Okay I was simply scrolling because Sri Lanka is fucking trending but as usual international media is exoticizing our struggles and focusing on the “people swimming in the president’s pool” instead of informing the world about why an entire fucking country (amidst an economic collapse) stormed to Colombo and asked the president to step down.
First things first. Know the context.
There is an economic crisis going on in Sri Lanka. We have declared bankruptcy.
I’ve already made a post about what this means for the country. This means high inflation. No electricity. Princes are sky rocketing.
No fuel. I repeat. No fuel. People are fucking dying in queues.
But even without fuel, people came to Colombo. People fucking walked to Colombo for miles and miles to join the protest.
There were attempts to stop the protest. We have the right for assembly. We have the right to freedom of expression. But no. The government stopped fuel dispense (as if we had fuel lol) to stop people. They imposed an unconstitutional “police curfew” to stop the protest. Why is no one talking about this shit??
But people still came. I don’t see the international media reporting about the effort and energy and passion that went into this.
We built a city. Do you fucking know that? We built a city called “GotaGoGama (loosely translates to: Gota-Go-Home-Ville). We built a city months ago since the country collapsed.
Recap of May 09th when GotaGoGama was attacked by Mahinda Rajapaksha (then PM) and his goons.
I repeat. The protest on 09th July is not the first.
We’ve been asked the president to step down so more competent people can take over and do something to help us. This protest yesterday was not new. It’s not random. It’s an act of people giving up. The storming of the presidential palace is not anger. It’s taking back of power.
As for the swimming pools? And People making fun of the protestors for working out in the president’s gym, eating the food in his kitchen and swimming in his pool?
What about this?
For people making fun of the youth who are taking a dip at the swimming pool or playing the piano at the president’s house…For those are the condemning the protestors who set the PM’s house on fire (we still have no visual proof this happened) - all I have to say is this:
THIS -
These leaders we asked to step down today (who still haven’t btw. No. Not yet. Nothing official yet), they are corrupt beyond compare. The president had “said” he “will” step down not he 13th. But we don’t know anything yet.
These are people who not only brought the country to economic collapse. But the Rajapaskhas are responsible for millions of lives that were lost during the civil war. These are people who have taken from my country until there is nothing more for us to give.
I’m really grateful that you are all finally “talking about us”. I’m glad the international media and the whole world is finally watching. But your view is narrow. Your sight is short sighted.
International media. People of the world.
Do better.
Do fucking better.
Because we, Sri Lankans, are doing our fucking best right now.
Sometimes it is your fault.. Sometimes you don’t listen well enough, you’re selfish, you’re rude and you aren’t always right. Sometimes you fucked it up and tbh that’s okay. It happens, learn from it, apologize and keep it moving. Just because you fucked up doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Don’t dwell on it
This is your daily reminder to not be ashamed of making your life easy for yourself.
Cut your food into small pieces, make the font size 30 on your e book, use straws to drink, get a pen that’s comfortable to hold, take more naps, walk slowly, eat another cookie, buy velcro shoes, re-watch the part you couldn’t understand the first time, write things on your hands so you don’t forget it… whatever you want and/or need
Don’t let anyone tell you how you should be doing things. We don’t need to prove each other anything
I know I've been posting more about politics lately, and it's caused me to lose a chunk of followers.
But I'm a queer person with a degree in political science and its an election year. I'm old friends with several of my city council members. I've been to trainings on how to run elections. I spent my college years working for nonprofits (and being the world's worst canvasser). I'm close with more than one person who works for unions, and I have family members who work for government agencies.
I think about politics in a very pragmatic "I know how the sausage is made" kind of way. We're in a vice press, and there's only one way to release the pressure.
The revolution ain't coming. There is no one to save us but us.
So yeah, I'm going to be pissed if your answer is "let them tighten the vice -- there's no way out of the vice, it doesn't matter if they loosen or tighten it."
There's a difference, and anyone telling you otherwise is likely a psyop or someone who fell for a psyop. This literally happened before, and it's happening again.
Stop falling for it.
Reblog this first
The queer community is full of hurt people.
This can lead to a knee-jerk reaction when we hear someone else say "I am hurt". We look at them and say "shut up, you're not as hurt as me because you have X privilege".
This leads to femme afab queers being told "you can pass and hide as cishet, you're not as hurt as queer women who look queer, you're just complying with the patriarchy's ideals for beauty, you're hurting the queer community, you're anti feminist."
It leads to masc afab people, whether trans men or nonbinary or genderqueer etc, being told everything from "you're not as hurt, you can pass as a cis man" to "you have no desire to transition, you still look like a girl, shut up".
It leads to trans amab people who are nonbinary or genderqueer or agender etc, who still dress or look "masculine", being told that they are "unsafe" for queer spaces, that they don't belong at a "women and nonbinary meeting", that they are "basically just cis men trying to escape accountability".
It leads to asexuals being told "you don't even feel sexual attraction, the thing we're ostracized for! how could you possibly be oppressed? You're just straight and a prude" and aromantics being told "you're just straight and like casual sex, get over yourself" and both being told "you're just a cishet who wants to steal resources".
I have heard every single kind of queer person say "I have been harmed and ostracized by the queer community". Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and mspec people, trans people, aroace people - every single one of us has expressed feeling ostracized by our own community.
On the plus side, this means you're not alone. Your group isn't the only one facing this. You have allies!! Other queer people who have gone through what you've gone through!
We need queer unity. We need to stop attacking each other. If you feel the urge to say "shut up, my group has been hurt MORE", go take a walk. Remember that every single one of us has been hurt.
Posting this from the bird app since I hope it can help people.
People have been contacting the White House directly to demand a recount, especially since there has been evidence that not every ballot has been counted and will be thrown away if it hasn't been cured.
The following screenshot comes from here!
If you need help writing something, check under the cut! I've provided a prewritten response from one of the replies!
"I am a concerned citizen, and I need you to hear me. I urge you to recount the ballots from this election and investigate election interference. Bomb threats have been called into multiple polling locations, causing some to close early. Domestic terrorists have burned ballot boxes. An unprecedented number of ballots have been rejected and require curing. There have been reports of polling officers allowing voter intimidation in and outside of polling places across the country and an estimated 20 million mail in ballots are unaccounted for. In addition, many people have reported that ballots were not counted for suspicious reasons such as signature invalidation which is information that vote counters do not have access to. These events have occurred in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia, for instance."
Feel free to add and change what you want, this is just a base for you to work off of.