Category Archives: psychological urges
An Innovative Global Map
Keeping Abreast of All Countries
Filed under female empowerment, gender norms, governance, growth pole, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, photography, power sharing, psychological urges, pulling the leg, rehabilitation, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, taking the piss, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, wikileaks
An Editorial on Lone-Wolf Killers and Bombers
Ted Kaczynski, the Una Bomber USA 
Anders Breivik
Boston marathon bombing
Westmead Sydney acid attack on Sinhalese householders
The AUSTRALIAN Editorial: “Lone-wolf terror attacks require eternal vigilance,” 5 October 2015, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/lone-wolf-terror-attacks-require-eternal-vigilance/story-e6frg71x-1227556749192
Before David Irvine retired as director-general of ASIO a year ago, he repeatedly warned of the threat posed by “lone-wolf” terror attacks on Australian soil. These extremists often fly under the radar of security agencies, evading detection. So frightening is the prospect that one of these radicals could slip through the net of security agencies and inflict an act of terror on an unsuspecting, perhaps complacent, public that it kept the former security chief “awake at night”. While Australians are fighting extremist terrorism abroad — in Iraq and Syria — we also need to remain ever-vigilant about the threat of terrorism at home. After the shocking, cold-blooded murder of police employee Curtis Cheng by radicalised 15-year-old boy Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar in Sydney’s Parramatta on Friday, Mr Irvine’s nightmares have again been realised. This is not the first time Australians have been murdered or injured by lone-wolf radical extremists. Nor, regrettably, will it likely be the last. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, Australian culture, australian media, cultural transmission, fundamentalism, jihad, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, psychological urges, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Tamil migration, terrorism, trauma, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes, zealotry
A Moment of Nostalgia!!
A Triumvirate in January 2014 … who can look back from January 2015 with… WHAT THOUGHTS!@#!!$$
Donald Trump: An American Volcanic Threat to the World?
The Economist, 5 September 2015, where the title is “American Politics: Why the Trump is Dangerous”
“THIS country is a hellhole. We are going down fast,” says Donald Trump. “We can’t do anything right. We’re a laughing-stock all over the world. The American dream is dead.” It is a dismal prospect, but fear not: a solution is at hand. “I went to the Wharton School of Business. I’m, like, a really smart person,” says Mr Trump. “It’s very possible”, he once boasted, “that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures and declares “You’re fired!” at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, June 17, 2015. REUTERS/Dominick Reuter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY – RTX1GZC
When Mr Trump first announced that he was running for president, he was dismissed as a joke. A wheeler-dealer with lots of experience of reality TV but none whatsoever of elective office wants to be commander-in-chief? Surely, sophisticates scoffed, no one could want this erratic tycoon’s fingers anywhere near the nuclear button. But for weeks now he has led the polls for the Republican nomination, despite saying things that would have torpedoed any normal campaign. Americans are waking up to the possibility that a man whose hobby is naming things after himself might—conceivably—be the nominee of the party of Lincoln and Reagan. It is worth spelling out why that would be a terrible thing. Fortunately, the Donald’s own words provide a useful guide. Continue reading
Sacrificial Death in the Confirmation of Australian Nationhood
Richard A. Koenigsberg, whose essay is entitled “Warfare, Sacrificial Death and Memorialization” in its original version for an international audience at http://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/newsletter/posts/2015/2015-5-26-commemoration1.html — itself part of a Newsletter series, http://archive.benchmarkemail.com/Library-of-Social-Science
Wars are undertaken based on a structure of thought—a template enacted upon the stage of reality. In the first place—in order for a war to occur—there must be an “enemy:” a particular group or class of people imagined to be seeking to harm or to destroy one’s nation and its sacred values. Identification of this dangerous or threatening enemy generates the belief that it may be necessary to wage war—to defeat this enemy that threatens the existence of one’s nation.
Waging war requires engaging in battle, where some citizens may become casualties. Citizens who die in battle (often soldiers) are said to have made the “supreme sacrifice.” Their sacrificial death is conceived as a gift: they have given their lives to their country—so that the nation might live.
