This Video Presentation is an Eye-Opener. It was sent to me recently by Sanath Jayatilaka (who is in Sri Lanka). I do not know whose voice and politics is behind the pitch. It is presented here in Thuppahi so that more information can be elicited …. including challenges and/or confirmationsre the specific claims. Michael Roberts
Category Archives: landscape wondrous
China’s Way in Africa … and The Success Story in Rwanda
Filed under Aboriginality, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, energy resources, export issues, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Australia’s Mindless Slide towards War with China signalled by Hugh White
Hugh White, whose title in Quarterly Essay is “Sleepwalk to War: Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America”
Competing with China for primacy in East Asia is by far the most serious strategic commitment America has undertaken since the Cold War. And yet Washington has launched into it with no clear idea of what would count as winning, how it could be won, how much it will cost and why winning really matters. This would seem almost unbelievably foolish and irresponsible if it did not sound so familiar. This is what happened when Washington launched America into Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s, and indeed into Vietnam in the 1960s.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, Australian culture, australian media, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, disparagement, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, military strategy, nationalism, Pacific Ocean politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, unusual people, world events & processes
In Support of Sri Lanka: The House of Lords in Britain
Events in the HOUSE OF LORDS
Urgent Question asked by Lord Moylan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to give urgent material assistance to Sri Lanka to alleviate the economic crisis in that country.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con):My Lords, we are closely monitoring the humanitarian and economic situation in Sri Lanka. The United Kingdom provides assistance to organisations in both these areas in Sri Lanka, including through the Red Cross and the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund; the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, CERF; the World Bank; and the Asian Development Bank. We have offered to support a key role in the UN on humanitarian co-ordination. This is in addition to our existing £11.3 million CSSF programme funding focused on addressing the legacy of conflict.
An Expat’s Bitter Interpretation of the Progress from Ceylon in 1948 … till Today
Charles Seevali Abeysekera ++
Sri Lanka is officially bankrupt and a failed state in all but name. How did a country of 22 million people with a level of literacy on par with most of the developed world end up in such a dire position where the state coffers did not have the measly sum of 20 million dollars to purchase fuel to keep the country functioning beyond the next working day?
Whilst the vast majority of the population have concluded that the blame for this economic armageddon is due to the gluttony of corruption and greed, instigated and enabled by the Rajapaksa family , its acolytes and sycophantic nodding dogs, my own assessment is different.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, citizen journalism, communal relations, disparagement, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, meditations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance
Gotabaya’s Getaway: His Devious Routes amidst Many Pressures
Kapila Punchihewa, in Mawbima, July 22 2022, where the title runs thus: “The story of the running man Gotabaya unfolded. Exclusive”
- President Pleads for safety with Sajith whom he sidelined a few weeks ago.
⦁ All powerful President is shaken and runs for safety from place to place. 18 million for a luxury hotel in Malé
⦁ Indian USA and European Nations show the “cold shoulder’. - No place to go at home or the world
President Gotabaya Rajapakse was elected with 69,lacks of the votes. He was only in office for 969 days before abruptly leaving the country last Monday afternoon, amidst massive public opposition he had to face. No one knew until that fateful Monday afternoon that he hAD left the country. Nobody even knew where the president was.
Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, disparagement, governance, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, refugees, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, trauma, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
IMF’s Position on Sri Lankan Crisis on 17th July 2022
Dilini Madushanki, in Ceylon Today, 17 July 2022, with this title “Sri Lanka a ‘warning sign’ for countries with high debt levels and limited policy space — IMF,”
Claiming Sri Lanka is a ‘warning sign’ for countries with high debt levels, IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva warned officials from the Group of 20 major economies to take urgent action to combat inflation, warning that the “exceptionally uncertain” global economic outlook could turn worse if higher prices persisted.
Georgieva, speaking at a G20 finance officials meeting in Indonesia, said “I wish the global economic outlook was as bright as the sky in Bali, but unfortunately, it is not. The outlook has darkened significantly, and uncertainty is exceptionally high. Downside risks about which the IMF had previously warned have now materialized.”
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, debt restructuring, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, IMF, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Only in Sri Lanka!!! Presidential Self-Deprecation
Filed under architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, asylum-seekers, charitable outreach, commoditification, disparagement, economic processes, heritage, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, taking the piss, trauma, truth as casualty of war
An Unimaginable Outcome from the ARAGALA Revolt: Ranil As President
Malinda Seneviratne, in his web column https://malindawords.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-aragalaya-postscript.html
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.
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, disparagement, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, JVP, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, riots and pogroms, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, wild life, working class conditions, world events & processes, zealotry
Was Sri Lanka an Agricultural Nation in Ancient Times?
Vinod Moonesinghe, in an original essay bearing the title “Agricultural nation, a myth?” ……… … now reproduced with a different title and with highlIghting imposed by The Editor, ThuppaHI
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” — L.P. Hartley, The go-between
Recent shortages of milk powder, wheat flour and even rice have brought into perspective Sri Lanka’s lack of food security. The situation has been exacerbated by growing dependence on imports of wheat – which rose from half a million tonnes in 1980 to nearly 1.5 million tonnes in 2020. This lack of food security has re-kindled an argument about the role of agriculture in Sri Lanka’s economy, which has extended into the realms of historiography.
When former secretary general of UNCTAD Gamini Corea wrote “Sri Lanka has always been predominantly an agricultural economy since ancient times,” he reflected historical orthodoxy. However, a revisionist historical school has emerged, holding that this view of Sri Lanka, as an agricultural country, the granary of the East, reflects a myth. For example, Former Central Bank deputy governor WA Wijewardena says that “A widely-held view by many Sri Lankans is that Sri Lanka was an agriculture-based economy in the past and it should be so even in the future. The first part of this argument is only half-true.”He thinks that in the ancient past, Sri Lanka had an “open economy”, in which trade occupied as important a place as agriculture.
