Category Archives: life stories

October 13, 2014 · 11:02 am

Torture ‘Clinics’ in UK as Pathway to Asylum?

Exposure of Nandani’s Act in BBC Documentary hosted by Frances Harrison in 2013

This exposure is the work of an anonymous hand/or set of hands just as some of the reportage and footage in the BBC documentary is pseudonymous. Readers should first absorb the BBC video located at the end of this stunning news item after skimming through the item itself; then perhaps re-read the details in this report. ALSO SEE http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24849699

WITNESS’S ACCOUNTS ON SRI LANKA ASYLUM SEEKERS By Dead and Missing Person’s Parents Front  …. http://www.eyesrilanka.com/2014/10/07/witnesss-accounts-on-sri-lanka-asylum-seekers/

Nandini_5NANDANI ‘RAPE’ STORY WINS HER ASYLUM IN UK

Sri Lanka’s Unfinished War, a BBC Documentary presented by Frances Harrison, fulfilled every criteria of an attention-grabbing piece of fiction. Unfortunately, the story that emerges is very much a piece of fiction as evidence will expose not only the story of Nandani but a  dangerous racket taking place in the UK manipulating the innocent  asylum seekers to live in Western nations. The version we present is no fiction but it will alarm and shock readers making them wonder if such actions can take place in the UK under the eyes of democracy, rule of law and equal justice. It will establish a link that would require British authorities arrest the evil minds involved in the asylum racket making money out of a desire to want to live in a First World Nation. We do not blame Nandani. There are thousands of females like Nandani who have fallen prey to the advice given simply because they either want to join their husbands or to just tell their family back home that they are earning dollars and pounds. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, disparagement, gender norms, governance, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, rehabilitation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, unusual people, war crimes, world affairs

October 9, 2014 · 2:03 pm

Haunted! Harrowing Tales of Suffering from a Few Ex-Tigresses in the North Today

In a fruitful initiative the pseudonymous collective known as “Social Architects” (SA) interviewed a few former female Tiger fighters who are residing in the northern Vanni districts. Their life-world is apparently oppressive and mentally traumatic. In interweaving their distressing stories while maintaining their anonymity, the SA presented a video documentary in Groundviews on 27th May 2013 which brought to light a strand of existence in the Tamil population affected by the war that is little known within mainstream circles.

In listening to their distressing tales I was struck by the similarity in style of expression with the Sinhala tele-dramas that I have occasionally witnessed — where a grieving mother or wife laments over the actions of some kin (often male). That is, there seem to be cross-ethnic similarities in style of “sob-story”. But that is a mere aside that is of limited significance. What matters more is the depth of grief that SA have brought to light

PDVD_114

That is why I asked some scholars with experience in working/researching in Tamil areas to comment on “Haunted by Her Yesterdays.” These comments are presented here under pseudonyms that protect their identity.

Readers are advised to absorb “Haunted by Her Yesterdays” [a wonderful title] at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nSSv9Kk3tkI before studying the comments. Let reflections and debate then continue. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, atrocities, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, rehabilitation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, violence of language, war crimes, welfare & philanthophy

October 4, 2014 · 2:21 am

AL-Jazeera Video Footage and Reports from the War Front, 7th October 2008

Michael Roberts

 In step with my initiation of reports on the last phase of Eelam War IV that had receded from memory or been buried unknown, and the Tammita-Delgoda series, I bring to your attention here the Al-Jazeera footage from behind the SL Army lines on three occasions:

  1. 7th October 2008, entitled “Sri Lanka army closes in on Tamil Tigers.”
  2. 26th January 2009 … “Sri Lanka army claims control of rebel territory.”
  3. 1st February 2009… “Sri Lankan army closes in on Tamil Tigers.”

TONY BIRTLEY-SL-1 In contrast with the still pictures utilised by Tammita-Delgoda and more extensively by me in Tamil Person and State. Pictorial (2014), video footage is not only more lively and evocative, but encompasses sweeps of space and people in motion. To be sure, video documentaries involve editing with its cutting and splicing together. The continuity is not as continuous as it seems.

