Category Archives: economic processes
Jalland’s Study of Death and Grief in England
Pat Jalland, in https://global.oup.com/academic/product/death-in-war-and-peace-9780199265510?cc=au&lang=en&where the title is: “Death in War and Peace. A History of Loss and Grief in England, 1914-1970”
Death in War and Peace is the first detailed historical study of experience of death, grief, and mourning in England in the fifty years after 1914. In it Professor Jalland explores the complex shift from a culture where death was accepted and grief was openly expressed before 1914, to one of avoidance and silence by the 1940s and thereafter. The two world wars had a profound and cumulative impact on the prolonged process of change in attitudes to death in England. The inter-war generation grew up in a bleak atmosphere of mass mourning for the dead soldiers of the Great War, and the Second World War created an even deeper break with the past, as a pervasive model of silence about death and suppressed grieving became entrenched in the nation’s psyche. Continue reading
Reading Amunugama’s Study of Anagārika Dharmapala in LION’S ROAR
Tissa Devendra in The Island, 31 August 2016, where the title reads “
I quailed when asked to review Sarath Amunugama’s 700-odd page work on Anagarika Dharmapala’s life and times. I wondered what else was there to write about this colossus who strode across the Buddhist scene in the ‘Ceylon’ of little more than a century ago. So many of his statues adorn our towns and so numerous are the books, pamphlets, learned articles, both in English and Sinhala, published in Sri Lanka, India, Britain and America that there seemed little new to say. But Sarath Amunugama — administrator, politician, art lover and, above all, a meticulous scholar — has overcome my reluctance with his comprehensive, yet eminently readable, study of the Anagarika’s life and times, aptly titled The Lion’s Roar- a singularly apt description of the reverberations that the Anagarika caused in Colonial Ceylon and India.
Filed under British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, economic processes, education, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Indian traditions, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, patriotism, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Contradictions within the Maldivian Isles: Salafi Puritanism vs Tourist Freedoms amidst Autocratic Realms
George Bearup, in The Australian, 30 August 2016, where the title is “Maldives: Islamist terror could sink Indian Ocean paradise” …. but note Editorial Caution at End
“Welcome to the Maldives,” says the country’s tourism website, “where the sands are as white as the smiles of the locals, where fish swim happily in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, where the weather is a dream, and the deep rays of the sun wait to engulf you in their arms.” It is also engulfed in something more sinister; the Maldives is teetering on the edge of a coup, with a cabal of exiled opposition leaders meeting in Sri Lanka over the weekend, attempting to work out a way to topple President Abdulla Yameen. The President’s office issued a statement saying the strongman was aware of the coup plans and condemned them as being “a clear breach of international norms”.
Beyond the white sand, the first executions since 1953 are to be carried out in the Maldives to prove the country’s “Islamic credentials”. It is a place where a couple of hundred jihadists were raised and are now fighting for an Islamic caliphate in Syria; and where a 15-year-old girl who’d been raped was found guilty of fornication and sentenced to 100 lashes. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, australian media, authoritarian regimes, cultural transmission, economic processes, fundamentalism, governance, Indian Ocean politics, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, religiosity, security, terrorism, unusual people, zealotry
Maithripala Sirisena embroiled in 2011 Bribery Allegation in Australia
Nick McKenzie et al, in The Age,24 August 2016,where the title is “Australian companies linked to bribe scandals in Sri Lanka and Congo”
Two Australian companies are embroiled in bribery scandals that reach into the offices of the presidents of Sri Lanka and the Republic of Congo, as the firms sought to secure multi-million dollar contracts. Coming in the wake of foreign bribery allegations implicating Tabcorp, Leighton Holdings and BHP Billiton, the revelations will put pressure on the Turnbull government to reform Australia’s failing anti-corruption framework.
Hard to please … Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso, left, pictured with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: AP
Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena. 
