“In Search of the Malwatu Oya (Sri Lanka)” (45 min; 2019; English) will be screened on 28 October 2022, 06:30 pm at the C.D. Deshmukh Auditorium, IIC main building
Directors: Dr. SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda, Hiranya Malwatta
Author Archives: thuppahi
Sri Lankan Cricket Team in Training in Melbourne Now
Dhammika Ratnaweera, in Daily News, 6 October 2022
The Sri Lankan cricket team has already started their preparation for the T20 World Cup in Melbourne. They reached Australia on October 3 and are training to adjust to their new conditions. “We had a four-day training session at Pallekele before the Australian tour and now we reached Melbourne and had our first training session on last Sunday (4th) at Junction Oval grounds”, said Sri Lanka cricket Manager Mahinda Halangoda in an interview with the Aus-News Lanka which conducted by presenter Sahan Weerasekera.
Collective Selves and the Promise of Buddhaland in Nationalism
Brian Victoria, in Buddhistdoor.net … where the title reads as “Nationalism: Collective Selves and the Promise of Buddhaland”
Introduction
In a recent lecture on the war in the Ukraine, John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, noted that nationalism is the strongest ideology in the world today. I was somewhat surprised by his comment because, having lived through the Cold War era, anything having to do with Russia was framed in the ideological context of “the struggle of the Free World or democracies against Communist dictatorship,” and so on. Yet, on reflection, I realized that with the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Russia had reverted to a capitalist state, even if now authoritarian or autocratic. Thus, Mearsheimer’s identification of nationalism as a key factor behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not as surprising as it initially seemed.
Buddhist monks protest against aid for Rakhine’s Rohingya Muslims. Photo by Soe Zeya Tun. From reuters.com
Mearsheimer’s insight led to a new line of enquiry on my part. As a Buddhist, I had long asked myself, without finding a satisfactory answer, what is the relationship, if any, of the Buddhadharma with nationalism?
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, authoritarian regimes, Bodu Bala Sena, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, ethnicity, foreign policy, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, martyrdom, meditations, nationalism, patriotism, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes
An Exposure: “Human Rights” as A Tool of US Intervention in Sri Lanka
Natasha Gooneratne, an item entitled “Under the Guise of Protecting Human Rights and Establishing Democracy: US Intervention in Sri Lanka,” …. presented in 2015 or 2016 (?)
Introduction
The discourse regarding Sri Lanka within international media has intensified since 2009, when the then government of president Mahinda Rajapaksa announced that it had defeated terrorism in the form of the armed non-state group known as the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) [recognized as an international terrorist organisation by the US in 1997], that Sri Lanka had been in armed conflict with since the early 80s. Sri Lanka’s announcement prompted widespread reports of humanitarian law violations, and human rights abuses by both sides. A week after the announcement, on May 26th, the UN Human Rights Council held a special two-day session on the situation in Sri Lanka, concluding in the adoption of a resolution commending the state for the policies it had adopted. The resolution passed with 29 votes in favor, 12 against, and 6 abstentions.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, demography, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, military strategy, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, unusual people, world events & processes
The Lighthouses of Southern Sri Lanka Contextualized Visually
Jeremy Partyka …. at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS9VHvupRek
Video and Editing by Jeremy Partyka. Made in conjunction w/ final paper for my Independent Study Project during ISLE Fall 2017 🙂 Special shoutout to all the helpful lighthouse staff and locals who assisted me with my project!
.… with still shots of the newer lighthouse at Galle Fort located at its south-eastern corner provided by a person born and bred in the Fort and familair with its beaches and ramparts, one Michael Roberts … and with several of the images being refined for Thuppahi by David Sansoni of Sydney
Colonialism Anew. Sri Lanka enmeshed in Western Debt ‘Nets’
Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, in Colombo Telegraph, 3 October 2022, where the title reads: “The Paris Club, Dollar Debt Colonialism & Asia’s New “Donors”: Reforming The International Aid Architecture?”
As the visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF), team boarded a return flight to Washington DC after a week in Colombo, the Paris Club, stepped in though a revolving door at the strategic Indian Ocean island’s Bandaranaike International Airport in the first week of September.
