Interview With Devika Brendon, re: Her New Novel ‘Aversion’. By Ifham Nizam, of The Island

Exploring Contemporary Sri Lanka – Your novel captures the turbulence of contemporary Sri Lanka. Were there specific historical or political events that particularly shaped the narrative?

In the last 8 years, the period during which I was writing sections of this novel, the entire world has become turbulent. So many systems and processes and values and relationships we all seemed to take for granted have been completely and often violently overturned, globally. Chaos seems to be the daily norm. So what began as a personal response to a specific country opened into a more universal consideration: how do we as human beings navigate the abrupt breakdown of what we thought was true, and real, and reliable? The global pandemic made this the universal question all of us faced. Could our infrastructure, both personal and national, handle the challenges and the crises of everyday life in the 21st century?

 

Influence of Dante and Mythology – You mentioned drawing inspiration from Dante’s Inferno, Buddhist and Hindu mythology, and Carl Muller’s Colombo. How did these influences shape your storytelling style and character development?

Dante’s Divine Comedy - and specifically the Nine Circles of Hell from The Inferno - were concepts that often came to mind as I watched the news every day, and shaped the way I saw the characters in the landscape around me. This is where the magical realism element came in: Colombo to me became a kind of theatre, a series of performance spaces in which people enacted their stories. Under the gloss and the sheen of the city, there are scenes of real horror, as Carl Muller’s book indelibly shows, but also moments of great beauty and tenderness. My protagonist begins the story with no understanding of what she sees: she judges people on face value, without knowing their histories. As she begins to engage with the people she works with, who are trying to uplift the country in a number of ways, she sees that many people act out of a sense of torment that they carry: frustration, fear and anger. They are suffering, and their actions are formed out of that suffering. If they have no self awareness, they could ricochet forever in the circles of hell, exchanging one situation of torment for another, and never emerge. She begins to develop empathy, and compassion.

The troubled person cannot help others, and if we respond to things that happen in anger, which is easy to do, we often burden others or make situations worse. So a study of Buddhist scriptures and Hindu mythology showed me that to really grow, a person needs to stop reacting to everything that occurs, but rather step back and observe. Try not to rush in with hasty assumptions or biases. Try not to carry grievances. Try to see under the surface of what is happening with people, and what they present. Respect the equivalent self of the other, rather than project onto them. Then the surging sea, the suffering of the human condition, in which we are all caught, stops at the threshold and does not enter the space where we reside.

 

Interpersonal Conflict and Aversion – Your novel explores aversion as both a personal and societal issue. Do you believe social media has amplified this tendency in modern society?

Aversion is the feeling of almost automatic opposition we feel towards people and situations. Interestingly, a constant state of irritation, and being easily triggered, are signs of stress, and anxiety. These are sharply on the rise in our society and the wider world, and definitely there is a correlation between the onset of this escalation and the increased use of social media. People are caught in a web of interpersonal conflict and complexity, being impacted by what they see and read, from the moment they open their technological devices, each day. Conflict and differences of opinion have been weaponised, very strategically, and many people today live a hybrid life, with a lot of communication going on in the virtual spaces of digital technology, and our capacity to relate in physical interaction being drained. The building of real community, meaningful communication and human connection across the various divides is the only real remedy for this estrangement and isolation.

Symbolism of the Lotus – The lotus motif plays a key role in Aversion. Did your interpretation of this symbol evolve throughout the writing process?

The lotus with its multiple petals represents awakening and blossoming consciousness. The roots of the lotus nurture the flower, which flowers in muddy waters. This can be seen around us on multiple levels: beauty and grace emerging unexpectedly from dark circumstances; the human being transforming themselves into a more elevated and enlightened entity through the effort of inner exploration and self nurturing; the citizens of the nation itself showing such strength and capacity to continue to live and hope, and encourage each other amidst difficult circumstances. To blossom in life requires respect for our roots, and mindfulness. The lotus to me symbolizes all this.

Experimental Narrative Style – Your book blends prose fiction, opinion pieces, poetry, and diary entries. Did you face challenges in maintaining coherence across these different styles?

The story emerged in a series of outbursts, in response to various diverse events, at different times between 2016 and 2024, and it was actually fascinating to lay the sections out at the end of the process, and see the connections glimmering and gleaming and glinting between the segments. It felt as though I was stitching pieces together on a sewing table. There are 26 chapters, each subdivided into shorter parts. I tried to match like with like, but not in too neat a way. I wanted a slight asymmetry, so certain elements sparkled, when viewed at certain angles - like the stars on the cover!

Audio Book Experience – You mentioned that Aversion has a unique soundscape. How did you approach narrating your own work, and what challenges did you encounter in bringing it to life through audio?

There’s a dreamlike quality to some of the scenes in the book: the words convey at times the motions of the sea, of the dancing at clubs and in parades, of joy and sorrow. So when narrating the audio, I tried to sense those feelings intuitively, rather than intellectually, and portray the way the narrator finds them flowing through her. She tends to use her intellect in her work to try and cut life into manageable parts; so it’s interesting to feel the irrepressible energy of the country filtering through her defences.

One of my favourite scenes ends with a question that is not answered. It’s a moment of high tension for the protagonist. I didn’t feel the need to show what happened next.

Transition from Poetry to Prose – You compared poetry to a fireworks explosion and prose to the slow unfolding of a lily. Did you find yourself naturally drawn to one form more than the other while writing Aversion?

I felt that it was easy to intersperse one with the other. Situations faced by the characters in the book and in life call for both reason and feeling, a duality, and the story shifts accordingly, in step with the movement of the action. So much of our lives goes on in our minds: what we think, what we believe, what we remember, and hold onto; and what we forget and release. It’s like the flow of a dance, a sequence of yoga or the beginning of a sung Chalisa. The ideas begin and the story rises like a slow tide, and the mind is like a drum, finding the rhythm and the energy that the words attempt to convey.

Writing Routine and Discipline – You described a structured writing routine. How do you handle creative blocks, and do you have any specific rituals to get back into the flow of writing?

I find that creative energy and productivity is very much determined by physical health and well-being. We learn if we are most productive in the morning or the evening, and we learn how to pace ourselves to maximise our joy. The creative blocks for me are usually caused by too many projects coming in at the same time, and colliding deadlines cause paralysis. Clear boundary setting is needed, not only with incoming demands or concerns, but within ourselves. If things feel stacked up, only we can unstack them, and recalibrate our schedules to serve our workflow. Twelve minute stretches are an excellent break, throughout a working day. So is doing something that needs to be done like washing or sweeping or tidying a space in the home. Clearing the space in which we live is a calming sort of mindfulness.

Upcoming Projects – You have multiple books in progress, each in a different genre. How do you shift between writing styles and maintain distinct voices for each project?

