Henry Ergas in The Australian, 15 November 2024 with this title: “Jew hatred festers amid multicultural malaise” ….
The attacks, which followed a soccer game between a Dutch and an Israeli team, appear to have been premeditated and well-organised. Nor were they an isolated incident.
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Michael Roberts: this item was sent to me by a Canadian pal, Edward Upali and bears the following title in its original site: “Anura “Alai”(Wave) Engulfs the Tamil Nationalist Stronghold of Jaffna. JVP/NPP Comes First in Jaffna with Three of Six Seats,”
THAT, therefore. was DBS’s preferred heading. I have opted to impose an alternative title and also taken the liberty of imposing highlights in order to emphasize DBS’s weightier points or facts.
DBS Jeyaraj in his website in Canada.
The National People’s Power (NPP) known in Sinhala as Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB) and Theseeya Makkal Sakthi (TMS) in Tamil has recorded a historic victory in the Parliamentary elections held on 14 November 2024. The NPP is a coalition of 21 political entities and trade unions of which the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is the chief constituent. The NPP polled 6,863,86 (61.6%) votes to win 159 seats in the 225 member Parliament. Of these 141 are directly elected MPs on a district basis while 18 will be appointed as MPs from the national list.
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These are but some of his publications over a career spanning the 1950s to 2020s — with eyesight deterioration blighting his last platform of life. No more table tennis, but much to remember. So, here. let me doff my cap to thee, Gerry Machang, …. Mike
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Susan Bayly: “Review: The History of Caste in South Asia,” reviewing Caste Conflict and Elite Formation: The Rise of a Karāva Elite in Sri Lanka,1500-1931 by Michael Roberts (CUP 1983) …. in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1983), pp. 519-527
The literature on the South Asian caste system is vast and contentious and the current war of words shows no sign of abating. This book conforms to current trends both in focusing on the experience of a single caste group under colonial rule, and also in adopting a polemical tone towards other historians. Roberts’ subject is the Karava population of Sri Lanka and his first aim is to explain why this group of poor fishermen and artisans managed to throw up a disproportionately large elite of businessmen, lawyers and other western-edu- cated professional men by the end of the nineteenth-century. The discussion is set against the background of works on comparable Asian business communi- ties such as the Marwaris and Parsis. An important theme, then, is the relationship between individual enterprise and the corporate structure of caste: did the Karava magnate class emerge because of, or in spite of, their roots in a hierarchical caste order? The conclusion here is that caste did not debar individual mobility and enterprise as the conventional wisdom once held, and that like other south Asian trading groups the Karava were able to use caste and kin networks to recruit labour and transmit capital, contracts and market information (pp. 127-30). The Sri Lankan setting provides a useful vantage point. Weber of course was the first to suggest that in Hindu society entrepreneurs were often outsiders-Zoroastrian Parsis and Jains-or that they held low caste status. Roberts shows that the same pattern applied in Sinhalese Buddhist society. As fishermen the Karava violated Buddhist sanctions against taking life; they, too, overcame the handicap of low status and a polluting occupation, moving from fishing to profitable new trades. Roberts argues that the Karava were able to turn their traditional skills to advantage in an expanding colonial economy. He traces their association with trade back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when Portuguese and Dutch rule helped to create a demand for commodities and services which the Karava were particularly well equipped to supply. As fishermen many of them moved easily into ship-building and other waterfront industries in the new colonial port towns, and their skill in building fishing boats enabled them to take up carpentry and other trades patronized by Europeans. For some Karava the next move was into petty contracting and during the seventeenth century enterprising members of the group supplied timber and construction materials to the Dutch. Others engaged in those well-known standbys of low-caste ‘new men’, distilling and arrack renting (pp. 79-89).
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AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE by Michael Roberts, 11 November 2024
Brig Retd Hiran Halangode sent me the Memorandum presented below as a RESPONSE to one of my reprinted articles on ‘’Religious Strands in the SL Tamil Rebellions of the 1970s to 2009.’’[1] As indicated by him, the memo presents a series of desultory thoughts and do not amount to a thorough-going academic essay. However, they serve as an incentive towards reflection. I have taken the liberty of inserting highlights to spotlight especially significant or controversial thoughts.
SL Army troops in defensive positions in the Vanni circa 2008
BRIG. HIRAN HALANGODE (retd) in Response to MR On Fri, Nov 8, 2024 …… presenting …… https://thuppahis.com/2022/10/02/religion-within-tamil-militancy-and-the-ltte/
Hi Michael,
An excellent effort. I have a few points which may be of interest to you. Random thoughts in fact.
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Michael Roberts
On Monday 4th November the South Australian Cricket team led by Alex Carey completed an assertive victory over Victoria in a Sheffield Shield match. — winning by 00 runs. I was among the 50 or so spectators watching this victory unfold.
All of us were at the ground level in the Western Stand. There was only one eatery open and no bars. …… a barren terrain that was out of step with a good victory. For the record I note that SA scored 307 runs and 270 for 8 decl while Victoria assembled 232 and 207 runs — with the last day’s headline running “Pope spins South Australia to a Drought-Breaking Victory” .… even though it was Manenti who secured the Man of the Match award. Continue reading
ITEM in THE GUARDIAN, 29 October 2024 with this headlin
The golden sands of Sri Lanka’s Arugam Bay are usually carefree, a place for tourists to surf the famous break and relax on the beach.
But last week, the slow rhythm of the bay was dealt a shock. The US embassy, followed up by Sri Lankan police and Israel’s national security council, warned of a serious terrorist threat in the area. Israeli travellers were believed to be the intended target of a planned attack and were told to evacuate immediately. Hundreds of police and senior intelligence officials descended on the small coastal town, setting up patrols and road blocks.
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A Spark from The Editor, Thuppahi, 26 October 2024, by resurrecting a TPS Comment from 2017
Perchance I recently came across an old comment from Professor Chandre Dharmawardena [based in Canada] which raises explosive questions about the dry zone irrigation projects in Sri Lanka launched in the mid-20th century — questions which engage the political currents of that period and thereby invole such figures as DS Senanayake, LH Mettananda, GG Ponnambalam, SWRD Bandaranaike.
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thuppahi
“Barbarians on scooters are riding through our capital city hunting Israelis and Jews,” David van Weel, the Dutch Minister of Justice and Security, wrote on X late last week as a violent, largely Muslim, mob rampaged through Amsterdam’s streets.