Author Archives: thuppahi

About thuppahi

Sri Lankan and Australian nationality; student of Sri Lankan society and politics; sociology of cricket;
May 23, 2012 · 8:30 am

Jayantha Dhanapala criticises Sri Lanka’s suicidal diplomacy in UN corridors

Jayantha Dhanapala, reproduced from LMD with permission from its publisher Media Services (www.LMD.lk)  where it appeared under this title: Death of Sri Lankan diplomacy by suicide. This essay  was also reprinted in The Nation, on Sunday 20 May 2012, alongside another article by Dayan Jayatilaka which  essays a rebuttal of Dhanapala’s claims on some issues.

The death of Sri Lankan diplomacy by suicide took place in Geneva on March 22. For 64 years, it had served the country well despite the size of its professional cadre and persistent political meddling by all regimes. The link between suicidal diplomacy and political directions received from Colombo is becoming obvious after the adoption of the resolution with anti-US and anti-Indian statements and actions being leaked to the media.

A populist President is milking the Geneva debacle to such an extent that one wonders whether it was a deliberate act of hara-kiri. There has been a plethora of comment on the Geneva events ranging from vitriolic abuse of the West in general and the US in particular, anti-Indian sentiment, defiant xenophobia and jingoism to ‘I told you so’ comments and efforts to shift the blame to the luckless and reportedly divided Geneva delegation. Amidst this, a number of key factors have either been concealed or have not been apparent. Continue reading →

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May 21, 2012 · 4:29 pm

Emotion and the Person in Nationalist Studies

Michael Roberts, reproducing an essay that was written in 1993 for a conference in Japan and one which has appeared in Japanese in The Shinso, Jan. 1993, special edition on Nationalism Today ed. by T. Aoki, pp. 127-50; but has not seen print in English. Note that the path towards this essay was prompted by the literary piece which I  drafted in 1991: “The agony and ecstasy of a pogrom: southern Lanka, July 1983.” This was reproduced in Exploring Confrontation, Reading: Harwood Academic Publications, 1994.

Victim of communal pogrom, Varanasi, 23 December 1992

Perhaps the most dominant strand in the analysis of ethnicity and nationalism within social sciences has been that which can be described as “utilitarian,” “transactionalist” or “instrumentalist.” The means:ends relationship construed in terms of economic (and thus political) advantage is the dominant principle in capitalist rationality, so this is not a matter for surprise. The instrumentalist perspective comes in several variants. In one version, favoured especially by those emerging from the social sciences in U.S.A., ethnic groups are viewed as interest groups (e.g. Paul Brass 1974 and 1991). Another version is found within the transactionalist emphasis favoured by several anthropologists who emerged from British universities, such as Fredrik Barth (1975), Freddie Bailey (1966 and 1969) and Abner Cohen (1969 and 1974). Emphasis by highlighting is my imposition today.

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May 21, 2012 · 2:43 pm

Studying Collective Consciousness over Time in Sri Lanka: Questions for Post-Orientalism, Part I

Michael Roberts, courtesy of the online journal, Lines, in August 2006 where several horrendous photographs can be found

 This article was written when I was a Senior Visiting Fellow at the International Centre for Asian Studies, University of Leiden, Netherlands from September to December 1995; and was published in one of their Newsletters under the heading “Understanding Zealotry & Questions for Post-Orientalism.” The emphasis then was informed by my interest in the embodied emotions that have spurred assaults during pogroms and riots. This section, now designated Part I under an altered title, has been modified in minor ways for this publication, while citations and footnotes have been added. Its arguments have then been elaborated in a second part that also reflects upon the author’s journeys in the interim. In thus underlining the temporal ‘progression’ of his thinking, this article serves to emphasise the continuities in my position within the shifting context of academic production, while yet marking new developments in my experiential understandings. A bibliography has also been added. Obviously, this list has been cast in 2006 and not when Part I was written.

Hindu mob, Bhagalpur

From 1991-95: In late 1991 while engaged in a critical view of the instrumentalist readings of nationalist violence in South Asia, I penned an essay on the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983 in Sri Lanka. This article has since appeared under a rather melodramatic title, “The Agony and Ecstasy of a Pogrom: Southern Lanka, July 1983,” in a collection of my essays: viz, Exploring Confrontation. Sri Lanka: Politics, Culture and History (Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers 1994) as well as a journal produced by the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo to mark the 20th anniversary of this terrible event.[i] 

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May 21, 2012 · 10:56 am

The legacy of war in Lanka — the north struggles back to normality

IRIN News,where a m different ttile was used for the news item: viz., “Legacy of war – unemployment and homelessness”

 Life is slowly returning to normal in northern Sri Lanka, but three years after a decades-long conflict was officially declared over, jobs and housing are the prevailing concerns of returnees. Most of the estimated 448,000 people displaced before or during 2008 by fighting between government forces and rebels wanting an independent Tamil state have returned to the Northern Province, according to the latest figures [ http://www.hpsl.lk/Files/Situation%20Reports/Joint%20Humanitarian%20Update/LKRN059_JHERU_February_2012_Final.pdf ] from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Continue reading →

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May 19, 2012 · 2:06 pm

An Indian Economist reviews the Sri Lankan scene in a benign manner

Ruchir Sharma, in The Economic Times of India Times

I first visited Sri Lanka in 1997, shortly after a rebel bombing of the Central Bank headquarters had thrown the financial system into chaos. Military checkpoints made travelling around Colombo rather punishing, but the overwhelming impression was of a charming island and talented people trapped inside a seemingly endless civil war.

