A pictorial dairy of the some of the ongoing protests in Sri Lanka. Part II
28th April 2022
Stages theatre group performance
A grey haired old man stops in front of the photo. The caption is in three languages, he laboriously traces the Tamil words with his finger as he reads “1958. The inception of race riots — an instance where a Tamil man was pulled out of his vehicle and beaten up” He reads quietly and moves on.
The performance takes place in the shadow of SWRD — which is at it should be. It’s a Thursday evening and Galle face isn’t as crowded as it was on the weekend but there still large crowds.
The audience sits on the steps leading up to SWRD Bandaranaike’s statue — the narrators give a short introduction in both Sinhala and Tamil to the play. The performance focuses on historical events in the 1950s — the introduction of the Sinhala only policy, the non violent hartal against it by Tamil politicians and the riots of the 1950s. To avoid the mistakes of the past, we have to know our past, the narrator says.
Only two words are spoken during the performance; Sinhala, Demala. Several young men and women dressed in black, wearing red or blue shawls, come forward. This is a vehicle with a driver and unruly passengers. There is a constant see saw battle for control between the red and blue shawls — Sinhala/Demala/Sinhala/Demala — they chant — sometimes the Sinhala voices win, sometimes the Demala. Their voices rise to a crescendo as the bus lurches along on an unsteady course. Suddenly the blue shawls get out and sit silently in front of the vehicle. Hartal. What to do now? The blue shawls are reassured and smilingly persuaded to get back in, but then the Sinhala voices take over, rise to a crescendo and the vehicle crashes to a stop.
The second part of the show is as quiet as the first is vibrant. The performers stand silently, each holding up a photograph showing a moment in history from the1950s and the audience is invited to come forward and look. I wonder if the audience will hesitate but they don’t, they move forward with curiosity. The photographs are of the 1950s race riots — the images are graphic and disturbing and I find it difficult to look at them for long.
I am fascinated as much by the audience as the performance. Men, women, young girls and boys. An old woman looks at photo of a shop destroyed during the riots. A grey haired old man stops, and laboriously traces the Tamil words in the caption with his finger as he reads. I wonder what he is thinking. One photograph is of riot mobs leaving Galle face. Sixty years later we are again at Galle Face.
These photographs, these events do not exist in the history I was taught at school. They were erased from our collective memory, but they exist in the memories of the victims.
As I walk down further at the main protest site in front of the old Parliament, a man is speaking in Sinhala. We have been divided too long by jathi vadaya he says. We have been divided by race for too long. The crowd cheers — but crowds are fickle and have a tendency to follow the loudest voice. There is the sense of a moment precariously balanced, of hope, and a future still undecided.
