Tag: shouting

When it All Began #2

David Blacker1 Comment
Before it became the ‘Aragalaya’. Before it became a bandwagon for the JVP. Before the antharé and the political speeches and the Gotagogama. Just regular Sri Lankan people, desperate and angry and demanding change. Green Path, Colombo. 4th April 2022.

• 70mm • f/11 • 1/500 • ISO800 •

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When it All Began

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Before it became the ‘Aragalaya’. Before it became a bandwagon for the JVP. Before the antharé and the street performers and the Gotagogama. Just regular Sri Lankan people, desperate and angry and demanding change. Green Path, Colombo. 4th April 2022.

• 120mm • f/5.6 • 1/400 • ISO400 •

Church, Temple, and that Old Red Line

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Anglican and Roman Catholic nuns calling for Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government to step down, protest against the backdrop of the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapakse Theatre, a stark reminder of the wasteful policies of a regime that has brought the country to economic ruin. Colombo, April 2022.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/800 • ISO800 •

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Where were You, Dad, When We Sent the Tyrants Home?

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Protestors atop the barricades at the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat, at Galle face, Colombo, call for President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government to resign; accused of corruption and ineptitude that has created the worst economic crisis in the country’s modern history. The Galle Face demonstration, which began on 9th April 2022, is now in its fourth week, dubbed ‘Gotagogama’, after the protestors’ primary demand — “Gota, Go Home!” The protests have seen Sri Lankans turn out in hundreds of thousands, mostly middle and working classes, of all ages and ethnicities, united in suffering, and a hope of turning things around before it’s too late. An acute shortage of foreign exchange reserves has seen Sri Lanka unable to import essential fuel, causing widespread electricity cuts, some as long as thirteen hours a day, and forcing millions to stand in interminably long queues for petrol, diesel, and cooking gas. President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his Prime Minister, and older brother, Mahinda Rajapakse, have refused to resign in spite of the protests, prolonging the crisis. Vital medicines and essential supplies are running out, and the government has already indicated that it will default on its $51 billion foreign debt repayments due in June. With the country on the verge of bankruptcy, any recovery depends on a prompt replacement of the current administration, as the protestors are demanding.

• 170mm • f/5.6 • 1/250 • ISO100 •

The Left of the Line

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While Sri Lanka is yet to see the widespread strike action expected to be launched by communist opposition parties like the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) — the National Liberation Front — trade unions have been visible from the very beginning of the Galle Face protests; presenting an older voice to what is often seen as a youth-led effort, calling for President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government to resign. Sri Lanka is suffering its worst economic crisis in modern history, and a large part of the blame for it has been apportioned to corruption and ineptitude within the Rajapakse government, studded with the president’s brothers and other relatives. The crisis, triggered by a lack of foreign currency reserves, has seen widespread shortages of fuel, cooking gas, and medicine, skyrocketing inflation, and electricity cuts as long as thirteen hours; the latter sparking the first protests in March, this year. While youth have been the visible face of the Colombo demonstrations, protests outside the city have often taken a harder edge; angry, older men, many of them fathers desperate to feed their families, clashing with police who have responded with tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets and, on one occasion, with live ammunition, killing a protestor a week ago, in Rambukkana, less than 100km from the capital.
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Understand the Bus Stand

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Young protestors on Galle Face Green, in Colombo, call for the resignation of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his cabinet, accusing the government of ineptitude, corruption, and nepotism. 9th April 2022. The government, led by President Rajapakse and his powerfully placed brothers, have failed to gauge the man on the street (and at the bus stand); overestimating the country’s middle and working classes’ willingness to weather a crippling foreign exchange and energy crisis that has seen people suffer rampant inflation and long powercuts, as well as critical shortages of cooking gas, fuel, food, and medicine. Protests that began spontaneously and sporadically in March have grown steadily, culminating in a massive protest in downtown Colombo, that has claimed as many as a million protestors. After futile cabinet reshuffles and opposition posturing in parliament, the legislature went into recession for the traditional Sinhalese and Tamil new year holidays. The protestors, however, have vowed to stay, turning what was planned as a 24-hour protest into something set to go on through this holiday week.

Generation Go #2

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Inconclusive parliamentary posturing by the government and opposition has further angered protestors calling for the resignation of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his entire cabinet. Corruption, ineptitude, and nepotism in the Rajapakse government has been blamed for the country’s crippling energy crisis. A cabinet reshuffle on 4th April failed to satisfy dissidents refusing to accept anything short of a complete change of government, and demonstrations continued throughout the week, all across the country, in small but consistent groups; and a massive million-strong protest has been announced for 9th April in Colombo.

Trilingual Dissent

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Ethnic divisions torn aside, at least momentarily, protestors in Colombo call for the resignation of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his entire cabinet, blaming the country’s crippling energy crisis on the leadership’s ineptitude and corruption. Calling the protestors ‘extremists’, Rajapakse clamped down a 36-hour curfew on the weekend, and blocked social media and chat apps. When this failed to stop widespread demonstrations, the president announced a cabinet reshuffle, only to face enraged protestors on Monday and Tuesday who are refusing to accept anything short of a complete change of government. Sri Lanka, April 2022.

The Demand for Democracy

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Protestors outside Temple Trees, the official residence of sacked Sri Lankan prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, demand the reconvening of Parliament. October 2018.
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