Gus Mathews
This is a very incisive interview with Tamara Kunanayakam, a former ambassador to the UNHRC in Geneva. In a no-nonsense manner she unravels why the pursuit of Sri Lanka by the Western nations is taking place.
Category Archives: news fabrication
A Humanitarian Military Act in an Era of Horrendous Powerplays
Capt Elmo Jayawardena, in The Island, 24 March 2021,where the title is “The Pilot”
The UNHRC is in full swing. The ‘merchants of Geneva’ are getting ready to shoot their arrows of justice against the offenders of this planet. Of course, it is done democratically, by honourable people in Saville Row suits who sit around polished mahogany tables and determine by a count of votes who is guilty and who is not. That is the showpiece; but the truth could be so very different. Powerful people call the tune, and the theme is “You lend me your mule and I will remember you when it is your turn to take the stand. Then I’ll lend you my donkey.”
Filed under accountability, atrocities, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, communal relations, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, meditations, news fabrication, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, refugees, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
High-Level Western Picture of Uyghur Genocide directed towards Shaming China
Ajit Singh: “Independent’ report claiming Uyghur genocide brought to you by sham university, neocon ideologues lobbying to ‘punish’ China” … 17 March 2021, at https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/17/report-uyghur-genocide-sham-university-neocon-punish-china/
US media hailed a Newlines Institute report accusing China of Uyghur genocide as a “landmark” independent analysis. A look beneath the surface reveals it as a regime change propaganda tool by interventionist operatives at a sham university.
Ajit Singh
Throughout March 2021, headlines in corporate media outlets from CNN to The Guardian blared about the release of the “first independent report” to authoritatively determine that the Chinese government has violated “each and every act” of the United Nations convention against genocide, and therefore “bears State responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs.”
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, conspiracies, elephant tales, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, law of armed conflict, legal issues, life stories, meditations, military strategy, news fabrication, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes, zealotry
Trump and Hitler in Same Bed? Generating Love and Hate?
A NOTE from Richard Koenigsberg, March 2021 …. in an Item presented four years back and headed thus: “Is Trump Stealing Hitler’s Playbook? How does One Test the Truth of a Hypothesis: Predictive Validity.”
Hitler addressing rally in May 1937 — Associard Press Photo …https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/books/review/the-nazi-menace-benjamin-carter-hett.html
Donald Trump speaking at Phoenix on 23rd June 2020 (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-24/trump-phoenix-speech-demagogue)
A wonderful Internet radio program, Howard Bloom Saves the Universe, is hosted by Chad Dougatz. Howard invited me to join the show to explore the question, “Why does Donald Trump stir us (either negatively or positively).”
Filed under accountability, atrocities, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, Fascism, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Hitler, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, nationalism, news fabrication, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, racist thinking, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes
The Far Eastern Bureau and Its News Reels during World War II
Tony Donaldson
I enjoyed reading Michael Roberts’s short essay titled “Michael’s Testimony for VE Day in Britain, 8th May 1945,” published at Thuppahi on 10 May 2020. But I felt the story ended too quickly, leaving me to ponder where the story goes next. It would be good if Michael could continue this story. In the meantime, the following short note was triggered by Michael’s comment about the “insidious impact of Movietone News or Pathe News.”
After 3 September 1939, when Britain went to war with Germany, the British Ministry of Information (MOI) began arranging with numerous companies the release and distribution of their newsreels. One example was The Battle of Tobruk which was sent by plane to Colombo in March 1941. It was cleared through customs and distributed to cinemas in Colombo in time for screening at the evening shows on the same day the film arrived in Ceylon.
Filed under British colonialism, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, military expenditure, military strategy, modernity & modernization, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Tamara’s Biography from Her Pen in Answer to Wikileak Twists
Tamara Kunanayakam, with black highlights being her para headlines and the others my imposition as Editor, Thuppahi
Dear All,
This is in response to Hiran Cooray and extracts he posted about me from Wiki[eaks]. I would like to make the following corrections and clarifications.
On my family: I was born in Nuwara Eliya (not Colombo), where my father, as a government servant, had been posted. As an active member of the GCSU, he spent his working life as a government servant being transferred from one ‘punishment station’ to another for his trade union activities. In 1947, as Colombo leader of the GCSU (with TB Illangaratne as its President then), he led the Colombo walk-out that led to Sri Lanka’s first General Strike, (Sri Lanka was(then “Ceylon” and still under British colonial rule). Because of his eternal transfers (Polonnaruwa, Matale, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Nuwara Eliya …), until he took early retirement and began working full time training trade unionists, we all lived literally out of our suitcases with my brother and I in boarding school in Colombo. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, doctoring evidence, economic processes, ethnicity, female empowerment, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, Tamil civilians, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Foregone Conclusions from the UNHRC’s Forthcoming Charade in Geneva
Chandre Dharma-wardana – responding to a vibrant EMAIL DISCUSSION among Sri Lankans re what should be done at the forthcoming human rights charade at the UNHRC in Geneva
I personally think it doesn’t matter who Sri Lanka sends to Geneva. This whole thing is NOT based on facts. It is NOT based on what was said, is said or will be said. They KNOW the facts. The UNHRC’s commissioner is not a fool, but a seasoned politician. If she wants, she can get at the facts.
Filed under accountability, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, disparagement, doctoring evidence, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, news fabrication, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, world events & processes
QAnon Right-Wing Extremists and Scott Morrison: Ominous Togetherness
Christopher Knaus and Josh Taylor, in an essay in 2019 which gains relevance in the light of the recent events in Capital Hill in Washington …. This essay was entitled “Revealed: the QAnon conspiracy theorist who is friends with Australian PM Scott Morrison”
A significant Australian proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory is a family friend of Scott Morrison, and his wife is on the prime minister’s staff. The sprawling, disjointed and incoherent QAnon conspiracy variously claims that Donald Trump is leading a behind-the-scenes fight against a shadowy deep state, that powerful forces are hiding and protecting satanic paedophile rings, and that a secretive individual named Q leaves clues for his followers to decipher on internet forums.
Filed under american imperialism, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, disparagement, economic processes, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, life stories, modernity & modernization, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, taking the piss, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world affairs, world events & processes
The Despicable. Perfidy Personified. Todays’ Trump in His Dumps
Jolly Somasundram, whose chosen title is “The Banana Republican: A Churl’s Last Stand”
Nothing made him so despicable, as his manner of not conceding.
To concede or not to concede, that is the question.
Whether, ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows
Of a stolen, outrageous electoral scam or, take proactive action against
Big media, Big tech, Big pharma, deep state, trying, by opposing them,
Finally to end their hegemony. Then sleep in the entitled White House
For the next four years, to enjoy pubic governance, heart aches,
And delicious thousand thrills that the flesh is heir to;
‘Tis a consummation devotedly to be wished.
Rail, Rail against egregiously cast of hora votes and the jilmaat.
For who, except I, could attend to the whips and scorns of our times
Oppressors rights, my predecessor’s contumely- he thinks
A Nobel Prize (which I disdained) is everything- the pangs of unrequited love,
The insolence of office. Who would better bear the whips and scorns of these times,
The impudence of NATO, WTO, WHO, living on US subventions but abusing the US?
Show all of them the finger! Only I have the guts to do so.
I am the Greatest, better than Alexander in military matters, superior to Shakespeare,
A more elevated thinker than Plato, by far the better speaker than Lincoln.
I am a stable genius. Why should I concede to a stolen election won by fraud?
Apologies “Hamlet”