Situation Map, 23 December 2009 –thus two month later than the Al Jazeera video

77- War fronts 23 Dec 2008 From Ministry of Defence web site ….. “The SL Army’s main successes in 2008 were on the western front and the advance occurred from circa April 2008, the point where Madhu was captured. The SLA threatened the crucial A9 arterial road from November 2008 and, in fact, once Paranthan fell in December, the LTTE had perforce to abandon its administrative capital at Kilinochchi. The 55th Division in the meanwhile began its advance southwards along the north-eastern coast. They faced a “bleached and burning landscape of sand and water” and had perforce to pursue what was at times an amphibious war demanding improvisation (Tammita-Delgoda 200: 1,-3, 8-10). From the south the 59th Division pressed forward from Oddusudan towards Mullaitivu, which remained the LTTE’s bunker fortress where the high command was located. The three lakhs or so of people who were citizens of Thamilīlam had been ready to adhere to the LTTE’s enforced movement eastwards because they had little faith in the government of Sri Lanka” (Roberts, in Fig. 77, TPS. Pictorial).

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, Eelam, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, military expenditure, military strategy, nationalism, photography, power politics, prabhakaran, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war crimes, world events & processes

October 3, 2014 · 2:46 am

Torture of ex-Asylum-Seekers in Lanka: SBS, Corlett and Sooka train their gunsights on Sri Lanka

Dateline: ‘Turned back to torture’ …. by David Corlett & Kristina Kukolja, 30 September 2014

CORLETT on Dateline --Torture in SL

Source: World News Radio,  30 Sep 2014 – 1:24 PM  UPDATED 30 Sep 2014 – 5:14 PM …

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/09/30/dateline-turned-back-torture

Serious claims of abduction and abuse at the hands of Sri Lankan authorities are emerging from asylum seekers returned from Australia. The allegations will be explored in a special investigation by Dr David Corlett, to be aired on SBS’ Dateline program. Then, in a live cross, the claims will be put to the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia.

Dr Corlett, the presenter of SBS’ Go Back To Where You Came From series, is speaking to Kristina Kukolja about his undercover report. …..  Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report). Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, atrocities, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, economic processes, historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, security, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

October 2, 2014 · 11:10 am

‘Beheading’ Murali: Cricketing Fundamentalists in Australian Cricket, 1995-98

Michael Roberts

230px-MuralitharanBust2004IMG-wikpedia

The Western world is in shock as ISIS has gained control of a swathe of territory across Syria/Iraq and set up a caliphate state as a symbol of resurgent Islam of their crusading character; and, thereafter, when ISIS (A) beheaded several Western hostages in chilling video-theatre and (B) called upon like-minds in Western centuries to venture forth on random acts of decapitation in the heart of cities.

Australia has been in the grip of alarm for several days this past week as the ISIS call reverberated and the Federal Police launched precautionary raids on those radical Muslims they had been monitoring. Then, on the night of 23rd September one young Muslim of Afghan descent, Numan Haider, raised the scales by slashing and nearly killing two policemen in the vicinity of a Melbourne police station.

So, references to “Islamic fundamentalism” have ruled the air waves. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Filed under arab regimes, atrocities, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, life stories, politIcal discourse, the imaginary and the real, world affairs, zealotry

September 30, 2014 · 10:00 am

After the Battles: Tammita-Delgoda’s Images from the War Theatre

Michael Roberts

As indicated in a previous note within this domain, I keep finding new empirical data on the last phase of Eelam War IV even though I have addressed the topic for over five years. The series of items from SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda included in THUPPAHI this week, as well as the biographical note that supplements the evidence of the essays by detailing his experiential background and training, are part of a process designed to provide readers with critical new material — one launched in July 2014 with an article by Daya Gamage and the first round of distilled copies of despatches from the US Embassy released to the world by Wikileaks.

