Kalani Kumarasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 8 March 2024 ……. where the headline runs; “Shavendra and Kamal villains in GR’s new book”
Rajapaksa recounts the dramatic circumstances which led to his ousting in 2022, describing it as a first-hand experience of an internationally-sponsored regime change operation. Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, Colombo and Its Spaces, communal relations, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, taking the piss, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, world events & processes
Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 28 February 2024 where the title runs thus: “National Elections: Ex-military Factor”... with highighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
With the presidential election scheduled for later this year, political parties represented in Parliament have stepped up efforts to forge alliances.
Ex-military personnel at a rally organized by the JVP last year (pic courtesy JVP)
In terms of the Constitution, presidential elections will have to be conducted between Sept 18 and Oct 18, 2024. The last presidential election was held in Nov 2019.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, counter-insurgency, disparagement, doctoring evidence, Eelam, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Uditha Devapriya & Uthpala Wijesuriya, … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Background: In Sri Lanka, social science research witnessed an expansion in the 1950s. Various scholars, including Stanley Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere, found their calling in anthropology, and went on to introduce and popularise the subject in local universities. This period also witnessed an increasing interest in Sri Lankan and specifically Sinhala society from Western scholars, including Edmund Leach, James Brow, and Richard Gombrich. While many local scholars active in that period have commented on how social science research evolved at Sri Lankan universities, no proper study of this has been done yet.
Filed under architects & architecture, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, Colombo and Its Spaces, commoditification, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, education policy, Eelam, electoral structures, ethnicity, female empowerment, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, immigration, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, Islamic fundamentalism, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, NGOs, parliamentary elections, patriotism, photography & its history, plantations, plural society, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, press freedom & censorship, Rajapaksa regime, religiosity, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, tourism, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes, zealotry
A NOTE from VB, an American citizen from Sri Lanka … responding to the Item in Thuppahi from “A Sri Lankan in Brisbane”
Future Leadership in USA – Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley
Citizen: “What will you do with Iran if you were President?”
Hayley: “What I said to Netanyahu …. Finish them! Finish them! They are only going to try and kill us and kill Israelis …..”
No worries, guys! The land of the free and the home of the brave will be in good hands!
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, arab regimes, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, electoral structures, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, racism, security, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, world events & processes, World War Three?, zealotry
Details of this book POLITICAL CONFLICT IN SOUTH ASIA, University of Peradeniya publication, 2013 …………. ISBN – 978-955-589-169-1………..Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher, The Vice-Chancellor, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Printed by Balin & Co. (Pvt.) Ltd. 61, D. S. Senanayake Street, Kandy, Sri Lanka +94 0817429050 ……………. Fax. +94 081 2222584 ………………………… Cover design: Dr. Manjula Peiri
Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Sir Nicholas Atygalle, Vice Chancellor of the University Ceylon (1955-66), and my teachers: Karthigesu Kularatnam & George Thambyahpillay at Peradeniya, and Bertram Hughes Farmer at Cambridge
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, demography, discrimination, economic processes, electoral structures, ethnicity, foreign policy, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian General Elections, Indian Ocean politics, Islamic fundamentalism, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, modernity & modernization, nationalism, parliamentary elections, patriotism, politIcal discourse, population, power politics, Presidential elections, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Sarah Kabir and ROAR on “A Journey of a Demcracy: The Sri Lankan Story”
ROAR is embarking on the generation of a documentary thatseeks to create awareness and understanding of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history…… SEE INITIAL NOTICE: https://thuppahis.com/2021/11/19/imaginative-explorations-of-sri-lankas-history-on-the-cards/#more-56776
Project Intervention
It has been over a decade since the end of Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict, but what we have today is ‘negative peace’ – which is the absence of overt violence. Limited understanding of Sri Lanka’s history, politics, democracy, ambition, intent, and the refusal to acknowledge acts of intolerance and discrimination that destroyed lives and led to bloodshed makes it increasingly difficult to avoid the recurrence of violence and we risk repeating the same mistakes. Today, we are confronted with choices that could lead to positive peace or a resumption of cycles of violence. Even now, the difficulties of dealing with COVID-19 and the resulting economic fallout could lead to social unrest that may morph into inter-communal violence if manipulated. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, constitutional amendments, cultural transmission, democratic measures, demography, devolution, discrimination, economic processes, education policy, electoral structures, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, Islamic fundamentalism, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, language policies, law of armed conflict, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, parliamentary elections, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Presidential elections, press freedom & censorship, propaganda, racist thinking, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, refugees, religiosity, riots and pogroms, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, trauma, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes
Sugath Kulatunga
At independence we had a stable democracy, a sound economy, and an effective public service and external assets equal to 100 percent of annual import value. We were second to Japan on almost all social indicators and above South Korea as late as in the mid-sixties. Singapore’s per capita income was just a little bit higher than Sri Lanka at that time. It is now over USD 64,000 whereas ours is USD 3852. The immediate looming question is why Sri Lanka with better physical resources failed to advance like Singapore.
Filed under accountability, colonisation schemes, commoditification, communal relations, economic processes, historical interpretation, island economy, land policies, language policies, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Derek Thompson, in The Atlantic, 13 January 2021 …. where the title reads “The Meaning of Trump’s Mass Cancellation” ….
This is how the president’s term ends—with the GOP dithering and CEOs swashbuckling, spared by the “deep state” but impeached in the free market.
Six days after the Capitol riot, it seems unlikely that President Donald Trump will be removed from office before the end of his term, either by the invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment or by conviction in the Senate.
Filed under accountability, democratic measures, disparagement, economic processes, electoral structures, governance, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, self-reflexivity, trauma, unusual people, world events & processes
Richard A. Koenigsberg
Abstract: All the nonsense about “diagnosing” Donald Trump: calling him a “malignant narcissist,” for example: The delusion that giving identifying or naming Trump’s pathology–somehow constitutes an “explanation.”
I understand 70 million people voted for Trump in the recent election. The question is WHAT WAS TRUMP SAYING AND/OR DOING THAT APPEALED TO SO MANY PEOPLE?
I’ve analyzed Hitler for years. There are things one might say about Hitler’s “personality.” However, the central question is: What was Hitler saying–that the German people found so appealing?
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, cultural transmission, disparagement, economic processes, European history, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Hitler, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, performance, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world events & processes
Gerald Peiris, whose original refereed essay in 2005 in Faultlines, Volume 17, Journal of the Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi …. is entitled “Federalism and the ‘Federal Option’ for Sri Lanka” ….. Its Table of Contents is reproduced at the end of this presentation.
On Federalism as a Modality of Conflict Resolution
“The successful operation of federal systems requires a particular kind of political environment, one that is conducive to popular government and has the requisite traditions of political cooperation and self-restraint. Beyond this, federal systems operate best in societies with sufficient homogeneity of fundamental interests to allow a great deal of latitude to local government and permit reliance upon voluntary collaboration. The use of force to maintain domestic order is even more inimical to the successful maintenance of federal patterns of government than to other forms of popular government. Federal systems are most successful in societies that have the human resources to fill many public offices competently and the material resources to afford a measure of economic waste as part of the price of liberty”.
Filed under accountability, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, economic processes, electoral structures, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, prabhakaran, Presidential elections, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
thuppahi
