Opinion By protecting public property instead of vandalising it, Sri Lanka’s people inaugurate a new kind of revolution

The polite Sri Lankan protester has a lesson for revolutionaries everywhere. Soon after the Speaker of Parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, announced that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had finally resigned, the people who had occupied government buildings since July 9 began to peacefully stream out. No statues toppled and very little furniture smashed, the masses had, by their mere presence on premises that previously fenced them out, shown that they were doing it differently. As one protester said, “We are not terrorists… we want to show the people that we are not here to damage public property.”

The Lankan protests, marked by the joyous, party-going spirit of those who splashed about in Rajapaksa’s swimming pool, mock-wrestled on his bed and played protest songs on his piano, contrast sharply with the rioting that have tended to accompany large-scale uprisings, such as the gilet jaune protests in France from 2018 to 2020 and the ‘Arab Spring’ revolts that swept through West Asia and North Africa in 2010 and 2011. Put it down to the all-pervasive eye of the camera. Few things escape it, as the protestors in Colombo know well, after photos and videos of their homegrown revolution were widely shared.

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An act of violence early on — the burning of acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private home — seems to have alerted the crowd to the dangers of turning into a mob, and losing the high moral ground. A sense of order was quickly put in place: People began queuing up to gawp at the palatial interiors of the government buildings and pose for selfies on the president’s chair, while volunteers swept the premises, watered the lawns, and protected the precious artworks and other objects from vandalism. Sri Lanka may well have inaugurated the age of the protester as responsible tourist and guardian of public property.