wisidagamage – Lanka Socialist Forum

01 Aug

Katunayayake is one of the oldest Free Trade Zones in Sri Lanka.

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Opinions

Katunayayake is one of the oldest Free Trade Zones in Sri Lanka. Thousands of workers are employed in this zone. And yet the Sathosa there closes at 10 leaving workers unable to purchase essentials when they engage in night work. There is no Government medical center outside the zone. There is a private medical clinic which is set up so workers have to pay for thier health care. There is no post office in Aweriwatta. We are asking these facilities to be set up near the zone for the workers who bring dollars into this country - Swasthika Arulingam -…

30 Jul

There is great disorder under heaven

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured, Opinions, Political

Originally from: https://polity.lk/there-is-great-disorder-under-heaven/ The post-1990 world order—an ensemble of norms, rules, and institutions, informed by economic and political liberalism—is in disarray. The façade of an inter-state system based on rules not power, free trade not protectionism, open not closed societies, multilateralism not unilateralism, and human rights not crimes against humanity, is less legitimate to the worst and less credible to the rest. To those who spun that dreamworld, including in places like Sri Lanka, this is disorienting. Less so for the global majority. They live the nightmare of discrepancy between the rhetoric of liberal values and the reality of deprivation…

24 Feb

We Want to Build Communities of Readers, Not Turn Readers into Commodities: The Eighth Newsletter (2025)

wisidagamage0 CommentsCulture, English, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/red-books-day-2025/ Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. There are days when the dusk of events settles heavily on me, and I try to find a way to retreat into a quiet corner and throw myself into the world of a book. It does not matter if it is a novel or a history book, as long as the author is able to conjure up a world that transports me from the flood of brutalities to an island of imagination. In recent months, I have been reading more and more novels – including…

18 Feb

“Yanis Varoufakis on Europe’s Betrayal – War, Austerity, Palestine and the Struggle for Peace”

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Political

In this fiery and uncompromising speech, Yanis Varoufakis calls out Europe’s leaders for their complicity in endless war, economic injustice, and the betrayal of the dream of a peaceful and just Europe. Speaking at Anti-Siko's rally in Munich, Varoufakis denounces the militarisation of Europe, the genocide in Palestine, and the exploitation of Ukraine for profit by the Western military-industrial complex. Varoufakis reminds us that the dream of Europe as a peace and justice project has been replaced by austerity, deindustrialisation, and fascism’s resurgence. But there is hope – if we stand together and say: NEVER AGAIN, ANYWHERE. This is our…

18 Feb

Richard De Zoysa: Swan Song

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

The journalist, actor and human rights activist Richard de Zoysa was abducted from his home by men later identified as policemen, in the early hours of 18 February 1990, thirty-five years ago. His body, with gunshot wounds and signs of torture, was discovered in the sea the following day. Cheran Rudhramoorthy, friend and fellow poet, offers these words (translated from Tamil to English by Anushiya Ramaswamy) from “a question about/friends who were murdered/friends who disappeared.” https://polity.lk/question-cheran-rudhramoorthy-trans-anushiya-ramaswamy Richard-de-Zoysa-Swan-song-RevisedDownload

11 Feb

The Joy of Reading…

wisidagamage0 CommentsCulture, English

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:Contact: Nitheesh Narayanannitheesh@thetricontinental.org11 February 2025 Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research releases a new dossier on the role that reading and popular literacy programmes played in twentieth-century revolutionary processes and beyond. In the early twentieth century, peasants and workers led revolutionary movements in the poorer nations to overthrow the old regimes of landlordism. In these contexts, reading itself became a powerful tool for emancipation, as it empowered the masses to challenge authority and build egalitarian forms of being and belonging. This tradition continues today, from the library movement in Kerala (India) to Red Books Day celebrations across the world.Dossier…

26 Jan

Self-Sufficiency in the New Year

wisidagamage0 CommentsEconomy, English, Featured

Originally From: https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Self-Sufficiency-in-the-New-Year/231-299503 The flawed IMF program with its focus on the market has further aggravated the economic situation with a food crisis Sri Lanka over the last three years has been hit by tremendous price hikes and shortages of essential services and goods. What does the New Year hold for the working people, pummelled by the rising cost of living and stagnant incomes, whose lives have become unbearable? Even as the public awaits the national budget next month, to address the ongoing economic crisis, the Government should announce a firm New Year resolution to address people’s suffering. I argue…

26 Jan

Economic crisis and household debt in the north

wisidagamage0 CommentsEconomy, English, Featured

Originally From: https://www.ft.lk/opinion/Economic-crisis-and-household-debt-in-the-north/14-770935 The current economic crisis cannot be resolved by households or social institutions alone, and loans are not the solution. The Government should introduce livelihood and income stabilisation programs to help people escape the debt trap. It should also leverage cooperatives to create markets and supply chains for rural production, while expanding affordable credit for rural livelihoods and small-scale industrial growth. Additionally, a universal social security program should be implemented The ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka has greatly affected household debt. As the economy worsened due to inflation, higher living costs and job losses, more households are relying…

16 Jan

All Wars End in Negotiations. So Will the War in Ukraine: The Third Newsletter (2025)

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/the-war-in-ukraine-must-end/ As NATO fails in its attempt to expand into Ukraine, popular support has shifted significantly in favour of a path to peace. 16 January 2025 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Mark Rutte, the current secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is not a poet. He, like other secretary generals of NATO, is a mediocre European politician who has been given the task of holding NATO’s reins for the United States (to be fair to Rutte, he has been the prime minister of the Netherlands for fourteen years,…

16 Jan

Dr Victor Frankenstein Disavows His Monster: The Second Newsletter (2025)

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/struggles-illuminate-the-path-forward/ Even as the gloomy realities of war and hunger threaten to dull the light of humanity, the red sparkling dance of our struggles illuminates the path forward. 9 January 2025 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Very few humans have had the good fortune to descend into the depths of the world’s oceans. The deepest such place – 11 kilometres below sea level at its deepest point – is the Mariana Trench, which is located just north of the 607 islands of the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean…