Category Archives: political demonstrations

September 24, 2022 · 1:45 am

Deeply Wounded. Also Divided? Sri Lanka Today

Neloufer De Mel, in History Today, Vol 72/8, September 2022, where the title reads “Sri Lanka’s Deep Wounds” **

On 31 March 2022 a public protest occurred in the vicinity of the home of the Sri Lankan president Gotabhaya Rajapakse. The protest marked frustration at the shortages of essential commodities (gas, medicines, fuel) and the gruelling ten-to-13-hour power cuts imposed by a cash-strapped government with insufficient dollars to pay for imported fuel. The protestors also sought answers as to why certain neighbourhoods (such as Mirihana, where the president lived) continued to enjoy uninterrupted power.

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September 19, 2022 · 8:44 pm

Multi-faceted Campaign against the SL Government Crackdown on the Aragalaya

HRW …. 31 August 2022 …………. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/31/sri-lanka-end-use-terrorism-law-against-protesters 

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August 25, 2022 · 10:33 am

A Sturdy Lankan Student Protest Petition, 22 August 2022

A PETITION: Stop Labelling Student Protestors as Terrorists. 22 August 2022

We are a group of feminists writing to call urgent attention to the extra-constitutional attempts of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to suppress dissent. Lacking a popular mandate, hunting down student protestors and activists, including a LGBTIQ activist has become a central strategy of the political élite to retain power. The latest move by the GoSL is to brand three student leaders and the student union they represent, the Inter University Student Federation (IUSF), as ‘terrorists’.

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August 22, 2022 · 1:04 am

Irony. Defiance. Salman Rushdie’s Appreciation of the Everyday within the Heat of the Fatwa

Fintan O’Toole, in The Irish Times, 15 August 2022, where the title runs “The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of it was unimaginable”  ………..  reproduced here with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi   &*&

The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of meeting Salman Rushdie was unimaginable. It was after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against him. Rushdie had disappeared from the face of the earth.

By refusing to subsist in living death they prescribed for him, the author stood up for life itself as the ordinary human birthright.

 

 

I went to a party in County Wicklow. Seeing him standing in the kitchen with a glass of wine was like meeting Lazarus.

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August 20, 2022 · 9:13 pm

Wickremasinghe: President & Strongman? Reprehensible Acts

Andrew Fidel Fernando, in The Indian Express,  18 August 2022, where the title reads thus “New Sri Lankan president is focused on protecting upper-class interests” … with highlighting here being impositions from The editor Thuppahi

As if acting out the first half-page of a “How to be a Despot” pocketbook, President Ranil Wickremesinghe has spent his first weeks in Sri Lanka’s highest office beating down and rounding up protesters, while the nation continues to gasp for its barest necessities.

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August 19, 2022 · 2:25 pm

Western Misrepresentations of China’s Actions in Sri Lanka Continue

Fair Dinkum, … an original set of thoughts … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

It’s good to see Australia providing aid to SL though its peanuts compared to the aid provided by India and China. This article is a good example of an Anglo-Saxon reading of an Asian situation.

Some flawed claims by the Anglo-Saxons at The Age in this article are, 

– The claim China was “flexing its muscles” by “insisting on docking a giant scientific research ship despite concerns raised by India”.  There is no mention that India had earlier flexed its muscles by insisting Sri Lanka deny entry to the vessel. And no analysis as to whether India had genuine security concerns or were simply politically posturing. There was also no mention of India’s interference into Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

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August 18, 2022 · 2:34 am

Three News Items on Sri Lanka’s Crisis in The Economist

ONE = From The ECONOMIST magazine, Summer Issue, 30 July – 12th August … & the Mid-August Issue The Economist

On the evening of July 21st, a relaxed mood prevailed in Sri Lanka’s presidential secretariat on the seafront of Colombo, the capital. A handful of protesters milled about in the entrance hall, which they had occupied on July 9th and turned into a library full of donated books. They said they were planning to return the premises to the state the following day, having succeeded in driving from office Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the disgraced former president.

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August 4, 2022 · 1:36 am

“Be the Change” — An Appraissal of THE ARAGALAYA

Anonymous Pen **

Most people that I know, came to Galle Face on a weekend, waved the National Flag and shouted a few catchy slogans to cleanse their souls, took selfies and went home for a warm shower, had dinner and went to sleep, thinking that they had taken part in some heroic and historic act of Aragalaya.

 

 

 

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August 1, 2022 · 8:10 pm

University Federation of Dons condemn Sri Lankan Government’s Actions

Item in The Island, 1 August 2022, where the title runs thus “Dons Condemn Suppression of Aragalaya”

“Tyrannical governments and illegitimate leaders throughout history have led their societies to destruction”

The Federation of University Teachers (FUTA) says that the Wickremasinghe-Rajapaksa government lacks any legitimacy and it should stop taking cover behind the Constitution.In a statement condemning what it termed as “repression of aragalaya activists by the current regime” the university teachers have said that “the tyrannical governments and illegitimate leaders throughout history have led their societies to destruction.”

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July 29, 2022 · 8:24 pm

From Banda to Gota

Laleen Jayamanne, in The Island, 20 & 27 July 2022 where the title runs thus: “Teargas cinema and Rukmani Devi”

“I have never found anything to excite the people in quite the way this language issue does”–– Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike to a journalist.

If true, this observation attributed to Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, is quite chilling in its cynicism. ‘Excitement’ is a political emotion here and SWRD appears to take a distance from it, observing somewhat clinically, how ‘this language issue’ stirs up ‘the people’. Politicians are especially crafty, cunning, when they know how to excite people with ideas that they themselves may or may not truly believe in.

A protester covering the eyes of the Bandaranaike statue at Galle Face

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