Officially, Sri Lanka got its Independence in 1948.
However, it was not until 1956 that the masses were truly freed. In the years from 1948-1956, the “British Raj” style of government continued in Sri Lanka. The ruling politicians were all of the kalu-suddha variety. Minorities ruled the country because they were the ones with the education and training, and contacts, required to obtain all the plum positions.
Michael Roberts, inSri Lanka Guardian, 12 September 2011
Early in September [2011] I circulated an item describing efforts mounted by private enterprise in cooperation with the Sri Lankan state (military as well as government agents) to alleviate the life world of Tamil people being re-settled in the northern Vanni – a continuation of efforts in the IDP camps at Menik Farm in 2009 – through the establishment of psycho-social units working on the mental health of children in particular. Clearly, this note and its documents were part of the empirical terrain relevant to the propaganda war raging since early 2009.
My focus was on the ideologies permeating the thinking of Sinhala-speaking people over the centuries. It is my speculation that similar deep structures permeate the thinking of Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka and India; and for that matter, mutatis mutandis, most of the people in India. It will call for a brave Tamil scholar to investigate and disclose this phenomenon today.
Neville Weeraratne, being Chapter IX in his opus, entitled “Collette’s Cullings. The satirist’s fine line”
COLLETTE: Cartoon comment in the Observer following a ‘43 Group exhibition.
Everybody enjoyed Aubrey Collette’s work though he would not have satisfied every political aspiration. You turned to him for your reading of the day, originally in the Times of Ceylon, later in the Observer, and then as ‘Spur’ in a series he did for the Daily News as well. He gave a sharp edge to his drawing which, indeed, was capable of cutting deeply but never maliciously. Collette had the rare and splendid gift of observation: to remember a foible, to swiftly size up a characteristic, and enjoy having summed up the hapless one who had fortuitously wandered into his sights. To have been noticed by Collette was itself honour enough, and those who had been so distinguished by a portrait, as in Collette’s 1954 FACES – a collection of seventy-three pastel studies – soon bought them up, more for the immortality it conferred on them than for the fear of what their enemies might make of the caricatures. Collette very simply had the gift of showing some how others saw them, bestowing upon them the poet’s wish. You might have rejected these insights as subjective had you not yourself been drawn inevitably into the process of assessing the subject.
Derek Thompson, in The Atlantic, 13 January 2021 …. where the title reads“The Meaning of Trump’s Mass Cancellation” ….
This is how the president’s term ends—with the GOP dithering and CEOs swashbuckling, spared by the “deep state” but impeached in the free market.
Six days after the Capitol riot, it seems unlikely that President Donald Trump will be removed from office before the end of his term, either by the invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment or by conviction in the Senate.
Christopher Knaus and Josh Taylor,in an essay in 2019 which gains relevance in the light of the recent events in Capital Hill in Washington …. This essay was entitled “Revealed: the QAnon conspiracy theorist who is friends with Australian PM Scott Morrison”
A significant Australian proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory is a family friend of Scott Morrison, and his wife is on the prime minister’s staff. The sprawling, disjointed and incoherent QAnon conspiracy variously claims that Donald Trump is leading a behind-the-scenes fight against a shadowy deep state, that powerful forces are hiding and protecting satanic paedophile rings, and that a secretive individual named Q leaves clues for his followers to decipher on internet forums.
Tony Kevin, in ConsortiumNews, 8 December 2020, where the title reads “Australia Sabotaged Its Own Interests in China Relations”
The destruction over the past five years of Australia’s mutually beneficial diplomatic and trade relationship with China was probably a successful “Five Eyes” information warfare operation, writes Tony Kevin.
Hong Kong protester throws egg at President Xi Jinping’s portrait on China’s National Day, Oct. 1, 2019. (Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The address to Federal Parliament by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Nov. 17, 2014, marked a highwater mark in bilateral relations. Xi was in Australia for the G-20 summit in Brisbane hosted by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. His theme was that China was committed to peace but ready to protect its interests.
Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, reviewing Bhadrajee S. Hewage’s book “A NAME FOR EVERY CHAPTER: Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism”
‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates.
Rarely has so much been written both in the West and in the East about the work of a ‘revivalist,’ that one would conclude there is nothing left to be revealed of the man or his work. That is until you read Bhadrajee Hewage’s “Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism.”
Nandi Jasentuliyana, former Deputy Director-General, the United Nations. reviewing Bhadrajee Hewage’s new book, viz., A Name for Every Chapter: Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism, in the Sunday Times, 20 December 2020 where the title is different.
The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates.
Rarely has so much been written both in the West and in the East about the work of a ‘revivalist,’ that one would conclude there is nothing left to be revealed of the man or his work. That is until you read Bhadrajee Hewage’s “Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism.”
A gutted building that is near the beach on Mount Lavinia has been an eyesore for the last 33 years. It was once the Tilly’s Beach Hotel, which was owned by a Tamil businessman. The hotel was a favourite among residents of Colombo as well as German and Russian tourists. Colomboites would enjoy the Sunday Lunch Table Buffet, while many tourists had a mad crush on the handsome head chef, a culinary genius who understood Russian and German besides his native Tamil, Sinhalese and English.
