The Commanding Officer
Photo courtesy BBC I remember going over to the house of a friend and trying to save the house from attack and destruction. I remember our failure to achieve that hope. A…
Photo courtesy BBC I remember going over to the house of a friend and trying to save the house from attack and destruction. I remember our failure to achieve that hope. A…
When the journalist Peter Savodnik asked me to collaborate with him on making , I said no. I was scared. This was my home. I knew that if I crossed some invisible…
Photo via blackjuly.info The Politics of Identity It seems all too obvious that the regular cycles of violence that have emerged in our recent history since 1915 are distinctly communal in character.…
Photo via , REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany 3rd July 2013 is a dark day in the history of Egypt and indeed in the democratic world. It was the day the deep state in…
Photo courtesy While I wish that Dayasiri Jayasekara had broken away from the UNP to form a new party rather than join the government, he has, I must admit, made a smart…
“I do not say you can attain purity by views, traditions, morality or conventions, nor will you gain purity without these. But by using them for abandonment rather than as positions to…
Photo via blackjuly.info Fault-lines Perhaps it is a tragic coincidence of our time; or maybe it was inevitable given the passage of generations, that we are marking the thirty year anniversary of…
Photo via blackjuly.info The dark clouds of history When I look back, I do not see the black smoke rising, or the cries of hapless countrymen, women and innocent children – victims…
Photo courtesy Tamil Guardian First, the colours. My memories of July are full of dark colours, foreboding and angry. Grey dominates. Grey, the colour of the smoke that is everywhere, even in…
Click here for a larger version. ### Editors note: The creator of this card is part of a project, curated by , that brings together leading documentary filmmakers, photographers, activists, theorists and designers, in Sri…
As I recall “Black July” 1983 on 23rd July 2013, 30 years have quickly passed by, but my memories of “Black July” remain fresh and intact in my heart. On a Saturday…
These memories still haunt me—even 30 years later. Pain clutches me, along with fear and trepidation. Now I look back and remember with tears of profound sadness at so many things that…
The most vivid memory of violent conflict for me has been from July 23, 1983. I was 7 years old then, the same age as my twins today. Each time a word,…
Meemure village, Sri Lanka, June 2013. Aamina Nizar for The Picture Press. “No one came to the house”, he said, “but I did get threatening phone calls in the middle of the…
Thirty years ago today, my parents were heroes. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know this. My mother who worked in Fort back then, saw buildings going up in smoke, tyres burning and…