Category Archives: martyrdom

September 5, 2021 · 2:31 pm

Auckland Atrocities: Grounded Appraisals from Sri Lankans

I present several comments from Sri Lankans in New Zealand and Sri Lanka

A NOTE from SM in Colombo, 7 Sept 2021

It is high time for countries to cut hard on organisations promoting and practicing extremist ideologies whether they be religious, ethnic, separatist, or nationalist.  The UK extended its ban on the LTTE a few days back which is a welcome development.  Canada should practice what they preach. With an election round the corner, the Liberal Trudeau govt soft peddles the LTTE issue in order to garner Canadian Tamil votes.  The Canadian government’s sponsorship of TGWA is a case in point.
Countries that ignore, or aid and abet violent extremism will reap what they sow.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, martyrdom, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, trauma, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

August 20, 2021 · 12:54 am

Horror and Terror in Kabul: Pictorials

No words  required!!

   

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, military strategy, political demonstrations, power politics, taking the piss, Taliban, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes

July 22, 2021 · 9:15 pm

Dissecting Robert Kaplan’s Jaundiced Reportage: “Orientalism” Savaging Lanka

Michael Roberts 

Robert Kaplan is a well-connected Jewish American author and journalist. As one he travels widely and chose to visit Sri Lanka as a newshound in mid-2009 just after the Sri Lankan government forces had vanquished the Tamil Tiger forces and rescued about 280-290,000 Tamil ‘civilians’[1] who had been deployed as a defensive barrier and bargaining chip for about 15-17 months by the LTTE as they, the Tigers, were forced into a west-to-east retreat in the northern Vanni.

Situation Map on 23rd December 2008 & then on  8th March 2009 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, disparagement, doctoring evidence, ethnicity, historical interpretation, IDP camps, insurrections, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes

June 6, 2021 · 6:01 am

A Searing Wide-Ranging Critique from Qadri Ismail after 21/4 in 2019 ……. Now a Requiem

Qadri Ismail, in Groundviews, 5 May 2019 after the 21/4 Atrocities

Photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The Washington Post

We hadn’t seen him in years, ever since he left to work abroad. So, on the day of his return, his mother invited the extended family to lunch. As he walked through the door we reacted collectively, gasped audibly. He wore a sharp suit but sported one of those long, unkempt, rowdy beards. Perhaps, I thought, there are no barbers in Saudi Arabia. (You never know, it’s a weird place).

 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, disparagement, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, martyrdom, Muslims in Lanka, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, taking the piss, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes

April 13, 2021 · 3:38 am

The SBS: Marine Commandos of the Sri Lankan Navy

Michael Roberts

A recent article by Dishan Joseph (see below) has marked the role of a commando outfit known as the SBS, or Special Boat Service, that was developed within the Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) during the Eelam Wars.  The story is complex and demands an elaborate ‘companion piece’ that is attentive to time, combat locations, initiatives and the lessons derived from a remarkable and formidable enemy, namely, the Sea Tigers. In war one becomes like one’s opponent in order to survive. The innovativeness of the LTTE was monumental and its sea-faring capacities were one reason why it outdid-and-outbid the other Tamil militant organisations in the fight to lead the claim for independence for Thamililam during the 1980s/1990s.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under education, Eelam, ethnicity, female empowerment, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, military strategy, modernity & modernization, nationalism, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, unusual people, war reportage, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes

April 2, 2021 · 1:45 pm

Songs and Music from Auschwitz and Other Concentration Camps

Meagan Flynn, in Washington Post, 17 April 2018, where the title runs thus: “How thousands of songs composed in concentration camps are finding new life”

  Ilse Weber 1903-1944

Ilse Weber, a Jewish poet, was imprisoned at the concentration camp at Terezin in German-occupied Czechoslovakia when she wrote a song called “When I Was Lying Down in Terezin’s Children’s Clinic.” The song was about caring for sick children at the camp where Weber worked as a nurse. She had little-to-no medicine available. But she had her poetry and her music — some of which her husband managed to salvage by hiding the written verses in a garden shed after her death at Auschwitz in 1944.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, ethnicity, Fascism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Hitler, human rights, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, martyrdom, meditations, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes, World War II

March 9, 2021 · 2:01 am

The Making of Wahhabi Zealots in Sri Lanka, 1980s-2019

Michael Roberts

All those addressing the fervour that promoted the killing work of the Zahran Hashim jihadist network in Sri Lanka in April 2019 must come to grips with the modern currents of Wahhabi political thinking that go back to the outpourings of the Egyptian intellectuals Sayyid Qutb[1] and Al-Zawahiri[2] in the latter half of the 20th century. This step will then take investigators to the Al-Qaida movement[3] and thence to the more recent brand of Wahhabism embodied within ISIS.

Sayyid Qutb  al-Zawahiri

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, disparagement, Eelam, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, Middle Eastern Politics, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, propaganda, racist thinking, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, suicide bombing, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

January 19, 2021 · 12:25 pm

India Triumphant at the Gabba

A BRUISED and BATTERED INDIAN SQUAD effect a remarkable victory …. that may well equal the famous TIED TEST between the Windies and Aussies way back in 1961…

READ ALL ABOUT IT …………. https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/india-in-australia-2020-21-1223867/australia-vs-india-4th-test-12

Rishabh Pant is all smiles after guiding India home  Getty Images

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, cricket for amity, life stories, martyrdom, performance, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world events & processes

January 10, 2021 · 8:26 am

Ceylonese Enlisting in RAF during World War II: More Data

Group Captain Kumar Kirinde, SLAF (Retd)

 

Clarence Shelton Anthony Perera  was a member of the 1st batch of Ceylonese to join the RAF. As per the only ATA record available he has first served in the RAF from September 1941 to January 1943. He has left the service as a LAC. He then in April 1943 joined as a Pilot Cadet in the Air Transport Auxillary (ATA), a civilian organisation ferrying aircraft for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy ” — Charles Amarasekere Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, patriotism, performance, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

December 24, 2020 · 2:02 pm

“Murali is Not a Match for Thileepan” — says Bharathiraja

Item in The NEWS, December 2020: “Bharathiraja asks Vijay Sethupathi to avoid Muralitharan biopic, [and] calls the latter a traitor ……. “Do you want your face to be forever associated with a racist person and be looked at with hatred by people?” he has asked Vijay Sethupathi in his letter.

Thileepan during his fast unto death n September 1987

Pirapaharan visits Thileepan

Murali after capturing his 800th Test wicket 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, politIcal discourse, prabhakaran, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, taking the piss, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes, zealotry