Category Archives: citizen journalism

EA Hornell’s Photographs Revealed & Scrutinised

Antonia Laurence Allen

EA Hornell 

 

 

The National Trust Sri Lanka is holding its 154th session of its Monthly Lecture Series on Reversing cultural erasure: looking again at the photographs of E. A. Hornel” by Antonia Laurence Allen, ….. The lecture will be held via ZOOM this Wednesday  at 6.00 PM

Zoom Link  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87283573525

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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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Sri Lanka’s Woes: “Truthseeker’s” Insights in April 2022

An EMAIL NOTE from Gus Mathews in UK, 25 March 2023 **

This a fascinating read that throws some light into the present-day financial woes of the current predicament in Sri Lanka. It was published some time ago, but it is as illuminating as ever.

REFERRING TO https://thuppahis.com/2022/04/27/the-yahapaalana-legacy-and-three-major-international-events-processes-driving-sri-lanka-to-bankruptcy/#more-61140

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Dharshan Weerasekera’s Array of Essays and Books

Author Archive for Dharshan Weerasekera

International Law Implications of Canadian Parliament’s Motion on ‘Tamil Genocide’

Saturday, November 26th, 2022

By Dharshan Weerasekera Courtesy The Island On 18 May 2022, the Canadian House of Commons adopted without opposition a motion introduced by Rep. Gary Anandasangaree recognising 18 May of each year as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day” (www.parliament.ca). This follows a Bill adopted by the Ontario legislature in May 2021 calling for the week following May […]

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Cartooned! Western Leaders Skewered by Cartoon!

 

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The Marga Institute: Debating Sri Lanka’s Way Forward …. From Way Back

 Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 10 March 2023, where the title reads “A visit to Marga” …. and where the highlighting embodies editorial intervention by Thuppahi

 Sri Lanka’s oldest development think-tank, Marga Institute was formed in 1972, at a time of deep social unrest.

“The ideological direction of the journal will be radical in that it will unremittingly question the values and systems that hinder development. It stands for an equitable and humane social order which will eradicate social and economic privilege and which will leave no room for the concentration and arbitrary exercise of power in any form.” ………. “About Marga”, Marga Journal, Volume I, 1971

photo by Uthpala

A random jaunt in Borella took me and my research assistant to Marga Institute, in my old hometown at Kotte. Sri Lanka’s oldest development think-tank — and Sri Lanka’s oldest such institution — Marga was formed in 1972 to promote and facilitate research into the island’s socioeconomic problems. That its founding coincided with the first JVP insurrection is not fortuitous: as Gamini Samaranayake would point out, the insurrection proved for the first time that an armed group could threaten the State. Among other commentators, Gamini Keerawella, Gananath Obeyesekere, Fred Halliday, and Hector Abhayavardhana grappled with the JVP’s origins, what it was doing, and where it intended to go. It was in the midst of these often-fiery debates and discussions that Marga came to be. This essay is an attempt at framing and understanding these debates, and how Marga emerged from them.

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Muslims in the East of Sri Lanka: Ashfaque Mohamed’s Insightful Film

Laleen Jayamanne, whose title is Notes towards a Politics and Aesthetics of Film” in a review essay presented in The Island, 1 & 2 February 2023: the focus being Ashfaque Mohamed’s ‘Face Cover’ **

 

 ‘Face Cover’ by Ashfaque Mohamed

Asfaque  Mohamed

“Black cat, at the tip of my fingers pulsates poetry,

Desiring hands, yours, nudgingly pluck those roses of mine

In the soft light of the moon

The dreams we picked from the foaming edges of waves of the sea.”

                                                                          Jusla/Salani (in Face Cover)

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The Fate of the Roma Gypsies in Europe: From Nazi Holocaust to Continuous Marginalization

Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”

Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945

 

Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936

“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “

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While Lanka Sinks … Two Ministers at Loggerheads

Sanjeewa Jayaweera, in The Island, 8 January 2023, with this title IS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF SRI LANKA A HERO OR VILLAIN?”

Currently there is an ongoing tussle between the Power & Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera (KW) in one corner and Janaka Ratnayake (JR), the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), in the other. As a result, the Minister is on his own, whilst JR is supported by the CEB Engineers Union, CEB Trade Union Alliance, Electricity Consumers Association and pretty much the rest of the country!

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The Potency Borne by Pictures

Michael Roberts

This little presentation is a DEDICATION. It illustrates the potency and power of friends in producing an academic booklet in 2011. As it happens, the booklet bears the title Potency, Power & People in Groups and was financed by the good friends Godfrey & Amar Gunatilleke of the Marga Institute.

The “Acknowledgements” and the “Foreword” taken together spell out the names of those friends who assisted this project. But let me single out Anura Hettiarachchi for his aid in this project and in the endeavours leading to my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period (Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2004) because he was struck down by heart failure recently.

To Anura, then, in gratitude I place this item in my website.

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