Decades of majoritarian politics, and the more recent descent towards authoritarianism and militarisation, have eroded the foundations of our democracy. They have numbed us to the violence in our daily lives and desensitised us to how sections of our citizenry are targeted. Over a year has passed since Hejaaz Hizbullah and Ahnaf Jazeem were arrested,… Continue reading A call to action against the detention of Hejaaz Hizbullah and Ahnaf Jazeem, anti-Muslim violence, and attacks on democracy
Author: ssalanka
In Memoriam: Malathi de Alwis (1963 – 2021) and Qadri Ismail (1961 – 2021)
It is with deep sadness that Polity marks the untimely loss of not one but two great Sri Lankan scholars Malathi de Alwis and Qadri Ismail in the space of five months of each other. As Andi Schubert observes in his tribute to Qadri for Polity, they were both part of a generation of Sri… Continue reading In Memoriam: Malathi de Alwis (1963 – 2021) and Qadri Ismail (1961 – 2021)
Qadri Ismail (1961 – 2021): Abiding, Acknowledging, and Accounting for Intellectual Debts – Andi Schubert
Fuck 2021. Well, that seems like an appropriately Qadri-esque way[i] to open a reflection on his untimely and sudden death, only a few months after the loss of Dr Malathi De Alwis. Qadri and Malathi De Alwis were part of a stellar generation of Sri Lankan intellectuals who came of age in the mid to late… Continue reading Qadri Ismail (1961 – 2021): Abiding, Acknowledging, and Accounting for Intellectual Debts – Andi Schubert
The Moral Mother Syndrome – Malathi de Alwis
I was in a trishaw recently trying out my discussion topic of the month — social violence — when the driver suddenly launched into a passionate tirade that the reason for all the violence within our society was that “our” (i.e. Sinhala) women were no longer committed (kapaweemak athuva) towards working for the development of… Continue reading The Moral Mother Syndrome – Malathi de Alwis
Polity Vol.8 No.1 & 2
Editorial: Environment & Society in Sri Lanka, pp. 02 – 03 Crossing Borders: Sovereign Life and Sovereignty – Sivamohan Sumathy , pp. 04-07 Beyond Numbers: Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Response, Politics and People – Ramya Kumar, pp. 8 – 13 April Theses with 2020 Vision – Quincy Saul , pp. 14-20 The Politics of Environmental Movements… Continue reading Polity Vol.8 No.1 & 2
A Flippant Gesture Towards Sri Lanka: A Review of Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost – Qadri Ismail
Novels like all other texts take sides. Literary orthodoxy may hold, still, that fiction must be read and evaluated on purely aesthetic grounds. But leftist literary criticism has always emphasised—and at its best demonstrated—the political consequences of fictions; it reinforces certain constructions of the social (what more colloquially would be called a worldview); such constructions… Continue reading A Flippant Gesture Towards Sri Lanka: A Review of Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost – Qadri Ismail
Identity Formation in the Sinhalese Transnational Community in Toronto, Canada – Sankajaya Nanayakkara
The current literature on diaspora makes a break from the old assimilationist and methodologically nationalist perspective on migration. The older perspective took the nation-state as the unit of analysis, assumed immigrants severed relations with their homelands, migration trajectories as unidirectional, migration ended in assimilation (Brubaker 2005: 8), and eventually immigrants become citizens of the host-state.… Continue reading Identity Formation in the Sinhalese Transnational Community in Toronto, Canada – Sankajaya Nanayakkara
Like Water to Soil: ‘Paangshu’ Between Politics and Rights – Prabha Manuratne
The director of the film Paangshu, Visakesa Chandrasekaram describes how his encounter with human rights violations in Sri Lanka made a deep impact on him, and remembers the image of a mother looking at the remains of her dead son: “She really changed my perception of the kind of professional life I wanted to have”… Continue reading Like Water to Soil: ‘Paangshu’ Between Politics and Rights – Prabha Manuratne
30 Years Later: Reading the Southern Mothers’ Front with Malathi de Alwis – Chulani Kodikara
Meeting of the southern Mothers’ Front. Photo: Stephen Champion In Malathi de Alwis’ analysis the southern Mother’s Front which emerged from the ruins of the second southern insurrection, demanding truth and justice for disappearances, was “the single largest women’s protest movement of its time and arguably one of the most effective in the history of… Continue reading 30 Years Later: Reading the Southern Mothers’ Front with Malathi de Alwis – Chulani Kodikara
Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka. Mythri Jegathesan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. 288 pp – Reviewed by Nadia Augustyniak
As anthropology continues to grapple with the colonial, racialised, and exploitative undercurrents of the ethnographic endeavour, decolonial and feminist approaches have emerged with a renewed force, charting paths for alternative enactments of knowledge production and new understandings of its aims and effects. In this context, Mythri Jegathesan’s Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in… Continue reading Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka. Mythri Jegathesan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. 288 pp – Reviewed by Nadia Augustyniak