ANZAC Memorial, Hyde Park, Sydney
Subsequent to a war (or during it—as was the case in the First World War), a nation may create monuments—whose purpose is to preserve the memory of soldiers who have “given their lives” in the process of fighting for or defending the nation. Gravestones memorialize or symbolize the dead soldiers who have sacrificed their lives. Continue reading
Open Ports! The Boat People Australia wants
A Flourishing Bibliographical Tree: Tamil Migration, Asylum-Seekers and Australia
Alex Kuhendrarajah of Merak notoriety –courtesy of Australian courtesy of aus.com.au Continue reading
July 1, 2015 · 10:02 am
Warrior Cults, Shamans and War Machines — Doug Farrer at Work
Q and A with Doug Farrer ……. This post is the transcript of an electronic interview between D. S. Farrer and Berghahn blog editor Lorna Field…….. D. S. Farrer is the co-author of the article Chants of Re-enchantment: Chamorro Spiritual Resistance to Colonial Domination and special issue editor of Social Analysis Volume 58, Issue 1: War Magic and Warrior Religion: Sorcery, Cognition, and Embodiment.
Silat training–Pic from www.greatnewplaces.com
What drew you to the study of War Magic & Warrior Religion? Initially I was drawn to the study of war magic through my doctoral research into a Sufi warrior cult, where the Malay martial art (silat) was employed as a means to attract and secure local and international followers and converts. A wise informant, Dato Penggawa Tua Zaharah Mokhtar, recommended that I start with Winstedt [1925] (1993), Shaw (1976), and Skeat’s [1900] (1993) books on Malay magic to begin my research on silat. At the time I was lecturing on Weber at the National University of Singapore, so the chiasmus between warrior religion and war magic came naturally: of course, the connection also appears in Deleuze and Guattari’s [1987] (2004) Treatise on Nomadology—The War Machine, among other sources. Continue reading
Filed under cultural transmission, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, immolation, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, psychological urges, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, Taliban, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry
Talaivar Pirapāharan among the Saivite Deities today in Tamilnadu
A Concerned Reader
The extent of misinformation and blind faith that exists among those who hear, read and think only in Tamil has been highlighted by the recent news from the Sevugaraya Ayyanar temple in South Poigainallur village near Nagapattinam in South India. Apparently, Prabhakaran is raised to the level of a Guardian Deity, with the Pro-LTTE Periyar Dravida Kazhagam acting as the prime mover of this deification. Apparently, the Tamil Nadu police had moved rapidly and removed the statues. However, we can well ask what would happen when Jayalalitha recovers her full powers. Continue reading
Filed under governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, propaganda, psychological urges, religiosity, Saivism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Science Nay-Sayers in the West and their Cultural Counterparts in Sri Lanka
Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada
Galileo nearly got burnt at the stake for heresy when he claimed that the Earth orbited around the sun instead of being the fixed center of the God-created Universe. At that time most people were science Nay-Sayers. A century before Galileo, when Christopher Columbus defiantly sailed West seeking Eastern India, most people believed that the Earth was flat, as was evident to the eye. This view was common to almost all cultures, be it Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese or Hebrew. Today many of us happily believe that people are well informed in this age of the internet and Google.
motis.blogspot.com
Amazingly, the very opposite is also true. Rich counties like the USA or the Oil Kingdoms are not educated societies. Fundamentalist religions remain powerful and science Nay-Sayers are well funded and articulate. While the Western nations spend billions on scientific research, the average citizen prefers to use the fruits of science (i.e., technology) while refusing to come to terms with what he/she finds incomprehensible, counter-intuitive and often going against traditional beliefs and practices. Instead of expecting to build an improved world using science, Science Nay-Sayers take a very distopian view of modern knowledge. They, like their counterparts during Galileo’s times, seek to find solace in returning to “traditional ways”, even though Humpty-Dumpty cannot be be put back, with some 22 million new people ( population of Sri Lanka!) added to the global population every two months! Continue reading
Filed under accountability, Buddhism, cultural transmission, doctoring evidence, economic processes, education, fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, psychological urges, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world affairs, zealotry
Indo-Pak ‘War’ at Adelaide Oval, 15th February 2015
Indian ‘Extremist’ targets Pakistan: “Je suis Fanatic!!” …. and note that he is fortified by the presence of a SEA OF BLUE
