on the scene. This is not the first time Police have stood idly by as militant and racist “monks” have gone on the rampage. As we noted on Twitter, So response of BBS suggests that mob was really in fancy dress dailymirror.lk/news/27442-bbs… Does anyone believe them? #lka #SriLanka — Groundviews (@groundviews) March 29, 2013 No arrests had been made, says Police. No arrests will EVER be made globalpost.com/dispatch/news/… #lka #srilanka — Groundviews (@groundviews) March 29, 2013 Here are two images to help the Sri Lankan Police in…

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Responding to Geneva by Exemplary Restitution

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Robert O. Blake has once said, “International mechanisms can become appropriate in cases where states are either unable or unwilling to meet their obligations.” After Geneva March 2013, US officials have reiterated this in stricter terms. TNA MP Suresh Premachandran has said the final Geneva Resolution will not relieve the affected Tamils and reminded the UNHRC wish (2012) to implement the LLRC recommendations, which allegedly has been defaulted. TNA Leader R Sampanthan has said that if Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) complied by implementing the LLRC recommendations, a second resolution could have been avoided. However, Japan’s Yasushi Akashi has made a favourable statement for Sri Lanka, quoting his visits to North Sri Lanka and how “the whole country coped with the challenges” In Geneva Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe described positive developments.  Later, Minister Wimal Weerawansa exhorted that Sri Lanka is unshaken by Geneva resolutions, while Minister DEW Gunasekara feared worse befalling by government defaulting. Is this confusion due to different viewer notions?…

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A Missing Person in Sri Lanka: Heartfelt Issues & Ground Realities

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Image courtesy Salon / AP Photo by Eranga Jayawardena When I was in Sri Lanka from mid-April to early June 2009 I was on holiday with my wife and not able to pursue investigations in any depth. In contrast my sojourn in May-June 2010 focused on a range of studies and travels. One gem of a life-story surfaced near my second home in Wellawatte when I was able to chat with a domestic servant at a Tamil house nearby, a lady who had been through the crucible of Eelam War in the Vanni Pocket. I shall call her Sambandhi. She was a wizened wiry soul who had survived the war together with husband, but (1) had one daughter killed by shrapnel; (2) one son (who was then aged c. 21) hospitalized in mid-2009 with the loss of one eye and injuries to face and other eye;[i] and (3) was wracked with pain because one of her sons had been conscripted…

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#unlk: Archive and visualisation of tweets on Sri Lanka at HRC’s 22nd Session

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The 22nd regular session of the Human Rights Council was held from 25 February to 22 March 2013 at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. As Groundviews did with conversations on Twitter over Sri Lanka during the UPR sessions last year, we archived every single tweet from Thursday, 21st February 2013 to Tuesday, 26th March 2013 with the #unlk hashtag. After tossing around several options for a good hashtag over email, #unlk was circulated globally by leading websites, activists, local and international HR organisations, journalists and others before the start of the HRC’s 22nd Session, to facilitate the creation of this archive. We used Martin Hawskey’s new TAGS v5 template with Twitter’s Developer API and Google Docs to archive every single #unlk tweet. There are 6056 tweets in the archive, which include retweets as well. The peaks correspond to the times and dates which either the #unlk hashtag was promoted globally as a means to capture conversations around sri Lanka…

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  • 26 Mar, 2013
  • 1 Comment
  • Colombo,
    Education,
    Features,
    Peace and Conflict,
    Youth

The State of the Free Education System in Sri Lanka: Confessions of a Disgruntled Student

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Image courtesy The Nation I am one of the 243,876 lucky students who sat for the Advanced Level Examinations in 2011. It has been almost one-and-a-half-years since then, and I received my university registration form only yesterday (6 – 4 – 2012). I was privileged enough to receive A/L results four times in the space of ten months. For this, I am eternally indebted to the Examinations Department. The possibilities for further delay, once I start university are endless: the FUTA might decide to call for another trade union action; minor-staff may decide their wages are insufficient; fellow students may decide to oppose private universities by boycotting classes; and so on. The thought of how old I will be when I graduate is not entertaining[1]. Grand Promises and Disconcerting Realities All state school textbooks carry an excerpt from a speech made by President Rajapaksa in 2010: “Beloved Sons and Daughters, Many countries that lagged behind us at the time we…

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Interview with Nimalka Fernando: The UN HRC resolution and beyond

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Nimalka, now we’ve seen that the council voted for the resolution on Sri Lanka. What is your initial impression? It’s a serious voting pattern. Because if you look at the resolution, the resolution has very substantial  concerns raised by civil society for a period of time. From holding elections in the North, addressing issues of impunity, collapse of rule of law, the unaddressed issues of accountability, the failure of Sri Lankan Government to address issues of reconciliation for a long time, and also the selective manner in which the LLRC action plan has been constructed and also the inadequacies in the national human rights action plan. So if you take all those subjects one by one, if you look at the voting pattern one by one, I feel very serious in terms of the resolution. If you take for instance the statement made by Thailand; Thailand voted against the resolution. But Thailand made a very significant statement calling on to…

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Inter-Religious Integration in Sri Lanka—Inclusion not Intrusion

