Category Archives: politIcal discourse

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September 7, 2025 · 10:05 pm

Ramifications From Past Killings in Sri Lanka … Burgeoning Issues

Meera Srinivasan, in The Hindu 1 September 2025, where the title runs thus: “Decades Later A Difficult Story Finds Its Way to the Sinhala South” … with highlights being the work of The Editor, Thuppahi

Forensic experts has been unearthing human remains from a mass grave in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka. The number of skeletons retrieved has now crossed 200, including some of children.

The grave site and the mounting toll of human remains found in it dominate daily headlines in the country’s Tamil media, while receiving little attention in the country’s mainstream English and Sinhala media. In response to this gnawing gap, three young journalists decided they must tell the story to the majority community, Sinhala-speakers. Wasting no time, they pooled resources and made multiple reporting trips and conducted several interviews with locals and experts over the last few months to write Chemmani, a Sinhala-language book on the mass grave site in the locality, believed to contain the remains of Tamil civilians, and dating back to the mid-1990s, shortly after the Sri Lanka military captured Jaffna.

Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, ethnicity, historical interpretation, human rights, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power politics, racist thinking, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, terrorism, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, world events & processes

September 7, 2025 · 9:26 pm

Confronting Vicious Vituperation……

A RESPONSE From Thiru Kandiah in Perth – to – A Vituperative Verbal Assault on Michael Roberts From A Person who Signed Himself as “N W Goonewardena” **

My horror of involving myself in exchanges in public fora (to participate in which, I recognise, I am in any case ill-equipped) has been increasing considerably across the decades, and this has led me to send my response to your messages mentioned above via your private email rather than through your blog (is that what it is termed?).

The responses made to those messages on your blog are absolutely consistent in their complete rejection/censure of the appalling attack on you by Goonewardene that you forwarded to us in them, even while mentioning a range of reasons for the position they have adopted on it. Perhaps C.R.’s characteristically considered and dispassionate response clearly and succinctly (and without getting on your nerves as I am doing!) sums up the basic issues that underpin the consensus they together all reveal.

Filed under accountability, anti-racism, disparagement, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, racism, sri lankan society, world events & processes, zealotry

September 5, 2025 · 1:04 pm

Mahbubani’s Insightful Reading of Today’s World Order

Watch https://youtu.be/0HsAtrd8bNE?si=nUjZVm05W-67JStS

This is the lecture Australians should listen too, not the psychotic rubbish that the army of elite propaganda journalists publish each day in Australian newspapers and on TV. The lecture was given in Hong Kong. The speaker is the well known former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani who examines the changes taking place in the world today, and the implications from it.

He says “geopolitics is the most cruel game in the world”. Being a nice country is not enough. You need to be shrewd and cunning if you are going to survive. He affirms that “we live in amazing times of amazing changes around the world, and that we have an obligation to keep up with the changes and learn how to adapt to it.”

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September 4, 2025 · 2:04 pm

Ranil Wickremasinghe’s Arrest placed in Broad Context

Brigadier Ranjan de Silva, whose preferred title is “The Arrest of Ranil Wickremasinghe, Democracy and the Rule of Law ” … with highlights at end in black being those of the Author; while the other colours are impositions by Te Editor, Thuppahi

Upholding accountability: Democracy is often hailed as a system of government where the rule of law prevails over the rule of individuals. One of its most defining features is the principle that no one is above the law – not even the highest executive authority.
In recent decades, several democratic countries have demonstrated this commitment by arresting or prosecuting former heads of state for crimes ranging from corruption to abuse of power. These cases, while politically charged, underscore the resilience of democratic institutions and the importance of legal accountability.

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September 3, 2025 · 4:40 pm

Vale: Lareef Idroos

Errol Fernando in Melbourne

I am deeply saddened to hear of my very old friend Lareef’s death. He was my neighbour in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3. From the time I was 6 or 7 years old I played cricket with him under the coconut trees. The railway line and the sea were just behind the batsman! Lareef loved to bowl, and I loved to bat and so we were both happy! I spent hours, days, weeks, months and years facing his bowling. He came up with new tricks all the time and used the sea breeze very effectively! I have no memory of him batting and me bowling !

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September 3, 2025 · 4:11 pm

AI Looms Over Our Future …. Look-Out!

ITEM in LUMEN, Adelaide University Magazine, September 2025 or so … no date specified clearly & bearing this title: “The Future and AI” …. Authorship unclear: maybe Carolyn Semmler, maybe Isaac Freeman

Whether we like it, or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay. The genie is out of the bottle. Its rapid evolution has been embraced by some, and met with raised eyebrows by others.

In our earlier issue of Lumen this year, we asked readers to describe their hopes and fears for the future. AI was an overwhelmingly present theme.

We shared some of these letters with academics from both the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia to help clarify and respond to concerns on four broad themes: impact on jobs; global security; wellbeing; and the potential for cognitive decline.

Palestine and Israel news today on map – Jerusalem today – Israel News today – Palestine News today – israelpalestine.liveuamap.com

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September 2, 2025 · 12:55 pm

Transforming Gaza …… “The Great Trust”

Outback Aussie

The Great Trust is a 38-page document setting out plans to turn Gaza into a grand American Riveria by constructing over the bones and bodies of Palestinians — hotels, casinos, bordellos, condominiums, golf courses, and million-dollar seaside properties. America has no legal basis for taking control of Gaza but they want to do it anyway which is why the US and the West support the genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing, and if need be the extermination of all Palestinians in Gaza.

VISIT https://www.madamasr.com/en/2025/09/01/news/u/the-38-page-displacement-framework-for-a-tourist-hub-atop-the-rubble-of-gaza/

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September 1, 2025 · 8:10 pm

Learning Law with Aid From Colvin R de Silva

A Guy named Talagalla, … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

I am just penning this note after finishing my research for the day, before the thoughts dissipate into the quiet of the evening. The cases I read, the legislation I examined, and the scholarly writings I consulted all converged in my mind, and they brought me back to a lesson I once received from my senior, Mr. D.S. Wijesinghe, President’s Counsel, passed down from his own mentor, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva. The story of how Dr. de Silva engaged with the law has lingered in me for years, and it bears repeating, for stories carry the weight of wisdom in ways instructions never can.

Dr Colvin R de Silva

Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, education, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, meditations, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people

September 1, 2025 · 11:50 am

High Rise Overkill in Colombo City Centre

Sanjiva Wijesinha, in Facebook, where the title runs “The loss of habitat and heritage”

Last Sunday morning I went for my usual walk to Galle Face Green.

It is a habit I have cultivated over the years – an early morning walk before the sun gets too hot, when I can inhale the fresh ozone-laden air coming in from the Indian Ocean and invigorate my physical body while refreshing my mind. My custom used to be to start where the Galle Face Hotel stands, walk out towards Galle Buck and the old light house or even as far as the Port Maritime Museum and then walk back, which would take me about an hour. In recent times, I have changed my route from time to time – turning round at the roundabout opposite the old Parliament (now the Presidential Secreta-riat) and walking along the road that passes behind the Shangri-La, the ITC Ratnadipa and the Taj Samudra hotels back to my starting point. As I return along this road I can see on my left across the Beira Lake the Cinnamon City of Dreams hotel.