The signing of a ‘Staff Level Agreement’ with the deeply unpopular ‘Ranil Rajapaksa’ regime accused of Economic Crimes was announced before the IMF team’s departure. However, the contents of the agreement like the IMF’s Debt Sustainability Analysis Report on Sri Lanka remain shrouded in mystery except for news of a $2.9 billion loan to be disbursed over 4 years!
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, debt restructuring, doctoring evidence, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, IMF, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Sustaining Cultural Performance Practices across the Indian Ocean
Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya et al
PREFACE to her new book entitled “Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage” (ICH)
Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) continues the conversations on cultural heritage which commenced at a virtual conference held on August 3, 2020, at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. The conference was spurred by the screening of my film – “Indian Ocean Memories and African Migrants” – at the Social Scientists Association, Colombo. The interest shown by UNESCO Global Network Facilitators, Dr Bilinda Nandadeva and Dr Gamini Wijesuriya, who attended the screening, was a catalyst to convening the conference. The Covid-19 pandemic further exposed the significance of heritage and the vulnerability of intangible culture. The book is a call to value ICH and an inspiration for academics, researchers, stakeholders, civil society, cultural practitioners and policymakers to understand the threats to sustaining heritage.
Filed under Aboriginality, Africans in Asia, ancient civilisations, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, performance, population, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Udantha Abeyratne & Queensland University Team in Major Breakthrough
News Item at ABCNet …. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-28/qld-pfizer-buys-uq-start-upresapp-health-covid/101478832
A Brisbane-based company that invented a smartphone app it says can diagnose COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses by listening to someone cough has been purchased by Pfizer for nearly $180 million. ResApp Health Limited uses diagnostic technology developed by Associate Professor Udantha Abeyratne and his research team at the University of Queensland (UQ) to record and analyse a patient’s coughs on a smartphone.
Religion within Tamil Militancy and the LTTE
Iselin Frydenlund, presenting her article in Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion, May 2018, …. one entitled “Tamil Militancy in Sri Lanka and the Role of Religion” …. https://sangam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tamil-Militancy-in-Sri-Lanka-and-the-Role-of-Religion.pdf … OR … https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Tamil-Militancy-in-Sri-Lanka-and-the-Role-of-Frydenlund/4cbf5235611dd3407dfa3a2962e6ea635ac50674 … with highlights and pictures being impositions by the Editor, Thuppahi
Induction of Tiger recruits into fighter ranks with receipt of the kuppi containing cyanide
Tiger soldiers relaxing in camp with cyanide kuppi around their necks — Pix by Shyam Tekwani
Historical Background
Understanding the role of religion in the Tamil insurgency requires an understanding of Sri Lanka’s cultural mosaic and of the development of modern nationalism before and after independence from British colonial power. Sri Lanka is a geographically small yet culturally rich and complex island, with numerous ethnic, linguistic, religious, and caste subgroups. The majority of the population identify as ethnically Sinhala, and they speak Sinhala, an Indo-European language. The great majority of the Sinhalese are Theravada Buddhists who live mostly in the south and central regions of the island. A small minority of Sinhalese are Catholics, and some also belong to evangelical Christian churches. The largest minority group in Sri Lanka is the Tamils, who speak Tamil (a South Indian Dravidian language) and comprise several subgroups. The largest of these are the so-called Sri Lankan Tamils, who traditionally have lived in the north and east. The so-called Indian Tamils are labor immigrants from India who were brought in by the British to work in the plantation sector in the highlands. The majority of Tamils are Hindus of the Śaiva Siddhanta tradition, but there are also a significant number who are Catholics and a few to smaller Evangelical denominations. The Tamil Muslims identify based on religious belonging, not on a common ethnic identity, and they speak Tamil. Historically, the Muslim communities are scattered throughout the island; they form a stronghold in urban trading centers in the south but are also farmers in the Tamil-majority Eastern Province. Social stratification based on caste and regional identities was strong in precolonial Lanka, and then the colonial classifications of the island’s inhabitants produced new identities with intensified religious and racial signifiers. These were reproduced in the emerging Tamil and Sinhala nationalisms of the late 19th century.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, devolution, discrimination, economic processes, Eelam, electoral structures, ethnicity, female empowerment, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, mass conscription, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
