Category Archives: historical interpretation

February 8, 2019 · 5:59 am

UK confirms Pursuit of UNHRC Vendetta: Naseby Motion Rejected

Item in The Island, 8 February 2019, entitled “UK demands full implementation of Geneva Resolutions on Lanka …Says US pullout from Geneva body irrelevant

The UK government has again dismissed Lord Naseby’s call to terminate Geneva Resolution 30/1 in 2015 and Resolution 34/1 in 2017 on the basis that the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government didn’t perpetrate war crimes as alleged by the UN. Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) on Wednesday (Feb. 05) during a House of Commons debate on UNHRC Resolution declared that the UK expected the full implementation of both Resolutions.

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February 7, 2019 · 2:18 am

Chinese Loans and Sri Lanka: Nishan de Mel’s Clarification on Video

A NOTE from a PAL in Britain: “The American media egged on by the politicians have been quite scathing about Sri Lanka’s borrowing from China. Please watch this short video below and understand that the USA has a different agenda to heap opprobrium on China such as to sour Sri Lanka/China relations for its political advantage.”

LISTEN to Dr Nishan de Mel on NewsFirst =https://www.facebook.com/VeriteResearch/videos/2347743372123536/

IN SUMMARY: Sri Lanka’s debt problem is not because of Chinese loans. Chinese loans are

1. a smaller share of Sri Lanka’s total external debt,

2. cheaper and

3. easier to recycle.

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February 6, 2019 · 12:34 pm

Naseby on the Hands Off Sri Lanka Warpath: ONE

Item in Sri Lanka Guardian, 5 February 2019, entitled “Sri Lanka: Time to stand her own two feet”

Is this really a country that has to be monitored by the West almost every day? The President of the APPG on Sri Lanka thinks not.

About 6 months ago I was conscious that the UN Motions on Sri Lanka would be reviewed in March 2019 by the UNHCR in Geneva.I decided I should try to initiate a debate as near to Independence Day on February 4th as I could. After all it is nearly four years since these resolutions were passed; being originally moved by the USA and the UK and co-sponsored by the Government of Sri Lanka who welcomed help.

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February 5, 2019 · 10:11 am

Universal Suffrage in Ceylon and Lanka from 1931-81

Kingsley M de Silva’s edited collection of articles on Universal Suffrage … has been  a neglected work . As Sri Lanka struggles today and as many cast reviews on the island’s history perhaps this event in 1831 and its repercussions should receive more incisive attention from analysts. Apart from KM de Silva himself, the authors include RA Ariayaratne, CR De Silva, Tilaka Metthananda, Vijaya Samaraweera, SWR de Samarasinghe, Neelan Tiruchelvam and AJ Wilson …. by and large a Peradeniya University consortium.

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February 5, 2019 · 7:22 am

Dharmapala, Banda and Gunadasa as Central Figures in Dissection of Nationalist Authenticity

Harshana Rambukwella

Let’s begin with the book title. Why is it called ‘The politics and poetics of authenticity’? 

The title refers to the central theme of the book. It is primarily about why we think certain cultural practices are more authentic than others. How do such ideas come about? And what are the political implications of such notions of authenticity and what are the cultural and aesthetic implications of these notions as well? The poetics in the title refer to the second aspect of culture and aesthetics.

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February 5, 2019 · 6:38 am

1948-2019: Intertwined Trajectories summed up …. Sri Lanka and Personnel

  Michel Nugawela, in Daily Financial Times,  4 February 2019

In search of a story: Professor Simon Anholt, who coined the term ‘nation brand’, once asked, “If the hand of God should accidentally slip on the celestial keyboard tomorrow and hit delete and Britain went, who would notice and why?”  I would like to ask the same question of Sri Lanka. After all, good leadership is largely about providing people with a meaningful narrative – a cohesive story that weaves together the significant characters and events of a community or country into a plot that articulates who they are, and who they strive to be.

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February 5, 2019 · 3:41 am

Long Live the Burghers … …. Anecdotes from the Past

An Anonymous Muslim Admirer … using the email circuits

I have a great predilection towards Burghers. Not only because I have many bosom cronies in that community, but because I have spent some of the happiest years of my boyhood in their homes. The finest lady that I ever knew was a Burgher. The most select gentleman of my acquaintance is a Burgher; and if some unfortunate Muslim girl fails to discover me, I could still discover both intelligence and beauty in a Burgher girl and — marry her; I can have four, can’t I?

This is merely a personal outburst, because a fair face seldom fails to floor me. But the Burghers are not only fair of face, along with the attractive complexion they have, in addition, their broad sense of fair play and fair dealing make them the easiest to get on with in the world. We have been brothers and sisters in blood for we have tasted more things than salt together.

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February 4, 2019 · 10:17 am

Sihalē’s Goddess Tara in British Hands

Senel Wanniarchchi, in Adahas, 2 February 2019, where the title is “Finders Keepers: On Sex, Tara the Buddhist Deity at the British Museum and Brownness in the Colonies”

I am at the entrance to the British Museum and the path separates into two. I take the path which appears to be less crowded and a guard interrupts me saying this entrance is for ‘members only’. I apologize, take the other and stand in a queue for several minutes. I pass through barricades that separate the members from ‘the other’ which leads me to a checkpoint. It’s my turn to have my bag checked and suddenly I’m conscious of my brownness. Soon, I find myself facing the British Museum. The building’s personality is intimidating and reeks of power. As I walk in, I am reminded that the history of this building and this city is intrinsically entrenched to my own and that of my ancestors and I am reminded of my place in the world and its hierarchies. As I walk in, I see a sign that reads ‘The British Museum —  collecting the world’.

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February 2, 2019 · 3:54 pm

Simple Blundering Simon: Gideon Haigh’s Venture into Sri Lankan Political History

Michael Roberts

Gideon Haigh is an incisive and formidable researcher. He is a whiz-kid on the financial underpinnings of the business of cricket in India and even more adept in analysing the processes surrounding cricket matches in Australia, India and beyond. But in his recent excursion into Sri Lankan politics, he has dived into a morass he is not familiar with.[1]

He has seized on the standard interpretations in the western media world and, willy-nilly, become an agent of US-UK-EU imperialist designs. Take note of this summary survey on his part. “In noting that 2018 was a bad year for Sri Lankan cricket, we should note also that it was a very bad year for Sri Lankan democracy, rocked by President Maithripala Sirisena’s attempts to install his notoriously authoritarian predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister over the head of incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe……. by the estimate of The Economist Intelligence Unit, in no country did the cause of democracy retreat so far as Sri Lanka last year.”

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February 2, 2019 · 8:35 am

America’s Looming Interference and Dominance in Sri Lanka

Ashley de Vos, in Island, 2 February 2019, where the title is  “Base in the centre of the Shipping lanes”

Henry Kissinger once said: “Globalisation is the Americanisation of the world”and one assumes that most humans have been consumed by the mad rush to join the lifestyle band wagon to keep up with ‘the Joneses’ and get further into debt. It is unforgivable that cultures that have withstood the vicissitudes of change for thousands of years and that have evolved as proud nations are also being forced and encouraged to join or face the wrath of countries that have no cultural matrix as a base to fall back on––except a fine tuned technology for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

 

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