Category Archives: British imperialism

How Anthropologists Think: Configurations of the Exotic

  Bruce Kapferer, … being the Huxley Lecture: British Museum, 16 December 2011, subsequently published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 9, 886 ..in 2013 … [with the numerals in the publication date references subject to distortion in this version–distortions that will be corrected eventually]

Anthropology has often been criticized for its exoticism and orientalism. They are the paradoxes of a discipline focused on the comparative study of difference and diversity and are at the centre of the discussion here in the larger context of the importance of anthropology in the humanities and social sciences. The emphasis is on the role of the exotic as vital to anthropology’s study of difference and to its overall coherence and significance for the understanding of humanity as a whole.

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Rajapaksa Family targeted in The TIMES as Kingpins behind the 2019 “Easter Bombings”

Catherine Philp, in The AUSTRALIAN, 5 September 2023, where the title readsBritish Documentary links powerful Sri Lanka family to bombings” ... where the item is from The TIMES

Sri Lankan officials loyal to the Rajapaksa family were complicit in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people, including eight British tourists, whistleblowers have alleged.

Relatives carry the coffin of a bomb blast victim in a cemetery for burial in Negombo after the Easter Sunday bombings….  Picture: AFP.

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The World’s Propaganda War Today: Take Keating Seriously

An Observer in A Black Sea Town

The opinion writers for The Australian newspaper, like Peter Jennings, who adopt anti-Chinese, anti Russian, and pro American positions, do not critically analyse the subjects they write on. There is no critical analysis in their writings. Their purpose in writing is to propagate official Australian-American perspectives to educate/propagandize ordinary Australians into being good little Australian citizens, very nationalistic and pro-American. At present, their role is to demonize China and Russia as the bad guys, America and the West as the good guys, so that if war comes, Australians will go along with it.
Keating …. a lesson for Jennings ….

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‘Nuclear War’! An Escalaton to Nuclear Weaponry Around the Corner NOW!

An Observer in a Black Sea Town

A Russian professor of history has put forward the case for Russia to use nuclear weapons sooner rather than later to get the West to back off and thereby save humanity. His argument is stimulating much debate inside Russia.  He presents a compelling argument.

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How the Kandyan Sinhalese Forces Kept the European Powers at Bay for Two Centuries

PK Balachandran, whose original article in the Daily Mirror of 26 November 2021, is entitled “Kandyan armies which kept Europeans at bay for two centuries”

The Kandyan army also had local Malays and Kaffirs (Africans) and also Indians like Malabars, Tamils, Telugus, and Canarese (Karnatakas).  There was also an assortment of European deserters and prisoners. These mercenaries also served in the armies of European powers.

Kandyan peasant warriors. Codice Casanatense Sinhalese warriors. Wikiwand

The Kandyan Kingdom’s dogged resistance to European invaders from the 17th century to the second decade of the 19th century has not received the attention it deserves from military historians, laments historian Dr. Channa Wickremesekera, the author of “Kandy at War: Indigenous Military Resistance to European Expansion in Sri Lanka 1594-1818.

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BBC rendered impotent by Azerbaijan President

An Observer from the Black Sea

This interview is why the BBC stands for British Bullshit Corporation. The journalist from that ‘august’ agency claims the higher moral ground – just read it in her facial gestures; but she can’t provide a single source and is then speechless when the President of Azerbaijan asks her a question.

The BBC do the same on China,  HK, Iran, Russia and any country that chooses their own destiny independent of Anglo-Saxon control.

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The Anzac Story: Rushing into the Fields of Slaughter?

Binoy Kampmark, in Countercurrents, 26 April 2023, where the title reads “Politicians and the Anzac Tradition: A Story of Manipulation and Mythology”

While the mass slaughtering of, and slaughter by, soldiers, is always a touchy subject of commemoration, a tension has existed between those who did the fighting, and those who ordered it.  Comfortably secure in furnished rooms and battle props, planners would, as they still do, draw up the blueprints, concoct the strategy, and give the orders.

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Right Royal Pillage in British India! Now on Display!

David Page & Manisha Ganguly, in The Guardian, 6 April 2023, with this title “India archive reveals extent of ‘colonial loot’ in royal jewellery collection”

File from India Office archive details how priceless items were extracted from colony as trophies of conquest. Five years ago, Buckingham Palace marked its summer opening with an exhibition celebrating the then Prince Charles’s 70th birthday with a display of his favourite pieces from the royal collection, Britain’s official trove of items connected to the monarchy. “The prince had a very, very strong hand in the selection,” the senior curator said.

Among the sculptures, paintings and other exhibits was a long gold girdle inlaid with 19 large emeralds once used by an Indian maharajah to decorate his horses. It was a curious choice to put into the exhibition in light of the violent means by which it had come into the hands of the royal family.

Emerald girdle of Maharaja Sher Singh, c 1840. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023

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Cricket & Galle in Rothman’s ‘Potted’ History of Sri Lanka

VIEW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNJyW-rdZPQ …. entitled The Modern Origins of Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict”

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Keenie Meenie Mercenary Operations in Lanka in UK Gunsights

Phil Miller, in Declassified UK, March 14, 2023

A former SAS commander whose mercenary business in Sri Lanka is under investigation for war crimes has left millions of pounds in his will.

     Attached photo of Colonel Johnson leading an SAS parade in 1960. (Image: Imperial War Museum)

One of Britain’s most rapacious mercenaries amassed a fortune worth £4m before his death in 2008, an investigation by Declassified UK has found. The soldier of fortune, Colonel Henry ‘Jim’ Johnson, was once described by a senior British diplomat as having “political ideas [that] are probably to the right of Genghis Khan” – a reference to the infamously brutal Mongol emperor.

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