Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Since the end of the war, Sri Lanka’s economy is being transformed through a rapid process of financialisation. Such widespread financialisation facilitated infrastructure development, a real estate boom linked to urbanisation and expansion of credit leading to increasing indebtedness of the (...)
We can blame the chaos of the contemporary global moment for many problems. From rising prices, to rearmament and the possibility of outright military conflict between hegemonic powers, there is a lot about which to be extremely concerned. But one of the most banal trends that is nevertheless (...)
Shehan Karunatilaka. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Gurugram, Haryana: Penguin Books, 2022 – Reviewed by Harshana Rambukwella
A murdered journalist ‘awakens’ in a ghostly world to witness his dead body being pulled out of a polluted Colombo lake to be dismembered and fed to animals. He (...)
The Foreign Ministry threw another hissy fit over comments made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his statement commemorating the 14th anniversary of the end of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka. Trudeau noted that tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed in the last phase of (...)
Civil society organisations representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning, intersex plus (LGBTQI+) community yesterday (10) stressed that it is the responsibility of Parliamentarians to pass the private Member Bill submitted to the Parliament by Sri Lanka Podujana (...)
Less than a year has passed since the 9th July uprising last year in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, the contours of the present regime are well established. A loose network of progressive activists and trade unions have rightly kept the basic illegitimacy of the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government at (...)
Who gets to be a ‘hero’ or ‘traitor’ is complicated and contested
Ramanthan Vijayalakshmi can reel off the date of her brother’s death by memory — Oct. 17, 1995. A 47-year-old resident of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Vijayalakshmi had lost contact with him five years before he died, when he had been (...)
When the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa brought the 18th Amendment to further Strengthen his hold on executive power, the Christian Workers Fellowship, declared that , the ’executive presidential system is anti-God’. and anti-People. When the current President Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe is (...)
2022 marked a watershed moment in the history of independent Sri Lanka. An uprising of the people brought an end to the Rajapaksa tyranny which was strangling our country for over a decade. However, just as the Rajapaksas were ousted, the lack of political leadership resulted in an undemocratic (...)
Many months –perhaps even a year –ago, I was so positively struck by a television performance by Ramindu Perera that I wanted to know more and inquired about him from my friend at the Open University, Dr. Mahim Mendis, who said good things about his young colleague. I am not surprised therefore (...)
Even its adversaries would admit that the Jathika Jana Balavegaya (NPP) has emerged as the most successful force in the post-aragalaya political scene. A recent opinion poll conducted by the Institute for Health Policy (IHP) indicates that the NPP would have a significant lead over the main (...)
In 1908, 15,000 working women marched through New York City demanding decent working hours, better pay, and voting rights. In 1910, at the Second International Conference of Working Women, Clara Zetkin proposed the idea of an International Women’s Day.
In 1908, 15,000 working women marched (...)
The South Colombo Youth League [Marxist] got involved in the Suriyamal Movement and revived it on a new anti-imperialist and anti-war basis. Yearly until the Second World War, young women sold Suriya flowers on the streets on Armistice Day in competition with the ‘imperialists’ Poppy sellers. (...)
It is only by coming together as citizens of this country that we can ensure the inalienable fundamental rights of Muslim women and children without being appropriated either by majoritarian state agenda or by conservative Muslim community agenda
“The MMDA as it stands now is far from Islamic. (...)
“Even though they have other lands to cremate bodies at, they are trying to bring bodies to this site,” Selvam Kadirkamanathan, Member of the Valikamam East Provincial Council -
“But people haven’t been using this cemetery. It is said that bodies were cremated in this site some 30 years ago,” (...)
“Our challenge is to devise some arrangement which enables us to coexist if not in amity then at least in forbearance.” Jawaharlal Nehru (quoted in Andre Malraux’s Anti-Memoir).
During Black July, marauding mobs, when uncertain about the ethnic identity of a potential victim, would order him/her (...)
“… stability, no less than revolution, may have its own kind of Terror”
Ranil Wickremesinghe has apparently peaked in popularity in the twilight of a dismal political career. Among party leaders, he is viewed favourably by 54% of the public (in comparison to 43% for the Leader of the Opposition (...)
Bimal Ratnayake, a stalwart of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), in an interview with DailyMirror, responds to questions on elections, and their policies to develop the country. A Marxist party it is, the JVP has advocated socialist policies right throughout.
How do you see the importance of (...)
Political scientists and legal academics note pressing need for authorities mired in ‘economic crisis myopia’ to instead identify ‘crises’ as opposed to a ‘crisis’ and seek ‘solutions’ instead of a ‘solution’
Although the pressing need to address the prevailing crisis situation in the country has (...)
Inspired by Yugoslavia’s market socialism, Trotskyists in the Sri Lankan government instituted workers’ councils during the 1970s. A decade later, the experiment collapsed. What explains its rise and fall?
On June 28, 1948, the Cominform, the Stalinist alliance of European Marxist-Leninist (...)
Twitter
Facebook