When I returned in 2011, the civil war had ended with surprising finality, and I took an extra day to see the country, including the huge territory that had been behind the lines of the Tamil rebels. Continue reading →

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May 19, 2012 · 8:07 am

Eran Wickramaratne’s Recent Talk on Democracy

SEE http://vimeo.com/39285969

Eran WICKRAMARATNE : MP, a Sri Lankan banker, corporate executive and politician. A current member of Parliament of Sri Lanka, he was the former CEO of NDB Bank from 2001 to 2010 and was the former Chairman of the Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). He was the former Vice-President and Corporate Bank Head of Citibank Sri Lanka. He also served as a Director on the Board of Investment (BoI).

ALSO SEE “Waste and inefficiency cause more losses in Govt Institutions than corruption” in http://transcurrents.com/news-views/archives/7671

… AND ” Mahinda Rajapaksa: Cakravarti Imagery and Populist Processes” by Michael Roberts, athttp://thuppahis.com/2012/01/28/mahinda-rajapaksa-cakravarti-imagery-and-populist-processes/

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May 18, 2012 · 1:43 pm

Mahela on the DRS in Cricket … responding to Tony Greig

Michael Roberts

Tony Greig is a wide-ranging and perceptive commentator. We should be thankful that he took the opportunity of raising the issue of the DRS system on the morning of the second day of the Second Test Match at the P Sara when interviewing Mahela Jayawardene. This moment of review was inspired by the fact that Mahela had called in the DRS review when he was given out LBW by Rauf or Oxenford (I forget whom) late in the day after Mahela had crafted 104 runs following a disastrous start to the first innings (SL 30 for 3) – a crucial decision that influenced the subsequent unravelling – of the Sri Lankan innings …. In short a turning point as seen in retrospect. Continue reading →

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May 18, 2012 · 1:33 am

Izeth Hussain explores the Many Sides of the Dambulla Outrage

Izeth Hussain, in The Island, 18 May 2012, where a different title was deployed

There has been much comment on the so-called Dambulla incident, which might have more appropriately been called the Dambulla outrage, not incident. In this article I want to focus on aspects that have not been brought out adequately, or not at all. The incident is not unusual as seems to be assumed, but is part of a pattern of anti-Muslim action that has been going on since 1975. In that year there took place the Puttalam mosque massacre, the result of the shifting of a bus stand which was clearly meant to provide advantages to Sinhalese traders at the expense of Muslim ones. Thereafter, until about 2002, there were incidents practically every year ranging from minor ructions to serious rioting as in the Hulftsdorp riots of December 1993. All those ructions and riots have to be seen as the expression of anti-Muslim racism. But the Dambulla incident could be set in a special context – that of Sinhala Buddhist triupmphalism consequent on the 2009 victory over the LTTE. I will not go into details about what has been happening since then, but instead refer the interested reader to the writings notably of Latheef Farook. Continue reading →

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May 17, 2012 · 2:24 pm

A memorable evening with General Sir John Kotalawela, Part II

Neville Jayaweera, courtesy of the author and The Ceylankan where this essay appeared as part of a series entitled “Sir John, Dudley and the Abortive Military Coup of 1962″

In Part 1 of these reminiscences I recounted Sir John’s colourful account of Dudley Senanayake’s, and of his own involvement, in the planning of the attempted  coup-de -tat  of 1962. Although much of Sir John’s narrative was laced with his racy vocabulary I do not doubt that he was speaking the truth.  As the dramatic narration progressed through the evening I stopped him halfway and said,

“Sir John, what you are telling me now opens a new window on the history of those times and I think that they should be preserved for future historians. Will you therefore  agree to my ghost – writing your autobiography, or at least to writing up that part of it that has to do with the  attempted coup”? 

To which he replied in characteristic fashion: “What is the use men! Dudley is dead and it will not be fair by him and many of the other fellows  still living,  may not like my spilling the beans” . Continue reading →

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May 17, 2012 · 8:15 am

The case of a missing young Tamil, Kerbert Morino Leon Roxy highlighted by Mano Ganeshan, Radhakrishnan and Haviland

This story has first published by COLOMBO TELEGRAPH = http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/three-rehabilitated-youths-gone-missing-not-reached-homes-from-temple-trees/ – SEE PICs

SEE ADDENDUMat the end of tis essay — SAROJA DEVI changes her mind — she was mistaken. 20 May 2012

I: “A mother searches for her son, with a photograph that appeared in The Hindu” by RK Radhakrishnan

Saroja Devi of Mullaitivu last saw her son, Kerbert Morino Leon Roxy, on July 7, 2008. That day, from the Northeastern coastal town, Roxy took a boat out of Tamil Tiger-held territory. His parents, eager to see him leave, had paid for the trip — it was expensive to smuggle out able-bodied youngsters past the LTTE, which was on a constant recruitment drive for fighters.

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