I don’t consciously strategize it. I drafted all the 5 books as concepts in point form and affixed certain visual images to each. Then I live my life, and whichever book landscape appeals to me at that time, I visit with that, dividing my time more or less equally until one pushes itself forward and takes over. That’s what happened with this book.

Advice for Aspiring Writers – Given your experience as an author and editor, what advice would you give to aspiring writers, especially those navigating multiple literary forms like you?

Get a lot of rest; avoid burnout; and do as much active, detailed research as you can into the contexts in which you are writing. Worldbuilding starts with curiosity. Read a lot, watch a lot of movies, intake information - but not only from manmade sources. Absorb the energy of life around you, see how each being tries to move towards its fulfillment, each in its own way.

 

Opportunity Costs: Identity Politics and Sri Lankan Diaspora Writing

The Asian Literary Society (ALS) facilitated a Forum at The National Library in Colombo on May 7th. The convenors invited a range of academics, scholars, journalists, and creative writers, to discuss a timely and relevant topic: ‘How far do we adhere to our roots? Exploring literature, language and cultural heritage of Sri Lanka’.

ALS is a platform established in 2017 to celebrate and support Asian literary arts and indigenous languages. It operates in the international digital sphere, and in the last year has organised physical events, which they call ‘Caravan’ events, in several Asian countries, to celebrate the literature of each country. The recent event held in Colombo was the ALS Caravan 2025 Forum, and it comprised a panel discussion, poetry readings, and the awarding of prizes in the ALS Caravan 2025 Poetry Contest, for poems offered in all 3 main languages of Sinhala, English and Tamil.

ALS has members in over 100 countries, and almost 25,000 active followers on Facebook, encouraging members to share articles, poems and short stories which are relevant to Asian art, literature and culture. The community ALS is creating is inclusive, intergenerational and diverse. Young and emerging writers are welcomed to participate and engage with the work of established authors and teachers, and this forum facilitates mentoring which is a vital component of building literary culture.

The venue for the ALS Caravan Forum was the Main Auditorium, at the National Library and Documentation Services Board, in Colombo. The Chief Guest was Dr. Rajiva Wijesinha, writer and former MP, the Guests of Honour included Professor Ankuran Dutta from the High Commission of India, Mr. W. Sunil, Director General of the National Library and Documentation Services Board, and Dr. Bina Gandhi, Deputy Director of the SAARC Cultural Centre, and Distinguished Guests were Dr. Ratna Sri Wijesinghe, Chairman of the National Library and Documentation Services Board, and Professor Emeritus Walter Perera of Peradeniya University, who was also invited to be the Chairperson of the Panel.

The focus of the Panel was a discussion about adhering to our roots, as writers. This is a topic of interest for Sri Lankan writers, who are born into diverse ethnic and religious communities, and who as a broad category now also comprise writers who have emigrated to other countries, who have studied, worked and lived in Australia, the USA, Canada and the U.K., amongst other countries, and who identify as part of the diaspora Sri Lankan community.

Dr. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, Senior Lecturer in English and Linguistics at the Open University, commenced discussion by pointing out that cultural identity these days is a fluid concept. It is not solely determined by where you are born or grow up. We all have unique relationships to the nation and of Sri Lanka, its history and culture, and its society, determined by our own personal and familial experience of the country in the timeline of its formative events.

Shankari Chandran, for example, born in the U.K., identifies herself as a ‘Tamil Australian’ author on her website. She was educated in Australia and lives and works in Australia, and was recently awarded Australia’s Miles Franklin Literary Prize. She has been open in interviews about her complex relationship with both Australia and her Tamil family’s experience of Sri Lanka. The subject matter of her books contains references to both countries and the lived experiences of generations of her family in both cultures.

https://lithub.com/miles-franklin-winner-shankari-chandran-on-defining-australianness/

Michael Ondaatje, in ‘Anil’s Ghost’, was criticized for writing a book set in Sri Lanka and dealing with its recent history at the time of publication, when he had emigrated to Canada decades before. It seemed to matter a great deal to Sri Lankan local authors that anyone writing about contemporary Sri Lanka should be physically domiciled here, and have viscerally lived through the events they portray in their fiction. If they had not suffered, as part of the country, they should not speak about it.


Some commenters went so far, in the social media discussions that have had such a strong impact on literary culture in Sri Lanka, as to suggest that anyone who had chosen to emigrate to another country should not write about the country they had left behind, as if their roots were severed, or should be severed, as a sort of penalty for their choice to live and work elsewhere. Even within Sri Lanka, if a writer living in Colombo had not gone out into the field and lived in the war zones, lost family members or been directly affected by the tsunami, could their fictional narratives of the recent war or the natural disaster of 2004/5 really be taken at all seriously? Research is part of the answer to that rhetorical question; but surely the other part is imaginative empathy, essential to the creation of any truly great literature.

Whether diaspora writers have a right to stand up and be counted as Sri Lankan writers is a contentious subject, as the reasons for the mass exodus of Sri Lankans from the country over the past few decades have been socio-economic, and the inevitable consequence of war, austerity, economic frustration and diminishing productivity, and those who had the opportunity to go abroad and study and work abroad were usually the more likely to be English educated. In fact, many countries today demand English proficiency as part of their immigration admission criteria into their country.

The spectre of the post-Independence Sinhala Only legislation of the late 1950s, which was not directly raised in this discussion, hovered over us as we discussed the diversities of words and breadth of meaning in the Sinhala language, as illustrated by Dr. Dhammika Jayasinghe, and Dr. Ramola Rassool. We were charmed when Dr. Kamala Wijeratne, having explored the complexities of the ‘Russian Doll’ layered identities of race, religion, region and caste built into our very names, referred to the well known children’s song ‘Me Gahe Boho’, which many of us from all communities had heard sung in our childhood.

The cultural focus on the Sinhala language which is evident in Sri Lanka makes sense politically in its context, in the need to cultivate national pride, post-Independence, but in 2025 it is clear that short-sightedly relegating English and Tamil to secondary status for the last 70 years has resulted in the talents and creative skills of many local writers being restricted in their impact to the borders of Sri Lanka. Not being taught English Language or Literature at an excellent level from a young age in Sri Lanka has limited many writers in their 20s, 30s and 40s (and above) from reaching an international audience. This is a loss to the international literary community, not just the writers themselves. And an inevitable result is the hostility directed towards the English speaking elite, who are always perceived as differentially and unfairly advantaged.

https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Sinhala-Only-in-retrospect/131-157978

The rise of the internet and the digital proficiency of the millennial generation since the early 2000s has to a great extent opened the borders of the imagination for readers and writers in contemporary Sri Lanka, who have access to computers and international English language and literature forums discussions, via digital media. Poets, short story writers, essayists and novelists are now not limited to entering the literary competitions available in Sri Lanka. Many international journals accept incoming contributions from all over the world, and so it is possible to be published widely in English speaking countries, as a local Sri Lankan author.

To encourage poetry submissions in all 3 languages, the ALS Caravan team appointed judges to assess contributions in all 3 languages, and all those poets whose contributions won recognition were awarded Certificates to commemorate the occasion.

 
It was noticeable that the entries in Tamil were fewer in number, and that reaching out actively to educators and members in the regional communities outside Colombo is vital to ensure that good representation is maintained, going forward.

Reconciliation after civil war and socio-political disruption is an ongoing process, and it is evident that many writers have been contending with unwanted challenges in recent years. For my part, as an outsider coming into the country 9 years ago, I was struck by the number of excellent women writers in Sri Lanka, and also by the way many of them had been unfortunately subjected to misogynistic stereotypes and verbal harassment after winning some of the few awards that were available to writers in this country.

Articulate and expressive women in South Asia are intersectionally discriminated against: both because of their gender and their race. By writing their stories, and articulating their narratives, they assert their right to occupy cultural space, and this seemed to be resented by many men, who saw themselves as disrespected and threatened and potentially excluded from the echelons they so wished to enter, and in which they sought acclaim.

It was clear that there was then, circa 2015, no objective reviewing culture in the literary sphere in Sri Lanka, and that the reviews of people’s work that were offered on social media were often biased, and based on personal viewpoints that would be considered inappropriate in both content and mode of expression, in other countries. Unfortunately, as it was in other spheres of this country, unacceptable and damaging conduct in the literary sphere had become normalized in the Sri Lanka of those times.

Certain people were even apparently designated ‘attack worthy’ and women writers in particular were critiqued not for the quality of their work, but for their appearance and their clothing, and even the elitist locales of their homes. These sneering attacks reached up to 20,000 followers on social media, and inevitably influenced the ideas of many impressionable writers in the country. Several writers stopped writing creatively after they were subjected to this sort of barrage, and our literary culture is poorer for the loss of their voices.

It is easy for perpetrators of such denigratory behavior to claim that they never intended their blogs or their FB posts or comments to be taken so seriously, yet that is how careers are built in the contemporary era, through approval ratings measured in sensationalist content, digital likes and follows. The older generation, operating in the sphere of print papers, formality, self-restraint and old school courtesy, had no idea of the impact and influence that could be wielded by proponents of social media in the literary sphere. Wielded carelessly or intentionally to cause harm, their unfiltered and often wilfully inflammatory commentary could cause lasting reputational damage.

The late Anne Ranasinghe the poet, praised for her work and efforts on behalf of literature in Sri Lanka by Dr. Rajiva Wijesinha in his opening remarks, had been attacked a decade ago when this low point in the culture was prevalent, in a ‘review’ of her work, where she had been accused of elitism and classism, in some of her poetic works set for the local English Syllabus. Looking at this and other critiques of that kind today, they seem to have been an attempt on the part of the authors to clear space in the Syllabus, and the literary culture as a whole, for local Sinhalese authors, by excluding people like Anne Ranasinghe, who was of European origin, although marrying and living her entire adult life in Sri Lanka.

Her socio economic status of relative privilege as the wife of a doctor also seemed to influence the writer of that review against her. It is easy, but also lazy, to claim that a person who is economically secure must also be blinded by their privilege, entitled and indifferent to human suffering, and to then view their writing through that lens of self-justifying moral contempt. Anne Ranasinghe, then in her eighties, threatened to sue the paper in which the review was published, for defamation, and reputational damage. To have your poetic works misunderstood, and written about as being damaging to the culture, and having an author suggesting that they should be thus removed from the national Syllabus, is surely an example of the impact of this kind of so called literary criticism. Under the aegis of ‘free speech’, some people felt empowered and free to express such opinions in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, on social media, which seemed so informal, so ephemeral - but was, in fact, so impactful.

A truly vibrant Sri Lankan literary culture cannot be built on the indulgence of personal bias and perceived grievance, and self-serving, narrow definitions of race, gender, religion and class. People like Anne Ranasinghe who write in English because it is their primary language, seem to have often been looked at askance by local writers, who feel that they themselves are disadvantaged or disrespected in comparison: this grievance clearly being a residue, inevitable and pernicious, of the vicious colonialism to which the country was subjected.

The impact of identity politics operating to exclude or marginalise diaspora writers who have achieved public recognition encompasses writers as diverse as Nayomi Munaweera, and Michelle de Kretser, both highly awarded internationally, but the one often criticized for her ‘exoticism’, and the floridity of her fiction, and the other relatively little recognised or written about in Sri Lanka.

It is evident that we are short changing ourselves as a literary culture if we continue to narrow rather than expand our definitions of what we term ‘Sri Lankan’. To expand the metaphor of ‘roots’, which was suggested as the topic of this Panel, we could say that sometimes unsightly or unwanted emergence of elements which are part of the growth process must at times be cut back, to promote healthier flourishing at the root level, and good future growth and longevity.

On a personal note, I gather, from engaging with people from diverse communities here, that issues based on the facts of their birth into whatever physical form and social context into which they were born, profoundly shape their world view. The daily life of many people involves dealing with acts of random hostility and aggression, and derogatory accusations levelled at them, and they are therefore quite likely to misunderstand and misinterpret others.

I find Sri Lanka to be a vantage point from which I can process the bicultural life I’m now living. For the first time in my life since I was a very young girl, I am in a country where the majority of people look like me. The roots I have started to uncover are racial, ethnic, reconnecting with extended family, culinary, and artistic and creative - responding to a hugely contrasting tropical landscape, and the complex history of the country with its multiple strands and threads.

We grew up in Australia eating Sri Lankan food, reading traditional folk tales, and the Buddhist scriptures, listening to baila music, and going to the temple. The rhythms of SL music, the ornate jewellery and the lively conversations I have always loved, and the bright colours and the atmosphere of chaos, overwhelming at first, is like a vibrant cacophony and a mystic kaleidoscope. But I lost the Sinhala language. I can’t read it or write it. I’m learning Sinhala and Tamil only now. The written scripts are beautiful to my eye, and I am slowly understanding the rhythms and idioms used in daily life. I am impatient with my ignorance. I want to fill the gaps in my knowledge. It was my loss.

When we were kids, the chicken curry our fellow expatriates made for the Sunday lunch in Sydney was too ‘chilli hot’ for me. Now I have a bowl of green chillis next to my plate for my meals. I appreciate the less processed food here, and the fresh vegetables and fruits in profusion. It’s healthier. I haven’t watched television since I left Australia. Real life produces enough drama!

I feel that it would benefit Sri Lanka to be more inclusive in its appreciation of what constitutes Sri Lankan literature.