Any comprehension of the intricacies of Eelam War IV is not feasible without careful attention to cartographical imagery of the evolving battle theatre and pictorial evidence. That is why I have devoted considerable space to pictorial data in Tamil Person and State: Pictorial (2014). Photographs are, to be sure, fragmentary pieces of data. They can be tweaked and manipulated by Photo-shop and other modern devices. They can also be deployed selectively as I have demonstrated in addressing instances of misuse by Rosie DiManno and Gordon Weiss in my essay “Visual Imagery within Political Struggles and Manoeuvres” in the book referred to above (2014: 1-44). Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people

September 30, 2014 · 1:31 am

Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya’s Work on Immigration & Racism in Australia

PROF LAKSIRI

Laksiri Jayasuriya’s sons have created a website where his writings on various themes have been usefully collated and placed within the public realm in one domain. Here are the titles of contributions in this particular sphere……….. SEE http://laksirijayasuriya.com/immigration-multiculturalism-and-racism-papers/

* The Australian-Asian Connection: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard * ( an abbreviated version of this has been published in Australian Quarterly.

* Psychology of prejudice Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Australian culture, australian media, cultural transmission, economic processes, education policy, immigration, life stories, politIcal discourse, tolerance, unusual people, world events & processes, zealotry

September 29, 2014 · 3:07 pm

About SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda: An Intrepid Seeker and A Man of Diverse Talents

Michael Roberts

 TAMM ITA 11 Tammita-Delgoda

In the years 2001-01 or so when I was developing the manuscript which eventually became Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period, 1590s-1815 (Yapa Publications, Colombo, 2004, ISBN 955-8095-53-2) I posed an issue within my own mind: in what ways did the intellectual currents and specifically the understandings of statehood and/or nationhood among the colonial powers impinge upon and influence the thinking of the Sinhalese peoples? This meant that I had to get to grips with European history and the growth of nationalist concepts therein. Lacking competence in Portuguese and Dutch I had necessarily to concentrate on the intellectual strands in Britain and England, a topic I already had some familiarity with because of my teaching work at Peradeniya University in the 1970s.[1]

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under cultural transmission, historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, photography, politIcal discourse, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, tamil refugees, teaching profession, unusual people, world affairs

September 29, 2014 · 8:11 am

Islamist with Sword is greater threat than Tamil with Acid

Michael Roberts, presenting an item drafted on 22 September and circulated to Australian news agencies without receiving any takers; but drawing a pertinent response from an Aussie cricket buff with political interests — one which indicated that my NOTE was shallow and inadequate because it did not recognise the degree of hostility to the secular state and its institutions that resided within the thinking of the Islamic jihadist extremists, something that was not integral to either Serbian, Croatian, Sinhalese or Tamil extremists who got at each other’s throats. This note is presented below under the pseudonym Ibn Wirriq.

When some Australian Islamic extremists developed intentions of beheading a random Australian victim in the heart of an Australian city, they were not only affirming their faith in a symbol of militant Islam on the march, viz., the scimitar, but also pursuing a blitzkrieg upon the ‘Western mind’. The thought of beheading by sword arouses primeval fears in the West. Most people residing in the West today have moved beyond the era not so long ago in the 19th century-and-before when the guillotine, beheading by axe and hanging were standard forms of state punishment in their own heartlands. Today, moral revulsion is expressed at such a form of execution. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Al Qaeda, cultural transmission, democratic measures, immigration, Islamic fundamentalism, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, tolerance, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

September 29, 2014 · 3:43 am

ISIS as Fascist and Totalitarian

ALAN DUPONTAlan Dupont, courtesy of The Weekend Australian, 27-28 September 2009, where the title is “The New War for Hearts and Minds”… Note that IS = ISIS = ISIL rre sused interchangeably .. Also see http://tv.unsw.edu.au/026648C0-C0EF-11E1-87A00050568336DC

Australians are understandably transfixed and repulsed by the barbaric excesses of Islamic State. But it would be a mistake to believe that the demise of IS will be rapid, easy or bring to an end the global turmoil that has accompanied its dramatic rise. This is because the caliphate jihadism of IS is not your run of the mill terrorism, but a virulent mutation of a broader revolutionary movement which has much in common with the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century.

ISIS troops

Communism, nazism and fascism sprang from a common source – dissatisfaction with the existing international order and a rejection of the tenets of liberal democracy. All were deeply authoritarian and aggressively expansionist, ruthlessly suppressing any opposition and justifying their excesses by claiming to represent a higher moral purpose and authority. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, atrocities, australian media, authoritarian regimes, democratic measures, disparagement, Fascism, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, life stories, martyrdom, politIcal discourse, power politics, Taliban, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry