(Written originally for and published in ShishtaLanka – DecentLanka – February 2017, in translation in Sinhala) What is the role, and what is the status, of women in Sri Lanka today? Where do we stand? These are the primary questions I asked of myself when I began writing this essay. It seemed a good moment, at the beginning of ...
“Sri Lankan mothers from the “Dead and Missing Person’s Parents” organisation hold photographs as they takes part in a protest in Jaffna, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Colombo. Photo: AFP” (International Commission on Missing Persons) Note: This piece was commissioned for and originally published in Options Magazine, 51 edition, in Sri Lanka, in 2016. The full magazine ...
“Sri Lankan mothers from the “Dead and Missing Person’s Parents” organisation hold photographs as they takes part in a protest in Jaffna, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Colombo. Photo: AFP” (International Commission on Missing Persons) Note: This piece was commissioned for and originally published in Options Magazine, 51 edition, in Sri Lanka, in 2016. The full magazine ...
Note: In this piece, when I refer to ‘rape’, I refer more or less exclusively to heterosexual rape, as committed against women, by men. The omission of the discussion of other versions of sexual violence and rape is not exclusionary in intent, but because the piece attempts to discuss ‘rape’ as presented in the film ‘Silence in the Courts’, which ...
Note: In this piece, when I refer to ‘rape’, I refer more or less exclusively to heterosexual rape, as committed against women, by men. The omission of the discussion of other versions of sexual violence and rape is not exclusionary in intent, but because the piece attempts to discuss ‘rape’ as presented in the film ‘Silence in the Courts’, which ...
Lahore feminists (1983) protest the Islamisization of Zia government. Feminism is the only real way to challenge sexism; when we reject feminism, we play right into its hands. You would be surprised at the amount of messages I get from women (writing to say they so agree with something I have written) which begin with ‘I am not a feminist, ...
Lahore feminists (1983) protest the Islamisization of Zia government. Feminism is the only real way to challenge sexism; when we reject feminism, we play right into its hands. You would be surprised at the amount of messages I get from women (writing to say they so agree with something I have written) which begin with ‘I am not a feminist, ...
Diverse people gathered to celebrate differences and demand equality (from the official DifferentYetEqual FB page) The following statement can be found in all three languages on the Different Yet Equal Facebook group page. DifferentYetEqual: A campaign for equality and democracy Press Statement: 16 August 2016 On the evening of 15 August 2016, we, a group of citizens from diverse backgrounds, ...
Diverse people gathered to celebrate differences and demand equality (from the official DifferentYetEqual FB page) The following statement can be found in all three languages on the Different Yet Equal Facebook group page. DifferentYetEqual: A campaign for equality and democracy Press Statement: 16 August 2016 On the evening of 15 August 2016, we, a group of citizens from diverse backgrounds, ...
Below are some notes and observations about how, why and when we choose to speak and what we choose to say on social media – but also in general. This is about how we respond to injustice, and how we respond to those who respond to injustice – and while specifically about recent events, can also broadly be applied ...
Below are some notes and observations about how, why and when we choose to speak and what we choose to say on social media – but also in general. This is about how we respond to injustice, and how we respond to those who respond to injustice – and while specifically about recent events, can also broadly be applied ...
Brenda Chirino, one of hundreds that gathered at the Metro Wellness Center in Ybor City, attends a candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. Tampa Police momentarily shut down a portion of 7th avenue to accommodate the large crowd. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) What do cases like the ...
Vaaharai community marks May 18, 2016 (source: Tamil Guardian) I am astounded; the government has called off this year’s ‘Victory Parade’ and no one is really talking about it. Why are we not talking about it? Why isn’t everyone talking about it? Why aren’t we all so very glad? In an interview with the Sunday Observer, our present Defense Minister ...
Published on Groundviews. On April 2016, two 19 year-old women were fatally hit by a train while attempting to cross a railway track in Dehiwala. The tragic incident quickly attracted the attention of the media, and journalists from every major domestic media outlet reported the incident, bringing to the nation and the world images and stories about the “tragic ...
This post has been a long time coming. It has taken many shapes and been many versions of itself. Now I am back home in Sri Lanka, where all the nuances of our lives in this place and belonging to this place somehow pull and tug simultaneously, I think it’s time to say it out loud. Over the last ...
South Asian Feminists, 1986 Today, on the day I leave India, I thought it would be nice to share this picture, which was shared via my mother’s friends on Facebook a few days ago. This is the great South Asian feminist sisterhood, as we know it, circa 1986. My amazing mother Sunila Abeysekera, wears possibly biggest smile in the ...
(A Jungle Healing was originally written for and published in the UK magazine So It Goes, in April 2015. It was a collaboration with Cassie Machado, a British-Sri Lankan artist, whose images the original article was printed with, when they appeared in the magazine. The title, A Jungle Healing, was taken from R Cheran’s poem, of which excerpts appear here, ...
(This was written as a Creative Writing exercise, in writing personal histories. This piece is about my relationship with my mother, Sunila Abeysekera, who was a renowned women’s and human rights activist. She died in September 2013; importantly, this is also about my relationship with her death.) Invoking I’ve found it’s easiest to invoke my mother’s spirit when my ...
I posted this essay from Al-Jazeera English to my Facebook profile today. I understand what it’s like to belong to a nation at the receiving end of boycotts and I know I felt very frustrated and angry about it — to feel that to boycott was to reduce an entire nation of people in a single act, with a ...
Posted originally on Instagram (@subha.w). Sometimes, a girl has to buy herself flowers, the smell of them will fill the house, she will like looking at them, she will take pride in arranging them, she will like how they light up the lonely kitchen, how the morning sun falls on each mysterious petal, And while, like her mother before her, ...
