Category Archives: language policies

October 28, 2023 · 8:15 pm

For Lanka: The Profound Interventions of Pauline & Dick Hensman

Rohini Hensman, in a commemorative essay about her politically committed parents in the SSA journal POLITY in 2023 where the title runs “A Hundred Years of Pauline And C. R. (Dick) Hensman”

The birth anniversaries of Pauline Hensman (née Swan) and Dick Hensman occurred over the course of the past year [ …]. This attempt to provide an overview of their life and times will inevitably suffer from gaps, since neither they nor most of their contemporaries are alive. It will, therefore, have to draw on the imperfect memories of their children and younger friends, who would have to rely on hearsay for the parts of their lives from which they were absent. Nevertheless, the main events and themes of their lives emerge quite clearly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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October 23, 2023 · 7:54 pm

Talking about Oral History Work on Ceylon in the 1960s

Adilah Ismail in the Sunday Times,  7 June 2015,  where the title is “Colourful history of a historian” … with highlighting imposed by the Editor Thuppahi viz, Roberts himself

Looking back on his ‘going-down memory lane interviews’ with retired Britishers and Sri Lankans who served mainly in the Ceylon Civil Service, Michael Roberts who was in Sri Lanka recently, talks to Adilah Ismail about the beginnings of a passion.

In Colombo last week: Michael Roberts. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
It’s the late 1960s: On most Fridays, Michael Roberts would make his way towards Colombo from Peradeniya, [1]  recording equipment balanced at his feet and his bag filled with assorted clothes strapped to the back of his trusty scooter. Navigating the sharp curves and turns on his two wheeler, once in Colombo, he would spend his weekend sprinting from one interview to another.

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August 28, 2023 · 7:24 pm

Sinhalese & Tamils Locked in Prejudice?

Michael Roberts 

An interesting chat with Mark LaBrooy in Melbourne on the phoe today induced me to re-visit my old SIGNATURE PIECE on “The Sinhala Mindset” in my Thuppahi site ….. Some of the commentary is as enlightening today as refreshing. That inserted by Jane Russell on 1 March 2012 and Chandre Dharmawardena’s  response  should continue to stimulate our thinking TODAY.

The problems of YESTERDAY still persist today.

Note that Jane is an Oxford graduate who secured her Ph.D in History at Peradeniya under KM de Silva’s supervision in Peradeniya in the 1970s. She has lived for lengthy spells in Sri Lanka since then because of her deep commitment to individuals and places within the land.

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August 25, 2023 · 12:42 am

In Appreciation of Tissa Devendra, 1929 -2023

Ashoka De Silva, in The Ceylankan 

Deshamanya Tissa Devendra passed away on 23rd June 2023 at the age of 94. Tissa joined the Colombo Chapter of the Ceylon Society of Australia (CSACC)on 7th March 2008. He was elected President of the of the CSACC in 2013 and remained in this position till the year 2020. He was also a Senior Administrative Officer of the Government of Sri Lanka.

Tissa leaves behind his wife, Indrani, children, Jaliya and Rashmi, brother Somasiri, sisters Yasmin and Ransiri Menike.

May he attain Nibbana.

We are deeply saddened to announce the passing away of Tissa Devendra, our beloved and highly esteemed former President and Convenor of the Colombo Chapter of the Ceylon Society of Australia (CSA CC) on June 22, 2023, following a brief illness.

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August 17, 2023 · 3:26 pm

Remembering Lakshman Kadirgamar: Sri Lanka First

DBS Jeyaraj, inDaily Telegraph,16 August 2023 .. where the title reads “Lakshman Kadirgamar’s Jaffna Tamil Christian heritage”

Lakshman Kadirgamar’s 18th death anniversary was observed last Saturday. The former foreign minister fell victim to a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sniper in Colombo on 12 August 2005. Kadirgamar was one who defined himself first and foremost as a Sri Lankan. This endeared Kadirgamar to a very large number of Sri Lankans. However the fact remains that he was by ethnicity a Tamil and a Christian by religion. His parents hailed from Jaffna. This article focuses on Lakshman Kadirgamar’s Jaffna Tamil Christian heritage.

