#slfp

[illustratedjai-art]

Happy Holidays (2024) - Personal Work

As always, the winter greetings card! I've just put the last batch into the postbox, so it's time to share this year's card!

Another one in the vein of the Snow Things from a few years ago, here's some hypothetical baubles from our hypothetical tree!

A sloth in a stocking for me, a wool felted wolf for Finn and a little wooden robot for A!

So, from my little family to yours: Happy Holidays! [Image description: a digitally illustrated holiday card in a cartoony style. The overall effect is of decorations hung on a christmas tree. There are four decorations: a round bauble in white and red that says "Happy holidays" on it at the top; a sleeping sloth in a stocking on the left; a wolf in a scarf at the bottom; and a robot with "A" on its chest on the right. The background is blurry greens with patches of warm yellow-white.]

[hussyknee]

it’s rare to find a sinhalese person (online atleast) who is supportive of tamil self-determination. genuine question: among leftist circles in sri lanka, how common is such a stance?

I don't know whether I'm a reliable source to answer this question because I'm very jaded about this in general. A couple of days ago, someone on the Sri Lanka Reddit started up discourse about Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's choice to reject identifying with the country that tried to genocide her people, which I'm still chewing wire about. I'm a very isolated person with a very small social circle of like-minded leftist friends. They're mostly not SinBud and anti SinBud nonsense, but none of them are Tamil and I'm the one who really convinced them about Eelam I think. The people I learned from, who are out there doing the work of building inter-ethnic dialogue and overturning Sinhalese propaganda, might have a more hopeful view.

Thing is, there's no one "leftist" faction here because "left" doesn't mean the same thing as it does in the West. The Rajapaksas' party SLPP is socialist, a legacy of the SLFP that they branched off from, that was the party aligned with the USSR. They and their voters and their saffron terror acolytes (Buddhist priesthood) are all for public infrastructure they can rob blind and central government they can use to crush minorities, and build on the nationalist fervour of genocidal Sinhalese Buddhism that's served both major parties since independence.

There's quasi-communists, descendants of the ethnonationalist Marxist JVP that rose in opposition to the class corruption of ethnonationalist USSR-aligned socialist SLFP and enthonationalist US-aligned neoliberal UNP. The current JVP party itself is no longer communist; their coalition the NPP are mostly just very pro-union social democrats, and they've since distanced themselves from their ethnic myopia, possibly due to suffering much of the same state terrorism as minorities via militarisation and policies like the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). They're the most vocal about the abolition of the executive presidency, the removal of all martial law mechanisms and the PTA, defunding of military and police, and restructuring and executing the long-mismanaged socialist infrastructure. These are usually the working class and university students, but their base has been growing in other demographics too, since we "held our noses and voted" for the Yahapalana government in 2015 and it ended up fucking us over. But despite their sympathy with the suffering of Tamils and Muslims and favouring the devolution of power, most still cling to the idea that Sinhalese majoritarianism is a fair result of democracy.

The kind of pro-LGBT, anti-racist, feminist liberals that would pass muster with the western left otoh, are a minority of urban, English-speaking middle class. The younger of this crowd is increasingly favouring the aforementioned NPP (that is rapidly marrying the economic left with the social consciousness led by western dialogues that otherwise go against their traditional rural working class base), but that is very new and hampered by decades of Red Scare propaganda. The minority communities and the urban liberals traditionally vote for the current neoliberal party, that has distanced itself from their virulent nationalism over the last thirty years and basically modelled itself after the US Democrats (diet right-wing as opposed to nuclear right-wing) Their idea of reducing corruption and increasing efficiency is privatizing everything, makes the right pro-feminist and pro-LGBT noises, and coasts on the minority votes on the promise of never actively feeding ethnosupremacy, even if they won't do anything about it either. The Sinhalese affiliated with this party are deeply uncomfortable with if not entirely resistant to the idea that the North and East are Tamil lands colonized by the Sinhalese. Just like the quasi-communists, urban liberals are aware of the corruption and complicity of the Buddhist priesthood in ethnofascism and are prepared to do exactly as much nothing about it.

