Aragalaya - Stories about unity and conflicts in a crisis-hit Sri Lanka

Abstract: Abstract   Sri Lanka battled a civil war for 26 years during a time when the majoritarian rule discriminated and marginalized Tamils from the rest of the society; the war ended in 2009 but numerous societal problems remained in the country. The Easter bombings in 2019 took the lives of 269 people, once again ethno-nationalistic powers and politics became of great importance within the country’s political sphere. The Rajapaksa family convinced many Sri Lankans that they could fight tensions in the country and uphold national security and Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidential election in 2019. In 2022, Sri Lanka faced the worst economical crisis since gaining independence in 1948 and many thousands Sri Lankans took the streets to protest against corruption and the and disproportionate use and even misuse of the country’s resources.   The aim of the thesis is to collect stories from Sri Lankans in Colombo from various religious, ethnic and cultural groups and to analyze their views on democracy, religious, ethnic and cultural identity and their views of possibly perceived unity. The overall aim of this study is to uncover the voices of those directly affected by the situation in Sri Lanka during the spring of 2022. Participatory observation and qualitative interviews were used to collect the empirical data of the study.   Massive protests (that came to be called ‘Aragalaya’ - the Sinhalese word for struggle) took place from March 2022 and transformations within the political sphere in the country due to the economical crisis during that time enabled deep insight and generated interesting perspectives from interviewees that participated in the research. The empirical data is analyzed through the theoretical perspectives of marginalization theory and theory on democracy and protests.