Channa Wickremesekera’s Publications
Channa Wickremesekera is the son of the late Percy Wickremesekera, an acquaintance of mine from Peradeniya Campus days and a ‘Trot’ activist who migrated to Australia. Channa lives in Melbourne. I got to know him when I was working on my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period¸1590’s-1815 (which came out in 2003 …………………… https://www.amazon.com/Sinhala-Consciousness-Kandyan-Period-1590s/dp/9558095311).
Filed under art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, hatan kavi, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, insurrections, island economy, Kandyan kingdom, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, modernity & modernization, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, war reportage, working class conditions, world events & processes
Laleen Jayamanne, in The Island, 20 & 27 July 2022 where the title runs thus: “Teargas cinema and Rukmani Devi”
“I have never found anything to excite the people in quite the way this language issue does”–– Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike to a journalist.
If true, this observation attributed to Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, is quite chilling in its cynicism. ‘Excitement’ is a political emotion here and SWRD appears to take a distance from it, observing somewhat clinically, how ‘this language issue’ stirs up ‘the people’. Politicians are especially crafty, cunning, when they know how to excite people with ideas that they themselves may or may not truly believe in.
A protester covering the eyes of the Bandaranaike statue at Galle Face
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education policy, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, world events & processes
Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, in Countercurrents
“But to watch cricket, there has to be a country left for us to watch it in, no?” A fan at the Galle Test Match that ended with an innings victory for Sri Lanka. July 11, 2022
Spirits were high on July 11 when the Sri Lankan cricket team beat the visiting Aussies by an innings even though the country was in its worst economic crisis ever, due to a lack of Dollars to buy fuel caused by an international Sovereign Bond (ISB), debt trap and Staged Default.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, conspiracies, cricket for amity, debt restructuring, economic processes, energy resources, foreign policy, IMF as monster, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, island economy, law of armed conflict, legal issues, life stories, military strategy, modernity & modernization, performance, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
A Conerned Citizen ... ** see Note at Bottom
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, debt restructuring, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry
Malinda Seneviratne, at …. https://malindawords.blogspot.com/2022/07/when-centre-cannot-hold.html …. with this title “When the centre cannot hold…”
I write (it is 12.09 pm, on Wednesday) at a time when there’s a remarkable and unprecedented lack of political clarity in the country. As I write, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has left the country. As per the Constitution, if indeed Rajapaksa did resign, or, as reported, Rajapaksa citing Article 37.1 of the constitution , Ranil Wickremesinghe has assumed the presidency in an acting capacity. There’s ‘fighting’ within parliament with parties and politicians unable to decide on Rajapaksa’s successor and of course who the next premier should be. There’s fighting among ‘aragalists’ over representational legitimacy, ideological and political thrust, and preferred endgames.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, meditations, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes
With thanks to my Aloysian compatriot KK De Silva
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, Left politics, life stories, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry
Meera Srinivasan, in The Hindu, 18 May 2022, where the title is “Sri Lanka’s War Aniversary: Tamil Victims remembered in Colombo”
Scores of people on Wednesday gathered in Mullivaikkal village, in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district, to remember the tens of thousands of Tamil civilians who were brutally killed in the final stages of the civil war in May 2009, when the armed forces crushed the LTTE.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, discrimination, doctoring evidence, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, military strategy, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
thuppahi
