Christine Middap in The Weekend Australian, 15/16 April 2023, where the title is “Pocock’s Progress”
He tries to start the day with some quiet contemplation.
David Pocock in the Senate.….Pix by Martin Ollman
Pocock with a redneck rock wallaby , …. Pix by Rohan Thomson
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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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Mt. Lavinia 1954 Prize Giving-Address by the Right Honourable Sir John Kotelawala, K.B.E., M.P. — with thanks to Harry De Sayrah of Sydney, who added this little preface “When politicians were literate and articulate …………………..” with a few highlights and an arbitrary selection of photographs inserted by The Editor, Thuppahi
1954 PRIZE GIVING. Presided by The Warden, Canon R.S.de Saram, MA , OBE.,St. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia. ……………. *Prime Minister of Ceylon, at the Distribution of Prizes,* …………. *S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia, Saturday, 31 st July,1954*
When I played for Royal against S. Thomas’ many years ago my intention, which was shared by my team-mates, was to give the Thomians a good drubbing, and, if that was not possible, at least to give them a test of endurance. Much as I value the opportunity which I now have of presiding at your Prize Distribution, I shall endeavour to do neither this afternoon. I mist congratulate the Warden on his Report, which illustrates what opportunities schools like S. Thomas’ have of continuing to play a leading part in the training of our youth and the moulding of their character.
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Michael Roberts … Content of His Talk on this topic at the National Trust in Colombo in June 2018
The National Trust’s brief was for me to present motifs from the book People Inbetween. The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformations within Sri Lanka, 1790-1960s, (Ratmalana, Sarvodaya Book Publishing Services, 1989) and more specifically its first chapter viz. “Pejorative Phrases: the Anti-colonial Response and Sinhala Perceptions of the Self through Images of the Burghers”
Many think People Inbetween is a history of the Burghers. Not so. It is multi-faceted. It describes (a) the rise of the middle class in British times, an influential force within which the Burghers were a critical element and a vanguard in the questioning of British rule; (b) the initial strands in the development of Ceylonese nationalism and (c) the development of Colombo into a metropolitan hub that became the island’s hegemonic centre.
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Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 10 March 2023, where the title reads “A visit to Marga” …. and where the highlighting embodies editorial intervention by Thuppahi
Sri Lanka’s oldest development think-tank, Marga Institute was formed in 1972, at a time of deep social unrest.
“The ideological direction of the journal will be radical in that it will unremittingly question the values and systems that hinder development. It stands for an equitable and humane social order which will eradicate social and economic privilege and which will leave no room for the concentration and arbitrary exercise of power in any form.” ………. “About Marga”, Marga Journal, Volume I, 1971
photo by Uthpala
A random jaunt in Borella took me and my research assistant to Marga Institute, in my old hometown at Kotte. Sri Lanka’s oldest development think-tank — and Sri Lanka’s oldest such institution — Marga was formed in 1972 to promote and facilitate research into the island’s socioeconomic problems. That its founding coincided with the first JVP insurrection is not fortuitous: as Gamini Samaranayake would point out, the insurrection proved for the first time that an armed group could threaten the State. Among other commentators, Gamini Keerawella, Gananath Obeyesekere, Fred Halliday, and Hector Abhayavardhana grappled with the JVP’s origins, what it was doing, and where it intended to go. It was in the midst of these often-fiery debates and discussions that Marga came to be. This essay is an attempt at framing and understanding these debates, and how Marga emerged from them.
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Michael Roberts, presenting his review article on the study of the abortive 1962 coup plot by elements in the Sri Lanka officer corps by Donald Horowitz: namely, Coup Theories and Officers’ Motives. Sri Lanka in Comparative Perspective, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. This essay was entitled “Brown Sahibs in Universal Suits” and went through a refereeing process and appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 1983 vol 6, pp. 62-77 …………… while the pdf version was converted/retyped for me by Nadeeka Pathuwaaratchchi in the Colombo metropolitan area.
The year 1956 is rightly regarded as a major junction in Sri Lankan history. At the general elections that year, a coalition of parties known as the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP), in which the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was the major partner, achieved a landslide victory. This victory marked a populist upsurge of the vernacular educated and under-privileged mass of the population against the privileged few- a minority which was regarded as being both Westernised and conservative. In particular, the SLFP saw itself as the vanguard and instrument’ of “the common people of [the] country, the rural people” – that is to say, the rural Buddhist Sinhalese-speakıng masses.[1] Interlaced with this movement against privilege was a virulent expression of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. Its demand for a rapid switchover to Sinhala as the language of administration was at once a symbolic statement and an instrumental blow against the old structures of discrimination.[2]
Mrs B and Felix Dias Bandaranaike
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DL Sirimanne from Kohuwela has reached his century and proceeded another three years beyond. From the vantage of age, he is quite scathing in his concluding summary …. in the Sunday Observer 22 January 2023 … where the title is “A bit of Ceylon History. Pass it on to you children”
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KK de Silva** … responding to a Request from Michael Roberts (see Below for my Note to several pals)
A = Ethnic Groups at latest census 2011, 2012 … https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik
Sinhalese 15, 250, 081 74. 90%
Sri Lankan Tamils 2, 269, 266 11.15%
Sri Lankan Moors 1, 892, 638 9.30%
Indian Tamils 839, 504 4.12%
Sri Lankan Malays 44, 130 0.22%
Burghers, Eurasians 38, 293 0.19%
Others 25, 527
Total 20, 359, 439
……………………………….. Above figures are in line with figures provided by the Dept. Of Census & Statistics.
The Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) leader and Colombo District MP, Mano Ganesan received a telephone call from Ranil Wickremesinghe on 19 July 2022
It was a day before the Presidential election where the MPs were scheduled to vote and elect a new executive President to fill the vacancy created by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation. Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was the then Prime Minister and acting as the interim President, was a candidate for the Presidential election.
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Chandre Dharmawardana, in The Island, 02 January 2023 where the preferred title runs thus: “Using SORTITION to prevent electing of same crooks to parliament”
The terrorism of the LTTE ended in May 2009, and most Sri Lankans looked forward to a dawn of peace, reconciliation and progress. Even Poongkothai Chandrahasan, the granddaughter of SJV Chelvanayagam could state that ‘what touched me the most that day was that these were poor people with no agenda ~ wearing their feelings on their sleeves~. Every single person I spoke to said to me, “The war is over, we are so happy”. They were not celebrating the defeat of the Tamils. They were celebrating the fact that now there would be peace in Sri Lanka’ (The Island, 23rd August 2009, http://archive.island.
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thuppahi
