SSC PAMPHLET PROJECT
Some of you may remember this project in Sri Lanka in the 1990s directed towards making selected academic articles on the history & politics of Sri Lanka available to the English-reading public at affordable rates. My unreliable memory indicates that the personnel behind this enterprise were myself, Ananda Chittampalam, Willa Wickramasinghe and our engine, so to speak, was the press operated by Haris Hulugalla.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, British colonialism, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, democratic measures, economic processes, education policy, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, JVP, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, parliamentary elections, patriotism, photography, plantations, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, racist thinking, religious nationalism, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, terrorism, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry
Michael Roberts
After several years work in asociation with Ismeth Raheem and Percy Colin-Thome the book People Inbetween: The Burghers an the Middle Class in the Transformations within Sri Lanka, 1780s-1960s was brought out under the imprint of Savodaya Publishing Services in 1989.** Its first chapter on “Pejorative Phrases ..” was a central and critical segment of the whole work and included an illustrative çartoon that had been presented in The Island newspaper on the 27th January 1985.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, Eelam, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, unusual people
APPLENEWS conveying BBC Podcast = https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alexei-navalny-the-death-of-putins-biggest-critic/id1715473158?i=1000645632931
Russia’s most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in an Arctic Circle jail, the prison service has said. What does that mean for the future of Russia, its opposition movement and its leader, Vladimir Putin?
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, disparagement, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom & censorship, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, self-reflexivity, taking the piss, trauma, Ukraine & Its Ramifications, unusual people, vengeance
Johannes Leak is one of the cartoonists for The AUSTRALIAN newspaper. To receive his attention in whatever form is to reach the mountainearing heights of political commentary. Usman Khwaja is one of the rare sportsman to receive this áccolade’. Joining Australia’s Prime Minister [on Albanese] as a target is reach the cumulous clouds of public prominence.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, arab regimes, art & allure bewitching, australian media, authoritarian regimes, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, discrimination, ethnicity, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, nationalism, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, religiosity, self-reflexivity, taking the piss, unusual people, world events & processes
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
AFP News Item in The GUARDIAN, 11 October 2023
The Booker prize-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy could be prosecuted for a 2010 speech about Kashmir after a top official signed off on the move, according to reports in India.
Roy, 61, is one of India’s most famous living authors but her writing and activism, including her criticism of the prime minister Narendra Modi’s government, have made her a polarising figure in the country.
Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF [retd]: “A global counter-terrorism military campaign initiated by the U.S. in 2001” ……….. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror, https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/exhibit/on-the-front-lines-cia-in-afghanistan/, ChatGPT, and Google Images … [with only some photographs
Introduction: …… The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism”” (GWOT), is a global counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is also the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. The main targets of the campaign were militant Islamist and Salafi jihadist armed organisations such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their international affiliates, which were waging military insurgencies to overthrow governments of various Muslim-majority countries. Other major targets included the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed during an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency
Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, american imperialism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, counter-insurgency, ethnicity, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, insurrections, jihadists, legal issues, life stories, military strategy, photography, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, unusual people
Saturday, November 26th, 2022
By Dharshan Weerasekera Courtesy The Island On 18 May 2022, the Canadian House of Commons adopted without opposition a motion introduced by Rep. Gary Anandasangaree recognising 18 May of each year as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day” (www.parliament.ca). This follows a Bill adopted by the Ontario legislature in May 2021 calling for the week following May […]
Filed under accountability, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, communal relations, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, IMF, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, modernity & modernization, parliamentary elections, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, press freedom & censorship, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 10 March 2023, where the title reads “A visit to Marga” …. and where the highlighting embodies editorial intervention by Thuppahi
Sri Lanka’s oldest development think-tank, Marga Institute was formed in 1972, at a time of deep social unrest.
“The ideological direction of the journal will be radical in that it will unremittingly question the values and systems that hinder development. It stands for an equitable and humane social order which will eradicate social and economic privilege and which will leave no room for the concentration and arbitrary exercise of power in any form.” ………. “About Marga”, Marga Journal, Volume I, 1971
photo by Uthpala
A random jaunt in Borella took me and my research assistant to Marga Institute, in my old hometown at Kotte. Sri Lanka’s oldest development think-tank — and Sri Lanka’s oldest such institution — Marga was formed in 1972 to promote and facilitate research into the island’s socioeconomic problems. That its founding coincided with the first JVP insurrection is not fortuitous: as Gamini Samaranayake would point out, the insurrection proved for the first time that an armed group could threaten the State. Among other commentators, Gamini Keerawella, Gananath Obeyesekere, Fred Halliday, and Hector Abhayavardhana grappled with the JVP’s origins, what it was doing, and where it intended to go. It was in the midst of these often-fiery debates and discussions that Marga came to be. This essay is an attempt at framing and understanding these debates, and how Marga emerged from them.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, communal relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, economic processes, education, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, language policies, Left politics, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom & censorship, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world events & processes
thuppahi