Many diaspora writers are not regarded as having a ‘right’ to write about SLan topics or themes, if they emigrated to other countries years ago, as punishment for being able to make a choice to live a life of greater opportunity. Their lesser recognition in their country of origin is an opportunity cost. But it’s a collective loss.

Photo credit: Grace Wickremasinghe

Some are seen as ‘exoticising’ SL to suit a Western audience, or catering to Western stereotypes, because they write in English, and live in the ‘First World’. Some are even seen as appropriating their own culture, focusing on aspects which will appeal to Western sensibilities, marketing their root culture for profit, skewing their history, parading stereotypes, exoticising their own personae.

I argue that a more inclusive, compassionate and less threatened and defensive approach to diaspora writers would be helpful in appreciating the complex journeys of immigration and cultural dislocation that Sri Lankan writers undergo in the globalized world of today. These disruptions produce a wealth of experience which are the source of rich content for writers of poetry and fiction.


If we collectively revision the way we view each other, as all being creative entities operating variously in a broad and diverse framework, we need not experience a breach, in which otherisation and hostility can operate, but instead create expansion, breadth and greater depth in Sri Lanka’s literary landscape.

Bishops and Queens And The Colour Purple: 150 Years of Bishops College

Bishop's College launched a limited edition book to commemorate 150 years of the school last week. The book titled "The Mystery, The Memory, The Magic', authored by Savithri Rodrigo, is available through the Past Pupils' Association of Bishop's College.

It is impressively large, and substantially solid, and replete with rich and interesting content.

This year is the 150th Anniversary of one of the great Girls’ Schools of this country. There have been several public events which have been organised to recognise this milestone, including the launch, on Wednesday the 22nd of January, of a magnificent 520 page Limited Edition coffee table book, filled with references and celebrations of past pupils, and photographs of generations of students, collectively called Bishopians.

The launch was a beautifully organized event, which followed the XIth Sisters Of St Margaret’s Oration presented by the Cambridge scholar Professor Sujit Sivasundaram. The point was gracefully made early on in the speech that many men as well as women had their early schooling at Bishops, as boys were admitted in the Junior years.
The entire Auditorium was filled with generations of ladies dressed in a variety of shades of purple, the school colour, grandmothers and even great grandmothers accompanying their daughters and grand-daughters. The pride felt by the attendees in their historic school was strongly expressed both verbally and in smiles and gestures, and the bright faces and beautiful clothes added vibrancy and joy to the atmosphere. The young students acting as ushers, in their signature white dresses and purple school blazers, were well trained to warmly welcome and emplace all the guests.

The presentations included some documentary films, which outlined the history of the school’s establishment and development, through several eras. What was most notable was the visionary and forward thinking leadership shown by many of the school’s leaders, from the nuns of the Order of St. Margaret, in England, who founded the school, to the professional women of Sri Lankan heritage who in more recent times have led the school community.

I did not myself attend Bishops College, being educated in another country, but my Mother and her sisters were all Bishopians, and her eldest sister, Mrs. Gwen Dias Abeysinghe, was a former Principal of Bishops College. I was interested to see the school in all its glory, as my Mother spoke often of her schooldays, the teachers who still lived in her memory after decades, and the nuns who presided over the schoolgirl cohort in those years. My Mother, when choosing my school in Australia, had looked for a school which upheld similar values to Bishops.

Observing the ladies in their flowing purple sarees and dresses, I was reminded of the portrait of a Lady of Noble Character from the Bible. The full description is found in the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 31, verses 10-31.

The lady is portrayed as competent and responsible, fulfilling a myriad duties and social roles with dignity, dedication and grace. She runs her household efficiently and with forethought, ensuring that all within her domain are well fed and clothed and cared for. She is generous, and charitable, and has wisdom and knowledge to offer. Bishopians are indeed known to be charitable, and philanthropic.

She ‘sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks’. And because she conducts herself faultlessly, and with integrity, she has no fear or anxiety for the future. ‘She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.’

Most importantly, she develops her character, rather than focusing on appearances, knowing that ‘Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting.’ Bishop’s has produced several famous beauty queens, and media personalities, as well as corporate and government leaders, activists and journalists, and all of them are women of character. Femmes formidables.

All the ladies I have known who were educated at this school, although distinctly individual personalities, and from different generations, are women of decision and purpose, envisioning and working towards a higher ideal than mere fame or commercial success; and committed to social upliftment rather than only personal glory.

They all burn the midnight oil in their work, whether meeting copy deadlines or travelling outstation to interview remote communities; and while they are often seen, like the Lady of Noble Character, ‘clothed in fine linen and purple’, and photographed in The Best Dressed Lists in glossy pages of society magazines, these clothes are likely to be sustainable, upcycled, or made by women in rural areas who are working to improve the lives of their families and alleviate poverty in their communities.

The words expressed by the Oration giver, by the PPA, and by Savithri Rodrigo herself, both highlighted and embodied a key theme of the school, which is its adaptability, resilience and responsiveness to social change. The decisions made by the school authorities at key junctures in its history tended towards inclusiveness of racial and socio-economic diversity, and these choices clearly created a very open minded and forward thinking community, in the midst of a very conservative society. Many families of all the ethnic communities in the country have had generations of ties to the school, and showcase the co-existence and respect with which our forbears were educated, and brought up together.

People who did not attend schools with a heritage like this may feel deprived of what is popularly known today as ‘privilege’, which is often narrowly defined only in material or monetary terms. But I would argue that there is also great privilege of a far rarer kind today in being educated within an ethical and outward looking community. Every religion has its own renowned schools, which enable students to learn a curriculum within a context of social and cultural, moral and ethical values. The values promoted by Bishops College focus on service to the country, and leadership with integrity.

What this school enabled from its inception was the formation of a broader and deeper vision of the capabilities of womanhood, and the significant impact of female leadership, which has had a profound effect on the country, and especially in recent years, as the ramparts of masculine dominance in every field and sphere of life have been gradually made more accessible, by the ceaseless work of generations of women in the past 70 years.

Such an education equipped its students to go out into the world, and operate within its structures to the benefit of all.

Childhood books, still my favourites

 

Devika Brendon is an educator, reviewer, journalist, writer and a bookworm. She was awarded First Class Honours in English Literature at the University of Sydney, and holds a PhD in English Literature from Monash University. She is a teacher of English language and literature, and a literary mentor to emerging writers of all ages. Devika’s poetry and short stories have been published in journals and anthologies in Sri Lanka, Australia, India and Italy, and now she works as the consultant editor at FemAsia and. is also on the editorial board of New Ceylon Writing.


Q: What is your favourite book?

A: The books that I loved in my childhood are still my favourites. The ones that probably had the biggest impact on me were the Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin. Not just the trilogy, but the fourth one as well, which was published 20 years later.

Q: Why do you like it?

