Category Archives: British colonialism

May 8, 2024 · 11:54 pm

The Story of Palestinian Christians from 1948 ….. Submerged & Sidelined

An Item in Journeyman Pictures on 19 March 2024 with this title: ”   “The Story Of Palestinian Christians | The Stones Cry Out (2013) … Full Film”  … an item referred to me by Dulip Karunaratne of Brisbane

In 1948 the history of Palestine changed forever, but little is ever said about the upheaval faced by its Christian minority. Christians have lived side by side with Muslims and Jews for almost two thousand years. An integral part of Palestinian society, they have shared in the events of recent history, yet their voices are seldom heard and worse: their existence often ignored.

A NOTE: by 19 March 2024  this TALE had received 109,306 views Mar 19, 2024

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May 8, 2024 · 3:18 am

SSC: The Studies in Society & Culture Project, 1992 et seq

SSC PAMPHLET PROJECT

Some of you may remember this project in Sri Lanka in the 1990s directed towards making selected academic articles on the history & politics of Sri Lanka available to the English-reading public at affordable rates. My unreliable memory indicates that the personnel behind this enterprise were myself, Ananda Chittampalam, Willa Wickramasinghe and our engine, so to speak, was the press operated by Haris Hulugalla.

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May 2, 2024 · 12:57 am

Amiable Academic Reciprocities: Peebles & Roberts, 1970

Michael Roberts

The academic world and its scholarship is marked by cooperative work as well as animosities and rivalry – whether personal or based on political affiliations. The Sri Lankan scenario was/is no different. As I participated in this environment as a lecturer in History at Peradeniya University,[1] I was extremely fortunate in: (A) benefitting from a salubrious physical setting and a favourable arrangement of buildings and a super library; and (B) a bunch of dons who were as inspiring as amiable –so that the “Senior Common Room’ in the Faculty of Arts was not only a spot for invigorating tea, but also a site for the exchange of ideas.

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April 24, 2024 · 1:21 am

The Magpies Cricket Club in British Ceylon: An Exclusive & Peculiar Enclave

Michael Roberts

MAGPIES_FLG_CRICKET_1923

I came across this unusual photograph in loose-leaf form amidst my files and lata pata in my study.  David Sansoni in Sydney has rendered it more presentable, while Mevan Pieris has provided me with critical information on this unusual club and pointed me to pertinent data in that classic work by SS Perera reproduced as The Janashakthi Book of Sri Lanka Cricket (Colombo 1999).

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April 23, 2024 · 7:20 pm

The Royal-Thomian: Yesterday & Today

Uditha Devapriya & Uthpala Wijesuriya, in https://scroll.in/where the title reads thus: “Cricket, class and baila: The many layers of Sri Lanka’s celebrated Royal Thomian sports encounter”

With an unbroken 145-year streak, the face-off between two of the island-nation’s oldest schools has become a cultural rite of passage for the nation’s elite.

Prefects leading a cheer at the 144th Royal Thomian, 2023. |

Uthpala & Uditha … in match fervour

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April 19, 2024 · 8:55 pm

Roman Szechowycz: A Discerning Eye for Past & Present in the Gal Oya’s History

This is a presentation of an article entitled “The “Rock River” Story” by Roman W. Szechowycz in the Loris Magazine, Vol. 8 No. 6  December, 1960. Page 348. Its presentation here has been made feasible by my Aloysian pal KK De Silva.  I have underlined aspects of this account with highlights.

Let me stress here that Roman Szechowycz’s searching eye and mind leaves me amazed. This essay links the landscape to its medieval and ancient history and dwells on the history of Sinhalese civilization in revealing manner. 

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April 12, 2024 · 6:45 pm

“Colonization and Ethnic Conflict in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka” – Article in 1990

Patrick Peebles in a refereed article in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 30-55 …. which John De Silva in Melbourne, my Aloysian sporting mate, has worked on to make it feasible for me to present it in the Thuppahi format-style. The supporting Maps & Diagrams are presented via web-references, while the web-reference to the article as a whole is placed herein in pdf format.

Sri LANKA’S INABILITY to contain ethnic violence as it escalated from sporadic terrorism to mob violence to civil war in recent years has disheartened observers who had looked to the nation as a success story of social and political development. In retrospect, Sri Lanka lacked effective local institutions to integrate the society, and the Sinhalese elite relied on welfare and preferential policies for the Sinhalese majority to maintain power. These alienated the minorities and resulted in Tamil demands for a separate state. 1

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April 11, 2024 · 7:29 pm

Galle: So Bewitching …. with Aid from the Work of Norah Roberts

R. Simmington, whose article bears another title

Sri Lanka has a special place in my heart because I lived here for a few
years in the early 1980’s and returned in 1986, armed with a camera.
Although the photographic phase of my life was short and sweet, I still have
all my negatives, which I can now convert into digital images. I hope this
piece, together with the photographs that accompany it,*** bring back some
happy memories for the members of this group. I realise that there will be
many who know this story, but there will be some that don’t, in any event, I
think it is worth sharing.

Amangalla exterior & front verandah

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April 10, 2024 · 8:27 pm

Introducing Tambiah’s 1992 Book: “Buddhism Betrayed?”

Item in Tamil Nation ……………………………………… https://tamilnation.org/books/eelam/buddhismbetrayed

Given Buddhism’s presumed non-violent philosophy, how can committed Buddhist monks and laypersons in Sri Lanka today actively take part in the fierce political violence of the Sinhalese against the Tamils?

Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah’s Buddhism Betrayed? seeks to answer this question by looking closely at the past century of Sri Lankan history and tracing the development of Buddhism’s participation in such ethnic conflict and collective violence. Tambiah analyses the ways in which this participation has, over time come to alter the very meaning of Buddhism itself as a lived reality.

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April 6, 2024 · 3:43 am

Pictorials: Roman Szechowycz in the Dry Zone in the 1950s

Michael Roberts

Dr Roman Szechowycz and  his brother served the newly independent island of Ceylon in its hydraulic agriculture projects in the Dry Zone in the period 1950 to 1961 …. mostly from a base at Inginiyagala in the Eastern Province where the Gal Oya Tank was constructed. We are fortunate to have some photographic ‘asides’ of a “personnel nature” — so to speak — associated with this work  The detailed descriptions presented elsewhere in TPS: viz.; …..

Experiences: Working on the Gal Oya Project in Ceylon, 1950-61

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