Category Archives: arab regimes

Filed under american imperialism, ancient civilisations, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, racist thinking, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

April 9, 2021 · 11:02 am

World Travellers and Sri Lanka: Mapping, Trading, Incursions, Et Cetera

KD Paranavitana, “Then they came in search of the finest island,” in http://www.lankanisle.lk/then-they-came-in-search-of-the-finest-island/ …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Sri Lanka has long been the dream island of many travelers from the West who engaged in intrepid voyages looking for treasures in the East. Good many of them were lured by the aroma of spices, particularly found in the island. Tales of the Arabians are fraught with the wonders of ‘Serendib’ and the mariners of the Persian Gulf have left a record of their delight in reaching the calm haven, the island of Sri Lanka.

Filed under accountability, arab regimes

March 11, 2021 · 8:32 am

The Sri Lankan Kaffrinha as Embodiment of African-Asian Hybridity

Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, providing an Abstract of her article “Africa in South Asia: Hybridity in Sri Lankan Kaffrinha”

As public spaces become arenas to display cultural memories, Afro-descendants in South Asia become more visible. Emerging local histories further complement the trajectories of Africans and facilitate recognition of Afro-descendants. In my paper “Africa in South Asia: hybridity in Sri Lankan Kaffrinha” published in South Asian History and Culture (2020). I explore connections between Africa and Asia through a genre of music and dance called kaffrinha which enriched the colonial Sri Lankan culturescape and, continues in the postcolonial. In the absence of historical records of kaffrinha for centuries, I have explored alternative narratives – song texts, music scores, dance movements, paintings and frescoes in order to map the dynamics of kaffrinha.

Filed under Afro-Asians, arab regimes, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

March 9, 2021 · 2:01 am

The Making of Wahhabi Zealots in Sri Lanka, 1980s-2019

Michael Roberts

All those addressing the fervour that promoted the killing work of the Zahran Hashim jihadist network in Sri Lanka in April 2019 must come to grips with the modern currents of Wahhabi political thinking that go back to the outpourings of the Egyptian intellectuals Sayyid Qutb[1] and Al-Zawahiri[2] in the latter half of the 20^th century. This step will then take investigators to the Al-Qaida movement[3] and thence to the more recent brand of Wahhabism embodied within ISIS.

Sayyid Qutb al-Zawahiri

Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, disparagement, Eelam, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, Middle Eastern Politics, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, propaganda, racist thinking, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, suicide bombing, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

November 16, 2020 · 3:04 am

Enthusiasm for War: Australians in the 1910s and Jihadists in the 2010s

Michael Roberts

Introduction: Remembrance Day ceremonies in Australia and Europe led to the recuperation of items on the “Will to War” which I had presented way back in time[1] and Dr Richard Koenigsberg[2] in New York has chipped in by sending me copies of some of my articles in the Library of Social Science (his outfit). At a time in 2020 when sporadic jihadist assassinations in France and Australia in 2020 have reminded us forcefully of the recurring phenomenon of the force of Allahu Akbar in the Middle East as well as such outposts as Sri Lanka (witness the 21/4 strikes in 2019)[3] as well as Australia (see below).

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, Hitler, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, the imaginary and the real, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes

November 12, 2020 · 2:27 pm

Kamikaze, Mujahid, Tamil Tiger: Sacrificial Devotion in Comparative Lens

Michael Roberts, reprinting an essay drafted in 2007 and since presented in Fire & Storm in 2010 (chapter 19: 131-38)

“Gandhi tried for years to reduce himself to zero” (Dennis Hudson 2002: 132).
Hitler: “You are nothing, your nation is everything” (quoted in Koenigsberg 2009: 13).
LTTE: “the martyr sacrifices himself for the whole by destroying the I…” (Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam’s interpretation of a Tamil Tiger supporter’s poem; 2005: 134).
Spokesman for Al Qaida after the Madrid bombing: “You love life and we love death”
Col. Karuna, ex-LTTE: “Death means nothing to me….”
The Hagakure is “a living philosophy that holds that life and death [are] the two sides of the same shield” (Yoshio Mishima in his The Way of the Samurai, quoted in Moeren 1986: 109-10).
“Bushido means to die” (Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 117).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpbl0azdFM …. Kamikaze strike

