Category Archives: plural society

December 14, 2015 · 10:55 pm

Benedict Anderson crosses Another Border

Jeet Heer, 14 December 2015, courtesy of https://newrepublic.com/article/125706/benedict-anderson-man-without-country?utm_content=buffer29b54&utm_medium=social&utm source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer, where the title is Benedict Anderson, Man Without a Country

BBEN ANDERSONBenedict Anderson, who died yesterday at age 79 in Malang, Indonesia, is internationally famous for his 1983 book Imagined Communities, far and away the most influential study of nationalism. Unlike earlier scholars who took a negative view of the subject, Anderson saw nationalism as an integrative imaginative process that allows us to feel solidarity for strangers. “In an age when it is so common for progressive, cosmopolitan intellectuals (particularly in Europe?) to insist on the near-pathological character of nationalism, its roots in fear and hatred of the Other, and its affinities with racism, it is useful to remind ourselves that nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-sacrificing love,” Anderson wrote in Imagined Communities. “The cultural products of nationalism—poetry, prose fiction, music, plastic arts—show this love very clearly in thousands of different forms and styles.” Continue reading →

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December 14, 2015 · 2:28 am

Moving from Nationalism to Multiculturalism: A Lake House Editorial Plea in Sirisena’s Voice

Daily News, 14 December 2015 … with emphases being the additions from The Editor, thuppahi who has also taken the liberty of dding a few bibliographical references from his own pen.

For the past 65 years, we have been talking a great deal about national unity. We talked amongst ourselves, in the media, at meetings and in legislative bodies. Yet, even with such a plethora of discussions, we still disagree over how national unity is best achieved, what it should look like, and precisely what it is that needs to be unified. We are always in question and, strangely, we have no shortage of answers – answers that are painfully polarized.

We often talk as if we have discovered the answer to our national question, but our tone of voice has a predictable, almost scripted, quality. Having rehearsed our lines, assumed our positions, and located our opponents, we are ready to perform. Some of us demand equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of their cultural, ethnic, racial, language, religious, gender, or other characteristics, saying Sri Lankan citizenship must be left undifferentiated, equal, and symmetrical.

Multi-cultural SL  independence-commemoration

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October 27, 2015 · 2:09 am

The Realities of Eelam War IV

Michael Roberts, courtesy of the essay in Colombo Telegraph  entitled “Down–to-Earth: The Hard Truths of Eelam War IV, ” which , alas, does not contain the vital hyperlinks. Nor does it contain the illustrative maps and images that are a vital component of any survey … and which therefore adorn this article. A fuller pictorial history can be seen in Roberts, Tamil Person and State. Pictorial, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2014, ISBN 978-955-665-231-4     

AA=pulidevan “Just as in Kosovo if enough civilians died in Sri Lanka the world would be forced to step in” – Pulidevan of LTTE to a pal in Europe (quoted in Harrison 2012: 63). Frances H--plus Harrison—Pic from www.tamilnet.com

Guided by a series of studies that I have indulged in over the years 2010-15, let me summarize my findings in point form. The focus is on the period 2008-to-May 2009. However, four facets of the broad historical context must be stressed initially: (I) Prabhākaran had one goal only: Eelam and a separate state; (II) the LTTE used two ceasefire periods in 1995 and 2001-06 as recuperating periods for renewal of their war effort; (III) as Ben Bavinck and the UTHR reports have insisted, Thamilīlam under Prabhākaran was a fascist state; and (IV) the Rajapaksa government which struggled for survival against the LTTE proved the validity of the Marxist dictum that there is an unity in any contradiction: it became distinctly authoritarian itself, albeit still populist in its self-convictions. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2015 · 7:09 am

A Pictorial Feast: Imaging the Isle Across … Vintage Photography from Ceylon

Alkazi Foundation of the Arts

The Archaeological Survey of India and National Museum in collaboration with Alkazi Foundation for the Arts is organizing an exhibition titled ‘Imaging the Isle Across:Vintage Photography from Ceylon’. Drawn exclusively from the Alkazi Collection of Photography, this exhibition is a collateral event of the Delhi Photo Festival, 2015;and will also be one of the events commemorating the 90th year of the art collector, Ebrahim Alkazi. The exhibition will showcase an overview of the early imagery from Sri Lanka for the very first time as part of an eclectic exhibition, showcasing vintage images from the late 19th and early 20th century.

2 The Kandy Perahära

10 Lordly planters & their minions Continue reading →

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October 7, 2015 · 1:19 pm

An Assessment of the Rajapaksa Regime in late 2009: Brickbats and Plaudits

Michael Roberts, presented originally in Groundviews on 17th December 2009, http://groundviews.org/2009/12/17/the-rajapakse-regime-brickbats-plaudits/ … where the comments were enlightening and well-informed –rather in contrast with the acerbic carping directed at my more recent articles in that venue [so that some selections will soon be reproduced below, while a new section  at the end adds a limited bibliography that extends to the present day]

This is a disjointed exercise that does not claim comprehensiveness. That is impossible in a short essay, the more so because I write without ethnographic exposure to the experiential subjectivities of either the Tamil people in Sri Lanka or the poor people from every community struggling with the cost of living.

