Michael Roberts
Biographical tales and investigations serve as one pathway to historical enquiry. Because they resonate with readers interest in their own personal journeys this fascination seems to evoke continuous appeal. The WORD PRESS record of readers hits on items in THUPPAHI confirm this fact. Let me, therefore, provide TPS readers with a list of some of the items that drew at least one reader …. that is one HIT …. today/yesterday.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, charitable outreach, communal relations, cricket selections, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, education, ethnicity, female empowerment, foreign policy, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, Left politics, life stories, literary achievements, LTTE, military strategy, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, photography, plural society, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, population, power politics, prabhakaran, press freedom, religiosity, Royal College, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, teaching profession, terrorism, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, unusual people
Michael Roberts, presenting an article published in 2005 as a pamphlet by the ICES, Colombo with this title “The First Settlers and Their Claim to Ownership of Terrain/State. A Comparative Excursion” … an essay originally presented in Abdul Rahman Embong, Rethinking Ethnicity and Nation Building: Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji in Comparative Perspective, Panbrit UKM, Bangi, Malaysia, (c. 2003) which was then reprinted as a booklet by ICES, Colombo in 2005 – see ISBN 955-580-099-5 I.
Filed under Aboriginality, ancient civilisations, animal world, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, intricate artefacts, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, life stories, politIcal discourse, racism, religiosity, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
bull-mascot-team-logo-design-longhorn-133746227 Presented here at ……………………………………………………….. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/nationalism-the-past-and-the-present-the-case-of-sri-lanka/…. & thus in need of updating.; while being dedicated to a Peradeniya University buddy -alas deceased– with whom I shared notes and thoughts during undergraduate days and thereafter in the 1970s & 1980s in Chicago: namely, Ananda Wickremeratne …
Amunugama, Sarath 1979 ‘Ideology and class interest in one of Piyadasa Sirisena’s novels: the new image of the “Sinhala Buddhist” nationalist’ in M Roberts (ed.) Collective identities, nationalisms and protest in modern Sri Lanka, Colombo:: Marga Institute, pp 314-36
Anderson, Benedict 1983 Imagined communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of Nationalism. London: Verso
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, constitutional amendments, cultural transmission, demography, devolution, discrimination, Dutch colonialism, economic processes, education policy, Eelam, ethnicity, governance, hatan kavi, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, island economy, Kandyan kingdom, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, patriotism, power politics, racism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, transport and communications, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Darshanie Ratnawalli
So, have you read Ranil’s Al Jazeera interview?
Has anyone who is expressing an opinion on Ranil’s performance at his interview with Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan ingested the full content of this media circus? Even people like Himal Kotelawala (sympathetic to RW), Lakshan Wickrema (derisive of RW) and Crystal Koelmeyer (sympathetic to RW), whom I have so far read on this subject had not.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, democratic measures, discrimination, disparagement, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, sri lankan society, terrorism, truth as casualty of war, war reportage
Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa, in Groundviews, …. https://groundviews.org/2025/03/07/sentiment-analysis-of-ranil-wickremesinghes-al-jazeera-interview-with-mehdi-hasan/
Renowned journalist Mehdi Hasan interviewed the former president Ranil Wickremesinghe on a programme of Head to Head, produced by Al Jazeera. The programme was released to YouTube and first broadcast on March 6.
At the time I studied 5,144 comments in response to it, the video had been watched over 218,620 times and liked over 8,000 times. Comments, views and likes are increasing at pace, which means that by the time this is read, the sentiments, trends and patterns analysed are not going to fully or accurately capture additional sentiment. What follows must be read as a study of the sentiments in the comments published at the time of writing this post.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, electoral structures, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, IMF, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, life stories, modernity & modernization, parliamentary elections, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, world events & processes
A Frontline News Item & Protective Project ….
Great Nicobar and its companion islands are home to pristine forests that return to the beginning of time. They house flora and fauna that are rare and endemic. The islands are home to indigenous tribes who were there long before “civilisation” as we define it was born. These are important factors. They must weigh with any government before it launches a plan that threatens to wipe out life on the island as we knew it.
DBS Jeyaraj in The Daily Mirror, 20 January 2025, where the title reads “How Tiger ‘Col’ Kittu lost a leg when a bomb was thrown at him in Jaffna”
Former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Jaffna District Commander Sathasivamillai Krishnakumar alias ‘Col’ Kittu was regarded as the uncrowned king of Jaffna in the mid-eighties of the twentieth century. The greater part of Jaffna peninsula was under LTTE control then. This state of affairs [received] a rude shock when an unknown person lobbed a bomb into the vehicle driven by Kittu. The incident which rocked Jaffna in 1987 resulted in the Tiger commander losing a leg. The third part of this article focuses primarily on matters related to that explosive incident.
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M. W. Amarasiri De Silva: “Do name changes to “acaste” names by the Sinhalese indicate a diminishing significance of caste?”
ABSTRACT of article pubd in in Cultural Dynamics, 2018, Vol. 30(4), pp. 303–325 ………………………………….. sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav httpDs:/O/dIo: i1.o0r.g1/1107.171/0779/201932173470410918982299660055
In modern Sri Lankan society, caste has become less significant as a marker of social identity and exclusion than was the case in the past. While acknowledging this trend across South Asian societies, the literature does not adequately explain why this is happening. Increasing urbanization, the growing number of inter-caste marriages, the expanding middle class, and the bulging youth population have all been suggested as contributory factors. In rural Sri Lanka, family names are used as identifiers of family and kinship groups within each caste. The people belonging to the “low castes” identified with derogatory village and family names are socially marginalized and stigmatized. Social segregation, marked with family names and traditional caste occupations, makes it difficult for the low-caste people to move up in the class ladder, and socialize in the public sphere. Political and economic development programs helped to improve the living conditions and facilities in low-caste villages, but the lowness of such castes continued to linger in the social fabric. Socially oppressed low-caste youth in rural villages moved to cities and the urban outskirts, found non-caste employment, and changed their names to acaste names. By analyzing newspaper notifications and selected ethnographic material, this article shows how name changes among the Sinhalese have facilitated individualization and socialization by people who change their names to acaste names and seek freedom to choose their own employment, residence, marriage partners, and involvement in activities of wider society—a form of assimilation, in the context of growing urbanization and modernization.
Keywords: acaste; individualization; low caste; name change; rural change; urbanization
Filed under authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, discrimination, disparagement, Dutch colonialism, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, intricate artefacts, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Bishop Chickera in Groundviews, 23 November 2024, where the title reads “Arugam Bay: Hidden Currents” …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
There has been growing public concern over the recent weeks about happenings in Arugam Bay. This analysis adds to the discourse. Democratic states are obliged to protect all people within its borders whether citizens or non-citizens. Non-citizens include tourists on short stays subject to the law of the land they visit.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, discrimination, economic processes, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, Palestine, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tourism, travelogue, world events & processes
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