What I'm trying to say is that Sinhalese Buddhist ethnosupremacy is baked in to the Sri Lankan political fabric. "Left" means jack shit when it comes to whether Tamils have rights, in much the same way that the western left agrees on everything except Palestine. It's a political no man's land everyone tries not to look at.

The fundamental problem is that Sinhalese people who know enough about 1958, 1983, or the full scope of genocide perpetrated against Tamils during the last push of the war, let alone all 26 years of it, are very much in the minority. It takes a particular education to understand that "Sri Lanka" is a post-colonial invention that took over from "Ceylon", which was nothing but a construct for the ease of British administration. As far as I know, this education is confined to activist organizations and whoever followed my sociology program. So my kind of anarchist leftism that calls the war a Tamil genocide with their whole chest, calls the priesthood saffron terrorists, and recognises Eelam, is vanishingly small, afaik.

To be honest, I never really questioned the propaganda and narrative we've been spoon fed myself until I went to Canada when I was 23 to complete my anthro degree (became disabled and dropped out after). One thing that struck me was how racist the Sinhalese diaspora was. I was raised SinBud, my school didn't admit any non-Sinhalese, half my uncles were in the military, but these people that had left the country decades ago still hated Tamils and Muslims in a way that nobody else I knew did. I wondered whether this was what it had been like when it had all started; whether this hatred that seemed to have been preserved in amber was a true taste of what had ignited Black July. Suddenly the attitude of the Tamil diaspora towards the Sri Lankan government and Sinhalese people didn't seem so unreasonable.

Then, later in the same uni term, I went to an art exhibition of a white artist who travelled the world collecting information about their genocides and made art about them, and found a painting depicting Sri Lankan Tamils in 2008. Promptly had a meltdown. Went to the lady and told her tearfully that it was all propaganda, we didn't really hate Tamils, not even my uncles in the army hated Tamils, it was a war, the LTTE had terrorized us for my whole lifetime. Bless the woman, she didn't fight me, just let me cry at her and patted my hand and pretended to take me seriously. This made it easier for me to really think about what I knew once I'd stopped wailing and stamping. It prompted a years-long self-interrogation and fact finding that made me unearth how much brainwashing had been done to us by everyone, from our families to our school textbooks to news media. It's like the air we breathed was propaganda. And I still didn't know a fraction of what life had been like for Tamils (or Muslims) and the scope of atrocities perpetrated by the Sinhalese until I began my Society and Culture degree at the Open University when I was 30. The first year textbooks were only broadstrokes facts, but at last I found out about Gnananth Obeysekera, Prageeth Jeganathan, Stanley Thambaiya, Malithi DeAlwis. Their work on nation-making, ethnicity, historical revisionism, genocide and ethnic conflict and state terrorism...everything I should have been taught as a child. The chapters on the rapes and murders and shelling and war crimes and IDP camps were..indescribable. That was what properly radicalised me about Tamil self-sovereignty, because there's clearly no possible way the Tamil people will ever be safe and safeguarded under a Sinhalese majoritarian government.

I had to drop out of that programme too because of my health. But during the mass protests against the government in 2022, I learned even more about Tamil indigeneity, the extent of JR Jayawardena's crimes, and the persecution of Marxists and victims of the '71 and '89 insurrections. So much of the protests and their encampments were directed and galvanized by social media, that organised online and in-person lectures, teach-outs, and live discussions that anyone and everyone could attend right alongside the protests. I've never seen that kind of truly democratized, free, egalitarian civic education and discourse before. That was the very first time I saw academics, survivors, refugees and human rights activists being given a respectful platform, the masses hearing firsthand accounts from people of the North and East and witnesses of Black July. April to July 2022 was a truly golden bubble of time where I saw people finally start listening, believing, and challenging all their convictions. It was the closest we ever came to realising the hope that things could be different; that we could, as a society, understand how Sinhalese ethnosupremacy had been the black rot killing this country from the first, stop being racist Sinhala-first cunts and actually hold any of these murderers accountable.

