What Sri Lanka taught me about responsibility when traveling

“No fuel today” reads a large sign at the petrol station. A crowd queues anyway, for hours, taking turns, because fuel might come again. Motorbikes and tuk-tuks are pushed by hand. No one wastes a drop. It is the same at the gas sellers. Soldiers stand everywhere, not because there is anything to sell, but to keep order.

A few streets on, a shop still has rice. The price has risen by two hundred percent, and a man goes home with less than he needs.

This is Sri Lanka during our visit in spring 2022. The country is in the worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948. One major cause is the collapse in tourism after the 2019 bombings in Colombo and Negombo, and then the pandemic. Since then the country has been short on revenue. Other causes were rising oil prices on the world market, populist tax cuts, and subsidised fuel the government could not afford. In 2021, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned synthetic fertiliser, and within months the rice harvest fell by a fifth.

Food, medicine, electricity, fuel and gas are all short. The power goes out for hours, several times a day, sometimes for twelve. Some goods, dairy among them, are rationed. The essentials have to be imported, and Sri Lanka cannot pay for the imports. The country is close to bankruptcy. The rupee loses value by the day, while prices keep rising.

Aragalaya, the protest movement

Many people want the president and his government gone. The Rajapaksa family, long in power, stands accused of corruption and embezzlement. People feel betrayed, abandoned, let down. Sinhalese, Tamil, Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Muslim, old and young. Every group is there, and they stand side by side.

Across the country there are black flags, black armbands, people in black in the street. Black is the colour of mourning and of refusal. On the walls it says “Gota Go Home”. For what they are doing they have a name. Aragalaya. The struggle.

The protests are mostly peaceful. In Colombo there are real protest camps, with tents for a library, an information point, a stage. On the ninth of May, government supporters storm the camps of the opposition. Nine people are killed, hundreds injured, many houses burn. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the prime minister and the president’s brother, resigns.

On the ninth of June we stand in a protest in Colombo ourselves. It is held to remember the dead and to demand justice. The police are out, closing the streets. The army and the navy are there too, focused on the task, but unwilling to provoke a confrontation. Demonstrators shout at the officers. They cannot understand why the police still work for the president. You are in the same situation as us, they call, why do you not refuse the work. The officers stay passive, even when they are addressed directly.

The demonstrators are full of energy. They stand up for their cause, singing and calls ringing through the streets. The air is charged with discontent, disappointment, and resolve. The march ends in front of the police headquarters. When the demonstrators force part of the barricade away, the police fire tear gas. The crowd scatters, gathers again, scatters again, until the police move out and break the protest up. We get talking with one of the demonstrators and ask him about the barricade. He does not defend it. Many of them are young, he says, they want change fast and reach for such means. Most of the demonstrators do not approve of it.

The future

We left the country before the protests came to an end. A month later, demonstrators marched into the president’s house, and he fled abroad and resigned. What was first celebrated as a victory was only a transition. The former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe took over, and the country was still in trouble. The real change came only in 2024, through elections, when the National People’s Power coalition won by a historic majority.

A traveller’s responsibility

What I often think back to, beyond all the politics, is the feeling that stayed. The feeling of privilege. Of safety. The time in Sri Lanka confronted us with much that we take for granted.

We never asked whether we should enter the country, but how to behave once we were there. The locals are glad that tourists come, and do everything to make you feel welcome. What they showed me is one of the most valuable lessons. My responsibility does not end at the edge of my comfort zone. In a situation like this, the responsibility you carry as a visitor matters more than ever.

I am a guest, and the lives of the people here come first. So we ask ourselves, deliberately. Do we have to rent a scooter and take the scarce, expensive fuel from locals who earn part of their living by driving, only for a sense of freedom? Do we have to order more when we are already full, only to throw away food that has become scarce? Do we have to haggle over every cent, only because that is how it is done?

Travel has always meant encounter for me. And encounter means shared responsibility.