Sri Lanka Is On The Brink of People’s Revolution

What’s happening in Sri Lanka? Why were people swimming and smoking weed in the Presidential palace earlier this month? Sri Lanka is currently undergoing one of its most severe economic and political crises in decades, and it’s not clear when and how things will improve for the island nation. We brought on Yalini Dream, a Sri Lankan cultural worker and movement organizer of Tami descent, to help us understand the context of all of this.

At present, the country is experiencing shortages in food and fuel, brought about in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, spiraling inflation, and a debt crisis. Basically, Sri Lanka doesn’t have any foreign currency to buy goods that are necessary for their people, like food and fuel. This is leading to shortages across the country as the country is entirely unable to import the goods it needs to sustain itself.

For the past few years, the Sri Lankan government and its dynasty politicians have been borrowing heavily from foreign lenders, then using that money to pay for massive infrastructure improvements. Before COVID, Sri Lanka was able to stay ahead of their debt due to the rapidly expanding tourism industry, however this industry collapsed with the rise of COVID. Sri Lanka now has too much debt, and very little ability to pay their creditors back, as the government has already spent most of its foreign currency reserves. In May, Sri Lanka missed an interest payment on foreign debt for the first time in its history.

So how are people responding to the crisis? This past month, the presidential palace was stormed by protestors, who demanded the resignation of the President (who did resign).

San Francisco native Nato Green is the country’s only semifunctional hybrid of comedian, writer, and union organizer. Follow Nato on Twitter

Yalini Dream is a Sri Lankan artist of Tamil descent, who currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Yalini has 20 years of experience as a cultural worker and movement organizer. Follow Yalini on Twitter

📸 Credit Dinuka Liyanawatte / Reuters

Recorded July 17th, 2022

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