Category Archives: racist thinking

March 31, 2025 · 5:39 pm

Reflections on Gananath’s Wide-Ranging Corpus of Work

Professor M.W. Amarasiri de Silva, about 3/4 years back in … … where the full title of the essay reads thus: “Sinhalese Society Through The Prism Of Religion: An Appreciation Of Gananath Obeyesekere’s Work On Sinhalese Buddhism”

This article celebrates the remarkable scholarly contributions of Gananath Obeyesekere, specifically in the field of popular Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Obeyesekere, now aged 93, embarked on his anthropological career at the University of Ceylon (now University of Peradeniya), where he earned his undergraduate degree in English. Subsequently, he served as a lecturer and professor in the Department of Sociology from the 1960s to 1972, before moving on to the United States. He was Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University from 1980 to 2000.

 

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March 23, 2025 · 7:54 pm

Slaughter of Palestinians …. Again

A Sri Lankan American, in an Item entitled “Slaughter of Palestinians”

As the world wakes up to the harrowing images of children slain by Israeli bombs across the entire Gaza Strip AGAIN, we cannot bear witness to global leaders JUST… DOING…. NOTHING. This is an acceleration of the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people as a whole. We already failed to prevent it and our Governments have an even greater obligation to stop it now.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) – March 18, 2025

https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1901964025950310842

   

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ALSO SEE

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/23/senior-hamas-leader-among-23-killed-in-israeli-strikes-in-southern-gaza

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February 6, 2025 · 5:40 pm

“Paraya” & “Parayo” as Vicious Epithets in the Sri Lankan ‘Circuit’

Michael Roberts

I came across an old article of mine entitled “Confronting Charlie Ponnadurai: Clarifying The Context Of Disparaging Ethnic Epithets In Sri Lanka Over The Last 180 Years.” Charlie happens to be a batchmate at Ramanathan Hall in Peradeniya University in 1957, but we had not encountered each other for decades before this verbal contretemps occurred in the year  2013.  SEE ………………………………………………… https://thuppahis.com/2013/08/18/confronting-charlie-ponnadurai-clarifying-the-context-of-disparaging-ethnic-epithets-in-sri-lanka-over-the-last-180-years/. 

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February 5, 2025 · 12:07 pm

George Frederick van der Hoeven: A Turbulent Career … Ceylon & Australia

Nick van der Hoeven

I wanted to write about a very complex man, one of my grandfathers …. George Frederick van der Hoeven. The main reason for doing so is because history has not been kind to him, especially the unwritten verbal history within our family. Born in 1901 in Colombo Ceylon — then under British rule — Grandpa (as we called him) died here in Melbourne in 1978. I was 6 years old.

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January 30, 2025 · 10:35 am

A Resurrection of the “HOLOCAUST” in Palestine

… the PerpetraTors being Israel with Netanyahu as Today’s “Hitler” ….. Heil Himmler! 

The One Video Israel Doesn’t Want You To See: …….. “Gaza is a Holocaust” Holocaust Survivor EXPOSES Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day ……………

“Never Again means Never Again for anybody” …… 28 Jan 2025

https://youtu.be/Posmzxqx4HA  Continue reading →

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January 12, 2025 · 1:54 pm

The Maaveerar Dead as A Perpetual Inspiration For Eelam

Mario Arulthas, in Al-Jazeera,  9 January 2025 …. with highlightinging emphasia imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

The Maaveerar Dead as A Perpetual Inspiration For Eelam

The nationwide electoral success of the anti-establishment NPP does not mean Tamil nationalism is on the decline.

An election official holding a ballot box gets off the bus outside a vote counting centre after the voting ended for the parliamentary election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, November 14, 2024 [Thilina Kaluthotage/Reuters]

“They’re trampling on our graves with their boots,” said Kavitha, a Tamil woman, as the torrential rain lashing our faces washed away her tears. Standing barefoot and ankle-deep in mud at the site of a former cemetery in Visuvamadu, Sri Lanka, she was lamenting the adjacent military base built on the graves of fallen Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters, including that of her brother.

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December 10, 2024 · 6:51 pm

Trump presented as a Chimpanzee ….

The 47th PRESIDENT in USA ….. in parody …. Trump as a CHIMP

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November 13, 2024 · 8:20 pm

British Colonial Socio-Political Distinctions via Stace’s Revelation of Life in Galle, 1910 et seq

Michael Roberts

Walter Terence STACE was a British man born in Ireland in 1886 who entered the British colonial service after a university education and was assigned to Sri Lanka in 1910. He married a Burgher lady, MM Beven in 1928 – is second marriage this – and then resigned in 1932 and moved on to USA where he pursued a successful university teaching career in Philosophy. Following his retirement, he composed an autobiography in 1964 with the intriguing title FOOTPRINTS ON WATER.   

This work has been edited by Bernd Pflug with an excellent and readable “Critique” at the end of the autobiography and presented in Sri Lanka in a slim volume of 218 pages by the Perera Hussein Publishing House.

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October 30, 2024 · 9:47 pm

Israeli Tourists and Investments in Arugam Bay Area Under Threat

ITEM in THE GUARDIAN, 29 October 2024 with this headlin

The golden sands of Sri Lanka’s Arugam Bay are usually carefree, a place for tourists to surf the famous break and relax on the beach.

But last week, the slow rhythm of the bay was dealt a shock. The US embassy, followed up by Sri Lankan police and Israel’s national security council, warned of a serious terrorist threat in the area. Israeli travellers were believed to be the intended target of a planned attack and were told to evacuate immediately. Hundreds of police and senior intelligence officials descended on the small coastal town, setting up patrols and road blocks.

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October 3, 2024 · 12:56 am

Nationalist Studies and the Ceylon Studies Seminar at Peradeniya, 1968-1970s

Michael Roberts …. repeating an old TPS item [with highlighting added] because of the implications of the recent TPS item  by Bedgar Perera re Prof Rex Clements.

The years 1966 to 1975 were heady days in Ceylon. Especially so for some of us in Peradeniya Univeristy where the CEYLON STUDIES SEMINAR was launched in November 1968 by a few members of the Arts Faculty assisted by the facilities provided by Professor Gananath Obeyesekera at the Sociology Department – located then on Lower Hantane Road away from the centre of teaching. Not least among these facilities was the service provided by the Sociology Department peon Sathiah[1] who cyclostyled the written seminar papers beforehand for circulation so that those who were keen could read any presentation beforehand if they so wished – a procedure that also maximized discussion time. This background service was seconded by the typing services of Mrs Hettiarachchi in the History Department and Mr Kumaraswamy in the Sociology Department.

   Sathiah — an essential servicing hand …

  & Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe, who perceived the depth of the festering ethnic split early on

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