K. S. Sivakumaran, in The Island 17 April 2012
Have the English and Sinhala media people heard of a living scholar, Subramanium Pathmanathan,** in history and Thamil studies? I am afraid they may not have heard of him unless they had been students under his tutelage. This is sad because the English and Sinhala media believe their ignorance of Thamil prevents them having contacts with people like S Pathmanathan who are proficient in English and knowledgeable in Sinhala too. Continue reading
Chandrahasan — pic by K Pitchumani courtesy of DBS JeyarajThe people of Jaffna celebrated the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in peace with high hopes of revitalisation amid a multitude of development activities that are underway, after decades of war and years of unrest, Jaffna Government Agent Emelda Sukumar said yesterday. She said most of their hopes have been fulfilled and their confidence has been established because of the government’s ongoing development programmes. Continue reading
Chelvatamby Maniccavasagar, in Daily News, 17 April 2012 [whose history of the Tamil struggle was serialized in Tamilsangam com and which i hope will see print sometime soon. Web Editor]
The first death anniversary of former Daily News Senior Deputy Editor T Sabaratnam was observed recently. Sabaratnam, on completion of his secondary education proceeded to Christian College, Madras to obtain his Degree. He joined the Thinakaran editorial as a trainee journalist in 1957 and contributed several feature articles to the paper. When late R Sivagurunathan was chief editor and P Balasingham was news editor, Sabaratnam functioned as a sub editor.
After working as a senior sub editor he joined the Daily News editorial in 1978 and retired from the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL) in 1997, as senior deputy editor. As a writer, Sabaratnam did not use brilliant phrases but wrote in good English, clear, direct and precise. Above all, it was eminently readable. His knowledge of men and matters was amazing and made him one of the foremost writers of the day.
As a newspaper man Sabaratnam acted responsibly and taught trainee journalists to use the pen responsibly, always for a cause that benefited the nation. He was a man of few words, but the little he said carried a wealth of meaning and an experience never to be forgotten.
As a journalist he discharged his responsibility with unsurpassed distinction and honour. He was a remarkable translator and had translated several books and journals pertaining to politics, science, art and culture.
He has written books about the late S J V Chelvanayagam, late S Thondaman and late A Amirthalingam.
Sabaratnam was a lecturer in Journalism at the Colombo University, Open University and Sri Lanka College of Journalism, and rendered immense service to the young students who desired to take up journalism as a career. He edited the book ‘Guide to Media Studies.’ The Sri Lanka Press Institute (Editors’ Guild) felicitated him for his tremendous contribution to journalism. He was a veteran writer on scientific topics too. Sabaratnam was an inspiration to young journalists, not only in the Thinakaran but also in the Daily News editorial. He was a robust optimist who saw more good in the world than evil. He denounced falsehood and hypocrisy and was a humanist with deep faith in humanism. He never harboured a grudge against anyone. His sincerity and steadfastness to friends, relations and neighbours is an example where changing loyalties and shifting attitudes are the order of the day.
Sabaratnam viewed life as a preordained opportunity to attain perfection through a blend of humane and divine love. He had an unshakable faith in God, charitable understanding, affection, kindness and piety which notched a permanent niche for him in the family circle.
He was fearless in manner, independent in spirit and his personality beamed forth with radiant energy that captivated the hearts of all those who came in contact with him. The vibrant thoughts that flowed through his pen had a magical charm on the readers. He was indeed one of the finest journalists that Sri Lanka produced in recent times.
Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews, 22 May 2010, where you will see blog comments made THEN:
In LTTE time, 1980s –Pic by Shyam Tekwani
Daya Somasundaram was in Jaffna town in late 1995 when the Sri Lankan army advanced south and eastwards from Palaly. As the LTTE decided upon a strategic withdrawal, they insisted that all the Tamil people should move with them. This enforcement was termed an ân “Exodus” by some Tamils versed in biblical themes. As Somasundaram relates the tale, many people resented this specific LTTE writ.
Eventually most of the people moved back to their homes in army-occupied territory. Somasundaram was among the professional classes who engaged in their duties in the Jaffna Peninsula in the late 1990s. Within no time army-rule had generated a “collective amnesia” among the Tamils: it was the army that had created the exodus and the Sinhala state was the principal ogre. The role of the LTTE mostly slipped under their retrospective assessments.[i] Continue reading
Item in Island, 15 April 2012, with a different title
The Resolution No 19/2 on Promoting Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka that was adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on 22nd March 2012 calls upon the government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) that was appointed by the President. The adoption of the Resolution has created an environment in which deeply divided and sometimes misleading views are being expressed in regard to the content of the Resolution, what happened in Geneva, and the way forward. The Friday Forum therefore wishes to place before the public some important facts, and raise some issues which must concern all Sri Lankans at this time. Continue reading
SEE http://sorisomail.com/email/238743/o-politico-que-representa-realmente-a-populacao.html
Godfrey Bloom is a Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and North Lincs …. also see http://www.leftfootforward.org/2009/10/ukips-godfrey-bloom-admits-to-saying-paki/ 
http://sorisomail.com/email/238743/o-politico-que-representa-realmente-a-populacao.html
Michael Roberts,13 April 2012 … courtesy Eurasia Review, where you will find blog comments. Also see Colombo Telegraph for a different set of comments. The essay here has some embellishments and refinements.
Blackmailing Sri Lanka, 2009
The long and episodic war between the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) and the Tamil liberation forces commanded by the LTTE from the 1980s to 2009 involved numerous atrocities on both sides, notably those in the Eastern Province in 1990. It is puzzling why, today, certain Western states and the human rights lobby (HR) are concentrating solely on the crunch situation in 2009 at the end of Eelam War IV in pressing alleged war crimes charges against the Sri Lankan government; and why symbolic LTTE figures such as V. Rudrakumaran and Adele Balasingham are also not being placed within the bars of moral justice.
David Miliband with Tamils for Labour
he puzzle serves as a backdrop for my argument that the Western nations, both individually and collectively, were sucked into and thus complicit in one of the most outstanding acts of political blackmail the world has seen in recent centuries.[i] This was when the LTTE utilised its own people, some 320-350,000 citizens of Thamilīlam as a hostage-bargaining chip that would enable them to pursue their fight another day.
Guided by their well-placed connections in media and other circles in the West, the LTTE had read the international scene well. Strands of secular fundamentalism had prominent voice and humanitarian impulses[ii] could be persuaded Continue reading
Filed under discrimination, historical interpretation, Hitler, Indian Ocean politics, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, mass conscription, military strategy, NGOs, politIcal discourse, population, power politics, prabhakaran, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war crimes, world events & processes
City Talk: At Home with Violence: Ethnic LIfe in Colombo by Sharika Thiranagama
Colombo, where every anti-Tamil riot in Sri Lanka has begun, is, at the same time, a city of many Tamil-speaking (and other) minorities. This paper takes Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka and the urban heart of Sri Lanka to argue that Colombo has had to perform its Sinhala nationalist credentials constantly because it is “a city which is not one” (Tagg 1996). The paper examines the ways in which people make themselves at home in an ethnically divided city that has never fully been intelligible to its dwellers as one city. Here violence is taken as critical to Tamil phenemenologies of the city. Riots, bombs, and the checkpoints that crisscrossed Colombo made violence a constant feared spectacle of the urban, images of the possible bound by past violence. Yet Tamil spaces of relative safety also presented themselves, due to fear of the separatist LTTE and exploitation by other Tamils, as spaces of un-safety. This paper will takes these everyday practices of inhabiting Colombo as a minority to reflect further on the major dilemmas and political conflicts now facing Sri Lanka in its post-war future. Continue reading
Pics from C’bo Telegraph and Kate Geraghty
According to an ABC news report on air this Tuesday morning Gunaratnam walked into a police station and surrendered. But it turns out that he had entered Sri Lanka as Noel Mudalige and had overstayed his visa as well (facts the Australian media beat-up seems to be unaware of). As an aside it should be noted that he was probably a member of the JVP with his brother in the late 1980s. Since they are Tamils from the hill-country who are proficient in Sinhala and since his brother was a leader of the JVP at Peradeniya University the circumstantial evidence suggests that they were among those responsible for the killings of planters (e. g. Rowlands) and others in the hill-country – till the government death squads succeeded in eliminating their threat (in the process knocking off some innocent youth)…………….The unfolding events are presented in chronological order. Web Editor. Also see http://www.colombotelegraph.com/?s=Gunaratnam&x=14&y=5 AND
http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2012/04/special-gunaratnam-speaks-out.html
Gananath Obeyesekere in http://vedda.org/obeyesekere1.htm
Introduction: Let me start by saying that this lecture is a by-product of my current field-work in the somewhat remote parts of Vellassa and Bintänna. I am working in this region because it is little known anthropologically and historically and I have always felt that a study of the small village shrines and ritual practices of this area might help us understand the manner in which the Vädda worship of dead ancestors, known as nä yakku (yakku having no negative connotation) is articulated with the Sinhala Buddhist belief in selected ancestral heroes who have been subsequently deified in what is sometimes known as the bandāra cult, generally constituting a conglomerate of twelve major gods known as dolaha deviyo. In addition, this was the region which saw in 1917-18 the first major resistance against British colonial rule and hence Vellassa has special significance in our historical annals. A large part of the Vellassa and adjoining regions, for example the Monaragala district and the region south of tea country of Namunukala, were known traditionally as vädi rata or even as mahā vädi rata. However, there are no longer any Väddas in the vädi rata; the residents there claim to be Sinhala Buddhists. Hence one of the issues that I am investigating is whatever happened to the Väddas? In some of the remoter areas of this region informants will volunteer opinions to say that they were Väddas before they became Sinhala; and they have a plethora of myths that relate to their origins in the Vijaya-Kuveni marriage and many others. I am sure Dr. Mendis would have been delighted with this information because he was one of the first historians to critically reflect on the early myths of the Mahavamsa and examine their historical salience. Hence let me start off with the Vijaya myth, which most of you know, and which records the origin of the Väddas and vindicates their connection as well as separated-ness from the Sinhalas. Continue reading
Filed under cultural transmission, sri lankan society
thuppahi