Teach us to hope, I guess.

But I suppose it's no small thing that I learned about the Tamil resistance and struggle and taught all my friends about it. I'm sure they're informing their own circles in small ways too. These tendrils are hard to see, but they exist and grow. Especially with the fall of the Rajapaksas and their Bhaiyya contingent, more people can see ethnosupremacy for the grift that it is, and the younger generations are less defensive, more willing to listen and eager for justice and change. So I guess the answer is: not very common, but less uncommon than it used to be.

[newtras]

Vendanta surpasses 2.5 gw 2.5 gw target festival by 2030

Indian Incoparade is trying to get a contact on World Environment Day. Indian mines and Metal Company (SLFP) inspected Trade Veditha Company said it has increased its renewable energy capacity to 1.03 to 1.03. The company says that by 2030, the company says he is walking on the target of achieving 2.5 g of pure energy. According to a statement, the company has increased its round-watching…

[satrthere]

Vendanta surpasses 2.5 gw 2.5 gw target festival by 2030

Indian Incoparade is trying to get a contact on World Environment Day. Indian mines and Metal Company (SLFP) inspected Trade Veditha Company said it has increased its renewable energy capacity to 1.03 to 1.03. The company says that by 2030, the company says he is walking on the target of achieving 2.5 g of pure energy. According to a statement, the company has increased its round-watching…

[valkyries-things]

CHANDRIKA KUMARATUNGA // POLITICIAN

“She is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the fourth executive president of Sri Lanka, from 12 November 1994 to 19 November 2005. She previously served as the prime minister from August to November 1994 and the chief minister of the Western Province from 1993 to 1994. She is the country's first and only female president to date and the country's second female prime minister. She was the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) until the end of 2005.”

[illustratedjai]

Presented without comment.

[dailypioneer]

Debt-ridden Sri Lanka appointed 9 new Cabinet ministers on Friday in an effort to ensure stability until a full Cabinet is formed in the island nation engulfed in the worst economic crisis since its independence.

Former minister Nimal Siripala de Silva representing Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP), independent MPs Susil Premajayantha, Wijayadasa Rajapaksha, Tiran Alles were among the new nine ministers sworn-in on Friday by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Four ministers have already been sworn-in last week.

The cabinet will be limited to 25 members, including the President and the Prime Minister, according to media reports.

[illustratedjai-art]

Commissions Now Open!

Spaces: 1. CLOSED 2. CLOSED 3. OPEN 4. OPEN 5. OPEN

To place a commission please email: Illustratedjai@gmail.com

Base Prices SLFPs No background - £45 Background - £60

Sloths (No backgrounds) - £30 Other Animals (no backgrounds) - £40

Everything else will be priced approximately by hour at a minimum of £15/hr Average starting point for full body ~£60+ Average starting point for Art Nouveau - £100+

Additional fees will be applied for Multiple figures Complex machinery Complex backgrounds (Cityscapes, etc)

I will not take on commissions for fanart. If you're not sure if your commission idea counts as fanart, please get in touch.

Any other questions, please get in touch.

[newtras]

'Don't follow us ...': J

When Global Investors, the Benalururu, gathering, gathered in Betgest 811, J “You have already sabotaged the broker business, please do not follow us,” crowding the tigers, audience. However, the response of the Kother's response is more based: “We need to get to banking now to the banking of regulatory obstacles. Started in 2010, Namin and Nikhil Komat, SLFP's broker industry with a low cost,…

[satrthere]

'Don't follow us ...': J

When Global Investors, the Benalururu, gathering, gathered in Betgest 811, J “You have already sabotaged the broker business, please do not follow us,” crowding the tigers, audience. However, the response of the Kother's response is more based: “We need to get to banking now to the banking of regulatory obstacles. Started in 2010, Namin and Nikhil Komat, SLFP's broker industry with a low cost,…

[fuckyeahstupidlittlefatpeople]

SLF Aloy - Horizon Zero Dawn Fanart for Desert Bus for Hope

Desert Bus for Hope is a charity event in support of Child’s Play, which is a charity that helps get video games into Hospitals and Abuse Shelters, so that kids in crappy situations get the chance to feel like kids again. 