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Image courtesy Maliban Biscuit Over the past months Sri Lankans have been educated on two Arabic words: halal and haram (that which is permissible and not permissible). Unfortunately the circumstances of learning have been an unprecedented antagonism towards the Muslim community much deeper than the halal issue. This trend must be addressed without delay by the government and all religions before it spirals into a much wider conflict, which the country can ill afford. The government’s responsibility is to do what all governments are mandated to do: ensure the prompt implementation of law and order without fear or favour to any. This should include steps to curb the provocation of religious animosity and ensure the security and dignity of the Muslim community; an intrinsic part of the nation from well before the Ninth Century. That this has not happened is worrying since the government is more than capable of restoring order. It consequently suggests that there is an anticipation of…

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UN HRC 22nd Session | Resolution ‘Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka’

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An archive of material around the Resolution titled ‘Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka’ passed at the UN Human Rights Council today. Final text below, and available as PDF here, and as Word document here. ### Human Rights Council Twenty-second session Agenda item 2 Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General Austria, Belgium*, Bulgaria*, Canada*, Croatia*, Denmark*, Estonia, Finland*, France*, Georgia*, Germany, Greece*, Hungary*, Iceland*, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein*, Lithuania*, Malta*, Monaco*, Montenegro, Norway*, Poland, Portugal*, Romania, Saint Kitts and Nevis*, Slovakia*, Slovenia*, Spain, Sweden*, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland*, United States of America: draft resolution 22/… Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka The Human Rights Council, Reaffirming the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, Guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights and other relevant instruments, Bearing in…

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The Political Economy of Prejudice: Islam, Muslims and Sinhala-Buddhist Nationalism in Sri Lanka Today: Some Reflections

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From the Say No to Halaal Facebook group Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority is increasingly finding itself the target of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists: a campaign against halal, attacks on mosques, boycott of their businesses, hate speech, intimidation and threats. Many concerned social activists, researchers and commentators have attempted to grapple with current manifestations of this phenomenon with a view to shaping meaningful and effective responses by furthering our understanding of its socio-political and economic dimensions.  This reflection is shared in the same spirit. I focus on two related aspects. Firstly, I highlight why it is important to term (and view) the spate of recent acts not just as anti-Muslim, as many tend to do, but also as anti-Islam. Viewing Sinhala-Buddhist extremist rhetoric only as ‘anti-Muslim’ actually overlooks the underlying prejudice against Islam itself that fuels this campaign. Secondly, the piece simultaneously argues for going beyond a mass-appeal-centred view of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism to account for its links with currently dominant political economic configurations…

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Pope Francis: Options for the poor, disappearances, dirty wars, dictatorships in Argentina, Sri Lanka and elsewhere

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Image courtesy New York Times, Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters The new Pope has been hailed as someone known for his simple life style, identification and sympathy to the poor, proclaiming “how I wish for a Church that is poor and for the poor”. In his homily at the Mass that formally installed him as the Pope today at the Vatican, he referred to the Church’s mission as one that has to show love, concern, and protect all people, particularly those in need, and also the environment. Several heads of states and the US Vice President was reported to have been present, and in their presence, the new Pope called on the “those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill” to be “protectors of one another and of the environment”. Amongst the heads of state present was Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who faces a travel ban by the European Union for alleged…

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Bodu Bala Sena: A Threat To Sri Lanka’s Future

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Goatabaya Rajapaksa ceremonially declaring open a Buddhist Leadership Academy of the Bodhu Bala Sena in Galle, via dbsjeyaraj.com Sri Lanka’s fragile attempt of reconciliation, following the end of the thirty-year civil war, faces a potentially backbreaking obstacle. The growing Sinhala Buddhist nationalism that is the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) movement is threatening to divide an already a fractious society. On the basis of protecting Sinhalese businessmen from the rising prices allegedly caused by Muslim businesses, the BBS movement has taken to the streets targeting the Muslim community. Having started last year with the unsubstantiated accusations against Muslims for illegally building mosques on “temple land”, Buddhist priests banded together in an attempt to demolish these structures. The authorities chose to stand idly by, and when finally forced to address the issue have to still to make a firm decision. The anti-Muslim issue has now progressed to the BBS calling for the ban of all Halal products. According to the organisation the…

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Sons and daughters missing, missed, forgotten: LLRC’s failure in Sri Lanka

"My daughter has been missing since 15th of May 2009 from Valaijarmadam" ~ Vasanthathevi Kathirkamanathan from Ananthapuram, Puthukkudiyiruppu in Mullaithivu District

Tamil mothers, sisters, wives and daughters have not yet given up their hopes to find their disappeared sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. The tragedy of endless search continues for them. Some Tamil women have more than one tragedy to digest. Vasanthathevi Kathirkamanathan is still searching for her missing daughter. And, her husband has been missing since May 2009. “I don’t know whether he is alive or dead. My relatives want me to believe that he was hit by a shell during the heavy fighting in May 2009, and died on the spot. But, he was with me till the last moment on 18th May 2009. If he was hit by a shell, and died on the spot, I must have seen his dead body. Since, I have not seen his dead body, I am unable to believe that he was killed. I strongly feel he was made to disappear. My life is in limbo” says tearful Vasanthathevi Kathirkamanathan from Ananthapuram,…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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