Ranil Wickremesinghe is no longer president in an acting capacity. He is the president, period. Did someone say ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry?’ I am pretty sure someone did. Did someone say, ’who wudda thunk?’ Well, if two or three years ago, if anyone suggested that in July 2023 Ranil Wickremesinghe would be the president of this country, there would have been laughter and tears, if at all, would have been of mirth.
A remarkably significant outcome of the Aragalaya has been the emergence of the “Peratugami Samajavadi Pakshaya” (Frontline Socialist Party) as an influential player in Sri Lankan politics.
The Peratugami Samajavadi Pakshaya is composed of the members who defected from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). It can be considered as a party that was born in the political womb of the JVP and competes with it.
Pix from Stephen Champion’s pictorial book inserrted here to highlight the ‘fiesta’ of kill and counter-kill
I call him Jayantha to protect his identity. Calm and collected, he was a good friend at high school. His parents were middle-class schoolteachers. During high school, some of the friends visited Jayantha’s home; and they were talking weeks about how pretty his elder sister was. Not surprisingly, she was to become the beauty queen of this small town. Inspector Dammika was in charge of the police station in this town. Through my good friend Mike, I met this soft-speaking police officer and happened to spend a night at his bungalow. He was Mike’s brother-in-law. At the time, I did not know that he got charged with her murder. A few years later, Dammika and his father-in-law were assassinated. A couple of year later Mike got killed.
Liyanage Amarakeerthi, whose chosen title is “A Fatal Intersection: Three Small Shops in North Western Sri Lanka that No Longer Exist” …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor Thuppahi
I was born and raised in a little community in Kuliyapitiya, a typical agricultural area with three small tanks (wewa), which watered paddy fields, within walking distance on three sides of my house. Of course, there were also three Buddhist temples, almost within walking distance from each other. It was a typical village in the North-Western province, a part of which is known as bath kooralee or ‘rice province’. Where there were no tanks or paddy fields there were coconut plantations, big and small. Not surprisingly, much of the ‘coconut triangle’ is also in this province.
Stephen Champion’s cover photo has been deployed here by Thuppahi as an external intervention to highlight the scenario of the 1980s
Basil Fernando: A Short Abstract re the book Body, Mind, Soul, Society: An Autobiographical Account
This book (176 pages) is an attempt to contribute towards an understanding of the impact of violence on human persons and the society. It is based on the direct experience of living and working in Sri Lanka and Cambodia. However, references are also made to several more developing countries in Asia with which I have been engaged in working after the experiences in Sri Lanka and Cambodia. The book is written from the perspective of a victim who is also an observer.
When the family of the Czar Nicholas, children and women included, were brutally killed by the Bolshevik revolutionaries, that was justified by a throng of intellectuals who were ready to defend anything done in the name of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Clever dialectical arguments were presented as to why even the children had to be killed. More sensitive souls presented excuses rather than justifications. A favorite one was that “it is inevitable” that some bourgeois sentiments will be upset when a little extra blood is let – but all that is justified in the quest to reach the coveted end.
John Richardson, whose title in this article conveying diary notes runs thus: “Ordinary Living” in the Midst of Civil War Notes to Family and Friends“[1] … with highlighting and pics inserted by The Editor, Thuppahi
February 1988: After getting settled in our home at number 5 Bagatelle Terrace, within walking distance of Colombo University, we have begun to fit into our neighborhood and the city. Already we have made a number of Sri Lankan acquaintances. Emily knows the city better because she is an inveterate walker. She covers three to five miles each day on foot; more than any expatriates and most Sri Lankans, except the very poor. She feels quite safe walking about during the day. We walk about at night, too, but are more careful as the streets are poorly lighted. “Homeless” people do live on the streets here. They are about as visible as they are in Washington, D.C., but I think the culture here is more accepting; the gap between rich and poor is much less than in America. In fact, what strikes me about the majority of Sri Lankans, both rich and poor, is their unfailing honesty, courtesy and decency. (The principal exception appears to be some of those who deal regularly with foreigners). They are a considerate, friendly people – and for many, life is arduous.
Rajan Philips, in The Island, 26 May 2018, where the title is“The Shangri La tamasha: Neither presidential nor parliamentary, it’s Port City politics now
After a week in Cuba, I am late in gate-crashing the Shangri La party, the onset of the newest political tamasha in town. Calling it a tamasha is not to belittle the political potency of the event, but to highlight its ideational bankruptcy. No one took Donald Trump seriously when he slid down his gilded Trump Tower escalator, in January 2016, and announced his candidacy to become President of the United States of America. Look where he landed before the year was over and where he is dragging by its nose the world’s so called sole superpower. The Sri Lankan contrast is glaring.
Alex Perera, in Sunday Island, 12 November 2017, where the title is different: “Thirtieth Death Anniversary of Fr. Michael Rodrigo”
“I am a Catholic in my religion, but a Buddhist in my culture”Fr. Michael
Thirty years ago, on November 10, 1987, while Rev. Fr. Michael Rodrigo O.M.I was celebrating the Holy Eucharist, he was shot and killed at his small shelter in Alukalawita, Buttala.Continue reading →
