Whither ends the Sri Lankan crisis?
Even with an IMF package the hardest part is still ahead. Victor Ivan returns to the JVP’s second insurrection for what it shows about how a power struggle turns into a bloodbath.
Making expectations realistic
The Aragalaya had a sensitive heart and no mature brain. Victor Ivan sets out what it achieved, why it failed, and what compromise the country would now have to reach.
Was there an invisible hand behind the Easter attack?
Cardinal Ranjith goes to the Pope and to Geneva, and Shani Abeysekera sits in a cell. Victor Ivan lays out what he calls the puzzle behind the Easter Sunday attack and asks who benefited from it.
The rough sea, sinking ship and the captain
A novice captain took the helm in the worst weather at sea. Victor Ivan reads Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency that way, then turns to Geiger and the curse laid on kings in the chronicles.
Lawful public uprising! (2)
Part two turns to why liberalism never took here. Victor Ivan sets the JVP and the LTTE side by side as movements that drove their own communities into racism.
Crisis and the nation’s survival
Some disasters are avoidable. Victor Ivan argues this one still is, and that going to the IMF — even on its conditions, even if that means selling SriLankan Airlines — is part of how.
Deceiving the Sinhala Buddhists
The utopian Sinhala-Buddhist state promised in 2019 and 2020 did not arrive. Victor Ivan argues that of everyone deceived by the racist project, the Sinhala Buddhists themselves were deceived most.
Short-sightedness, where shall it end?
Minorities, the judiciary, and a cabinet Victor Ivan says cannot see past the next few months. He argues that with both parties failing, only public pressure is left.
Perfecting the failure
Anarchy, bankruptcy, a misread geopolitics and a Geneva resolution. Victor Ivan reads the failure of the state as something now being completed rather than merely risked.
The end of a journey and beginning of a new one
Anti-Muslim feeling, the forced cremations, and what Victor Ivan says the National Intelligence Service did. The column argues the old era has ended and asks what should be built in its place.