Aksharaya

This article was written by Aideen McDonald (artist / activist reconciliation) of Ireland.

Throughout the world people have to cope with conflicts, from the global to the personal level. Artists of many cultures and eras have the harsh reality of conflicts through its objects and images interpreted to aesthetically pleasing or provocative manner, or both.

The topics range from societal, religious and political battles to more individualistic competitions and internal dialogues, often eloquently on the way from legends or literature. Political and social changes are reflected in the arts, including topics which the rise of democracy or stem the growing insight into social ills.

Legend and literature, especially if the scenarios and plot lines are loaded conflict, have always inspired artists. Individual efforts reflect the human condition of conflict and resolution, the escape of the case and the quest for harmony. Artists have such internal conflicts, often their own, in many forms.

Asoka Handagamas film Aksharaya or fire letter follows this tradition. The Legend of Oedipus, with its deep psychological and social challenges which they heraufbeschwört, is a richly complex material for a film that made in Sri Lanka, where the need to address social conflicts and transform, is larger than ever . The arts should always be a source of cathartic expression. Before zurückzuschrecken difficult issues through artistic censorship is never the human urge to ask questions at the press.

In Ireland we had to suffer under censorship, so that sometimes some of our greatest artists into self-chosen exile went. James Joyce and his masterpiece Ulysses is one such example. Because in the United States and the United Kingdom up in berbote was the 1930s, Ulysses was published in 1922 in Paris. The plant was on the blacklist of duty and Joyce moved to France.

The title plays on implicit and explicit parallels and is inspired by the Greek epic same named. The substance of the book is also provocative to implicit and explicit manner. Die The controversies and trials around the plant ranged from obscenity court processes due to prolixity, almost warlike conflict interpretation of the text. In the Irish press of the time was to read that the book is a "perverse spinner" was written, "which refers to specialized literature latrines" did. Today, Ulysses as perhaps the most acclaimed novel in the pantheon of modern art.

The Ulysses in the Filmveersion assisted by the American director Joseph Strickland from the year 1967 was 33 years long banned in Ireland. Only in 2001, she was allowed unlimited shown. The state censorship authority believed that the reputation of the Government pity if the film any Irish audience would be shown. Nevertheless, the film received an Oscar nomination for best book adaptation.

In 2004, a new, award-winning adaptation with the name Bloom disseminated internationally. The Irish production Bloom and his source of inspiration, of Ulysses, are now source of artistic and national pride for the Irish. We need each other and learn from the history. It would be a great loss for Sri Lanka, 82 years to wait, until finally Asoka Handagama and his epic film Aksharaya recognized and appreciated.

Aideen McDonald, artist / activist reconciliation / Irish school for ecumenism, Dublin, Belfast – Ireland

http://www.humanrights.de/doc_de/countries/sri-lanka