A: I liked the story arc, the difficult main character with his wilful stubbornness and pride, and the wisdom he learns from his failures. I loved the writing: Le Guin’s own knowledge and intellectual curiosity was fused in the story with the fantasy setting she created. Her writing style is so beautiful and clear and clean, uncluttered and precise.

Q:How about the characters?

A: Ged is a person on an epic journey, a flawed individual who came to understand the stages of a person’s life, and certainly that sense of quest is something I felt drawn to. There were not many female characters in books at that time who had adventures like that. In the fourth book, Tehanu, there is strong discussion about that, as he unites with Tenar, whose life paralleled his own, but who didn’t have the freedom he had to confront and create his destiny.

Q: How did you find the book?

A: This series was given to my brother and me by our neighbours, and it began a lifelong love for adventure, fantasy and science fiction stories in both of us. I was eight years old when I first read these, and the world was full of joy, and felt safe, not as dark and troubled as it is now.

Q: Did you use libraries?

A: I loved libraries. At my first school, we had book bags and we were allowed to borrow as many books as we could carry! This love of libraries continued into my university days, and into my doctoral studies, when I did research at the Duke Humfrey library in Oxford - where the oldest books are chained to the reading desks, because they are so valuable. Old books fascinate me - their texture, the ornate print, and their beautiful illustrations. I was given a first edition of a book by Jonathan Swift as a graduation gift by my father, and it is one of the most treasured books in my own library. I researched Dr. Swift’s writing for my PhD, and to actually hold a book that he had published as a young author himself in the early 1700s is an amazing experience.

Q: What is your favourite literature?

A: I can read French, but English is my first reading language. I love a broad range of literature - historical fiction, politics, satire, detective fiction, biography, memoir, philosophy, romance, speculative fiction, essays, as well as poetry, light fiction, manga and fairy tales, myths and legends. If I like a writer’s style of writing and respect their way of thinking, I will gradually build a whole collection of their work. Donna Leon for example, has created a very interesting character called Brunetti who solves mysteries in Venice. The descriptions and details of the City and his life and family are more interesting to me than the solution of each mystery. I like feeling the different atmospheres of countries and societies when I read - books set in Sweden or Iceland are very different from those set in Africa, India or Spain. The contrasts of character and codes of behaviour are fascinating.

Q: How do you select a book to read?

A: I select books depending on my mood and the context of what I’m working on at the time. Since the coronavirus crisis, I’ve been reading a lot of Agatha Christie, whose succinct portrayals of character and setting over so many decades are so satisfying. I’ve also been reading flashy escapist thrillers by Dan Brown about the end of the world, and Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances, and Tagore’s poetry, and Tolkien.

Q: Do you have a personal library?

A: I’ve been building my personal library since I was a young person. My mother used to read to us when we were little, and we were given books as birthday gifts when growing up. At school, we belonged to book clubs where we could order paperback books which were delivered by mail, which was very exciting! I still have favourite bookshops which let me know when books come in. I arrange the books according to era and subject matter.

Q: What are your reading habits?

A: I read every day, and usually in the afternoon and evening. I can read anywhere - if the book is interesting I can’t hear or see anything else. I try not to read after 8pm in case I read into the early hours of the next day and miss out on sleep! I write in the mornings, and I like to write notes in an unlined book and then develop it straight onto my phone.

Q: Which is the more interesting: Reading or writing?

A: Reading is like stepping into someone else’s created world. Writing is immersing yourself into a world you create yourself. It’s so exciting! I’ve written short stories so far, but am working on longer stories now, and it is literally a parallel universe that draws you in, a path your own hand creates. You’re discovering your own ideas and beliefs as the characters develop.

Q: How do you feel when you read a marvelous, touching book?

A: I am very responsive to great literature, very open to being impacted by new ideas, and am moved even by very touching passages in an otherwise bland or cliched popular story, like Me Before You. I find the closing pages of the first book of The Hunger Games unbearably sad and beautifully written. I found the opening chapters of the first book of the Game ofThrones fascinating. That story line of the family members all being suddenly forced to go their different ways is a mythic starting point. Like the story of the Pandavas ( five brothers) in the Mahabharata.

Q: What do you think of the present readership in society?

A: Everyone I know reads, today. Not only my friends and colleagues and students, but so many people of all ages are reading for pleasure at every stage in life. It’s more engaging and imaginative and effortful than passively watching a story unfold on a screen. You get to know and feel for so many human beings and their lives through the written word.

Q: Do you read Sinhala novels?

A: I learned to read and write in English, and because it is an international language, there is a vast range of literature accessible, and there was a mix of all kinds of books available to me in every country from a young age. Books are the biggest component of what I own, and moving house is very difficult for that reason! I carry a book with me everywhere I go.

Q: Any advice to an aspiring writer and a reader?

A: My advice is to create time to read in your daily life. Through reading, you connect to other worlds, other times and other people’ situations and see how they dealt with the human experiences we all share. To be swept up in a story someone is telling you, is to be enchanted. It’s not necessarily escapist - it can actually help you confront and face realities you might otherwise find it hard to process. If you don’t read, you are missing out. Swift scolded a young friend of his for laziness: ‘I never look at your work without wondering how a Brat who will not read can possibly write so well’. I agree with him on this 100 %.

Handmaids’ Tales

 

Photo courtesy of joinonelove

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

The results of the recent election in the US have highlighted several concerns and one which is clearly of significance was the public preference for a male leader, however brazenly flawed, over the highly qualified female candidate. Racism definitely played its part as well but it is clear that convincing authority and leadership still look masculine to many people in 2024.

This appears to be true even if the male candidates have credible allegations of sexual assault and rape on record against them.

For the past few years, we in the End Sexual Violence Now (ESVN) campaign in Sri Lanka have sought to raise awareness in the community of the different kinds of violence that are perpetrated against women and girls in our society and in the global context, which operate to erode our rights, our freedom and our dignity.

It is discouraging that the backlash against the advances in feminist awareness that we have seen in recent years is so prevalent and that women are still being relegated to secondary or minor roles and spoken of and treated with disrespect on the global stage. The stoking of the gender wars, the rise of incels and the dislike and distrust and resentment of women is palpable, and particularly evident in South Asian societies where many men generally feel frustrated and disenfranchised.

Women who are articulate and proud of the work they do, who have a lot to say, appear to be not very shy or demure or self-deprecating and who do not feel the need to placate the egos of the men they work with are seen as unmindful, arrogant and too ambitious by their male colleagues.

Underlying almost every interaction in every workplace is this power differential, as men occupy disproportional numbers of the high positions in every sphere. Women entering the workforce like immigrants into a supremacist structure are expected to stay at entry level for years and accept inferior status and pay and recognition. Their words, if heard, are expected to not carry much weight. It is in this context that workplace harassment takes place. Disrespect that is deeply felt and has become ingrained does not stay hidden forever.