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, European history, female empowerment, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, immolation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, meditations, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power sharing, propaganda, psychological urges, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Sri Lankan scoiety, suicide bombing, Taliban, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, violence of language, war reportage, world events & processes, Zen at war

November 6, 2020 · 10:58 am

Allahu Akbar! Missing Dimensions in Contemporary Reportage

Michael Roberts

I recently watched a good part of Stephen Sackur’s dialogue with a French lady politician [whose name I have forgotten]. Sackur pursued his usual hard-line aggressive and bullying mode of questioning – posing vigorous criticisms of the French government’s position on secularism and its hostility to the carving out of sacred domains by French Muslim peoples. The implicit suggestion[1] was that the British system’s tolerance of religious sensibilities was a better line of policy.[2]

Muslim protests … and the selfie proudly posted by the Islamic terrorist who was responsible for the killings in Nice in October 2020

Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, ethnicity, European history, fundamentalism, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, Middle Eastern Politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, Taliban, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes

July 7, 2020 · 5:23 pm

Fresh Insights on the 4/21 Salafi Bombings in Sri Lanka

Samanth Subramanium, in New York Times, 2 July 2020, where the title reads “Two Wealthy Muslim Brothers became suicide Bombers, but Why?”

There’s a video of the exact moment Inshaf Ibrahim decided to abandon his life as a rich young man and turn into a mass murderer. In one sense, he had made up his mind weeks earlier, which was why he was loitering in the Cinnamon Grand hotel’s breakfast buffet on Easter Sunday last year in Colombo, strapped into a knapsack of explosives. Once he arrived, though, he appeared to dither. Later, investigators picked him out of CCTV footage, standing near a vacant table, wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt, his back to the camera. In the footage, he moves like a perplexed penguin. Two steps forward, half a step back, a turn, another turn: a choreography of hesitation. Perhaps he is reconsidering? But no, the investigators concluded; he is waiting for more people to come in. Finally, a microsecond of stillness, arms heavy by his side; then his hands reach toward the front of his waist, and the film goes dark.

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, martyrdom, Middle Eastern Politics, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, power politics, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, tourism, unusual people, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

August 25, 2019 · 6:17 am

Decline in Tourism and the Blame Game: Where Sinhala Buddhist Extremism is a Major Ingredient?

Hilal Suhail in Facebook

If you have invested in Sri Lanka’s tourism and hospitality industry, then it would serve you well to keep up with the international media coverage of Sri Lanka in recent weeks. The island nation’s reputation has taken a massive beating and it’s unlikely tourism will pick up any time soon. There is no point blaming the foreign media and claiming there is some conspiracy against Sri Lanka, and puff pieces promoting tourism by the Ministry of Tourism and other social media campaigns are pointless and won’t convince many outsiders to take the risk in visiting.

The international media is highlighting the terrible actions of some in the Sinhalese majority, and the violence and discrimination unleashed by Buddhist extremists for decades. The Easter bombings aren’t being solely blamed on Muslim extremists by the international media, they are focusing on the incompetent Sri Lankan police and military who failed to prevent the attacks, despite possessing intelligence beforehand to do so, and also for having caused a situation in Sri Lanka where religious and ethnic minorities are not protected.

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, martyrdom, politIcal discourse, power politics, religious nationalism, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, Sri Lankan scoiety, terrorism, tolerance, tourism, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes

July 15, 2019 · 1:04 pm

Addressing the 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists: Where Fervour Trumps ‘Deep Throats’

Michael Roberts

When one of my articles on the jihadist network that perpetrated the 21/4 attacks in Sri Lanka referred to the inspirations behind the 9/11 attacks in USA, I was surprised to receive vehement rejections of the latter contention from two good friends and one distant ‘aide’ in Canada – challenges sent independently of each other.

These challenges have been rejected by other friends – at times quite bluntly. But Jeremy Liyanage,[1] Jean-Pierre Page[2] and Chris Black[3] are individuals with whom I have interacted fruitfully and whose commitment to the pursuit of truth and reform in this world are not in doubt. So, this revisiting of 9/11 and its perpetrators on my part is a personal journey that addresses my three friends, while yet seeking to raise significant issues in today’s world – especially embracing the ramifications of the ideological currents known as “Wahhabism” and “Salafism” (terms that seem to be deployed interchangeably).[4] Continue reading →