Photo courtesy of my old student pal Piyasiri Wickramasekara ….more details below
Category Archives: British colonialism
Prince Philip’s Indelible ‘Marks’ in Sri Lanka
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, chauvinism, cultural transmission, education, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, modernity & modernization, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
The Ethics of History: Discussion to be built upon Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington’s Lecture
Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington to speak on THE ETHICS of HISTORY and thus promote a Live Discussion, 14 April 2021, courtesy of Merton College, Oxford
Since the pandemic began, we have adapted our events programme to move online, and we are pleased to announce that our next 40 Years Series online lecture, a part of our Merton Women: 40 Years celebrations, will be airing live at a time more suitable for our alumni in Asia, Australasia and the Pacific.
Filed under accountability, australian media, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, female empowerment, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, Left politics, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, teaching profession, unusual people, world events & processes
Ameer Ali’s Academic Works and Career
Recent Essays of Some Significance
- “Anatomy of an Islamist Infamy -II,” in Colombo Telegraph, 6 May 2019, reprinted in Thuppahi as ““How Extremisms have fed off Each Other in Sri Lanka, 1950s-to-2019 …. and still proceeding”, 6 May 2019, https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2019/05/06/how-extremisms-have-fed-off-each-other-in-sri-lanka-1950s-to-2019-and-still-proceeding/
- “The Transformation of Muslim Politics in Sri Lanka and the Growth of Wahhabism from the 1980s,” 5 May 2019, https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/the-transformation-of-muslim-politics-in-sri-lanka-and-the-growth-of-wahhabism-from-the-1980s/
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS as set out in Wikipedia, …. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameer_Ali_(academic) …. clearly not updated
Ali, A. (2016) From Islamophobia to Westophobia: The long road to radical Islamism. Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 3 (1). pp. 1-19.
Filed under accountability, australian media, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, devolution, economic processes, education, Eelam, electoral structures, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, island economy, jihad, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, LTTE, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
A Critical American Reading of Lord Torrington’s Colonial Administration in 1851
Anonymous Author: The English in Ceylon” … in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Vol. XXVIII, No. CLV, 1851 May, pp. 409-12.
From https://www.alamy.com/lord-torrington-british-colonial-administrator-and-courtier-1851-engraving-image60158321.html
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, land policies, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes
The Far Eastern Bureau and Its News Reels during World War II
Tony Donaldson
I enjoyed reading Michael Roberts’s short essay titled “Michael’s Testimony for VE Day in Britain, 8th May 1945,” published at Thuppahi on 10 May 2020. But I felt the story ended too quickly, leaving me to ponder where the story goes next. It would be good if Michael could continue this story. In the meantime, the following short note was triggered by Michael’s comment about the “insidious impact of Movietone News or Pathe News.”
After 3 September 1939, when Britain went to war with Germany, the British Ministry of Information (MOI) began arranging with numerous companies the release and distribution of their newsreels. One example was The Battle of Tobruk which was sent by plane to Colombo in March 1941. It was cleared through customs and distributed to cinemas in Colombo in time for screening at the evening shows on the same day the film arrived in Ceylon.
Filed under British colonialism, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, military expenditure, military strategy, modernity & modernization, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
In Search of Archaic Practices & Features in Ancient and Medieval Lanka
Two foreign personnel, one a British man and the other a Taiwanese Chinese lady, have developed a deep interest in Sri Lanka and a considerable äcquaintance”, so to speak. with the land and its peAnswer: perhaps Sigiriya?oples, and have recently sent me these fascinating inquiries on arcane topics. Michael Roberts
ONE: A NOTE from Lewis Bower [i], late February 2021
Have you heard the term “Argyra” before? It was mentioned in Stephanus of Byzantium’s contribution to the geographical dictionary Ethnica to describe a “thriving metropolis” that he came across on his travels of Sri Lanka… Typing that made me feel like I’m on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”.
We’re talking 5th/6th Century AD so I’d be really interested to find out where he was talking about,”
Filed under ancient civilisations, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, Buddhism, cultural transmission, governance, heritage, Hinduism, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Kandyan kingdom, landscape wondrous, life stories, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya’s Wide-ranging Work on Portuguese Creole and the Kaffir
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya of the University of London has been researching the Portuguese in the East for over twenty years and has generated a significant number of studies on Portuguese Creole peoples, their life-style ad languages in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Her output of work has been as varied as commendable and I begin with a summary of one article dealing with “a nineteenth-century manuscript in Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole” because i am presently fashioning an article that refers to the work of Hugh Nevill on the Kāberi Hatana in order to ‘educate’ those who have touched on African slave labour at Galle without possessing any background information on the topic. This essay is in process and will appear soon….. Michael Roberts
Filed under ancient civilisations, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, colonisation schemes, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, performance, photography, politIcal discourse, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, power politics, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Snippets on the Fort of Galle … and Ashley’s Dire Warnings
A Question from one Sanjay Gunawardena, 12 February 2021:
“Thank you for this great article Dr Roberts.[i] Has anyone got a picture or a painting of the Old Windmill which has been in the Galle Fort. This has been mentioned E.F.C Ludowyk’s book Long Afternoons in Colonial Ceylon. If you can please share an image, it will be much appreciated. Thank you.
A Response from Hemantha Situge: “Lyn Ludo says the windmill was one of the five landmarks that crowned the Fort. It was erected during British times. I have seen two photographs which I have not copied.”[ii]
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The Old Lighthouse within the Fort of Galle … and More
Michael Roberts
My recent presentation of amateur photographs of the renovations that were being carried out on the Galle ramparts in July-August 2020 encouraged some comments from Bunchy Rahuman and Ashley de Vos amongst others, with the latter objecting strongly to what he terms “the gentrification” of the Galle Fort.[1] That important issue will be taken up soon in Thuppahi; but the exchange has generated a striking photograph of the “old light house” sited on the bastion.at the south-west corner of the Fort — courtesy of Bunchy.
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Joe Hoad’s Paintings in Celebration of Sri Lanka’s World Cup Triumph 1996
Michael Roberts
One day in 1996 our doorbell rang at Woodlark Grove in the suburb of Glenalta in Adelaide . …. And there was Joe Hoad with two paintings he had composed in celebration of Sri Lanka’s triumph at the World Cup earlier in the year. These products had not been commissioned. They were self-inspired and emanated from his profound joy at the manner in which a little island nation – one that was not unlike his own birthplace of Barbados – had tamed a powerful cricketing force that was a bullyboy in the cricketing politics of the 1990s.
This photograph taken there and then in our back garden marks the moment of the gifting ….. appropriately within an Australian backdrop of the bushfire danger kind. But, unlike that landscape, the paintings are unique. To my mind they are heirlooms. In conjunction with Verite Research and Shamara Wettimuny, I have approached the National Library Services Board in Colombo with the suggestion that they should be placed within its portals in public display with a suitable plaque.[1]
Filed under australian media, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, discrimination, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, paintings, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes