Sanjiva Wijesinha
Category Archives: migrant experiences
Sanjiva’s Silken “SILK ROAD” Launched Today
Sanjiva Wijesinha
Filed under art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, growth pole, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, power politics, security, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Drs Yasodhara & Vimukthi Kumaratunga in Britain
DATA secured from Internet Sources by The EDITOR, THUPPAHI
News Item presented by Walter Jayawardena
The wedding of London educated daughter Yasodhara of Sri Lanka’s former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and a Consultant medical practitioner Roger Walker was announced in London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper in a paid advertisement about three weeks ago.
Following the British tradition of calling Consultant level medical practitioners as Mister the Telegraph advertisement called the groom as Mr.R.H.M. Walker and the just passed out young doctor bride as Dr.M.Y.S. Kumaratunga.
UNHRO Calls for Investigation of Past Killings in Lanka
Tamil and Sinhala versions attached
Sri Lanka has opportunity to break from past – Türk
GENEVA (13 August 2025) – A report published today by the UN Human Rights Office calls on Sri Lanka’s Government to seize the historic opportunity to break with entrenched impunity, implement transformative reforms, and deliver long-overdue justice and accountability for serious violations and abuses committed in the past, including international crimes.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, demography, Eelam, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, migrant experiences, military expenditure, military strategy, parliamentary elections, patriotism, photography, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, population, power politics, racism, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, violence of language, war crimes, world events & processes, zealotry
Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills: German Settlers From 1839 On ….
Keith Conlon in a Genealogical Society of Queensland – GSQ’s post =deospnoStrg8 r42uti9lf3m8pgff0il26tl5f1tag2f57flti74h033aA5t · … entitled “From Prussa to Hahndorf in South Australia. Thanks to Keith Conlon”
The end of an epic pioneer voyage: it began in Silesia, Prussia, for the ‘Old Lutheran’ religious refugees who founded Hahndorf in South Australia in August 1839.
John Ford waterccolour
Monument Australia Continue reading
Filed under architects & architecture, Australian culture, centre-periphery relations, colonisation schemes, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, European history, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, outmigration, refugees, religiosity, transport and communications, travelogue, world events & processes
From Kamburupitiya … Malkanthi’s Multi-Faceted Journey
Fazli Sameer in Those Fuzzy Days, July 2025 … presented in fazli@substack.com with a slightly different title and the sub-title: “A trek through days of milk, honey, and roses”
In the small southern village of Kamburupitiya, nestled amidst the mist-covered hills of the southern coastal city of Matara, a determined teenage girl named Malkanthi prepared for a journey that would alter the course of her life. At sixteen, she was the pride of her village school, a bright, kind-hearted girl who had earned a scholarship to pursue her higher studies in Colombo.
Filed under centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, migrant experiences, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Prussian Lutheran Migration to Australia in the 19th Century
Keith Conlon in Linked In
A momentous exodus of ‘0ld Lutheran’ religious refugees to South Australia began hashtagOTD 8 July 1838. Families from Klemzig in Prussia (now Poland) sailed down the Oder River to Hamburg, their departure point for the new reformist colony of South Australia. The ‘Paradise of Dissent’ offered freedom of religion.
A 1938 memorial for their leader Pastor August Kavel at Langmeil Church in the Barossa Valley credits him as‘The founder of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia’.
Kavel Memorial Monument Australia
Filed under architects & architecture, Australian culture, British colonialism, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, ethnicity, European history, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, self-reflexivity, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Introducing A Cutting Edge Journal: SOUTH ASIA
Michael Roberts
SOUTH ASIA has been a form of Australian exploration — in the plural form of manifold journeys and investigations — in South Asia for several decades. I was a small cog in this cluster of activities some 20 years back; but, alas, fell away. Some old partners in arms are still part of the Editorial Advisory Board; but its a fresh and bright team that is bringing the Indian subcontinent into the Aussie arena. Sri Lankan scholars and readers need to take note of this work and chip in with their own ‘commentary’ — whether in article form or as avid readers.
Check https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/csas20 …. AND/OR write to shameem.black@anu.edu.au ……….. OR ……………………….. priya.chacko@adelaide.edu.au
Filed under ancient civilisations, australian media, British imperialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, electoral structures, ethnicity, European history, governance, heritage, Hinduism, historical interpretation, Indian General Elections, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, Indian traditions, land policies, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, migrant experiences, modernity & modernization, parliamentary elections, patriotism, pilgrimages, plural society, politIcal discourse, Portuguese imperialism, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, power politics, Presidential elections, press freedom & censorship, racism, Rajiv Gandhi, religiosity, riots and pogroms, security, self-reflexivity, terrorism, transport and communications, working class conditions, world events & processes, zealotry
Palestine Tomorrow: A Bold Forecast from A Lankan Seer
A Sri Lankan Seer ……. “Compatible neighbors”
Arabs and Jews lived in relative peace in Palestine before 1948.
The Zionist movement was established by European Jews and Israel (which became a state in 1948) was a settler colonization project that served as a garrison state in the oil rich middle east for protecting the interests of the Western imperial power Britain and later USA.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, ethnicity, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, migrant experiences, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, religious nationalism, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry
Rambanctious Middle-Class Ceylonese of Yesteryear
A NOTE from the THUPPAHIYAA, 25 February 2025
This email memo from a ‘middle class’ Sri Lankan born before World War Two and nurtured in an elite college whci addresses mates nourished in the same schools and planter/military circles is of considerable socio-political significance. Its implications are all the stronger because the “Letter” is An Epitaph for Richard Hermon, an Extraordinary and Rambanctious Sri Lankan of the Old School.
AN EMAIL MEMO from Retd Major Lalin Fernando to a Circle of Ceylonese Pals, 23 February 2025
Dickie was in Alison, a bit junior to me. His cousins Duncan and Tyrone were there too Dickie played Rugby with me in the 2nd XV v SPC (1955) on their grounds when he was 14 or less. There were no age groups then. The Peterites average age would have been around 19. It included their Cricket captain Ken (20 yrs old) but not Russel Duckworth. Dont know if Lakshman Serasinghe too played. Our oldest would have been 16 or so. The first XV match was played before our match as the seniors wanted to watch the CR v CH match. It left us brats to the after the match mercies of the Bamba crowd!
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, nationalism, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Migration Scams Rampant in Sri Lanka
Niruni de Mel in The Island, 16 February 2024 … where the title runs thus: “Scammed and Stranded: The Dark Side of Sri Lanka’s Migration Industry”
A fisherman from the quiet town of Mannar sold his mother’s, sisters’, and sister-in-law’s jewelry and, with a loan from his brother, paid a migration agent Rs. 12.8 million for a Canadian visa. Months later, he discovered the agent had vanished, leaving his family in crippling debt and his dreams in ruins. His story is not unique. Across Sri Lanka, countless desperate individuals fall prey to fraudulent migration schemes, losing their life savings in the process.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, debt restructuring, demography, economic processes, ethnicity, historical interpretation, human rights, island economy, life stories, migrant experiences, politIcal discourse, security, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, world events & processes
