The Roar and Hope of Tears in the Indian Ocean——Interview with Sri Lankan Activist Aruni Samarakoon

 Interviewed by Yasoun

In April 2022, demonstrations against rising prices and material shortages broke out in the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka. The demonstrations soon turned into nationwide protests. In May, Sri Lanka’s largest opposition party— the center-left  Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) held a large-scale demonstration in the capital, Colombo's Independence Square, followed by college students storming the National Assembly in June and July, the authorities imposing an emergency nationwide curfew, demonstrators occupied the presidential residence, and the president went into exile in the Maldives. On July 13, the demonstrators occupied the Prime Minister's Office of the acting president. As the state machine is paralyzed, the future of Sri Lanka has fallen into a dead end - if it is not a new revolutionary government, then it will be in a debt limbo. In this situation, we are honored to interview Sri Lankan feminist social activist Aruni Samarakoon to talk to us about Sri Lanka and its future.

Aruni Samarakoon taught at the University of Ruhuna in Matara, southern Sri Lanka, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Hull, UK. Her research interests include: reconciliation in Sri Lanka, feminist studies, post-Marxism.

Q： How is the situation in Sri Lanka? Could you please explain to us why the people in Sri Lanka are protesting?

A：There are two reasons leading to the peaceful protest. One is the economic hardship. If you look at the GDP, Sri Lanka was identified as a middle-income country. But if you look at the data more carefully, even though the GDP per capita is around $4000, the distribution of GDP is questionable. More than half the total household income of the country is enjoyed by the richest 20% in Sri Lanka while the bottom decile (poorest 20%) gets only 5%. The world economic situation also accelerates economic chaos. 

The other reason is the political crisis which is caused by the failure of the economic strategies taken in the past and also the current stage. 2009 was the turning point when the Rajapaksa regime entered Sri Lankan politics. They became war heroes during the  30-years' war between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which came to an end in 2009 with the support of Western allies as well as India and China. After that, the general public thought that Rajapaksa’s regime was the only option to save the country. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president at the time adopted developmentalism,  which means that Sri Lanka needs to expand infrastructure development. There are huge infrastructure development projects without generating revenue. For example, one of their projects was that they want to build an airport in the southern part, because they want to encourage migration. The migration is one of the economic sources that Sri Lanka had for a long time to generate revenue for the country. The women are the main part of that migration to the Middle East to do domestic work, so it means that the government spent a huge amount of money just to build an airport to increase the number of women migrating into the unskilled labor market. However, the airport did not function well, it did not produce any considerable income to the country. 

The government also says that they're going to build infrastructure highways, but in fact it is for the middle-class people to travel faster to those areas and enjoy the local tourism, and the local people lost their land for very little compensation.

So likewise, the people lost their micro level income for these infrastructure development projects. And the main income of the country still comes from the export of  ready-made garments, tea, coconut and rubber. Those are very primitive export items the government and the economy of Sri Lanka depend on. The government therefore decided to turn to tourism but it is not an internal solid income source. They also build a lot of hotels and resorts in order to bring a lot of tourists to the country. Tourism is not sustainable because of the pandemic, and the ongoing situation of insecurities in the world. These are the poor economic management policies that create economic hardships.

The government also maintains a large army irrationally. The war between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE is actually not war of the government, but the war of the Western Power. If you look at the history of this war, after the 911 attack in the USA, the USA promoted the War on Terror. The result was that the LTTE also became a part of that War on Terror. The government was pumped with money and military support from these Western allies to eradicate the LTTE militarily. It costs the lives of more than 140,000 people. They died just because the Western and the Sri Lankan government wanted a victory over the LTTE.

Q: Could you explain more about the debt crisis Sri Lanka is facing?

A: The geopolitics of Sri Lanka is shaped by the Indian approach to regional security and stability and at the same time the Chinese expansion in the Indian Ocean. The result was that the government, without checking or without following any advice, received all the loans and the credits from both countries.

These loans did not generate any revenues to the country. This actually became a burden to the people because we have to pay this loan by adopting a series of neoliberal policies,for example, cutting the welfare budget, limiting the resources to education and free health care. This creates serious economic inequality, people even have to be in a queue for a long time just to fulfill their basic needs, for example, fuel.

The result was that the people were disappointed about the economic instability, they just spontaneously came out to protest, went to the president. The general public, particularly the new generation, were very empowered to go against the dictator and the government. They decided to go to GotaGoGama to protest against the strongman in power.

The people also demanded for abolishing the Prevention of Terrorism Act which still maintain the large military and the dynastic politics. The power should come to the people. It should not be passed from one generation to another, for a particular family. They also asked for welfare reform, they want to be recognized as citizens who can enjoy their welfare benefits.

It implies that people do not want to follow these neoliberal reforms anymore. They want to see a structural change. Though the ongoing talks between the World Bank or the IMF and the Sri Lankan government, as well as the Indian credit line seek to provide a solution, the sustainable solution cannot be found within neoliberal framework.

Q:How do people feel about China’s one belt, one Road initiative and China’s loan?

A:The connection between China and the Rajapakshe family is not very clear to the public. Therefore, the local opinions on China are very different. People in the liberal circle perceived China as a threat to the country, rather than an ally. Some of the economic advisers in the communist party still think China has a communist policy which has no intention of exploitation and profit-making, that it's just a generous country who tries to protect Sri Lanka.

The Tamil community has been critical of China because China always shields Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council.China sold weapons to Sri Lanka government to attack the “No Fire Zone” in 2009 and killing 146,000 Tamils.In 2008 and 2009, China threatened to veto the UN security Council for any pro-Tamil or anti-Sri Lankan resolutions. The Tamil community strongly believed that the UN Security Council could have saved many people's lives during the war time, but the Security Council failed because of Chinese influence. That led them to say that Chinese power ruined the country and ruined their life. And it turned into an economic critique as well. China's projects are also encroaching upon the northern and eastern homeland of the Tamil community .

Q:What was the situation of Communist Party of Sri Lanka? Are they leading the mass protests?

A: They are very active in the protest. I do not agree with the Communist policies because of their approach towards China, but they are committed to organizing the public consciousness against the government .

The credit should be given particularly to the Frontline Socialist Party. They always align with the students' movements in Sri Lanka They are also brave enough to acknowledge the Tamil genocide in the civil war in 2009  and commemorate it  on May 18th in protest area. So it is a very significant political symbol against nationalism.

I would not say that they are planning to abolish this current system and abolish the class system. At least they're trying to organize public consciousness. It’s an important work, because the people were not used to standing for their rights. They did not have that collective aspect. It is by these communist parties that ideology of collectivism and community could be shaped among these people. So I should appreciate that.

As for the Trotkskyist group. I don't want to be offensive, but it's male driven, and still has a Stalinist aspect. There are no women but only a group of old-fashioned men. I remember that in the very first days they were against militarization; they were against a military occupation in the north; they were against capitalist exploitation; they were against this IMF loan. They are active but it’s small in number because they do not want to  reorganize themselves, and not open to new discourses, new generations. They do not have power, at least in universities, universities represent a huge amount of the new generation, right?

And they think that the proletariat class can only be found in a conventional context. Actually the middle class in Sri Lanka is an artificially developed middle class, it still belongs to the proletariat class, but they define themselves as middle class. So at least the Trotskyists should approach them. But they do not want to do that because, as I said, its hegemonic masculinity makes it difficult to open for these new discourses.

Q:What do you think about the future of the mass movement in Sri Lanka? 

A:I am very grateful to see the mass movement. Because I used to see the military uprising in the South and North all the time. Now the new generation, at least, realized that the military uprising can be turned into a peaceful mass uprising as well.

Right now Sri Lanka is the country in this debt trap. Pakistan is going to be in the same situation very soon because of the Chinese and American intervention probably. At this moment if we can turn the uprising in Sri Lanka into a solidarity movement, it is very much possible to have  socialist or revolutionary politics in South Asia, which will be a very good example for the rest of the world.

With the pandemic, the ongoing war in Russia and Ukraine, and economic decline, these all cause the middle class or the people who rely on their labor to rethink whether they can survive in this neoliberal capitalism. But how to rethink it?

For example, in the UK now the inflation is going up. China also faces the same situation. This all cost the working class to rethink whether we can go with the government, the nationalist policies who always say that the other ethnic group is our enemy who exploit our money, but in fact it is the profit-making companies that exploit us. If Sri Lanka can set an example for solidarity movement , it can be a leading global movement. If we do not imagine how possible things can happen in the future, we cannot sustain this protest, at least we can build a dialogue with other countries. For example, we can connect with the Indian peasant movements, which went against the profit-making and land-grabbing bodies. We can consider the case of fundamentalists in Pakistan, in Balochistan province some Chinese civilians were attacked recently by a mother of two children. She was a suicide bomber and  was very much influenced by the fundamentalist. What if our movement proves that the real enemy is not ethnicity, or gender or religion, but capitalism, we can save a lot of lives. To make the proletariats and the oppressed united, to protest against capitalism and make changes. That’s what I think we should do in the future, I do not know how long we need to make the change. But as Sheila Rowbotham, my favorite socialist feminist, always said that dare to hope. 

Q:What's the plan of the Sri Lankan people ?

A:In my observation, so far the movement will carry on, because it does not just ask the president to step down, it’s turning into a discussion forum now. Now we encounter others and talk with each other about social problems.  The dissents raised in these talks will spark future action of the youth. But in my understanding, it is also very possible for the government to negotiate with the IMF. If the IMF plan is implemented successfully, it's probable the people will go back to their normal life. However,the state will carry out the structural reforms, including reducing employment opportunities and welfare, so these will cause people to organize against the government again. This is what is always happening in capitalism. We need people who can tell this truth to the people, in a language people can understand.

Unfortunately, the so-called socialist and the leftist in the country are very intellectual-oriented. They think only intellectuals who read their socialist books can only have the right to talk about these things.  So they don't have that language to communicate with the public and engage with the public discourse. Therefore, it's very possible to lose the chance of  the revolution, but the spark ignited by the protest can be turned into a peaceful revolution if the political forces on the left can be reorganized.

Q:In your view, how may  the Sri Lanka situation influence the South Asian societies?

A:Compared to people living in Sri Lanka, Southeast Asian societies have a higher living standard with basic needs fulfilled. The living cost in Hong Kong is high, but people can still survive. 

But still, there are many aspects of our daily life that could be connected to the political consciousness against capitalism, which are not only about class politics but also racism and sexism. For example, the privatization of education under capitalism and the basic right to free and universal education, this right will be jeopardized in the future because of the capitalist crisis. Education could be a common ground for South Asian societies to connect together and  raise the public awareness against capitalism. Especially since we are living in a digitalized world, it’s easier for inter-regional students and mass movements to happen.