Mansplaining is something we experience almost every day. If the differential treatment women receive is pointed out, the invaded male entities complain that women are always playing the victim and getting benefits from doing so. What about men who are assaulted? Men who are victims of domestic violence? Men who are used as wallets? Men who are abused as young boys but who can’t even articulate what has happened to them because all the social attention is on the victimized girls?

Are women in 2024 still virtual immigrants in a masculinist hegemony? Still holding only minority status although statistically, in fact, outnumbering men? What violence is done to women’s worth and sense of value in such contexts as these? Do we die of exhaustion, falling short of our personal goals, drained of energy by a thousand micro-aggressions, gaslit to the grave?

Many men, and particularly men who feel frustrated by their own flatlining signs of vitality both professionally and personally, carry underlying grievances. And this insidious sense of grievance is often concealed under social niceties and the appearance of goodwill and respectability in South Asia.

So it takes us by surprise when men overreact to quite normal behavior or respond with surprising aggression when they are not agreed with or when they are asked to explain themselves or clarify their position in a discussion. Angry, stabbing motions become evident in their arm gestures, they raise their voices and make compulsive, numerous verbal attempts, both overt and covert, to undermine the dignity of the woman they are engaging with. And they say they can’t help it.

Some persist in discussing topics a woman has clearly stated she feels uncomfortable in speaking about such as Female Genital Mutilation, for example, and the “medical reasons” according to proponents of such practices as to why such interventions on the bodies of children might be “beneficial for reasons of hygiene”. Beneficial for which party, one can ask. Are men wanting to be protected from possible infection while the bodies of girls and women are subjected to hostile takeover, assault and battering ram behavior in so many contexts in the world today? Such hostile underlying disrespect is itself violent in many ways. No constructive discussion can take place in such contested territory.

The common ground between the genders has become noticeably narrower in the past serveral years. A sneering, irritated assumption that all feminists are “feminazis” is also very much on show once the social masks come off and so is the reactive, foregone conclusion that every woman must be trying to take away from every man she meets any shred of self respect he has or recognition of any admirable quality he still possesses.

Choosing personal peace in such hostile, occupied land is like progressing through a minefield. One attempts to keeps one’s head when all around you are losing their minds and blaming it on you. A recent article highlights a growing dissent by women in the context of this erosion of their sense of safety and dignity.

The 4B movement incepted by Korean women is one which counters violence with non-engagement. Having identified dating, marriage and the whole process of having and rearing children as unilateral and bearing mostly alone the emotional labor and physical and psychological exploitation inherent in the social roles imposed on them by their patriarchal context, many younger women have chosen to opt out.

Women who choose to be single, child free and have control over their time and their energy and their bodies are particularly threatening to those of a patriarchal mindset. Incel men, feeling cornered and driven into a state of passive aggression and emasculated, resent women’s power of choice as it is often, as they perceive it, exercised to exclude them. So they retaliate by portraying women as parasites who are trying to use men as providers of wealth and stability. This limited and stereotypical belief system fails to respect the greater range of capacity of both parties in any connection.

Margaret Atwood, who seems to have accurately predicted where the western world finds itself in gender wars today, has commented that while men are afraid that women will laugh at them, women are afraid that men will kill them. That’s the difference.

There are any amount of talking heads on the internet explaining many “widely-held beliefs” to us: high value men and high value women (high or low net worth in terms of income seem central to these valuations), toxic masculinity and toxic femininity versus divine masculinity and divine femininity and a myriad apologists in singlets (the right to bare arms) and tight fitting clothes influencing our assumptions.

Violence expresses itself in actions but is also manifest in words and tone and conduct and it is always sourced in beliefs, often unconscious beliefs formed in childhood and modelled by toxic family and cultural systems and never questioned or challenged by those who hold them.

To eliminate the violence in relation to the way women are currently treated, the beliefs of superiority/inferiority, strength/weakeness, power/powerlessness and value/worthlessness need to be honestly faced, understood and addressed in the privacy of our own homes before we go out and start perpetrating havoc in the lives of our fellow human beings.

4B, or not 4B, we will do well to opt for personal peace in our time. In a world at war, the only peace we can truly choose for sure is private.

Do Not Resuscitate

Image Credit: Informed Health

It is illegal to take one’s own life, in Sri Lanka. And in addition to the legal blocks, the cultural stigma against suicide is extended to the idea of ‘death with dignity’ or death which is chosen by an individual. It is not sanctioned by the State - all the major religions practised in Sri Lanka uphold doctrines which guide adherents to hold on, and trust that the Divine Creator God, by whatever name we call Him, knows better than we do, or that the suffering a person undergoes in life in purposeful, is connected to our karmic burden, and has a limit. ‘This too will pass’ is a mantra we are taught, all our lives.

http://graduate.sjp.ac.lk/icma/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/iCMA_abstract_2015_P120.pdf

In Australia, assisted death is becoming legalized, under certain conditions, including incurable health conditions, and proof that the individual seeks death with dignity, and not just an ‘easy way out’, on a difficult day. This is perfectly in keeping with the secular and progressive values of Australia, which respects the rights of individuals over the compliance to community beliefs which characterize traditional South Asian societies.

Life is certainly not meant to be easy, as one famous Australian politician once said:

Malcolm Fraser: Life wasn't meant to be easy

Why life wasn't meant to be easy

But the degree of suffering experienced by people is also not equal: chronic illness, constant physical pain, and no win situations which have no solution and no remedy affect the quality of life we experience. The last few years in particular, with the outbreak of the Covid pandemic five years ago, and the stresses and disruptions subsequently endured by the global citizenry - universally but differentially, by all of us - have highlighted this. Many people felt acute dissatisfaction with their working and living conditions, and have now started actively seeking their own happiness, even if that has involved risking unemployment or divorce or financial instability or other kinds of hardship, in the short term.

It’s necessary, in my opinion, for each person to ask themselves the big question several times, in their life: Is my life worth living? Not just is Life worth living? But is my unique individual life, as it is now, this moment, meaningful and worthwhile? And to be honest, sometimes the answer to that question is: No. What the individual does, after coming to this realisation, is very important. Usually, the feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction that prompt re-evaluation is caused by a specific situation or sometimes concurrent compounded issues, each of which has both an immediate remedy and a long term solution. Compounded issues can cause overwhelm.

Euthanasia is never going to be a solution for any problem that can be solved by a better approach, or a hard decision that needs to be taken which leads to a better life. Many difficult situations can be well managed, to a point where the problems they cause are not impacting us on a daily basis, and are effectively pushed back, allowing us to progress on a more positive path. It is important not to give up too soon.

