Category Archives: ethnicity

February 8, 2023 · 10:37 pm

Gamini Goonesena as a Legend

Hugh Karunanayake, presenting an old article from 2012 once again, with this title “Farewell to a Legend of Our Times” … with “Times” standing for the past inhabited by us octogenerians … & ….. the highlighting here being the intervention of Thuppahi

A gathering of family, friends, former schoolmates, and members of the Australian cricketing fraternity, assembled at the South Chapel of the Rookwood Cemetery on Friday 12 August 2011 to bid farewell to the legendary Gamini Goonesena one of the greatest achievers Sri Lankan cricket has ever known.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, cricket for amity, cricket selections, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, photography, Royal College, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people

February 8, 2023 · 9:06 pm

For Sri Lanka: February Newsletter from eLanka

eLanka Newsletter 8 February 2023 …. presented here by Thuppahi because eLanka is a patriotic cause located in Australia working for the island and all its peoples in their considerable variety.  eLanka also offers to deliver gift packs to residents or insitituions and charities in the island….. visit Elanka … newsletter@elanka.com.au>

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, charitable outreach, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, patriotism, performance, photography, photography & its history, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people

February 7, 2023 · 11:50 am

Muslims in the East of Sri Lanka: Ashfaque Mohamed’s Insightful Film

Laleen Jayamanne, whose title is “Notes towards a Politics and Aesthetics of Film” in a review essay presented in The Island, 1 & 2 February 2023: the focus being Ashfaque Mohamed’s ‘Face Cover’ **

 

 ‘Face Cover’ by Ashfaque Mohamed

Asfaque  Mohamed

“Black cat, at the tip of my fingers pulsates poetry,

Desiring hands, yours, nudgingly pluck those roses of mine

In the soft light of the moon

The dreams we picked from the foaming edges of waves of the sea.”

                                                                          Jusla/Salani (in Face Cover)

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, meditations, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, performance, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes

February 6, 2023 · 10:49 pm

Lanka’s Independence Day Gathering in Adelaide in Pictures

Bandula Alahakoon has professionally captured the Independence Day Celebrations held at a Community Centre in Hectorville, Adelaide on Saturday 4th February with Dr Charitha Perera (Hony Consul), Nayan Perera (servingas compere) and such personnel as Nazli Farook and Mano Ransoma supporting the organising work and marshalling of ‘troops’.

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, communal relations, cultural transmission, ethnicity, heritage, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, tolerance, welfare & philanthophy

February 6, 2023 · 7:53 pm

Lamentations: Jeyaraj’s Black Review of Sri Lankan History

DBS Jeyaraj, in The Daily Mirror, 4 February 2023, where the title reads “75 Years of Independence and the Tamils of Sri Lanka“

A SUMMARY: They invited Indian political leaders to the peninsula and held mass rallies and processions. Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajagopalachariar, Sarojini Nayudu and Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay are some of these.

It was only in 1833 after the Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms of 1832 that predominantly Tamil territories were integrated into a unified Ceylon. Until then they were administered separately.

The rationale was that independence from the British had only resulted in being ruled by the Sinhalese. There was only a change of masters. So, Independence Day was nothing to celebrate, but only to be observed as a black day, it was argued.

****

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, demography, disparagement, doctoring evidence, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, language policies, law of armed conflict, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, modernity & modernization, parliamentary elections, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes, zealotry

February 2, 2023 · 11:24 pm

Aussie Athletic Meet in Adelaide on 11th February 2023

THE ADELAIDE INVITATIONAL

Date: Saturday, 11 February 2023 at 6:30pm

Location: SA Athletics Stadium, 145 Railway Terrace, Mile End, SA

Events in 2023: Triple Jump, Discus, Pole Vault, 100m, 200m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m Steeplechase, 5000m

The Australian Summer of Athletics tour returned to Adelaide in 2022 with the Adelaide Invitational on February 12. Australia’s best athletes head to SA to compete and earn World Athletics ranking points in an attempt to qualify for Commonwealth Games and World Championships. The event in 2023 looks to be even bigger and better as Athletes aim to qualify for the World Championships. 

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Australian culture, australian media, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, sri lankan society, travelogue, Uncategorized, unusual people

February 2, 2023 · 2:50 pm

The Fate of the Roma Gypsies in Europe: From Nazi Holocaust to Continuous Marginalization

Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”

Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945

 

Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936

“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, anti-racism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, demography, discrimination, economic processes, ethnicity, Fascism, historical interpretation, human rights, life stories, martyrdom, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, refugees, self-reflexivity, trauma, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes, World War II

February 1, 2023 · 11:01 pm

Karunatilaka’s Booker Prize Explorations of the Sri Lankan World

Sam King in The Weekend Australian, 29 January 2023, where the title reads thus “Exploring the Boundaries” …. with highlighting emphasis imposed by the Editor, Thuppahi

Don’t let Shehan Karunatilaka sell himself short. “Until a month ago, I was just a dude who wrote a cricket book in 2010,” he says. That cricket book was Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, declared one of the best cricket books of all time by cricketing authority Wisden. But it’s his latest effort, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Allen & Unwin) that has, in his words, changed everything.

The book started life as Chats With The Dead, which struggled to find a publisher outside the Indian subcontinent. After spending two years reworking it, Karunatilaka emerged with the novel that went on to pick up the 2022 Booker Prize. A surreal tale of life after death set during the 1980s and the Sri Lankan civil war, the ambitious cocktail of political thriller, murder mystery, ghost story and historical novel is brought together by Karunatilaka’s sizzling wit.

 

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, world events & processes

February 1, 2023 · 6:58 pm

Australia’s Response to the Refugee Problems generated by Sri Lanka’s Civil War in the 2000s and 2010s

Betts & Higgins address the “Migration Policy” pursued by Australia in the context of the refugee problems arising in the context of Sri Lanka’s “Civil War.” [i.e. what most refer to as the “Eelam Wars.”]. The full title is noted below and their “Abstract” is presented.

The infamous Alex Kuhendarajah on the Sumatran(?) coast witha boatlad of Tamil refugees  …. and other pictorial illustrations of refugees and their boats

 

For the benefit of those not familiar with the scenario, the refugees were mostly SL Tamils, but there was a ‘supply chain’ of agents and smuggler boats from Sri Lanka, India and the Indonesian islands that also catered to Sinhala and Muslim personnel seeking “eldorado” in the West via Australia. See some bibliographical items listed at the end which will lead one to even more literature…. Michael Roberts with thanks to Johnny De Silva in Melbourne for converting the file containing the Betts & Higgins article.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, atrocities, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, demography, discrimination, doctoring evidence, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, people smugglers, politIcal discourse, refugees, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, trauma, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes

January 27, 2023 · 12:32 am

Fashioning the Book “CROSSCURRENTS: Sri Lanka & Australia at Cricket”

 Michael Roberts

This book, with its pot pourri of cricketing items and photographs, was published in 1998 by the Walla Walla Press in Sydney. It was enabled by (A) the cooperation of two authors who never met each other: one Michael Roberts …. a Sri Lankan Australian in Adelaide and one Alfred James, an Aussie in Sydney who had a unique collection of cricketing statistics on Australian tours abroad which provided the pertinent data on their whistle-stop matches in Colombo on the trips to Britain and back – rare data that.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, Australian culture, australian media, biotechnology, centre-periphery relations, cricket for amity, discrimination, disparagement, ethnicity, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, photography, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, taking the piss, trauma, unusual people, world events & processes