The Story of a Meditating Sri Lankan Man
The other day, on the banks of the Diyawanna waterfront close to the Sri Lankan Parliament, I noticed a man sitting in meditation. What a surprise? He is none other than my…
Reconciliation
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…
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…
A ‘victory day’ sketch
Sri Lanka celebrated that very first victory day one day later than it has been marked in the four years since. It was the 19th of May, 2009. Vellupillai Prabhakaran had been…
The Single Story of Sri Lanka
Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images via Al Jazeera America In a well-known TED talk, the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie talks of the dangers of the single story.[1] “The single story creates stereotypes,”…
Head in my hands
Image courtesy Justice in Conflict Five years after the war I often think of how it could have been. A President who, the day after the war ends, speaks to the people…
Lifting the veil to reconciliation
‘A Memory of War’ by Vidu Gunaratna When Sri Lanka’s legendary bowler Muttiah Muralitharan was repeatedly accused of chucking by an Australian umpire, captain Arjuna Ranatunge protested by walking out with his…
Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe: Roadblocks in the Path of Reconciliation
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte via Channel 4 Way back in the 1970s the manner in which Anagārika Dharmapāla conflated the concepts of “Ceylonese” and “Sinhalese” in one of his public exhortations (Guruge 1965)…
A South African effort at promoting reconciliation
General elections in South Africa concluded a few days ago and the results were a resounding reelection victory for the ruling African Nation Congress and the government of President Jacob Zuma. Twenty…
Kasturi’s Progress
Photo by Vidu Gunaratna, AČK | Photography Kasturi was born in another century in what really was another country. It was called Ceylon, and the year, 1933. Two years earlier, exercising the…
A new phase of mediation to get from post-war to post-conflict Sri Lanka
Image courtesy BBC Five years after the end of the war, Sri Lanka remains a post-war society that has yet to make the transition to a post-conflict society. While the violence has…
Five years on, where we are now: Reconciliation, the Rule of Law and governance
Photo by AP, via VOA News It is five years now after the defeat of the LTTE. As the Government then claimed it marked the end of terrorism and the beginning of…
Is reconciliation achievable without separation in Sri Lanka?
“The general population doesn’t know what is happening and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know” – Noam Chomsky Introduction In the article published in May 2010, I concluded: The emphasis…
Dangerous defeat in Geneva
Image courtesy Wikipedia “The passage of the resolution marks a historic moment…” Having lost the crucial vote in Geneva and opened the door to an international investigation, Sri Lanka is now in…
Defending non-implementation of the LLRC in Geneva
Image courtesy Sri Lanka Brief The Rajapakse Administration has deployed a key architect of its post war policy towards minorities and war affected communities in Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, through his position…