Michael Roberts
I met Riaz Hassan for the first time as one of the keynote speakers at a conference organised by Neelan Tiruchelvam in Sri Lanka circa 1974 (details forgotten) when I was teaching in the History Department at Peradeniya University and Riaz was at an university in Singapore. It was the best of serendipity (a word deriving perhaps from Serendib aka Sri Lanka) that I found him attached to Flinders University when I moved to the Anthropology Department at University in 1977.
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ONE …. Joanne Barker: A Memory about RIAZ HASSAN
From 1992-2006 I worked at Flinders University in various positions, finally leaving in 2006 as the faculty general manager of one of the four faculties. In around 1993-4 when I was still in my early 30s and quite new at the university, I came to know Riaz Hassan as one of the professors. He probably didn’t know my name, but he was always kind and smiled and said hello if we passed on campus.
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Fair Dinkum
Watch “Pakistan’s Western-backed coup regime hits PM Imran Khan with ‘terrorism’ charges to silence dissent” … …………………….. https://youtu.be/g9IzwCAYbZY
This ITEM is a worthwhile discussion and analysis of the situation in Pakistan featuring a young Pakistani scholar, interviewed by Ben Norton.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s supporters gather in Rawalpindi on Sunday to protest Imran Khan’s removal from government [Sohail Shahzad/EPA-EFE] Continue reading
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The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of meeting Salman Rushdie was unimaginable. It was after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against him. Rushdie had disappeared from the face of the earth.
By refusing to subsist in living death they prescribed for him, the author stood up for life itself as the ordinary human birthright.
I went to a party in County Wicklow. Seeing him standing in the kitchen with a glass of wine was like meeting Lazarus.
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Details of this book POLITICAL CONFLICT IN SOUTH ASIA, University of Peradeniya publication, 2013 …………. ISBN – 978-955-589-169-1………..Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher, The Vice-Chancellor, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Printed by Balin & Co. (Pvt.) Ltd. 61, D. S. Senanayake Street, Kandy, Sri Lanka +94 0817429050 ……………. Fax. +94 081 2222584 ………………………… Cover design: Dr. Manjula Peiri
Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Sir Nicholas Atygalle, Vice Chancellor of the University Ceylon (1955-66), and my teachers: Karthigesu Kularatnam & George Thambyahpillay at Peradeniya, and Bertram Hughes Farmer at Cambridge
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……………… and Just Yesterday in Easter 2019
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Michael Roberts
“Test cricket returned to Lahore on Monday for the first time since a horrific attack in 2009 saw the venue … shunned by nations …,” says Peter Lalor in his article on the Lahore Test Match in today’s (22 March 2022) AUSTRALIAN newspaper. Lalor, perhaps deliberately (?,) avoids reference to the team that underwent this terrorist attack on 3rd March 2009: Sri Lanka.
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As News Items displayed pictures and stroies of beeming Aussie cricketers arriving in Pakistan for cricket, we need to cast our mind back to that fateful day on the 3rd March 2009 when the entourage bearing the Sri Lankan team and the officiating personnel were subject to an assault by some Pakistani “terrorists.” The most effective manner of reminding readers of the horrendous events that unfolded in and around the last roundabout before Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore is to present some of the photographs taken immediately afterwards.
That only a few Pakistani policemen and the driver of the minibus bearing the team officials lost their lives was due to Allah’s grace and the presence of mind shown by Khallil, the driver of the coach and Tuan Tillekeratne Dilshan as the bus sped away from botched efforts to (a) block it and (b) hit it with a shoulder-fired rocket.
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From the Department of English, University of Minnesota, 5 November 2021
It’s been amazing reading the tributes to Qadri, reading about his impact and his generosity. Our family was able to keep up with his exploits during his early career in Sri Lanka, when he was a reporter, but his scholarly career was a bit harder to keep up with. I read some of his early writings, but most of them were above my head. But reading the articles about his impact and reach has been very helpful and valuable to us.
A Searing Wide-Ranging Critique from Qadri Ismail after 21/4 in 2019 ……. Now a Requiem
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Sarah Kabir and ROAR on “A Journey of a Demcracy: The Sri Lankan Story”
ROAR is embarking on the generation of a documentary thatseeks to create awareness and understanding of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history…… SEE INITIAL NOTICE: https://thuppahis.com/2021/11/19/imaginative-explorations-of-sri-lankas-history-on-the-cards/#more-56776
Project Intervention
It has been over a decade since the end of Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict, but what we have today is ‘negative peace’ – which is the absence of overt violence. Limited understanding of Sri Lanka’s history, politics, democracy, ambition, intent, and the refusal to acknowledge acts of intolerance and discrimination that destroyed lives and led to bloodshed makes it increasingly difficult to avoid the recurrence of violence and we risk repeating the same mistakes. Today, we are confronted with choices that could lead to positive peace or a resumption of cycles of violence. Even now, the difficulties of dealing with COVID-19 and the resulting economic fallout could lead to social unrest that may morph into inter-communal violence if manipulated. Continue reading
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