MR king 1 -www.youtubecom Pic from http://www.youtubecom

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse addresses to supporters as he attends an election rally in the Colombo suburb of Piliyandala on January 5, 2015. Gunmen shot and wounded three opposition activists who were preparing a stage for President Mahinda Rajapakse's chief rival on the final day of campaigning in Sri Lanka's election, police said. The men were hit in a drive-by shooting as they erected a podium for Maithripala Sirisena to address a rally in the southern town of Kahawatte, around 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the capital Colombo. AFP PHOTO / LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI

AFP PHOTO / LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI

Terrible Record: In a recent essay I have briefly annotated the government’s failure to prevent a series of killings and intimidations directed against media personnel and the widespread belief that elements in its sprawling establishment had a hand in many of these acts of injustice.[1]

In step with this record the Rajapaksa Regime has consolidated the long tradition of overcentralised decision-making and authoritarianism at the top that has been a feature of Sri Lanka’s so-called democratic institutions for many decades.[2] It is not surprising, therefore, that little or nothing has been done to initiate a genuine devolution of power in ways that would give the Tamil and Muslim peoples a goodly glass of political hope. All they have received so far is sweet words. Continue reading →

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October 5, 2015 · 2:02 pm

A Moment of Nostalgia!!

A Triumvirate in January 2014 … who can look back from January 2015 with… WHAT THOUGHTS!@#!!$$

MR Telli 44 Continue reading →

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October 4, 2015 · 2:23 pm

Enjoy Sri Lanka with Romesh Ranganathan

Romesh Ranganathan, 30 Septmber 2015, courtey of http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/sep/30/asian-provocateur-romesh-ranganathan-in-sri-lanka?CMP=share_btn_tw

Cockney Lanka: Romesh Ranganathan in Asian Provocateur.
Cockney Lanka: Romesh Ranganathan in Asian Provocateur. Photograph: Benjamin Green/BBC/Rumpus Media

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September 18, 2015 · 1:52 pm

Diannah Paramour arouses an Australian Tamil Tiger Nest, Mid-2015

Michael Roberts

Diannah Paramour is a lady in her sixties who sees herself as “a humanitarian” and an Aussie patriot vehemently opposed to all forms of terrorism nesting within the Australian continent. Arising from circumstances that I have yet to fully decipher,[1] the following sequence of events unfolded in mid-2015:

  • Paramour took umbrage in May 2015 at the display of an LTTE flag at an Australian institution (see image of Geelong Trades Union Building below) and
  • When she discovered that a Tamil organisation was holding a public meeting at the Springvale Town Hall in Melbourne on the 18thMay 2015 in association with the Australian Trades Union to mark the “genocide” of the Sri Lankan Tamil people, she used her own resources to fly there[2] and attend the meeting with her daughter Caterina as companion.
  • After watching and listening to the speeches and dramatic performances watched by an audience of circa 450 at the Town Hall, she was aroused by the display of a Tamil Tiger flag alongside the Australian flag and challenged the performance by walking up to the front and displaying the Sri Lankan flag and some pictorial illustrations of LTTE atrocities.[3]
  • She was immediately surrounded by a lot of men and became the victim of a scuffle where the yanking and jostling left her injured. In a recent email she elaborates upon these consequences: “One fracture right hand when the man bent my hand after grabbing it and holding it tightly backwards, he didn’t let go even when I called out ‘you’ve broken my finger’ because I felt a snap and sharp pain in my little finger so I assumed it was my finger. Broken rib left side caused by two men pushing me back against the stage. Tendon left shoulder broken trying two times to hold onto my flag, as I pulled back my flag the first time his second successful attempt was more violent. My bones are easy to break, so is my heart but not my duty to serve Sri Lanka, no one will break that” (email, 19 September 2015)
  • Police had been called and she was taken to a nearby police station where she accused Tim Goodman (Secretary, Australian Trades Union, who was one of the organisers) of assault.

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September 13, 2015 · 2:27 pm

Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her “Infidel: My Life” …….. 2006

I. The book Infidel: My Life, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali ….Courtesy of Wikipedia 

Infidel (2006/published in English 2007) is the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-Dutch activist and politician. Out of consideration for the safety of the female ghostwriter, her identity is not given, as Hirsi Ali has attracted controversy[1]and death threats were made against Ali in the early 2000s.[2] 

INFIDEL coverSynopsis: Hirsi Ali writes about her youth in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya; about her flight to the Netherlands where she applied for political asylum, her university experience in Leiden, her work for the Labour Party, her transfer to the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, her election to Parliament, and the murder of Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the film Submission. The book ends with a discussion of the controversy regarding her application for asylum and status of her citizenship. Continue reading →

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September 10, 2015 · 3:10 pm

Brainstorming on Constitutional Reform and Citizenship — in Colombo Soon

 sanjanaCurator’s Note: “Corridors of power: Drawing and modelling Sri Lanka’s tryst with democracy

 What is a constitution? What place and relevance, if any, does it have in the popular imagination? Do citizens really care about an abstract document most would never have seen or read, when more pressing existential concerns continue to bedevil their lives and livelihoods, even post-war?

My struggle through curation has always been to explore the inconvenient and marginal through new or alternative ways of observing. Through visual art, theatre, sculpture, music, photography, literature, video and information visualisations, I have creatively leveraged unusual pairings and strange juxtapositions to shift complacency and apathy to critical reflection and engagement.

JJayampathy -- Jayampathy Channa- www.361degrees.ne Channa asanga Asanga

‘Corridors of power’ is my most ambitious curatorial attempt yet. When, years ago, I studied the process through which South Africa negotiated the transition out of apartheid rule – which involved a paradigm shift in their constitutional frameworks – I registered the use of a wide range of media at the time (before the days of social media, smartphones and the Internet as we know it today) to critically support debates amongst civil society that were as rooted in locale as they were widespread over geography. It occurred to me – with all the technological tools and platforms in use by so many today, why are constitutional reform and related debates still so alien to and removed from society in Sri Lanka – a country seven times smaller in size than South Africa, with far less identity groups and just three instead of eleven official languages? Continue reading →

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