Category Archives: communal relations

Vale: Bishop Kenneth Fernando

From Wikipedia …………… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Fernando

Kenneth Michael James Fernando (25 July 1932–3 September 2025) was a Sri Lankan Anglican clergyman who was Bishop of Colombo.[1][2][3]

 Born in Moratuwa and educated at Prince of Wales’ College, Moratuwa and Royal College, Colombo and at the University of Oxford, he served as the Secretary of the Diocese before he was elected as the Bishop of Colombo. He served as the Vicar of Maharagama Anglican Church prior to his ordination. Fernando died on 3 September 2025, at the age of 93.[4][5]

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Fascist Aussies on the March in Melbourne & ….

An Observer, 31 August 2025

The Fascists in Australia have risen up and taken to the streets in capital cities across Australia demanding migrants (meaning coloured people, especially Indians and like folk) be kicked out of Australia, and no more let in, in the name of freedom and democracy.

This movement seeks to “reclaim Australia” for White Australians. Meanwhile, pro Palestinian marches take place every Sunday, so naturally the two protests clashed today showing the diversity of Australian society.

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Facing NW Goonewardena’s Racist Comments

NW Goonewardena= Comment in Thuppahi  at THIS ITEM ……………………………. https://thuppahis.com/2018/09/13/anagarika-dharmapala-in-search-of-a-rounded-evaluation/

GET LOST YOU SOB, MICHAEL ROBERTS, THE PRODUCT OF A ONE NIGHT STAND BETWEEN A AFRICAN SOLDIER STATIONED IN SRI LANKA, AND A SRI LANKAN HARLET. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO SEND YOUR SHIT TO ME. I LEFT YOUR SHIT BLOG ALMOST AS SOON AS I CAME IN TO IT BECAUSE IT IS EVIDENT TO ANYONE THAT YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A SOCIAL PARASITE SUFFERING FROM A DEEP INFERIORITY COMPLEX. NOTE THAT EVEN AFTER 30 YEARS OF SERVICE IN UNIVERSITIES, MOSTLY AT ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY, THIS REPULSIVE PARASITE COULD NOT MAKE IT PAST THE GRADE OF SENIOR LECTURER. THIS PIECE OF SHIT SHOULD BE MADE PERSONAE NONGRATIA TO SRI LANKA. A IDIOT WHO WRITES “RESEARCH PAPERS” BASED ON AN INTERACTION OF AN AUSTRALIAN FIELDER ON THE BOUNDARY LINE AND TWO SRI LANKAN SPECTATORS!!! HIS SO-CALLED “RESEARCH ARTICLES” HAVE A BIBLIOGRAPHY CONSISTING OF 75% OF HIS OWN WRITING. A PARASITE, AN INFERIOR BEING, AND A CLOWN – THAT SUMS UP THIS UNFORTUNATE BIRTH OF AN ILLEGI5IMATE CHILD.

When “NW GOONEWARDENA” injected THIS highly abusive comment alluding to my supposed ancestry in a Comment within the Website that I run, several friends suggested that I should not respond and that I should delete the pejorative comment. That suggestion is well-meaning, but I have decided against such a course.

I am proceeding, here, to present the RACIALLY-PREJUDICED COMMENT as the frontispiece item. Continue reading

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War Crimes Issue Develops in Sri Lanka: Chemmani & Beyond

N.  Sathiya Moorthy, in Ceylon Today, 22 August  2025, where the  title reads  “How Historic is the Opportunity” ... with highlighting being  the intervention of The Editor Thuppahi

 In what has become the ritualistic report of the UN Human Rights Commissioner to the UNHRC Council of 48-member nations, elected by rotation, incumbent Volker Türk seems to have settled for a credible, independent mechanism to probe Sri Lanka’s war crimes and other allegations of human rights violations. This is in contrast to the decade-plus-long attempts by the ‘international community’ (read: West) to impose an ‘independent, international mechanism’ for the purpose.

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The Ethnic Abyss in Sri Lanka Still Remains

Dr S.  I. Keethaponcalan,in where  the title reads Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict: From Reconciliation To Reescalation – Analysis,” … pubd on 21 September 2023 at EURASIA REVIEW ++

The national discourse in Sri Lanka moved from conflict termination to reconciliation with the end of the war in 2009. This essay argues that the concerned parties should shift the discourse from reconciliation to de-escalation because (1) the reconciliation project failed, and (2) the ethnic conflict shows signs of reescalation. It also argues that the possibility of anti-Tamil riots in the future cannot be dismissed.

