Category Archives: electoral structures

June 14, 2022 · 12:40 pm

US Conspiratorial Hands Underdpinning the Political Turmoil in Sri Lanka?

Jonathan Manz, in an article circulated by “The Sri Lankan Study Circle” whose background & politics is not known to Thuppahi…. with the title they have imposed being “Pivot-to-Asai: America executes a Lightning coup to take control of a Strategic Island in the Indian Ocean” 

Bewildered, reeling and confused, Sri Lankans are just beginning to pick up the pieces of the jigsaw to decipher the events of Black-Monday, 09 May 22, when America, with its all-too-familiar ‘false-flag’ operations, executed a lightning Coup, to take control of the strategic Island in the Indian Ocean.

Taking control of the Island-Nation was critical to the Americans to implement their re-chartered game-plan for the Indian-Ocean region; this plan, they were compelled to develop following the unexpected defeat of their proxy mercenaries in Sri Lanka.

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June 2, 2022 · 2:48 pm

Population Trends Directing Democracy in Europe Today

 Giulio Meotti, in Item in Gatestone Institute, 29 May 2022, where the title runs thus: “Europe: Demography Governs Democracy”

There is a replacement of civilization and the media is not even covering it. “By 2050, 50 percent of the French population will be mixed.” — Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Radio Classique, May 17, 2021.”The mayor of Grenoble adopts the arguments and rhetorical formulas of the Muslim Brotherhood: talking about freedom to impose sexism”. — Céline Pina, Le Figaro, May 4, 2022.

 

 

. (Image source: iStock)

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May 23, 2022 · 8:36 pm

Leonard Woolf: Innocent Imperialist turned Pragmatic Internationalist

Jane Russell

Leonard Woolf  &  Arthur C Clarke

Foreword:  “When I’m in the Strand or 42nd Street, or at NASA Headquarters or the Beverley Hills Hotel, my surroundings are liable to give a sudden tremor and I see through the insubstantial fabric to the reality beneath…” These words by Arthur C. Clarke, the sci-fi writer, are quoted at the end of Roloff Beny’s photographic chronicle “Island Ceylon”. But where does Clark’s reality reside? He writes, “No other place is so convincing as Sri Lanka,” and as he spent almost fifty years there, we are tempted to believe him. Continue reading →

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May 22, 2022 · 1:00 pm

Australia’s “Whitey” Parliament of Yesteryear

Frances Mao, BBC News, Sydney 20 May 2022, where the title runs as “Australia election: Why is Australia’s parliament so white?”

 Some of Australia’s MPs, pictured here, fail to reflect the country’s diversity, critics say

Australia is one of the most multicultural nations in the world, but it’s a different story in the country’s politics, where 96% of federal lawmakers are white. With this year’s election, political parties did have a window to slightly improve this. But they chose not to in most cases, critics say.

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May 11, 2022 · 1:24 am

Introducing the Ceylon National Congress: Its Agitation & Its Context

Michael Roberts

The four-volume edition of DOCUMENTS OF THE CEYLON NATIONAL CONGRESS was presented by the Department of National Archives in 1977 and has been out of stock for some time now.

Haris De Silva — Deputy Director, DNA in the 1970s

Volume ONE contains a book within a book written by me and entitled ELITES, NATIONALISMS and the NATIONALIST MOVEMENT IN BRITISH CEYLON – in seven chapters and running to ccxxii pages.

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May 3, 2022 · 8:17 pm

The Crunch Situation in Sri Lanka NOW

Asanga Welikala, in ConstitutionNet, 2 May 2022, where the title reads  “Economic Crisis and Constitutional Reform in Sri Lanka”

L-R: Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Former Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa (photo credit: The Hindu)

 L-R: Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Former Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa (photo credit: The Hindu)

In Sri Lanka, mass protests against the unaffordable cost of living have coalesced on a central demand: the resignation of the President, Prime Minister, and Finance Minister, who are brothers. Against this background, three proposals for constitutional reform have surfaced – from the Opposition, a breakaway group of MPs, and the government respectively. The Opposition’s Bill would, among other important features, abolish presidentialism and return Sri Lanka to a parliamentary form of government, while reinforcing constitutional democracy through the separation of powers and strong checks and balances. From a design and democratisation point of view, it is the only credible constitutional reform proposal on the table, but its passage is far from guaranteed – writes Dr. Asanga Welikala

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April 30, 2022 · 6:40 pm

Nationalisms in Ceylon: Origins, Stimulants and Ingredients

Michael Roberts, … reproducing Chapter III in Volume I of Documents of the Ceylon National Congress and Nationalist Politics in Ceylon, 1929-1950, Vol I, 1977, Department of National Archives, 1977 , pp. lxviii–lxxviii **

While the political activists of the first half of the twentieth century were drawn from both the national and the local elites, the political leadership (at significant island-wide levels) was largely composed of individuals who could be ranked among the national elite. As indicated earlier, the national elite was a small segment of the Ceylonese population. Its levels of wealth, power and status, its lifestyle, and its value-system marked it off from the rest of the population.

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February 16, 2022 · 12:30 pm

Chandrahasan broaches ‘Pragmatic Amendments’ in Sri Lanka’s Political Framework

Dr Nirmala Chandrahasan,  in The Island, 11 February 2022 , with this title “13th Amendment and Tamil polity: A pragmatic approach”  …… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

There is much speculation in the Tamil political circles as to the usefulness or otherwise of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and whether the Provincial Council system set up under its aegis gives a measure of power sharing or devolution of powers to the Tamil speaking provinces, or whether it is an ineffective institution which blocks out any greater devolution under the exercise of internal self- determination. This debate has been sparked by the decision of Tamil speaking parties including the TNA, to send a letter to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, requesting him to use his good offices to induce the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment fully, in the context that the 13th Amendment arose out of the provisions of the Indo -Sri Lanka Peace Accord of July 1987, to which treaty India and Sir Lanka are signatories.

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February 9, 2022 · 10:15 am

Addressing Sri Lanka’s Future in June 2009

Michael Roberts, reprinting here an article that appeared in FRONTLINE vol. 26/12, 19 June 2009 … with this title “Some Pillars for Lanka’s Future”

“One can win the War, but lose the Peace” — A cliche this may be, but it is also a hoary truism that looms over the post-war scenario in Sri Lanka. The triumphant Sri Lankan government now [must] address the human terrain rather than the fields of battle.

 

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January 30, 2022 · 12:45 am

Major Political Strands & Challenges in 20th Century Sri Lanka

Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 29 January 2022,  where the title is “Socialist revolution or bourgeois compromise?” …. with highlighting being the imposition of The Editor, Thuppahi

For the oppressed masses of the Third World, the establishment of UNCTAD and the proposal for a New International Economic Order marked the high point of 20th century multilateralism. These coincided with the longest spell of decolonisation recorded in history, in turn fuelled by a spate of bourgeois democratic and Marxist Left alliances in almost every corner of the developing world [in the middle decaades of the twentieth century]. Though such alliances did not bring about emancipation for the masses, the experience of the 1960s suggested that radical transformations, for the Global South and the world in general, were in the offing.

 

Mrs Bandaranaike

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