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August 9, 2023 · 8:53 pm

Enjoying Peradeniya Campus Life in the Late 1960s

Sumangalika Dharmadasa, in  the booklet HANTHANA NIGHT , produced by the University of Peradeniya Alumni Association Western Australia in 2023 … where her title reads “Campus Life of Yore: Through the Eyes of a Fresher”” 

6th October, 1965 is a land mark date in my memory, as it surely must be in the memory banks of all the Freshers who entered the hallowed portals of the university of Peradeniya all those years ago. The sense of freedom and independence I felt after the cloistered life in school hostels was truly exhilarating.  For the first time in my life, I was free to do just as I wished!  I did not know then that I was destined to remain in that wonderful place for over 50 years.

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June 16, 2023 · 1:27 am

Revisiting Tarzie VittachI’s EMERGENCY ’58

Michael Roberts

In re-visiting an assortment of historical episodes in Sri Lanka’s past in unsytematic fashion I have been led to Tarzie Vittachi’s Emergençy ’58 (published in 1958) by Sugath Kulatunga’s detailed and invaluable recounting of his experiences as a government official in Polonnaruwa in the 1950s (an item still being processed).

While Vittachi was an experienced journalist, we cannot take every ‘fact’ that he presents as indubitable. However, this pointer towards his slim volume should, hopefully, bring new generations of Sri Lankans and outside observers into reflections on the consequences of the political currents unleashed in the general election in 1956 — notably the upsurge of the underprivileged classes and the demand for Sinhala Only.

This focus, however, should not promote currents of denunciation which throw the baby out with the bathwater. The inequalities of the pre-existing dispensation must be clinically drawn out as well.

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June 12, 2023 · 11:43 am

A Conservative Voice against Today’s Aboriginal ‘Voice’ ”

 Dr David Barton, in THE QUADRANT,  December 2022, with this title “Australia’s Aboriginal Industry: Always Was, Always Will Be About Power”

 

In 1983, as a naïve youth worker and concerned by what I had been reading since the early 1970s about what was happening with Aborigines in Alice Springs, I moved there to see what I could do to help. All told, I spent six years in Central Australia, leaving both depressed and convinced that the situation could never be fixed.

Unfortunately, much of what passes for Aboriginal ‘culture’ today is an invention of the last 50 years.

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May 1, 2023 · 9:23 pm

Remembering Revd WJT Small, A Saint In Our Times

Nihal de Alwis, presenting a Memoir on Revd Small, the dedicated Principal of Richmond who became a Ceylonese  …. 

Rev. Walter Joseph Thombleson Small was born on the 4th of July 1883 in Boston, England. He lived in Sri Lanka from 1906 to 1926 and again from 1953 to 1979. He died in Sri Lanka after an accident on the 28th of December 1979. He grew up during the Victorian era and grew up in a Methodist environment imbued with Christian values.

 

 

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April 30, 2023 · 11:56 pm

Bernard Van Cuylenburg’s Multi-Lingual Skills in A World of Travel

Cam Lucadou-Wells, in eLanka, 31 March 2020, where the chosen title is “A World of Friends”

The well-travelled Bernard Van Cuylenburg’s worldly interests do not only span five languages, but millennia of history.

For two decades this multi linguist has volunteered as an English language tutor for migrants and new arrivals at AMES (Adult Multicultural Educational Services) in Dandenong. His students hail from as far away as Afghanistan, Vietnam, and China. Each a window to history and culture, and each a friend to Bernard. Such is his dedication that since joining AMES he studied Mandarin to better support some of his students. He says “You get more than you give due to the interaction with diverse cultures. They have so much to teach you, and I always fine tune my antenna when dealing with foreign students” says Bernard of his role.

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