Season 1, Episode 1: Escape from Colombo Or How I Got Caught In The Sri Lankan Civil War

This is the pilot episode of the pilot season of this new series. The series begins in Sri Lanka, where we travel to trace the aftermath and dark legacies of the Sri Lankan civil war. Ostensibly, we discuss the war, but my intention here is not to recount the history of the war, but rather to explore how histories are crafted and worlds designed in ways that create the stage for conflict, violence, and the manufacturing of differences between people. There is an essay that accompanies this video, and it can be found on the Crooked Songlines blog here:

www.asimrafiqui.com/crookedsonglines

or on Substack

https://crookedsonglines.substack.com

Crooked Songlines explores how colonial histories, the construction of ethnic and cultural difference, categories of race and racism, continue to influence how we, in South Asia and the rest of the world, see each other and deal with each other. My intention here is to share books, experiences, and places that reveal how colonial legacies shape our modernity. How, having failed to understand that colonialism was, first and foremost, an epistemic infrastructure, we have left ourselves vulnerable to its material and social consequences.

A tall ask.

These are stories for my daughter. Their design, intention, complexity and difficulty respect her intellect and her creativity as a young woman coming into this world and accepting the burdens of its issues. In a time of genocide, there is also an urgency to this series, one I feel informs most of the chapters and stories that will emerge in the coming months.

Books mentioned in the episode:

Wilhelm, Gieger, The Mahavamsa, Or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon: Translated Into English (Classic Reprint), Forgotten Books, 2018.