Category Archives: anti-racism

September 23, 2022 · 8:24 pm

Schoolmates in Mourning Haka for the Christchurch Muslim Dead, April 2019

Michael Roberts

My attentiveness to the poignant power of the funeral march for Queen Elizabeth on Monday September the 19th for those attuned to the cultural modalities embodied therein that was presented in an article  immediately afterwards[1] referred to the New Zealand Maori mourning ceremonies involving specific haka performance.[2] Let me illustrate this point by a summary account of one such moment – a poignant moment when New Zealanders assembled to remember the 51 Muslim personnel[3] who had been killed by a White Australian racist as they worshipped at two mosques in Christchurch in South Island on Friday 15th March 2019.[4]

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September 21, 2022 · 9:52 pm

Charles S. Braine: A Rajah of a Planter in British Ceylon

One of the Braine Progeny presenting an Item in the History of Ceylon Tea website, entitled “Charles Stanley Braine (1874-1944) – The Rajah of Mawatte”…. https://www.historyofceylontea.com/ceylon-publications/feature-

Charles Stanley was born in Ceylon on 25 December 1874. He was the eldest son of Charles Frederick Braine and Adeline Mary Becher, who had married in London earlier that year.

   

  Charles Stanley Braine: rajah-of-mawatte.html

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August 24, 2022 · 1:51 pm

Miracles Amidst the Horrendous Holocaust

Cameron Stewart in The Australian, 24 August 2022, where the title reads “Holocaust Twin Phillip Maisel leaves behind a life of miracles,” .… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Just weeks ago, after he turned 100 with his twin sister Bella, holocaust survivor Phillip Maisel shared his secret of his miraculous life: “Just be positive,’ he said with a grin. “Always be positive.”

 

 

 

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August 22, 2022 · 1:04 am

Irony. Defiance. Salman Rushdie’s Appreciation of the Everyday within the Heat of the Fatwa

Fintan O’Toole, in The Irish Times, 15 August 2022, where the title runs “The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of it was unimaginable”  ………..  reproduced here with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi   &*&

The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of meeting Salman Rushdie was unimaginable. It was after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against him. Rushdie had disappeared from the face of the earth.

By refusing to subsist in living death they prescribed for him, the author stood up for life itself as the ordinary human birthright.

 

 

I went to a party in County Wicklow. Seeing him standing in the kitchen with a glass of wine was like meeting Lazarus.

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August 7, 2022 · 7:58 pm

Holocaust Tales in Thuppahi

 April 14, 1945 – Pile of ashes and bones found by U.S. soldiers at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

 

April 12, 1945 – Dwight D. Eisenhower views the charred bodies of prisoners at Ohrdruf concentration camp.

 Cameron Stewart: “The Maisel Twins: Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust reach Their 100th Birthday,” 7 August 2022, https://thuppahis.com/2022/08/07/the-maisel-twins-polish-jews-who-survived-the-holocaust-reach-their-100th-birthday/ Continue reading →

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August 7, 2022 · 6:47 pm

The Maisel Twins: Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust reach Their 100th Birthday

Cameron Stewart in  Weekend Australian,  6-7 August 2022, where the title runs thus  “Holocaust twins turning 100 are living proof miracles happen” …

Phillip Maisel says he has enjoyed two miracles in his life. The first was during the war when both he and his twin sister Bella survived the Nazi extermination camps of the Holocaust. The second was in Melbourne this week, when they both turned 100.

The twins as children in Poland before the war…. and now …The secret is staying positive’ … twins and Nazi extermination camp survivors Bella Hirshorn and Phillip Maisel get to celebrate their 100th birthday twice in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 5, 2022 · 9:12 pm

Protected Government Killers: The Trincomalee Shootings of 2 January 2006

Rajan Hoole and Kopalasingam Sritharan, in Colombo Telegraph,  27 July 2022, …. where the title runs thus “Impunity in times of uncertainty – Part IV: Kapila Jayasekera: Killer-in-chief in both ACF and Five Students Cases”

As we have previously pointed out, one of the hazards of tracing killer operations is that lines of responsibility have been deliberately fuddled. Kapila Jayasekere in particular has spent considerable energy covering his racist and murderous tracks, setting a dangerous example to the men under him.

Regarding the Trinco Five case: In August 2008, SP Operations Kapila Jayasekere tried to refute Dr. Manoharan’s testimony that on 2nd Jan 2006 Jayasekere was already at the scene in his pickup when the shooting of the 5 students in Trincomalee took place at 7.35 PM. In his effort to cover his tracks, Jayasekere made claims before the Commission of Inquiry that were fatal to his denial. The same trend is evident in the ACF case. Jayasekera told the Commission in the Five Students case that he picked up ASP Serasinghe in his vehicle and reached the scene of crime at 8.20 PM.

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July 29, 2022 · 8:24 pm

From Banda to Gota

Laleen Jayamanne, in The Island, 20 & 27 July 2022 where the title runs thus: “Teargas cinema and Rukmani Devi”

“I have never found anything to excite the people in quite the way this language issue does”–– Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike to a journalist.

If true, this observation attributed to Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, is quite chilling in its cynicism. ‘Excitement’ is a political emotion here and SWRD appears to take a distance from it, observing somewhat clinically, how ‘this language issue’ stirs up ‘the people’. Politicians are especially crafty, cunning, when they know how to excite people with ideas that they themselves may or may not truly believe in.

A protester covering the eyes of the Bandaranaike statue at Galle Face

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July 20, 2022 · 4:57 pm

FOR Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara’s Manifold Acts

My Thanks to Joe Paiva in Adelaide for this important reference to Sanga;s recent appeal …. one that is in step with the bold move he made in 2011 with his wife Yehali when they chose to visit st. Patrick’s College in what was a reconciliatory political gesture.

 

FOR Sri Lanka_ Kumar Sangakkara’s Public Appeal _ Thuppahi’s Blog

Perchance as it happens today, I was listening to the commentaries on the ODI match between England and South Africa taking place at  Chester le-Street yesterday -where one of the illustrious batch of commentators was Kumar Sangakkara.

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June 15, 2022 · 11:53 am

Pete Seeger: Songs from the past still relevant for our time

Tony Donaldson

Let me present three different types of songs performed by Pete Seeger in 1960 – a lullaby, protest song, and an entertainment song.

Seeger said learning another language is like entering the soul of another people. He included in his repertoire songs from all over the world, including this gentle Indonesian lullaby called Suliram, which was traditionally sung to children in Indonesia and Malaysia at bedtime. Here is the first verse with an English translation.

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