JW
Shai Davidai, a Jewish researcher, is demonizing the students protesting at universities across the US against the genocide taking place in Gaza. He calls them “Terrorists”.
Students protest at an encampment supporting Palestinians on the Columbia University campus in New York City, April 25 [Caitlin Ochs/Reuters]
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, anti-racism, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, democratic measures, disparagement, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, life stories, nationalism, performance, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Photos selected by Michael Roberts & Rendered Accessible by David Sansoni of Sydney
Commencing with a ‘shot’ of passers-by and ordinary citizens assaulting and ridiculing a Tamil person at Galle Road in Colpetty
Filed under accountability, atrocities, citizen journalism, Colombo and Its Spaces, communal relations, disparagement, ethnicity, historical interpretation, life stories, photography, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, racism, refugees, riots and pogroms, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, tamil refugees, trauma, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry
An Observer in a Black Sea Town, .… with highlighting emphasis imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
The FSB (Russian intelligence) have gathered documentary evidence plus statements from recent persons complicit in the terrorist attacks in Moscow that conclusively prove that the explosives and weapons used in the Crocus terrorist attack (which were also to be used in other attacks inside Russia) went by road 2,000 miles starting in Kiev, then moving by truck across the Romanian, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia borders into Russia.
See below for the journey taken to move weapons and explosives from Ukraine into Russia to be used in multiple terrorist attacks (with ISIS to take the blame).
Filed under accountability, atrocities, Britain's politics, citizen journalism, conspiracies, foreign policy, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, Russian history, security, terrorism, truth as casualty of war, war reportage, world events & processes
Anjum Hasan: “Even As A Ghost” in The New York Review of Books, 18 January 2024 … reaching me via a tennis-mate Ralph Schlomowitz who is a ‘religious’ adherent of the NYRB and matters highbrow;while Amaasiiri De Silva in New York sent me the whole text in Worsd File –thereby ‘undermining’ the NYR’s effing barriers.
Hasan reviews two new books relating to Sri Lanka in this essay: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Random House, 348 pp., $28.00; $18.00 (paper) …. & The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, Norton, 388 pp., $18.95 (paper)
In their new novels, V. V. Ganeshananthan and Shehan Karunatilaka use the “distance of time” to dramatize large chunks, if not the whole, of Sri Lanka’s recent past.
Filed under anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, historical novel, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, language policies, life stories, LTTE, nationalism, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes
Hugh Karunanayake of Melbourne now … whose title for this essay in The Island, 4 February 2024 is “LIONEL WENDT, COUNT DE MAUNY, DAVID PAYNTER, AND RAMAN” … here presented with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
The self-styled “Count”. De Mauny was born as Maurice Marie Talavande on 21 March 1886. The circumstances under which he left for Ceylon were controversial, some writers suggesting that he was compelled to leave France for misbehaviour with young men in his charge. None of these rumours have ever been established, and to this day remain as rumours. According to William Warren, author of the book ”Tropical Asian Style”, de Mauny was first invited to Ceylon in 1912 by Sir Thomas Lipton the tea magnate.
Wendt with a sketch of a young man by Paynter on the wall?
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Posters being pasted in Colombo and suburbs yesterday to mark the 15 years since the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge which falls today.
Today marks 15 years since the brutal murder of iconic journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge with none brought to justice. To mark the occasion Lasantha’s kids Avinash, Ahimsa and Aadesh issued the following statement which will be read out today at Lasantha’s graveside memorial at the General Cemetery Kanatte.
Ismeth Raheem, in the Sunday Times, 24 December 2023, where the title reads “A Christmas sketch among the many 19th century social events captured by J.L.K. Van Dort” . … An Item conveyed to me by David Sansoni of Sydney and now sibject to my=highlighting emphasis (Editor, Thuppahi)
J.L.K. Van Dort who flourished in the latter half of the 19th century in Sri Lanka could well be described as the ‘Hogarth of Ceylon’. He was undoubtedly the best-known painter and illustrator working in the country at the time. From 1850 up till to his death in 1896, he recorded almost every social event of importance with his deft quick sketches, including religious festivals like Christmas.
Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, citizen journalism, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, patriotism, performance, photography & its history, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, taking the piss, theatre world, unusual people, working class conditions, world affairs
Michael Roberts …. presenting a talk which he delivered at the National Trust in Colombo in June 2018 following a brief to the effect that he should present motifs from the book People Inbetween. The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformations within Sri Lanka, 1790-1960s, (Ratmalana, Sarvodaya Book Publishing Services, 1989) and more specifically its first chapter viz. “Pejorative Phrases: The Anti-colonial Response and Sinhala Perceptions of the Self through Images of the Burghers.”
Many think People Inbetween is a history of the Burghers. Not so. It is multi-faceted. It describes (a) the rise of the middle class in British times, an influential force within which the Burghers were a critical element and a vanguard in the questioning of British rule; (b) the initial strands in the development of Ceylonese nationalism and (c) the development of Colombo into a metropolitan hub that became the island’s hegemonic centre.
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Uditha Devapriya, in The Diplomat, December 2023, where the title runs thus “Political and Electoral Uncertainty in Sri Lanka Ahead of the 2024 Elections”
Wickremesinghe wants to keep his job; the SLPP wants to mount a comeback. Sri Lanka voters seem to want radical change.
In Sri Lanka, political parties are getting ready for presidential elections scheduled for some time next year. Many of them have named their candidates; others are preparing to do so. The country is constitutionally mandated to hold presidential polls in 2024, and the president himself has hinted that he will go ahead with them.
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Michael Roberts
During a recent visit to Sri Lanka, I was visited by Uditha Devapriya on a specific research quest. Readers of Sri Lankan newspapers will be aware of his writings on several political topics. But it is only this month that I became fully aware of his weighty background in scholarly affairs and the full range of his attainments in the past 10-13 years.
I am delighted to tell the world that Uditha has teamed up with Uthpala Wijesuriya, a bright young man from Royal College in Colombo, to embark on a research project entitled “Another Time, Another World. A Voyage Down Memory Lane.
thuppahi
