Sri Lanka redefines “curfew” in Beruwela
Lest we forget, the Police imposed a curfew in Beruwela and Aluthgama on 15th June in an effort to stop the violence against Muslims in the area. The curfew in Aluthgama was…
Post-War
Elusive Economic Peace Dividend in Sri Lanka: ALL that glitters is not gold
Photo courtesy IPS Introduction It is five years since the decisive end of the civil war in May 2009. The government’s approach to resolving the long festering ethnic conflict in the country…
Some Civil Society Questions for Bodu Bala Sena (BBS)
Photo by Dinouk Colombage, Al Jazeera The Facebook (FB) group called “Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena (BQBBS)” once compiled a list of questions for BBS through a lengthy consultation period with its…
Aluthgama violence: Where was Sri Lanka’s President?
Photo by Dinouk Colombage, via The horrible killings and destruction in Aluthgama on Sunday was blacked out by almost all mainstream media in Sri Lanka at the height of the violence and the morning after….
IS THE BBS THE BOSS?
Photo courtesy There are scarier things, worse things, than Black July ’83. Aluthgama signaled the possibility of such things. The sequence of events, the lethal violence, the horror of Aluthgama were reminiscent…
The Limits of Tolerance
Photo courtesy There is a limit to tolerance, and this is it. In its short history as an independent republic, Sri Lanka has seen more bloodshed than seems fair. Many of our…
Happy Sri Lanka
Happy, by Pharrell Williams bills itself as the world’s first 24 hour music video. The song is extremely catchy and aired at least once a day, every day at the time of…
A Papal prayer for Middle East peace and a visit to Sri Lanka
Photography by Getty Images, courtesy The Catholic Church has announced that His Holiness Pope Francis would be visiting Sri Lanka from January 13th to 15th, next year. Preceding the announcement, were visits to…
REALIST MODERNISM IN AN AGE OF KULTURKAMPF: A Review of Long War, Cold Peace by Dayan Jayatilleka
Image from YouTube video Dr Dayan Jayatilleka’s book, , now in its second revised edition of 2014, is one of the few book-length attempts by a Sri Lankan scholar to make sense…
Revaluation of Values: Applying the Pullman Principle to Post-War Sri Lanka
Photo by LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/Getty Images via Al Jazeera America This past couple of weeks I’ve been rereading Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. I first picked up ‘Northern Lights’ (Book 1) in…
In conversation with Kalana Senaratne: Religiosity, politics and identity in Sri Lanka
Kalana Senaratne is a distinguished columnist and researcher. Readers of would be most familiar with his writing on the rise of militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka, though he has written consistently of…
OVERCOMING THE POST-WAR MALAISE: WHY SRI LANKA NEEDS A REFORM MINISTRY AND WHAT IT SHOULD DO
[Photo credit: The Empire Youth Annual, 1952] “For centuries the Sinhalese and the Tamils have lived together in peace and amity. We have been governed by their kings and they by ours…
Celebrating 5 years of Post-War Conflict
Photography by DushiYanthini Kanagasabapathipillai Kiru is a soft spoken but hard-nosed activist from Jaffna. He and I both attended the opening ceremony of the recently concluded World Conference on Youth (WCY) in…
THE STATE AND WAR: THE POLITICS OF PHILOSOPHY
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte, via Channel 4 Concluding rejoinder to Vangeesa Sumanasekara – Slavoj Zizek In the beginning was politics. Marx’s favourite figure in literature was Prometheus. The better known version of…
Understanding the National Question as a Pre-Democratic Problem: A Skeptical Note on the Southern Reform agenda
Photo by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via FT.com Five years after the end of the war, the Government has now started arguing that the war is not over. The Government doesn’t think the…
