Category Archives: Fascism

Truth Journalism? Marie Colvin hoist on her own Petard

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph where the title is Marie Colvin as a Mouthpiece of the LTTEand where you will find all manner of comments. Also note the hyperlnks within this article HERE.in thuppahi.

Having come across Tammita-Delgoda’s 2009 article “Reading between the Lines” for the first time in 2014, I reproduced it in Thuppahi for several reasons. His essay reveals how significant figures in the Western media world participated actively in the highly effective propaganda war sustained by the LTTE networks abroad working in coordination with the Tiger directorate in the Vanni, armed as the Tigers were with modern satellite technology.

Marie C -beaut TAMM ITA 11 Marie-Colvin-1024_285081k-- ST

As Tammita-Delgoda’s news account indicates, Marie Colvin, an intrepid war correspondent who ultimately paid a price of death for her boldness when she was caught in crossfire in Syria in 2012, was one of those partial to the LTTE camp. Eight years earlier, in March-April 2001, she had used her Tamil connections to slip beyond the Government of Sri Lanka’s (GSL) frontlines into the territory of Thamilīlam, the de facto state of the LTTE, and was injured when returning. The details surrounding this incident are highly relevant to our examination of journalistic ethics and are addressed at length below. It is adequate for the moment to note Colvin’s well-known “empathy for the underdog” and her devotion to the plight of civilians in war-torn arenas (DBS Jeyaraj 2012) Continue reading

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ISIS as Fascist and Totalitarian

ALAN DUPONTAlan Dupont, courtesy of The Weekend Australian, 27-28 September 2009, where the title is “The New War for Hearts and Minds”… Note that IS = ISIS = ISIL rre sused interchangeably .. Also see http://tv.unsw.edu.au/026648C0-C0EF-11E1-87A00050568336DC

Australians are understandably transfixed and repulsed by the barbaric excesses of Islamic State. But it would be a mistake to believe that the demise of IS will be rapid, easy or bring to an end the global turmoil that has accompanied its dramatic rise. This is because the caliphate jihadism of IS is not your run of the mill terrorism, but a virulent mutation of a broader revolutionary movement which has much in common with the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century.

ISIS troops

Communism, nazism and fascism sprang from a common source – dissatisfaction with the existing international order and a rejection of the tenets of liberal democracy. All were deeply authoritarian and aggressively expansionist, ruthlessly suppressing any opposition and justifying their excesses by claiming to represent a higher moral purpose and authority. Continue reading

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The Meaning of ‘Sacrifice’ in the First World War: The Urge to War

Roger Griffin ** … a paper  adapted from his book  Modernism and Fascism. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

GRIFFIN In Redemption by War (1982), Roland Stromberg attempted to address the inadequacy of existing historical explanations for the almost “manic bellicosity of the European intellectuals, writers, artists, scientists” at the beginning of the terrible war of 1914–18. He confirms that not only the avant-garde, but ordinary people from every class were eager to witness a “cultural rebirth” unfolding in an age of machines and masses rather than popes and princes.

Angelo Ventrone—one of the foremost Italian experts on the significance of the First World War for the genesis of Fascism—states that the age of nationalism had powerfully promoted the “war ethic conviction” that the war experience fulfilled the task of “rejuvenating and regenerating a civilization now in steep decline.”

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Advertising TAMIL PERSON AND STATE by Michael Roberts

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TAMIL PERSON AND STATE – ESSAYS = Rs. 3500/-

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This set of books is the latest anthology from Michael Roberts that caters to the reading public in Lanka and elsewhere by collecting his essaying interventions in the public realm, usually on web, within one cover. These articles were written between 2009 and 2012. Two long articles, however, are new products drafted in 2012. One explores the significance of a Karaiyar caste coterie within the LTTE, while clarifying the ideological currents that inspired their opposition to the Sinhala-dominated state. The other clarifies the circumstances of the Tamil peoples within the de facto to state of Thamilīlam from 2002 onwards and especially within the crucible of war in “the Vanni Pocket” in 2009 and thence to the detention centres at Mänik Farm. Continue reading

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The Psychology of Totalitarianism via Skya’s Treatise on Japan’s Holy War

Richard A. Koenigsberg, reviewing Walter A. Skya: Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto Ultranationalism, Duke University Press, 2009, 400pp, ISBN-10: 0822344238

What is totalitarianism? Why did the Axis powers stick together? What did Japan have in common with Germany? This essential book articulates the ideology and psychology underlying Japanese ultra-nationalism.

japans holy war Skya explicates the thinking of Japanese social theorist, Hozumi Yatsuka (1860-1912). According to Hozumi, the individual exists in society—and society within the individual. The clash between individualism and socialism is resolved through the concept of g­odo seizon (literally, fused or amalgamated existence), meaning the merging of the individual into society. Human beings fuse together to create “society.” Continue reading

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Where In-fighting generates Fervour & Power: ISIS Today, LTTE yesterday

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews where some prejudiced and one-eyed commentary has already been set in train

“Division and in-fighting will sap and weaken any organisation or ideological current.” This formulation (mine) may seem a common-sense dictum.  Let me challenge this notion with another dictum: “fratricidal militant fission sparks dedication, skill and organisational power.” The recent, explosive expansion in Syria and Iraq of Sunni militants under the banner of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) can be placed alongside the rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) among Tamil militants in the 1970s-to-90s as potential illustrations of a thesis that undermines common-sense notions. In the LTTE case too one could say that “success breeds legitimacy” as Mendelsohn argues for ISIS in clarifying how that organisation’s military might and its capture of swathes of territory in recent months enabled it to supplant such Al-Qaeda branches as Jabhat al-Nusra (2014a). Continue reading

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A Fascist Bhikkhu Force in Sri Lanka?

Tim Hume, CNN, with help from Iqbal Athas, 18 July 2014 … and the original title asFascists in saffron robes? The rise of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist ultra-nationalists”

GNANASARA BBS general secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara at a press conference in 2013.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • An ultra-nationalist Buddhist group has been campaigning against Muslims in Sri Lanka
  • The Bodu Bala Sena is blamed by many for inciting religious riots that left 3 Muslims dead
  • A month on, a monk who gave an inflammatory speech before the riots has not been charged
  • Observers say it appears the group is operating with impunity, fuelling the fears of minorities.

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American gaolhouse conditions nurtured the ISIS leaders

Anthony Loyd, courtesy of The Times and The Australian, 16 June where the title reads Syrian gravesite marks ISIS beginnings”

AN anonymous grave in a rural cemetery in northern Syria marks the final resting place of the myster­ious terrorist mastermind whose legacy is tearing Iraq apart.Under the sun-bleached soil outside Tal Rifat, marked only by a pair of besser bricks and a wild poppy, lies the right-hand man and military mentor of ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

ABU-BAKRCodenamed Haji Bakr, an Iraqi, the dead man defied every cliche written about the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham — in his life and the manner of death. Killed early in January with a machine gun in his hands, he died in a shoot-out alongside his gun-toting Iraqi wife after their house was surrounded by local Syrian rebels as fighting between ISIS and its erstwhile allies raged. Continue reading

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The Idea of Justice and the Importance of Democracy: A Journey with Amartya Sen … for Sri Lanka

Nishan de Mel, a re-print of a review essay from Nethra [an ICES journal now defunct] … the book reviewed being The Idea of Justice, by Amartya Sen  (Allen Lane, 496 pp., £25.00)

Amartya-Sen 11The Bhagavad Gīta section of the Mahābhārata records a timeless debate between two epic heroes: the great warrior Arjuna and his Chariot driver – who is none other than Krishna. The occasion is the battle of Kurukshetra.

Arjuna does not doubt that their’s is the right cause, and that they will definitely win the battle. But he is concerned that so many people will die in the battle. He wonders if it might not be the lesser evil to concede rather than fight. Arjuna is disturbed that these deaths will also become his doing (as he leads the army), and he is also moved by the fact that many of those killed, on both sides, are persons with whom he has some affinitive connection. Krishna counters, and eventually prevails, with the certain conviction that justice is on their side and Arjuna must simply do his duty, no matter what the consequences. The epic is certainly a great tussle about the demands of right action and the concerns of justice. Continue reading

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Suicide Warriors in the Modern Era: Contrasts, Puzzles, Challenges

Richard Koenigsberg

Douglas Haig was the British General who planned and executed the Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916. Visiting the battlefield on March 31, 1917, Haig reflected (De Groot, 1989) upon the hundreds of thousands of British casualties: “Credit must be paid to the splendid young officers who were able time and time again to attack these tremendous positions…To many it meant certain death, and all must have known that before they started.”

WW One 3 Continue reading

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