               Reconciliation Failed

When the war ended in 2009, domestically, none of the parties were interested in reconciliation. The Tamils had more severe problems to deal with. For example, mourning their dead, finding disappeared members of their families, and resettling the internally displaced community members were some of the immediate issues the Tamil community encountered. Reconciling with the Sinhalese was the last thought in their minds. Therefore, they were not concerned about postwar reconciliation. None of the Tamil leaders discussed the need to promote reconciliation.

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Remembering Vijaya Kumaratunga Today

Michael Roberts

 SEE David Jeyaraj’s Vale ….. https://thuppahis.com/2025/08/10/in-memoriam-vijaya-kumaratunga/ FOR the original Thuppahi version, which does not have the highlighting emphases from my hand that can be seen NOW.

A NOTE:  David Jeyaraj provides readers with a wide-ranging and incisive account – one which I recommend strongly. Sri Lanka’s political circles lost a visionary political figure when the JVP assassinated  Vijaya Kumaratunga  on the 16th February 1988. For Chandrika, Yasodhara and Vimukthi, of course, it was a tragedy.

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Yasodara Kumaratunga’s Inventive Mind: Free Verse from London

Michael Roberts in Adelaide, August 2025

Among a small pile of photgrpahs, letters and papers left by my departed elder sister, Estelle Fernando, is a printed ‘pamphlet’ published by Yasodhara  Kumaratunga, the  eldest daughter of Vijaya Kumaratunga and Chandrika Bandaranaike.

It presents thirteen brief  poems coined by Yasodhara when she was “in exile in  London” — as  the Foreword by an unknown person  tells us. These were “written by Yasodhara between the ages  of 8 plus 1/2 years – 11 years” during a period when she  was beginning to learn English after an education in Sinhala.”

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Sachi’s Review of Bradman Weerakoon’s Autobiography

Sachi Sri Kantha,  reviewing  Bradman Weerakoon, Rendering Unto Caesar, Vijitha Publications, Colombo, 2004, 396 pp. under the title  “Rendering Unto Caesar: a Book Review”**

Of the millions of Sri Lankans born in the 20th century, Bradman Weerakoon is the only fellow to be blessed uniquely.  He was blessed for the first time in the year of his birth (1930), when his police officer father Edmund R.Weerakoon christened the name of legendary Australian cricket batsman Donald Bradman to him.  In 1930, Bradman became a phenomenon in the cricket arena by scoring 974 test runs in his England tour.  Bradman Weerakoon was blessed again – the only Sri Lankan – to serve nine Sinhalese politicians who held nominal executive power from 1954 to 2004.  Thus, Weerakoon was privy to the thoughts and work styles of these nine politicians (John Kotelawela, Solomon W.R.D. Bandaranaike, W. Dahanayake, Dudley Senanayake, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, J.R. Jayewardene, R. Premadasa, D.B. Wijetunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe) whom he has sketched in this memoir.  In addition to the nine leaders, even the first prime minister Don Stepehn Senanayake also receives passing mention, as the father of Dudley Senanayake.

Bradman Weerakoon

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Lankan Migrants to Australia in Limbo

Lisa McGregor in ABC.Net.Au,  15 August 2025, bearing this  title “Former immigration minister Alex Hawke calls for action on bridging visa backlog with thousands left in limbo”

Rathy Barthlote and her two daughters live in fear of their future. (ABC News: Simon Winter)

A former Coalition immigration minister has joined calls for the government to resolve the status of thousands of asylum seekers on bridging visas. A group of around 8,000 asylum seekers who arrived between 2012 and 2013 and whose claims were rejected under a now abolished system remain in legal limbo. The Department of Home Affairs says people with new, credible claims relating to their asylum applications may request ministerial intervention.

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Deathscapes in Recent World History

Richard Koenigsberg, whose  chosen title is “LOVING WHAT KILLS US:  The History of the Twentieth Century”

 

Loving what kills us: what Nazism was.

Loving what kills us: what the Second World War was for the Japanese.

Loving and Dying for Stalin: what Russian Communism was.

Loving and Dying for Mao: what Chinese Communism was. Continue reading

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