Category Archives: centre-periphery relations

Penetrating Sri Lanka: Foreign Enclaves & Global Powers

Dr Asoka Bandarage, inThe Island, 5 September  2025  where  the title reads: Lanka: The beautiful, besieged island” ++ with highlights and “A NOTE to ASOKA”  being The Editor’s Interventions

“Israelis are coming to Sri Lanka, and they’ve done what they do best — taking over the place. They’ve occupied it and made it feel like Tel Aviv. They host parties advertised as ‘no locals allowed.’ The Israelis have come to Arugam Bay, throwing raves and refusing to let Sri Lankan people attend.”

Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, a major tourist attraction

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Sri Lanka’s Economy Now: After A Honeymoon….

Item in THE ECONOMIST, 6 Sep 2025, entitled The Sri Lankan government’s honeymoon is nearly over” … & sent to me by  Jayantha Somasundaram of Canberra; while the highlights are my imposition

Initial popularity:  OPENED IN AUGUST with the stated ambition of making Sri Lanka “India’s Macau”, the City of Dreams development in downtown Colombo houses a casino, luxury hotels, high-end shops and a champagne-and-cocktail bar “floating amid the clouds”. The gleaming but for now largely deserted halls of the vast complex seem a symbol of renewal: a far cry from the mass civil unrest of just three years ago and the accompanying economic collapse—rampant inflation, fuel shortages, mass poverty and foreign-debt default.

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Lankan Tamil Migration in Wintry Norway: “Working For Our Sisters”

Oivund Fugleruud in  ???? where the the title runs  thus:“Working for  Sisters”  — Tamil Life on the 71st Parallel’

The article discusses the phenomenon of migration of Sri Lankan Tamils to Finnmark, the northemmost part of Nonvay. While most other groups of immigrants in Nonvay tend to settle in the larger Cities, this particular group has a tradition of settlement in the fishing villages in Finnmark, facing the Barents Sem.

[t is argued fhat there is a continuity in this pattem from the early migration workers in the 1970s ro present•day asylum-seekers. The “imicrohistory” of Tamil migration to one particular village is presented and discussed. It shows an overlap from one type of  migration to another.

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London’s “Aragalaya”? A Populist Revolt ….. From the Right!

A NOTE  from  AVI YEMENI to BERTRAM DANIEL,  September 2025 

Hey Bertram,

Finally, the world is uniting against the Cabal and the control

I’ve covered a lot of rallies in my time, but I’ve never seen anything like what unfolded in London on September 13.  An enormous number of people flooded the streets for Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally. The atmosphere was electric. It wasn’t just another protest; it felt like a cultural revolution in motion.

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The Israeli Concept of “Human Animals” in Palestine

Gamini  Seneviratne

Appropriate though it is, the words …  “Human Animals” …  in the heading do not refer to those who are slaughtering the human beings resident in Gaza and the West Bank. They are the ones used by the Zionist invaders to refer to the people of Palestine.

Indeed, the term “human” is used by them and their fellow criminals in the Western world in this context only as an adjunct to ‘shields” employed by Hamas. Incidentally, and there are many such features ‘incidental’ to the completely false Zionist-Euro-American narratives, no evidence has been forthcoming of Hamas shielding itself behind anyone, least of all the people they represent and protect.

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Pursuing World-Class Creative Writing in Sri Lanka

Dr Sasanka Perera, in The Island, 15 September 2025, with this title “Writing with passion and conviction” 

My intention [here] is to reflect on writing with passion at a time Sri Lanka is producing writing, at least in the Sinhala language, that is worthy of being introduced to the world. When I say this, I am thinking of creative writing. There is no such promise by and large when it comes to academic writing. And it does not seem to me that the idea of promoting our writing, ways of writing, and reaching to the world, are issues seriously addressed by our universities, despite their focus in training young people in language and literatures. Unfortunately, however, the idea of writing, though central to all disciplines in social sciences and humanities, has been under-emphasised to the extent of being made almost invisible in academic, professional and popular discourses today in our country.

 A Set  of Pix of  Martin wickremasinghe,  Sarachchandra, Tambiah, Obeyesekera. Sir-Gurusinghe THAT was not amenable to easy  reproduction]

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The Vocabulary Girding & Gilding Israel’s Programme of Genocide in Palestine

Gamini Seneviratne, in The Island, 12 September 2025, where the title is “Human Animals”

The words in the heading do not refer to those who are slaughtering the human beings resident in Gaza and the West Bank. They are the ones used by the Zionist invaders to refer to the people of Palestine.

Indeed, the term “human” is used by them and their fellow criminals in the western world in this context only as an adjunct to ‘shields” employed by Hamas. Incidentally, and there are many such features ‘incidental’ to the completely false Zionist-Euro-American narratives, no evidence has been forthcoming of Hamas shielding itself behind anyone, least of all the people they represent and protect.

WASHINGTON, USA – FEBRUARY 21 : John Mearsheimer speaks during a panel organised by Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) Foundation in Washington, United States on February 21, 2019.
(Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

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Tony Peries: First Lankan Director of George Steuarts

Being  CHAPTER ELEVEN of The George Steuart Story  1835-1985 ++

THE FIRST SRI LANKAN CHAIRMAN

When a young Sri Lankan walked into the office of George Steuart on February 1, 1953, no one is likely to have imagined that he would become not only the first Sri Lankan Chairman of what was then essentially a British firm, but also the youngest man to hold that important office.

The young man, whose name was John Francis Anthony Paul Peries, and was generally known as Tony Peries, had been edu cated at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo, and had applied for a post as a trainee Tea Taster. His father, ·W. Peries, a Director of Mackwoods, was held in the highest esteem in agency circles.

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Cartesian Commonalities: New Amsterdam & Galle Fort, II

Bunchy Rahuman, whose preferred title is “Galle Fort, New York City and the Cartesian Legacy” ** … with  the highlights being impositions by the Editor, who also had the privilege of being a resident within the Fort for twenty or so years from 1938-1960

ESSAY TWO

 Do I exceed myself? Cartesian? The Big Apple? – surely not! But I insist, I am here, not to tweak the truth. In Essay One, I said, the street I lived [most of] my Galle, Fort life in was Lighthouse Street. Discerning readers [for a moment I thought to add if any – but my life insurance policy has lapsed!] would note that I said Lighthouse Street formed a ‘Y’ axis line for the [Galle] Fort. Now even math allergic types, have heard of X axis and Y axis as [perpendicular] lines that cross at right angles and sit in the middle of paper sheets populated by tiny squares arranged 10 x 10, within larger squares, all sitting above, below and at each other’s sides in sheets known as graph paper.

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Peter Mayer: Straddling USA-India-Australia via Academia

Michael Roberts

 The world of university lecturers is quite varied and cannot be easily distilled. My experience is mostly based on my years teaching at Peradeniya University n Sri Lanka (1960-62 & 1966-76) and Adelaide University from 1978-2004—besides exposures to the environments in Oxford, Chicago, Heidelberg & Bielefeldt.

I have decided to introduce my TPS readership to some personnel from this highly-variegated field. My first choice has been an easy one: PETER MAYER is an easy man – personable, talented, multi-skilled and well-travelled. As vitally, he is an American who has married an equally personable lady named “Latha” who is from India.

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