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  • queeringperspectives
    • Jun 25, 2023
    • 7 min read

#30 - What do Queer, Ethnic and Class Struggles have in Common?

Updated: Aug 24, 2023

After an interesting journey through different parts of India, we arrive in Sri Lanka this week to talk to Jeanna de Zoyza about the recent uprising that mobilized the country last year. In this article, we'll give you some historical and political context to better understand why Sri Lankans had to take to the streets and say enough is enough. The uprising also allowed queer Sri Lankans to celebrate their first public Pride march! But what does Pride have to do with the protests for political change? Well, everything! Read along to gain some insight into the intricate relationship between different forms of oppression and learn the arguments for queer, ethnic and class solidarity.


Road to the Aragalaya

First, some background. Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, home to over 20 million people with a recorded history of over 3000 years. Occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally fully colonized by the British Empire from 1815 to 1948, the once rich Silk Road crossroads nation has suffered from constant power struggles that have never been fully resolved.

In the power vacuum left by the British after independence, civil war broke out between the Sinhalese government, the island's majority ethnic group, and Tamil rebels, the largest minority. The two groups speak different languages and practice different religions, and Tamil identity was threatened by the Sinhalese government's ethno-nationalist policies after independence.

Ethnic conflict was - and still is - a common symptom of the power vacuums and arbitrary divisions left by European empires in the post-colonial world after new nations were created to gain independence.

The bloody civil war, which killed at least 100,000 people, lasted nearly 30 years and ended only in 2009, just a few years after a devastating tsunami in 2004 killed more than 200,000 people.

In the midst of all this suffering, nepotism facilitated the formation of an elite class of politicians who controlled the government for decades by enriching themselves with public funds and dividing top political roles within their own families.

Since the early 2000s, the Rajapaksas have formed a political dynasty spanning more than two decades. They garnered support by promising quick reconstruction after the tsunami, which led to Mahinda Rajapaksa being elected president in 2005, while appointing his brother Gotabaya as defense secretary. In this position, they used questionable methods to end the civil war in 2009 and consolidate their hold on power. During this time they placed over 40 of their family members in government and diplomacy. By the end of Mahinda's presidency in 2015, allegations of war crimes against Tamil civilians to force an end to the war began to surface, as well as accusations of misuse of tsunami reconstruction funds. It became increasingly clear that the Rajapaksas were using Sri Lanka as a family business, taking large commissions for unnecessary infrastructure and outsourcing public funds. For example, the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport was built in Mahinda's hometown, but no one ever used it.

Trials against them for war crimes and mismanagement of billions of dollars in public funds were quickly dismissed, only confirming the extent of their control over all branches of government. Dissidents and journalists were routinely assaulted or even murdered. Gotabaya was still elected president in 2019. But a series of bad public policies led the country to ruin, starting with the enactment of tax cuts for the business elite promised during the presidential campaign. The pandemic in 2020 and the recession after the Russian invasion of Ukraine made things worse, leaving Sri Lankans struggling for food, fuel, or public services, while the Rajapaksas continued to live opulent lives. The country was drowning in billions of dollars of foreign debt and had to beg for international aid to import food and medicine.

In 2022, after a series of cascading policy errors, the Rajapaksas enacted a law banning synthetic fertilizers. In the context of a country whose main exports of tea and rice needed to be increased to cover the fiscal deficit, this policy became a virtual breaking point as the agricultural industry collapsed under the ban. In March 2022, protests erupted demanding the president's resignation, marking the beginning of the Aragalaya - "struggle" in Sinhala - a national grassroots uprising that would last for nearly eight months.

The government responded by dismissing the protesters and calling them 'terrorists', while Mahinda called on his nationalist supporters who began beating up and burning the tents of the protesters who were keeping vigil in front of the President's residence and in the Galle Face public park. As a result, the protests quickly turned violent and many demonstrators were injured or killed.

The height of the protests was reached in July when a crowd of demonstrators from all over the country managed to break into the president's residence, forcing him to resign and flee the country while the rest of the Rajapaksa family followed or went into hiding.

But the previous prime minister was installed as president by parliament and immediately accused of being there to protect the Rajapaksa family. Wickremesinghe is also a member of a wealthy political dynasty and has been in government for decades. He declared a state of emergency to use military force against the protests. This was seen as a defeat for demonstrators whose goal was real political change, but as economic conditions began to improve and people's energy began to run out, many were eager for a return to normalcy, and by November the uprising was largely over.


Intersecting Struggles

Although the protests were instigated by opposition parties, they quickly transformed into a collective, non-partisan demand for change in Sri Lanka's political system. The lack of a unified leadership spearheading the protests allowed each sector to have an equal say. Considering that the protests emerged in the aftermath of a civil war, it is interesting to note how the country came together under a common goal. While the Tamil community was reluctant to cooperate with the demands of the Sinhalese majority, it found understanding in reforming the country beyond ethno-nationalist interests. Voices from the Tamil communities in the north demanding justice for the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan government during the civil war finally reached the wider Sinhalese population.

In order to create a true grassroots movement that could be sustained over several months, a variety of strategies were used to allow people to contribute from their own skills. There were cultural and religious rituals to seek the support of deities, workshops and theatrical performances to spread the message and motivate people in different ways, and collective art galleries and street art to paint the cities. The use of social media also helped spread the message nationally and internationally, and helped protesters conduct their own surveillance of police forces for their own protection.

Above all, while the uprising may not have achieved its goal of changing the entire political system, it demonstrated to its own people the power of collective unity and proved that there is a path to social justice beyond the need for armed resistance and the corrupt party politics that have plagued the country's history. It was in this context that the first Pride parade could take place.

Sri Lanka, particularly in the capital Colombo and Jaffna, the largest Tamil city, has been hosting Pride events since at least 2013. There is a vibrant and motivated queer community, and organizations like Equal Ground and Jaffna Transgender Network have been at the forefront of increasing awareness to the particular struggles of queer people. But for many years, in a country that still criminalizes homosexuality, and especially under the authoritarian eye of the Rajapaksas, Pride events had to be celebrated behind closed doors.

But as Pride month found Sri Lanka at the height of the Aragalaya, the queer community saw an opportunity to align their own petitions with broader demands for democracy and respect for human rights. The openness and leaderless nature of the protests allowed queer Sri Lankans to celebrate the first Pride marches in Jaffna and Colombo. Pride echoed the demands of the uprising while spreading awareness of the intersections between queer struggles and class struggles. For example, the Colombo Pride march ended at the occupied Galle Face park as a symbol of the unity of their demands.

While some sectors view the Pride march as a distraction from the demands of the uprising, many understood for the first time that queer oppression is a consequence of the same political structures that led to the country's crisis, that is, a political system that profits from the exploitation of difference.

Modern axes of oppression are all different expressions of the same patriarchal, white supremacist, cis-heteronormative and ableist economic and political system that emerged with European colonial capitalism just a few centuries ago.

“If the point of the ‘Aragalaya’ is to change the political culture of politicians making poorly informed, self-serving, and politically expedient decisions on issues that have a real impact on all our lives; if it is to root out ethno-religious chauvinism in politics; if it is to question power inequalities that are based on difference – then there should be little argument that LGBTIQ people are legitimate participants in the struggle.” (C.D. Weerasinghe)

In a conservative and divided post-colonial society, the Aragalaya allowed ordinary people to see beyond the artificial divisions used in a system that affects everyone in different degrees and in different ways, but oppresses everyone nonetheless.


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