Category Archives: Rajapaksa regime

March 29, 2024 · 10:16 am

Differentiation in the Foundations of Criticism in Recent Struggles in Sri Lanka

Abeysekara, Ananda …. presenting a synopsis of an article with the same title presented in the web journal Academia  …………………. https://www.academia.edu/116523255/Buddhism_Politics_and_Criticism_in_a_Time_of_Struggle_in_Sri_Lanka

As I have argued elsewhere (Abeysekara 2002), the relation between religion and politics changes in historical debates. Debates themselves are forms of “criticism” in that debates change the questions of who and what constitute the parameters of religion and politics.[1] In that sense, I want to think about how the relation between religion, politics, and the state became the subject of debate during postwar Sri Lanka and ask what such a debate may say about our postcolonial politics and democracy itself.

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March 15, 2024 · 12:59 am

Gotabaya Claims Local & International Conspiratorial Hands were Behind His FALL

Kalani Kumarasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 8 March 2024 ……. where the headline runs; “Shavendra and Kamal villains in GR’s new book”

Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has acknowledged his shortcomings in appointing key defence personnel, including General Shavendra Silva and General (Retd.) Kamal Gunaratne in his tell-all memoir “The Conspiracy to Oust Me” launched yesterday (March 7). .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. 

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February 29, 2024 · 1:07 pm

Former Military Officers in Political Party Campaigns in Sri Lanka

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.

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February 12, 2024 · 9:05 pm

Tamil Women at War as ‘Birds of Freedom’ in the LTTE Cause

Vindhya Buthpitiya: “How to Capture Birds of Freedom: Picturing Tamil Women at War,” Trans Asia Photography (2023) 13 (1)  … derived from ………………………………………… https://doi.org/10.1215/21582025-10365016 … with the aid of my Aloysian mate KK De Silva; whilr the highlighting is my imposition.

 Abstract: This article examines the uses of images of women fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during and after the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009) to explore the contrasting mobilizations of visual representations of Tamil women cadres, focusing on the cultivation and framing of contradictory nationalist imaginaries by competing ethnic and state actors. In northern Sri Lanka, portraits of gun-bearing women fighters were wielded to signal revolutionary possibilities for the future of the Tamil nation-state as well as to inform the political socialization of its hopeful citizens. Meanwhile, images of Tamil women cadres were cast as gendered and ethnicized threats by the Sri Lankan state in what constituted a calculated form of visual ethno-political othering and weaponization. This article reflects on the ways in which such appropriations exacerbated the political precarity of and the denial of victimhood to Tamil women.

Malathy was the First Tamil Tigress to face death for the Tamiil for the Tamil Cause

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February 4, 2024 · 2:28 pm

Sri Lanka in IMF-Western Stranglehold

Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake in The Sunday Island, 4 February 2024, where the title runs thus: “Of Elections, Bond scams, and Money Politics:  The IMF and the Anatomy of Default @ 75 …. Default as Hybrid Economic Warfare” … with the highlights in purple being impositions by The Editor of Thuppahi and those in red Darini’s very own.**

With the wisdom of hindsight, the Root Causes of Sri Lanka’s first ever Sovereign Default, staged three years ago on the eve of 75 years of ‘Independence’ from the British Raj are clearly discernible.

Political cartoon _ Satire, Humor, Criticism _ Britannica

Ancient tree roots wrapped around a large boulder in the French alps Stock Photo – Alamy

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January 9, 2024 · 1:41 am

Remembering Lasantha Wickrematunge’s Assassination

Posters being pasted in Colombo and suburbs yesterday to mark the 15 years since the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge which falls today. 

 Today marks 15 years since the brutal murder of iconic journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge with none brought to justice. To mark the occasion Lasantha’s kids Avinash, Ahimsa and Aadesh issued the following statement which will be read out today at Lasantha’s graveside memorial at the General Cemetery Kanatte.

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December 25, 2023 · 7:38 pm

Political Dogfight Looming in 2024 General Elections in Sri Lanka

Uditha Devapriya,  in The Diplomat,  December 2023, where the title runs thus  “Political and Electoral Uncertainty in Sri Lanka Ahead of the 2024 Elections”

Wickremesinghe wants to keep his job; the SLPP wants to mount a comeback. Sri Lanka voters seem to want radical change.

In Sri Lanka, political parties are getting ready for presidential elections scheduled for some time next year. Many of them have named their candidates; others are preparing to do so. The country is constitutionally mandated to hold presidential polls in 2024, and the president himself has hinted that he will go ahead with them.

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December 16, 2023 · 1:08 am

Fighting Over Ancient Monuments: Sri Lanka’s New Ethnic Flashpoint

Thannamurippu, in The Economist, 23 November 2023 where the title runs thus: “Asian Monuments.  What’s mine, what’s yours?Disputed monuments are Sri Lanka’s new ethnic flashpoint”

 On a wooded hill edged by rice fields in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district sit the ruins of an ancient Buddhist mon­astery. Members of the country’s Sinhalese majority call it “Kurundi Viharaya”. For Tamils, who are mostly Hindus and con­sider the war-battered north their home­land, it is “Kurunthoor Malai”. Since 2018, when the state archaeological department began excavating the site, Tamil and Sinha­lese nationalists have rowed over which community has a greater claim to it.

    Kurundi Dagaba

 

 

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December 13, 2023 · 12:58 pm

Another Time, Another World: Social Science in Postwar Sri Lanka

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.

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November 13, 2023 · 1:29 am

Sinhala Monarchical Imagery in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Past Political Pitch

Michael Roberts .… reproducing an article presented earlier in the COLOMBO TELEGRAPH in the year 2012…. an article bearing a different title: viz. “Populism And Sinhala-Kingship in the Rajapaksa Regime’s Political Pitch” … an article that also appeared under a differeTn title in GROUNDVIEWS in January that year

On 4th December 2011 the Sunday Island carried a headline: “Mahinda ready to meet General Fonseka’s family over pardon” — with a picture alongside showing President Mahinda Rajapaksa seated in an armchair perusing an official document – a document in royal red and marked by a recognisable state seal. It is the juxtaposition of the headline and image that drew my interest. In my reading as an analyst attentive to indigenous cultural threads, this combination suggested several interrelated motifs, namely, that

  1. President Rajapaksa is the epitome of sovereign power, vested with the rights of clemency on high, just like Sinhalese kings of the past who could be supplicated by condemned subjects who crawled on their knees to the palace gates (mahāvāsala) and begged for pardon for their evil-doings or crimes;[i]
  2. President Rajapaksa is akin to a manorial lord of the past, a patrimonial figure who is readily accessible on his verandah to subordinate officials, tenants and other people seeking favours from this font of noblesse oblige;
  3. President Rajapaksa is a son of the soil, native to core. After all, what can be more native than a hansi putuva? He is, therefore, as personable as approachable.

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