HILLEL ITALIE in Associated Press, 25 April 2023, ….“Harry Belafonte, activist and entertainer, dies at 96” … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a ground-breaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96. Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his New York home, his wife Pamela by his side, said publicist Ken Sunshine.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, discrimination, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, racism, self-reflexivity, social justice, theatre world, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Shamara Wettimuny in Financial Times, 12 April 2023 … with highlighting added by The Editor, Thuppahi
On a muggy Friday afternoon, the auditorium of the National Library of Sri Lanka slowly filled with an eager audience from Colombo, the Hill Country and beyond. It was the launch of a book by Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Mythri Jegathesan, of Santa Clara University.
Maithir Jegathesan
Her book, a work on and of solidarity with the Hill Country Tamils of Sri Lanka, ‘Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Post-war Sri Lanka’ was originally published by the University of Washington Press in 2019 to widespread acclaim. It was awarded the 2020 Diane Forsyth Prize for the best book featuring feminist anthropology research and in 2021, it won the Michelle Z. Rosaldo Book Prize for its significant contribution to feminist anthropology.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, human rights, island economy, language policies, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
Early in the month of February 2023, I was invited by a young friend, Dr Geethika Dharmasinghe, to deliver a Zoom Video Lecture to a small class of her students at Colgate University in New York. These students were following her course on “Religion and Violence in Asia.”
Gandhi speaking and Zahran Hashim in pact with fellow Lankan jihadists 
…. Zahran was one of the two suicide bombers at the Shangri La Hotel in Colombo on Easter Sunday 2019 where where 36 people died
Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, atrocities, cultural transmission, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, jihadists, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, meditations, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, politIcal discourse, racism, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”
Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945
Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936
“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, demography, discrimination, economic processes, ethnicity, Fascism, historical interpretation, human rights, life stories, martyrdom, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, refugees, self-reflexivity, trauma, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes, World War II
Courtesy of Richard Koenigsberg in New York
HITLER: “If I don’t mind sending the pick of the German people into the hell of war without regret over the spilling of precious German blood, then I naturally also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin.” …..
Adolf Hitler raises a defiant, clenched fist during a speech.
circa 1933: German Dictator, Adolf Hitler addressing a rally in Germany. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, communal relations, disparagement, ethnicity, Fascism, historical interpretation, Hitler, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, military strategy, nationalism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, racist thinking, self-reflexivity, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, war reportage, world events & processes, World War II, zealotry
Michael Roberts …. presenting the first section in Chapter X of People Inbetween (1989) pp 140-47. … The chapter is entitled “Standing Forth as Ceylonese, 1850s” *++*
Introduction
We need to begin by reaching back into the Maritime Provinces of Ceylon during the first decades of British rule after their seizure of these territories in 1795-96. We shall first recapitulate some of the points made in previous chapters.
We saw that the distinction between VOC officialdom and the Burghers quickly disappeared under the British; that the Hollandsche and even the Tupass of yesteryear were defined as Europeans in some British regulations. We also saw that there was some measure of social interaction between the British and creole families of respectable status during the early decades of British rule (supra: 50ff). In both social intercourse and collective designation, however, the old distinction between the Hollandsche and the Tupass persisted in the form of the opposition between the “Burgher Inhabitants” (or its equivalent, for example, “Dutch”) and the “Portuguese” (or Tupass, Topaz, Mestizos, Mechanics) when people used the English language; and in Sinhala between “lánsi” on the one hand and “tuppáhi” or “párángi” or sinno on the other.[1]
Filed under British colonialism, British imperialism, cultural transmission, demography, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, racism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
An EMAIL MEMO from RICHARD HERMON to His Good Friend ERROL FERNANDO, Circa 9 December 2022*++*
Dear Errol,
As a Eurasian myself on both sides, since both my Grandfathers were Brits and both my Grandmothers were Sinhalese: one Kandyan from Welimada, and one Low-Country from Baddegama to whom both my grandfathers were married.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, plantations, politIcal discourse, racism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Clive Williams, in The Australian, 30 November 2022, where the title reads thus: “Threat ‘lower’ but face of domestic terror is changing” ….
The announcement by ASIO director-general Mike Burgess that the terrorism threat level in Australia has been lowered from “probable” to “possible” reflects the view of the National Threat Assessment Centre that a terrorist incident here is now less likely.
An older woman praying and giving offerings at the ground zero site of the 2002 Bali bombings in the tourtist district of Kuta, Bali.
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, martyrdom, Pacific Ocean issues, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, the imaginary and the real, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
Prabhath de Silva, ... an article that appeared initially in the Daily Mirror, 25/26 November 2022– with highlighting in this version imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle (also known as Price) was born in Chelsea, England in 1912. His parents were Ina Marjorie Lyster and James Seymour Bracegirdle. His mother was a suffragette and an active member of the Labour Party. Bracegirdle migrated to Australia with his mother, and studied art, and later trained as a farmer. In 1935, he joined the Australian Young Communist League (YCL) and became an active young Communist.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, discrimination, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, patriotism, performance, plantations, politIcal discourse, racism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
thuppahi