Along with taking donations and running auctions and all that good stuff, one of the things they do is Art Challenges - sometimes visual, sometimes Desert Bus related, sometimes haiku - and this time, they just decided that there needed to be more Horizon Zero Dawn Fanart in the world.  I submitted SLF Aloy here.... and won????? So, here, I’m releasing her on the world, in the spirit of there being more Horizon Zero Dawn art out there. 

[northernstories]

Abby Fifarek is a junior, marketing major here at Northern. She runs cross country and track for the NMU team and loves to be outside. Abby says that she came to Northern because the environment was “unlike many other college campuses”. She is also in the student leader fellowship program here at NMU and she says that is has been one of her most rewarding experiences.

“Through SLFP, I was paired with a community leader in Marquette. She has been my mentor and became my adviser for the volunteer internship I have now. Through giving back and being more involved in the community, I have found that Marquette has really become a second-home. Becoming a part of a community other than the one I grew up in really established my individuality.“

[illustratedjai]

SLF Citadel Knights - Impact LARP Commission 

A quartet of knights from Impact. These four are fantastic players and characters and always a joy to roleplay across from.

[janayugaya]

"ගෝඨාට දිනන්න බෑ...." පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ ඇතැමුන් ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස පක්ෂය නොතකා වැඩකරන නමුත් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයා ලෙස ශ්‍රීලනිප. සහාය නැතිව ජයග්‍රහණය නොකරන බව දයාසිරි ජයසේකර පවසයි.

[illustratedjai-art]

SLF Darkwood Family Portrait - WotW Commission

L-R Back row: Valdo Middle row: Bruno, Thea (holding Socks the Dragon), Hal, Kai, Gulliver, Mimi, Aurie, Veremund, Spectral Winter Front row: Philomena, Adria (holding Nero the Dragon), Lucrezia, Rosa, Elsie (and the Rock Dragons)

Most of these are player characters from Weight of the World, the LARP I helped to run that finished earlier this year. This group ended up as an extended family group, centred roughly on Gulliver Darkwood (in the centre there). The family dynamic here led to a lot of interesting gameplay, and it was really neat to watch all these characters grow and change over the course of the game.

Unfortunately the original files are TOO BIG for tumblr, so these are smaller versions I saved from deviantart, so you should go there to see the full resolution versions. (full colour, sepia) [Image description: Two nearly identical images; the top one is in full colour and the bottom one is in sepia, like an old photograph. They are both cartoon illustrations of a group of people wearing fantasy and steampunk looking clothing. The dragons in the pictures are all about the size of large cats. The people have squishy looking bodies and large, round heads out of proportion with their bodies. Some of the people have extreme scars on their faces; some of them are metallic colours and have horns; one of them looks a bit like a ball bearing; one of them looks like she's made of stone and has gems in her face; and two of them have cat ears and are patterend after snow leopards. They're grouped up in four groups all clustered around one figure in the centre, seated on a chair. There's a group of five on the top left; below them is a group of three on the bottom left; on the top right are two pairs standing close to each other, and then on the bottom right one more pair of people.]

[unexceptionalism]

In those elections, a minority of the LSSP had split and joined the SLFP. There is a constant pressure from capitalist society against being organised in a revolutionary party. Also, the temptation to join a “bigger force” is a factor as well as individuals believing that they stand for socialist policies despite joining establishment forces.

Sri Lanka || A Trotskyist Party Derailed — The National Question and Permanent Revolution