Tom Hiddleston supports HeForShe. The din over Emma Watson’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week has died; it moved some people very much indeed, while others saw it as hugely problematic. The speech was made to launch a new UN Women campaign, called HeForShe, which asks men to get involved in the struggle for gender equality, ...
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 ...
Thousands take to the streets in Delhi to demand justice. Yesterday morning the young 23 year old woman who was raped and beaten in Delhi on December 16th, succumbed to her injuries, giving up the harrowing fight for her life in Singapore – far from her home, and removed, I presume, from many of her loved ones. While she was ...
Women human rights defenders gathered at Viharamahadevi Park in 2016, during a public rally for a people’s constitution: Sri Lanka. Courtesy of Women and Media Collective. (Keynote address delivered at the launch of Urgent Action Fund Asia Pacific, 24 October 2017, Colombo, held in memory of Sunila Abeysekera: 1952 – 2013.) It is an immense, humbling almost overwhelming honour to ...
So, now, I roam my abode alone at night, And in the mornings I am still alone I pick up the knife to cut myself a Mango and realise that I’ve never done this before Is that right? I ask myself careful not to lie and careful not to insult Yes – gosh More or less. How is it – ...
DBC Pierre is perhaps best known as the writer of Vernon God Little – an astute and frighteningly accurate look at what makes America the country that it is – and besides, what makes it so endlessly fascinating, both in love and hate, to us – the rest of the world. Following the critical acclaim and success of Vernon God ...
Some cast members and Ruwanthie sit with the writing. Photo from their blog – http://thepassingstage.wordpress.com/. As I watched the preview of Ruwanthie de Chickera’s new show, Cast as Mother, last night, the feeling that I was most overwhelmed by was that I missed my mother. Mothers are wonderful, brave, curious creatures. They are not always easy to understand – they ...
From their website. I am very skeptical about testimonial-based works of art, particularly performances. I haven’t seen or read many testimonial-based plays or ’verbatim’ shows that haven’t left me squirming and cringing in their wake — usually because they are melodramatic, over-acted, full of unmitigated angst and hardly ever provide any real interpretation or analysis. Lately, I have been personally ...
Samhara: Thaji Dias of the Chitrasena Dance Company poses in perfection. Photo: Nan Melville. Samhara is a new dance work created by the Odissi dance ensemble, Nrityagram, together with their long-term friends and collaborators in Sri Lanka, the Chitrasena Dance Company. It was performed over the weekend at the Lionel Wendt Theatre in Colombo, fresh off the plane after a ...
An ocean between what we know, What we want to believe and what we need to have inside us, To go on. Vast. And I am here, now But if I stop telling myself that – even just for a second, Then I am overcome, Overcome. I am here, now. All that has changed, and that which hasn’t Is all we ...
The Indian Supreme Court’s ruling today which once again criminalizes gay-sex, and thereby in principle homosexuality, has sparked angry protests and evoked much disappointment across the nation and in the region beyond. In 2009, in a landmark moment in Indian and South Asian history, the Delhi High Court ruled that the section of the Indian Penal Code which criminalized ...
Tarun Tejpal, the iconic founder and Editor in Chief of Tehelka, India’s award-winning magazine for political reportage, has stepped down following accusations of sexual assault from a journalist who works for the magazine. For those of us who admire and follow brave independent journalism in the region, Tehelka, and Tejpal himself, were symbols of hope; of people standing by and ...
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, ...
‘Muslim Rage’: Newsweek’s cover story Following the wave of violent protests that swept through the Middle-East and much of the ‘Muslim’ world earlier this month, where many lives were lost and irreparable damage was done, Newsweek’s cover-story was about ‘Muslim Rage’, a term so broad, crude and rude that it caused even more rage. However, you can be sure that ...
In the TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie, now widely famous because excerpts of it have been featured in a song off the all-new Beyonce album (titled BEYONCE), she says the best feminist she knows is her brother, who is, she assures you, very masculine. Adichie is very much a spokesperson for the young, articulate, optimistic post-feminist world she inhabits: the ...
On the 23rd of July 1983, irrational, hot-blooded, brutal and violent mobs that were made up of Sinhalese civilians – uncles, fathers, brothers, shop-keepers, businessmen, tailors, drivers, teachers, who knows – sought out and attacked Tamil civilians, killing them, injuring them, looting their property and burning their homes. The riots, which began in Colombo, in the aftermath of a funeral ...
Courtesy of the Sunday Leader: ‘Don’t make Sri Lankan women slaves!’ For awhile now, I’ve been thinking about intersectionality and what it would mean for feminists and other activists in a Sri Lankan context at this moment. For young women activists and queer-rights activists in Sri Lanka, like myself, the temptation is strong to follow young, American liberational discourses. on social ...