Often our feelings cloud the ability we have to objectively weigh up the value of our lives. These feelings are transient, so acting on them in a way we cannot return from is a waste of our potential for happiness. To understand the difference between how we feel and what is really happening in our lives, we need to be able to de-stigmatize our less positive emotions, and not suppress them. By seeing them as signs that we can recalibrate our lives, and not feelings to be ashamed of, we can use them positively.

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/111127/Plus/plus_17.html

Democracy includes the ideas of pluralism, diversity and inclusion, of tolerance of the opinions and beliefs of others. In a modern progressive democracy, the dictates of cultural tradition would be questioned, and at times even challenged, if they interfere with the rights of an individual to act in accordance with their own wishes, as long as these actions do not adversely impact the society as a whole.

Within the framework of the law of the land, our rights and responsibilities create lines which are demarcated both formally and informally. Sri Lanka is a society which can be very traditional, conventional and conformist, and like many South Asian societies, expects people to suppress and repress their pursuit and exercise of individual freedoms for the benefit of the wider community.

Marriages are arranged, pressure is put on young people at every stage to adhere to their parents’ wishes in practically every area of life, from birth through education, to the gaining of qualifications, to choice of job, to marriage. Many people wonder if they are living their own lives, or the lives shaped for them by others. However, when it comes to the end of life, the right to die with dignity, if that is our choice, should surely not be interfered with.

The unexamined life is not worth living. This is well known:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living

But the pace and business of life today makes it difficult to conduct these self examinations of our life at all, let alone regularly. I suggest that the traditional Biblical three score and ten years of a lifespan allotted to human beings is a wise one, encompassing the seasons of possibility we all potentially experience, from youth to maturity, and then peak wisdom.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34876119/

It is the challenge of our lives as human beings that, as we grow in intellectual and emotional wisdom and life experience, our bodies naturally deteriorate and weaken, as we age. The latter part of our lives is more likely to include serious health issues.

The quality of life encompasses far more than just physical survival. Human dignity includes safety, respect, cleanliness, kindness, joy, growth and the capacity to be supported in independence as long as possible. This becomes more important as we become more vulnerable.

In Western culture, individualistic and progressive, an individual’s life stages are defined in more material terms. We are born into a family within a social system, we become a legal adult aged about 18, we study or train for a profession, we become qualified, we start earning, and we build a family and work until we retire. There is only one life, according to Christian precepts, and this is it. And the value of our life is usually measured by what we earn, and the peak of our life is viewed as our retirement from work.

In the South Asian traditions, we are a student, and then a householder. But once our children are growing up, our life opens up rather than shuts down: we start to consider our spiritual journey. We step back from the hurry and the stress of our action-oriented working life, and we develop our inner and more contemplative life, in mindful preparation for the next birth. We work through our residual karma, to try and liberate our spirit, so that when our body ceases to function, we will be free of its limits and restrictions.

With the body we are allocated at birth comes the attachments that go with it. The facial features, the genetic attributes, the predispositions to good or bad health, the skin colour, the ethnic identity, even the cultural identity, are the externalised keys which turn in us to activate our actions. When we progress to the later stages of life, we realize that so many of these fiercely contested aspects of our identities are not that significant.

What matters is how we have conducted ourselves, and how we have played the hand we have been dealt. The content of our Highlights Reel looks different, through a less material and more spiritual frame.

If we are honest, we will recognise that the odds are in our favour in the early part of our life. Vitality, energy, optimism, egoism and survivalism all motivate us to build ourselves and the shape of our lives according to our ambitions.

We have, through the successful utilization of modern medicine, increased the years of our prime by 15-20 years, in the post Industrialization era, from ages 35-55. But we should not let this success make us feel all powerful and immune from the inevitable limits of our mortality. Because it is in this earlier era of life, while still compos mentis, that we make the choices about our life’s overall worth and value, and the legacy we leave.

As the odds start to shift against us, it is important that we realize that death with dignity is one every person would ideally prefer: at a time and a place of our choice; and as an action authorised and respected by the jurisdiction in which we live.

A New Low In Bro Behaviour

Image Credit to ‘Miss Estephani’

Look up “schoolgirl” and “rape” and “Sri Lanka”. There are many stories which are posted by Google Search with those taglines. We have to refine the search for the most recent atrocity by location and date. Location: Thanamalwila. It is difficult to determine the date because the case involves a situation of ongoing multiple incidents of rape over the course of several months. These incidents were brought to light only when the young girl became pregnant and gave birth to a child and a report was then made concerning the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy.

Twenty two perpetrators were involved in ongoing sexual assault, abuse and coercion of the minor girl. Police are interviewing and charging the students involved, the principal and deputy principal of the school, some of the teachers and some of the parents who sought to cover up the incidents to protect the school’s reputation, their own professional positions in the case of the teachers and the status and reputation of the perpetrators and their families.

The case is being called a “gang rape”. And that is the aspect of it I want to focus on in this article: particularly “gang” behaviour as part of male subculture. In many cities all over the world, teenage boys join gangs in their local neighbourhoods to establish solidarity with their peers and to gain protection and support and a sense of power for themselves. The emotional vulnerability of boys, and particularly in the age group in their teens and twenties, has been highlighted in recent times by many sociologists, focusing on the relative social and psychological isolation of boys, their difficulty communicating their inner feelings and the toxic masculinity culture which surrounds them and makes it hard for them to express or respect vulnerability in themselves or others.

They are also growing up in an online culture which is saturated in pornography where women and girls are routinely objectified, reduced to their physical appearance and characteristics and treated with scorn and disrespect. The most violent of these pornographic films and stories and images both portray and encourage sadism, where pleasure is derived by viewers from seeing acts of dehumanising cruelty inflicted on women. It must be said that this culture of pornography is readily accessible to anyone who has a phone, tablet or computer and that it exists and flourishes and is normalised within a general culture in Sri Lanka in which the status and dignity of women are unacceptably debased.

Gang rape is more prevalent in South Asia than in other countries and India and Sri Lanka report more incidents of such atrocities than other countries in the region. This reflects on the status of women in these countries and highlights the urgent need for the upliftment of girls and women in every aspect of life.

What makes this case stand out in a terrible way is that because of the age and context of the victim and her attackers, what is exposed is not only the breakdown of moral awareness and accountability on the part of the boys, but the dereliction of the duty of care of many of the adults involved from the teachers in the schools to the parents of the schoolboy perpetrators and allegedly some of the medical personnel who were initially presented with the crisis.

Smartphone penetration
It costs about Rs. 10-25,000 to get a basic smartphone which has the capacity to take photographs and make videos and share the images via WhatsApp or other forms of messaging. Even children in regional schools would be able to afford such a device. How they use it is up to them. Sri Lanka, despite its overall economic challenges, has one of the highest rates of smartphone usage in the world and has one of the cheapest rates payable for digital data in the world. Children from the smartphone generation may be technically proficient but show deficiencies in other areas of social and psychological knowledge, empathy and relational awareness in what are called “soft skills”. The very term suggests that these skills are fragile and undervalued in a vision of a harsh and challenging world.

