Category Archives: discrimination

Caste & Politics in the Sri Lankan Tamil World

Robert Siddharthan Perinpanayagam, in Groundviews, 22 August 2011, where the title reads “Caste And Politics” …. An article that drew 19 comments including some responses from “Sid”… reproduced here with highlighting imposed by The Editor in circumstances where my friend “Sid” from Peradeniya  days is no longer around to dispute matters … as he surely would have.

Over the years, the claims of the Tamil people for justice, equalty and dignity have been rejected with a variety of specious arguments. It is not necessary to go into these exercises here again. However, the latest attempt in this direction is to raise the issue of caste in Jaffna society. Former civil servants, who spent three or four years being de facto kings of the North, have sought to comment on this issue in many recent hero-stories that they have published in the newspapers. In these hero-stories they report not only how they defeated one departmental head or another or humiliated a hapless village headman, but how they vanquished the evil designs of the Tamils as well. Indeed everything seems to become grist to the mill of Tamil-bashing. Even a casual remark made in a cricket match is used by a famous historian to claim that the Tamils of Jaffna are cravenly caste-conscious. Off-the-cuff social commentators as well as the tribalist pundits in the newspapers have also got into this act. The implication of these commentaries is that the Sinhalese do not have the problem of castism and only Tamils do. One recent commentator is so ignorant of the political history of the island as to invoke Ponnambalam Ramanathan’s castism! It was indeed the fear of Karava ascendancy by the Goigamas that elevated Ramanathan to high stature by making him the representative of the “Educated Ceylonese” in the Legislative Council.

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Studies of Caste in Sinhala Society over the Centuries

The presentation of an essay in the Sinhala language on “Caste in Sinhala Society”[1] in April 2017 within Thuppahi came to the attention of Thomas Fernando in UK recently. Tommy promptly took up the challenge and is now proceeding to address the article and topic. This is his NOTE to me: “however laborious it is to plough through the Sinhala text, I hope to have a good look at this article on caste in SL as I have not read a good description on this important topic which has a very significant impact on life even today in SL.”

Batgam kulayey nivasak

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Picasso’s Worldly Wisdom: Obliterating The Dog

A Canary Club Reader, … with highlighting emphasis imposed by the Editor, Thuppahi

Finally, after twenty years of non-stop propaganda in the Western media, here is an article in British and Australian newspapers that actually contains a nugget of truth, though a very tiny nugget.  The key point to observe is in the final two paragraphs which attempts to suggest why Mr. Picasso painted over the dog. It is an intriguing question.

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Vale Harry Belafonte: A Labouring Seaman’s Son …. Superstar & Activist

HILLEL ITALIE in Associated Press, 25 April 2023, ….“Harry Belafonte, activist and entertainer, dies at 96” … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a ground-breaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96. Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his New York home, his wife Pamela by his side, said publicist Ken Sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Escalation of Attacks on Hindu Shrines in Northern Lanka

Meera Srinivasan, in The Hindu, 23 April 2023, whee the title reads thus: Tamils flag escalating attacks on temples in northern Sri Lanka” … with highlighting added by The Editor, Thuppahi

Several Tamil parties have called for a protest on April 25 against the recent Temple attacksTamils in Sri Lanka have witnessed an escalation in the attack on Hindu temples in recent weeks, a trend that they note is part of the State’s “ongoing Sinhalisation project” in the island’s north.

 

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Revisiting FIRE & STORM

Michael Roberts

In presenting a Zoom Lecture relating to the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka in April 2021 for Dr. Geethika Dharmasinghe’s class at Colgate University in USA a month or so back,  I deplyed the work that went into one of books: that entitled FIRE & STORM.

I now atempt to schock people around the world with pictorial illustrations of some — note “Some” (with all its partialities) — photographs of the political and Eelam War scenarios in Sri Lanka displayed in Fire & Storm.

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A Cricketing Saga Extraordinary

Chandra Schaffter ... responding to an earnest request from Michael Roberts**

I started playing cricket from the age of five.  My father who was also a good cricketer in his time, gave me great encouragement.  Unfortunately, he died in 1941 when I was 11 years old.  Thereafter I had nobody ever interested in my cricketing career.

 

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Sri Lankan Military in Judicial Gunsights Over May 2009 Incidents

Groundviews, 14 March 2023, where the title reads “Military to Face a Day of Reckoning Over the Disappeared”

In a landmark case last month, the Vavuniya High Court ordered the army to produce three LTTE members who had surrendered to the military in May 2019 and have been missing ever since, in response to a habeas corpus case filed by their wives.

 

 

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The Insidious Work of American Soft-Power Agencies


 An Observer in a Georgian Black Sea Resort Town

The NED/CIA have been using soft power to target the youth and media institutions in countries around the world. Take Georgia and Hong Kong as case studies.

Protestors rally against the draft law outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi.

In the last few weeks, the Georgian parliament, the elected representatives of the country, tried to introduce a Foreign Agent’s Register Act just like the one Australia introduced in 2018. The Georgian version used very similar language to the US foreign agent’s registration law which was passed in the 1930s.  Suddenly, the Georgian youth came out on to street demanding the government reject this draft law. EU leaders labelled the proposed Georgian foreign register law as being “against EU values”, even though almost all EU countries have the same law.  This is a repeat performance of what happened in Hong Kong in 2018-2019.

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The Tall and Short ‘Storeys’ in Cricket Commentary

Tony Greig and Sunil Gavaskar take to the field with A ‘Mike’

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