Photo: AP
Aussie Border Protection: Six Lankans returned Forthwith to Sri Lanka
Rod Mcguirk, Associated Press, Canberra, 18 August 2016
Six asylum seekers who attempted to reach Australia by boat have been sent back to Sri Lanka in a demonstration that tough border enforcement measures had not softened since recent Australian elections, a Cabinet minister said Wednesday. A tip from the Sri Lankan government alerted Australian authorities that the boat was on its way, Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement. The six were returned to Sri Lanka on Tuesday, he said. “This return shows that there has not been, and will not be, any change to Australia’s robust border protection policies,” Dutton said. The government releases few details about such interceptions at sea, which have prevented any asylum seeker from reaching Australia by boat for two years.
World’s Principal Shipping Routes ….. with a Ranil Cavil
Filed under centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, commoditification, economic processes, energy resources, governance, growth pole, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, slanted reportage, taking the piss, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes
In Appreciation of Fidel Castro and his Philosophy
Jean-Pierre Page, responding to Dayan Jayatilleka’s Appreciation of Fidel Castro on his 90th Birthday
I agree that we are living a time of crisis of alternatives, but as the Cubans say, “problems don’t exist, only solutions”. It is very rare in our time to find people of action, with a vision inspired by the philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries, people who care about humanity and the future of humankind, people who, like Fidel, believe that you can negotiate many things, but not principles. For this reason, Fidel will remain a source of inspiration, and more, a milestone, not only for his people, but for peoples all over the world. Many understand that, and that is probably why, in so many countries, people have decided to wish ‘Happy Birthday’ to Fidel, as though it is something evident. In today’s world, which leader can pretend to such homage?
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, Left politics, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world events & processes
Sri Lanka’s Economic Malaise remains
Razeen Sally, courtesy of Daily FT, 12 August 2016
Expectations were high after the January and August elections last year. The incoming Government promised a new era of political liberalism, good governance, ethnic reconciliation and a balanced foreign policy. Not least, it stirred hopes of a more market-oriented economic policy that would, finally, make Sri Lanka achieve its long-heralded potential. What has changed in the last year-and-a-half?
Sally–srilankaeconomicforum.org
To begin with credits: The political atmosphere is freer; the 19th Amendment and a new constitution in the works promise more checks on arbitrary power. Corruption is smaller-scale and less brazen than it was under the Rajapaksas. Ethnic tensions are much lower; the right symbolic overtures have been made to the minorities. Foreign policy has been rebalanced. Despite initial bumps, China remains a firm friend, but relations have been repaired with India and the West. That said, there is no Yahalpalanaya: corruption and nepotism have returned to pre-Rajapaksa levels; they remain rife. And tangible solutions to inter-ethnic fissures – justice for human-rights abuses, land restitution, demilitarisation, devolution of power – remain some way off. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, island economy, modernity & modernization, performance, Rajapaksa regime, security, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Sustaining Research at Peradeniya Arts Faculty: Pathways
Gerald Peiris, in a Talk entitled ‘For a Sustainable Tradition of Research in the Peradeniya Faculty of Arts’
The Chief Guest, Dr. R. H. S. Samaratunga; Vice-Chancellor, Professor Upul Dissanayake; Chairman, Professor Shantha Hennayake; distinguished participants of the conference, I thank the Vice-Chancellor and the organising committee for inviting me to make this presentation. Apart from the honour, any visit to the university is, to me, a sentimental journey down the memory lane stretching back almost exactly 60 years to July 1956 when I came here as a first-year student..
I should begin with a comment on the conference theme –‘Unleashing Minds to Create a Sustainable Future’– by stating that it would be prudent to make it more explicit with an addition of a few words for it to read: ‘Unleashing minds to create a sustainable future of peace and prosperity for the people of Sri Lanka’ to clarify that what we expect is not, say, a future of dependence and subservience to the global powers, not a future as a component of the Indian federation, not a future that discards our treasured cultural heritage, and not even a fancifully imagined future as “The Knowledge Hub” of Asia, or of South Asia or of the Indian Ocean periphery.
Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, education policy, governance, historical interpretation, language policies, Left politics, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, world affairs