Sri Lanka recently passed legislation to empower women: Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Bills. It is difficult to think of any situation which could be more disempowering than the crisis in which this young girl has been involved. The references in the news articles to tuition and tuition teachers opens up an insight which we need to register while thinking about this case. The age of the students is significant because they were Year 11 students, 15 or 16 years of age, meaning they had finished or were finishing their O’Levels. Many students after O’Levels in Sri Lanka seem to lose any motivation for academic achievement and are bored and disengaged, relying on tutoring to get them through their school coursework. The focus on rote learning, and lack of teaching of critical thinking skills, and the absence of Civics as a subject in the school curriculum contribute to the lack of relevance of the formal education, from the students’ perspective.

School is therefore not for them a focus of learning but more a social forum in which they can engage with their peers. A’Level students are already geared for academic success and are from aspirational families who encourage their progress. The danger of stagnancy in those who are merely going through the motions of education is not only intellectual but moral. Students who do not see any future for themselves via academic routes still must attend school and it is in the Years 7-10 (up to the age of 14) prior to O’Levels that such moral education should be encouraged. This of course includes contemporary sex education focusing on consent, which is surely best understood in the context of moral responsibility to one’s fellow citizens. In other countries and in urban areas the students of this age group might be focusing on entering their A’Level courses, planning on further study at university and obviously not wanting to disrupt their own career development and prospects in any way.

But the personal disengagement of the children in this age group and these regional areas must be noted and addressed. Observing the responses to the reporting of this case on social media, which range from suggestions of punitive actions against the rapists, to harsh sentencing, treating the perpetrators as adults under the law, despite their young ages, we see that this case seems to have created shame as well as shock and horror and disbelief on the part of the general public.

Interestingly, while media outlets are updating us about the case, there appears to not be much commentary about this case on Facebook, the social media platform of choice for most Sri Lankans. Perhaps people have no words. They are asking “How did our society become so broken? Our systems are failing us”. The responses by public institutions such as the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus show that public authorities have early identified the collapse of proper protections for the minor child in this case. However, rectifying such a situation will be complex and challenging, where damage has been so multi-faceted: punitive measures and calling to account people who are fearful of their own reputations and have already chosen to ignore the rights of a vulnerable child in their care are the first step but may fall short of what the child herself requires. Does she know what help to ask for? Are these resources and supports available to her? Her ongoing health and well being need sensitive and consistent empowerment.

Psychologists are required to skillfully, patiently and with sensitivity help this child rebuild her sense of self: her dignity, her worth, her boundaries and her ability to trust not only others but her own judgment and to generate a sense of optimism for her future. In this case, the victim and the perpetrators all live in a small community and are known to each other. The degree of shame and stigma applied to her, the public speculation about her relationship with the young man with whom she was in love and who lured her into a situation of vulnerability, the repeated blaming of her as a victim rather than the calling to account of the perpetrators, are thus amplified. There is no protective anonymity in her immediate community.

Rape is not about desire, it is about power
In recent studies done in Australia where domestic violence and gender based violence are sharply escalating, 90% of young women surveyed said they felt unsafe and disempowered in relation to men. In this case, the 22 perpetrators were abusing the power their gender confers on them in a patriarchal society, and the power of numbers, against one defenceless girl, forcing her to drink alcohol to diminish her capacity to resist, bonding with each other through the shared outrages they committed against her, leveraging the vulnerable state in which her regard for the boy with whom she was in love placed her and harnessing the power of technology to shame their victim into repeated compliance. Her humiliation clearly made them feel powerful. They must have felt a cowardly, roaring sense of affirmation and victory to be able to trap this young girl into a situation of chronic shame, worthlessness, panic and helplessness, effectively making her into what they seem to see her and other girls and young women to be: a sort of caged and defenceless, subhuman being, with no autonomy and no power of consent, whom they could terrorise and subjugate to their collective will.

The facts of this case seem to come straight from a vision of hell, a world where innocence and humanity have been eroded. We are all the losers every time such incidents occur. Many are saying, “How have we come to this? The country is damaged beyond redemption”. However, people who live and work in such a society and still continue to strongly adhere to the highest personal standards continue to work to raise awareness of the urgent need for improvement in child protection and the status of women. In a way, the dark context revealed by the emergence of cases such as this illuminates those who are working to improve the situation, by contrast.

We live in a world in which people are hyper aware of their own rights. In this context, responsibilities towards others, including respect, courtesy and the upholding of their rights and dignity, need to be modelled by adults to children and applied with integrity and consistency by those in authority. If the children of a country are its future, we need to support and protect them far better. They are all, including the perpetrators of these acts, showing the impacts of the dereliction of duty of care which is owed to them under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

They are becoming desensitised to the rights of others, particularly those most vulnerable. Just like a personal health crisis shows the need for immediate improvement in the self care of an individual, so a case like this shows us that a total re-evaluation needs to take place in both the way such cases are handled by authorities concerned and the provision of pre-emptive measures via education and awareness of youth in regard to matters concerning sexual conduct as well as attention directed to ongoing support and care of those affected by abuse and attack.

We all, as individuals and collectively, look in the mirror at stages in the process of our development and at times like this we do not like what we see. What we then do next is what determines the outcome. We could transform our shame into action; we could make Sri Lanka a case study of radical improvement and positive change, just from citizens’ activity and collective conduct. Social media and online communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are powerful instruments. Such a use of online resources to inform and uplift our community would be a remedy for the abuse of technology we have seen in this case where smartphone capacity was unconscionably abused, to shame and degrade one of our children.

Some members of the public are so desensitized that they indulge in laughter at the case. Many of us reading the details of this case may be struggling to have any empathy for the perpetrators, finding it hard to try and envisage or imagine why they engaged in this terrible behaviour repeatedly and over such a long period of time.
The emphasis in Sri Lanka in these matters always seems to be on punishment and retribution. This does not help. It is surely an illustration of a fear- based culture, which shames and blames, but where atrocities continue to occur. The perpetrators need counselling to restore their moral compass. Their identities are being protected while the legal charges are being formulated, as is that of their victim.

While researching this story, I found an endless store of images of girls covering their faces in fear and shame that are continually used to accompany the media articles concerning the case. It is sickening and also disturbing. Why not show images of the shameless perpetrators instead? Or at least artist renditions? It is the perpetrators that need to account for their actions. What they did, and the reasons they did it, once proved, actually disqualify them morally from being able to rejoin society without reforming their characters. The perpetrators should be the focus of the attention of the authorities, not the victim. Not just in this case, but in all such cases.

Punishment after the fact is not enough; pre-emptive education is needed.